Tiny Buddha

Category: Blog

  • Finding Your Inner Light to Get Through Dark Times

    Finding Your Inner Light to Get Through Dark Times

    Buddha Light

    “I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.” ~Hafiz of Shiraz

    One week before my twenty-ninth birthday, the love of my life broke up with me. The pain of it was agonizing, heart-stopping. I could not think. I could not eat. I could not sleep. I could not breathe.

    I expressed and released pain, anger, denial, guilt, sadness, and on and on, until I exhausted myself. The bottom had dropped out of my life, and my sense of self was left shattered.

    If I could be so wrong about something I had felt such certainty about, I thought, then there was nothing that I could possibly be right about. I was tragically flawed and inevitably doomed.

    So I did something desperate and extreme. I dropped out of graduate school, gave away all my furniture, threw away most of my belongings, and moved across the country.

    My intention was escape: to run from the darkness, as far and as fast as possible, and to somehow exchange my old, broken life for a shiny new one.

    It didn’t work the way I expected it to.

    Instead of the dynamic new life in a vibrant city I had envisioned, I created instead an involuntary retreat into solitude and self-reflection.  

    Moving far away changed only my environment; it didn’t change my internal landscape at all. After the excitement of change of scene faded, I was left with the one thing I couldn’t leave behind: me.

    Because I didn’t know anyone, I spent a lot of time alone. This was back in the days before social media, before the Internet was what it is now, and way before smartphones.

    I put pen to paper and wrote, a lot, just to purge the thoughts from my head. Many days passed for me in silence, simply because there was no one to talk to.

    In my search to understand why something so unbearably horrible had happened to me, I embraced with passionate zeal every tradition or tool for healing and self-knowledge I could find.

    I meditated, I did yoga, I breathed; I learned about the Saturn Return, the chakras, flower essences, fasting, mantras, shamanism, dream work, the I Ching.

    All of this helped, but still, I was left with the dull, leaden weight of my loneliness.

    I didn’t know how, but I was determined to find a way out. I clung to that intention for dear life: not the belief that it would get better—I wasn’t quite there yet— just the possibility that it could.

    After a few months of existing from moment to moment with my solitude, I began to see myself more clearly, stripped as I was of everything familiar and alienated from everyone I loved. And slowly, surprisingly, and strangely, I began to notice qualities in myself that I didn’t know I possessed.

    Because I did everything by myself, I learned self-reliance. If I got lost while driving, I had to navigate my way out of it. If my car broke down (which it did), there was no friend I could call for help.

    I learned to take risks. Because everything I did was fraught with uncertainty, I realized that I could go out on a limb and figure out how to deal with it.

    But even more than that: I found out that eating one perfectly ripe peach on the way back from the farmers’ market was an exquisite experience when performed solo and in silence. I could enjoy watching a fantastic movie even if I had no one to talk to about it when it was over. I could walk on a beach at sunset and appreciate the beauty without aching for someone to share it with.

    My internal landscape had become, to my amazement, rich, complex, and interesting. The gradually dawning knowledge that I could not just survive alone, but feel whole and happy—even in small bursts—was a revelation to me.

    Out of the ashes of a devastating personal loss, I found an unlooked-for self-respect and a renewed excitement about living my life. Gradually, a vision of myself emerged, contrasted against the darkness that had enveloped me.

    Since then, of course I’ve had other experiences that have pushed me to an edge, but I’ve found my way back to center each time by drawing on the essence of who I am.

    It doesn’t mean I’ve lost all my flaws or figured it all out. I am always me in those ways, too. I can still be critical of myself or get distracted by life’s endless dramas or get wrapped up in anxiety and worry. But I know that I have a map that can get me back to where I want to be instead of being stuck someplace awful.

    It can take time to find the way back, but you can be sure of the way by keeping just a few things in mind.

    When something unthinkable happens, the question isn’t Why? The question is Who?

    Who are you? That’s the only thing you can really know. Let what is inexplicable be inexplicable. You can’t change what has happened and you can’t control other people. But you can choose to let adversity teach you something about yourself.

    If you lose everything, you are still you.

    Nothing that happens, no matter how bad, can erase who you are. You are always you, no matter what happens. Experiences may change you, but deep inside there is always that shining seed of self, the blueprint of who you truly are, guaranteeing the possibility of renewal.

    Loss allows space for something else to take root in you. You can let it be wisdom, not bitterness.

    When everything else has been taken away, you have a choice to mend the pieces that are left or to stay in the shadowlands. When you move in the direction of wholeness, the power of your intention can ignite your own personal revolution.

    An open mind and an open heart can turn the key.

    It is hard work to generate gratitude and serenity when you are suffering. Luckily, just wanting to be that kind of person can be enough. With your intentions set in the right direction, peace and contentment will find you.

    In persevering through my own darkness, I found a self—call it my authentic self, my immortal soul, core being, my heart center and sanctuary—who can survive whatever life throws at me.

    My experience has taught me that the human capacity to endure—and to do it with grace, courage, and joy—does not really depend on anything outside of ourselves. Even when life seems impossible, the brilliant light inside yourself is enough to see your way through your own darkest nights.

    Photo by Angela Marie Henriette

  • When You’re In Transition: Being Patient and Accepting Uncertainty

    When You’re In Transition: Being Patient and Accepting Uncertainty

    “Fear, uncertainty, and discomfort are your compasses toward growth.” ~Celestine Chua

    Change is never easy, yet it’s always around us. Sometimes it hits us over the head (if you experience divorce, a career change, a move, or a loss of a loved one). Other times, it’s hiding around the next corner. And most of the time, it’s happening even we don’t even know it.

    My father firmly believed in the adage the only constant is change. Myself, however, I avoided change as much as I could because I didn’t want to deal with uncertainty.

    After a well-scheduled high school experience, I applied early to college and graduate school just to be sure I knew my future. That worked well for a little bit. Until it didn’t. Until I realized that these decisions kept me from understanding that I was completely terrified of not knowing what to do next. That all of my early acceptances were actually holding me back from discovering what I really want.

    After completing graduate school, I took my first pause, not knowing which direction I was headed in. To be honest, a pause is a kind word. It could also have been called a bit of a breakdown or simply the hard realization that life is a series of transitions and rarely “just planned out.”

    A few years down the road, I found myself in another career and personal transition. I noticed I wanted to cling to something again to avoid uncertainty. After pouring through more graduate school websites and clinging to the idea that finding certain work was the answer, I realized I needed time to be in transition, even though it terrified me.

    I needed time to heal and time to just be. Because that idea of being in transition made me quite uncomfortable, I knew I needed to sit with it, find my way through it, and finally become friends and a little more comfortable with transitions.

    I once heard that the only way out is through. There are no short cuts. In order to hang (or some days, wallow) in and through the transition, I learned a few tools along the way:

    Break the cycle of caring what other people think.

    For a while, I hated when acquaintances and former colleagues would ask, “What are you doing now?” I would cower under that question and try to invent answers that would be sure to impress them, such as “I am learning astrophysics” or “becoming a ballet dancer” (both utterly and completely untrue).

    On the whole, our society is fixated on success and we are rarely encouraged to take time “out.” Once I stopped judging myself, people’s questions seemed a lot less important to me and I was able to relax into my transition a little more.

    Learn to just hang out. Wherever it is you are.

    Take a day. An hour. A lunch break. Stop with the planning and action-stepping and self-help reading and just chill. Don’t check email. Don’t look for a solution. Turn it off. Whatever it is. It will still be there. Just take a pause and breathe. Because then the real pauses will feel a lot easier and familiar.

    Be cool with the idea that there is no quick fix.

    While looking for the next opportunity (personal or professional), it can be tempting to say yes to something just to end the search.

    A friend of mine used to encourage her other friends to date “the second-best-guy” and to just take any job. That didn’t work for me. At all. The times I tried that left me right back at square one, even more discouraged.

    The real thing takes time to find. The real thing is worth waiting for. The real thing is why we left whatever wasn’t working in the first place.

    Do things that keep you centered and grounded.

    It can be overwhelming to be in transition. It can be hard to make a simple decision sometimes. And it can be oh-so-tempting to self-medicate. Instead of obsessing over writing a resume or an e-mail or wasting time on Facebook, take a walk. Or sing a song or bake a chocolate cake. Or read a book or sing really loudly in the shower. Or do whatever it is that makes you feel centered. Do it every day. Commit to it.

    I may not be exactly where I want to be, but I am feeling closer to it every day and am beginning to welcome transitions, because as their words says, they help us transition to the place we want to be.

    Once we can soften into the transition and take the time—which is a gift—to relax into them, they can soon evolve into a place of respite, a place that is ripe with possibilities and excitement, a place that holds the space for us to become even stronger.

  • Are You Limited by the Fear of What Other People Think?

    Are You Limited by the Fear of What Other People Think?

    “It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    A few months ago, I found myself on the busy streets of London’s Covent Garden.

    It was a mild Friday evening in the capital and the masses were out celebrating the end of the working week, looking forward to the weekend ahead.

    But that’s not why I was there.

    I’d come to Covent Garden on that day for a special project.

    For most of my life, the fear of what other people thought of me had kept me trapped. It had prevented me from reaching my full potential and from enjoying life to its fullest.

    I couldn’t bring myself to dance in public for fear that people would point and laugh. At work I was unable to voice my opinions for fear they’d be thought stupid. And at my lowest point, even walking down the street became a struggle, as my mind ran wild with images of people talking about and laughing at me as I went by.

    I lived a half-life. I knew I was missing out. I also knew I had so much more to contribute to this world. But I was paralyzed by the fear that if I put myself out there I’d be ridiculed and rejected.

    And so the “real me” remained cocooned somewhere inside. I knew she was there, I knew who she was, but fear kept her trapped.

    But sixteen months ago, things began to shift. Filled with an increasing sense that I wasn’t living my purpose and a vast emptiness from the lack of meaning my life seemed to have, I quit my corporate office job in search of answers, determined to live a more fulfilling life.

    I made a commitment to myself then to face each and every one of my fears and to find a way to reconnect to the real Leah and let her out into the world.

    The last sixteen months of my life have been challenging, as I commit every day to living a little further outside my comfort zone. But being in that space of discomfort and crossing the threshold from fear into courage has led to the fulfilment I craved as I realize just how much I’m capable of.

    I’d be lying if I said I no longer gave a second thought to what others think, but for the most part I can push past that to do the things I know I need to do.

    And so it is that I arrived in Covent Garden, in the hope of now encouraging others to free themselves of that fear of what others think and embrace life in its entirety.

    And so there I stood, on the crowded streets of London that evening, holding a sign handcrafted from old cereal boxes, saying:

    “How often does the fear of what other people think stop you from doing something?”

    The reaction to this simple question left me gobsmacked.

    People stopped and took notice.

    Some smiled knowingly, acknowledging that their own lives had been affected by the fear of what others think.

    Some nodded with something of a sad look on their face. Perhaps there was something they really wanted to do but were being held back by that fear.

    Others engaged in conversation, sharing their stories of how the fear of what other people thought had touched their lives or how they’d learned not to care so much.

    That day, I experienced for the very first time the extent to which the fear of what other people think affects our lives—all of our lives. What might we be capable of if we could let go of that fear?

    I went home that evening having learned some valuable lessons…

    You’re never alone.

    Too often we suffer our fears in silence. We believe ourselves to be the only one.

    Everywhere we look we seem to be surrounded by confident people.

    But I’ve come to realize that everyone—those who appear confident or shy; extroverts of introverts—we all, each and every one of us, are struggling with our own fears.

    When the fear of what other people think is holding you back, take a look around and remember, everyone is living with his or her own fear. You are not alone.

    By confronting your fears, you help others confront theirs.

    More than anything, when you stop caring what others think and set out to achieve your goals and dreams, you give others the power to do the same.

    Someone is always watching and wishing they had your courage. By stepping up to your own fears, you really do help others face theirs.

    Be vulnerable and honest. Being open about your fears and confronting them head on could be the greatest gift you ever give.

    What you think they think isn’t the reality.

    Those people over there? The ones you think are talking about you? Judging you? They’re not. Really. They don’t have time. They’re too busy worrying about what people are thinking about them!

    And even if they were looking at you, judging you, talking about you, you can be almost certain they’re not saying the awful things you imagine.

    Instead, they’re envying the color of your hair, your shoes, the way you look so confident.

    What we think people think of us usually doesn’t come close to the reality.

    Freedom from the fear of what others think is possible.

    The fear of what other people think of us is like a cage.

    Over time you become so used to being inside that cage you eventually come to forget what the outside might be like. You resign yourself to living within its walls.

    By taking deliberate and purposeful action to overcome the fear of what others think of you, you slowly regain your freedom and escape from the confines of the prison you’ve created for yourself.

    And life outside that cage? It’s pretty awesome!

    It’s a place where you can be the person you always knew you were meant to be.

    And that, being fully self-expressed, being everything you know you are, fulfilling your greatest potential in life, well, that’s the greatest feeling you could ever know.

    Don’t let the fear of what other people think stop you from living the life you were born to live.

    Photo by PhObOss

  • Burn Away Your Barriers to Love: 7 Ways to Live a Beautiful Life

    Burn Away Your Barriers to Love: 7 Ways to Live a Beautiful Life

    Hand Heart

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

    My grandmother is nearing the end. She’s had a good life, a family, a loving husband, dancing and singing, growing things, running a business.

    There are some skeletons in the closet though; her early life had some very heavy experiences that made her afraid and may have held her back. On balance, a great life, but there were challenges.

    Right now, she’s slipped into a dream world and she is often still there when her eyes are open. There are lucid moments but her short-term memory is gone. She wakes and wonders who you are.

    But if you don’t push her to be in your time zone, she is happy to have her hand held, to sing the old songs, to laugh, to tell you what’s what. Her personality hasn’t changed.

    What she’s doing, we think, is sorting through the various stages of her life, coming to terms with the things that need to be understood with the heart. She seems to be burning away the old memories, the old feelings.

    Maybe she’s also looking forward to joining my grandfather for a dance, as they always did. They met at a dance.

    I don’t really know what it’s like for her but I see her returning to a kind of innocence, burning off the barriers to love. I see her life and all our lives as a gift of learning how to love.

    This has me thinking: How can we remove the barriers to love now? How can we burn off what doesn’t serve and let the best of us shine through?

    1. Practice forgiveness.

    Let go of the poisons of resentment. Let them wash away in a cool mountain stream meditation. Simply say, I forgive NAME and I forgive myself. I send love to both of us.

    2. Try to understand.

    Play act being that other person. What could have made them do the things they did? Were they in pain themselves? Were they just naive and oblivious?

    3. Change your beliefs.

    The limitations and barriers to love (and to anything else we want in life) are really about the beliefs we hold. The past is gone; it’s only our beliefs that live on to affect our current life. What belief is stopping you feeling love? Is this belief really true? Could you believe otherwise?

    4. Change your story.

    Change the way you see it and tell it. What did you learn?

    Your story might be: “I am lonely because I was treated harshly as a child and can’t trust others.” You could change this to: “My early life taught me to crave and seek healthy connections.”

    If you lived in fear as a child, did it teach you courage? Your story could be: “Being afraid taught me to stand up for what I believe in.” Change your story if you need to. Your story about before runs your life now, and now is what really matters.

    5. Create from the darkness.

    Play with the raw materials of life. Creativity transforms experience. Write, draw, paint, sculpt, bake, cartoon, collage, or just laugh about the hard stuff with a good friend. Get it out.

    In the movie Something’s Gotta Give, the heartbroken playwright (Diane Keaton) writes madly, alternately sobbing and laughing with delight as she “nails” a great comic scene. At some point, the terrible truth may become hilariously funny. Get creative.

    6. Give love to feel love.

    Love lives in my heart when I give it. Giving love makes us feel love. How do you best give love? What does your beloved like most? Do they love hugs, a talk, good food, flowers, car movies? Feel love in the act of giving. You may not have to actually watch the car movies.

    7. Appreciate this miraculous life.

    List your gratitude. List your small and simple pleasures. Indulge in them. For all the dark and light, life is a beautiful gift.

    I want to talk about that last point. Often, someone nearing the end is reluctant to let go of this life. I get that feeling watching my grandmother now. Whatever life has held, we want more of it, even when it’s time to say goodbye.

    Years ago, I saw an achingly beautiful contemporary dance performance called Fallen Angels. In the last moment, the stage filled with a thin layer of water. All but one had climbed to heaven. One dancer was left flipping and struggling like a fish in shallow water, holding on desperately to a difficult and beautiful life.

    In that scene, letting go of life was so hard. Despite all the mess and confusion, the pain and heartbreak, this last dancer did not want to leave, even for heaven.

    For all its contrasts, life is beautiful. At the end of our lives, I think we may want to hold on to all of it, the good and the bad. I have a feeling our souls wouldn’t change a thing.

    Let’s embrace the beauty as much as possible right now and burn off the barriers to love. We can only do our best, learning to love as we go, living and loving all of it.

    Photo by Jenny Starley

  • Recognizing and Overcoming the Fears That Make Us Settle

    Recognizing and Overcoming the Fears That Make Us Settle

    See the Light

    “Fear, uncertainty, and discomfort are your compasses towards growth.” ~Celestine Chua

    Settling feels awful. Take it from me—for the past few months I’ve been holding the Scepter of Settling in both my personal life and my business.

    And it hasn’t felt good.

    The other morning, as I sat waiting in LaGuardia Airport to board a plane for a three-day intensive business retreat in North Carolina, I had this sudden, radical a-ha! moment in which pieces of my life, both personal and business, just clicked into place.

    Have you ever had that happen to you?

    I realized I was settling in my personal life by accepting a relationship in which I was getting so much less than I wanted, and I was settling simply because I was afraid I couldn’t have more than I was currently getting.

    There is a part of me that feels slightly embarrassed to admit that I was settling because of this deep fear that I couldn’t possibly have what I wanted from a partner, because it’s been so long since I have.

    I was also settling in my business by continuing to work with a client who I bent over backward for again, and again, and again, who still always wanted more. I was settling by compromising myself and the way I work just for a few thousand dollars. I was afraid to trust that I would be absolutely fine without that money.

    Does any of this feel familiar to you? 

    • You’re settling for friendships where you don’t feel supported, where it feels like it’s rarely “about you,” or where you have to hide or make parts of yourself smaller.
    • You’re settling for intimate relationships where you’re not seen and heard the way you want to be, or can’t show up authentically.
    • You play small in your family of origin, having to dumb down your success or your inner “shine” because there are stories about who you’re supposed to be or what you’re supposed to do, or you might “out-shine” a family member if you really show your brilliance.
    • You accept more than your share of work, work longer hours than you want, get paid less than you want, or work with people for whom you feel like you’re compromising yourself.
    • You make or have way less time for yourself than you like—you put off self-care, rest, good food, and exercise because there’s not enough time, money, or support.

    In her amazing book Daring Greatly, Brené Brown talks about a marble jar that her daughter’s teacher used in the classroom.

    Every time the class collectively did something good, the teacher put a few marbles in the jar. When they misbehaved, she took a few out. When the jar got to be full of marbles, the teacher threw a class party.

    Brown talks about relationships in this context. Whenever we have a choice of attending to our partner, paying attention to them or their needs, seeing them fully and hearing them—showing up for them and our relationships—it’s like adding marbles to the jar.

    And every time we turn away from our partner, choose to walk by instead of asking what’s wrong, avoid getting involved, turn away from the work of connecting and feeding emotional intimacy, marbles come out of the jar.

    The last few relationships I’ve had were empty jars, with the occasional lonely marble rolling around desolately. I was getting sick with the settling—literally and figuratively. 

    And it was impacting my business, where I found myself also settling in ways that were completely fear-based.

    As I sat working just after dawn at LaGuardia Airport, getting ready to take three days for myself at a mastermind and business retreat, it hit me.

    I’m finally ready to let go of what hasn’t been working, and the fear, and make painfully blank, open, empty space for what works, what feeds me.

    I’m holding out for a full marble jar.

    Are you settling anywhere in your life? Does it feel awful, sad, frustrating, exhausting?

    Whether you’re settling in your friendships, your relationships, your work, your family, or your self-care, settling feels terrible and it’s bad for you, for your work, for your relationships.

    Here are a few questions to get you started thinking about where and why you’re settling.

    Grab a journal and a pen and get yourself a cup of tea. Light your favorite candle. Get comfortable. Dedicate this space to feeding yourself and filling that marble jar.

    Closing your eyes, think about the areas of your life—your work, your love life/partnership, your self-care, your friendships…

    Open your eyes and write each question. Then just start writing, without censoring or editing.

    1. Where in your life are you settling for less than you want and need? Write out each place and how you’re settling.

    2. Why are you settling? What’s the fear behind it? For instance, I found myself settling in a personal relationship because I had a deep fear that I couldn’t have what I wanted, so I thought I might as well settle for what I could get.

    3. What do you fear would happen if you stopped settling?

    4. What is a new belief about what’s possible for you that you’d like to think about working toward?

    5. What would the first small step be if you were to act as if this belief were true?

    We do this work in tiny steps so that they’re achievable and sustainable. Here’s to smashing the ways we settle.

    Photo by Jonathan Kos-Read

  • 7 Things to Remember When You Think You’re Not Good Enough

    7 Things to Remember When You Think You’re Not Good Enough

    “We can’t hate ourselves into a version of ourselves we can love.” ~Lori Deschene

    Sometimes I am really terrible to myself, and I relentlessly compare myself to other people, no matter how many times I read or hear about how good enough or lovable I am.

    On an almost daily basis, I meticulously look for evidence that I am a nobody, that I don’t deserve to be loved, or that I’m not living up to my full potential.

    There is generally a lot of pressure to “stack up” in our culture. We feel as if there is something wrong with us if, for example, we’re still single by a certain age, don’t make a certain amount of money, don’t have a large social circle, or don’t look and act a certain way in the presence of others. The list could truly go on forever.

    Sometimes in the midst of all the pressure, I seem to totally forget all the wonderful, unique things about myself.

    I get stuck in my head and allow my inner critic to completely tear apart my self-esteem until I hate myself too much to do anything except eat ice cream, watch daytime television, and sleep.

    The other day, while I was beating myself up over something I can’t even recall at the moment, I read a comment from one of my blog readers telling me that one of my posts literally got them through the night. Literally. And if that one simple word was used in the intended context, this person was basically telling me that one of my posts saved their life.

    I get comments like these on a pretty regular basis, and they always open my eyes to just how much I matter, regardless of my inner critic’s vehement objections.

    Such comments also open my eyes to all the things we beat ourselves up over that don’t matter—like whether or not we look like a Victoria’s Secret model in our bathing suit, or whether or not we should stop smiling if we’re not whitening our teeth, or whether or not the hole in our lucky shirt is worth bursting into tears over.

    Lately I’ve been trying harder to catch myself when I feel a non-serving, self-depreciating thought coming on. And I may let these thoughts slip at times, but that’s okay because I’m only human.

    While my self-love journey is ongoing, here are a few things I try to remember when I’m tempted to be mean to myself:

    1. The people you compare yourself to compare themselves to other people too.

    We all compare ourselves to other people, and I can assure you that the people who seem to have it all do not.

    When you look at other people through a lens of compassion and understanding rather than judgment and jealousy, you are better able to see them for what they are—human beings. They are beautifully imperfect human beings going through the same universal challenges that we all go through.   

    2. Your mind can be a very convincing liar.

    I saw a quote once that read, “Don’t believe everything you think.” That quote completely altered the way I react when a cruel or discouraging thought goes through my mind. Thoughts are just thoughts, and it’s unhealthy and exhausting to give so much power to the negative ones.     

    3. There is more right with you than wrong with you.

    This powerful reminder is inspired by one of my favorite quotes from Jon Kabat-Zinn: “Until you stop breathing, there’s more right with you than wrong with you.”

    As someone who sometimes tends to zoom in on all my perceived flaws, it helps to remember that there are lots of things I like about myself too—like the fact that I’m alive and breathing and able to pave new paths whenever I choose.

    4. You need love the most when you feel you deserve it the least.

    This was a recent epiphany of mine, although I’m sure it’s been said many times before.

    I find that it is most difficult to accept love and understanding from others when I’m in a state of anger, shame, anxiety, or depression. But adopting the above truth really shifted my perspective and made me realize that love is actually the greatest gift I can receive during such times.  

    5. You have to fully accept and make peace with the “now” before you can reach and feel satisfied with the “later.”

    One thing I’ve learned about making changes and reaching for the next rung on the ladder is that you cannot feel fully satisfied with where you’re going until you can accept, acknowledge, and appreciate where you are.

    Embrace and make peace with where you are, and your journey toward something new will feel much more peaceful, rewarding, and satisfying.

    6. Focus on progress rather than perfection and on how far you’ve come rather than how far you have left to go.

    One of the biggest causes of self-loathing is the hell-bent need to “get it right.” We strive for perfection and success, and when we fall short, we feel less than and worthless. What we don’t seem to realize is that working toward our goals and being willing to put ourselves out there are accomplishments within themselves, regardless of how many times we fail.

    Instead of berating yourself for messing up and stumbling backward, give yourself a pat on the back for trying, making progress, and coming as far as you have.     

    7. You can’t hate your way into loving yourself.

    Telling yourself what a failure you are won’t make you any more successful. Telling yourself you’re not living up to your full potential won’t help you reach a higher potential. Telling yourself you’re worthless and unlovable won’t make you feel any more worthy or lovable.

    I know it sounds almost annoyingly simple, but the only way to achieve self-love is to love yourself—regardless of who you are and where you stand, and even if you know you want to change.

    You are enough just as you are. And self-love will be a little bit easier every time you remind yourself of that.

  • How to Reduce Stress and Focus More on What Truly Matters

    How to Reduce Stress and Focus More on What Truly Matters

    “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” ~Socrates

    Did you ever wish you could just take off from work and get away from it all?

    This past summer I had the opportunity to do just that.

    I was wrapping up a twenty-four-year career in the Air Force and had saved up two months of vacation time. So my wife and I decided to visit Rio de Janeiro and live by the beach.

    The tropical weather was everything you would expect it to be: sunny, warm, and gorgeous.

    But surprisingly, the time off gave me so much more.

    Being away from the daily grind of work prompted deep reflection on my part. As a result, I came to some unexpected insights about my career and my life. The lessons I learned are:

    Ambition can make you miserable.

    When you’re on the fast track, you’ve always got this nagging, stomach-knotting anxiety that you’ve got to go and make it happen or else you’ll be left behind, unable to take your place at the table of materialistic plenty. Worse yet, you start to worry that others will elbow you out and grab your share.

    For sure, our competitive society is full of this kind of attitude. And it’s easy to get pulled into it yourself.

    I’m not saying that ambition is bad—especially when pursued for good reasons, like taking care of yourself and improving your state in life.

    But the dark side of ambition is that it can pile on the stress. Remember that knot in the stomach I talked about?

    I learned that only when you take a break from the grind can you realize the impact of your ambition on your spirit.

    Only then can you discover what’s driving you and sort out whether it’s truly important or not.

    For my part, I discovered that “climbing the ladder” in an organization was no longer important to me.

    What emerged as most important was using my strengths and experience to coach leaders, help them solve their problems, and make their own marks.

    You may be more stressed than you realize.

    After about two weeks of sleeping in and waking up to the sound of waves and tropical birds, I realized the knot in my stomach was gone. What’s more, I didn’t realize how big of a knot it was.

    A good chunk of the stress knot was present because of my own doing.

    For many of us, this knot of stress is the price we pay for trying to make a living and get ahead. The price includes responsibilities that bear down on you. Maybe over time your health and wellness starts to slip away.

    The next thing you know you’re in the grind.

    But what’s being ground up is you.

    At this point, I learned I had a choice: I could go back to the grind or I could use the strengths I developed over my career to serve others in a more balanced way.

    I’ll give you one guess what I chose.

    You really don’t need a lot to live well.

    While we were in Rio, my wife and I rented a tiny one-bedroom studio apartment. All of our household goods had been packed up and stored, so the sum total of our possessions amounted to a couple of suitcases of clothes.

    And that was plenty. In fact, it was more than enough.

    Living this stripped-down lifestyle removed the hidden burden of having material things to worry about. I’m talking about things like a house, two cars, furnishings, bikes, golf clubs, lawn mowers, washers and dryers, and all the other things we buy to simplify our lives.

    The radical downsizing opened me up to experience the rhythm of a simpler life.

    And it wasn’t boring at all.

    On the contrary—with the hustle, bustle, noise, and possessions gone, I had time to notice the little things that make life rich and enjoyable.

    Like the cooling ocean breeze or the small monkeys that jumped from branch to branch in the trees outside our apartment window.

    Like connecting more with family, friends, and the transcendent.

    Living with less clears away the clutter of our go-go modern lives and allows us to get reacquainted with our authentic human selves.

    The Big Lesson: Taking Time Away to Reflect Can Change Your Life

    Extended time away from work can improve your life. It certainly did mine.

    However, my circumstances were unique. For the vast majority of people, getting away from work for an extended stretch is a challenge.

    So what can you do to incorporate reflection in your life?

    If you can’t take extended time off, you can take small breaks. These breaks can come in all shapes and sizes such as:

    • Meditation
    • Turning off the TV
    • Setting aside your smartphone
    • Journaling
    • Going on a hike
    • Taking a run
    • Getting away for a weekend

    Use these small breaks to progressively gain perspective on what truly matters.

    Even these little breaks away from the routine will bring insight and understanding. Over time, they will grow into tools that you can use to transform your life.

    Plan your small breaks (or a big one) now.

    And move toward a life that is simpler, less stressful, and more fulfilling.

  • 5 Questions to Discover Who You Are and What Will Make You Happy

    5 Questions to Discover Who You Are and What Will Make You Happy

    Who I Am

    “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ~E.E. Cummings

    At twenty-five I was happily married and had a great career, many friends, and lots of money. During that time I also became deeply depressed, was put on medication for anxiety, and entered what would be a very long relationship with psychotherapy.

    It was a real struggle for me to understand why I wasn’t happy when I had everything that I thought was important in life. Was I selfish? Were my expectations too high? I honestly couldn’t understand what was missing and how to fill this huge void that gnawed at me every day.

    When I look back at my life, twenty years later, I realize that I really had no idea who I was or what made me happy. I kept expecting something or someone to answer this question for me.

    The journey to find out who I was and what really mattered to me eventually involved divorce, the loss of my career and most of my possessions, and overcoming a serious illness.

    It pretty much took the loss of everything I thought defined me and made me happy to admit to myself that I honestly didn’t know myself very well at all.

    Who am I? What do I believe in? What is my purpose? What fills me with joy and wonder? These are questions that I am just beginning to understand after forty-five years of living my life, and I have to admit that getting there has been extremely difficult.

    The hardest part for me was just knowing where to begin. After much therapy, meditation, self-reflection, and reading, I asked myself five big questions that served as a launch pad to begin my journey of self-discovery.

    If you are ready to begin the process of truly understanding who you are meant to be, start here:

    1. What or who would you be if you knew you couldn’t fail?

    The risk of failure terrifies most people. How many times have you wanted to change jobs or careers, move to a new city, promote a cause that is important you, or become an expert in a certain area? Think about it. No risk of failure.

    If you were 100% certain that you could be or do anything you wanted and not fail, do you know the answer?

    2. What is your ninety-second personal elevator speech?

    Probably the most important and poorly answered question in most job interviews, this is similar in nature. You can certainly include your career or career accomplishments in your personal speech, but think of this from the perspective of how you might answer this if you were making a new friend or going on a first date with someone.

    How would you describe yourself so that the person asking the question would truly understand who you are and what is important to you?

    3. What are your core personal values?

    Personal values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live. They give you a reference for what is good, beneficial, important, useful, desirable, and constructive. Once you are able to determine exactly what values are most important to you, you can better determine your priorities.

    In fact, having this information about yourself is the key to making sure your daily life is aligned with those values. If you need help defining your personal values, there is a great five-minute assessment tool here.

    4. What makes you genuinely happy?

    This one is closely related to your core personal values. However, ask yourself this question once you’ve really nailed down what those values are.

    For example, if family is one of your core personal values, will taking a job that involves tons of travel make you happy? Take it a step further and really consider dreams you had when you were younger or currently have about what will make you truly happy.

    5. If money were no object, how would you live your life differently?

    Many people equate happiness and success directly to the amount of money they have. How many times have you heard someone say, “If I hit the lottery, I’d…”

    But remember, this question isn’t really about money at all. It’s more about thinking outside the limits we tend to put on our aspirations and actions because things seem out of our reach financially.

    You may not be able to do those exact things, but once you know what those true desires are, you expand your thinking and begin to develop a plan to work towards goals you may have never imagined possible.

    —

    These are tough questions and the answers may not come easily or quickly. In fact, I found myself having to think and re-think my answers several times. This work is hard but necessary in order to really understanding yourself on a deeper level.

    While I can’t say that I now know everything about myself, answering these questions completely changed the negative internal dialogue that was limiting my ability to see myself as I exist today and the me that I can become in the future.

    But the biggest change came from revisiting dreams and aspirations that I had long ago put on the back burner while I was stuck in the process of “getting things done.”

    My dreams of writing about things that are truly meaningful to me, finding a fulfilling and passionate relationship, being more present with my children, and discovering a higher power are all coming true now that I am focusing my energy in the right direction—and that direction was to look within.

    So, find a quiet place and allow yourself plenty of time to go through and really think about each question and then just go for it. Go ahead. Begin your journey. Change direction. Create new dreams or rediscover dreams you left behind. Now that I have started, I haven’t looked back since.

    Photo by varun suresh

  • A Simple, Tiny Exercise to Help You Make a Big Change

    A Simple, Tiny Exercise to Help You Make a Big Change

    Happy Man

    “Change is inevitable. Growth is intentional.” ~Glenda Cloud

    Growing up, I never had that many friends. The concept of best friends is still foreign to me. For the first seventeen years of my life, I found myself happier alone than in the presence of other people.

    I wanted to join them; I just didn’t know how.

    In order to protect myself from people I’d rather not mention, I decided to join a karate class. For the first time I belonged to a group that was slowly starting to accept me.

    In the months that followed, I began to go out with them. It was awkward at first (and didn’t seem to get any easier). I had several short nervous breakdowns out of pure frustration. I would often get home feeling like a truck had run over me.

    What annoyed me the most was that even though I would hang out with friends, I couldn’t express myself. I couldn’t think of anything to say and even when something came up, I just said it to myself.

    I knew that wasn’t me.

    I was the loudest guy on the block in my neighborhood. I never ran out of things to say. I didn’t feel any pressure whatsoever. However, in this new group (or any new groups for that matter), I simply shut down.

    One night we were out at a bar. It was karaoke night but nobody volunteered to sing, so we sat at a table to chitchat.

    I found myself sweating and shivering for no reason. I couldn’t keep eye contact with anyone. Opening my mouth was out of the question. I got home feeling like my head was collapsing in on itself.

    That night, I literally interviewed everybody I could find online trying to figure out “how normal people think.”

    I picked a bunch of random friends on messenger and asked them something along the lines of, “What do you think of when you are alone and there’s nothing else to do? Do you think of practical matters or just imagine random stuff?”

    I forgot most of the answers I received—all but one.

    My Kyokushin instructor, someone I looked up to and still do, answered, “I think of how to grow the club, of how I can spread Kyokushin karate.” A couple years later, this man became the chief of the Romanian branch of the World All Kyokushin Karate Union.

    The next day, my friends were whispering behind my back.

    I heard my instructor saying to a colleague something along the lines of, “Take it easy on him. I think he had a mental breakdown.”

    He was right. I tried to pretend like I didn’t notice, but he was right.

    The only bright side to these breakdowns was that after each one, I became a little bit stronger. I gained more self-control. I became accustomed to the situations that caused them.

    After a while, they stopped happening. It was still a pain to talk sometimes, but nothing serious. After too much socializing I felt the need to be alone, but even that started to fade away.

    The awkward feeling in my gut and the excessive self-consciousness popped up less and less often.

    I still couldn’t find anything to say, but it wasn’t because of feeling awkward. It was simply due to my lack of experience in the art of chitchatting.

    These days the negative feelings related to socializing are pretty much gone, and whenever they resurface I just brush them aside.

    I can’t say I’m an expert conversationalist. I’m a long way from that but I can say whatever I want, whenever I want.

    I can laugh out loud for the whole world to hear. I can speak my mind in the middle of a bus full of people and watch them stare at me. I can look someone straight in the eyes. I can instruct a class of kids in the art of Kyokushin Karate.

    And these days, even though I need my alone time, I also need my social time. If a couple days go by without talking to people, I lose focus and energy. I feel the need for connection.

    I changed because:

    1. I wanted to change.
    2. I changed my environment. (I joined a group which encouraged me to be outgoing.)
    3. I took the time.

    I used to be so shy that my head would literally shake like a leaf when trying to speak to strangers. I had to take a thinking pose so I could support my head with one of my hands and make it less obvious.

    It’s been months since I last had to take a thinking pose (though these days I just do it out of habit).

    The personalities we form in our childhoods have a lot to do with the environment we grow up in.

    We end up shy or outgoing, strong or weak, a leader or a follower. This is not who we are. This is what our environment shaped us into.

    But that can be changed.

    You can choose who you want to be and then grow into that person.

    Decide right now who you want to be in five years. Then grab a piece of paper and write it down in as much detail as possible.

    What traits do you want “future you” to have? Write it down.

    How will future you make a living? Write it down.

    What contribution will you bring to the world? Write it down.

    Once finished, grab one more piece of paper and write your future self’s first trait on top of it.

    Bellow, write down twenty ideas on how to get there. Do the same thing with all the other traits.

    After a while, you might notice you’ve written the same idea for multiple traits. These are the ideas you want to act on. Choose the easiest (or hardest) and do it now.

    Socrates once said, “In order to reach mount Olympus make sure that every step you make is leading you in that direction.”

    Each idea you come up with and act upon will bring you one step closer to your goal, and eventually, you will reach it.

    Take a few minutes to do the exercise above and make your first step, for it is up to you to choose your path.

    It is up to you to move your feet—so get moving!

    Photo by Danny Fowler

  • How to Maintain Healthy Habits and Stop Sabotaging Yourself

    How to Maintain Healthy Habits and Stop Sabotaging Yourself

    “You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

    About two years go, I felt horrible about myself and where I was in my life: single, struggling to lose weight, miserable in my job (and no clue what to do about it), and unfulfilled in general.

    I kept trying to bully myself in order to be the person I wanted to be and have the things I wanted to have.

    I kept saying to myself, “I can’t believe you said/ate/did that. There’s something wrong with you” and giving myself strict rules to follow, only to break them with the same self-sabotaging behavior sometimes minutes later.

    I thought the only way to get myself where I wanted to go was to strong-arm myself there. But that only made me rebel against myself more. I waffled between overindulging and being stingy with myself emotionally, physically, and financially.

    One day I came across a picture of myself at five years old. I looked at that sweet little girl and realized no parent would allow someone to treat her the way I was treating myself—or allow her to do the things I was letting myself get away with.

    I looked at how I was living and saw how broken my relationship was with myself.

    I was permitting myself to do things no sane parent would allow their child to do while simultaneously yelling at myself for “being bad,” which any parent or child knows is the most ineffective form of motivation or cause for behavior change.

    This caused me to wonder: why do we allow ourselves to have the unhealthy habits we don’t allow in children? Why do we find it easier to make rules for ourselves than it is to follow them?

    I finally learned how to heal this relationship with myself and begin “parenting” myself in a healthy way.

    By honing your self-parenting skills and doing this out of love and affection, you’ll be able to overcome these self-sabotaging behaviors and stop the self-bashing, creating a loving relationship with yourself that supports you to achieve your desires.

    1. Identify your behaviors and habits.

    Take a moment. Listen to the ways you speak to yourself, the way you feed yourself, your hygiene and sleep habits. Which of your habits and behaviors would you not allow your (inner) child to do?

    Here were a few of mine:

    • Speaking meanly to myself
    • Thinking mean thoughts about others
    • Eating candy before healthy food
    • Staying up late when I’m tired
    • Having bad table manners—eating while staring at a computer screen or watching TV

    Often, the mean thoughts and the behavior are tied together. We identify these habits and behaviors as “self-sabotage” and then mentally beat ourselves up for it.

    If you catch yourself in the vicious cycle of doing something that deep down you know you shouldn’t and then mentally berating yourself for it, it’s indicator that something big is going on below the surface.

    2. Identify the repercussions of the behavior.

    You’ll probably notice that these behaviors and habits take you away from attaining the things you deeply desire, like having a body you love, a job that fulfills you, and a great relationship.

    In every moment, we are taking action that either moves us toward or away from the person we want to be and the life we want to have. The very behaviors you keep permitting yourself to do are the ones that are keeping you from what you want most.

    Get clear on how the actions you’re taking and the thoughts you’re thinking are in direct conflict with your happiness.

    3. Understand why you developed these habits.

    Look closely and see if the behavior or thought pattern originated as a way to take care of you in some way. It might be counter-intuitive or irrational, but that doesn’t matter.

    For example, one of my self-sabotaging habits was eating chocolate at ten in the morning. I thought it was just about the sugar rush, but the overwhelming need to eat it every day pointed to something deeper.

    When I really looked at it, I saw that by mid-morning, the realization that I had a full day ahead of me, doing work I didn’t want to do in a place I didn’t want to be in, made my heart sink with sadness.

    I reached for the chocolate for a jolt of pleasure, a way to escape the reality.

    The intention was positive; I was trying to take care of myself by giving myself comfort and some joy. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the healthiest way to give myself those things, and it came with the undesired effects of weight gain and sugar crashes and deepened a cycle of self-bashing.

    As adults, we know the consequences of engaging in a particular thought or pattern, but often do it anyway. The motivation is always moving away from pain or increasing pleasure.

    It can be hedonistic—many unhealthy behaviors feel good in the short-term (the sugar rush, the comfort, the satisfaction) but have long-term detrimental effects. It can also be rebellious—there’s a thrill to “breaking the rules.”

    Identifying where you get pleasure in engaging in self-sabotage can be immensely helpful in overcoming it.

    Realize that there is no self-sabotage, only self-preservation. Acknowledge that this action was a way to keep you safe, happy, and loved in some way, even if it was misguided or currently no longer serves you.

    This was an unconscious way of parenting yourself, and now that you recognize it, you can begin to consciously parent yourself in a way that supports the person you want to be now.

    4. Create “house rules.”

    Parents make rules because they can see the consequences that the child doesn’t have the perspective for yet.

    Looking back at my childhood, there were a lot of things that were non-negotiable that ultimately created healthy habits.

    One example is that we sat down as a family for dinner, every night. I never thought there was another way, and subsequently the habit of sitting down to dinner was ingrained.

    Think back at your childhood and the “house rules” that guided your behavior. Would it be helpful to reintroduce some of them into your life? Should you adopt some of the “house rules” you have for your children?

    If you have a particularly hard habit to break that you know is detrimental to your well-being, consider making it a “house rule.” When something is non-negotiable it removes the inner dialogue where we bargain with ourselves and makes it a lot easier to stick with it.

    Be sure to create your “rules” out of loving affection, not meanness or to punish yourself. Add a “because.” Even as kids, “because I told you to” was not a valid excuse.

    So look back at what you identified as the repercussions of your behavior to inform why the rule is in place and the desires you want to move toward.

    For example, one of my “house rules” became not eating candy before lunch. Whenever a chocolate craving hit, I told myself, “You don’t eat chocolate before lunch because it will make you feel icky and makes you feel bad about your body. Have chamomile tea instead.”

    5. Hone your self-parenting skills.

    Look back at your relationship with your parents and your children and identify the parenting techniques that worked the best for you. I’ll bet it was a mix of being strong and consistent in enforcing the “rules” while also being kind, patient, and understanding.

    Use the good  techniques you identified to make sure you stick to your rules. In addition to making them non-negotiable and adding a “because,” be sure to reward yourself when you’ve resisted temptation and followed your own rules.

    Be infinitely patient with yourself, as you would be with a child. If you slip up once, instead of throwing everything out the window, have a conversation with yourself.

    Understand why you did what you did. What did you need in that moment? Figure out how to give it to yourself and reinforce why it is so important to follow the “rules.”

    What are your new “house rules”? How can you parent yourself in a way that is supportive and nurturing?

  • Why We Don’t Do What We Want to Do and How to Start

    Why We Don’t Do What We Want to Do and How to Start

    “If it is important to you, you will find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse.” ~Unknown

    “The truth is,” she said, “if you can’t put fifteen minutes a day into your art, then you’re making an excuse.”

    I squirmed in my seat.

    It was February 1, 2011, and I was on the phone, interviewing Michele, a professional artist and artist’s mentor, for an online course I created.

    Michele was sharing what she tells the artists in her mentorship program who complain of not having enough time to do their art. Her words were intended for her mentees, but it felt like they were aimed directly at me.

    As an artist myself, I knew making art made me happy—made my whole day go better, in fact—and yet I was always too busy to do it. Was I just making an excuse?

    I didn’t want to admit this truth to myself, but when confronted with the starkness of Michele’s statement, I had nowhere to hide.

    I’d spent years believing I needed big chunks of time to make my art, but if fifteen minutes a day worked for Michele and the serious artists she mentored, maybe I was clinging to a false story, operating under a “self-installed glass ceiling” that was limiting my beliefs about what was possible.

    That day changed my life. Once I accepted that my mindset was the only thing really getting in the way of my “impossible dream” of a consistent, prolific art practice, I committed to trying this fifteen minutes a day idea, as an experiment, for one month.

    I admit I was skeptical that fifteen minutes would be enough to accomplish much, and I couldn’t imagine that such a short amount of time would even begin to satisfy my hungry inner artist. But waiting until I had big chunks of time to work in my studio had gotten me nowhere.

    For over a decade I’d lamented that I never had enough time to do my art. Surely, even fifteen minutes would be better than nothing.

    In fact, my fifteen minutes a day experiment resulted in my most prolific year ever. It stretched well beyond that original first month, and in 2011 I created more art than I had in the previous decade—over 150 finished pieces.

    But it didn’t just make a difference for my art life. This experiment had effects that rippled out into the rest of my life, too.

    When I finally made space in my day—even just a handful of minutes—to do something I loved but had somehow been resisting for years, I realized that my previous “inability” to find a way to make time for my art was, as Michele had said, just an excuse.

    However, I had clung to this excuse not because making art wasn’t important to me. To the contrary: it was precisely because it was so very important to me that I couldn’t seem to get myself to do it.

    Sometimes we make excuses to avoid unpleasant things, it’s true. But human psychology is complex. Perhaps just as often we make excuses because we want something so much it hurts.

    On the surface, this doesn’t make logical sense. Dig a little deeper, though, and things start to become clear.

    “If I do this thing that I really want,” we might think, “I might prove once and for all that I’ll never be any good at it.”

    Or, “If I try, I might fail.”

    Or, “If I step into this bigger identity for myself, I’ll have to let go of my comfy, old identity. People might expect more of me, or they may be threatened or disappointed.”

    And, ultimately, “If I do this, everything might change, and change is hard!”

    No wonder we resist! It feels so much safer not to try at all.

    There are infinite reasons why we make excuses not to do what’s important to us, and the more important something is to us, the more likely we’ll resist it.

    How to break the cycle? By looking resistance square in the face and taking responsibility for finding a way instead of finding another excuse. By acknowledging what is really important, and committing to making it a priority.

    When I finally took the big, scary step to put just a tiny bit of time toward my art every day, something shifted. I started to notice other ways I’d been avoiding things that were important to me.

    Suddenly, the “sensible” reasons I’d given myself for not going after other important goals shone forth as the excuses they really were, like ping pong balls under black light.

    As for my story that I didn’t have time to get to the gym or to go walking every day—I accepted that this was simply an excuse, changed the paradigm, and brought the gym to me: I set up a cheap treadmill in my studio, so I can walk while I work at my computer. It’s now a rare day that I don’t walk at least five miles, and ten or more is not unusual!

    And about my story that I am, and will always be, something of a slob—I accepted that this was just an excuse, too, and I’ve been clearing out clutter, getting rid of stuff little by little, slowly getting closer to the spacious, organized home and studio I really want.

    It won’t happen overnight, but my fifteen minutes a day commitment to my art showed me that baby steps, over time, will take you further than you ever imagined. 

    If something is important to you and you haven’t found a way, don’t give up! Don’t just accept that it’s not important to you if your gut tells you that it is, but do look at where you might be spinning stories, creating excuses for yourself.

    If you accept that your excuses may be the only thing between you and your dreams, you may be surprised at what you can change in your life.

  • 5 Ways to Seize the Moment and Live Without Regrets

    5 Ways to Seize the Moment and Live Without Regrets

    The Jubilant Man

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

    Samara is my colleague at work. She is one of the most pleasant ladies I know. She always has a smile and an encouraging word to give.

    She really is the kind of woman you want to speak to on the days you feel like life has dealt you a bad hand, because she always has something comforting to say. As we got closer, I confided more and more in her about the challenges I was going through in my life.

    I envisioned that her life must be perfect since she has such inner strength.

    But I was wrong.

    One day I noticed she had a sad countenance. That was strange because Samara was like sunshine itself. However, her sad countenance did not last, and before long she had her signature smile back on.

    But I was not deceived. I knew that deep inside her, she was experiencing some pain, so I asked her what was wrong.

    At first, she smiled and said that all was well. But I insisted that she confide in me. She looked me in the eyes, thanked me for caring, and then dropped the bombshell.

    “My six-year-old daughter has been in a critical condition for the past six months because of my carelessness. I saw her yesterday and her situation seems to have worsened. I think she is going to die.”

    For a second, I could not speak. I was in shock.

    “I am so sorry,” I managed to stammer, trying not to let her see how shaken I was by the shocking statement I had just heard.

    She explained to me that six months ago, she had stopped at a supermarket to get a few things. And because she was in a hurry, she had left her daughter in the car with the engine running. Her daughter had managed to engage the gear and the car had sped into the road, right into an oncoming trailer, and she had been seriously injured.

    The tears rolled down my face as she narrated this horrific story to me.

    She assured me that she had managed to forgive herself and had replaced regrets with gratitude for the six years she spent with her daughter.

    I recalled with a sense of embarrassment all the fuss I sometimes make over little things that, in light of what I’d just heard from Samara, now seem really insignificant.

    My marriage was not working out the way I wanted it to and everyday I lived with regret that I married my husband. I made a career change, which has turned out to be a very poor decision, and I have not been able to forgive myself.

    I realized that I spend too much of my time dwelling on all the mistakes I have made in the past. I spend too much time regretting things that I have no power to change. I spend too much time wishing things were different. I spend too much time beating myself up over what I’ve done.

    Over the years after that encounter, I determined to live a more positive life, free of regrets. Here are five ways I’ve learned to do that:

    1. Live your life with purpose.

    I realized that my career was doing badly because I did not have a career plan. I just drifted through my days without something to look forward to, so my life lacked momentum.

    Determine to live a life of focus. Today, take a stand on one thing you want to achieve in your life and draw up a plan to accomplish it.

    2. Stop making excuses.

    I blamed everybody else for the way my life turned out. I blamed my husband for the failure of my marriage and I blamed my boss for not promoting me.

    I am responsible for my life and not anybody else. Instead of making excuses, I need to take responsibility.

    It doesn’t matter what the obstacles in your life are. You can achieve almost anything if you put your mind to it. Helen Keller and Jon Morrow are examples of people who achieved excellence despite physical disabilities.

    Look within yourself. There is something waiting to be birthed. Find what that something is and do it, without excuses.

    3. Choose not to be a victim.

    At a point, I thought I had made such a mess of my life that there was no point trying to put things right. So I gave up trying. I mulled over my mistakes every day and went deeper into regrets.

    None of this helped me. I only started making progress when I embraced my mistakes, determined not to make them again, and resumed chasing my dreams.

    Life is not fair for any one of us. There will be storms and you will make mistakes. But be determined to get up as many times as life pushes you down. Forgive yourself, learn the lessons, and go on working toward your goals.

    The more time you spend feeling sorry for yourself, the less time you have to pursue the life of your dreams.

    4. Stop comparing yourself to others.

    I could not stop comparing myself to others. Everybody seemed to be happier than me, their marriages seemed to be faring better, and I seemed to be the only person with a less than fulfilling career.

    This made me feel even worse. I wondered what others were doing that I was not. Their progress in life seemed to dampen my spirit.

    Over time, I realized that comparing yourself with others is one of the greatest mistakes anybody can make. No matter who you are or where you find yourself in life, always remember that you have your own unique path to walk.

    Never compare yourself, your struggles, and your journey to anyone else, for that would only distract you from your own.

    We are all different. Forget about others and focus on fulfilling your own life dreams.

    5. Take action now.

    After I drew up a career plan for myself, I still lacked the courage to follow my plan. I wasted a lot of time because I was afraid that I would fail and I did not have to courage to start. So I continued to push things off.

    It’s funny how so many people seem to think that tomorrow is better than today for getting things done. We put off those things that are important to us and we lie to ourselves by saying that we will do them later.

    Whatever you need to do, do it now! Today is the tomorrow you planned for yesterday, so start today.

    My chat with Samara that day was a wake up call. I promised myself that day that I would not waste any more precious moments of my life regretting. I have been able to do that and have discovered inner peace in the process.

    So I urge you to do the same. Don’t waste any more time on regrets. Learn the lesson and move on. There’s still a lot of life in you. Go out there and live it!

    Photo by Benson Kua

  • Think Before Reacting: How to Use Your Mental Pause Button

    Think Before Reacting: How to Use Your Mental Pause Button

    “Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.” ~Buddha

    I used to be the queen of putting my foot in my mouth. I’d say the first thing that came into my head without thinking.

    My intentions were always good, and I’d never deliberately offend or hurt anyone, but it landed me in trouble more than once.

    Being so reactionary also played havoc in my relationships. I was defensive and quick to answer back. I did a lot more talking than listening.

    This spread into other areas of my life. I’d put food into my mouth faster than my brain could stop me; I’d impulse buy and make split-second decisions before thinking them through.

    After a difficult breakup, I turned to yoga as a way of finding regular doses of positivity during an otherwise very bleak period.

    The yoga studio was run by some very wise yogis who also offered workshops on positive thinking, mindfulness, and self-development.

    They had a great bookshop, and soon, instead of watching mindless TV, I was engaging with inspiring people and reading life-changing books.

    On the same day that I attended a workshop on happiness, I met my husband-to-be. Two girlfriends dragged me off to a nightclub that evening.

    He says he was attracted to me immediately. I guess I was radiating some kind of positive aura, as I hadn’t dressed up or done my hair and makeup like my girlfriends had!

    Thankfully, by then my personal growth had led me to a greater sense of self-awareness.

    I’d discovered my internal pause button.

    Living life more presently and becoming mindful resulted in a natural slowing down. It opened my mind up to the art of just being.

    Learning to press pause means listening and assimilating before opening my mouth. I often hear a voice in my head saying what I would have normally voiced out loud, but in the few seconds I allow myself to pause, I realize it doesn’t need to be said at all.

    I’ve become a mindful eater and spender and now realize that most decisions in my life don’t have to be immediate. I relish in the joy of pondering.

    Here’s the manual for operating your internal pause button.

    
1. Recognize the trigger.

    Notice when sensations are building inside of you. Maybe it’s a rising heat in your body, a pulse in your head, a knot in your stomach, or a tightening in your chest.

    Recognize these triggers as signs to activate your internal pause button.

    In an argument, notice your ego rising up to defend its position. A simple awareness of the ego is enough to tame it and send it crawling back into its hiding place.

    2. Press pause.

    Mentally say, “pause,” as if you’re reaching for that remote control.

    3. Take a deep breath.

    Getting a quick hit of extra oxygen to your brain helps you compose your thoughts and brings you into the present moment.

    4. Observe.

    For interactions with people, just hold off and listen. There’s no rule that you have to say anything immediately. Notice the thoughts that go through your mind and simply observe them without attachment.

    To curb impulse eating or spending, rewind to a goal you’ve set yourself around this kind of situation or a mantra you’ve created. Fast forward to the best possible outcome. How do you want this to pan out?

    Again, allow yourself to simply observe the thoughts that pass through your mind.

    5. Press play.

    Now you’re ready to act. Mindfully.

    You may be thinking, “Sounds great in theory, but in the heat of the moment all of that is going to take too long!”

    Yes, it may feel like that at first. If you’re hard-wired to react immediately, it’s a case of reminding yourself that it’s ok to wait.

    Giving yourself even a few extra seconds before reacting can make a difference. Pressing the pause button gives you a chance to rewind, make a good choice, and then press play again to continue in a better way.

    It puts the power into your own hands to make good decisions and take control of your life. You gain deeper relationships and learn so much more by talking less and listening more.

    Just because you think it doesn’t mean you have to say it.

  • How to Improve Your Relationships and Make a Kinder World

    How to Improve Your Relationships and Make a Kinder World

    kindness

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

    I once attended a lecture given by a world-renowned expert on post-traumatic stress disorder. The lecture made two points that I have never forgotten. I call them “brain tricks.”

    1. Given a choice, our primitive brain will naturally select for the negative. It’s a survival thing.

    2. When in crisis, the part of our brain that conceptualizes time and space goes off line. In other words, our brain increases the urgency of the problem by making us think the crisis will never end.

    Fortunately, these tricks, while at times necessary to protect us, are the activity of our primitive mind and we do not have to be at the mercy of them.

    Through awareness and a desire not be reactive, we can shift to our more evolved brain and get an accurate perspective, enabling us to respond in a more equitable manner.

    I’m concerned that we may be unknowingly generating those “brain tricks.” There seems to be a strong movement toward trolling for what’s “wrong” on just about every level. It appears that popular culture’s collective brain is a giant reflection of a society in crisis.

    We live in a reactive world that would choose to focus on what is wrong rather than what is right, even when there is so much that is right.

    The term “snarky” has become an attribute to be admired. Being witty at someone else’s expense can leave us with a feeling of authority and control. Egos get a boost and identities get clarified when what we disagree with gets isolated.

    However, problems arise when this penchant for sarcasm, cynicism, and criticism takes a leap into our relationships.

    I believe this sanctioned attack on others is one of the primary reasons generalized anxiety is on the rise and long-term relationships are on the decline.

    There is a better way to strengthen egos and that is by embodying the art of common courtesy. Wouldn’t it be sweet if being kind and thoughtful was the “new” witty—the new identity booster and clarifier?

    Common courtesy begins with positive regard for all humanity. Though we may have differences, we have more similarities.

    Because our brains naturally select for the negative, we have to train our minds to proactively look for the positive and for what we have in common.

    Respecting others is an offshoot of positive regard. It’s not flattery, nor is it following orders.

    It is honoring people’s right to be themselves, along with their beliefs, and the way they want to live their lives. It requires empathy, not necessarily agreement.

    Treating a person as less valuable or worthy in any way shows disrespect and leads to conflict, both inward and outward. It is false pride to feel good when treating someone with disdain.

    Common courtesy shows you can look beyond yourself. It demonstrates caring, generosity, good will, and the valuing of others.

    I learned my lesson not long ago while out to dinner in a nice restaurant with my family. We were having a delightful evening, enjoying our food, and discussing plans for a possible European vacation.

    My two sons expressed an interest in going, but were having trouble seeing how their university schedules could accommodate a three-week vacation. One son was particularly snarky in his communication.

    I immediately got on the defensive, and returned his snarkiness with my own.

    “You know,” I said, “you can be really difficult to get along with.” As soon as the words left my mouth, heaviness spread throughout the room. The night was ruined.

    I felt both shame and anger. In my mind I determined we would not be spending any money on a European vacation, at least not one that included ungrateful sons. I went home and to bed, but not before my husband told me I had been too harsh.

    The next morning I woke up with a guilt hangover. I thought deeply about the night before. The light went off in my head when I asked myself how I would’ve felt if someone had told me I was hard to get along with.

    Ouch! That would’ve cut deep, and I said those words to someone I love very much. In fact, I love him so much I was planning an expensive vacation so that his mind could be expanded. Ironic, huh?

    The truth is, I could’ve conveyed my frustration in a more courteous manner. For example, I could have said:

    “I can see this is going to be complicated. Why don’t you give it some thought and we can talk more about it next week when we have more information.”

    Immediately, I texted him, “Please forgive me for the harsh words I said to you last night at dinner. I realize they were hurtful and it hurts my heart to know I caused you pain.” I heard back from him in seconds: ”No worries Mom. I love you.”

    Here’s what I’ve learned about building a kinder world through common courtesy:

    Greet others.

    When you make eye contact with anyone, say hello, smile, or wave. Everybody wants to be recognized, included, and acknowledged.

    Say please and thank you.

    Being polite sends a safety message. It shows positive regard and respect.

    Be courteous in conversation.

    Ask people questions about themselves to show a genuine interest in what’s important to them. Then fully listen. Show people you value and respect what they say, even if you disagree with them.

    Apologize.

    Admit when you are wrong and apologize.

    Build people up instead of tearing them down.

    Let people know what you admire about them. Give genuine compliments freely. Tell them you believe in them and share their good qualities with others.

    Go the extra mile.

    Show people you care by going out of your way to perform acts of kindness.

    The bottom line is: Follow The Golden Rule. It is no surprise that some form of it is found in every culture; it is a universal law. Treat others as you would like to be treated. It’s that simple.

    If we don’t like to be criticized, we shouldn’t criticize others.

    If we don’t appreciate someone rolling their eyes at us, we shouldn’t roll our eyes at others.

    If we don’t want people mocking us to others, we shouldn’t mock other people or gossip.

    If we are tired of people not respecting our values and choices, we need to respect others’ values and choices.

    If we don’t want to be the target of someone’s snarkiness, we need to stop being snarky ourselves.

    In the immortal words of Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

    Photo by Ed Yourdon

  • Things Will Never Be Perfect: Making Peace with Everyday Challenges

    Things Will Never Be Perfect: Making Peace with Everyday Challenges

    Meditating in the Street

    “Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance.” ~Unknown

    A few weeks ago, I walked into my studio apartment and found it quite messy, which isn’t that hard to do with 325 square feet shared by a couple.

    I’m talking clothes on the floor, dishes on the couch, and paper strewn everywhere. It had been one of those weeks where both my husband and I were ripping and running, having little to no time to manage household chores.

    I looked around, took a deep breath, and sat down on the couch after moving some papers. I enjoyed some dinner with my husband and then went to bed. I got up the next morning feeling rested and cleaned the apartment joyfully and pretty quickly with him.

    Why am I telling you this? You see, a few months prior I would have stressed out and felt totally guilty about the house being so junky. I would have gone into an entire inner dialogue about how I wasn’t organized enough and how I couldn’t keep things together.

    This would have led me into a cleaning frenzy for the rest of the night and I would have went to bed feeling tired and depleted, waking up the next morning in an exhaustive funk.

    In that moment of first opening the door, I learned to fully accept and be at peace with what was actually happening rather than beat myself up with lofty expectations of what I had wanted to happen.

    It was a subtle yet important shift in my life. I walked in and rather than feeling bad about the mess, I simply acknowledged that the apartment was in disarray.

    Yes, there were clothes strewn on the floor. Yes, I had been working many hours and didn’t have the time to do laundry. I also acknowledged that “messy” was a relative term, and I realized that I felt a bit of shame about having a messy place because of strict rules that I grew up with when I was younger.

    I accepted the fact that the apartment was messy and that it was okay to not do anything at the very moment to tidy up. It was so simple, just a few moments, but I suddenly felt myself breathing easier as a result and sleeping a lot easier without the worry or the inner critics coming out to play.

    Sometimes I think we have to learn how to accept what is so that we can find peace of mind no matter what kind of day we are having or what type of circumstance we encounter.

    Peace is available to us all of the time, even when life seems to be out of our control. It may not feel like it, but beyond chaos is serenity, if we only accept it. Solutions to our problems are also clearer when we move into this place of peace.

    When feeling a bit stressed out about high expectations, gently remind yourself to do the following:

    Acknowledge what is here. Simply notice for a few seconds what you are feeling, experiencing, seeing, and hearing without any judgment. Also, notice if any judgment is coming from you or other people in your life.

    Accept that situation fully as it is. No shame. No guilt. Just acceptance and lots of deep breaths.

    Be open to the inner wisdom that you possess. There may not be an immediate solution and that is totally fine. Sometimes I think a good pause is just what we need before we take a next step.

    You are enough just as you are. It is a beautiful thing to accept the fullness of your human experience rather than wishing it was anything different.

    There will always be homes to clean, items on the to do list, obligations to fulfill, inboxes to clear, and schedules to make. In the midst of all that, there will always be peace and joy available to us if we simply notice.

    May you find ultimate serenity as you let go of expectations and root into full acceptance of yourself and your life experiences.

    Photo by Nickolai Kashirin

  • How to Feel at Home Wherever You Are

    How to Feel at Home Wherever You Are

    At Home

    “Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” ~Basho

    For over three years, I’ve been living out of a suitcase and traveling around the world doing a combination of volunteering, housesitting, and couch surfing.

    This journey started after I decided to drastically change my life. In the span of a week, I filed for divorce, quit my high-paying job in New York, left my PhD program at an Ivy League school, sold all my stuff, and flew to South America.

    After spending six months volunteering in Brazil, I began to realize that, while I was born and raised in New York, it never really felt like home.

    While I always knew I struggled with many aspects of the external environment, it was how I felt internally when I returned from South America that really made me realize how misunderstood and unhappy I was when I was there.

    So flying to South America turned out to be the first stop on a long quest to find a new home. Since then, I’ve driven to over thirty states in the US and have been welcomed into so many homes, I’ve lost count. I’ve viewed each of these experiences as an opportunity to learn how other people have created a sense of home for themselves.

    Here are five ways I’ve learned to develop a sense of home, and how you can too:

    1. Seek safety.

    Feeling safe is a basic human need and part of the foundation that allows us to relax and open up to the world around us. Feeling safe isn’t just a sense of physical well-being; it’s a sense of emotional and psychological well-being, as well.

    Many things can make a space feel unsafe, everything from unsettled relationships, to unfamiliar surroundings, to unsanitary living conditions. Growing up, there was a great deal of unspoken tension in the house, and when I got married, I never felt emotionally safe with my now ex-husband.

    As I’ve moved around over the last few years, I’ve confirmed that if we don’t feel safe, it’s impossible to feel at home. As a result, there have been places I thought I’d stay for weeks that I ended up leaving after a few hours, and there are places I thought I’d spend one night and ended up staying several months.

    Anyone or anything that disrupts your sense of safety will become an obstacle on your quest to feeling at home. Eliminate these obstacles by either moving on from unsettling situations or by developing healthy boundaries that help to maintain your safe space.

    2. Connect with people.

    While a physical space (home, apartment, condo) can provide a degree of structure and external stability, it’s the people we surround ourselves with that truly make or break a home. We all need a community of people in which we feel understood and supported.

    When I was living on Long Island, it appeared that I had a huge network of people surrounding me. But as I’ve traveled and found communities of like-minded individuals, I’ve realized just how misunderstood and disconnected I felt growing up. Once I experienced what it feels like to be embraced and accepted by those around me, it became impossible to settle for anything less.

    Connecting with others takes effort and time. Talk to those around you and really listen to what they’re saying. Notice how you feel when you’re with them; when you’re around those that feel like home, you’ll know. Keep searching until you find the community of people that feels right for you.

    3. Explore and try new things.

    It’s easy to take for granted everything that our environment has to offer. But chances are there is a great deal more going on than we realize. If we can learn to view life as though we are on an adventure, we’ll feel more inspired to explore that which is right in front of us.

    When I arrive at a new city, I have zero expectations about what I want to see or do; instead, I speak to the people in the community and ask them for advice. This is how I ended up on a river float in Missoula, Montana; learned salsa dancing in Boulder, Colorado; and explored artwork in a tiny park on the outskirts of St. Louis, Missouri.

    Bring a sense of enthusiasm into everything you do, as though you’re a child seeing everything for the first time. Be curious, ask questions, and learn details; every place and every person has a story. Be fearless and go out and explore; this exploration will help you build the deeper connection to the world around you that is needed to feel at home.

    4. Spend some time alone.

    Developing a sense of home is as much an internal discovery as it is an external one. Being present and aware of our feelings and intuitions will help guide us toward making the necessary changes needed to feel at home.

    Even though I’m moving around to different places, I still make time for myself every day. I wake up and do a yoga practice, go on long walks by myself, meditate, journal and spend long drives in silence as a way to clear my mind.

    Take some time alone each day and use this time to check in with your emotions. Inquire about how the people and environment make you feel. Journey within as much as you journey outward and ask yourself what you can do to make the space you’re in feel more like home.

    5. Slow down.

    It can be tempting to rush in and out of new environments, frantically trying to explore and connect. But to truly develop a sense of home, we must slow down long enough to really experience the people and places we find ourselves in; this same concept applies to environments that we’ve been living in our entire lives.

    There have been several moments over the past few years where I’ve found myself caught up in needing to see and do everything that every city has to offer. Not only is this impossible, but it’s also exhausting. Focusing on quality over quantity, in both my connections with others and in my experiences, has been far more powerful in creating a sense of home than having a laundry list of mediocre ones.

    Become an active participant in the world around you rather than sitting on the sidelines and observing life as it passes you by. Take the necessary time to fully process each and every experience and each and every person you meet along the way.

    Take one step today toward exploring your sense of home wherever you go.

    There are plenty of ways in which you can explore the world around you, but remember that you must also look inside yourself and let your gut be your guide.

    Home is where you feel safe, connected, understood, and loved. The more present and engaged you are with both yourself and the world around you, the easier it will be to feel at home anywhere.

    Photo by satemkemet

  • How to Embrace Your True Beauty (Not the Media’s Ideal)

    How to Embrace Your True Beauty (Not the Media’s Ideal)

    simplereminders.com-you-are-beautiful-scottlynn-withtext-displayres

    “Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.” ~Kahlil Gibran

    A few years shy of my fiftieth birthday, I went on a road trip with one of my best friends from high school. We’d taken some version of this trip many times during our teens and twenties, but as we started raising young children, we didn’t have much time for getaways.

    But on this occasion, our kids were old enough to fend for themselves, and we hit the road with same excitement and silliness that characterized all of our youthful adventures.

    We spent the next few hours talking, laughing, listening to music, singing, and generally feeling like carefree teenagers again.

    At some point along the way, we had to stop for gas and snacks and pulled into a Citgo. We went inside the store still laughing, singing, and acting silly, and as we walked back out to the car, I caught a glimpse of a middle-aged woman in the mirrored glass windows of the store.

    She was laughing and talking with another woman, and for just a moment I thought, “Who is that woman? Doesn’t she know how ridiculous she looks?”

    It only took a nanosecond to realize the woman was me. For just that moment, I was perceiving myself as an outsider, and the judgment came down hard and fast.

    Even though I was feeling young and beautiful and carefree on the inside, my own distorted self-perceptions around aging and appearance quickly brought me back to the reality of who I was on the outside and how I was supposed to behave.

    Of course, this glimpse of myself at the Citgo wasn’t my first reminder that my once youthful attractiveness was fading. I’d been carefully monitoring every new wrinkle and added pound for years.

    I’d stared in the mirror many times pulling the skin back on my face to see how many years a facelift might remove. But the Citgo event was the first time I realized the subtle toll my self-perceptions were taking on my psyche and self-confidence.

    Somewhere inside of me I believed middle-aged women didn’t sing and laugh and act silly. That was reserved for the young and beautiful.

    The Messages Around Us

    In our youth and beauty-obsessed culture, every time we open a magazine, turn on the TV, or drive past a billboard, we see how far our personal reality is from the standard perpetuated by the media. These messages were obviously entrenched in me, but I didn’t truly wake up to it until I applied the harsh judgment to myself.

    Was I really going to allow these messages to keep me from feeling beautiful and carefree? And more importantly, as my physical appearance continues to change, is my self-worth going to diminish more and more over time because society tells me I’m no longer relevant?

    These images and messages don’t just affect those pushing forty or beyond. Young women in today’s culture see more images of exceptionally beautiful women in one day than our mothers saw throughout their entire teenage years. It’s no wonder that eight out of ten women are dissatisfied with their appearance.

    And it’s not just a female issue. A survey from the Centre of Appearance Research at the University of West England reveals that men also have high levels of anxiety about their bodies with some resorting to compulsive exercise, strict diets, laxatives or making themselves sick in an attempt to lose weight or get toned.

    Simply put, we are obsessed with beauty and appearance. And it’s not just an issue of aging. Nearly all of us are impacted by feelings of unworthiness related to our looks. The levels of attractiveness promoted by the media are achievable by less than 2% of the population. The beauty elite are dictating the standards for the masses.

    A Beauty Revolution

    But what if we started a beauty revolution? What if we pushed back against the brainwashing of Hollywood and the media and proclaimed a new definition of beauty?

    What if true beauty were defined by who we are rather than how we look?

    My own internal revolution began one summer day in the parking lot of a Citgo somewhere in south Alabama. I was feeling young and happy, and I almost allowed my self-judgment to steal the joy from the day. But truthfully, I was beautiful that day.

    Were I to look back at the reflection of the woman in the Citgo window, I’d see someone brimming with aliveness and fun. And that’s who I really am, in spite of my changing appearance.

    What if our true beauty rested in simply being who we are, with the face and body we own, and joyfully embracing that every day?

    What if it was okay to have flaws, to be less-than-perfect—not only okay but actually preferred and even celebrated?

    When the focus is removed from our faces and bodies and how we don’t measure up to impossible standards, then we’re emotionally and psychologically free to express and explore who we are authentically, our true selves and our true beauty.

    Of course, from an individual perspective, this true beauty revolution is easier said than internalized. It is still a work in progress for me. We spend years focusing on all of our physical flaws, and it takes a real mind shift to reject all of the cultural messages and embrace that beauty is expressed from the inside out.

    If you accept the premise that “true beauty” is much more than having a model-perfect appearance, there are ways to begin retraining your thinking and igniting your own internal beauty revolution. Here are some thoughts that helped me release self-judgment and embrace my true beauty . . .

    Look Around You

    Take a good look at the people in your life that you love—your spouse, your children, your parents, your siblings, and your close friends. It’s likely the majority of these loved ones aren’t model beautiful, and yet, are they not beautiful to you?

    The familiar faces, the twinkling smiles, the kind gestures, the comforting bodies and arms that embrace you. Each person has an inner beauty, a unique character and light that makes them who they are.

    You see them as truly beautiful—and these people view you the same way. Remind yourself every day that the people who truly count recognize your beauty and try to validate their good opinion by believing it yourself.

    Stop Struggling

    This was a huge shift for me that has led to self-acceptance. Yes, there are some elements of our faces and bodies we simply cannot change. Rather than resisting and struggling against these things, relax into them and accept them with love.

    Struggle and resistance do nothing but push us further away from recognizing our true beauty. Acknowledge and accept those parts of your appearance you have grown to hate. View them as children who long for and deserve your love and acceptance.

    Take Care

    As I’ve gotten older, I realize how much more beautiful I feel when I take care of my body.

    Sometimes we become so disconnected from our true beauty that we neglect and mistreat our bodies, further entrenching us in low self-confidence. But as you begin to treat your body more lovingly, you will feel better mentally and physically, affording the clarity to recognize your true inner and outer beauty.

    Feed your body with whole, nutritious foods. Move your body through exercise every day for at least twenty to thirty minutes. Acknowledge the bad habits that are harming your body, and work to release those habits over time.

    Acknowledge

    This is an exercise I love. For a moment, mentally step outside of yourself and pretend you are your most loving, best friend. From the perspective of this friend, write down all of the personality traits, skills, behaviors, and qualities that you think are beautiful. Don’t allow your negative voice to intrude on this exercise.

    Also ask this friend to write down the physical traits that are beautiful—your eyes, your hands, the curve of your neck. Remember, you have a choice about where you want to place your mental focus.

    Keep this list nearby whenever you find yourself focusing on your flaws. Read the list and remember you have more positive qualities than negative—so choose to focus on the positive.

    Redirect

    As I’ve grown older, I’ve consciously redirected my focus away from dwelling on my appearance. Yes, I still do what I can to look attractive and presentable. I exercise and eat a healthy diet. But I try not to obsess about the changes my face and body are undergoing.

    Instead, I focus on my passions for helping others through personal development, writing, and teaching courses. I recognize that my true beauty shines from expressing my authentic self, from the joy I experience in daily life, and from my interactions with loving friends and family.

    For me, true beauty comes from living fully, being who I am, and experiencing the beauty all around me.

    When you find yourself doubting your own true beauty, please remember, as Khalil Gibran so eloquently reminds, “Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”

    Allow the light in your heart to shine for yourself and others, and in so doing, your entire being will glow with a fire of beauty. You will be a beacon of attractiveness to everyone you encounter.

    Photo by Simple Reminders

  • How to Stop Judging and Being Hard on Yourself

    How to Stop Judging and Being Hard on Yourself

    “You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

    For a long time I joked that if I had a time machine, I would go back to 1989 and give my sixteen-year-old self a swift butt kicking. But then a few months ago, on my fortieth birthday, a friend posted a picture of me at sixteen on Facebook.

    Seeing this image of myself totally threw me for a loop. Other than a school photo, it’s probably one of the few pictures I am aware of from that time in my life.

    I spent some time contemplating this version of me glancing sideways at the camera. Under the surly expression of not wanting my photograph taken, there is undeniable beauty and innocence.

    What makes it even more poignant is that I am the mother of a teenage boy who happens to be sixteen right now. His teenage drama has brought back so many memories of myself at that age.

    For most of my career as a teenager I was preoccupied with being cool, with cultivating a counter-culture, bohemian persona (assuming clove cigarettes, On the Road, and a pile of mixed tapes constituted “bohemian”). Rolling my eyes at my mother was a near constant affectation.

    I was certain that I knew it all; I had the rest of my life all figured out and I rejected anything that didn’t fit with my narrow understanding of the world. I now know there were countless experiences I missed out on by virtue of my stubbornness and general disdain for everything.

    I avoided most of the mainstream high school dances and events. I dropped out of clubs and activities as soon as they felt challenging. I didn’t bother investigating the many academic and social opportunities that came my way.

    What I would have regarded not long ago as a silly, selfish, snotty teenage attitude, I now realize is something else entirely. In that picture I see the seeds of pain and hurt—some already planted and taking root; some yet to be sown.

    Lack of encouragement and confidence was written all over my face. The trauma of rejection and the fear of not measuring up was so apparent. That cool thing was just an act—a part I was playing to protect the hurt little girl that I really was.

    It occurred to me as I observed her tentative gaze that this girl is still a part of me and deserves my love and tenderness, not my judgment. She deserves respect for the woman she is going to become and comfort for the child she has been.

    Those reflections brought me full speed into the present moment. Seeing this image of myself in a new light forced me to examine the way I treat myself today. I tend to be pretty understanding and gentle with others, but so tremendously unforgiving with myself.

    Maybe it’s a sense of guilt over squandering my potential. Or maybe I’ve grown to be hyper-vigilant about seeming unworthy. Perhaps I’ve just been metaphorically giving my inner sixteen-year-old a butt kicking all along.

    Whatever the reason, when I notice in hindsight that I’ve made a bad decision or missed an important detail, I beat myself up. Whether it’s buying something that turns out to be a waste of money or spending time goofing off on the Internet, I often feel like I’m that teenager in need of a stern, judgmental lecture.

    I have yet to really figure out why I’m so ruthless with regard to my own mistakes but I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. If our culture’s lack of self-esteem is any indication, this seems to be a challenge for many people.

    I’ve heard it said that until you can love yourself, you can’t truly love others. I’m not sure how much I agree with that. In fact, I’ve come to think of maternal love as loving someone else more than you love yourself.

    What I do know is that struggling to love myself makes showing up in the world a big challenge. Showing up as my authentic self requires so much effort. In fact it’s nearly impossible when I don’t feel self-love.

    I strongly feel that lack of self-love holds us back. It prevents us from connecting with our purpose and doing great things. I may be over-generalizing but the scarcity of self-love in our society seems to be at the root of so many common problems.

    It’s important to understand that loving yourself doesn’t mean you are selfish or a narcissist or that you don’t take responsibility for your mistakes. It means that you treat yourself fairly and with respect.

    Self-love means that I forgive myself for my errors and continue striving to be the best person I can be. It means I believe in myself and put the same effort into my well-being as I do for my loved ones.

    It should come as no surprise that the practice of self-love is far easier said than done. But, in my often-imperfect journey to loving myself, I’ve learned a few things along the way:

    1. Challenge the notion that there’s any merit to being hard on yourself.

    Beating yourself up may have the short-term effect of making you work harder or be more diligent. But in the long run, being unkind to yourself causes resentment, a sense of defeat, and eventually some emotional scars.

    2. Add a new twist to the Golden Rule.

    We always teach children that they should treat others the way they wish to be treated. A good rule as we grow up is to treat ourselves according to the same standards we treat others.

    You probably aren’t the kind of person who would call their child, mother, or best friend “stupid,” so why would you say that kind of thing to yourself?

    3. Know that forgiving yourself doesn’t mean lowering your standards.

    There is nothing wrong with striving to be the best you can be. However, it’s important to cut yourself some slack when you fall short of expectations.

    Making a mistake or not being perfect is simply part of being human. If you didn’t do your best, it’s okay and it’s really not the end of the world. Dust yourself off, keep moving forward, and love yourself for all your imperfections!

    While it’s definitely not easy at first, I promise that learning to love yourself really does pay off. The love and kindness we have for ourselves may eventually allow us to change the world!

  • How We Can Reduce Our Suffering by Feeling Uncomfortable Feelings

    How We Can Reduce Our Suffering by Feeling Uncomfortable Feelings

    “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Just about everyone experiences sorrow at times. I know I do.

    The other morning, in fact, I was caught off guard by a very particular sorrow. Nothing happened, per se; but from the moment I awoke, I felt an aching sense of sadness and loss at the fact that my career path has taken me away from the field of mental health counseling.

    As I became aware of my sorrow, it filled my heart and mind like a cup, and eventually spilled over into a rather woeful consideration of the many changes my life has undergone over the past several years.

    It was uncomfortable while it lasted, but it was also quite fascinating, once I became aware of what was happening. As such, I emerged intact and, ultimately, quite proud of myself for waiting out and weathering such an unexpected emotional storm.

    I haven’t always dealt with my emotions this way—sorrow, fear, uncertainty, inadequacy, and guilt in particular. Indeed, I still slip into old habits at times.

    My life has proven an excellent instructor, however, and I am pleased to note the above-described scenario is becoming more commonplace.

    Vocation has been extremely important to me. In fact, I clearly recall a moment in my childhood when I declared to myself (in so many words), “I want my work to be meaningful and enjoyable.” That notion has informed my life ever since.

    When it came time for me to declare a major in college, I mulled my options and settled on theatre. I knew it wasn’t practical, per se, but it was meaningful to me and I enjoyed it. Besides, I trusted that the act of honoring my passion would lead me down the road I needed to travel. I think I was correct.

    A year or so following graduation, I took the next step and moved to New York City to pursue my career in acting. It was an exciting time at first. After several years, however, I was exhausted, disillusioned, and burned out.

    The things I needed to do to pursue my career as an actor—“pound the pavement,” rehearse nights and weekends, and work day jobs to support myself—had become nothing short of onerous.

    My originally hoped-for payoff (earning a living as an actor) was no longer worth the commitments and sacrifices necessary to taking an honest shot at it.

    Once I accepted that truth, the decision to stop was a relatively easy one to make. Waiting for me on the other side of that decision, however, was the ominous question “Now what?”

    I had the luxury of avoiding the question at first, because I was attending to other aspects of my life, which, in many regards, was on auto-pilot: I got married, my now-ex-wife and I moved, she entered law school, and I started working full time to help support us.

    Life settled into a routine, and, to my dismay, the urgency of the still-unanswered question “Now what?” intensified. I approached it with a sense of helpless, dire urgency; as such, I soon descended into a full-blown existential crisis.

    Whereas my path forward had once seemed so clear and exciting and full of promise, it was now almost entirely hidden from my view. I was tormented by the uncertainty. Full of fear and bereft of experience and perspective, I did the only thing I knew how to do: avoid change.

    I helped maintain my status quo by, alternately, complaining; losing my temper—usually with my ex-wife—over trivial frustrations; pretending to most of my family and friends that everything in my life was going well; and performing what I call “mental gymnastics”—attempting to trick myself in so many ways that I did not, in fact, hate most things about my life, including myself.

    The fact that I had no compassion for myself in view of my vocational confusion, and that I could not accept my own discontent and act accordingly, ensured a certain spiritual toxicity.

    The result, of course, is that I viewed the world through a lens of sadness and anger and darkness.

    Finally, I had the good sense to say, “Enough.”

    With some assistance, I slowly reconnected with myself.

    I rediscovered my talents and positive attributes, which, along with the consideration of several of my interests, led me to pursue graduate studies in social work.

    I felt it was finally time to enjoy my life, fulfill my destiny, and settle into a contented peace. In reality, everything was about to change.

    Yes, grad school was transformative and exhilarating, but it was also the backdrop for what was, perhaps, an even greater learning opportunity: my divorce.

    In the immediate aftermath of my separation, I stuck with my old habit of experiential avoidance. Cracks in the armor quickly appeared, however; and besides, my work as a practitioner-in-training ensured I couldn’t realistically hide for long (thankfully).

    I had the good sense to seek counseling.

    Over the next few months, I learned that I have the tendency, as do many of us, to “jump” out of experiences I deem to be “bad” and into other “good” experiences I would prefer.

    In my case, I was experiencing feelings of deep guilt and sadness in the wake of my divorce, but instead of acknowledging my guilt and sadness, I jumped headlong into self-hatred and shame.

    That might seem counterintuitive at first glance; after all, how could I, or anyone, ever prefer or deem good the acts of self-shaming and hatred?

    What I’ve come to discover, sadly, is that many of us, consciously or not, do just that. We find it safer to attack ourselves than it is to abide certain experiences—such as vulnerability, guilt, fear, and sadness—that we believe may hurt us even more.

    Each of us, I would argue, has these types of emotional sore spots that, when triggered, send us into a basic sort of survival mode.

    While that looks different for each person, one factor remains constant: something about that “emotional sore spot” experience seems fundamentally unacceptable; and, after all, what does one do with something fundamentally unacceptable but reject it somehow?

    For my part, I discovered my “jumping” into self-hatred and shame is a learned behavior.

    It is a well-intentioned one, perhaps, in that it is designed to guard me from what I perceive to be the dangerous experience of acknowledging my (real and imagined) limitations and imperfections; but it is one that ultimately prevents me from fully dealing with, and taking ownership of, the myriad truths of my life.

    I learned to appreciate the validity of the statement “what you resist, persists.” I saw how that which remains unacknowledged and unprocessed can grow toxic, thereby greatly exacerbating the original problem and greatly amplifying suffering.

    I recognized deeply held irrational beliefs about myself, namely, that if I don’t always get everything right, I’m a total screw-up who is unworthy of any positive regard, let alone love, and a propensity for labeling (i.e., “good” and “bad”). These had been the real cause of my extreme suffering, because they incited reinforcing, harmful behaviors.

    I realize now the experiences of sadness and pain itself are just that: experiences of sadness and pain. They are not some fundamental threat to my well-being or a rubber-stamped comment on the quality of my personhood.

    If I acknowledge these experiences, sit with them, explore and express them, I can choose my actions accordingly without jumping into shame, self-hatred, or other unhelpful behaviors.

    So when I woke up the other morning and felt sadness wash over me, I was able to welcome it. I was able to give myself compassion by telling myself, “You’ve been through a lot, buddy, and it’s okay to feel that.”

    And that’s just it, you know? That’s the antidote: compassion.

    I’ve found that by giving myself compassion—the literal and metaphysical space to abide the emotional experiences I generally deem “threatening”—I am able to discover catharsis, forgiveness, peace, acceptance.

    In sitting with our feelings in this way, we are able to live, truly—to be open to the experiences of our lives.

    Photo by Almonroth

  • How to Release Disappointment and Thrive When Life Isn’t Fair

    How to Release Disappointment and Thrive When Life Isn’t Fair

    “When you learn to accept instead of expect, you’ll have fewer disappointments.” ~Unknown

    At thirty-six weeks pregnant, I was in the fetal position on my bathroom floor, screaming with pain. It was excruciating, the worst pain I had ever experienced, and I had experienced lots.

    As the ambulance officer supported me out the front door and into the back of the ambulance, all I could think was, “How is this going to affect my baby?”

    After two ambulances, two hospitals, and a barrage of tests, I was sitting on the hospital bed, absolutely exhausted—physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

    My thoughts started to go down the same well-worn path: “Why me? Why do I have to deal with this? Life isn’t supposed to be like this. It isn’t fair!”

    It had been a common theme for me. I knew how life was supposed to turn out, and mine wasn’t it! It seemed like I had challenges to deal with that others didn’t have—that my lot was harder.

    I felt like all my energy and potential was being sucked up in dealing with adverse circumstances, leaving me no resources to do the things I really wanted to do in life.

    For the last twenty-three years, I had battled Crohn’s disease, a debilitating and incurable illness that had resulted in increasing pain, illness, and limitation—until then. Four weeks before the birth of my second child, I had ended up in hospital with massive pain.

    My doctors didn’t know how to deal with a woman having a Crohn’s flare up who was also pregnant and wanted to induce labor to deliver the baby prematurely. I was faced with making choices about medical treatments that could have serious impacts on me and my unborn child.

    As I sat there, I could feel the familiar frustration, dissatisfaction, and discontentment flooding over me.

    And in that unlikely place, I had an epiphany.

    Life is not the problem; expectations are.

    I finally realized, looking back at my life, that every time I’d struggled to deal with the hand I’d been dealt, it was because my expectations were clashing with reality. I had created a picture in my head of how life should be, and when things didn’t turn out, I didn’t cope.

    It wasn’t life that was the problem; it was my unrealistic expectations. I had thought that being idealistic and striving for a goal was a good thing, but it wasn’t leading to a contented and fulfilled life.

    If you are feeling hardly done by and frustrated about your circumstances, ask yourself if there is a mismatch between the reality of your situation and what you expected. If there is, you have inadvertently set yourself up for frustration, disappointment, and even anger.

    While these emotions are natural when we experience adversity, they are not helpful to live with long term.

    The only way to resolve them is to face up to the situation you are actually in and accept it. This does not mean we should not have any expectations, but if we want to be content, we need to accept what is during hard times while trusting for something better in the future.

    Instead of trying to change the world, change your focus.

    While I was in the hospital, I talked to other mothers who had been there for the whole of their pregnancy or whose babies would need surgery as soon as they were born. It made me realize that while I was in a hard place, things could have been so much worse.

    I realized that I was only seeing one side of my life. I was very good at seeing what was not there (that I thought should have been) but was ignoring what was there that was good.

    In thinking about my illness, I was focusing on the pain and how it was stopping me from earning an income, and how my energy was limited, and how the whole situation was negatively affecting my family.

    But I wasn’t embracing and being grateful for how other people, particularly my husband, cared for me, how I was growing in wisdom and compassion, and how the experience was teaching me more about myself.

    If you seem to be coping with more than your fair share of frustration and disappointment, check your focus for a minute. Are you only seeing the gaps, where reality isn’t meeting your expectations, or are you also acknowledging the good that is coming your way?

    It may be helpful to create a list with two columns where you can explore what you are feeling about your circumstances.

    On the right side, write down where your expectations aren’t aligning with reality: where the gaps are, what sucks, and what you think shouldn’t be happening.

    On the other side, write down what is positive: where the divine is in the situation and what is great about this. This is not about being falsely positive. This is about finding the moments of genuine joy and connection in the midst of pain.

    Pay attention to how you feel when making each list. Having refocused the situation for yourself, you can now choose which emotions to take into the future about that experience.

    The great thing about this exercise is that it frees you from striving to change the world to match your own expectations. Instead, all you need to feel happier is a little shift in your focus.

    Embrace the pain and then take control.

    I learned that I needed to embrace the whole experience, both the good parts and the gaps, and that gave me the ability to choose a more empowering set of beliefs and meaning for what was happening to me. This in turn helped me discover new possibilities that I couldn’t see before.

    Having refocused myself, I was able to sort through a lot of complex information and options regarding medical treatment, define what outcomes I wanted, and make a constructive action plan that put me in charge of my health.

    And the end result? That time round, beginning with circumstances that weren’t promising at all, I got all the outcomes I wanted, including a healthy baby and a natural birth.

    The irony about accepting the situations we find ourselves in is that once we have, we are able to make decisions and take action that moves us toward the place we truly want to be. We stop feeling like a victim of circumstance and more like the captain of our own ship.

    That doesn’t mean that we will get what we want every time. Life doesn’t work like that. However, coming to a place of acceptance gives us the strength and peace to deal with whatever outcome we receive, whether desired or not, and the ability to move forward rather than getting stuck in adversity.

    Empowering questions we can ask ourselves include:

    • What outcomes do I want? Write down every result that is important to you in the situation.
    • What beliefs can I choose that will support me right now? Give yourself an empowering set of beliefs that help you feel hopeful in the situation.
    • What action can I take? Outline actions you can take today, this week, and in the next month that will move you toward your outcomes.

    You can soar above adversity.

    These days, I still have Crohn’s disease but have largely given up my unrealistic expectations, and not living with that frustration has taken a lot of stress away from my life. I am in better health than I have been for years and achieving more.

    It took a while for me to let go of my idealism and find the good in adversity, but by practicing it over a number of years, I have gotten better at it.

    We all live with circumstances that are not ideal. Life is too short to live in frustration that things are not the way we want them to be.

    Why you? Because there are important jewels you can discover in the midst of adversity that will reward you for the rest of your life. You are strong enough to embrace reality and perform the alchemy that will transform frustration into contentment and positive outcomes.

    We’re all here rooting for you.

    Go and make it happen.