Tiny Buddha

Category: Blog

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

    What a Month of Daily Panic Attacks Taught Me About Anxiety

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

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

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

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

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

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

    I was convinced that I was going to die.

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

    It Wasn’t My First Time

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

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

    But I was wrong.

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

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

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

    3 Important Lessons About Anxiety from My Month of Panic Attacks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    I was feeling on top of the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    I used to think having anxiety was embarrassing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    I admit, I was doubtful at first.

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

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

    I was scared and lost.

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

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

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

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

    I’ve learned how the surf the waves.

  • How to Step Out of the Drama Triangle and Find Real Peace

    How to Step Out of the Drama Triangle and Find Real Peace

    “Keep your attention focused entirely on what is truly your own concern, and be clear that what belongs to others is their business and none of yours.” ~Epictetus

    Are you addicted to drama? I was, but I didn’t know it. I thought I was just responding to life, to what was happening. I really didn’t think I had a choice! The drama triangle is so pervasive, and can be so subtle, that it just seems normal. But it’s not, and there’s a much saner way to live, I found.

    Dr. Stephen Karpman first described the drama triangle in the 1960’s.

    All three of the roles—Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor—are very fluid and can morph easily into one another. We all have a favorite (usually the role we assumed most often in childhood), but most of us are pretty good at all three of them, depending on the situation.

    My personal favorite was Rescuer, although I also did a very credible Victim from time to time. I was a Rescuer in my family of origin (middle children often are). I felt virtuous, strong, and necessary when other people turned to me for help or depended on me to take care of things.

    But there’s always a downside. Being a perpetual Rescuer led to chronic stress, as I constantly monitored how everyone else was doing and was never available to take care of my own needs.

    That’s when I’d slip into the Victim role: I’d feel sorry for myself, since no one seemed to appreciate how hard I was working to take care of them. Which made me feel angry and resentful, and before I knew it I’d find myself picking a fight with my husband or fuming at some unwitting clerk. (Yep, there’s the Persecutor.)

    See how the drama cycles from role to role? They all have their payoffs too. It feels good to be a Victim, at least for a while. We get a lot of attention. We don’t need to take responsibility for our actions and their consequences, because we can always find someone else to blame for them. Often people will help us (those nice Rescuers).

    And being the Persecutor can feel powerful, especially for someone who has never learned the skill of asking directly for their needs to be met. We get to “blow off steam.” We might even get to have our way for a while—but at what cost?

    It’s an exhausting way to live. All of the roles are driven by anxiety and the ways we have learned to “control” it in our lives. The drama keeps us absorbed, and it keeps us enmeshed (unhealthily) with others, but it leaves very little room for real peace and joy. And no room at all for a truly healthy relationship to form.

    But how do we step away from the drama triangle, when almost everyone we know is still playing the game?

    The first step is simply to be aware of the game, how it works, and what roles you play most frequently. What role did you play as a child? Can you identify the roles that others in your family played? Are they still playing them?

    The role of Rescuer may be the easiest to admit to, since it actually sounds praiseworthy or noble on the surface. This is not genuine philanthropy, however—it’s really about control and being in someone else’s business, thus neglecting your own.

    If you’re accustomed to being a Victim, on the other hand, you’ll find yourself often looking for someone or something outside of yourself to blame. (In fact, the hallmark of all the roles is that your attention is usually directed outward.)

    Finally, although no one likes to admit to being a Persecutor, if anger is your go-to emotion when things go wrong, you’re probably operating in that role. In reality, the anger is just a mask for underlying fear, shame, and powerlessness. Sadly, adult Persecutors were often Victims as children. In the drama triangle there are no good guys and bad guys—everyone loses.

    Once you’ve become aware of your patterns, it becomes much easier to recognize the game and, eventually, step out of it. Since the drama triangle is all about being in other people’s business, stepping out of it requires you to remain firmly in your own!

    What helped me with this was a concept I call the “zone of integrity.” Imagine a circle around yourself; this represents your business (your true responsibility). In the zone of integrity, you are responsible for being 100% honest, both with yourself and with others. This means acknowledging and honoring your own feelings and needs, and allowing others to be responsible for theirs.

    It also means taking responsibility for your own actions and their consequences, and letting others do the same. This might require some “tough love,” both toward yourself and others. You might not be the most popular person at the dance for a while. Codependence (which is essentially what the drama triangle describes) is a system. It requires multiple players to function, so people will probably be upset when you opt out. In fact, you can count on it.

    During my own withdrawal phase, I would regularly find myself getting sucked into the old dynamics, but it’s become easier and easier to spot when that happens and to use the “zone of integrity” concept to pull myself back into my own business.

    Recently my mother asked me to help smooth over a squabble between some of my siblings—exactly the sort of thing I have done all my life. Even in the act of saying yes I suddenly stopped and thought, “Is this really my business? Do I really have to take this on?” And then politely declined.

    It’s not always easy in the beginning to recognize whose business you’re in, especially when it involves your family of origin. These are the people who taught you most of what you know about the drama triangle, after all!

    For me, I feel a very familiar sense of obligation and guilt when those Rescuer urges start kicking in, which prompts me to pull back and look more closely at the situation. It took practice for me to hear and trust those feelings, but now they’re easy to spot.

    The zone of integrity, when I manage to stay there, feels so good. I still care about people, and help when it feels right, but I no longer feel obligated to rescue. That means that I don’t end up feeling victimized, or resentfully persecuting someone else in return. In the long run it’s much better for everyone involved.

    My life now has a lot less drama, it’s true. You might miss that sometimes, when people are trading war stories at Friday night happy hour. What you will have instead is true peace of mind, much healthier relationships and a passionate addiction to staying in your zone of integrity. It’s worth the trade-off.

  • The People Who Hurt Us Are Vehicles for Our Growth

    The People Who Hurt Us Are Vehicles for Our Growth

    “You only see in others what you have in yourself.” ~Annette Noontil

    I now recognize, after observing painful patterns repeat many times, how things that trigger me are just lessons I need to learn that are often delivered through other people. The more painful the experience, the more I can see (in retrospect) I learned from it.

    Every now and then, when I find myself getting sucked into thoughts about the rightness or wrongness of a situation and how much pain it’s causing me, I take a step backward. I can see that people are just the mechanism to my growth, and painful experiences are just big Wrong Way signs redirecting me to my best life.

    In his book Scattered Minds, Dr. Gabor Maté wrote, “It is well recognized now that people will form relationships with others exactly at the same level of psychological development and self-acceptance as their own… What we might call the law of equal development holds true even if the people themselves buy into the mythology that one of them is more emotionally mature than the other.”

    I love this insight from Dr Maté, especially when he goes on to give a typical example of a married couple with one spouse that appears to be functioning in the world more successfully than the other. When the relationship is examined more closely it can usually be seen that both people have a lot of maturing to do in order to be able to function healthily as individuals rather than in a codependent state.

    It’s no coincidence that we form relationships with people who trigger us. We are drawn to people who are, in some way, a match to our own issues, and they both challenge us and help us heal and grow.

    As a homeopathic practitioner recently observed, about two differing constitutions often drawn to one another: “One is in their head and has to learn to connect from their heart, the other is in their heart and has to learn to connect from their head.”

    But all this holds true whether it’s an intimate relationship or a more distant one; if someone triggers you (positively or negatively) they have something to teach. Michael Kerr puts it simply as “People gravitate toward their emotional mirror images.”

    “People tend to sort themselves out by levels of emotional development for many purposes, not just marriage, “ writes Stanley Greenspan, “because those functioning at different levels are practically speaking different languages…. People widely separated developmentally in fact have very little to talk about.”

    It can be tough to look at people I have, at one time, literally despised and consider that we were emotional mirror images—for example, a jealous colleague who went out of her way to discredit me on a number of occasions. This doesn’t mean that I am a bully because someone bullied me (although it could mean that for someone else); it means that we both had an equal emotional stake in the same interaction.

    In retrospect, I can see that my former colleague triggered pain from my childhood relationship with my mother.

    My colleague’s modus operandi was an unfiltered lashing out at anything that stood in her way. Her unprofessional conduct went unchecked and unmanaged because she had been promoted for the short-term results she’d achieved.

    Her behavior reflected the unfiltered (tongue) lashing I often received from my mum when she was feeling highly anxious.

    As a child, I learned to stay out of trouble by anticipating her emotions and striving for perfection in my behavior so that I received no criticism (which was usually unfounded and always delivered in a way that felt crushing and unfair).

    Not that I was ever passive, but when I wanted something I would go after it from a point of defense, justifying myself rationally rather than having healthy boundaries around my own needs and desires.

    To be criticized publicly by a colleague was, therefore, not something that felt safe to me. My attempts at repairing the relationship privately were unsuccessful, and it was not until I stood up in a meeting and told her pointedly that I would not allow her (nor anyone else) to bully me that I garnered her respect.

    This experience allowed me to see how much hurt I’d been harboring from my childhood, and to put energy into healing that old wound rather than perpetuating any more situations that echoed it.

    With the benefit of hindsight and my own years of parenting, I can now see I wasn’t responsible for my mum’s anxiety; rather it was an amplification of her own anxiety as a child in reaction to the culture and environment she grew up in, and the way her behavior was managed.

    While it’s easier for me these days to detach myself from issues that trigger me emotionally, note that I do still get triggered. That, I believe, will never change because there is no surer way to know what we do want without first experiencing what we don’t want. It is just best not to get stuck feeling sorry for ourselves.

    I’ll admit it’s sometimes hard to see a way through the emotions of the moment, especially when it relates to an ongoing situation. When I’m triggered, it’s still through other people whom I would dearly love to validate my view, just as they would no doubt love me to validate theirs, so there is a lot to work on.

    The beauty, though, is that I mostly choose to do it from a point of intrigue and willingness to learn and grow rather than feeling powerless and at the mercy of others.

    Again, note I said mostly. Old habits die hard, and there are still many times where I’ll find myself turning to confidants to rant about something. For this reason I choose to confide in people who gently prompt me back to the observer’s chair, and the broader view.

    And when similar situations keep arising, I know that life is presenting an important lesson for me. It’s not always immediately obvious what the real lesson is and how I can overcome my struggle, but experience has taught me that things become clear when they are ready to; my job is to cope as best as I can with my frustrations rather than make myself miserable.

    And since the lessons are most often delivered through others, I try not to vilify them for their part. I know that in the future I will be thanking them—even if only inwardly—for the role they played in my ongoing growth and journey through life.

    So what are you currently triggered by, and who is the focus of your frustrations? Think about past situations where you’ve felt similarly. When was the first time you can recall feeling this way? Try to see the pattern, and what it might be telling you.

    Rather than living through the pain as a helpless victim, try to see the lessons you’ve come to learn. In whatever way the lesson is being played out, the true lesson will be some version of learning to love yourself more; it always is.

    Can you imagine a world full of people who are seeking their power through self-love rather than trying to take from others? Now that is a world I’d like to live in.

  • You Can Have a Tender Heart and Still Be Fierce

    You Can Have a Tender Heart and Still Be Fierce

    “Life is a balance between what we can control and what we cannot. I am learning to live between effort and surrender.” ~Danielle Orner

    For too long, I felt myself pulled between two shores of my identity. On one side was my yoga teacher, meditator, healer identity—my tender side. On the other side was my activist, change-maker role—my fierce side.

    I always felt like I was too tender for some and too fierce for others. It made me feel like I didn’t fit in anywhere.

    Definitely the soft-hearted “woo” person in my activist circles. And I was definitely the one talking about structural oppression and other activist ideas in my yoga teacher trainings. (The ahimsa lecture was always a sticky one.)

    What I now know is that both of these sides of myself are valid. Both are necessary for living in the world, whether you want to bring healing, love, and light—or whether you want to really shake things up.

    The problem is not that both of these exist (both do, in all of us). The problem is what happens when they are out of balance.

    When we favor our tender side too much, we might succumb to heartbreak and collapse. If we let our fierce side get too strong, our anger might consume us until we flame out. Either option is a recipe for burnout and exhaustion.

    This is your official permission slip to embrace both of these sides of yourself.

    When I became a mom, my perspective shifted dramatically. While I aimed to be a tender, safe container for my baby, I also had to be a warrior-advocate for him on a number of fronts.

    New motherhood was also a time when I had to admit vulnerabilities in myself like I never had before, while having less access to outlets for my fierce activism. I had to admit that I had no idea what I was doing; that I needed help; and that I needed to take a step back from certain areas of life.

    It was tender. And it was an act of fierce self-love. I learned that we needed both, not just within us, but at the same time.

    My self-care also shifted. I couldn’t procrastinate or be wishy-washy anymore. I had to clearly (sometimes fiercely communicate) my needs.

    I also had to slow way down and shift my expectations for myself. I had to invite a sense of tenderness into my days, even when it would have been much easier to push harder. I incorporate a sense of flow into my days, even when it feels challenging to allow myself that.

    That looks like taking dedicated, structured time for myself and my work when my energy is high. And it looks like easing off a little bit when my energy is lower. This requires clear communication with those around me, and a lot of grace for myself.

    It takes both the fierce side and the tender side, working together.

    Now, I’ll be honest: Society is sometimes not wild about folks being fierce and tender. It can be very gendered: men are expected to be tough and fierce; women are expected to be sweet and tender. So we’re breaking the rules.

    But trust me when I say that it’s worth it. It’s worth it to embrace your whole self. Ultimately, those around you (and the world!) will benefit from you showing up as your complete self.

    Yes, our fiery side will make some folks uncomfortable, just the way our vulnerabilities will. Everyone will survive that discomfort. Just remember that your tender heartbreak is valid—as is your fierce desire to create transformation.

    Sometimes it feels as though nuance is no longer welcome—that we’re reduced to what we can fit into an Instagram caption. But you are allowed to be complicated.

    There’s a myth that being fierce isn’t spiritual—that we’re all supposed to be perfectly calm all the time. That just isn’t true. Our fierce side—or any other reaction to oppression or the state of the world—is just a set of conditions we’re working with.

    Anger is simply another part of our experience. In fact, it offers us grist for our practice. Beyond our own individual practice, our fierce side is a lamp to illuminate injustice and show the path forward.

    On the other hand, there’s a misconception that if we’re “too” tender, then we’ll crumple when the going gets tough. It’s true that we don’t want to become victim to our emotions. It is a gift to be able to work with them skillfully.

    Our tenderness, though, is actually an asset. Tenderness allows us to perceive our interconnection more easily—to recognize ourselves in others, and vice versa. It is the foundation of a more compassionate world.

    This is why I (and we) need both. When there’s too much of one, we fall out of balance. There are gifts to embracing both, of being somewhere in the middle.

    To create more of this balance, it’s important to know your tendencies. Do you tend toward the fierce side or the tender side? With that information, you can navigate ways to create more equilibrium and communication between those two sides.

    If you tend more toward the fierce side, practice getting in touch with the feelings underneath any anger or reactivity. Remind yourself that it’s okay to feel tender and vulnerable. Place your hands over your heart and breathe, if you’re having trouble getting in touch with your tenderness.

    If your natural state is more tender, practice taking action in service of what breaks your heart. Getting into action creates a sense of empowerment. Taking action (even small actions) regularly may help you release the feelings of helplessness you might be feeling.

    Above all, remember the root of your caring. Whether it comes from a place of fierce protection or tender nurturance, these feelings are reminders that you care.

    We are all allowed to hold all of our parts, all at the same time, even if some of them don’t seem to fit at first.

  • The Life-Changing Benefits of Two-Minute Meditations

    The Life-Changing Benefits of Two-Minute Meditations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Self-Compassion 

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

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

    Acceptance of Discomfort

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

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

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

    Compassion for Others

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

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

    Ability to Pause

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

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

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

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

    Increased Connection

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Living with Depression and Anxiety: How to Lessen the Pain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Practical Steps for Managing Depression and Anxiety

    Meditate.

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

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

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

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

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

    Ask better quality questions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Practice acceptance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Tell people how you feel.

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

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

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

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

    Give yourself time to be happy each day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    —

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

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

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

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

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

  • Why I’m Done Fishing for ‘Likes’ on Social Media

    Why I’m Done Fishing for ‘Likes’ on Social Media

    “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” ~Ernest Hemingway

    Recently I was invited to listen to a recorded presentation about humility, and it literally rocked my world.

    As I listened intently, the words “complete and whole” popped into my head. And then came the light bulb moment: “Yes!” I thought. “When one feels whole and complete, they’re more humble.”

    As the presenter talked about the “look at me” culture of selfies and social media I felt my toes begin to curl and my stomach tighten.

    “Oh look, there’s you posting with your plate of food. And the next day, there’s you posting a picture of you on the beach. And then the next day, there’s you posting a picture of you and someone you just met. Has your face changed from one day to the next? Because if not, I promise I haven’t forgotten what you look like.”

    Those examples were funny at first, until I realized I haven’t always been that humble, whole person that I’ve aspired to be. The most recent example of my own “look at me” behavior, the one posted to all of my social media apps, paraded itself in front of me: a before and after side-by-side of me now and forty-five pounds heavier.

    Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to diminish that accomplishment in any way, or suggest it’s wrong to share our successes. I’m super proud, but the issue is why I took to social media:

    I needed that external validation that I’d done some good work. I needed that external “stuff” to help me feel whole and complete. I wanted those “thumbs up” and the “You look amazing!” comments to make me feel good.

    Did it?

    For a moment it did, but it wasn’t long lasting. What I was looking for needed to come from something and somewhere much deeper and more important than the number of likes or comments received.

    The Lesson in My “Look at Me” Behavior

    As I replayed the presenter’s words days later it all started to make sense. The lack of humility, for me, equated to the lack of wholeness and completeness I’ve sometimes felt.

    But here was the real lesson…

    If I can’t be my own cake (whole and complete), compliments and likes, which are really just icing, don’t have anywhere to sit. Which means their impact is going to be fleeting and short-lived.

    And whether the comments are good, bad, or indifferent, not being whole and complete within myself is most likely going to lead to more “look at me” behavior. It has the potential of becoming a perpetually draining loop that I want no part of.

    Using Humility to Be the Best Version of Me

    Humility has now become my gauge and my trigger. If I’m not being humble, that’s my “nod” that I need to do some inner “tweaking.”

    So, to leverage my own humility, here is what I’ve been doing. As a result of these changes, I’ve compared myself to others less, I’ve felt more grounded, and the best result, I’ve felt more whole and complete with who I am and what I do.

    Feeling my worth, not proving it

    I don’t have to prove my worth to anyone, ever! I have to own it by being proud of the things I do and the person I am and sitting with those feelings and enjoying them.

    As an example, if I give to a person in need, I can sit with the awesome feelings that giving produces without taking to social media and posting about it. (e.g.: Today, I gave money to this homeless man in the picture so he could buy some lunch.)

    Humbly celebrating success

    I’m a big fan of celebrating successes because a) it feels good and b) it builds up “I can do it” evidence for future projects and goals. When it comes to celebrating success, however, I’m reminded of this quote from Criss Jami, “The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it.”

    So, I take to my journal and write down my successes instead of posting about them. That way I can re-read them any time I need a little boost.

    Some of the coolest people I know are the ones who own their successes without flaunting them. And they use their successes not as a “look at me” device but to inspire others and help them succeed as well.

    Reining in the old ego

    I’ve turned the word “ego” into an acronym that stands for:

    E = Edging

    G = Goodness

    O = Out

    Basically, when I’m disconnected from whatever grounds me, makes me feel good, and keeps me centered I’m more prone to lack, fear, and “look at me” behavior, which all come from the ego. So, anytime I am depleted, that is when I’m more apt to look outward, like to social media, for ways to make me feel good about myself.

    One of the best ways to rein in the old ego is to do something self-care related. For example, I’ll meditate, take some deep breaths, or soak in a hot bath. This always recharges me, leaving me less susceptible to “look at me” behavior.

    Now It’s Your Turn

    At the end of the day, humility is awesome! It enables us to create a sense of wholeness from within instead of constantly seeking validation from other people. It helps us create a connection with ourselves and others. And it prevents us from draining ourselves and the people we care about with attention-seeking behavior..

    So, my friends, I just have one simple question to ask you: How are you going to engage your own humility to feel more whole and complete?

  • Maybe I Don’t Need to Make a Big Change in the World

    Maybe I Don’t Need to Make a Big Change in the World

    “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

    As a teen, I was passionately idealistic about justice, love, and compassion. Reading the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and other icons of justice inspired a desire to make a big change in the world.

    Older people would attempt to temper my enthusiasm with a dose of jaded reality, saying things like, “That’s just the way the world is,” and “You can’t change people.”

    I vowed to never be like that. I didn’t want to give into the status quo and turn a blind eye to others being mistreated.

    I literally went out into the world and off to college clutching King’s book, Strength to Love, under my arm. I wanted to live my life advocating for justice and fighting for human rights.

    The world swiftly punched me in the gut…

    Fueled by my passion to change the world, I wrote a fierce letter to the editor on a racial topic affecting my college campus. In response, a group of giggling girls called me late at night, to mock-thank me for being the “white savior” of the campus.

    It was a painful lesson that hurt deeply and confused and embarrassed me. My gusto to change the world had missed the mark.

    I learned many important lessons from that “smack down” experience. I learned to listen more and understand my place within groups. I learned to forgive myself for my mistakes and continue to grow. I learned to slow down and be more deliberate in my actions.

    After healing from my initial wound, I reached out to a mentor. This man had worked in the area of social justice for decades. I wanted to be like him and understand life from his knowing-heart.

    He tolerated my persistent idealism of great change and my occasional self-centeredness, and encouraged me to grow and learn.

    He encouraged me to accept myself for who I was and to focus on listening to others’ stories.

    With hopes of making great change, I started working with those struggling with mental health issues, addiction, poverty, and homelessness. I heard the stories of people who had no voice.

    Stories of disparity, discrimination, and injustice fueled my frustration with society’s sleepy acceptance of the horrors of racism, sexism, and classism. The complexity of these issues belied my passion for change.

    Decades passed and I grew into the person I always wanted to be. I gained experience and understanding. But, the lack of progress in changing society and changing/helping individuals carried a high-level of burn out.

    My soul felt tarnished by anger and exhaustion. I carried so many stories close to my heart…

    The young girls who climbed in the bathtub at night to stay safe from stray bullets of warring gang members. The fifteen-year-old, with the wicked sense of humor, who was killed by his friends. The young man, struggling with schizophrenia, drifting homeless, and then sentenced to a lengthy prison term. The frail, elderly man living in poverty in a remote area with no one to check on him.

    I felt as if my efforts had been completely futile. What type of change had I ever accomplished? I did a quick appraisal and felt full-blown compassion fatigue.

    During this time, I met a man who was addicted to drugs, struggled with severe mental illness, and cycled through homelessness and incarceration. He struck me as one of the most vulnerable individuals I had ever met.

    Because of his childlike trusting, it was easy for his peers to steal his money or con him out of any item. Because of his small size, he was set up and raped. He was incomprehensibly underrepresented and misunderstood within society and within the criminal justice system.

    Whenever I would see him, I would reach out with a gentle voice and word of encouragement. He didn’t seem to respond or notice my efforts. He became symbolic of my compassion fatigue. I couldn’t affect any significant change for this man.

    I took a break and went on a vacation. During my time off, I journaled my list of jaded grievances—aspects of the world I wanted to change.

    People in the world should be more educated, more compassionate, more honest, less judgmental, more accepting, more generous, less self-absorbed… As I scribbled and grumbled, I felt myself thinking, “That’s just the way the world is. You can’t change people.”

    Over my vacation, I continued to reflect on my purpose in the world. An idea that I had been tossing around began to take shape in my mind:

    What if I didn’t have to change the world or even change a single person? What if I simply had to be what I wanted in the world?

    By accepting the fact that I could not change the world, I allowed open space for hope and potential. I felt a burden lift, as I realized satisfying, attainable goals.

    I made a list of personal, complementary goals for each grievance:

    I will educate others by sharing the stories of injustice.

    I will be compassionate, kind, genuine, and open.

    I will be generous and trustworthy.

    I will listen without judgment and strive to understand another’s viewpoint.

    I will keep my ego in check and act from humility.

    At the bottom of my list, I wrote, “All I have control over is myself. It is enough to focus on changing myself into the person that I want to see in the world. Any outcomes are up to the universe.”

    I thought of my vulnerable friend, so taken advantage of by others. My efforts to change his world had failed. My efforts to effect healthy behaviors had failed. Yet, I had been the person to him that I needed to see in the world. I had accomplished this important goal.

    Instead of being the symbol of my futility to effect change, my relationship with him became a symbol of the simplicity of “being” with another, of showing compassion to another.

    After my retreat, I went back to work with a more centered approach of just being present. It felt really good.

    As I walked up to the homeless shelter, I visited with a group of men outside. I saw my vulnerable friend approaching and was surprised he was looking directly at me.

    He pointed at me, smiled, and said to one of the men, “That’s Amy.” He then went to the next man and said the same thing, moving around the circle. When he got to me, he gave me a big hug and said, “I missed you.” I hugged him back, and said, “I missed you, too.”

    I was astonished. Within that hug was my balm. He had given me a great gift of healing, stemming from the realization that we’d both helped each other in that moment. The gift was minute, but mighty. It wasn’t about changing or improving anything, but rather accepting and supporting each other. Allowing that moment to be enough.

    We can focus on change, for ourselves and others, as an ideal or a goal. Working on ideals of change has a place in life. However, the balm, for me, was to elevate “just being” to the same level of importance as “changing or fixing,” and shifting my role from savior to friend.

    This shift is affirming for everyone, including myself and especially those who consistently are looked upon as needing to be changed. That space of being and of acceptance is where healing can take place.

  • 6 Ways Meditation Improves Your Life

    6 Ways Meditation Improves Your Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    3. Meditation teaches us self-compassion and patience.

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

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

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

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

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

    With practice, meditation teaches us acceptance.

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

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

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

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

    4. Meditation teaches us to be less judgmental.

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

    Judgment separates us from others. It’s isolating.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • When You Feel Tired of Hoping and Trying, Remember…

    When You Feel Tired of Hoping and Trying, Remember…

    “What happens when people open their hearts? They get better.” ~Haruki Murakami

    What do you do when just can’t do it anymore? When the pain is too much? The discouragement is too much? The hoping and trying are too much?

    It’s not that you haven’t tried. You’ve been brave. You’ve been persistent. You’ve been soldiering on through hurt that other people don’t understand.

    It’s that you’re feeling broken from the trying.

    That’s how I felt when my husband died of stomach cancer. There were two healing realizations that changed not only the path that I was on, but how I felt. I think they can help you too.

    In the ten months between my husband’s diagnosis and his death, I was driven by desperation.

    I only slept five hours a night. The rest of the time I was caring for him. Or researching his condition. Or worrying about him.

    Don could only eat a few bites of food at a time, and he was often too nauseated to want to eat at all. As I watched him waste away, I cooked as many as five fresh meals a day, trying to create something that would persuade him to eat.

    Meanwhile, I lost thirty pounds.

    My path was unsustainable.

    I knew it, but I didn’t care. Deep down, I didn’t want to go on without him.

    At the end, I spent more than a month at his side in the hospital, day and night. I left my job and children to care for him. He was my whole world.

    Then he died.

    In that small, dark place, I had to decide if I would die too.

    Realization #1: It’s not about you.

    Choosing to live didn’t come all at once, any more than feeling lost and broken had. The first step was realizing “It’s not about you.”

    It may seem like that realization wouldn’t be helpful for someone who wasn’t even eating or sleeping. And how are you supposed to live your life if it isn’t about you, anyway?

    But the truth is, I was neglecting myself because I was so focused on my own pain. Shifting my focus eased my suffering.

    I didn’t make the shift for philosophical reasons, though. I made the shift because I saw how much my pain was hurting my children.

    My teenage daughter went out for pie on a special occasion with her friends. She brought her piece home untouched for me because she said I needed the calories.

    On another occasion, she brought home a Styrofoam box containing the entire restaurant meal from her anniversary date with her boyfriend, for the same reason.

    When my heart started breaking from these small but mighty sacrifices, I realized how much heart I really had left.

    I had thought my capacity to love, to hurt, to care had been exceeded. But it hadn’t.

    Most of us have the instinct to shut down in response to pain. To pull back inside, as though cutting ourselves off from the rest of humanity could heal our broken parts. The truth is just the opposite.

    Love heals.

    Finding the Love that Heals

    Viktor Frankl lost his entire family in the Holocaust. During his own imprisonment in multiple concentration camps, Frankl became fascinated with the differences in how people responded to the atrocities they experienced.

    Everything about the camps was designed to dehumanize the prisoners. To tear them down, and to strip away their courage, hope, and identity. Most of the time it worked.

    Many people gave up. Frankl described camp mates who died not just from starvation and illness, but from grief and discouragement.

    Sometimes the shift was subtle–a spiritual and emotional wasting away that the body could not survive. Sometimes it was more dramatic. Prisoners walked into an electric fence or the path of a guard’s rifle.

    And sometimes, in order to physically survive, prisoners let part of their spirit die as the experience transformed them into someone cold and uncaring.

    But there were exceptions.

    There were people who became more kind, noble, and beautiful through the experience. The difference, Frankl concluded, was that these people were living for something bigger than themselves.

    They were sustained by love of family, faith in God, or commitment to science or art. According to Frankl, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’”

    Healing comes from having a reason to hold your heart open to pain. Because when you do, you automatically hold it open to joy as well.

    What do you love more than yourself?

    When You Don’t Feel Like Loving

    Maybe you don’t know right now what you love enough to motivate you.

    Maybe the problem is that you lost someone or something you really loved.

    Or maybe you feel exhausted from the way you’ve been going about loving.

    I get it.

    Not the specifics of your story, but I get what it’s like to be disconnected from every feeling except pain. To feel sucked dry from the giving. To be disillusioned and discouraged and so tired that the thought of loving any more is impossible.

    And you know what? That’s okay. It’s okay to be with those feelings. To take time for yourself, even if all you can bring yourself to do is binge watch Netflix.

    But the truth? When you’re ready, choosing love will do more to help you than almost anything else.

    Love prompts us to do hard things.

    It’s love that fuels parents who stay awake night after night with a colicky baby. It’s love that helps hurt friends to reconcile. It’s love that makes those relationships that have spanned the years precious, not despite but because of all the ups and downs along the way.

    And it’s love that can give us the courage to walk away when the situation calls for it.

    Love prompts us to make those sacrifices that in the moment don’t seem beautiful at all, but in retrospect become the most significant choices of our lives.

    It’s love that fills us, when we feel our most empty.

    So be brave. Let yourself love. Love an animal. Love the houseplant on your kitchen table and the nature you encounter on a quiet walk. Love the contributions you can make toward the greater good. And love the people around you.

    Love Grows

    I started back at my job a few weeks after Don died. It was tough. We had taught at the same college, working out of the same building, for a decade. Memories were everywhere. And because I teach psychology, there were many discussion topics that were triggering for me.

    I did it because my kids needed me to pull it together. For them.

    But as I did I it, I realized I was also doing it for me. The classroom became my happy place. I felt better when I got out of my head and focused on my students.

    My own pain was still there, of course. I cried in class more than once that first term. When I did, my students cried with me. They thanked me for being brave and open, and they offered me the same love and encouragement I had been trying to give them.

    That’s because love grows. That’s the magic of it. Even when you think you don’t have much to offer, it becomes enough, and to spare. When it is freely offered, love expands within us and around us with the giving.

    So how do you get to that point when you are feeling too worn out to give?

    Realization #2: Sometimes it has to be about you.

    When you get real about doing the impossible, about trying when you don’t know how to try anymore, you have to accept that it’s going to take all of you.

    It’s going to take you showing up fully. Owning your own power. Being unapologetically yourself.

    It’s going to take you making yourself the hero of your own story.

    So what have you been holding back?

    Is it love?

    What it Looks Like to Love Yourself

    When I was at my lowest point, my kids pointed out the ways I wasn’t taking care of myself. And because I didn’t want them to follow my example, I listened.

    I finally got medical treatment for a back problem that had been bothering me for years. I started buying myself little things that I enjoyed. I planned activities that weren’t really necessary, but that I wanted to do.

    In my world, trying had meant chronically neglecting myself so that I could put just a little more time, energy, or money into someone else.

    It’s no wonder I felt like I couldn’t keep going. I was right.

    Step one was nurturing myself with the same tangible attention I would give to someone else who I loved.

    But loving yourself means a lot more than a new haircut and a bubble bath.

    What it Feels Like to Love Yourself

    Loving yourself means showing up in your own life.

    It means giving yourself the best you have to offer and trusting that it is enough.

    It means being willing to try something new. And to keep trying.

    It means believing that you can create something beautiful even when all you’re feeling is pain.

    It means respecting your own boundaries.

    Loving yourself means being willing to do the hard things that will help you in the end.

    It means when you start to feel sorry for yourself, you stop. And you reconsider how to connect the dots between the events in your life. Because you get to determine the meaning of it all, and to decide how you want to move forward.

    And it means that when it’s time, you let go of the dreams that used to fuel you and dare to believe in new ones.

    Choosing Life

    When your spirit has been crushed, when you have no more words for the pain and no more heart for giving, remember:

    Love heals our broken places.

    Loving others. Loving yourself. It’s the same flow that heals everything it connects to.

    Those wounds hidden carefully away inside? They are the ones that don’t heal.

    The wounds bravely opened sting, yes. There is pain, but it is healing pain. Sadness felt and released opens space for joy.

    Gently offer love like sunshine, and feel your spirit grow toward the warmth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • What If Everyone Were Conspiring to Help You?

    What If Everyone Were Conspiring to Help You?

    “The sage perspective accepts every outcome and circumstance as an opportunity.” ~Shirzad Chamine

    No doubt you’re familiar with paranoia. In the modern world, it’s hard not to be. And as Joseph Heller wrote, just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not after you. But there is another way to look at the world. What if you could see every situation in your life as a positive conspiracy, aimed at aligning you with your highest good?

    This might seem outlandish, but it’s not as crazy as it seems. If you imagined that the person annoying or challenging you was actually a gift to help you further your mental or spiritual development, how would you respond differently? What could you learn from them?

    At the very least, you’d probably resist the urge to react negatively to the perceived provocation. Instead, you’d likely take a second look at what they were trying to communicate to you, and perhaps see something you might otherwise have missed.

    This perspective has its limits, of course. Those in abusive situations should not stay in a repeated pattern of abuse. But for those of us who experience the usual trying circumstances on a daily basis, releasing some negativity can be useful.

    Imagine yourself as an actor, in search of your big break. Aspiring actors frequently find it difficult to handle rejection, which is an inevitable part of the job.

    In the context of pronoia, you might see not getting a part differently. Maybe it looked like a good opportunity but would actually have been a dead-end or lead you in a direction that was undesirable. Or maybe each rejection is bringing you a step closer to success. If it takes a hundred auditions to land one great part, then every audition completed is another step closer to success.

    Similarly, mountain climbers don’t look at each grueling step on an ascent as a setback; rather, each step brings them closer to their goal at the top of the mountain.

    If we can change our perspective to “Every rejection or difficulty brings me that much closer to success,” we can shift our outlook. We won’t be mired in self-pity or overwhelmed. Instead, we will feel grateful for the opportunities that allow us to deepen our craft. The strongest sword is forged in the hottest fire.

    It’s easy to identify the people in our lives who are helpful. We naturally feel positive toward them. Then there are those with whom we have a neutral relationship. With a little effort, we can see those people in a positive light. But even the challenging people, the hard situations, and the failures can be reframed in our minds to be seen as a way to further our development or evolution.

    I was once leading an expedition in the Himalayas, and one of our group members was quite vocal about the lack of amenities while we were trekking. At first, I thought he was just unhappy about a particular cabin where we stayed one night, but as we continued the trek, his complaints became more and more pronounced.

    I kept trying my best to change his circumstances for the better, but in the back of my mind I thought, “What does he expect—we are traveling by foot at 15,000 feet through one of the most remote parts of the world!?”

    Finally, I took the time to pull him aside in the evening and ask what was really going on. It turned out that he had lost his wife recently and that they were planning on taking a trip like this together. It was a valuable lesson for me to take the time to connect deeply with people rather than just assume what is going on by observing the surface. In the end, he ended up being quite happy with the trip, and I became much better at deep listening.

    Of course, it is rare to get to know the pain that is the root cause of people’s difficult behavior. This can be particularly hard when the challenging person is someone close to you.

    We all have people in our lives whom we are close to but continue to challenge us deeply. In that case it is important not to rely on finding the source of the other person’s upset. That pain is most certainly there, but it rarely happens that we get to understand it for what it is. Instead, it’s important to learn how to be grateful for the continuing training they are providing for us in our journey.

    You may be tempted to kick challenging people out of your life, but what if instead you see them as a training ground for future greatness?

    Sometimes learning to work with someone negative can prepare you to work with difficult people you encounter in the future. When we adopt this viewpoint, we can generate a kind of gratitude toward those challenges.

    You wouldn’t go to the gym and get mad at the weights for being heavy, or mad at your muscles for being sore. Instead, you might celebrate, in the knowledge that your training is working. Similarly, you wouldn’t get mad at a sparring partner in the martial arts for trying to attack you, because you know they’re training you for a real life-and-death situation.

    It’s easy to see our real-life “sparring partners” as true battle opponents, but if we avoid them, we miss out on all the potential lessons that might come from interacting with them.

    In the end, the choice is yours. You can go through life seeing each negative person in front of you as an irritant, to be removed as soon as possible. Or you can try on the idea that they have something to teach you. It’s not a matter of which perspective is objectively “true.” It’s a matter of which perspective allows you to learn, grow, and thrive.

  • How to Stop Feeling Consumed by Your Fear of Being Alone

    How to Stop Feeling Consumed by Your Fear of Being Alone

    “Pain makes you stronger. Fear makes you braver. Heartbreak makes you wiser.” ~Unknown

    You wake up and check your phone, expecting a “good morning” text, but there’s nothing there. Going through your day, everything feels quieter, and there’s a gaping hole inside of you that nothing seems to fill. No matter what you do, you can’t seem to shake that relentless ache for the one person who consumes your mind.

    It’s an emptiness that makes you feel lost and scared.

    There’s nothing quite like a breakup to spark fears of being alone. It’s like a wave of dread that hits you once the breakup dust settles and you realize you no longer have a partner by your side. Anxiety hits, and you start to wonder if you’ll ever find anyone to love you again.

    It’s a fear that I became very familiar with while dating in my early twenties.

    I was a late bloomer when it came to relationships. I never had a high school sweetheart, or even a college one for that matter, and spent half of my twenties in frustratingly casual relationships.

    Those relationships would fizzle out almost as quickly as they began, and every time, I was left heartbroken, wondering if I’d be alone forever.

    What made it worse was that I would see my friends in happy, committed relationships and doubt that I would ever have that for myself. Spending most of my life single felt like a curse.

    Then, after countless short flings, I met someone who would eventually become my boyfriend. It was a moment I had been waiting for all those years, yet it wasn’t what I expected.

    I thought being in a relationship would bring me happiness and peace, but once I had the serious, committed relationship I had been yearning for, I realized I was only masking my loneliness under a false sense of security. Because being with someone who was not right for me felt equally lonely.

    So now that I’m single again after ending that five-year relationship, I have a new perspective on my feelings of loneliness and fear.

    While I don’t have all of the answers and everyone has different ways of coping, here are some things that helped me overcome my fear of being alone after a breakup.

    Lean on others for support.

    A breakup can feel a lot like losing your balance. The person you once relied on for support has been pulled out from under you, and it can be difficult to find your footing.

    Those feelings of loss only exacerbate the feelings of loneliness.

    However, if you look around, you’ll most likely find that there are people in your life who are just as supportive (if not more) as your ex-partner.

    After my breakup, the first people I turned to were my friends. They were my shoulder to cry on, and I could talk to them about anything and everything.

    Even though I wasn’t communicating with them as often as I should have during my last relationship, when that ended, they were right by my side without hesitation.

    Understand that being single doesn’t mean you’re alone.

    Almost everyone has at least one person they can turn to in times of need, so turn to friends, family, or whoever you feel comfortable opening up to so that you can vent, cry, yell, and express your emotions freely, without inhibition.

    If there’s no one in your life you can lean on, maybe this is a good time to work on building a support network outside of a romantic relationship by putting yourself in new situations and opening up to new friends. This way, being single won’t feel so scary because you’ll know you’re never truly alone.

    Embrace being single.

    Do you look at your breakup as just an ending or also a new beginning?

    If you view the change in your relationship status as a loss and nothing else, then, chances are, you also view being single as a negative, which allows your loneliness and sadness to get the better of you.

    Sure, you lost a partner, and the heartbreak that comes with it takes time to heal, but you can choose how you perceive the breakup and the experience of being single.

    So shift your perspective and focus on the positives by using this time as an opportunity to reconnect with yourself.

    During a relationship, many people end up mirroring a lot of their partners’ habits, likes, and dislikes, losing their sense of self in the process. It happens to the best of us.

    The end of a relationship is the perfect opportunity to reevaluate all of those interests and passions to see what is truly yours.

    Think about it: You no longer have to consider the thoughts, feelings, and needs of another person, which means you can finally focus on you and you alone.

    So embrace it.

    Having the time and space to focus on your own needs is extremely important for growth and happiness. That way, you can develop a stronger sense of who you are, which will help you find a partner who is a better fit in the future.

    Life’s ups and downs are all about perspective, and breakups are no different.

    Get out of your head.

    Oftentimes we overthink and overanalyze during times of stress and anxiety. It’s a vicious cycle that only perpetuates toxic thoughts and keeps us chained to the past. In order to move forward, you need to physically get moving.

    Immerse yourself in activities that pull you out of your mind so that you’re less apt to dwell. Find things to do that disrupt your negative thought patterns so that you’re not constantly falling into a pit of fear and sadness. Exercise, take up a new hobby, do something creative, start a new passion project—anything to get you engaged with the physical world.

    Focus on the world around you, practice gratitude, and be mindful of your thoughts and how they’re shaping your perspective of the world.

    While you can’t completely avoid the feelings of loneliness, particularly during those quiet moments late at night and early in the morning, moving your body and taking action can make the transition from relationship to single life that much easier.

    In turn, it will also ease those fears of being alone.

    Relearn how to do things alone.

    Having a partner in crime can be fun, but that doesn’t mean you can’t also have fun doing things alone.

    There’s a certain level of empowerment that comes from doing an activity by yourself. It takes confidence and forces you into independence, both of which many of us could use more of.

    So revisit old activities you used to only do with your partner and try doing them on your own. Find brand new activities to try out by yourself as well.

    After my breakup, I made an effort to do things I was too scared to do without a partner. I started with little things like going to restaurants by myself. Then I moved on to other activities like touring museums, relaxing on the beach, and visiting local sites in my city.

    The biggest activity I took part in was going on vacation by myself. I drove two hours away to spend a few days in a town I had never been to, which pushed me past my fears of tackling the unknown on my own.

    While all of these activities were terrifying at first, they taught me that I don’t need a partner to do the things I want to do. And it was empowering to know that I am capable of doing things by myself.

    At first, it may be a little scary to go it alone, but pay attention to how you feel after. You may not feel better after the first time you do it, but after regular practice, you may find that you feel stronger and more confident as a result.

    Practice self-care habits.

    Going through the pain of a breakup requires space to heal, so use this time for introspective self-care.

    Find practices and activities that add more peace and mindfulness to your daily life. You can do that through a meditation practice to clear your head and calm any anxiety you may be feeling, or you can start journaling and get your feelings down on paper.

    Other self-care habits include having a spa day, exercising, practicing healthy eating, and getting proper sleep.

    The point is to be a little selfish and focus on yourself and your needs. When you do the activities listed above, listen to what’s going on in your body and mind—thoughts, emotions, aches, pains, and all.

    It’s not easy, but facing your issues head-on will enable you to heal the wounds of the past so you don’t repeat damaging relationship patterns in the future.

    It’s Worth Waiting for the Right Person

    The last thing you want to do is enter into a new relationship simply because you’re scared of the alternative.

    Fear can lead to desperation, which can cloud your judgment and push you toward decisions you wouldn’t make in the right state of mind. It’s in moments of desperation that we end up choosing the wrong partner and settling for less than we deserve.

    It isn’t easy to embrace the single life when you’re afraid of being alone, but it’s all about perspective. Rather than allow your fears to back you into a corner and swallow you whole, challenge them by recognizing the opportunities in front of you.

    You just may realize that being alone isn’t so bad because it gives you a chance to explore yourself and put your best foot forward when you are actually ready for love.

    After all, is it not better to be single than to be driven by fear into the arms of the wrong person?

  • Why I’m Grateful for Accidents, Pain, and Loss

    Why I’m Grateful for Accidents, Pain, and Loss

    “If you have nothing to be grateful for, check your pulse.” ~Unknown

    I couldn’t feel my legs.

    There wasn’t any pain, just this odd “sameness” of non-sensation.

    My body was frozen as I turned my eyes downward to scan down my nineteen-year-old body. Below my knees, my legs were splayed out in a very peculiar way. I was halfway underneath my car, pinned down to the dirt and gravel of the road by the back right tire.

    The tire had caught my long, curly hair and the puffy left sleeve of my new white peasant blouse, miraculously missing my face.

    Blessing Number 1:

    In the distance, I could hear my two best friends shouting for help; as passengers, they were fast asleep when I fell asleep driving, hitting a tree and rolling the car. Thankfully, they escaped unscathed.

    Blessing Number 2:

    My vehicle was lifted off my broken body, and I was carefully hoisted into the ambulance. Without warning, pain seared through me like nothing I’d ever experienced. I remember worrying about my parents and how upset they would be that I’d crashed the car.

    The blur of the ER swirled around me, and I was quickly positioned on an ice-cold steel table.

    I could hear the ripping sound of my clothes as they were cut off my body. I was aware enough to be embarrassed when they got to my underwear. With no time for pain medication, the doctors yanked my left leg straight. Both of my femurs were badly broken and had to immediately be put in traction.

    When it came time for leg number two, the attending doctor told me it was okay to scream, so I did—loudly.

    I can still see my mother standing in the doorway of the ER. I will never forget the look of fear and horror on her beautiful face. Not wanting her to suffer, I looked up and said, “Mommy, I’m okay.”

    It’s been nearly four decades since my accident, and my eyes still well up as I share this part of my story. Not because of what transpired over the next extremely difficult year, but for the pain it caused my parents. It seems that while I woke up physically under the car, I had also woken up in spirit.

    Blessing Number 3:

    Before the accident that was to define my life, I was a carefree, hippie-type, artsy teen. Nothing bothered me; I went with the flow, was basically happy, and, like all teenagers, believed I was invincible. Traction, a body cast, a blood clot in my lungs, and a wheelchair would teach me that nothing was further from the truth.

    The details of the next twelve months don’t really matter, although they certainly did at the time. All I know is that facing my mortality at such a young age was the greatest gift of my life. Everything that I had taken for granted was gone—I lost everything during that time, from walking to finishing college to using the bathroom and everything in-between.

    Blessings Number 4, 5, 6… infinite:

    Over the course of the next year, I graduated from traction to a full body cast, into a wheelchair, onto crutches with a leg brace that wrapped around my hip, and eventually to a cane. Just before my twentieth birthday, I was set free, finally able to walk on my own again.

    Walking is something almost all of us completely take for granted, but not me, and never again. With each literal “step” back into life, I became more and more grateful. It wasn’t just the joy of advancing from a bedpan to a toilet, but to live in a place that had a toilet. To live in a country where insurance paid my staggering medical bills. To live!

    I was grateful to have a family that stayed by my side, day in and out over the course of that year, through multiple surgeries and life-threatening situations. A mother that drove the hour back and forth daily for the three-plus months that the hospital was my home. A father and brother who pressed their hands into my ribcage for an entire night to alleviate the pain of a blood clot that had traveled the distance from my right calf to my right lung.

    I was grateful for my older sister, who brought her toddler every week to sit on my stomach while my two legs were in traction. I was grateful to experience life in a wheelchair, being looked at with pity and wanting to scream, “I’m going to walk again!” to total strangers. Grateful for two legs that were still the same length. Grateful to be alive, and so much wiser than my peers.

    As soon as I could walk, I returned to college, finished my art degree, and went out into the world. At twenty-seven, I fell madly in love with a crazy comedian, who became my husband and the father of my children.

    During our thirteen years together, we traveled the corners of the earth, living a life of love and laughter. Until we didn’t. The loss of my marriage is another story, but I will say this: It was as dramatic and painful as breaking both of my legs and not walking for a year.

    There was no money; I lost my home and was forced into bankruptcy.

    The word “accident” is defined as “an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury,” or “an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause.”

    Losing everything was completely unexpected, extremely unfortunate, and most definitely damaging.

    While the signs leading up to the demise of my marriage had been there all along, I had spent years pushing them down to a place where they couldn’t hurt me—at least not then. But I was much wiser this round: I knew that, in order to survive, I had better look for the blessings.

    Being broke meant my two sons and I staying home, making cardboard box forts and lots of brownies, which was actually my preference!

    The animals we rescued, that my ex-husband never wanted, were to love us for the next fifteen-plus years.

    Losing my marriage revealed who my friends really were.

    Having no money pushed me into single, working-mom mode, earning me a badge of courage that I proudly still wear today.

    My boys learned too: Losing our home made all of us appreciate our tiny rented condo and everything we shared in that beautiful, intimate space. Thousands of art projects, play dates, and burnt Eggo waffles later, my children and I became closer than I ever could have imagined.

    To navigate and process my pain, I became a “seeker,” which led me to incredible teachers, a lifelong meditation practice, becoming an author, lots of art, and a master’s degree in art therapy.

    Over time, I understood the true meaning of forgiveness and self-love, which fully opened my heart and my life. I understood that compassion was the answer to almost everything, and embarked on a path of helping others overcome hardship. This has become the most gratifying part of my life.

    I learned the beauty and blessings of the present moment, and how to stay there. I learned that loving someone with all of my heart did not mean sacrificing my own dreams.

    In the end, losing everything led directly to me finding myself.

    Both accidents taught me this: It’s easy to find things to be grateful for when life is wonderful. The key is finding things to be grateful about during and in challenge, so we feel good more of the time.

    Here’s how I did it: I learned to look at just about every situation and ask this question: “What’s good about that?”

    This was no easy feat, and I’m not at all saying that when life gets hard or tragedy strikes, we should immediately be expected to feel grateful. I certainly didn’t. Gratitude is a path and practice, and finding blessings-in-disguise can take years, even a lifetime.

    I believe that genuine gratitude is simply about finding good things in less time, whatever that is for you, and however you need to get there.

    Knowing all I know now, am I grateful enough to say I am glad it all happened? My accidents made me who I am, and I’m not sure how I would have gotten here without the hardship. So, in that sense, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t change a thing.

    I am most thankful for my abiding trust in the knowledge that looking for what’s good in hardship is a transformative way to live, and it both humbles and amazes me. The present moment is all we have, so we may as well find peace in it.

    I have absolute faith that by looking at all areas of life—emotional, social, physical, spiritual, familial, and vocational—and asking, “What’s good about that?” I will always have something to be grateful for, even if it’s simply using the bathroom again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • The Truth About Body-Positive Activists on Social Media

    The Truth About Body-Positive Activists on Social Media

    “The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.” ~Pema Chodron

    I’m on my phone, posting a photo of myself on Instagram. It’s a vulnerable shot—I’m holding my bare belly.

    I type in the caption “Accepting my body isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.”

    I mean this, but I also have voices in my head telling me to delete the picture because I’m gross, not good enough, and a phony.

    I get half a dozen comments supporting me, mostly emoji hearts. One comment reads, “I wish I had your confidence.” I feel weird reading it because my feelings are mixed. I don’t necessarily think of myself as confident all the time.

    In fact, my reality is that I’m struggling with body image more than I’m swimming in acceptance. I think about how this person is comparing their backstage to my highlight-reel. 

    We do that—we look at ourselves as “not enough” and think that others have it all together.

    We’re our harshest critics, and we hyper-focus on aspects of ourselves and bash them. We think that behind closed doors we are monsters. But when we focus all of our attention on that behind-the-scenes person, we’re not taking into consideration how human others are, too.

    The truth of the matter is that things aren’t always as they appear on social media. Yes, I realize I’m calling myself out, but I think it’s important for people to know that even people who seem wildly body-positive struggle, too. I mean, body acceptance is damn hard.

    I didn’t get to this point overnight, finding relative peace with myself. It’s been a long time of hating myself and wishing I was different. Even with finding some peace, I’m not “cured.” I don’t have a magic dose of body love all of a sudden.

    In fact, body acceptance doesn’t have to be self-love at all. It’s commencing on a simpler level. How about I just try to find acceptance in myself to think that this is how my body is at this moment? This is where we are, here in this body. It’s simple, but not easy.  

    It’s important to note that body acceptance is a moment-to-moment thing rather than a state of being in which you exist. It’s something that has to be fought for but is sometimes settled on.

    My background is that I’ve had eating disorders over the years, I’ve dieted like it was going to save me from body image issues, and I’ve had long periods where I weighed myself every day. I’ve also counted Cheez-Its out of the box, vowing to eat only the serving size. I’ve suffered in not accepting my body and instead succumbing to diet culture.

    At points, I thought I had it under control. I had dieted just right. I had even lost some weight. Inevitably, though, the self-disgust seeped in. I fell off the wagon over and over again, binging, particularly on sweets and foods high in carbs—the very foods I was depriving myself of.

    I’d say, “screw it” and I’d devour pizza with friends. I’d eat alone with a carton of ice cream or a box of cookies. Binging was inevitable after deprivation. While the high was fun during, it led to being sick and hating myself even more.

    In a fit of despair, I’d vow to “get back on the wagon” the next day.

    I’d tell myself I was definitely going to do better next time, but next time never permanently came. I may have been able to string together a few days of what I saw as “good” eating, but never lasting change.

    I got to a point where I felt defeated.

    Diet exhaustion looked like no longer finding joy in foods. It felt like a rock in my stomach. It sounded like sighs from having to make what felt like complicated food choices over and over again every day. 

    I couldn’t count my Cheeze-Its anymore. The scale was haunting and owning me. I feared social gatherings with friends, sometimes even avoided them. The next diet be it Keto or Whole 30 just sounded like another opportunity to fail.

    I got tired of chasing my tail. Diet culture wasn’t working for me anymore.

    What was the alternative? My ears started to perk up when I saw body-positive content on my social media feed. There were promises of body freedom and breaking the cycle of binging. I couldn’t believe it, but I thought about trying it for myself.

    The only thing was that I was terrified of trying it this way. The path of body acceptance sounded like giving up to me. It was far from it, though.

    I don’t remember if I googled body positivity, ran into it on social media, or some combination. I remember the despair I felt in searching for it. Thoughts passed through my mind like “could this work?” or “could this be real?” For so long all I had known was war with my body.

    While I was terrified, the positive effects of body acceptance began to flood my world in the best way possible. 

    I found influencers like Lauren Marie Fleming, Megan Jayne Crabbe, and Jes Baker. These women showed me that you could be happy and free in any body type. They started to break down those ideas I had about fatness and even what constitutes health.

    I started my journey. I downloaded all the podcasts I could on the topic: Food Psych and Love, Food were my favorites and top-ranking in the podcast charts. I filled my arms with books like Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon and Shrill by Lindy West. I religiously followed Instagram influencers like Virgie Tovar and Tess Holiday.

    Their messages were essentially the same:

    • Your size doesn’t determine your worth.
    • People can take actions to be healthy at any size.
    • Food isn’t to be defined as “good” and “bad.”
    • Dieting doesn’t work, and long-term weight loss from dieting is not sustainable.
    • All bodies are good bodies.
    • You can listen to and trust your body.

    These are just a small handful of the variety of beautiful messages I got from these amazing body-positive activists. They brought me hope.

    I also compared myself to them.

    I imagined their lives being perfect. I believed they had totally overcome diet culture and were floating above the clouds in body acceptance land. I thought that in order for me to experience freedom, I had to completely rid myself of negative thoughts.

    My backstage looked more like some body-accepting thoughts mixed in with a whole lot of self-loathing. Even today, I look down at my belly in disgust some moments. I guess the difference is that I have tools and messages to turn my thinking around these days.

    Some horrible thoughts that actually go through my mind are:

    • You’re only worthwhile if you’re thin.
    • No one’s ever going to love you.
    • You’re a failure and pathetic.
    • You ate terribly today.
    • Tomorrow I’ll eat “better.”

    I’m not immune from these thoughts just because I strive for body acceptance. In fact, these thoughts infiltrate my thinking regularly.

    It’s not a matter of having negative thoughts or not, it’s what I do with them.

    What I do with them these days is breathe through them. I turn them around and don’t let them control my life. In turning them around, I tell myself things like:

    • You’re worthwhile at every size.
    • You’re incredibly lovable.
    • The only thing that’s failed is diet culture’s promises.
    • You were feeding your body the best you could.
    • There’s no hope in a diet tomorrow.

    I want others to remember this when they think that myself or any other body-positive person on social media has it all together. I have to remind myself, too, when I go to compare my insides to another person’s outsides.

    We’re all just trying to figure it out, perhaps fumbling in the process. Those of us who are lucky enough to be working toward body acceptance know that this journey isn’t perfect. Changes aren’t going to happen overnight. Even the changes that do happen aren’t totally polished. 

    Just as others don’t know all that’s going on inside of us, we don’t know what’s going on inside of another person. They could be struggling just as we are. Attempts to mind-read only bring pain.

    What if that person you’re admiring is thinking the same self-deprecating thoughts as you are about themselves? What if they’re not happy with the way they’re eating and their relationship with their body isn’t nourishing?

    You can’t compare what’s going on inside of you to what’s going on outside for another person. All you can do is work to have the best relationship with yourself as possible.

    Acceptance is difficult and a process. In no way am I saying that it’s easy breezy. We wouldn’t all struggle so hard with accepting ourselves if it was easy.

    By recognizing that the person in the picture is just a human being, we see that we can have acceptance for ourselves, too. So, stop measuring yourself up to someone else. You’re your own person, flawed and beautiful. You deserve your own acceptance.

  • That Big Life Change Won’t Be Satisfying If…

    That Big Life Change Won’t Be Satisfying If…

    “Nothing changes unless you do.” ~Unknown

    In the fall of September 2017, after one of the longest summers of event planning I could have imagined, I quit my job.

    As I proudly exited the workforce to pursue my creative talents as a writer, I looked confident and excited on the outside. Yet, in that moment and for the years to follow, I was terrified on the inside.

    Even though I’d exited my cubicle walls, head held high, the boundaries, fear, and rules of the office environment followed me around daily for over two and a half years.

    I was now my own boss, but I still had the same anxieties as I did when I was reporting to a superior, such as the fear of getting reprimanded for leaving early to work on my writing. I still got jumpy when I would attend a yoga class during “business hours,” or when I’d work on a passion project past 5:00 P.M.

    Maybe you’ve had something similar happen in your life, where you’ve changed circumstances on the outside, but on the inside something still just doesn’t feel right.

    Sometimes we do this in simple ways. For example, you’ve ever paid off a big credit card bill, then replaced it with the same amount of debt in another form a few months later. Each time I’ve done this, I’ve noticed there was an internal void I was looking to fill, such as buying new clothes to feel better about myself, or the seventh pair of yoga pants to try to fit in at my new studio.

    Or maybe you’ve ditched an unhealthy habit, such as eating ice cream treat every day after dinner, only to pick up another one, like the habit of meticulously counting calories. I’ve even quit watching TV before, just to replace that time with scrolling Instagram and getting caught in a new comparison loop.

    If any of these examples sound familiar to you, there’s a chance you’ve recreated a problem with a new face, likely because you weren’t ready to face the issue hidden underneath it.

    I’ve found that if we make a big external change without giving ourselves space to reflect, we usually don’t change internally. It’s much harder to change deeply ingrained fears and beliefs than it is to change our circumstances.

    I believe it’s not so much change itself we fear, but rather the spacious in-between phases of our lives, when we’re forced to face ourselves. But if we don’t face ourselves, we might not even realize how we’re stuck.

    I assumed I was a proud, independent freelance writer working on her own terms just because I’d finally quit my job and taken the leap.

    I had to learn to sit within the uncomfortable sensation of non-busyness, to gain a bird’s-eye perspective on my life to see this wasn’t the case at all. I was still battling anxieties, fears, and approval metrics that I carried with me from full-time life and likely my entire academic career.

    If you think you might be stuck internally, despite changing your life externally, ask yourself these three questions:

    1. Do you feel the same as you did before?

    If you are experiencing the same emotions day after day, like anxiety, fear, or stagnation, it’s possible your problem is still hanging around in a new format.

    When I left my nine-to-five job, my anxiety and people-pleasing tendencies came with me. With these unresolved issues, I recreated the situations I despised in my old office. I treated every client like a boss whose approval I needed to win over instead of taking ownership of healing my issues and becoming my own boss.

    2. Are you still looking for something external to validate you or make you happy?

    If you’ve jumped from one big life change to another, you may be focusing on externals to avoid the uncomfortable sensations we experience in the gap of change.

    For example, if you’ve just finished yoga teacher training, then promptly decided to become a Pilates instructor (something I’ve done!), it’s possible you are filling your empty spaces with achievements to avoid looking deeper into what’s missing in your life.

    When I went from RYT-200 yoga teacher training, straight into Pilates Mat I, I was hoping to feel like I was advancing in life even when my career was stuck. When I looked within, I realized I needed to work on nurturing a sense of self-pride that didn’t depend on constant advancement.

    Now, when I feel like I’m not good enough, I make a list of things I’ve accomplished to date, and this helps me remember I don’t need to run toward anything else.

    3. Is there a core wound you need to address?

    Healing my need for external validation is an ongoing journey. In fact, I wrote about it for Tiny Buddha in 2013. 

    If the universe is giving you variations of similar problems, it’s so you can discover and move past your underlying issue. Once you’ve acknowledged the wound and what’s driving you, such as the need for approval, you can begin to see your external experiences with new eyes and make the appropriate shifts to move past this pattern for good.

    It’s only when we take the space to fly high above our lives in contemplation, that we can see what we’ve truly been searching to heal this whole time.

    Once I understood that my need for external validation was driving my day-to-day business actions, I was able to take a step back and evaluate why I was running my business.

    After I got super clear on my mission and the way I wanted to show up in the world, I was able to fully step out of the cubicle and into my own power. I no longer handed out permission to other people to dictate how I would run my business or my life.

    I believe there are certain roadblocks and issues that we are destined to overcome, like discovering why we feel the need to check our social media pages on the hour or disappear into Netflix for a weekend, or even keep dating the same person.

    These issues aren’t meant to deter us from our path; rather, they come up again and again to make sure we heal our underlying issues so we can stay on our path.

  • How I Climbed Out of the Valley of Loss and Healed

    How I Climbed Out of the Valley of Loss and Healed

    “In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change lies our happiness and freedom.” ~Buddha

    The universe was conspiring against me, I was sure of it. By the time I was thirty-six, I had lost everything in life that I had set out to accomplish—my marriage, my pregnancies, my two dogs, and eventually my house. The perfect family model I was so desperate to create was completely lost.

    Living alone and in fear of the future, I worried about what may or may not come, because everything I had tried up until that point had failed.

    I began doubting myself, as I wasn’t sure if all of my effort was worth it anymore. Anxiety and sadness gripped my heart and I drank to escape, because I really wasn’t up to the task of figuring out how to love myself in spite of my failed expectations.

    Then the universe added insult to injury: I found out my dad had metastatic colon cancer, and it was a total devastating surprise. I don’t know how it could have been, since as a nurse I could already see his sunken eyes, pale and ashen lips and skin, and the lack of energy in his step.

    Everything about him was telling me that he was dying, but when you love someone, it’s easy to see what you want to see.

    Selfishly, I needed to see my dad as the healthy, solid dad I knew. The dad I could rely on for advice and his pick-me-ups of “good job, kiddo.” But most importantly, I needed him to stay the man who helped me when things in my life were most dire.

    The thing is, it was not a white knight on a horse, it was my dad who loved and rescued me. It was he in his black Toyota pickup driving over 800 miles from Seattle to San Francisco to rescue me from my abusive marriage. He literally helped to pick me up off the floor after my husband had thrown me to the ground and tried to suffocate me.

    It was my dad who collected me and what little remained of my belongings, and without any questions or “I told you so’s,” packed me up and drove me back home to heal. And it was my dad who helped me hire a lawyer to file for divorce.

    When I learned that my dependable dad was dying, my mind tried to race against the symbolism of the metastatic invasion into my life that I refused to accept. I was losing again.

    How was I going to survive all of this loss? Would I have anything left or would I harden into a shell of a hollow woman?

    Despite attempts to plead and bargain with the universe, my dad died on a Friday. Friday June 21st. It was summer solstice and a day that not even the longest day of the year could light up. It was my darkest hour.

    At 10:00pm exactly, my dad took his last breath. It wasn’t until the undertaker came to pick him up and placed his lifeless body in their white plastic bag and I heard the sound of the zipper closing him in, that I turned in a childlike panic to face my mom and cry to her in half-truth, half questioning, “I’ll never see my dad again.”

    She looked at me blankly as the tidal wave of panic took over and I was drowning in pain.

    Many people run from the pain when they lose someone they love. They drown out the sound and fury of the feelings by numbing themselves in a variety of ways. I could have easily called my life quits and elected to stay living in the pain of loss, but instead something greater than me began to appear in my life. A spiritual side took over in a true form of resuscitative life support.

    I started to ask myself the bigger picture questions, “What else can I be doing?” “What else does life have in store for me?” “Why am I going through all of this?”

    Over the following months, I developed new hobbies and outlets for my self-care such as writing, meditation, and simply being quiet.

    I told myself it was okay to live in each moment and take life as it was presented to me.

    But the most importantly, I felt I was being spiritually guided through my dreams and my intuition, to my own inner wisdom showing me how to heal and activate my spiritual strength through my loss.

    “You can lose other people without losing yourself.”   

    “You can have loss without being lost.”

    Living beyond grief and loss is an evolution through a set of choices beginning with TRUST.  Trust the process. Trust yourself in the process. Trust that you can heal and flourish again in time.

    If you’re grieving right now…

    1. Know that time is your friend.

    We all learn to let go in our own way, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. Sometimes in parts, sometimes all at once. And then all over again. It is a process, and a process worth trusting.

    Choose to be patient with yourself. Give yourself permission to grieve and permission for the times you want to bounce out of it and watch TV.

    It can take months or years to absorb a major loss and to accept that life has changed. In whatever way it has changed, be kind to yourself by taking further pressure off, and don’t purposefully make any more major changes.

    Don’t worry about pleasing everyone else, completing everything on your to-do list, or keeping up with everyone around you. Sometimes it may take all your energy just to get through the day, and that’s okay. Sometimes that’s enough.

    2. Accept yourself and where you are from moment to moment.

    Grief isn’t always linear or convenient. Allow yourself to be sad, to be calm, to laugh, and to return back to being sad again. Lose all attachment to anything happening in a specific way. I remember being at work dealing with sick patients and having to leave the room because the tears and sadness would suddenly take over. It happens—let it.

    While it takes effort to begin to live in the present again and not dwell on the past, remember who you are in each moment—a beautiful soul dealing with transitory feelings—and know that is enough.

    3. Let the tears flow.

    If there is one thing I do well, it’s cry. Do you allow sobbing wails and tears? Allow the feelings of grief to arise and to pass. Emotional expression through grieving is normal and tears are a part of that process.   There is no reason to be embarrassed or try to suppress your tears. Crying is a normal human response to emotion and has a number of health benefits, including pain relief and self-soothing effects.

    Every time you allow an aspect of your pain to be felt and released, you are healing.

    A successful spiritual practice and one that gave me great freedom was to know, regardless of what loss I experienced in life, I can love myself through it all. Remember, you are not your pain and are worthy of love at all times.

    Though I walked through the valley of the shadow of loss, I will not live there. And you don’t have to either.

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

    Even in the Hospital, He Found Joy in the Now

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • How to Live a Life You Love (Even If Others Doubt You)

    How to Live a Life You Love (Even If Others Doubt You)

    “Not all those who wander are lost.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien

    I will always remember those words.

    I had just decided to ditch my old life. Instead of pursuing a cushy career as a lawyer, I wanted to create a business as a freelance writer because it felt like a fulfilling thing to do.

    “You’ll never make it work. You’ll regret your decision,” a loved one told me.

    Those words pushed my buttons. I felt scared.

    What if I would regret it?

    Was I stupid, even delusional, for thinking there was an alternative to living a pre-planned life with a secure nine-to-five and a mortgage?

    Maybe I did think too much of myself, my abilities, and my potential? Maybe I was setting myself up for disaster?

    How to Find the Courage to Live a Life You Love

    Doubt is everywhere, isn’t it?

    People around you expect you to live your life in a certain way.

    Go to a good school, get a job that pays a comfortable salary, buy a house…

    And if you don’t? If you break the norm and live life differently? Whether that’s driving around the country in an RV, becoming a full-time yoga teacher in the Himalayas, or starting a passion project…

    Let’s put it this way. You will see a lot of raised eyebrows and hear a lot of surprised questions and doubtful side-remarks.

    I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Comments like:

    “Why would you want anything other than what you already have? Don’t be so ungrateful.”

    “There is no way that will work out.”

    “Are you sure this is the best thing to do? Wouldn’t it be better to just stick to where you are now and see how it pans out?”

    The problem with constantly being questioned by everyone around you?

    Well, let’s take me as an example. When I heard those doubtful words (and many like them), I took them to heart.

    I subconsciously started believing them and created what in psychology is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you believe something about yourself, that influences what you do and, consequently, your results.

    For example, if you internalize what others say about your choices, you won’t believe you can succeed. And that means you won’t, because you’ll never even get started.

    But here is the good news:

    You can get past all that doubt. You can find the courage you have within you to not only take a step forward but also to live life fully without looking back. Here’s how:

    1. Find positive examples around you.

    Think about someone who has succeeded at what you want to do—someone with a similar background, resources, skills, etc., or even fewer advantages.

    If they have succeeded, why couldn’t you?

    Let me tell you a secret (shh, no one else will know!):

    If someone else has done it, you likely can, too.

    I realized this early on.

    While, yes, the people around you might not understand how you can succeed, it’s enough that you do.

    This was a tool I used to stay confident and focused whenever someone told me (or hinted) that I should give up on my dream.

    I sought out and thought about people who had already made it happen.

    People who weren’t so different from me.

    If they could do it, I could, too.

    2. Send love and light to everyone around you.

    In Eat, Pray, Love, Liz Gilbert gets the following advice to get over David, her ex:

    “Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it.”

    One of the biggest insights I had was that people don’t doubt us because they want to hurt us.

    No. Instead, they’re probably concerned about us.

    After all, if all their life they have only seen one thing work, it’s hard to see past anything but that way of life.

    Or maybe they’re projecting their own fears and insecurities on us.

    The thing is:

    We love security above almost anything else.

    If you defy that security, it makes you odd.

    So when they doubt you, it tells you nothing about your own abilities, but everything about their own fears and insecurities.

    However, their words can have a purpose. Maybe it’s to shatter your ego a bit so that you can come out of it stronger. Or it’s to give you a few bumps along the way so that you won’t get comfortable and take things for granted.

    Whatever it is, use the advice that helped Liz live in peace to get past their words.

    Send them love and light, then drop it.

    3. Words don’t define you. You do.

    Here’s the thing:

    Other people’s words define you only if you let them.

    At the end of the day, you create your own reality.

    Words are just words. You might say someone is “too straightforward,” but someone else might be appreciative of that person’s honesty.

    I can’t tell how much this helped me move past all the doubt.

    Yes, there were people expressing their subjective reality.

    But it didn’t have to be mine.

    I realized that I get to define who I am and what I’m capable of. And so do you.

    For example, if someone told you that you are “too emotional,” that doesn’t mean that you are too emotional or that being emotional is even a bad thing. That’s just their perception based on their unique set of beliefs, experiences, and projections.

    So how do you remind yourself of what a miracle worker you are?

    Write down all the things you appreciate about yourself. They could be qualities you like or nice things others have said about you.

    Every morning, look at that list.

    Someone that awesome has a high chance of succeeding with whatever they choose to do, right? Or at the very least, that person will learn, grow, and have one hell of an adventure.

    4. Become that supportive person you want in your life.

    If you’ve been allowing doubters to hold you back, it’s time to start letting supportive people into your life.

    People who cheer you on and make you believe you can do everything you want to do, and more.

    Well, it can all start with you.

    When I started offering encouraging words to others, I began attracting people who gave appreciation back.

    The most striking example was when I emailed someone whose writing I had found online and enjoyed. I told her how much I appreciated it. She wrote me back and thanked me… and we’ve been friends ever since! Not only that, but she’s had an incredibly positive impact on my life by being extremely supportive and encouraging.

    That’s it. These four steps helped me get past doubt, find my courage, and live life as I want to live it.

    Today I’m able to work and live anywhere and live a flexible and (in my definition) free life. I couldn’t be happier that I stuck with my decision.

    What’s that one thing you’re keeping yourself from doing?

    Practice these new mindset shifts daily. Soon enough, you will find that courage you have within you to live life exactly the way you want to live it.