Tiny Buddha

Category: Blog

  • How Being Alone Made Me Fall in Love with Myself

    How Being Alone Made Me Fall in Love with Myself

    “Solitude is where one discovers one is not alone.” ~Marty Rubin

    “No one invites me to their party.” That’s what middle school was like for me, anyway. No matter how hard I tried, I could never really fit in with any friend groups.

    It seemed like everyone got the instructions on who to hang with and where to sit except me.

    I was the serious, quiet type. And the gossipers and sleepover crews didn’t want serious and reserved. So I bounced around, making a buddy here and there. But I was never fully brought into the social scene.

    At first, I figured it would sort itself out and I’d find my people. But middle school turned into high school. And high school turned into my first year of college.

    I was still on the outside looking in.

    No matter how often I put myself out there to try and squeeze into different circles, I’d end up alone again before long—feeling even more lonely than when I just kept to myself.

    The worst part was when I pretended to be someone else, just trying to fit in. And it would work…for a minute. Then I couldn’t keep up the act anymore.

    I was back to being an outsider. But now I also felt like I lost some inner part of me that made me, me. I was drained. I was bummed.

    Eventually, I realized I had hit rock bottom. I was tired of criticizing myself and trying to contort into someone I was not just to please people who didn’t actually care about me.

    I had already chased after so many groups and friends, desperate for that connection, but all I was left with was emptiness.

    Finally, one day, I asked myself, “Who has been here through it all? The highs and lows, wins and losses?”

    The answer was me, myself, and I. ‘I’ was the constant.

    ‘I’ was the one listening and providing answers when I talked myself through difficult situations. ‘I’ was the one patting myself on the back when I succeeded at something.

    That realization—that I already had the most loyal companion imaginable—brought me more comfort than any superficial friendship or party invite could. I had myself, and I was enough.

    I decided to stop begging for validation or acceptance from others. I was going to validate myself.

    I started actively spending more time alone, without distractions or social media. Reading, writing, and taking myself on solo dates.

    I discovered so much about my interests and strengths. I found inspiration and magic in solitude I had never known before.

    For the first time in ages, I was at peace. I felt whole, not like some fractured version of myself. I was alone but not lonely. I was independent yet fulfilled.

    I became my own best friend. And that made all the difference.

    It taught me that I alone am enough, even if others don’t see my worth. Their approval is meaningless unless I have self-approval first.

    Further, an interesting thing happened once I stopped desperately chasing friendships—I started attracting people who liked me for me. Turns out when you’re confident and self-assured, you give off good vibes that draw others in.

    I made some fantastic friends in college who didn’t care that I was an introvert. And you know what’s the best part? I even found my love partner! Everyone valued my insight and quiet persistence.

    For the first time, I felt like I belonged while still being fully myself.

    I learned four vital lessons from my lonely middle school days:

    1. You are your own best friend or worst critic. How you talk to yourself matters. Build yourself up rather than tear yourself down.

    2. Embrace what makes you different. Don’t hide your unique gifts and talents away in some quest to fit in. The right people will appreciate them.

    3. Connections can’t be forced. Friendships and relationships worth having tend to come when you least expect them. Stop chasing and let things unfold.

    4. It’s better to be “alone” than in bad company. Having toxic or fake friends is far lonelier than having just yourself.

    My middle school self would never believe me if I told him one day, he’d have true friends and a partner who adores his little quirks.

    But by making peace with being alone, I found the relationships I had craved for so long and discovered that all the acceptance I needed was my own.

    I still consider myself an introvert. I enjoy my solo time and quiet hobbies. But now I don’t feel pressured to be someone I’m not just to keep friends around. The connections I do have are based on authenticity from both sides.

    And when I need advice or just someone to listen, I turn inward. I explore my feelings through journaling. I tap into my inner wisdom through long, contemplative walks alone. I’ve become my own counselor and cheerleader.

    I’m so grateful that the younger me kept striving to find his place. All that perseverance led me right where I needed to be—firmly rooted in myself.

    If you’ve been going through something similar, I see you. And I want you to know that you are enough, exactly as you are. You don’t need to earn a spot at anyone’s table for your life to have meaning.

    The people who will love you most deeply are on their way. For now, love yourself. Treat yourself kindly. Pursue your passions unapologetically.

    Speak encouraging words into the mirror each morning. Put in the work to be your best friend.

    And know that wherever you end up in life—surrounded by a tribe of people who adore everything that makes you different or embracing solitude and forging your own singular path—you can’t lose as long as you have yourself.

    I am my own closest companion. You can be your own, too.

    Whatever stage you’re at in your journey of self-discovery, keep going. Know that the loneliness and feelings of not belonging won’t last forever.

    Have faith that things will get better, especially when you nurture your relationship with yourself above all else.

    Maybe today is an awkward day where you’re struggling to find your place. That’s okay. Breathe through it. Tomorrow holds new possibilities.

    Maybe you’re entering a season of solitude that first feels uncomfortable but will ultimately lead to profound growth. Lean into it entirely rather than resist it. There is a treasure to uncover.

    Or maybe you have finally attracted a “tribe” that appreciates the unique shades of who you are. Congrats! But never lose sight of your own worth that exists with or without them.

    Wherever you’re at, you’ve got this. And you’ve got yourself. That’s all you’ll ever really need.

    So stay true to yourself. Don’t shrink parts of you to appease others. Keep taking chances on yourself, even when no one else will.

    Trust that by being loyal to your own soul, you will find both inner fullness and meaningful connections with time.

    For now, chin up, sweet soul. I’m proud of you for how far you’ve come. How far you’ll go from here is breathtaking. Onward.

  • How I Cherished Every Beautiful Moment of My Daughter’s Short Life

    How I Cherished Every Beautiful Moment of My Daughter’s Short Life

    In the spring of 2012, I heard this word, “rest.” I realized how horrible I was at it. I wasn’t even sure what it was. Was it extra sleep? Was it not working on Sundays? Shortly after I heard this word, my life began changing. For one reason or another, one by one, the things with which I occupied myself were stripped away until I found myself with nothing left to hold.

    A year later I was in a panic, wondering how we were going to make ends meet. Everything in me said to do what I had always done: get on email, get on the phone, make the next thing happen. Anyone who knew me knew I was someone who could make anything happen. If I didn’t know how, I bought a book and learned. Anything I ever wanted, I found a way to get.

    Then I heard the word again, “rest.”

    “What?! Now? No. My family is depending on me. My reputation is at stake. I don’t have time for rest. I will rest when things are okay.”

    “No. That is not what rest is.”

    Rest is not something you do. Rest is something you put on. It is something you are while you do what you are doing. Rest is a posture.

    I decided to do the exact opposite thing my insides were telling me to do. I went to the backyard, sat on a chair, and watched. I did not know what I was watching for. I listened. I did not know what I was listening for. Every time a thought or an idea came to my head, I wrote it down and then resumed sitting.

    It was horrible, like ignoring an itch for hours. I knew that if it was this hard for me to physically sit still, it was important for me to learn. If my body could not sit still, then how could my mind or my heart? So I decided to discipline myself to sit that way at least one day a week.

    Eventually, I sat this way more often. Meanwhile, my professional life continued to fall apart and the temptation to do something about it grew. I heard so many voices, some from friends and family but most from my own head:

    “You’re lazy.”

    “You’re being irresponsible.”

    “What are you doing??!!”

    “It’s up to you to provide for your family.”

    “Get up and make something happen, now!”

    Simultaneously I heard another voice:

    “Rest.”

    “How long do I wait?”

    “Rest.”

    This was the summer of 2013. A year later, we received the call about our soon-to-be-born baby’s condition. I had thought that the urge to get up and do something was strong before, but now this was on an entirely new level. Again, I heard the voice say, “Rest,” so we didn’t research Trisomy 18. We didn’t look for different doctors who would say something we wanted to hear.

    I continued to sit and stare at the fence, quieting my body, and eventually, at times, quieting my mind and my heart as well. I cannot even describe the amount of fear that was present. But this time it was different. It was as if in the past, fear had walked in the door and I was afraid; now fear stood in the doorway and waited to be invited in.

    More and more, fear gathered at the door, but it did not come in. It only waited. I could see it there. It was terrifying. But I wasn’t able to invite it in. Rest was occupying the space instead.

    Some moments in the hospital on January 7th, 2015 I thought my wife might die. I expected to hold our lifeless baby that morning. I knew I would speak at Olivia’s funeral and not know what to say. It was like a nightmare. But I remember it. I was there. If she would have lived only an hour, I would have been there for that one hour. Because fear was at the door, but rest was inside.

    My posture was rest, quiet, and trust. It was not about making things happen. It was about watching, listening, and being there and nowhere else. I was not going to miss it, as horrible as it could have been.

    During the first few months of Olivia’s life, fear kept congregating at the door. We thought we saw her last breath so many times. We were so sleep-deprived. I passed out one day just walking across the room.

    At this point, I felt pretty incapable of getting up and making something happen. The doctors were clear that there was nothing we could do. Hospice was at our house every few days. I was not tempted to get up and do something about Olivia. Now I was tempted to get up and work. To make sure the bills got paid. To make sure my career did not disappear any more than it already had.

    But underneath was a stronger need: to run, to get the hell out of this situation. Work can be an easy place for a man to avoid the realities of his life. It was pretty obvious, though, that work was not to be my focus—that whatever time we had left with Olivia was to be cherished, every minute of it. Still, I felt the urge to run more than ever.

    “Rest.”

    I continued to hold the posture. To sit. To stare at the fence. To listen quietly. I was not going to miss it.

    I was there the whole time. All fourteen months of her life.

    I lost my posture at times. But I can say that the thirty-year-old Nathan (five years ago) would have occupied himself the entire time, trying to make things happen, running like crazy away from the pain.

    No. I had practiced for this all year. I knew how to allow the itch, the pain, to be there and not to move. I knew how to allow the voices in my head and the voices from others to be there without being influenced by them. I knew how to go deeper within my self, to the place where a still and quiet voice whispered the word “rest” over and over.

    I had practiced the posture; the time had come to use it. I was there the whole time. I did not miss my daughter’s life.

    In March of 2016, when I got the call that Olivia had stopped breathing, I was on a bike ride with our other three kids. Time stopped. Jude asked if Olivia was okay, and I was able to look at him and say, “Yes. Even if she does die, all of us are okay.”

    We rode our bikes so fast. Fear was now filling the doorway and had crowded around the house and the windows and as far as the eye could see. We rode our bikes. I didn’t feel much, but the tears streaming down my face told me, “Today is the day. It is finished.” We kept riding.

    I don’t remember getting off my bike. I’m guessing I had never run so fast. But I will never forget the feeling of walking through the back porch door and seeing Heather and Olivia there. The most sinking and unreal amount of pain I have ever felt mixed with an equal amount of peace, beauty, and a sense of victory.

    After a lot of crying, the only words I could say to Heather were, “We did it.” We won. Olivia won. Heather won. I won. Our family won. Our community won. Yes, Olivia died, but that was never the battle we were fighting. We had chosen to fight fear instead.

    I don’t think I have experienced the remainder of that day, or the next few days, or the funeral or the burial yet. I think I’m still back processing the day Olivia was born. It’s weird. I have never grieved like this before, but I think the body has a way of pacing how much pain it allows in at once.

    I’m realizing now that we will be experiencing the pain and the beauty of Olivia’s life and death for a long time. I don’t know if or when we will ever feel normal or even functional again. But I do remember one thing about the morning after Olivia died, vividly.

    I remember going for a run and the feeling of rest overwhelming me. Not happiness or excitement—I was very sad—but so much rest. And I remember noticing how little fear I sensed, like it was not even at the door anymore. It was as if the battle had ended, and fear had lost and just turned and went home. There was no temptation to run or to make anything happen. Olivia was dead, but I felt an amazing amount of rest. And trust. And quiet. And strength.

    Since that day, fear has returned to my door. I have struggled more than ever to rest. This battle is never-ending. But once you win one battle, every battle after is different. Now you know you can win. You know what it feels like to say, “We did it,” and you know you can do it again.

    I have a feeling the next year is going to be more difficult to rest than the previous two years were. That is a very overwhelming thought. But I have a wife and three living kids and one sleeping daughter who need a husband and a father who knows how to rest.

    That is what I will choose to do.

    Fear at the door, rest inside.

  • How to Find Peace When Your Mind Is Restless

    How to Find Peace When Your Mind Is Restless

    “Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.” ~Hermann Hesse

    When I work with people who are suffering from anxiety, fear, grief, or other challenging issues, I like to take them through a simple exercise I call “The Noticing Exercise.”

    It’s my first port of call when helping people break free from mind-created suffering.

    It’s amazing how quickly, and effortlessly, people can move from suffering to peace, simply through shifting their focus to being aware of the present moment—noticing the sensation of the body touching the chair, the ribs expanding on the in breath, or the sounds in the room.

    Even deeply troubled individuals can experience peace the very first time they try this simple meditation.

    How is this possible?

    It is because peace is already there inside all of us. It’s an integral part of who we are. When the mind’s activity subsides, even for a moment, peace is what remains.

    The ocean provides a good analogy.

    At the surface, the water is constantly in motion. It never stops, even for a moment. But when you drop down into the depths, there is stillness and peace.

    It’s exactly the same with the mind.

    On the surface level, the mind is always active but, in the depths of our being, there is a natural peace and stillness that is unchanging… always present, always available. Being part of our essential nature, it can never leave us.

    Although this inherent peace is always there, it goes unnoticed in most people through the deep-seated habit of giving our exclusive attention to the surface movements of the mind.

    We are so pre-occupied with what’s going on at the surface that we simply fail to notice what’s happening in the depths of our experience.

    And, of course, there is nothing ‘wrong’ with any of this.

    Spending our days lost in thinking is the human condition. It’s what we all do.

    Being swept away by the restless waters of the mind is perfectly normal, particularly when we are faced with intense patterns such as anxiety, trauma, or grief. And yet, the fact remains that, despite appearances, there is a peace inside every one of us that is untouched by what’s going on at the surface, however intense it may be.

    Withdraw your attention from the mind, even for a moment, and it’s there.

    You don’t have to create it; just recognize what has always been there.

    Peace doesn’t leave you. You leave peace.

    Stress, anxiety, and unhappiness exist primarily in the form of thoughts.

    If you are able to become fully present in the moment, thoughts subside, and stress and anxiety are replaced by peace and stillness.

    Of course, most people will pick up their painful stories again as soon as the meditation comes to an end, but the fact they were able to be free of their suffering, even temporarily, provides us with clues for finding a more permanent solution.

    With practice, anyone can learn to withdraw their attention from the mind for longer periods of time and thereby extend the periods of peace.

    Have You Been Barking Up the Wrong Tree?

    Most people are looking for peace where it can never be found—not lasting peace anyway.

    It’s a bit like losing your keys in the house and looking for them in the garden.

    You’re never going to find them… because they are not there.

    Most people I help have been searching for peace through the path of self-improvement, often for years.

    And it makes total sense.

    If my mind is causing me trouble, then the obvious solution is to try to fix it—to ‘work on myself’ and try to convert all my anxious and unhappy thoughts and feelings into pleasant, happy ones. Try to create a new, improved version of myself.

    But, if you’ve been down this path for any length of time, as I have, you’ll know that fundamentally changing the mind is not so easy.

    The problem with this approach is encapsulated in the following quote from the Indian spiritual teacher, Nisargadatta:

    “There is no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance; restlessness itself is mind.”

    Like the surface of the ocean, the mind is constantly in motion. It is restless by nature.

    And, although there may well be fleeting moments of peace here and there, they will inevitably be followed by moments of agitation and disturbance.

    Restlessness is the nature of the mind. Trying to make it calm and peaceful is like trying to iron the surface of the ocean. It’s simply never going to happen.

    Making Peace with The Mind Just as It Is

    To find a solution that actually works, we must first understand the true cause of suffering. It’s not what most folks think.

    People believe, as I did for years, that the anxious, stressful, or fearful thoughts themselves are the primary cause of suffering.

    They believe that:

    • the mind is broken and needs to be fixed.
    • anxiety, fear, confusion, etc. are inherently bad or wrong.
    • there’s something wrong with them for having these thoughts.
    • they can’t experience peace or happiness until they are gone.

    These beliefs are the main reason people suffer.

    As the Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello said:

    “There’s only one cause of unhappiness; the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so common, so widespread, that it never occurs to you to question them.”

    What if, instead of spending years trying to fix the content of the mind, we focused instead on making peace with the mind, just as it is?

    What if, rather than fighting and resisting fear, sadness, envy, or confusion, you were able to accept them as natural expressions of the human condition?

    What would happen to your anxiety if you didn’t see anything ‘wrong’ with it?

    Or your sadness if you didn’t mind it being there?

    They may still feel unpleasant but, in the absence of resistance, they’d lose their power to affect your peace.

    We can wrap our non-peace in the peace of acceptance.

    You Don’t Need to Have a Peaceful Mind to Experience Peace 

    On the path of self-improvement, the goal is to find peace of mind.

    But this approach is unlikely to succeed simply because the mind is restless by nature.

    Here’s the truth:

    You can’t stop bothersome thoughts from arising, but you can stop bothering about them.

    One of my teachers used to say, “You suffer because you are open for business.”

    You entertain your thoughts and invite them in for tea—engage with them, ruminate over them, wallow in them, play them over and over in your head—and create suffering for yourself as a result.

    You don’t need to have a peaceful mind to experience peace.

    You need to stop giving your thoughts so much attention and importance.

    If you are able to accept whatever appears in your head, whether pleasant or unpleasant, with an attitude of non-judgmental acceptance, you will always be at peace.

    Acceptance is like kryptonite to the mind. It loses its power to disturb your peace.

    The Two Types of Peace

    There are two types of peace.

    There is the feeling of peace, which is a temporary respite from feeling restless or agitated. Like all feelings, it comes and goes, like clouds passing across the sky.

    Then there is the peace that exists in the depths of your being; the backdrop of peace that is unchanging, ever-present, and has nothing to do with what is going on in your head.

    Even in the midst of the most turbulent storm at sea, in the depths, the ocean remains calm and unmoving.

    There is a peace inside every one of us that remains untouched by the movements on the surface, no matter how intense.

    And it’s not difficult to find. How could it be if it’s already who you are?

    You don’t need to fix or change anything about yourself to experience what is ever-present inside you.

    You just need to dive below the surface and discover what is always there.

    The peace you are looking for is with you always. But you’ll never find it on the level of the mind.

  • 5 Reasons to Try Something New Before You Feel Ready

    5 Reasons to Try Something New Before You Feel Ready

    “Great people do things before they’re ready. They do things before they know they can do it. And by doing it, they’re proven right.” ~Amy Poehler

    Ready isn’t a state of being, it’s a state of mind. Or maybe I should say we don’t have to be anything to qualify for the label of being ready for something; rather, it’s a mindset in which we choose to embrace the unknown. My story starts like this…

    A few months into my soul-searching, I realized I had to move. Away from my unfulfilling job, away from my unhealthy habits perpetuated by my city lifestyle, away from my complete and utter stagnancy. But this also meant moving away from friends I’ve come to know so well, family I love, and a sense of security that you can’t really put a price on.

    I knew I had to create a big enough change for myself for it to feel like I was starting over. I wanted to live somewhere where no one knew my name or, better yet, where no one knew anyone who knew my name. Notice I said I knew I needed that change, not that maybe I would move, or I was considering it. Did it scare me? Yes. But did I know it was what I craved and needed on a soul level? Also yes. A bigger yes.

    I started looking into some towns out west. The mountains were calling, but it was the polar opposite of the east coast city life. I had no idea what it would take to live in weather like that, let alone which towns I would be happy in.

    After some research, I found an apartment complex I liked and added myself to the waitlist. This was in January, and my current lease wouldn’t be up until October. I definitely wasn’t ready to pay triple the monthly rent amount to break my lease.

    Well, fast-forward to September, and it was time to give my notice of whether I would be moving out. Would I stay or would I go? Everything inside me was screaming at me to take the chance and go. But I didn’t feel ready. All the “what ifs” started flooding in… What if I put my notice in and then change my mind? What if I don’t put my notice in and then change my mind?

    Eventually, I silenced everything except my gut, my intuition, and it said ever so calmly and confidently, “Go.” So I put in my notice and ended my lease before I knew where I would be going next.

    This would be the first step of many that I decided to take before I felt ready. The thing is our heart knows what’s right before our mind does.

    And you know what? After I put my notice in, I got an email from the apartment out west that I had applied to almost a year prior. They had a unit available two weeks after my lease would end. I was shocked. I don’t think it could have worked out any better than that.

    This first step was the best decision I’ve ever made because it’s opened me up to so many amazing experiences and relationships that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I got to know a place that was completely different than any home I had ever known, I truly felt the most independent I ever had, and I met some beautiful souls who I know I’ll get to call lifelong friends.

    That first step showed me that the unknown can be intimidating as hell, but if you choose to embrace it, it can open you up to so much growth.

    Here’s what I’ve learned from doing more things before I felt ready.

    It helps you grow your faith in yourself.

    It allows you to see things about yourself that maybe you wouldn’t normally see just doing the typical day-to-day things. By putting yourself in new (and hard) situations, you’re able to see yourself navigate the unfamiliar, and do so successfully. You not only learn how to do new things, but also see firsthand that you’re capable of so much more than you previously thought. This allows for greater trust in your feelings and intuition.

    You create a new baseline of bravery.

    When you start to build up this confidence in your ability to handle a variety of new situations, it creates this new sort of baseline. A new standard to which you hold yourself. In knowing you can handle more than you could before, you tend to then, in turn, expect more of yourself and function from a raised baseline of what you consider to be brave. Or in other words, it takes more to intimidate you. Less scares you. Which means you can do more.

    You find new ways to do things.

    It’s interesting how your mind can adapt. Sometimes when we get stuck on a certain plan, it hinders the outcome. For example, if we’re so focused on thinking we need to research art history for a year before we take up painting, that takes away a lot of our time and fun, doesn’t it?

    When you decide that you’re capable enough to get something done, the “how” somehow becomes less important. You become open to more possibilities and new ways of getting things done. In the painting example, maybe you open yourself up to the possibility that you’re too hard on yourself or that you don’t have to know all the history to enjoy the activity. Or maybe you realize you enjoy painting with your fingers even though all the artists you’ve read about used paintbrushes.

    You find more fulfillment.

    This openness created throughout the process of intentionally and repeatedly trusting yourself encourages you to try things that you wouldn’t typically delve into. You find it easier to follow your own curiosity, and things that once seemed silly suddenly seem intriguing.

    For me, this looked like following a spiritual nudge to sign up for Reiki training even though I knew nothing about it. This ended up leading to a mediumship practice that’s helped me and other people heal. When you build on things that make you happy, it only leads to more happiness.

    You become unstoppable.

    You start to see this confidence weaving into all aspects of your life. When you trust yourself over anyone and anything else, you’re not as easily shaken by what life throws at you. That’s not to say it’s always easy. Sometimes you need to make decisions you know are right for you, even though they’re difficult. And sometimes you know you need to take steps to start feeling happy before you’ll stop feeling sad.

    Emotions are complicated, but if you get to a point where you can hold space for them, you allow yourself to learn from them and work with them, and that is truly powerful.

  • How Embracing Grief Can Open Us Up to a Beautiful New Chapter

    How Embracing Grief Can Open Us Up to a Beautiful New Chapter

    “When we are brave enough to tend to our hearts, our messy emotions can teach us how to be free—not free from pain but free from the fear of pain and the barrier it creates to fully living.” ~Kris Carr

    It’s crazy how you go about your life thinking all is okay, and then BOOM, something happens that changes you forever. Grief and loss come and hit you in the face.

    You know… the days that you start as one person and end as someone else.

    But it’s not your first loss or trauma! You had a childhood of pain and suffering, which resurfaces when the latest loss happens.

    The old stories and beliefs you had about being jinxed come back. You think, “Maybe the world, the universe, or God does, in fact, hate me.”

    This has happened to me multiple times, and I thought I was a pro, especially since I help others process trauma in my work.

    The first big time was when I was twenty-six and a policeman called to tell me my dad—who had been an utter nightmare when I was growing up—had taken his life.

    In theory my life got easier without him, but that phone call triggered a lot of pain from enduring his abuse as a kid.

    I didn’t have the tools to deal with this pain, so I numbed my feelings with alcohol, busyness, helping others, and chasing after unavailable men.

    But I couldn’t outrun it anymore when another grief came along: the loss of the dream of a future with a man I loved deeply, who didn’t choose me or love me back.

    That second grief moment seems smaller and was nearly ten years after I lost my dad, but it seemed to affect me more. My way of surviving grief by running from it just wasn’t working anymore.

    The pain got so bad that I didn’t want to live. I felt hopeless and lost. I had to find different tools, as I wanted to move forward with my life. And find love. Running from my emotions was not helping me.

    This launched my path to healing, which started with self-help books, podcasts, and blogs like this one. I wanted to understand why this relationship-that-never-was had pushed me over the edge.

    I remember reading Facing Love Addiction by Pia Melody. It showed me that this pain I was feeling from the lost relationship was actually from my childhood.

    Slowly, I came back to my loss of my dad and the way he treated me when he was alive.

    I found my way to somatic therapy to help my body process what I had been through.

    I found other tools like mindfulness, emotional freedom technique (EFT) tapping, meditation, inner child work, journaling, and self-care practices. Slowly, I began to heal the past version of myself. The one who lost her dad at twenty-six and the child who didn’t get what she needed from him. Then the thirty-five-year-old who was grieving a relationship with a man who didn’t choose her.

    As the clouds parted I saw the light again through my healing. Therapy, the world of self-help, and personal development saved my life.

    I found a beautiful, healthy man to love me, and we got married. All my dreams were coming true. I even left the corporate world to help others, as I was passionate about the modalities that had changed my life.

    I genuinely believed I was fixed!

    Then the third big grief came along. Maybe small for some, but it rocked my world. I miscarried at ten weeks pregnant. A pregnancy that came so easily at forty was gone like a dream.

    I did the same thing I’d done when I lost my dad: I numbed myself. Mainly with my work and clients. Running a business keeps you busy and is a great escape from yourself. Soon, my friend wine was back to help too. I found all kinds of ways to escape the pain.

    But I couldn’t run from this grief for as long as I ran from my past griefs, as my biological clock was ticking loudly. It was time to try again for a baby, but I just couldn’t do it.

    I was frozen in fear.

    Numb from the loss.

    Not feeling good enough again.

    The darkness was back, and I was lost in it! Thoughts of giving up were back too.

    I thought I was healed! And helping others with their traumas. How could I be struggling with my own?

    Fortunately, I knew to use the same toolkit I had used the last time, but my nervous system was frozen in time.

    So I took baby steps to get help. It started like before, with books and podcasts. Like I was dipping my toe back in.

    I read a book specific to miscarriage loss, The Worst Girl Gang Ever by Bex Gunn and Laura Buckingham and, more recently, Kris Carr’s I am Not a Mourning Person.

    I started to invest in a space where I could process grief. This time, I chose to work with a somatic therapist who could help me release the trauma of this loss from my body through nervous system repair and also does integrated family systems (IFS) parts work. This helped me understand the parts of myself that do not want me to proceed with my dream of being a mum.

    Parts of our minds are trying to protect us and keep us safe. We shame and hate them for limiting us. But when we get to know them, we understand why they are holding us back. It’s such a beautiful way to get to know our inner selves.

    I also began to work with a coach who specializes in baby loss. I found resources and people that were specific to the pain I had experienced. Just how I did with my dad and the relationship loss previously.

    I did get pulled into my shadow behaviors like drinking wine, overworking, and eating sugar, as these had helped me in times of grief before. But they were just a plaster over my sadness and wouldn’t help me move forward to become a mother.

    I have uncovered that this loss is about my relationship with my body and the trauma that has been stored in it. And I have gone back to the childhood wounds around my body, related to my father constantly telling me I was fat, and how I have treated it.

    I have given myself space. To actually grieve. To cry. To be angry. To release.

    I am an EFT practitioner, so I use an EFT tapping technique to process any emotion right when I’m feeling it. In that moment.

    I don’t run from it. I sit with it. I allow myself to feel the discomfort of my emotions. The first time I did this, it brought back the loss I felt for my dad. My childhood. And every other relationship I lost along the way.

    No matter where you are on your journey of life, grief is something we all have in common. None of us escape it.

    We are guaranteed to experience it multiple times in our lives. We can numb and avoid it. We can run from it and let it sabotage our present. Or we can choose to meet it and love ourselves through it.

    After I lost my dad, running from my grief sabotaged my dreams of finding love with a healthy man. Facing it meant I was able to break that pattern. That is what allowing space for grief does.

    Years later, a miscarriage could have stopped me on my dream to have a family of my own. Because I didn’t want to face what this miscarriage brought up within me. The pain of the relationship with my body. How I spoke to it and treated it and what others had said to shame it.

    It is natural to want to avoid the pain. To run. But then you have to look at what the grief is holding you back from. A healthier, happier you. Your bigger dream and vision for your life.

    I had to change my calendar to literally create space for grief. To remove the busyness. To allow my nervous system to feel safe enough to process the grief.

    I decided to only spend time with people who could support me in it and socialize less so I could take really good care of myself. I canceled plans and just nourished myself all weekend with self-care.

    I am not going to pretend grief is not grim. You are allowed to be angry. Sad. All of the things. Don’t ignore your own emotions or try to ‘fix’ them. They don’t need to be fixed. They just need to be felt.

    Be a kind friend to yourself. Listen and allow yourself to cry. Slowly, the light starts to come in and you find your way out.

    It is such a brave thing to meet your grief.

    And just like I had to shed a mountain of grief before meeting my husband in order to start a new beautiful chapter, I know another one is on the other side of this miscarriage.

    Though I am still writing this chapter of my story, it has already taught me so much about coming home to my body. Allowing it to heal from all the traumas and repairing my nervous system after decades of dysregulation. Allowing myself and my body to feel safe enough to feel. After years of dissociation and pain, this chapter has brought a deeper healing.

    Wherever you are in your grief journey, take it slowly, one baby step at a time. Remember to be kind to yourself along the way. You can turn this grief, loss, and trauma into a new beginning.

    This moment too shall pass. Like the others before it and the ones that will come after it.

    We can’t control when these dark times come, but we can be brave enough to move through them by giving ourselves love and getting the right help for ourselves and our needs.

    Be with it and it will pass much more quickly than it would otherwise and cause less damage to your beautiful life.

    Healing has many seasons, and grief is like the winter, but spring soon comes with the buds of your new chapter.

  • The Epiphany That Freed Me from My Body Obsession

    The Epiphany That Freed Me from My Body Obsession

    “Your body is precious. It is your vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha

    What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear or see the word fitness? Do you think of an Olympic power lifting athlete, gymnast, or swimmer? The way we interpret and respond to the word fitness is a driver of physical health, but also our mental health.

    From a young age I associated health with fitness, which, to me, meant fitter is better. Society fed me the image of perfection. And so the chase of fitness became a moving target that could never be achieved.

    “I am strong, I am healthy,” I thought. I saw my physique as evidence of my ever-improving health. My fatigue and sore muscles were the price to pay for optimal health, or so I believed.

    Friends, family, folks at the gym, even strangers reaffirmed me by complimenting me on my body. This fueled my desire to continue “improving” my fitness.

    Like a house, foundation cracks take time to become problematic. For a while the cracks may go unnoticed. But then one day, leaks from a heavy rain begin to appear.

    Swapping nutrition for calorie-dense meals. Chugging shakes void of any enjoyment. Eating was becoming a chore and was no longer guided by my hunger, but instead by the precisely calculated macro nutrients needed to ensure I was meeting my calorie requirements to grow my muscles.

    Physically, I looked good, but I didn’t feel good. “What is wrong with me?” I wondered. I began to search for answers.

    Did I have low testosterone? Were there chemical imbalances that could be blamed for my insomnia, low mood, irritability, and anxiety?

    We hear these things all the time: Exercise your way to a better mood! Exercise helps you sleep! A fit body equals a fit mind!

    I ignored the cracks in the foundation for a while. It was easy given all the positive feedback I was receiving. I kept lying to myself: “This is happiness. I am happy!”

    I travel a lot. I enjoy seeing other cultures and meeting people. However, travel previously presented a problem: deviation from my exercise routine, thus derailing my goal of improved fitness.

    Even preparing for a trip became problematic. I’d find gyms at my destination and ensure the schedule or itinerary could accommodate.

    I never considered that I had an underlying issue as it related to my exercise, fitness, and physique because, again, society and everyone around me were telling me I was healthy in spoken and unspoken ways.

    The Cracks Begin to Worsen

    Fitness is not exponential. In fact, it is quite the opposite. “Gains” are more easily acquired when starting out and have diminishing returns as time passes. Despite knowing this concept from a biological perspective, logic didn’t win the day.

    Eventually, my time and energy yielded fewer tangible results. Maintaining what I had built took diligent planning in terms of nutrition and other activities. Simply stated, my physique started to rule my every move.

    Still naïve to the reality of what was going on, I decided my hormones must have been out of whack. While my testosterone was on the low end, it wasn’t terribly out of range. Even still, I decided to leap into the world of TRT (testosterone replacement therapy) in hopes that this would give me the boost I needed. (Note: This was under the supervision of a physician.)

    Again, the external affirmations began to flow. But something else happened, something more serious. I began paying the price for this new boost in the form of side effects.

    Insight: The Side Effect I Needed

    By now my life was entirely run by my desire for more “fitness.” But I began to wonder, “Do I really want to do this for the rest of my life?” I then experienced somewhat of an epiphany.

    The side effects and challenges with TRT served as a desperately needed wakeup call. I began to scrutinize my goals. I asked, “Are these goals serving me as a whole person? How could I have gotten so far off course? How did my passion for fitness and my desire for self-improvement lead me here? What am I doing to my body?”

    I realized with crystal clarity that I had conflated fitness for health and wellness. And more importantly, I started to understand that “fitness” should not be achieved at the expense of emotional and mental wellness. Fitness does not equal health.

    For some this might sound like a no-brainer. I knew that anxiety disorders and obsessive/compulsive disorders exist. What I didn’t know is that the phenomenon I was experiencing is far more prevalent than one can imagine.

    Blurred Lines

    We are fed from a very young age that fitness means strong, fast, and powerful, and that fitness is something you can see. My goodness, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

    We are told to exercise and that exercise is good. And exercise is good, in moderation. However, unhealthy exercise is increasingly becoming problematic for a significant number of people worldwide. The obsession of supranormal musculature has gone from nonexistent to shockingly prevalent over the past half century.

    The line between healthy exercise and too much is often blurry because, on the surface, fitness looks healthy. We look at someone with a six-pack and think, “Oh, they’re healthy,” when in reality we have absolutely no way to holistically determine someone’s health just by looking at them.

    As I mentioned before, the calorie-stuffing and arguably obsessive-compulsive behaviors around eating take place at alarming levels in the “fitness” world.

    Body dysmorphia comes in many shades and is defined as a mental health condition where a person spends an excessive amount of time worrying about their appearance (Mayo Clinic).

    Accepting that I suffered from body dysmorphia was both freeing and disappointing. Freeing because I was no longer blind to the true source of my difficulties. Disappointing because I felt powerless on so many levels.

    Somewhere along the line the fruits of my exercise had become a source of validation for my worth and existence. Sure, being strong and fit is good, but at some point, that goal was 100 miles behind me.

    My New Perspective

    The side effects served as my awakening, and it was time to get to work. I know first-hand, from my work, that changing one’s perspective, though difficult, is doable. So I made it my mission.

    This process was slow. Relearning is as much biological as it is emotional in that creating new neurocircuitry doesn’t happen overnight.

    I started to conceptualize fitness as more than the summation of strength or speed. What if I include what I can’t see: how I feel, physically and emotionally?

    I reassessed my values and started making sure my goals were in sync with them.

    This new way of thinking demanded that I approach fitness and self-improvement from the inside out, not the outside in. The driving goal became a desire to feel whole, content, and enough.

    Before, I felt physically drained and fatigued. Emotionally, I felt empty, shallow, and lost. My motivation was external. My relationship with my body was one of disrespect.

    It took time, but I am now able to see physical activity in a new light—as a way to keep my body operating optimally. My relationship with food is driven by my desire to fuel my temple, to connect with nature as a sustaining source of life, and to replenish and nourish my life.

    Where I am Today

    I push myself physically, but not in the same way as before. Today, my body is my temple. I exercise several times a week, but I listen closely to my body’s whispers. Soreness and fatigue are signals that it is time for rest.

    I believe fitness is the byproduct of health, not the driving force. To me, fitness is not the reflection in the mirror. Fitness is how I feel physically and emotionally. Fitness is feeling whole.

    The improved relationship I have with myself is proving to be worth it many times over. My relationships with those close to me have improved. I feel at ease in the company of others because I’m not waiting for their affirmation to boost my self-worth.

    I know there will be good days, weeks, and months along with bad. But now that I have had a taste of stillness and peace, I am confident the good will outweigh the bad.

    My body is my best friend. I now treat it as such.

  • How I Healed My Anxiety with Simple Mindfulness Practices

    How I Healed My Anxiety with Simple Mindfulness Practices

    “Every step taken in mindfulness brings us one step closer to healing ourselves and the planet.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    When I returned from an extended stay in India at the beginning of this year, I was full of worries and uncertainty. Since I was coming back to a very different life, I had no idea what was next.

    I was without a job but determined to build my coaching business full-time. However, I felt lost as to where I was going to be within the next few months and how I was going to figure things out.

    Eventually, I settled down and started to think. I desperately wanted to go back, but I knew I had to take care of my responsibilities in the states before I could leave again.

    I started to work on my business and was lucky to get a few yoga classes to teach. However, the uncertainty of finances was weighing on me.

    I was always a person who planned my life and took only the safest steps. Suddenly, I was living day by day, not knowing what was going to happen or how I was going to take care of myself. It felt incredibly liberating and scary at the same time.

    After a few months, I got a severe infection in my tooth. Since, at that time, I was without insurance, I did anything I could to avoid visiting a dentist. One night it got so bad, I almost ran to an emergency room.

    At the same time, I developed tremors in my body while becoming increasingly fatigued and lethargic. This got me worried. At first, I thought it was due to the infection in my tooth. However, once the tooth was out, lethargy, fatigue, and shaking persisted.

    A couple of weeks later, my entire chest and face developed some allergic reaction that had no logical explanation.

    Due to all these unexpected and unexplainable health events, I felt desperate and powerless. One day, after another episode of intense tremors and lethargy, I drove to my friend to measure my blood pressure. After she told me my pressure was in perfect condition, I broke down crying. I had no idea what was going on.

    Although I knew that googling my symptoms was the last thing I should do, I did it anyway. No matter what I put in a search, anxiety seemed to be on the top of the list. I reflected on the past couple of months and realized I had been under tremendous pressure. I became increasingly pessimistic and afraid, always turning to a worst-case scenario.

    It was no surprise that this took a toll on my body.

    Since I had some knowledge and understanding of neuroscience and how negative thoughts affect the body, I realized something. If I can make myself sick and anxious by thoughts alone, I can make myself healthy, can’t I?

    Here is what I decided to do.

    1. I began a daily mindfulness practice.

    I knew that to heal my anxiety, I had to be super conscious of what was going on in my head. One thing I understood was that anxiety is worrying about the future, which hasn’t happened yet.

    To sharpen my awareness, I set an alarm for every hour of the day to check in with myself. Once the alarm went off, I asked myself, “How am I feeling? What am I thinking?”

    This allowed me to become more aware of subtle thoughts of worries and negativity.

    Through this daily exercise, I realized how negative I could be. The moment things didn’t go as I wanted them to, it threw me off course and created internal panic.

    I also incorporated mindfulness meditation and pranayama into my daily yoga and meditation practice. First, I would do different breathing exercises I learned in India to activate my parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for relaxation. Then, I would sit in silence while focusing on my breath and observing my thoughts.

    Every time a thought of worry entered my mind, I reminded myself that this was only a thought, and it wouldn’t have a meaning unless I gave it one.

    2. I focused on possibilities instead of obstacles.

    Although I was less than thrilled about my fear and anxiety, I understood that these emotions were here to tell me something. If it wasn’t for them, I would never have begun paying such close attention to the way I think.

    After recognizing how I was bringing myself down, I decided to create a more uplifting and positive environment around me.

    I have a big chalkboard above my worktable that I use to write positive affirmations, simple reminders, or quotes that feel empowering. I took a sock from my drawer and wiped everything on it clean.

    Then I grabbed my white chalk marker and wrote in giant letters, “What is the BEST thing that could happen?”

    This question was a reminder for me every day that where my focus goes, energy flows. If I wanted to heal my anxiety, I had to learn to better self-regulate.

    I also understood that instead of pushing my ‘negative’ thoughts away, I could attune to them, listen to them, and understand where they were coming from. They weren’t barriers but healing opportunities.

    For example, I had lots of negative thoughts regarding finances. I felt like a victim because my parents weren’t able to support me through difficult times. Once I ended my pity party, I realized I was holding many limiting beliefs about money and that I didn’t believe I was worthy of having more. So I started learning about investing and the mindset needed for financial health, and it’s changed the way I view and handle money ever since.

    3. I welcomed solitude.

    After realizing that anxiety has been a big part of my life for years, I decided to spend more time in solitude.

    The interesting thing about this was that it felt natural. I didn’t feel as if I was missing out on something. As a matter of fact, it gave me space to reflect on my past. I realized there were so many wounds I’d never healed and pains I’d never acknowledged.

    I also understood that living in a state of anxiety was my normal way of being. My mind and body were accustomed to feeling the emotions of stress and worry, and I didn’t even know it.

    My time in solitude allowed me to see when my anxiety spiked and what kept it alive. Aside from understanding the link between anxiety and my thoughts, I noticed other situations that brought stress. For example, I worried about what people thought of me, placed my worth on reaching my goals, was inauthentic to be liked, or wanted to control things outside of myself.

    When I uncovered these blind spots, I fell in love with solitude. It also gave me more space and time to practice mindfulness and become much better at recognizing when anxiety was creeping in.

    4. I incorporated mindfulness into my regular tasks.

    One of my habits was scrolling through recipes on social media while eating. Although I live alone and there isn’t anyone to distract me with conversations, I realized that I wasn’t mindful of eating at all.

    I decided to put my phone down and observe the taste of the food, the texture, how many times I chewed it, and how I enjoyed it.

    When I went for my evening walk, instead of listening to music or an audiobook, I simply walked. I observed my breath, heartbeat, and the world around me—houses I passed by or palm trees, which were everywhere.

    This intentional mindfulness practice helped me grasp the present moment while realizing that now is all that’s here. As my guru often says, we can’t change this moment; we can only accept it. However, the next moment contains a million possibilities, and if we are present and aware, we can choose how to proceed.

    —

    After about a month of following these steps, something amazing happened.

    I realized that my anxiety was almost gone and my skin rash had completely disappeared, and I was full of energy and optimism. Although my outside situation hadn’t changed much, the way I perceived life and how much I trusted myself had.

    Since then, I sometimes sense anxiety wanting to come in. I immediately feel a slight vibration in my limbs, and my heartbeat rises.

    The moment I observe it, I know it’s time to pause and turn inward because that’s where my healing always takes place.

  • How to Free Yourself from Pain from the Past

    How to Free Yourself from Pain from the Past

    “There are two levels to your pain: the pain that you create now, and the pain from the past that still lives on in your mind and body.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    When I read this quote, it stopped me in my tracks. So much of our pain and suffering in the present is caused by us repeating cycles and dwelling on pain from the past. We want so badly to resolve our suffering. But our search for resolution often involves repeating the painful cycles we have already been through, in the hope that someone or something will change.

    How many of us have gone through a divorce and realized in the process that the whole relationship was a repeat of a painful relationship from our childhood? How many of us are realizing that we continue to attract the same kinds of people into our lives? People who take advantage of us, want to use us, or have some form of agenda that creates more pain and suffering.

    We live in our minds trying to think of all the ways we can protect ourselves and avoid more pain and suffering. The irony is that this inevitably creates more of what we are trying to avoid. This is because what we focus on, we create. The law of attraction is always at play.

    For years, I lived highly dependent on my mind. I thought that if I got all the psychology degrees, considered all possible future outcomes, and created a well-thought-out plan of action, I would be able to fix my pain and suffering and free myself for a life of meaning and purpose.

    It was devastating to realize after years of chasing a meaningful life that I could not create safety, joy, and purpose through the actions of my mind.

    Subconsciously, I stayed trapped in cycles of pain while trying to resolve my past by hoping the people around me would change. I kept my life small so I could stay in control. I never wanted to be around crowds of people. I never wanted to share and be vulnerable, and I never wanted to let anyone see my feelings. I stayed hidden away behind my mind, where I felt in control and safe.

    But I also felt miserable. Empty and purposeless. For a while, I was suicidal.

    Thankfully, I left those feelings behind years ago, but the emptiness of going through the motions of life without a true connection to what I was doing or why I was here remained, and it was maddening.

    I have found that more people feel this emptiness than anyone would ever think. Many of us keep it hidden in the silence of shame because we desperately want it to be fixed and go away. It’s embarrassing to admit that we feel broken and sad behind all the layers of achievement and pretty social media posts.

    We attempt to fill this emptiness with eating, drinking, scrolling, having sex, shopping, collecting things, and so on. So many of us are terrified at the thought of spending a whole day, much less a whole lifetime, being alone with ourselves. Being with ourselves with no distractions.

    The thoughts in our mind haunt us. We torture ourselves with memories from the past and worries for the future. We torture ourselves with thoughts of how disappointed we are in how our lives have turned out. We recreate pain from the past over and over again by dwelling on the twisted and tormented thoughts in our minds and feel that life is unfair.

    Many people will tell you the answer is praying, reading the bible, going to a therapist, reading self-help books, or doing something with your mind. None of these things are bad in and of themselves, but no amount of staying in your mind will fix or heal the pain of your past that you continue to repeat in the present.

    Unresolved emotions of the past are stored in our bodies, and they’re in the driver’s seat of our lives, causing chaos, disappointment, and frustration everywhere we go.

    I used to think I was really bad at making friends. I usually would wait until someone approached me before striking up a friendship. I isolated a lot because it just felt safer and easier. Over time, I got frustrated because I realized that I kept ending up in these friendships with people who never really saw me.

    My pain and fear of rejection was in the driver’s seat, so I protected myself by keeping the real me hidden away. If I caught anyone’s attention, I would play the role I thought I needed to play to be friends.

    The biggest problem here is that this attracted other people who also played roles instead of being their authentic selves. The role they played was “take care of me,” while I was playing the role of “I’ll take care of you.” This match worked well initially, but always left me in the same broken pattern of not being truly seen. That empty crater in my soul just kept getting bigger and bigger.

    The only way to stop the cycle of pain is to become fully present with yourself here and now. To connect to your body and the spirit within you that is ever present.

    When you drop into your body and feel your emotions, you are then free to just be. So many of us are terrified of the silence of being with ourselves because the pain of the past combined with our present actions to distract ourselves haunt us. The secrets we hold inside are killing us.

    You aren’t a bad person for the things you do to find some form of pain relief. Life isn’t about being a good or bad person. It is about being authentic, real, and connected, or disconnected and fragmented because of the cycles of pain on repeat.

    Are you tired of the constant disappointment? Are you tired of hating yourself and your life? Are you tired of feeling like you are always behind, not quite enough, and devastatingly empty inside? It is so painful, isn’t it? It is so painful to feel the destruction and pain of the disconnection to our true selves. It is painful to face the things we do to distract ourselves from the reality of our emptiness.

    Healing happens in the body. Pain is released from your body. Get out of your mind and into your body and you will be set free. You will experience peace and joy. You will stop the cycles of pain and be at peace with the present moment just as it is. 

    I know it feels impossibly hard. There is so much chaos swirling around in your body that it feels dangerous to actually feel your feelings. A great quote from my mentor, Colin Ross, helped set me free. “Feeling your feelings won’t kill you; it’s your attempt to not feel them that will.”

    It is uncomfortable, it is painful, it can be overwhelming at times, but feeling your feelings will set you free.

    Here is a place to start: Play some music that brings you comfort and close your eyes. Pretend you are getting in a glass elevator in your mind and ride it down into your body. Once the elevator has arrived in your body, identify the emotions you find. Write them down.

    Lower the elevator a little more and see if different emotions are in a different part of your body. Explore your whole body and write down everything you discover.

    For the days to come, spend some time with each of those emotions and ask them what they have to say. Give each emotion a name if it’s easier. Once you feel more comfortable with an emotion, you will feel safer to actually feel it. 

    For example, when I ride my elevator down into my chest, I can see anger. I named my anger Carrie. In my journaling time I ask Carrie, what do you have to say? She tells me all the reasons why she is angry and feels that life is unfair.

    She tells me about my former marriage and how much I was taken advantage of. She reminds me of all the times he silenced me when I tried to share my needs and shamed me when I tried to speak up for myself.

    She tells me about how enraged she feels that I never had a voice growing up. I was sexually abused and emotionally neglected, and if I expressed any emotion other than happiness, I was shamed and rejected by my family and culture. She is so angry for the “good girl” roles I had to play while never really being seen or valued.

    As I get to know her and hear all of these things she has to say, I feel compassion for her and also start to feel anger along with her myself. Each time I connect with her, I validate why she is angry. The intensity of her emotion gets smaller and smaller the more I connect with her and feel her.

    You can do this exercise with all emotions, and it can help you get to know yourself and not be so scared of what is contained inside. 

    When neither your past nor your emotions haunt you, you are free to love your life in the present moment just as it is. Flawed, imperfect, messy, and unpredictable.

    Now that I’m not scared of feeling my emotions, I am at peace. Sometimes I still need to grieve the truth of what has happened to me. I will never be okay with the abuse and neglect I experienced. However, I can feel those emotions when they come up, and they don’t overwhelm me. I feel them for that moment, and then I can move on to enjoy the life I have created now. A life that has people who really see me and care about me in it.

    Perhaps the biggest change for me is that I don’t feel I have to prove my worth to anyone. I am just me, and I feel at peace with that. This shift has allowed me to get out of my head and just be.

    We don’t need to dwell on the past or control how our life looks or what will happen next. We can just be here in the present, full of gratitude, hope, love, joy, and all the messiness from the past lives we have lived.

  • If You Aren’t Happy with Yourself and Your Life Right Now…

    If You Aren’t Happy with Yourself and Your Life Right Now…

    “For the person that needs to see this today: Your heart will heal, your tears will dry, your season will change. Rest tonight knowing the storm will end.” ~Unknown

    When I was fifteen, I officially started engaging in the diet scene. As a teenager who was trying to fit in, feel pretty, and gain acceptance, I thought that food was the fix. Food—or the lack of it—would be the solution to all my problems. All that thought really did was make everything worse.

    As a child, I would visit Europe every other year, to visit family. The culture and the outspoken nature of the people there, often relatives or family friends, were sometimes soul-crushing to me. I understood the language, so I knew that when I would meet someone, they would inevitably say, (not in these exact words, but pretty bluntly, if I do say so myself), “She’s chubby.”

    I would cringe inside. I would want to hide. I would want to cry.

    But instead, I just smiled and pretended I didn’t understand. It was easier to do that than to show them how I really felt inside, which was awful.

    Disgusted with myself. Embarrassed. Ugly.

    When I think about it now, thirty years later, I feel so bad for my younger self. I took all of the criticism from these unknown people and turned it inward.

    I absorbed it. I believed it was true. How could I be anything but chubby?

    And if I was chubby, and that was the first thing people noticed about me (other than my blue eyes), wasn’t that the most important thing?

    It didn’t matter that I was kind, creative, or sensitive. Just chubby. That was the theme of my life once I became aware of it.

    It got to the point where I started restricting what I was eating. At the time, it felt like I finally had willpower. I felt in control.

    It was the beginning of the chaos for me. I lost about forty pounds in a short time and ended up with some health complications. But I felt skinny! I felt pretty.

    Over time, I found myself in a high school relationship and gained some weight back. I don’t remember too many of the details after this point, but I remember that when that relationship failed, I reverted right back to bad habits with food.

    My eating disorder reared its ugly head throughout college. I kept it mostly to myself. I tried to deal with my problems alone, too embarrassed to tell anyone.

    Again, it caused a health flare-up that finally pushed me to get the help I needed. I knew I needed to change. I knew the life I was living was not good for me anymore.

    I wanted to find peace in the new. I wanted to change my life and move forward. I worked really hard on changing my mindset, pushing myself to be uncomfortable, and healing myself from the inside out.

    I found Reiki, a type of energy healing, and it helped me focus my energy on something positive. Instead of worrying about what I ate for the day, I focused on filling my body with positive energy.

    I started thinking about my thoughts. I changed the negative thoughts into slightly more positive ones. Then, as I got practice, the slightly positive thoughts turned into actual positive thoughts.

    I began healing my thoughts by changing my mindset, focusing on my health, and making choices that my mind, body, and spirit would approve of. It was not easy, but man, was it worth it.

    Looking back, I am proud of who I am, who I was, and how I transformed. I know it was a long ten years of self-punishment, but I think it shaped me into who I am today.

    It helped me become more empathetic. It helped me learn coping skills. It helped me learn that it’s okay to feel my feelings (and share them with others!).

    My experience living with an eating disorder could have ruined me. It could have physically, mentally, and emotionally ruined me. Instead, I used it and turned it into a lesson of strength.

    I learned to put myself first. I learned to put my health first. I learned to fight for myself. I learned that hard work was THE work. There is no getting around it.

    Nothing in life comes easily. I think if something come easily for us, it is easy to forget about it. In a way, it loses its value.

    For the things that we need to work at are the things that bring the most growth. Blood, sweat, and tears they say, right? That’s the value. That’s growth.

    This story is a reminder, for me as much as for anyone else who needs to hear it, that you can do the hard things. You are not stuck. There is always room for change, for growth.

    If you are not happy with yourself or your life right now, take some steps to make yourself happy. Find someone you trust and talk to them. Find a mentor or a therapist. Practice self-care.

    Immerse yourself in something that uplifts your energy. Read a self-help book. Get your body moving. (Physical movement can really help shake up stagnant energy!)

    Empower yourself to make the changes you need to make. Picture your life as you want it to be, then take steps to turn that vision into reality.

    Baby steps are still steps. Slow growth is still growth. Keep moving forward. Keep growing.

    When the life you had is not good for you anymore, do something—anything—to change it. You don’t need to remain stuck or unhappy.

    Once you start taking care of yourself in this way, a whole new world will open up for you.

    A world where self-love, self-compassion, and self-growth surround you. A world where you can finally love the parts of you that you never thought were worthy of love. A world where you are wonderful, just the way you are.

    Oh, what a wonderful new world that would be.

  • How to Slow Down and Take Care of Yourself

    How to Slow Down and Take Care of Yourself

    “You are worth the quiet moment. You are worth the deeper breath. You are worth the time it takes to slow dow, be still and rest.” ~Morgan Harper Nichols

    “It’s great to see you without three laptops and two phones,” my cardiologist quipped. I nodded, remembering how, a year earlier, I’d sat in the ICU tethered to my to-do list while having a heart attack. Even as the doctors were attaching wires and monitors to me, I couldn’t put my laptop down. I believed that everything would fall apart if I stopped to take care of myself.

    It had taken two years—and a lot of work—but I was no longer the same person who’d sat in the ICU, unable to disconnect from work.

    “Your EKG looks great,” my doctor announced. “You are perfect!”

    “I’m not sure what you are doing, but keep doing it,” he added, after letting me know that my blood pressure was back to its baseline (which, for me, runs lower than average). Not only that, but I could also discontinue several of the medications he’d prescribed after my heart attack.

    I’d met him in the emergency room of the local hospital, and thankfully, he recognized that, although I was not clutching my chest and my symptoms were not typical, I was having a heart attack. Just four weeks earlier, I’d gotten cardiac clearance from another cardiologist, so a heart attack hadn’t even crossed my mind.

    But come to find out, I had a 90% blockage in my left main artery. A stent was placed, and I dutifully showed up to all my follow-up appointments, though I always hauled my laptops and phones along with me, still unable to disconnect.

    As a woman—specifically as a woman of color—I thought I had to carry the world. I had to prove myself. I had to show that I wouldn’t drop any balls, no matter what was going on in my personal life. I always had to be going, doing, striving. I didn’t believe I could just sit, rest, and take time to be.

    But with time, and a lot of work, I slowly learned how to take care of myself. I left my corporate career (and a seventy-eight-mile commute) and realized that my priorities needed to shift. Today, I look back at the woman clutching her laptops in the ICU, and I am thankful I am no longer stuck in the place of believing I couldn’t disconnect to take care of myself.

    These are the lessons I learned as I healed. If you, too, need to learn how to slow down and take care of yourself, I hope these lessons can help you on your journey.

    Sleep

    I know that getting at least eight hours of sleep is some of the oldest advice in the book when it comes to taking care of yourself, but it’s also some of the most ignored. How many times have you heard that advice and shrugged it off, thinking, “That’s fine for other people, but it doesn’t apply to me?”

    I used to brag about how I could get away with only four or five hours of sleep a night, and while I was technicallygetting away with it, I was doing damage to my body in the process. Sleep is critical.

    According to the NIH, “Good sleep improves your brain performance, mood, and health. Not getting enough quality sleep regularly raises the risk of many diseases and disorders. These range from heart disease and stroke to obesity and dementia.” (NIH, April, 2021). 

    Self-care

    It’s taken me a long time to get to a place where I can make time for myself without feeling guilty (as evidenced by the three laptops and two phones I took with me to the ICU), but I’ve finally realized that taking intentional time for myself helps me recharge. That’s nothing to feel guilty about.

    Sometimes self-care is as simple as pampering myself with a homemade face mask or taking a relaxing bath with candles. Other times, I splurge on a full spa day. Pushing myself to run on empty doesn’t do anyone any favors—not only is it a quick path to burnout for me, I also am unable to give my best self to my responsibilities if I’m exhausted and drained.

    Exercise

    I’m not running any marathons, but I’m dedicated to walking daily. Getting my steps in is an easy but effective way to make sure that I’m exercising. I don’t need any special equipment, and I can walk anywhere.

    Research shows that even short bursts of walking (like taking the stairs instead of the elevator or choosing to park on the far side of the parking lot) can make a difference. You don’t have to embark on a complicated, time-intensive, or expensive exercise routine to make a difference in your health; just put one foot in front of the other.

    New experiences

    Life is meant to be enjoyed. Opening yourself up to new experiences changes your perspective. Whether I’m planning a trip to a country I’ve always wanted to visit, or I’m choosing to enjoy a drive on the back roads with an audiobook playing instead of fighting the turnpike, doing something a little out of the ordinary makes me appreciate life more. Next up: I’m planning on taking a cooking class to get out of my comfort zone in the kitchen.

    Family time

    Whether I’m planning a date night with my husband of twenty-eight years or spending the day with my daughter or my dad, spending time with my family is a crucial part of my well-being. When my mom passed away in June of 2022, the reality that we never know how many days we have left hit me hard. Making the most of the time I have with my family gives my life meaning and purpose.

    Learning to meditate

    I’d heard about the benefits of meditation for years and had even given it a half-hearted try a few times. But after my heart attack, I knew I needed to figure out a way to clear my thoughts and calm my mind. I gave meditation another shot, and this time, it worked. Now, daily meditation is a key part of my routine, and I’m finally seeing the benefits I’ve heard others talk about for years (like lower blood pressure, better sleep, and less anxiety).

    If you feel like you are carrying the weight of the world, like if you stop to take a breath everything will crumble, I’m here to tell you: that’s not true. You can (and should) take time to take care of yourself.

    Learn from my lessons before you end up trying to tackle your to-do list from the ICU.

  • Emotionally Overwhelmed? 5 Simple Practices That Can Help

    Emotionally Overwhelmed? 5 Simple Practices That Can Help

    “Whatever you’re feeling, it will eventually pass. You won’t feel sad forever. At some point, you will feel happy again. You won’t feel anxious forever. In time, you will feel calm again. You don’t have to fight your feelings or feel guilty for having them. You just have to accept them and be good to yourself while you ride this out. Resisting your emotions and shaming yourself will only cause you more pain, and you don’t deserve that. You deserve your own love, acceptance, and compassion.”  ~Lori Deschene

    One cry a day. I have used this four-word phrase to defend my personality for over a decade.

    “I always cry at least once a day,” I explain in jest to a new co-worker who is watching in bewilderment as tears roll down my cheeks. She is surprised that letting me cut her in the restroom line elicited such an emotional response. I assure her that the tears are not “bad” and it is not her “fault.” In fact, crying is frequently my go-to response to relatively arbitrary, fleeting moments.

    Whatever the emotion, whether it be joy, gratitude, surprise, fear, sadness… you name it, I’ll cry it. The tendency to cry is not a recently acquired characteristic. I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember. I now know that I was born with an emotionally sensitive temperament; however, as a child, I was like, “What is happening to me?!”

    My first memory of being overpowered by emotions is from the day my younger sister was born.

    When I was six years old, my mom was pregnant with her fourth child. I was tired of being the female meat patty sandwiched between two male bread slices (my brothers), and I fantasized about having a baby sister. On September 14, 1995, Mimi, Aunt Sheila, Eddie, Joe, and I sat around the dining room table in the kitchen of my childhood home in Southern California while my mom and dad were in the hospital.

    I (im)patiently awaited the life-changing news, and the phone rang after what seemed like hours. My Aunt Sheila answered and quickly exclaimed, “It’s a girl!” She held my small hands, and we jumped up and down.

    I quickly noticed something odd… I was sobbing. What the heck was happening? I thought I wanted a baby sister?! With tears streaming down my face, I looked up to my aunt with fear in my eyes, “Why am I crying?” Aunt Sheila crouched down, smiled gently, and assured me that my tears were not the “bad” kind—these were happy tears.

    This moment taught me that there are different types of cries and, more importantly, highlighted a greater personal truth: I am a very emotional person. I do not believe that I have overactive tear ducts; the crying is a concrete representation of my emotions. I follow those tears—my emotions guide me.

    High sensitivity is a quality that many possess, especially therapists. “It is good to be in touch with my emotions,” I remind myself during my daily cry. “It’s why I can do the work that I do.”

    Growing up, emotional sensitivity impacted my daily life, mainly because big feelings are typically connected to thoughts, physiological sensations, action urges, and behaviors. Big emotions can feel like a tornado whirling me up. Sometimes, the ability to genuinely experience these emotions is exhilarating. Who wouldn’t want to be the girl simultaneously tearing up and jumping up and down because she is so overwhelmingly excited to hear Whitney Houston’s 1987 hit “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”?

    Though the flow of tears can be a response to nearly any emotion, I often cry because I am experiencing a less pleasant one. These more difficult feelings are the other side of the girl who is beyond elated because a kind soul allowed her to cut the bathroom line. Unfortunately, humans can’t pick and choose feelings, so I get the wanted ones with the unwanted ones.

    At some point during high school, “one cry a day” was no longer a mantra but a benchmark to aspire to: to cry only one time in twenty-four hours. Such emotional reactivity was too much for my self-conscious teenage self. The intensity of the emotion was now coupled with shame and embarrassment.

    I believed I was getting too old to respond so emotionally to situations that were “no big deal.” A running internal monologue informed me that everyone around me had more self-control. My inability to handle my emotions was a clear sign that something was seriously wrong with me.

    Riding a daily rollercoaster of emotion was exhausting—exhilarating highs were quickly followed by stomach-dropping lows. By the end of high school, I had discovered that I could mediate these ups and downs through a series of behaviors that developed into an eating disorder.

    Over the next two years, the quick tricks became compulsive obsessions, steadily increasing in frequency; in time, I needed the eating disorder rituals to function because, without them, the emotional intensity of my daily experience was too much.

    In college, I struggled to leave my room, go to class, or socialize with friends without the help of my little friend E.D. (short for eating disorder). After realizing that, despite my desperate determination, I could not stop these behaviors, I begrudgingly went to see a school counselor.

    Through weekly cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) sessions beginning my sophomore year of college, I learned that the eating disorder had very little to do with food or weight; it was a way of coping. CBT taught me that my thoughts and feelings about myself led to my actions.

    Even after a year of CBT, my understanding of my emotional sensitivity and eating disorder was limited. I was still engaging in eating disorder behaviors on occasion, my relapses correlating to stress levels, and after a tumultuous transition to New York City—nearly ten years after I first developed my eating disorder—the frequency of disordered thoughts and behaviors escalated to a crippling peak. E.D. had won the decade-long game of tug o’ war; my consolation prize was intensive eating disorder treatment.

    In treatment, I was introduced to the ultimate game-changer: dialectical behavior therapy (DBT).

    American psychologist Marsha Linehan (1993) developed DBT in the early 1990s as a treatment for women diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). DBT is an approach to therapy that combines behavioral sciences and Zen practices, proposing that pathology is rooted in an inability to regulate emotion.

    Though I considered myself to be in touch with my emotions, DBT taught me that I was actively resisting and engaging them, which increased the intensity of the painful feelings. The avoidance resulted in an undercurrent of persistent emotional overloading, leading to increased behaviors—the unending cycle felt impenetrable and unbreakable.

    The philosophy of DBT rang true for me, providing me with a compassionate understanding of my emotional vulnerability and the intense shame that I carried as a result of my sensitivity. During treatment, I developed new ways to tolerate and regulate emotion, which ultimately helped me to break the relentless cycle that I felt stuck in before treatment. I learned to ride the waves of my feelings.

    While sharing all of the amazing things I’ve learned in treatment and as a therapist is not within this blog post’s scope, I want to discuss my five favorite skills from DBT and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT is like a sister therapy of DBT, and it’s great because it teaches us to stop fighting our feelings.

    1. Stop and notice.

    When intense feelings come roaring in, hit the brakes. Take a moment to identify what’s happening inside you.

    Ask yourself: What emotion am I experiencing? What physical sensations am I feeling (like that knot in your stomach or a racing heart)? Where in my body do I feel these sensations? What thoughts are taking center stage? What are my instincts pushing me to do?

    Remember, the goal isn’t to label your emotions perfectly; it’s simply to hit pause and observe. This empowers you to make choices rather than having emotions dictate your actions. Initially, this can be very difficult because we may feel like we are in a tornado of thoughts, sensations, and urges. Keep practicing—it becomes easier over time.

    2. Describe nonjudgmentally.

    Articulate your inner experiences using factual, nonjudgmental language. It’s like talking out loud to an impartial observer.

    For instance, say, “I’m having the thought that things are hard,” or “I’m experiencing a pounding sensation in my chest.”

    Remember: When we are emotional, we want to judge ourselves (i.e., “I shouldn’t be feeling this way!”). Do your best to notice when you are judging your experiences as “good” or “bad.” Judgments often fuel emotional reactivity. By sticking to the facts, you are taking steps to regulate your emotions.

    3. Try “defusing.”

    Defusion is my favorite skill from ACT! It’s a made-up word that teaches us how to create space between our internal experiences (thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, memories, images) and who we are.

    When working with clients, I ask them to think about their emotions as tinted sunglasses. When they feel a big feeling, they see the world through that emotion. Defusion is taking off those shades! You deliberately look at your emotions (like a scientist observing a lab experiment), rather than looking through your feelings (like a person with sunglasses on seeing only a tinted version of the world). There are many defusion strategies, but I encourage you to try this one:

    Say, “I am having the feeling of… [insert any emotion, mad-lib style].”

    By naming the emotion separate from yourself, you start to “defuse it.” In other words, the language of “I’m having the…” helps you step back and creates space between you and your feelings. This simple act can reduce the intensity of the emotion.

    4. Drop the struggle.

    Picture this: your emotions are like waves in the ocean. Trying to change or escape them is like trying to stop the waves. It’s exhausting and, ultimately, futile. Dropping the struggle is about letting go of the fight against your thoughts and emotions. Instead of resisting or distracting yourself, accept these internal experiences as part of being human.

    When you drop the struggle, you allow emotions to be. It’s not an easy task, but it’s incredibly liberating. You prevent emotions from growing larger and maintain control over your actions.

    5. Do what you really want.

    You’ve got emotions telling you to do this or that. But what do you truly want? This is where values come into play. Values are your guiding stars, reflecting what you want to be about. When your actions align with your values, you experience a sense of purpose and fulfillment. Discovering your values helps you know what steps to take, especially when big emotions come knocking. It’s like having a personalized roadmap for life’s emotional rollercoaster.

    These tools helped me, and I hope you also benefit from them.

  • How to Let Go of Your Dream When It’s Time to Move On

    How to Let Go of Your Dream When It’s Time to Move On

    “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” ~Joseph Campbell

    There’s something I find rarely talked about in discussions about letting go, but I notice all the time. It’s not the release from letting go of outdated stuff. It’s not grieving the loss of loved ones. It’s not healing from trauma. All of these precious topics are talked about and should be more so.

    What I find rarely discussed is the letting go of past versions of oneself—often versions you’ve worked tirelessly to become. This is really the crux of clutter clearing work. It gives us back our birthright to reinvent ourselves throughout our life—to experience birth and death cycles to their fullest.

    Last week in yoga class the teacher said, “We shed our skin more than snakes do.” Ain’t that the truth! Whether we notice or not, we’re constantly evolving. Struggle can arise when we resist this universal truth. When we forget that the only constant in life is change, then change sucks. Then life can get stagnant, full of internal resistance, which is often reflected in our homes and workspaces.

    As I’ve gained more and more years of observing people of all ages in my line of work, I’ve recognized it’s letting go of past versions of ourselves that trips us up.

    There’s one version of myself that comes to mind, which was excruciating to let go. It was being a ballerina.

    I remember being around six years old, kneeling in my bedroom, praying, “Dear God, please let me be a soloist with the Boston Ballet.”

    Fast-forward twelve years, and I’ve sacrificed my entire childhood and adolescence to the art form. Elite gymnast-level training is very similar to what kids do in the ballet world. From age eight, my teachers let me (and my mother) know I had talent and promise. I was hooked, and it became my identity.

    All the countless hours of raw hard work in the studio and on stage didn’t come close to what it took to let that identity go.

    People receive beautiful support in attaining their dreams. But what about letting go of their dreams? When one knows it’s time to lay a part of themselves down, unconditional consolation and support is arguably needed even more than when one is building something.

    Loss hurts. Death hurts. Whether the dream was realized or not, grieving is most efficient and least painful when one is witnessed and held. That’s just the way we and, more specifically, our nervous systems work. And that’s why I love being there with someone who’s letting something go, reminding them that it’s okay and I’ll be right there with them through this transition.

    The leading authority on the intersection of women, wealth, and power, Barbara Huson, shares, “Clinging to the security of the familiar prevents us from discovering what awaits us in the future. The ledges of our lives offer the illusion of safety, but in truth their only value is to keep us hanging. These ledges take many forms, both concrete and intangible. They can look like unfulfilling jobs, unpleasant relationships, inappropriate goals, untrue beliefs, unhealthy habits, or bottled-up emotions.”

    When it comes to laying down a version of ourselves, we are terrified. The amount of anxiety, depression, and paralysis experienced—I’ve come to learn that not all of it is necessary. We can’t blame ourselves for how we deal (or don’t deal) with transitions these days.

    In mainstream culture this fact of life is essentially swept under the rug. “Move on” is the dominant message we receive. But how? Here’s what I recommend in a nutshell:

    1. Acknowledge and articulate what you are letting go.
    2. Process it. Grieve it.
    3. Treat yourself like you would a very dear friend (self-compassion).

    Acknowledge and articulate what you are letting go.

    Speaking it out loud to a trusted loved one, in your own words, can be liberating. Writing it out in your journal can be a potent dose of clarity. This is particularly helpful with letting go of versions of ourselves, which are innately not as concrete or easy to articulate.

    Process it. Grieve it. 

    Step one above actually carries you right into step two. Have you heard the phrase “To heal you must feel?” Designate some time to slow down. Carve out time and space to just be and feel the uncomfortable emotions. There is no one-size-fits-all timeline for this.

    A friend who’s a therapist recently told me, “The way one figures out how to process [emotions/trauma/loss] is as unique as their fingerprint.” I responded, “Yes, and it’s figuring out what it will look like for you that is part of the healing process.” Some excellent resources as a starting point are:

    • Transitions by William Bridges, PhD
    • The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James and Russell Friedman
    • Seeing a certified therapist or mental health counselor. I personally recommend someone who specializes in inner child work or EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing)

    Treat yourself like you would a very dear friend (with self-compassion).

    Throughout this shedding of an outdated version of yourself, the softer, kinder, and gentler you are, the less painful it will be!

    Snakes don’t rip their dying scales off; they accept the gentle sloughing off of what cells no longer serve them. If one branch of a tree is struggling, the tree slowly lets it wither and die, in order to become stronger and able to grow in new directions.

    When it comes down to the biophysical level, you are more like a snake or a tree than you may have considered. Let the unaffected ease of nature and the human ability for self-compassion be your guideposts.

    In the grand scheme of things, this is what we’ve lost—the healthy relationship between consuming and releasing, growing and decomposing, acquiring and letting go, on the physical, emotional, and spiritual level.

    But if we unlock this innate knowing once again inside ourselves, there’s no stopping how strong, wise, and fulfilled we can become.

    What are the versions of yourself that have been the hardest to let go of so far in your life? Maybe who you were in a particular career? Going from single to married with kids? Being a people-pleaser? I would love to hear your story. Please feel free to reach out.

  • Why I Love My Anger and How It Can Be a Force for Good

    Why I Love My Anger and How It Can Be a Force for Good

    “Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    “I don’t know why I’m so angry,” my mother said.

    It was 3 a.m., and my mother was standing outside my door. I had awoken suddenly to hear feet stomping up and down the hallway on one of my last visits to my childhood home before dementia and breast cancer really took hold of her.

    “Phht, me either.” I tried to empathize, but inside of me rose my own fear and anger, as my siblings and I had watched her decline over the years, yet at the same time, anger was not new to her.

    Today, when I think back on this night and so many others like it, the question that I ask now is not “Why are you so angry?” but “Why are you not angrier?” 

    The truth is, I didn’t see a lot of anger in my family growing up, but being a highly sensitive person, I felt it all. I saw the occasional outburst, but I felt every one of my mother’s facial expressions, tones, and movements that signalled distress. I felt it in the room, along with the myriad of other emotions that human nervous systems naturally feel but have learned so well are not always appropriate.

    Two things I did see and feel were love and happiness, so I am grateful for that. But we are so much more than that.

    My suppression of anger was learned very young. If you don’t see something reflected in the mirror around you, it can’t exist.

    I remember so clearly, when I was thirteen, my mother came home from the hospital after her first partial mastectomy with a drainage tube attached to her chest.

    We sat in the living room as it was explained to us, as children, what had happened.

    I don’t remember the word cancer, but as a child, I could have blocked it or simply just not understood.

    What I do remember is the feeling in my body. I can still feel it now. The rising sensation of tightness and contraction that rose up into my throat and begged for expression. But as I looked around the room, I couldn’t see that sensation anywhere else.

    I remember pursing my lips together, probably tightening my jaw to reinforce the guards in case the tightness burst out into the room.

    It was one of the most confusing moments of my life. I understand it now.

    The news felt big and the emotions felt big, as did the overlay of rage—at the situation, others, or myself; I don’t know which. But it had nowhere to go. I felt suffocated.

    I excused myself to “go out with my friends,” which must have seemed like an odd response, but it was the only thing I knew how to do. I didn’t go out with friends. I escaped into the cold night air so I could breathe. I walked and walked, unconsciously moving through an internal freeze.

    The emotions never seemed to go away; they only seemed to thicken as I developed more and more armor. I learned that escaping felt good. I loved my family deeply, so it didn’t make sense to me when I felt relief to leave the house and go out drinking with friends.

    It wasn’t just moving toward pleasure as a teenager; it was avoidance of pain.

    I disconnected more and more from myself and my internal turmoil, and the mask on my outside grew more and more protective, smiley, and sturdy. It became who I was.

    Repressing my anger, sadness, and fear felt like the only option, yet it was literally killing me inside as I developed the opposite expression of external perfectionism.

    Flawless, nice, smiling, impeccably high standards on the outside.

    Complete chaos and a raging inner critic on the inside.

    This growing monster morphed into the extreme control of an eating disorder that nearly took my life. The binging and purging of bulimia felt like feeding an insatiable hunger followed by a complete release and restabilization of the perfection.

    In retrospect, I see this was a young girl’s own internal method of coping and self-regulation. Of course, in reality, it was anything but.

    Thanks to an attuned and compassionate doctor, I was able to finally be seen and heard as someone who was more than an acting-out teen, who was really in trouble. This was the turning point, and I wish I could say it all turned around, but the journey ahead of me was long.

    The road to healing has been one of reclamation.

    Slowly reclaiming my body, piece by piece. Nurturing and nourishing her and paying attention to her needs. Including those parts society has deemed not right or unacceptable.

    Reclaiming and feeling my emotions, all of them. But mostly reclaiming my right to anger.

    During my forties, when I experienced a period of burnout, I realized that anger was the last stone to uncover. I had been skirting around it for decades.

    Even as a yoga and mindfulness student and teacher, I never went into the energy of anger fully, always instructed to notice and surf the emotions on the way to peace and happiness.

    Yet anger was the part of me that needed self-love more than anything else. And the rewards anger gave me in return were not what I expected.

    I did not become an angry person. I became a more confident and powerful person who rose above shame and people-pleasing. I set boundaries more easily because I loved myself more. It gave me back my wholeness.

    Access to the energy of anger also afforded me access to the opposite end of the emotional scale: excitement and enthusiasm.

    Research now clearly tells us that repressed anger can contribute to anxiety, depression (repression), chronic illnesses, fatigue, and pain, and I can feel the truth in that.

    But we have learned very well how to cope. We rationalize (it’s not that bad), minimize (other people have it so much worse), and desperately escape ourselves looking for worth in people-pleasing, validation, praise, and permission.

    We leave our bodies in search for perfection that doesn’t exist and end up continually feeling not smart enough, thin enough, healthy enough, young enough, or good enough.

    The fear of expressing anger is compounded by being labeled as “angry,” which leads to further invalidation and invisibility. That is only what happens if you stay stuck in the stories of blame.

    I uncovered my capacity to befriend anger safely and harness its power to speak, protect, and stand up for myself from a place of self-love.

    I now know that:

    • Anger is the energy of healthy entitlement that says, “I have a right to be here” and speaks up against injustice from a place of ultimate, fierce love.
    • Anger is the energy of healthy aggression that protects your own worth and naturally sets boundaries that protect your body, time, and energy.
    • Anger is the place that defines clearly what you value and what you stand for and love.
    • Anger is the healing we need to step out of the program of perfectionism and the “good girl” (or boy) into our true, whole, authentic aliveness.

    I love anger in all its forms. It is a mobilizer for good in the world, and if you are reading this, I’m guessing you are not someone who will use it in toxic ways for war and destruction.

    You can harness it in small ways to access the true power of your voice, your breath. and the full capacity of fierce love.

    There is often a pot of stored anger to drain first so you can then move through it gently, lovingly, and listen to its valuable messages. To do this:

    • Notice where and when you tighten, contract, or feel annoyed or irritable.
    • Breathe into those areas in your body to create space around them.
    • Inhale and contract right into the areas of anger, including your hands and feet, and then release it with a sigh, sound, scream, or growl.
    • Notice what anger is pointing you toward: What needs to be protected that you value? What do you need? What needs to be said? What do you miss or grieve or worry about? See what rises now.

    Remember, you are a living, growing, learning, and expanding human, and we can heal not in spite of our anger, but through it.

  • How to Transform Your Relationship by Feeling Your Feelings

    How to Transform Your Relationship by Feeling Your Feelings

    It was late at night, and my husband and I were having an argument about the same subject we’d been arguing about for two decades—cooking and cleaning.

    The argument seemed to come out of nowhere. We were having a nice evening together, the kids were asleep, we were watching a movie and chatting. And then all of a sudden, the conversation went off on a tangent, and it felt like the ground we were standing on suddenly split and a deep dark cavern opened up between us.

    Here we were now, standing on either side, an insurmountable ravine between us, throwing anger and pain and disappointment at each other. Trying to convince each other of our own rightness in the situation.

    For the whole of our marriage, the patterns have been that I cook and organize the kids, he cleans and takes instructions about the kids—which, on paper, might seem reasonable, but we were both holding deep amounts of resentment, bitterness, and anger about this arrangement.

    It was not an arrangement that had been discussed. It was an arrangement that just evolved, and for some reason it drove us both into wild flames of anger.

    For days after these arguments, we would retreat inside our emotional selves, like wounded animals tending to the emotional wounds we had suffered. After we both emerged, we wouldn’t discuss the argument; it felt like it had taken so much out of our lives that we just wanted to skip onto the next thing. If I am honest, I knew I didn’t have the tools to discuss it in a way in that wouldn’t ignite the argument again.

    Why open up the wound when it felt like it had healed?

    But, of course, it wouldn’t have healed, and it would just come up again a few weeks or months down the line.

    Cut to five years later and the arrangements haven’t actually changed much, but these arguments have disappeared. Not only have the arguments stopped, the deep old bitterness and resentment have gone. And instead, the discussions about cleaning, organizing the children, and cooking are now mostly along the lines of how can I help you with what’s on your plate today?

    How did this happen? What radical change did we instigate, or did we just swap partners to people who were kinder and more reasonable?

    No, in these five years I learned about how the brain processes and perceives emotions, and that unlocked a totally new way of being in my relationship.

    What felt so radical for me is that when I learned how to work with my emotions in a different way, it changed how my husband (and my kids) started dealing with their emotions.

    I didn’t need to explain or discuss anything with them. But by showing up differently, I changed the emotional patterns of my family, and that was the most empowering thing I’ve experienced in my whole life.

    Here are five of the realizations that made the biggest shifts for me.

    1. What we learned about emotions is usually wrong. 

    Humans are meant to have emotions, and to have the whole range of emotions—anger and fear, sadness and despair, love and joy. These are all natural. But many of us learned that some (or even all) emotions are somehow wrong and we shouldn’t have them.

    Emotions are not meant to be suppressed, avoided, ranted about, thrown at other people, or handled in any of the other ways most of us learned to deal with emotions.

    Emotions are meant to be seen, felt, and heard. I like to think of emotions being like clouds. They arrive, we feel them, and then they drift out.

    What causes so many problems for us is that most of us didn’t learn to feel them in this way. We didn’t grow up with the sense that emotions are manageable, and that it’s possible to hold them gently in our bodies, allowing them to drift in and then drift out.

    This is because our parents and caregivers (and their parents and caregivers) usually struggled with their emotions, so we now struggle with ours.

    For example, anger: What did your parents do when you were a child and felt anger? Most of us would have been banished to our rooms for saying things in anger. Or maybe our parents tried to jolly us out of feeling anger, made fun of us, or told us to just get over it. Or our anger was met with our parents’ anger, and we were punished.

    What that teaches our brain is that anger is wrong. We shouldn’t feel anger. So, when anger comes up and we don’t know how to hold it, we can end up throwing it at other people by arguing or shouting, or keep it locked inside where it might feel totally uncomfortable and painful. Or we end up having endless angry looping obsessive thoughts that we just can’t stop.

    Anger ends up feeling very uncontrollable for us, impossible to have in our bodies, and scary for us to witness in others, and it can become a destructive force in our lives.

    But there is a different way with emotions, and this is what emotions actually want. They want to be seen, felt, and heard.

    Not to throw the anger at others or keep it inside to feel like it’s destroying our being, but to learn how to feel safe with it. To know that we can feel more at ease experiencing anger, so the anger can come up into our bodies and then come out as we release it.

    2. When emotions are high, logic goes out the door.

    When emotions activate, it’s like a giant lens comes up and we start to see the world through the lens of that emotion. So, when we feel anger, we see the world through the lens of anger. Which makes it seem like there are so many upsetting things in the world.

    Or fear—we see the world through the lens of fear and it seems like so many things are scary or terrifying.

    But the thing to know here is that it’s simply the emotion that is coloring our vision. If we are able to work with the emotion, then we stop seeing so many scary-terrifying things and start to see the world as a more nuanced and relaxed experience.

    So if I am seeing anger activate in my husband, or fear or sadness or any emotion, I know that he is seeing the world through this lens and there are no ‘facts’ or ‘logic’ that will change that.

    I, therefore, am not going to engage in conversations about cooking and clearing when he is in his emotions. Or anything that feels important to me. I will wait to talk about things that feel important to me when he isn’t emotional.

    3. We shouldn’t listen to our thoughts when we are emotional.

    Similarly, when I am feeling anger, instead of allowing my mind to find 234 things to feel angry about and then accusing my husband of being the cause of all of them, I am going to recognize that I feel anger and I am going to work with that emotion instead of throwing my anger at him.

    My feelings are my feelings, and his feelings are his feelings. And although my brain wants to say, “He’s the reason I am feeling angry! He’s to blame!”, the anger I feel is actually bigger and older than him. Most of our emotions arrived way before our current situation, experience, or relationship—even though it doesn’t feel that way. 

    Most of our feelings are old because we never got to process them—to see, feel, and hear them—so they stay trapped inside of us. So maybe we feel some new anger about a situation, but it gets added to the decades-old pile of anger that we haven’t processed, and that’s why it feels so very big, so very significant. and so painful.

    Emotions are yearning to integrate; they want to be released from our bodies, and so they look for things to bring them up, in the hope we will finally allow them to be here and fully allow them to be seen, felt, and heard.

    4. My emotions are my emotions; your emotions are your emotions. 

    By taking responsibility for our feelings as our own, we can move through them much more quickly than trying to work through them together. We get to get out the other side. And if we want to have discussions with our partners—say about cleaning and cooking and kids and arrangements—it’s on the other side of our feelings that we want to do it.

    When the anger has released, when the lens has been wiped clean. When we are through that feeling.  Then we can have empathy, understanding, and a much more expanded vision of our lives and relationships.

    Once I worked through my piles of historical anger, rage, and sadness that had accumulated over the decades of my life, and the pains of disappointment I had felt but tried to run away from, I automatically started to see the relationship I had totally differently.

    I was then able to communicate with my husband how I saw experiences and situations in our relationship from a place of calm. When I wasn’t throwing resentment and anger at him, and not having conversations when he was emotional as well, our communication totally changed its texture. We started to negotiate our needs and find the space to support each other from a place of empathy.

    5. What do emotions need? To be seen, felt, and heard.

    Emotions are looking for these three simple things. The first is to be seen, to be acknowledged—not blamed or judged (or blaming other people for having emotions). A simple step is to just see them:

    Oh, I see some anger has activated here!

    I am feeling some fear.

    What am I feeling? Gosh, I think it’s some disappointment, and some sadness. 

    And what emotions want so very much is to be met with empathy, understanding, and compassion:

    I am feeling so much anger right now; gosh, this is a lot! It’s uncomfortable and hard to stay with this feeling, but I understand why anger is here. This has always been a hard emotion for me. 

    Fear is a lot! But I am going to offer some compassion as I hold this fear, to sit with myself in it, and give myself a lot of empathy. 

    Disappointment is a tricky emotion for me! Can I offer myself some understanding here? To acknowledge it’s not easy for me as I learn how to be with this emotion with more kindness and gentleness?

    We need to step away from our thoughts in this process, to see that the emotions we experience are actually held in our body, and it’s in our body that we get to fully feel them.

    It’s by fully feeling our feelings, rather than getting lost in our thoughts, that we get the chance to release the intensity of our feelings.

    Not by following along with the blaming and judging ourselves or others.

    The last part is to hear them. Emotions are incredible guides for us when we learn how to feel and release them. They always come with guidance around our unmet needs. They aren’t here to punish us, but instead show us where we can become more authentic, more in line with our values, and stronger in our boundaries.

    When we decide to give ourselves space and support through our emotional reactions, this is what changes the texture of our relationships.

    What could your relationship be like if you were able to move through those big, sticky feelings that arise, that may cause conflicts or make you react differently to how you want to react?

    It’s not just the case of intimate relationships with our partners, but also true of our relationships with anyone we love. When we speak to our parents or siblings, our extended family, or friends, and we have big difficult feelings about them, if we can work through those feelings our relationships will automatically change.

    When we can unblock our relationships from big piles of shame, fear, anger, or loneliness, we can move into spaces where much deeper intimacy, mutual empathy, and support live.

    It’s a wildly beautiful place to live, in trust and connection, knowing that we can still have feelings, we can still have conflict—but when we can work with our emotions, we don’t stay stuck in a place of raw, untended pain that arises and derails our lives and our relationships.

  • How Highly Sensitive People Can Feel More Fulfilled in Their Relationships

    How Highly Sensitive People Can Feel More Fulfilled in Their Relationships

    “Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true.” ~Swami Vivekananda

    Highly sensitive people naturally bring some really beautiful, love-promoting qualities to their romantic partnerships. But these same qualities can sometimes end up undermining the strength of their relationships. This was true for me in my first marriage and led, in part, to it ending in divorce.

    We HSPs are known for our caring, conscientious, and considerate natures. It matters deeply to us that we do our best to be loyal and caring in our relationships.

    And because we tend to have high standards for ourselves and work hard at being kind supportive friends and lovers, we often successfully create strong intimate bonds with others.

    We also have a knack for being aware of the needs of others. Our ability to pick up on subtle cues makes them feel deeply understood and cared for. On top of all of this, we tend to think deeply about our romantic relationships, giving them much of our mental and emotional energy.

    This is all really wonderful for the lucky partner of a highly sensitive person. It’s part of why they felt drawn to you and nurtured, safe, and loved with you. But things can go downhill fast when our significant other doesn’t behave the same way.

    It’s human nature to be unable to deeply understand what it’s like to live another’s experience. Though HSPs tend to be quite empathic, it’s still nearly impossible to really see through our partners’ eyes. This can be the source of so much pain.

    In my first marriage, I often wondered why I seemed to be the one to show more interest in the health of the relationship. I would ask myself things like, “How can he be okay with going to bed when things aren’t resolved between us?” “Does he even notice that I’m sad?” “Doesn’t he want to help me feel better?” “What’s wrong with him that he doesn’t think to offer some kind words?”

    Because those were things I naturally did for him.

    Those high standards I had for myself about relationships? I had them for him, too. When he didn’t meet my ideas about how we should be with each other, I’d think something was wrong.

    I’d think his lack of consideration and awareness meant he didn’t love me as much as I loved him, that maybe I wasn’t enough for him. Thinking that really hurt.

    That pain, unfortunately, only led to me acting far below my own high standards for myself. Because when we humans feel hurt, we say and do things we wouldn’t otherwise.

    I’d complain, maybe curl up and cry, or give him the cold shoulder. I’d point out how he was falling short, question why, if he really loved me, he wasn’t more affectionate, more aware of my feelings, more interested in resolving issues—in short, more like I was naturally (well, when I wasn’t upset!).

    We’d end up in long conversations that never concluded satisfactorily. He’d end up feeling like he wasn’t doing good enough.

    Because I was aware of subtle shifts in him, I could see how badly I was affecting him. And that would only lead to me feeling guilty and bad about myself, which made things even worse. It seemed like a rock and a hard place that we didn’t know how to get out of. After many years of this, we ended our marriage.

    What a wake up call! Since then, I’ve learned so much and changed my life in major ways, and learned to work with my high sensitivity in ways that not only support me, but also my romantic relationship. I am now very happily remarried.

    Though I had to learn the hard way, I now have a lot to share with others about how to have a mutually loving, supportive, and connected intimate relationship as an HSP.

    Assuming you’re in a healthy, non-abusive relationship, these three tips can help you feel more fulfilled in love and be an amazing life partner.

    1. Honor differences, yours and theirs!

    Just as they must learn to accept our sensitive natures, we must understand that others may not have our superpowers of high conscientiousness, deep caring attentiveness to others, and the uncanny ability to know what they most need to feel good.

    They may not want to resolve issues as thoroughly as you do, because they may not feel things as intensely and as long as you do. They might not enjoy processing or getting to the heart of the matter the way you do—it may even make them really uncomfortable.

    All this can be especially true if your partner’s male, because of some big brain and cultural differences between males’ and females’ approach to relating with others. So he may not be attuned to the play of emotion across your face—or quick to try to make things right for you.

    If you fight to change his brain’s wiring, you’re fighting a losing battle. Instead, when you feel like you know better than he does about how to love well, remind yourself: It’s not better; it’s just different.

    2. Stop holding your partner to unreachable standards.

    Apples will never be as juicy as watermelon! But you can’t make a great pie out of watermelon.

    When I let go of my own high, unrealistic standards and stop comparing, I can actually see the way he does show his care and is loving me. Which is what we all ultimately want: to feel cherished and supported.

    Maybe your partner doesn’t read your mind and give you that hug when you want it most, but he does make kind gestures like offering to take the kids so you can have some quiet time to yourself, or she invites you on some adventure she’s excited about. Look for and enjoy the different gifts your partner brings to the relationship. Let them spice up your life.

    Would you really want a clone of yourself for a partner, anyway?

    3. Attend to yourself.

    We need to keep coming back to giving ourselves loving attention, especially as HSPs.

    When I don’t, I feel empty and needy, and tend to look to my husband to fix it. Which often backfires and I feel even worse.

    When I get complainy or needy or act in ways I don’t like, I know it means I need to pause and notice what I really need. And then take action on it. If it’s something my husband can do for me, I can always ask lovingly for it, without expecting he’ll be willing or able.

    So let them be who they are, and take care of who you are. Nothing fills us up like self-appreciation and caring for yourself the way you like to care for others.

    My love life changed so much once I deeply understood that my way is just one way, not the way to express love for another human being. I can now really feel and appreciate my husband’s unique ways of loving me, and I receive them as big gifts. That allows me to feel truly fulfilled and to easily reciprocate to my sweet husband—in my own unique and special way.

  • Why I Love My Sober Life: Everything I Gained When I Quit Drinking

    Why I Love My Sober Life: Everything I Gained When I Quit Drinking

    “Sobriety was the greatest gift I ever gave myself.” ~Rob Lowe

    I tried and failed to have a fabulous relationship with alcohol for many years.

    When my children were tiny, I drank far more than was good for me, thinking I was relaxing, unwinding, socializing, and having fun. I’d seen my life shrink down from a world with lots of freedom and vibrancy to a socially restricted void, and I wanted to feel normal. I wanted to join in with everyone else.

    All my birthday cards had bottles of gin or glasses of fizz on them, all the Friday afternoon memes on social media were about “wine o’clock,” and I wanted to be part of that world.

    The opening of a bottle in the evening had me thinking I was changing gear, moving from stressed to relaxed, and treating myself to some self-care. Nothing could have been further from the truth; the alcohol made me wake during the night and gave me low-level anxiety and an almost permanent brain fog.

    I’m not proud of the drinking I did when the kids were small. I now feel a deep sense of shame about that time. I’d created such a happy life for myself—lovely husband and kids, nice house in a great town, wonderful friends. What was I drinking to escape from?

    On the outside I looked like I had it all, but I didn’t—I had overwhelm.

    I was a wife and family member, a mum to two small children, an employee, and a freelancer… I had all the roles I’d longed for, and yet it was all too much.

    I didn’t know how to let go of some of my responsibilities, and I didn’t know how to cope with everything that was going on in my life. Alcohol felt like the treat I deserved. It took me a while to figure out that alcohol was the common theme in my rubbish decision-making, tiredness, and grumpiness.

    I’d spent a long time feeling trapped and stuck. I knew I wanted to stop drinking, but I was worried about what others would think of me, how I would feel at parties without a drink in my hand, and whether I’d be able to relax properly at the weekends.

    I kept going back and forth, deciding I’d stop, then changing my mind, thinking I wouldn’t or couldn’t. It was a hellish merry-go-round. When I was forty-one, I finally made the decision to quit alcohol for a year as a little life experiment. I wanted to see how I would feel without it for an extended period of time.

    I decided to take a bold action in autumn 2019. I told a group of online friends that I was not going to drink alcohol for the whole of 2020, and once I had said it out loud, I knew I would have to do it.

    This step toward accountability really helped me to move forward with my sober mission. I started to count down to 2020 (still binge drinking), wondering how this experiment was going to go!

    Toward the end of 2019, my mindset began to shift. Instead of dreading the start of 2020, I started to look forward to it. I made plans that I knew would lead to a successful sober year. I read books about quitting, listened to inspiring podcasts, and watched films or documentaries that didn’t show alcohol consumption in a glamorous light. I followed people who were a few steps ahead of me on their sober journey. I asked questions and I followed advice.

    I had my last drink on Dec 8th, 2019—nothing monumental, out with a few friends and no hangover the next day. It was a total non-event!

    I wanted to have a year without alcohol to know if life would be stressful, lonely, or boring like I’d led myself to believe, or if it was possible to relax, connect with others, and have fun without a drink. The hangovers and brain fog were getting worse. In my late thirties and early forties, I just couldn’t get away with it like I had in my twenties.

    I wanted to be a more patient parent—no more selfishly rushing the kids through bedtime because I wanted to get back downstairs to my drink.

    I wanted hangover-free weekends to enjoy my time away from work.

    I wanted to maximize my nutritional choices—no more rubbish food choices dictated by low-level hangovers, or high-level ones for that matter.

    I wanted to sleep deeply and wake up feeling rested and ready for the day ahead.

    I wanted to know I was giving myself the best chance at not getting high blood pressure, heart disease, liver disease, cancer, dementia, or a compromised immune system.

    I went through the whole of 2020 without a drink. There were some tough days to navigate, some challenging events to negotiate, and awkward conversations to have with friends, but I did it all, and I did it all sober.

    When 2021 rolled around, I knew I wasn’t going to go back to how I’d drunk before. I had changed my relationship with alcohol for the better. I was physically, emotionally, and spiritually a different person, and I didn’t want to go back to numbing my feelings.

    It’s easy to name all the benefits to our bodies and minds when we cut alcohol out—deeper sleep, clearer skin, better mood, more energy, and less anxiety, to name a few—but for me, the real shift has come a couple of years down the line. I feel more spiritually open than I’ve ever felt before, and I cannot wait to see what unfolds next for all of those of us on this sober-curious journey.

  • 19 Things to Start Doing for Yourself in the New Year

    19 Things to Start Doing for Yourself in the New Year

    “And suddenly you know… it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of new beginnings.” ~Meister Eckhart

    Did you know that 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail?

    That’s pretty crazy. Maybe you’re part of that statistic. Feeling eager, excited, and ready for change only to fall back into old patterns after a few weeks.

    This was me, year after year—striving for change but not managing to pull it through, but not last year.

    A few days ago I found a letter I had written to myself on New Year’s Eve in 2016, describing how I wanted 2017 to unfold. I described what I wanted to accomplish for my business, the kind of people I wanted to surround myself with, and most importantly, how I wanted to feel through it all.

    To my surprise, I noticed how much I actually had accomplished. Even though my letter was very ambitious (oops, went down that road again…), I noticed how my vision, focus, and intentions had placed me in the right direction throughout the year.

    In previous years, my focus had been on achieving things such as exercising three times per week, eating only healthy food, and quitting bad habits. You know, concrete results. This time, however, my focus was on working toward my vision of the future I desire while growing and enjoying myself in the process.

    In simple terms: making sure I was happy while working toward a compelling future. So, whenever I put down a goal, I also made sure to define how I wanted it to feel.

    For example, instead of deciding “I’m going to exercise three times per week” I wrote “I’m gonna love my body and take really good care of it by practicing yoga, dancing, or doing other activities I feel drawn to do.”

    To help stir your imagination for the New Year—so that you’re not pushed by pressure, but instead pulled by pleasure—I’ve listed nineteen things you could start doing.

    1. Start focusing on what you already have.

    It’s easy to focus on scarcity. To turn your focus toward what you currently don’t have in your life. In this social media-dominated, hyper-commercial, and filtered society, a state of lack can often get the best of us. But, as Oprah said, “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”

    Abundance isn’t something you acquire. It’s something you tune into. So, start noticing, focusing on, and truly appreciating what’s currently in your life. This year, I’m going to focus on the people I love, the fact that I’m healthy, and knowing that I’m in charge of where I steer my life.

    2. Start using your imagination for creating.

    Imagination is a powerful thing. It can either show you the most catastrophic scenario or allow you to play, explore, and create in your mind. Your imagination can either be your greatest tool in turning your dreams into reality or your greatest roadblock.

    Use it to create, not destroy. Use it to stir faith, not doubt. Use it to become a force for good, both for yourself and those around you. For example, instead of focusing on everything that could go wrong if you start your own business, imagine how fulfilled you’ll feel and all the people you could help.

    3. Start living in the now.

    Often, we live in past or future tense. Often, we’re so caught up in what took place or what might happen that we lose sight of what is happening. Start living where life actually takes place: here and now.

    Use your senses to become present: feeling, hearing, seeing, tasting, and touching. Say yes to what you’re doing, no matter how insignificant it might seem.

    When you’re washing the dishes, make that the most important thing in your life. When you’re transporting yourself, make that the most important thing in your life. When you’re speaking to someone, make that the most important thing in your life.

    4. Start ignoring what others are doing.

    It’s easy to fall into the trap of comparison. To look at others and either judge, blame, or feel sorry for ourselves. But, we don’t grow green grass by focusing on our neighbor’s garden; we do it by nurturing our own.

    Don’t compare your behind-the-scenes to someone’s greatest moment. Instead, choose to honor your life by creating, investing in, and caring for it. Simply, keep your eyes on your lane.

    5. Start being really honest with yourself.

    The only way to change something is to first acknowledge what is. To look at the situation exactly as it is but not worse than it is. To look your fears, limitations, and blockages right in the eye.

    What’s working and what isn’t? What do you want to do that scares the crap out of you? Give yourself credit for what’s working and then look at how you can change what isn’t. As they say, the truth will set you free. But first, it might hurt or piss you off.

    6. Start putting better labels on things.

    What glasses are you wearing? The optimistic, fearful, or I-cannot-do-this pair? How we experience life depends on how we choose to look at things. Losing a job can either mean a problem or a great opportunity. A breakup can either mean the end or the beginning of something new.

    Label things in a way that empowers you. Turn a traumatic event into a blessing in disguise, a difficult situation into a challenge, and an ending into a new beginning. Be the author of your experiences.

    7. Start telling empowering stories.

    Building on the previous point, notice what stories are currently running through your life. Maybe it’s about your parents, financial situation, or health condition. The stories we tell define us. Empowering stories create empowering situations.

    One story I used to tell myself was that “I wasn’t ready” to do things in my business, to launch products or workshops. Once I changed the story to “I’ll do the best I can and learn along the way,” taking action and expanding my comfort zone felt doable.

    Look at one area of your life you’d like to change. What is the story you tell yourself about this area? How can you tell a better, more empowering story?

    8. Start focusing on something greater than you.

    In life, we either show up for what we do, how we do it, or why we do it. Having the last one (“the why”) defined is what brings purpose and meaning. What’s your mission, change you want to see, or reason for pursuing something?

    Participating in something greater than yourself and being clear on why you’re doing it adds purpose. And if you don’t know what that something greater is yet, make it your mission to find out.

    9. Start acting like you care about yourself.

    Do you truly care about yourself? Do you act, speak, and treat yourself like the lovable and loving person you are? Because, here’s the thing: we cannot give what we don’t have. Just like we need to put our own oxygen mask on first when flying, we need to tend to ourselves first before we can tend to others.

    Know that putting yourself first isn’t selfish; it’s necessary. Look at your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects. What do you need more or less of to feel good? Then, make it a priority to care for yourself (so that you also can give from a genuine place).

    10. Start trusting that others are doing the best they can.

    Trust that everyone is doing the best they can based on their experience, beliefs, and state. The person who cut you off in traffic might be in a rush to get home to a sick loved one. The person who didn’t deliver his project on time might be experiencing heartbreak. The person who was rude to you in the queue might be having a really bad day.

    You never know what someone else is going through. So, instead of making assumptions, trust that they’re doing the best they can. Lead from a place of compassion, not judgment, and you’ll spare yourself (and others) unnecessary pain, anger, and frustration.

    11. Start asking better questions.

    Questions such as: “What can go wrong?” or “What if I screw up?” simply don’t have a positive answer. Your mind will go looking for whatever answer you ask for, so start asking wisely. Sure, you can ask them to get clear on the worst-case scenario, but then make sure to shift focus.

    As Tony Robbins said, “Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” Instead, try asking questions such as “How can I make this a success?” and “How can I find the best solution to this situation?”

    12. Start caring about things that actually matter.

    If you care too much about things such as judgment and criticism, you’ll mostly keep yourself stuck and paralyzed—unless you find things to care more about.

    For example, do you care more about what others might think or living life true to yourself? Do you care more about negative comments or being a force for good in this world? Don’t numb your care; instead, care more about things that actually matter to you.

    13. Start trusting yourself wholeheartedly.

    Just like any other relationships, the one with yourself needs to be fueled, nurtured, and taken care of. When you feel curious, intrigued, or excited about something, trust that it’s happening for a reason. When you get red flags about a person or situation, trust that it’s also happening for a reason.

    Start acting like you trust yourself fully. Behave like you’re in full connection with your inner self and always guided. The more you act like you trust and believe in yourself, the more that will actualize for you.

    14. Start celebrating your obstacles.

    “Obstacles do not block the path, they are the path.” The first time I heard this Zen Proverb, I didn’t get it. How could obstacles be the path? This idea of obstacles not standing in the way but actually being the way sounded like alien language to me.

    But, here’s what I discovered: Desires are powerful. Life is always guiding us toward what we want, but in that process, blockages and fears will be surfaced so that they can be seen and/or healed. So, when you’re dealing with an obstacle like fear, don’t avoid it. Instead, push yourself to work through it. Every obstacle you face brings you one step closer to your dreams.

    15. Start gaining perspective on your problems.

    I once heard someone say, “The problem with problems is that we think we’re not supposed to have any.” Problems might not always feel great, but they propel us forward. They shed light on what isn’t working so that we can find, explore, and investigate better solutions.

    In moments of struggle, remind yourself that all over this planet, people are fighting for their survival. Acknowledge your problems but then shift toward finding a solution. What do you need to progress? Where and from whom can you gain clarity, confidence, and support to move forward?

    16. Start embracing your vulnerability.

    Vulnerability is scary. Yet, it’s the gateway to growth, change, and connection. It’s the last thing we want to show in ourselves, but the first thing we look for in others. We cannot shut out pain, shame, and disappointment without also blocking love, growth, and connection.

    So, have the courage allow your deepest and most fragile parts to be seen. Allow your heart to crack right open and something beautiful will happen: you’ll be able to transform difficult feelings into love, strength, and compassion.

    Last week, I met a girl in the co-working space where I work. It was the second time we met, yet I felt urged to suddenly share my at-the-time struggle of not feeling enough for my business and some people in my life. Apparently, she was experiencing the similar things. I left feeling relieved, empowered, and more connected to her than before.

    17. Start spending time with the right people.

    How are the people you spend most time with? Do they give you energy or drain you? Friendships and connections aren’t something static; they’re always in motion. Set a high standard for yourself and choose to only spend time with people you enjoy.

    Make sure to surround yourself with a tribe that reflects how you want to feel and be and what you want to do and have. If you don’t have that today, then make space for those people to come into your life.

    18. Start taking 100% responsibility for your life.

    The first time I heard this, I wasn’t comfortable. Yet, the minute I accepted it, I was empowered. To accept and take full responsibility for all areas of your life (even where you feel behind, mistreated, or wronged) isn’t easy. But, it’s the only way to change them.

    By taking responsibility, you bring your power back home to where it belongs: to you. So no matter how difficult it might seem, claim full responsibility for your life. You, not someone else, will get you where you want to go.

    19. Start creating the life you want now.

    It’s easy to postpone. To fool ourselves into thinking “Once my situation is different, I’ll act on my dream” or “Once I’m in a relationship, I’ll start loving myself.” But to live the life you desire, you’re going to have to create it now, not sometime in the future.

    Conditions or timing will never be perfect. So, instead, ask yourself, “If I had all the love, money, time, confidence, and knowledge I desire, how would I think, act, and feel?” Step into that version of yourself.

    Take Baby Steps Toward the Life You Desire

    To get to where you want to be, you have to start walking in that direction. Don’t see it as a sprint, but more as a marathon. How can you create a manageable and enjoyable year where, not pressure, but pleasure is leading the way?

    Don’t overwhelm yourself by setting too big goals or expecting things to be perfect. (They never are). Instead, choose to focus on one to three things from the list. Then once you feel comfortable with one area, move into another. Remember, consistency beats intensity.

    Let this be the year you set yourself up for success!

  • 5 Practical Tools to Balance Your Chakras (Energy Centers)

    5 Practical Tools to Balance Your Chakras (Energy Centers)

    In my personal development journey, one framework has captivated my attention and focus for more than a decade.

    Understanding and working with this system has had a profound impact on my journey toward increased self-awareness, healing past wounds, and feeling more aligned and authentic to myself. So much that all my yoga classes and coaching approaches integrate this system in a holistic way.

    Rooted in the wisdom of Eastern philosophies, this ancient system that has captivated seekers for centuries—the chakra system.

    The chakra system remains a bit misunderstood and esoteric, reserved for a select few: yoga teachers or energy healers. Truly, this system is (and should be!) accessible to everyone on the personal development journey.

    To me, the chakra system serves as a compass guiding my journey to holistic well-being. It’s not just about addressing one aspect of my life—like most other healing modalities propose—but embracing the interconnectedness of my physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. This approach resonates with me on a deep level, encouraging a more comprehensive exploration of my own existence.

    Each chakra feels like a unique chapter in my self-discovery story. From cultivating a sense of security in my root chakra to expressing my authentic voice through the throat chakra, the system unfolds like a tailor-made map for my personal growth.

    Exploring my chakras has been like shining a light into the corners of my being. It’s about identifying those subtle energy blockages or imbalances that are holding me back. Acknowledging and addressing these areas has become an essential part of my journey, allowing me to remove stumbling blocks on the path to self-actualisation.

    Certainly, this is a continuous journey; my energy body undergoes shifts throughout the day and with each passing day. There isn’t a final destination, where no effort is required; it is an ongoing and perpetual process and practice.

    In this post, I’d like to demystify the chakra system by offering practical insights and actionable steps for anyone the personal development journey.

    The Seven Chakras Unveiled: A Roadmap to Your Inner World

    At the core of the chakra system lies the understanding that the human body is a vessel of energy, and its optimal functioning depends on the harmonious flow of this energy. The word “chakra” itself is derived from Sanskrit, meaning “wheel” or “disc.” These energy wheels are believed to be swirling vortices of life force, distributed along the spine from the base to the crown.

    In the yogic philosophy, we work with seven main chakras, each associated with specific aspects of our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. From the foundational root chakra, which grounds us in the physical world, to the ethereal crown chakra, connecting us to higher states of consciousness, the chakra system provides a comprehensive map for navigating the terrain of our inner and spiritual selves.

    Each of the seven chakras holds equal value; none is superior to another, and each plays a crucial and significant role in the overall balance and well-being of an individual.

    Let’s explore those seven energy centres in more detail.

    The Root Chakra: Establishing a Foundation

    The root chakra is a crucial starting point. Located at the base of the spine, it serves as the foundation for our sense of security and stability. Like the roots of a tree deeply embedded in the earth, the root chakra grounds us in the present moment, fostering a sense of belonging and safety.

    Developing this chakra involves addressing fundamental aspects of survival, such as financial stability, shelter, and physical health.

    The Sacral Chakra: Nurturing Creativity and Passion

    Moving up the chakra ladder, the second energy center—the sacral chakra—emphasizes creativity and passion. Nestled just below the navel, this chakra is the seat of our emotions and creative expression. Connecting with the sacral chakra involves embracing one’s sensuality, fluidity, and creativity.

    On my own journey, unlocking the potential of the sacral chakra allowed me to tap into a stream of creativity that had long been dormant. I started singing again, playing music in a band, and chanting in my yoga classes. Engaging in activities that brought joy and excitement not only enriched my personal life but also propelled me toward a deeper understanding of my authentic self.

    The vibrant energy of the sacral chakra acted as a catalyst for personal transformation, encouraging me to embrace the full spectrum of my emotions.

    The Solar Plexus Chakra: Cultivating Personal Power

     As the journey unfolds, the third chakra—the solar plexus chakra—comes into focus, radiating from the area just above the navel. This energy center is associated with personal power, confidence, and self-esteem. Activating the solar plexus chakra involves recognizing and embracing one’s unique strengths and talents, fostering a sense of autonomy and empowerment.

    The solar plexus chakra is a pathway toward a deeper understanding of ourselves, our sense of identity and esteem (feeling that we are enough!). This chakra holds a lot of imbalances for most people, and I work often to cleanse and rebalance this chakra in my coaching sessions and yoga practices.

    Rebalancing this chakra will support individuals to rediscover a stronger sense of self, the courage to pursue their passions, and to assertively navigate life’s challenges.

    The Heart Chakra: Embracing Unconditional Love

    At the centre of the chakra system lies a pivotal energy center—the fourth chakra, the heart chakra. Positioned at the center of the chest, this chakra governs love, compassion, and connection. Opening the heart chakra involves transcending ego-driven desires and embracing unconditional love for oneself and others.

    The heart chakra plays a pivotal role in breaking down barriers and fostering deep connections with those around us. As we learn to cultivate compassion and forgiveness, the armor around our heart begins to crumble, allowing love to flow freely.

    The ripple effect of an open heart chakra extends beyond personal relationships, influencing our perception of the world and inspiring acts of kindness and empathy.

    The Throat Chakra: Expressing Authenticity

    Ascending further, the fifth chakra—the throat chakra—supports us to explore the power of authentic expression. Nestled in the throat region, this energy center governs communication and self-expression. Activating the throat chakra involves speaking one’s truth with clarity and conviction, fostering open and honest communication.

    On my own journey, I learned to express my thoughts and feelings authentically. The ability to communicate openly allowed me to align my actions with my true self—a liberating feeling.

    The Third Eye Chakra: Awakening Intuition

    As the journey ascends to the sixth chakra—the third eye chakra—a shift occurs toward the realm of intuition and spiritual insight. Positioned between the eyebrows, this energy center is associated with enhanced perception, intuition, and inner wisdom. Activating the third eye chakra involves cultivating mindfulness, honing intuitive abilities, and connecting with the higher realms of consciousness.

    In my own quest for spiritual growth, the awakening of the third eye chakra brought about a heightened sense of awareness, allowing me to perceive the invisible subtle energies that shape our reality. Intuitive insights guided my decisions, and a profound connection to universal consciousness unfolded.

    The Crown Chakra: Union with the Divine

    At the pinnacle of the chakra system lies the seventh chakra—the crown chakra—a gateway to transcendent states of consciousness. Positioned at the top of the head, this energy center represents spiritual connection, enlightenment, and unity with the divine. Activating the crown chakra involves transcending the ego and embracing a sense of oneness with the cosmos.

    In my own spiritual journey, the blossoming of the crown chakra marked a profound shift in perception. Developing an awareness of energy flow within my body has been transformative. It’s like tapping into a subtle language that communicates the interplay between my thoughts, emotions, and physical well-being.

    This heightened energetic awareness has brought a deeper connection to myself and a more profound appreciation for the energy that surrounds me. The boundaries of the self dissolved, and a deep sense of interconnectedness with all of existence emerged.

    It was a transcendent experience, akin to standing on the summit of a mountain and gazing into the vast expanse below—a realization that we are all interconnected, not in a cliché way, but in an embodied type of knowing.

    5 Practical Techniques for Re-balancing Chakras

    Here are five practical techniques to help you understand and rebalance your energy system:

    1. Mindful Awareness of Blockages: Journaling your Reflections

    Fostering Mindful Awareness: Mindful awareness forms the bedrock of chakra re-balancing, inviting us to attune our consciousness to our thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. This practice requires cultivating a gentle, non-judgmental awareness of the present moment, fostering a profound connection with one’s internal landscape.

    Taking Time for Introspection: The journey of self-discovery requires intentional periods of introspection. Observe the depths of your being, peeling back the layers of experience to uncover the subtle nuances of discomfort. This introspective journey is a sacred space where you confront the shadows and whispers of unresolved emotions, acknowledging their existence with compassion. Journal your thoughts, discoveries, and emotions.

    Recognizing Signals of Chakra Imbalances: Chakra imbalances manifest as subtle signals within our being. Pay keen attention to recurring patterns of thought, emotional turbulence, and even physical ailments. The body communicates its wisdom, and these signals serve as guideposts to areas where energy flow may be hindered. Recognizing these signals marks the initiation of a profound dialogue with the self, unveiling the stories held within each energy centre.

    2. Chakra-Based Meditation, Breathwork, and Yoga

    Incorporating Meditation and Visualization: Meditation is a powerful awareness building and energy stabilizing tool. Visualize each chakra, their physical location, and their colors, and explore what this part of your body is feeling and saying. Envision the vibrant, spinning wheels of light, each corresponding to a specific chakra.

    Tailoring Mindful Movement, Breathwork, and Yoga: Mindful movement, breathwork, and yoga serve as embodied rituals, aligning the physical body with the energetic of the chakras. Tailor these practices to resonate with the unique frequencies of each energy centre.

    For instance, indulge in grounding postures and deep, rhythmic breaths for the root chakra or embrace heart-opening poses for the heart chakra. The body becomes a sacred vessel through which chakra alignment unfolds, creating a harmonious symphony of breath, movement, and energy.

    Visualizing Healing Light: Within the sanctuary of meditation and your yoga practice, visualize healing light streaming through your being, illuminating and cleansing each chakra. Envision this radiant light dissolving energetic blockages, restoring the free flow of life force energy. The act of visualizing healing light becomes an alchemical process, transmuting stagnant energy into a vibrant, harmonious resonance within.

    3. Chakra-Balancing Food 

    Understanding the Connection: Recognize that each chakra resonates with particular tastes, textures, and colors. Grounding foods, such as root vegetables, may nourish the root chakra, while vibrant, water-rich fruits align with the sacral chakra. Embrace this mindful approach to nutrition as a form of self-love and energetic nourishment.

    Incorporating Balanced Meals: Craft meals that serve as culinary expressions of chakra balance. Integrate a variety of nutrient-dense foods, aligning with the unique needs of each energy center. The act of preparing and consuming balanced meals becomes a sacred ritual, fostering not only physical well-being but also a profound sense of chakra alignment and vitality.

    4. Balancing Activities for Each Chakra

    Engaging in Resonant Activities: Practice activities that resonate with each energy center. Nature walks for the root chakra, dance and artistic expression for the sacral chakra, and confidence-building exercises for the solar plexus chakra. Engaging in activities that align with the qualities of each chakra enhances the holistic integration of their energies.

    5. Exploring Diverse Energy Healing Modalities

    Seeking Skilled Practitioners: While personal practices hold great value, the expertise of skilled practitioners enhances the depth of chakra healing. Seek out practitioners experienced in addressing chakra imbalances, who can guide you through tailored sessions that facilitate the seamless flow of healing energy.

    The synergy between self-practice and professional guidance becomes a holistic approach to chakra well-being. Explore various energy healing modalities, each offering a unique approach to chakra alignment: Reiki or Pranic Healing, acupuncture, and crystal healing are very powerful ways to balance our energy system.

    —

    To me, the chakra system is not a mystical concept reserved for a select few but a practical, accessible, and empowering tool for anyone seeking self-discovery and personal growth. My wish, both for individuals and collectively, is for the chakra system to transform into an empowering and healing tool. May it guide all of humanity toward healing, alignment with purpose, and hearts filled with compassion.

  • 20 Inspiring Messages to Take into New Year

    20 Inspiring Messages to Take into New Year

    It’s the beginning of a new year, full of promise and possibility. Maybe you have a good feeling about the year ahead and big plans to bring to life. Or maybe you’re coming out of one of the toughest years you’ve ever had, and you’re just hoping this year will hurt less than last.

    I’ve been in both situations before, as I imagine we all have. But no matter our unique situations, a new year often brings a sense of rebirth and hope. Hope that things can change, or that we can change, or maybe that we can just change how we see things. So we can struggle less, enjoy more, and show up more often as the people we want to be.

    With this in mind, I put together this collection of quotes that might comfort, encourage, uplift, and inspire you. I hope these messages help you start your day (and your year!) feeling good about yourself and what’s possible.

  • Forever Healing: 4 Things I Now Prioritize After Cancer

    Forever Healing: 4 Things I Now Prioritize After Cancer

    “I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.” ~Audre Lorde

    I’m a year out after completing chemo treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and on my healing journey. Cancer is a nasty little thing and can rear its ugly head at any time again. So, to minimize those recurrent chances and to feel like I’m doing all that’s in my control, I’ve accepted that this healing path will be for the rest of my life.

    I originally thought I’d be spending this first year rebuilding myself. And I have. However, I now see that this is a forever life path. Healing is a daily intentional practice, and I am on its continuous road.

    Being proactive by incorporating healthy practices into one’s life isn’t a guarantee against illness, but it at least makes us feel like we’re taking charge and doing all that’s in our control to ward off disease and optimize our health and well-being.

    I began exercising more than thirty years ago when my ex-husband moved out to begin divorce proceedings. My friend Gloria came by one day and pushed me to go to the local gym. She said it would be good for me. “Okay, I’ll try it out,” I said, “but I don’t think it’s for me.”

    Well, fast forward… exercise became a life practice. Over the years my basement became home to a treadmill, stationary bike, free weights, a trampoline, bars, and a balance ball. The local gym is also my place of exercise, as is the boardwalk and nature trails. Like brushing your teeth and taking a shower, exercise is a daily living activity.

    Healing encompasses a lot of factors. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming. Good enough must become a mindset and motto so we don’t beat ourselves up over occasional off days.

    So what goes into a healing path?

    Exercise is a must and a biggie.

    Since that’s been a permanent structure in my life, I don’t have to work on that one. Like a tree trunk, it’s rooted deep in my ground. When the walking, biking, weightlifting, yoga postures, hoola hooping, or trampolining don’t take place for a few days, my body calls out, “Move me, twist me, stretch me, strengthen me.”

    I have now added a new piece to my exercise: HIIT (high intensity interval training). Twenty minutes of HIIT a few times a week is indicated as an anti-cancer workout. And my dream and goal of ballroom dancing is being realized once again, as I’ve excitedly resumed my lessons that I started shortly before I was diagnosed. Movement comes in many forms.

    Contemplative practices are inner forms of reflection and calming activities.

    Meditation and breathing exercises, journaling, and time in nature are all soothing and quiet activities, bringing us back to ourselves. We listen to and feel what’s inside, what may be bubbling up, what our gut is telling us. We put aside the external distractions to promote the engagement of our calming parasympathetic nervous system.

    For, as we all know and feel, as our anxiety levels have skyrocketed, we live on high alert all the time, fighting off the invisible tigers, as our fight-or-flight response is continuously engaged. We don’t have to be a guru meditator, but giving ourselves a few minutes a day to just be, sitting in quietude and breathing deeply, is a natural antidote to stress and a huge release of cortisol. And as we know, stress is a big contributing factor in illnesses.

    Our lives are lived in a state of perpetual busyness and hecticness as we push ourselves toward productivity and perfection; therefore, we must prioritize activities that counter that busyness and bring us back to our selves. We oftentimes want to drown out our pain with distractions and busyness, but it catches up with us one way or another.

    Eat to live becomes a mindset for a lifestyle of healthy eating.

    We are gifted with a body that requires food to function well. As I am not a nutritionist, I’m not dishing out dietary advice. My new level of healthy eating is nature’s foods and limiting inflammatory, processed foods and sugars.

    Before cancer, I had always been a big ‘nosher.’ Entenmann’s cakes, cookies, potato chips, Dr. Pepper soda, and ice cream were my after-dinner desserts. I cut most of this out years ago when I got ulcers and had reflux and irritable bowel.

    One of my best takeaways from my trip to the Amazon was our hiking guide in the jungle, who said, “The jungle is our supermarket and pharmacy.”

    The people there, as in many poorer countries, have very low rates of cancer and heart disease. Their food is plant-based, along with some fish and meat. And look at the Blue Zones, the places in the world where the people live the longest and healthiest. Those purple potatoes go a long way for them.

    Making intentional food choices becomes a habit, giving ourselves the good stuff to fuel our body. This can be a harder part of the lifestyle to keep up with, as food preparation and shopping become a focal point. And for someone like me who’d rather be anywhere but the kitchen, this is definitely more difficult. It is an ongoing process for me.

    The bigger purpose and mindset keep me on track. My guiding mindset is this: My body took care of me through my chemo treatment, and now it is my duty, in gratitude, to take care of it. I am paying it back for how it kept going and didn’t break down; it didn’t break me. So I look to feed it well.

    I’ve upped my healthy eating to another level. My one square of dark chocolate each day satisfies my chocolate craving, and it has no sugar. I’ve developed a taste for this 100% dark chocolate. Practice and repeat. And whereas I used to choke down one piece of broccoli or asparagus, I now eat many pieces with my meal. Yay to baby steps of becoming more of a vegetable eater!

    Inner psychological work is a new one for me.

    I’ve been to numerous therapists throughout my adult life to deal with different circumstances, but now my therapy has taken on a whole new level and direction. During my treatment, I knew I wanted some type of support but did not want to join any support group or go to regular therapy again. I found, on this site actually, a creative arts therapist with whom I’ve been doing therapy like never before.

    My goal, besides coping through the chemo treatments, was healing myself from the inside out. I had an intuitive sense that I needed to clear out my whole gut and center area of my body where the lymphoma had appeared. Get rid of the cobwebs that had taken root in there and work through past resentments, upset, anger, hurt, and all the rest of those toxicities.

    Art, instincts, and unconscious work were all at play in this therapy, and continues today; uncovering and working through stuff that I never looked at like this.

    —

    This is my new life, beyond the simple wording of self-care. It’s focused and purposeful care of body, mind, heart, and soul.

    It’s work, but after a while it feels really good to be doing this with the big purpose of optimizing our well-being so we can live our best life.