Tiny Buddha

Category: Blog

  • Free Up Your Space: Two Simple Questions for Easy Decluttering

    Free Up Your Space: Two Simple Questions for Easy Decluttering

    “Owning less is better than organizing more.” ~Joshua Becker

    There are lots of reasons to declutter—to free up space, to pare down belongings in advance of a move, to release any possessions that weigh you down emotionally, and to make room for new things to come into your life. And there’s another reason, though people don’t usually realize it: to reduce stress and overwhelm.

    The more stuff you have, the more time, energy, and money you need to devote to maintaining it, and the more likely you feel anxious in your cramped and potentially disorganized space.

    I declutter two to three times a year now, but my biggest decluttering was the one I did five years ago prior to moving in with the man who is now my husband.

    We each owned fully furnished three-bedroom houses. After much negotiation, we had decided to sell my split-level house and keep his rancher.

    My first step was to create two wee signs for myself. Both read, “Official Policy: Get rid of anything that does not bring pleasure, beauty, or purpose into my life.” On days when I became a bit muddled, those signs helped.

    My second step was realizing that there really are only two options when decluttering: “keep” or “get rid of.” There are, however, subsets to each of those categories.

    For “keep,” you must decide whether it’s being kept in storage of some sort (and what that might be—attic/basement/garage or rented storage space—or incorporated into your space.

    For “get rid of,” you have to decide whether it’s going to a specific person, being donated somewhere (and, if so, where), being sold, or being thrown out.

    Having worked into the “whats” of decision-making, I figured it might make sense to talk a bit about how to make these sorts of decisions, since it’s the rare person who is going to decide based solely on “what I like best” or “what fits in my new place.”

    One of the things my sweetheart and I did was decide what we were going to keep based on what we called a “must have” list.

    For each room, we decided what items we must have for the room to function properly. For our master bedroom, we decided we needed a bed, two nightstands, a TV stand with a TV, and one dresser.

    Once we had our list together, we focused solely on our necessities and figured out which items from where we were going to use to fill those needs. Only after we made those decisions did we add extras (like, say art for the walls, candlesticks, and the part of my hoard of crafting supplies that I kept).

    Making the list was simple. Deciding whose stuff got to fill the role of “dining table” or “dresser” or “bed” was a bit less simple, but we worked through it with love and dogged persistence.

    Here’s what I learned after decluttering and downsizing two full homes to merge them into one: You really only have to ask yourself two key questions:

    1. Do you love each object that you are considering?

    2. Do you use the object in question?

    You can actually start these in either order, because every single item has to jump through both hoops.

    1. Do you love it?

    You really ought to. Because life is too short to be surrounded by things you dislike or that you find oppressive to your spirit.

    If you despise an item, why would you want to keep it? (And yeah, I get “familial guilt” and all, but still. if you don’t have space in your new place and you don’t like it, this is the sort of stuff that you should be thinking of liberating, in hopes it will find someone who really does like it.)

    For clothing, optimally you should love the color, the style, the fit, and the way you feel in it, but realistically, I go with “what I like and wear and don’t mind being seen in.”

    For items, it means you should enjoy seeing them or using them. It’s kind of hard to love a can opener, but say you have two, and one hurts your hand and the other doesn’t, it’s pretty easy to decide you love the pain-free one. (If you have two and they both hurt your hand, which happened to me, then do what I did and get rid of them both!)

    And for items you’re keeping for nostalgia, a box of letters from an ex, for example, you’ll have to dig deep and be honest with yourself about whether this actually serves you, or just drags you down. You may have loved them in the past, but is it self-loving to hold on to them?

    If you’ve asked yourself if you love something, or if you at least don’t dislike it, you still have to proceed to the next question:

    2. Do you use it?

    For clothing, this means “Do you wear it?” And not in an “ever in life” way, but in a “within the past twelve months” way.

    If not, you probably ought to let it go, although I do believe in making the very occasional exception for this category as long as you have the storage space. That last caveat is very important.

    If you are crowding all of your stuff in order to keep a bunch of “maybe/just in case/but I can’t get rid of that dress/sweater/coat” items, then you are making every single day of your life harder than it needs to be. Because when your stuff is jam-packed, you can’t readily get to the stuff that fits, and that you wear.

    For every other usable item in the house, the same “within the past twelve months” rule applies. Possibly you only use that huge platter for turkey on Thanksgiving, and that’s cool—when next Thanksgiving comes, you’re still going to need it.

    If there’s “stuff,” though, that you haven’t used in ages, then you aren’t using it, and it’s a prime candidate for going. This was true, for example, of the ice cream machine I got rid of. On the one hand, it had been in the house for about thirteen years, so it was old; on the other hand, it had never been used—not even once—so it was brand new.

    As for stuff that has no practical purpose, like décor items, some people might think those are non-essentials, or are somehow non-functional. The purpose that they serve is to decorate your space and bring joy into your life. If they are something that brightens your life, and both you and your partner love it and have space to display or store it, you should keep it.

    Lastly, this tip from Yoda (sort of):

    3. Do or do not. There is no try “maybe.”

    Lots of decluttering gurus advocate creating a “maybe” pile for things that you can’t make an immediate decision about. I chose not to allow for it when we were downsizing as well as decluttering.

    The reason I chose not to use a “maybe” pile is because if you say “maybe,” you are essentially making a decision now to make the decision later, which isn’t really solving anything.

    It’s kind of like the advice when sorting through mail to not handle things twice if you can avoid it. If it’s trash/recycling, put it there right away, so you don’t have to go through the mail again later; if it’s filing, file it. So I opted as much as possible for immediate “keep” or “get rid of.”

    Five years on, there isn’t a thing we got rid of that my husband and I miss. There are, however, some things that we initially kept that we’ve since let go. Such is the way of decluttering.

  • It’s Not Selfish to Want to Thrive, and I Now Know I Deserve It

    It’s Not Selfish to Want to Thrive, and I Now Know I Deserve It

    “To create more positive results in your life, replace ‘if only’ with ‘next time.” ~Celestine Chua

    I’m twenty-nine-and-a-half and I’ve finally committed to pursuing my dreams of becoming a singer/musician/songwriter, actress, and screenwriter.

    But most importantly, I finally feel allowed to live the life I want to live.

    I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression on and off since I was fifteen. My coping mechanism always looked the same: isolating myself in my room, listening to music, and making up stories or music videos to go along with songs. I loved to refine these little scenes, repeating the songs over and over again for hours.

    Sometimes, the highlight of my day was when I got to go back to my room and listen to that song again—when I got to go back into my dream world.

    I didn’t realize then how much I preferred this dream world to my own reality. I’d become disengaged from my friends and family. All I wanted was to go home to my imagination.

    Recently, I learned of the term “maladaptive daydreaming,” a mental condition in which a person is in a state of intense daydreaming that distracts them from their actual life. Some say this condition has roots in OCD and ADHD/ADD.

    I’m still unable to confirm if I had this or not. But I do know that daydreaming was a coping mechanism I was heavily dependent on to keep my mood up. Because otherwise, my reality always depressed me.

    I had dreams of singing on stage, writing insightful scenes, and creating beautiful films. But it all seemed too selfish. Like I shouldn’t feel allowed to “indulge” in my fantasies. Also, it felt self-centered. How dare I want to be the center of attention?

    When I finally woke up and got tired of my daydream state, I instantly regretted how much time I had “wasted.”

    I would try, obsessively, to make up for this time by scheduling productive activities in my planner. They were reasonable, too: Exercise for just thirty minutes. Read just ten pages of that book you’ve had on your shelf for three months. But no matter what activity I tried to start, I always ended up back in my comfort zone: my dream world.

    At first, it was just hours at a time that I lost when I had originally wanted to do my homework. Then it was weekends when I had planned to start a new hobby. And then weeks, months, and years passed. I mostly existed in my daydreams. Reality was just that other thing I had to do during the day.

    Somehow, I still managed to maintain a somewhat normal-looking life on the outside. I actually worked great jobs in marketing and nonprofit, exercised a lot, and generally stayed healthy. I took quite good care of myself. Most of my reality wasn’t too hard. But I still didn’t love it.

    I only did what made me appear “together” and “secure.” I didn’t live passionately.

    When I was around twenty-six, I finally took a first step toward what I really wanted to do by signing up for singing and acting lessons and starting to learn screenwriting. However, I was still holding back. Why? I still didn’t feel like I deserved it. It still seemed selfish.

    Also, people made me anxious. I grew up in an Asian household where gaslighting was the cultural norm, so I was extremely sensitive. I hated being teased and felt fake whenever I hung out with my friends. I didn’t like engaging socially or presently for too long because I felt like I was losing myself.

    Only later did I realize that many other people were like this. But back then, trying to find solace in anything outside of my dream world just didn’t feel safe. I preferred to daydream a life where people were easier to digest.

    At about twenty-eight, I started to get weird digestive issues. It started with gastritis, a condition in which the stomach is inflamed. It didn’t seem too bad and I thought it’d go away after taking medication. Then came the kicker, the persistent fireball that demanded I pay attention to it: acid reflux.

    If you’ve experienced chronic acid reflux, you know the struggle. Doctors can’t seem to find a consensus as to the best cure.

    I cut down on spicy foods, acidic foods, the usual suspects. This barely seemed to help. Everything seemed to trigger it. I was freaking out every other night before I went to sleep. What if this never stops? How much damage has this done to my throat? Will I eventually get throat cancer?

    And the hardest question I had to face: Will this damage my vocal cords? Will this deter my singing?

    I had been taking voice lessons, as I was told I had a lovely singing voice, and I was doing well, but I shied away from performances.

    Now that there was a risk of not singing to my full capacity, I finally wanted to pursue my true potential. I couldn’t just dream it anymore. I had to take action, while I had the chance

    For about a year, I pushed my doctor, nutritionist, GI doctor—anyone who could find a cure—to help me. They kept treating me like I was stupid. I was simply anxious. That’s all, right? They kept telling me it was just stress, but the condition worsened.

    I then developed a bacterial issue in my small intestine as a result of the medication that was supposed to help stop my acid reflux. Then I found out that my gallbladder wasn’t working properly.

    I was furious. I cried to my parents every night. I was terrified to eat anything. In addition to avoiding acidic foods, I cut out gluten, dairy, and foods that would give me bloating (which was, well, quite a bit). I basically had a panic attack every time I ate.

    Was this punishment? Was this really all a result of the anxiety that had festered and grown after years of running away from life to my dream world? Had I neglected myself?

    Then came my twenty-ninth birthday. I hated my birthdays. They were just another marker of another year I had wasted not living fully. But I decided then that this year would be different.

    So, I made my plans again. And of course I had false starts and re-starts, but I’ve kept at it. I went to therapy. I took acting classes and humiliated myself (in a good way). I signed up for a singing showcase. My singing voice, despite the bit of damage done so far, has sounded better than it ever has before. And I’m starting to make friends I feel comfortable with.

    It was alarmingly apparent that my doctors weren’t treating me right, so I began telling them off, realizing in the process that I was fighting for my best reality. I was demanding to feel deserving.

    I now know I don’t just deserve to live healthy; I deserve a life where I thrive. It is not selfish. It is vital to one’s well being.

     I’m now working with an integrative health doctor who has recommended natural remedies and all but entirely cured my health problems. I also credit myself for a large portion of that. I do daydream still, but now I utilize it as a motivator for my creativity instead of retreating into my mind as a way to avoid life.

    I’m grateful for all forms of my existence—from my imagination that has the beautiful capacity for daydreams, to my physical body that does everything it can to heal itself.

    I often wonder, though, why did it have to take a threat to my vocal cords for me to finally start singing? And why did I have to become sick before I could appreciate my body’s capabilities and start taking care of it?

    Maybe I had to be shaken awake from my daydreams before I could start living fully and making my dreams a reality. I had to learn it the hard way, but I now know this to be true: We all not only deserve to thrive, we need to thrive in order to be our best, healthiest selves—but only we can make it happen. And it starts with believing we’re worthy and pushing ourselves to take a chance.

  • My Life with an Alcoholic Parent (and 6 Addiction Myths)

    My Life with an Alcoholic Parent (and 6 Addiction Myths)

    “Be the person who breaks the cycle. If you were judged, choose understanding. If you were rejected, choose acceptance. If you were shamed, choose compassion. Be the person you needed when you were hurting, not the person who hurt you. Vow to be better than what broke you—to heal instead of becoming bitter so you can act from your heart, not your pain.” ~Lori Deschene

    Take a moment to look around where you are right now. Look at the people surrounding you, whether you’re in your office, a waiting room, or the line at the post office.

    Statistically, one out of every eight American adults in your space is suffering with a substance abuse disorder.

    This person could be your next-door neighbor, your family doctor, your teacher, or a co-worker.

    Out of more than 15 million people struggling, less than 8% reportedly have received treatment, according to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

    Television shows and movies often lead us to believe that the people who suffer from addiction are the homeless, jobless people on the street who beg for money to feed their habit.

    In some circumstances, this unfortunately is true, but I’ve learned that addiction can also be found in the people around you in your day-to-day life. Addiction doesn’t care which zip code you live in or what skin color you have. It doesn’t matter how much money you have in your bank account or what kind of position you hold within a company.

    I was around five or six years old when I first recognized that my dad had a problem. I didn’t know what the word “addiction” meant; however, I knew his actions made me feel that our family was different than others.

    It would be summertime and I would see neighbors sitting outside laughing together and barbecuing, and being that it was starting to get late in the day, my dad had already drank a few too many and would be inside for the night.

    The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that a quarter of children in the U.S. grow up in households where there is substance abuse.

    Growing up with a parent who has an addiction isn’t easy. You see them transform into a different person before your eyes. Within hours. You wonder why they choose to spend time with the addiction instead of with you.

    You can cry, scream, and slam your bedroom door to try to make a point of how much it hurts you, but it never seems to be enough. And it doesn’t mean this person doesn’t love or care about you, although it can make you feel that way.

    At a young age, I remember experiencing the ups and downs of a parent with an addiction. Each day would be different than the last. Some days he would joke and laugh, and others, we would do anything to avoid him because we knew he’d take out on us the weight of whatever he had been carrying that day.

    My dad was considered a “functioning alcoholic.” I don’t recall him ever missing one day of work, even when he had the flu or after spraining his ankle.

    By trade, he was a carpenter and scaffolder, and to this day, he is the hardest working man I’ve ever known. He’d wake up before the sun to get to work so he could provide for us. He went above and beyond to care, love, and protect us, but after a certain time of day, we knew that would all come to an end.

    The classic picture of an alcoholic is someone who drinks too much and whose life is falling apart because of it. But that’s not always reality.

    A functioning alcoholic might not act the way you would expect them to act. They might be responsible and productive. They could even be a high achiever and in a position of power. In fact, their success might lead people to overlook their drinking.

    Alcohol and drugs steal away the person you love. They rob you of time you should be spending with them. They turn them into someone else—a person who says and does hurtful things. And in turn, you might say hurtful things back. Not because you want to, but because you simply don’t know what else to do. You begin thinking of what you can do to turn this person around. What will make them stop?

    I grew up with a parent who had an addiction to numbing his feelings.

    There were times when he would open up briefly about the hardships he had experienced growing up and how hurt and angry they made him feel. Rather than forgiving those who’d caused him pain, to free himself of what he kept bottled up inside, he would drink to relieve it.

    It hurts to see someone you love hurting. It hurts to not know what to do to help them.

    My dad never admitted to having a problem. Not once. Not even when we poured the cans of beer we’d found down the sink and he became excessively angry.

    Admitting to having a problem is the first step, and the next would be to make a change. And it wasn’t something he believed he could do.

    Sometimes it feels easier to stay the same than do what’s needed to rid yourself of the addiction. You feel ‘safe’ where you are, and you can easily justify maintaining the status quo. My dad had a job, a family, a nice home. In his mind, why would he need to change? That wasn’t what rock bottom looks like. So everything must have been fine how it was.

    I recently heard a story by Kirk Franklin:

    “Two twin boys were raised by an alcoholic father. One grew up to be an alcoholic and when asked what happened he said, ‘I watched my father.’ The other grew up and never drank in his life. When he asked what happened he said, ‘I watched my father.’ Two boys, same dad, two different perspectives. Your perspective in life will determine your destination.”

    I was a young girl when I realized that I had two choices when it came to my dad’s addiction: to forgive or to hold onto the hurt, as I saw him do. I saw what it looked like to hold on to anger and resentment, so I decided that no matter what my dad might say or do, I would show forgiveness. 

    This wasn’t easy because at the end of the day, you just want that person to stop, but I chose to focus on the dad I had when he wasn’t under the influence of alcohol. The dad who would shoot hoops with me in the backyard, who would fill the oil up in my car without asking if I needed it, who would keep letters I wrote to him in the pocket of his jeans years after I had given them to him.

    I’ve learned that it is our decision to create the life we want to live and the mindset we want to have. I could have held on to the hurtful things my dad said or how he refused to get help. But I believe we have the power to overcome any circumstance by focusing on what lifts us up rather than what pulls us down.

    “I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” ~Carl Jung

    Today I am choosing to share my story with you as a way to honor my dad, who kept himself in a cage for his entire life. Was it out of fear of judgment or discomfort? I’m not sure. But I do know for the last twenty-nine years, I’ve been conditioned to do the same.

    The stigma related to addiction causes us to feel shame. And I have felt shame for having a parent who had this disease. We keep our stories inside because we are afraid of how people will view us or our loved one. But in reality, it’s sharing that sets us free—free to make a difference in the life of someone else who is struggling.

    Today is the day I open the door to my own cage, after nearly thirty years, to set myself free and break the cycle. I hope that my story will connect with someone who needs it—a person who, like me, has buried their past deep inside and pushes forward, not realizing the power and strength found in release.

    I also hope to shed some light on what it’s like to struggle with addiction, based on my observations of my father, because I believe we’re better able to help the people we love when we let go of these common myths:

    Addicts can stop if they want to.

    Research shows that long-term substance use alters brain chemistry. These changes can cause intense cravings, impulse control issues, and the compulsion to continue to use. Due to these chemical changes, it is very difficult for a true addict to quit solely by willpower and determination.

    Addiction only affects those who are weak, uneducated, or have low morals.

    Addiction does not discriminate. It affects people of all ages, ethnicities, cultures, religions, communities, and socioeconomic statuses. Addiction is not a result of low morals, though often addicts behave in ways that violate their personal beliefs and values. Addiction is an equal opportunity disease.

    Addiction is a disease, so there is nothing you can do about it.

    If your doctor told you that you had cancer, would you not begin the necessary treatment and make the necessary lifestyle changes? Addiction isn’t much different if you believe in the research that suggests that addiction is a disease of the brain.

    Just because you have the disease of addiction doesn’t mean you throw in the towel. Research shows that the brain damage resulting from substance use can sometimes be reversed through abstinence, therapy, and other forms of treatment.

    Addicts who relapse are hopeless.

    Addiction is a chronic disorder. Addicts are most prone to relapse in the first few months of being clean and sober. A relapse does not constitute failure.Processing the events surrounding a relapse can be healthy and aid in preventing future relapses.

    Alcohol and drug use cause addiction.

    There are several factors that contribute to a person becoming addicted. While alcohol and drugs may trigger a substance use problem for some, there are those who can drink alcohol and experiment with drug use and never become addicted. Factors that contribute include environment, emotional health, mental health, and genetic predisposition.

    Addicts should be excused from negative behaviors.

    Some may believe since addiction is a disease, addicts should not be held accountable for their actions. This is not true. An addict may not be responsible for their disease, but they are responsible for their choices and their recovery.

    —

    It’s easy to judge and criticize what we don’t understand. You don’t have to walk a mile in an addict’s shoes to understand addiction and addictive behaviors. You just have to educate yourself and want to help so you can break the cycle of pain. And remember: whether you’re an addict or you love one, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, and you are not alone.

  • Why I Won’t Just “Let Go” of the Hurt in My Heart

    Why I Won’t Just “Let Go” of the Hurt in My Heart

    “It’s not a matter of ‘letting go.’ You would if you could. Instead of ‘let it go’ we should probably say ‘let it be.’” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

    I’m not good at heartbreak. I wrestle the circumstances, hate it, and can’t let go of the hope that the relationship could be transformed.

    Aren’t there people who do heartbreak well? Aren’t there folks who sit in heartbreak for just a little while, then shortly fold up their hands and accept the situation? Sometimes it seems there are those who even flip a switch—”It didn’t work, we tried our best”—and that’s that, and they go about their merry lives.

    I want that. How do I get that?

    I was one of those children who were told they’re “too sensitive,” that I felt too much, too deep. Nowadays I understand that “You’re too sensitive” generally means “Please bottle your feelings. I don’t know what to do with them and they’re making me uncomfortable.”

    Yet I still feel it would be better to be less affected. After all, isn’t this Samsara (the name Buddhist’s gave to the cycle of suffering)—this longing, doing, clinging, and grasping that I do in a heartbreak state? 

    My ex-girlfriend and I parted ways lovingly—she needed more signs of commitment, I needed more closeness, and we worked those issues until exhausted—but the part of me that sometimes throws fits against what-is is throwing a fit. And the phrase “let go” strikes me as unhelpful, even impossible at times. I feel the loss, and I feel the hope that things could be different.

    How do I learn to be less affected? Isn’t “letting go” central to why I’m meditating, so that I can be someone, for god’s sake, who can let a thing go? To make peace and move on already?

    On a recent hot day sitting by the Willamette River in Portland with my friend Claire I asked them, “What do I do about my hurting heart and all my grasping?!”

    The river lapped by us. It’s the longest river in the U.S., which flows primarily north, or “uphill,” which is rare. The river comes up from Eugene and merges 183 miles upriver with the Columbia River on the border with Washington state.

    My predicament feels similar to the river: Why would it (I) flow uphill? Doesn’t it contradict the idiom that water follows the path of least resistance? Wouldn’t I choose an easier path, and not feel so much? Can I go downhill like it seems people who seem to let go more easily do?

    I said to Claire, “I hate this idea of letting go right now. What the hell does it mean anyway? I feel like some Buddhists are attached to the idea of letting go! There has to be a Buddhist understanding that things stick in our heart for a while and that’s okay.”

    Claire looked at the river and said, “There is a word for that.”

    “What is it?” I asked, eager.

    “Samsara,” said Claire, humored.

    Then we began to laugh. And laugh, and laugh. We looked at each other and Claire’s big brown eyes sparkled, and I laughed in a way I haven’t in too long, a way of laughing at my situation in good humor. It was laughing as surrender. Laughing as acceptance, and laughing because I saw myself for who I am—a mess. Suddenly I wasn’t taking that mess too seriously.

    We marveled at how attached we get to our sadness, how it feels indicative of how much we care and love.

    We laughed because we’re human, and this is what we’ve inherited: this tendency to fixate, but also simply the tendency toward heartbreak, the consequence of owning a soft heart and feeling longings for people and things that make us feel bright and alive, and then one day suddenly they’re gone and we miss them fiercely.

    In a recorded dharma talk on letting go, Zen teacher Frank Ostaseski said:

    “A student asks the teacher, ‘How do I let go?’
    The teacher says, ‘You can’t, you won’t. You don’t.’
    So I actually want to sit here and encourage us to relax more.”

    Relaxing feels more resonant to me than the concept of letting go, and it’s why Claire’s response was magic: it was an invitation to lighten up.

    For me, the language of letting go hasn’t felt kind or sustainable. Maybe because it’s a strong action verb; I’ve (mis)understood letting go as an action I have to take, a should—as if I’m at the racing block and the gun’s about to fire and READY SET GO I better be ready to LET IT ALL GO! when that shot sounds, or else.

    Letting go can feel like a linguistic misunderstanding to me, an encouragement to transcend being human. But we don’t practice to attain exalted states; we practice to allow our life to unfold truly.

    I’m reminded of Roshi Joan Halifax’s writing about grief:

    “When my mother died, I received one of the hardest and most precious teachings of my entire life. I realized that I only had this one chance to grieve her death. I felt like I had a choice. On the one hand, I could be a so-called ‘good Buddhist,’ accept impermanence, and let go of my mother with great dignity. The other alternative was to scour my heart out with honest sorrow… My sadness became part of the river of grief that pulses deep inside us, hidden from view but informing our lives at every turn.”

    Because I’ve been trying to force myself to let go I’ve been pushing away my experiences lately, and hating myself for longing and missing. This is violent. Being real about what impacts me, and how, is a radical and loving acceptance of my own life experience. My hunch is that allowing myself to be as I am will translate to allowing others to be as they are.

    ~~

    Shortly before we broke up, my girlfriend gave me a palm-size Buddha sculpture. It is carved in stone, feels cool to the touch, and looks like an old bald woman who is the embodiment of what, in Zen, we call Joyful Mind (one of the three minds, or Sanshin, of practice).

    Joyful Mind is all about finding delight in our difficulty and in the rich experience we have in Samsara. It is about being present in our struggle while also being attuned to an undisturbable place inside us.

    This little Buddha encourages me to lighten up in the same way that Claire encouraged me to lighten up. I like this joyful Buddha’s way of laughing, the way her shoulders are so soft as to not even be trying, yet her posture is still upright. The skin around her eyes is worn from laughing.

    Joyful Mind is about being present to the suffering, not about letting it go. Ironically, sometimes suffering eases up on its own when held this way.

    Part of what feels impossible about letting go is that it feels easy to confuse it with spiritual bypassing—the tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to avoid feeling emotions or to sidestep psychological wounds.

    I wonder if other practitioners step into this trap, too, of seeking to attain a state that disallows the mess and vulnerability of humanness. Like can I just let go already so that I don’t feel so much, so that this isn’t so painful? Can you just let go already so that I don’t have to deal with your complex and messy feelings? 

    Is allowing Samsara freedom from Samsara? When Claire reminded me that spiritual practice isn’t about achieving some transcendent, tidy state, I felt ease. I accepted my inner mess and remembered that our practice isn’t about being less affected, it’s about allowing everything to show up and being honest about how we’re impacted. Allowing everything to show up means that all my fears and vulnerabilities appear, and that’s more complicated than letting go.

    A fellow practitioner once told me that the reason we have two hands is because one holds suffering and the other holds the cosmic joke: we are equipped to hold the mess of life lightly. I want to be real about how I am impacted by life, and I feel newly reassured that my two hands are meant to hold it all.

    In the way that in AA they use the phrase “one day at a time,” I’m going to allow my own slow progress and forget about letting go for the moment. The truth is that I’ve lost something precious, and the longing for it fills me. It’s the longing for closeness, to know and be known, the longing for understanding and shared reality, for fun and safety.

    The loss of relationship is its own death and now in my belly it feels lonely. The depth of that feeling is indicative of how much I wanted to tend what I had.

    This is who I am, someone who feels a thing fully, and in so many ways over the years the overculture has taught me and so many others that it’s incorrect to be sensitive, and here I’ve internalized that oppressor: I’ve tried to beat my sensitivity out of myself and force myself to let go and stop feeling what I’m feeling, to get over it already, in the name of Buddhism.

    This misinterpretation has got to stop. I want to lighten up, to allow every ache, every resistance, every longing that unfolds. To allow it all, to stop resisting my experience, to watch it, to know I don’t have to act on it, and to keep good company with a sweet friend who reminds me not to take any of it too seriously.

  • 10 Things You Need to Know to Maintain Strong Friendships

    10 Things You Need to Know to Maintain Strong Friendships

    “A friend is someone with whom you dare to be yourself.” ~Frank Crane

    Studies show that feeling connected to other people is a core human need. A sense of connection impacts not only on our mental health but also our physical well-being. It reduces our risk of disease and increases longevity.

    While the research is clear, statistics also suggest that our level of social connectedness is declining. Social media might help us be more widely connected, but it doesn’t usually replace the connection we experience in offline friendships.

    It seems that as adults we aren’t that good at friendships. People complain that it’s hard to make friends and maintain existing friendships after leaving school. It’s largely because we are busy with jobs and families, but I wonder whether there are other reasons outside of those external circumstances.

    Growing up I had a very specific ideal of what “true friendship” looked like, which I had primarily picked up from books, TV, and movies: You have a best friend who you share everything with, hang out with 24/7 and grow old with—through thick and thin and of course happily ever after.

    Only my reality looked different, which in itself made me feel that there was something wrong with me.

    I also struggled because I felt like an outsider. I am mixed race (half Chinese, half German), was born and raised in Germany, and grew up very conscious of looking different, which is something I simply cannot hide. My parents told me to be proud of being different, but I wanted nothing more than to blend in because I felt that my difference isolated me.

    I was a painfully shy kid. I always found it difficult to approach other kids and I began feeling invisible to the world.

    I wanted to belong so badly and would have done anything to fit in, but because I had convinced myself that I was too different, I eventually stopped trying. Instead, I pretended I didn’t care about not being part of the group. I didn’t want anyone to see that I was upset. On the outside I seemed self-confident and strong, but always faked it and never made it (until much later in life). In short, I was doing the opposite of being myself.

    The belief that nobody noticed me stuck with me into adulthood until I eventually realized that I hadn’t been invisible but rather I had been hiding. I had built a solid wall around me.

    As an adult I can see that I probably wasn’t all that different from the others. How many of us grow up thinking we need to pretend to be someone we are not in order to belong and to be loved? How many of us still do this now as adults? And how ironic is it that by wearing a mask we achieve the opposite of what we intend and basically make it impossible to experience true connection?

    Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about letting people in and creating meaningful connections. And I’ve come a long way from that insecure little girl who hid behind a wall and felt chronically isolated. If you’ve struggled to form and maintain friendships, perhaps my lessons may help.

    1. Not all friendships are created equal.

    Friendships are not a “one size fits all” kind of affair but rather come in different shapes and forms. A friend doesn’t have to cater to all your needs. It’s more natural to have friends for different areas of your life. That doesn’t make any one friend “less than,” but it feels much healthier than placing undue expectations on one person.

    For example, a lot of my close friends live far away and we no longer share our everyday lives with each other, but I know I can still rely on them. Then there are people I’ve just met. While sometimes I instantly click with people, with others it takes longer to connect deeply. I also have loose acquaintances, and while we might not discuss our deepest thoughts, it’s still fun to connect through experiences and mutual interests.

    Once we open our minds to what friendship can look like, we will gain access to connections that would have otherwise gone under our radar.

    2. Connection is a two-way street.

    The quality of connection is made up of what both of you are putting in. And the connection is likely to break apart if you expect what you are not prepared to give.

    This doesn’t just apply to what you are willing to do for the other person. Are you fully showing up as yourself? Are you allowing others to really see you? And are you prepared to really see the other person, too, including the more challenging things that can feel heavy and painful?

    3. People can only honor your needs and wishes if you communicate them.

    We often expect others not only to read our minds but also to be on the same page as us on all matters. Chances are that if you haven’t clearly communicated what you expect from your friend, they might have no idea.

    But also, remind yourself you have no “right” to others fulfilling your needs and wishes. Be prepared that others aren’t able or don’t want to give what you would like them to give you.

    You know that saying “In times of crisis, you find out who your real friends are”? Well, I don’t entirely agree with that. It assumes that there is an unwritten rule about how friends need to behave, but there can be multiple reasons why they might not be able to be there for you to the extent you expect them to.

    When my mum passed away, for example, my friends reacted in different ways. I totally understand that a lot of people find death highly uncomfortable and simply too terrifying to talk about, so, I accepted that I wasn’t able to talk about it with all of my friends.

    Fortunately, some friends were able to be there for me. This experience taught me to formulate my needs and ask for help. On some days, the support I needed was to be able to talk and cry and on other days, I wanted to be left alone. The only way for my friends to know was for me to tell them.

    4. You don’t need to agree on everything.

    Maybe this is just me, but I feel an urge to agree with my friends on everything. Disagreements on even the smallest of issues cause me a certain level of discomfort. Of course, this is where the cycle of not being myself begins: by not saying what I really want in order not to upset the other person. That’s what compromise is for though, right?

    I am therefore teaching myself to remember that it’s okay to disagree and to learn to accept that niggling feeling of discomfort that I still feel, even when I know this won’t affect the friendship overall.

    That being said, sometimes disagreement is a sign that someone isn’t a person I want to be friends with—there are certain no-gos, certain things that just aren’t okay with me. Get clarity on your no-gos and stop sweating about the rest.

    5. You don’t have to like each other all the time.

    This for sure is another remnant of my Hollywood friendship ideal. Do you like yourself all the time? I don’t. I can be moody or thoughtless. I have characteristics I don’t like and that I am working on changing.

    The same goes for every other person. And not only do we all have bad days and do stupid things sometimes; we might also have spleens or characteristics that are annoying to others. But they are likely outweighed by our loveliness . If so, maybe you can accept them in your friends and focus on all the rest instead of getting worked up over them or trying to change them.

    6. Friendships need appreciation to flourish.

    Don’t take friendships for granted, whether it’s the little or the big things: tell and show the other person that they are appreciated and loved, and express your gratitude. Especially when we have known somebody for a long time, we may expect them to just know how we feel. And chances are they do, but it’s always nice to hear it, too.

    7. Not everyone will give as much as you give.

    Just the way we set our own boundaries and decide what we are prepared to give, everyone else has the same right. And everyone’s boundaries are different.

    While solid friendships naturally involve give and take, it shouldn’t be about tit for tat. Don’t keep count and don’t expect reciprocity for everything you are giving into the friendship. Give because you want to, not because you feel obligated or because you want something in exchange.

    8. Grudges erode relationships.

    I am pretty good at holding a grudge. I also know that it’s my coping mechanism for trying to protect myself from getting hurt and disappointed again.

    Here’s a secret: It doesn’t work! Also, is it worth proving that you were “right”? Do you even know for sure that you were “right”? Put yourself in the other person’s shoes: Can you understand where they are coming from? Communicate when you are upset, clear the air, and move on. But remember:

    9. Strong friendships require strong boundaries.

    Boundaries are so important, and a lot of us are unfortunately not very good at a) identifying our boundaries b) ensuring they are honored, and c) walking away when they are not.

    Personally, I have two main areas where I am still learning to communicate my boundaries: First, I’m part introvert and as much as I enjoy socializing, it can also feel depleting. Saying no to an invite or leaving a gathering when my limit has been reached still doesn’t come easy but it’s getting easier. It’s a matter of taking my own needs seriously as well as explaining them to my friends.

    Secondly, people tend to find it easy to open up to me and often come to me for advice. As much as I want to help people and especially support my friends, I am still figuring out where my boundary is. I don’t want to take on a one-sided role of “counselor” in a friendship, since this inevitably leaves me feeling resentful. I am aware this is as much about me naturally putting myself in that role as it is about people’s expectations of me.

    10. People change.

    Are you the same person you were ten years ago? Even one year ago?

    We all change, and especially when we’ve known somebody for a while, it’s easy to assume that we know everything about them.

    I love this quote by George Bernard Shaw: “The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.”

    Are you still listening? Are you curious? Are you taking an interest?

    Sometimes we change so much that we drift apart, and that’s okay. The fact that we may grow so far apart that we no longer want to be friends doesn’t take away from all the joy and fun we had in the past.

    Though I have long since bid farewell to my warped idealistic friendship model, I do make a conscious decision about who I want to spend my time with. And the criteria for that can change over time and are for me to decide.

    My only advice is this: don’t be quick to discard relationships from a place of disappointment, hurt feelings, a bruised ego, or even a sense of revenge.

    If somebody means something to you, talk to them. Figure out a new way to be friends going forward—one that works for both of you. But also accept that people are not there to adhere to your expectations or to the image you built up of them in your head.

    And remember that connections in whatever form add immeasurably to the quality of our lives. Let’s open our hearts and minds to experience more of them!

  • How to Journal Away Your Disappointment in Yourself

    How to Journal Away Your Disappointment in Yourself

    “Forgive yourself for not knowing better at the time. Forgive yourself for giving away your power. Forgive yourself for past behaviors. Forgive yourself for the survival patterns and traits you picked up while enduring trauma. Forgive yourself for being who you needed to be.” ~Audrey Kitching

    “I can’t do this.”

    “Why do I look so fat? I’m disgusting!”

    “I haven’t done enough today. I am so useless.”

    “I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have said that.”

    “Oh my god, why did this happen to me? What am I going to do now?”

    Since I was a teenager, there has always been a voice inside my head telling me that things are not going to be okay because I am not enough.

    At school, it told me I wasn’t popular or cool enough. At Arts university, that my work wasn’t original or deep enough. At my first job (which I disliked), that I wasn’t happy enough. In my current work (which I love), that I am never productive enough. And as the cherry on top throughout all these years, guess what—I’ve never been thin enough, talkative enough, or proactive enough.

    This voice has become so present and loud that it has led to severe anxiety attacks.

    One day, the feeling of self-loathing and despair was so strong that my usual journaling affirmations and gratitude practice were not enough. My soul, wounded by all the negative self-talk, needed something stronger. More than being fixed, it needed to be held in a tight, comforting hug.

    So that’s what I did: I knew that journaling was still the way, I just had to find a way to hug myself with it.

    Without thinking, I started writing to myself what a wise mother or a loving mentor would tell me in this situation.

    “My dear, I know you are feeling anxious about not having completed all your tasks for today. I know it makes you doubt if you will ever be able to achieve your goals. I know it makes you fear that you will end up out of money, out of friends, out of love. But here’s the truth: it doesn’t matter that you had a bad day. I know you’re trying hard. I know you’re giving your best. You deserve a rest. You are amazing, and you’re going to make it.”

    The effects were immediate: like with nothing else I had ever tried before, I felt a deep sense of comfort and relief.

    I had just discovered my new soul-medicine.

    How This Exercise Works

    The reason why so many of us constantly push ourselves to be more and do more (and blame ourselves when we fail) is because we’re trying to get from others the approval we have never learned how to give ourselves.

    This exercise teaches us to do just that: to give ourselves the appreciation we crave so much.

    But there’s one more reason why it is so powerful: it’s because it’s written in the second person.

    We are used to valuing more the compliments we hear from others than the ones we give ourselves. Therefore, it’s like having your adult self give your inner child the love and validation it has always wanted and needed, and that’s why it’s so healing.

    On top of that, writing it on paper instead of just thinking it in your head keeps your mind focused, and your heart fully immersed in the process. And it’s also quite relaxing!

    How To Do This Exercise

    1. Whenever your negative self-talk or your anxiety kicks in, grab your journal and a pen.

    2. Observe the thoughts and feelings that are happening right now. Don’t look away. Dive in.

    3. Now, imagine that the person thinking those thoughts and feeling those feelings is your inner child. Try to feel compassion and empathy towards their pain.

    4. Then, ask yourself: “Who is someone I look up to and what words would I like to hear from them in this situation?” This can be a higher power, a parent, a teacher, or whoever gives you comfort and guidance.

    5. Now, try to put yourself in that person/entity’s shoes, and start writing those words to yourself—to your inner child. Here are some examples:

    “I can see that you feel lost. You don’t know where to go next, and you doubt that you will ever know. But you will. I can assure you that you will. And when you know it, you can pursue it. You’ve made it so far, haven’t you? You have more in you than you think you do. You are kind to others, you are taking care of yourself the best way you can, you are doing everything at your reach. You always have. Just keep holding on, my love. This, too, shall pass.”

    “It’s okay to feel angry. Your anger is valid. I love you no matter what. You know what? You can scream. Scream, my beautiful creature. You are stunning when you scream. You are full of power, raw energy, and the time will come to use it well. You are simply taking your time. It doesn’t matter that things didn’t go well this time; but they will, when they have to. You are doing great.”

    As you write it down, let the words flow freely. Get fully immersed in the exercise. It might be helpful to imagine that you are hugging your inner child, and definitely focus on giving love, nurturing, caring.

    At points, the words you’re writing might feel like huge clichés, but it doesn’t matter: all that matters is that you feel them—that’s how you know it’s working.

    All You Need Is Love

    It’s easy to get trapped in a negativity loop: you feel bad because you failed to meet your own expectations; then you feel anxious because you’re feeling bad, and so afraid to get trapped into a negativity spiral that you don’t even notice you’re already in it.

    You can’t fight negativity with negativity. To break the loop, you need love.

    You have been hard enough on yourself. Give yourself the words and love you have been longing to hear. Do it from a different perspective—I guarantee, this will rock your world.

  • What to Do When Someone You Love is Struggling

    What to Do When Someone You Love is Struggling

    “Sometimes the easiest way to solve a problem is to stop participating in the problem.” ~ Jonathan Mead

    I don’t think I’m alone in having someone in my life whom I wish I could change. Someone I see struggling, who ignores or resents any lifesavers I send their way. I can clearly see how this person contributes to their own struggles, but they remain totally unaware of it. Sometimes, I want to shake some sense into this person; I think, “If only they would get their life together…”

    For many of us, this person is a relative: a sister, brother, parent, or child. For others, it’s a close friend or coworker. A lot of times, it’s someone we want in our lives, even if it’s painful to keep them there. No matter who it is, it certainly isn’t easy to see someone you care about struggle.

    Being in the presence of another’s pain used to provoke a deeply emotional response from me. And I know others feel the same. Sympathy and the desire to help someone in distress are naturally instinctual responses.

    According to Darwin, humans and animals alike take comfort in one another’s company, protecting one another and defending each other against threats.

    I get that. It makes total sense to me. I would have gone to the ends of the earth to see the people I care about happy. I did just about anything to try and change them; I read books and articles, reaching out for experts’ advice on how I could get them to see the light. In fact, I became one of those “experts” myself, and if I’m honest with myself, it’s because I was looking for a way to help the ones I love.

    You see, I didn’t just have one person in my life who was struggling. At one point, it seemed like the majority of my family members were having a tough time. That led me to feel desperate and helpless, unable to live my own life while sensing their pain.

    I always hung on to the hope that the people in my life would somehow change. That something I had overlooked would prove to be the magic bullet to help them live a good and fulfilling life.

    I kept buying more books, reading more articles, and encouraging them to go to therapy, whether they wanted to or not. I reasoned, pleaded, led interventions. Dreamed of my ideal relationships with them, imagined them happy and full of life. Yearned for their smiles and enthusiasm for life. Believed that I couldn’t be happy until they were.

    I made it my life mission to change others, becoming a therapist to help make changes in other people’s lives, fixing what was broken.

    Well, as you can imagine, that never worked. When you have people in your life whom it hurts to love, the only logical solution seems like trying to help them change. But I had to learn the long and hard way, by running into dead ends and facing many disappointments, that you can’t make other people change. You can’t make other people happy. And you can’t rescue another person.

    The only person you can change is yourself. So that’s what I did. I learned to manage my anxiety around other people’s discomfort. I decided that other people’s struggles and journeys were just that: their struggles and journeys. I stopped trying to be helpful and instead decided that I had a right to be happy.

    It’s so important to understand that you can’t make somebody change. You can inspire them to change. You can educate them toward change. You can support them in their change. But you can’t force them to change just so that you can feel more comfortable around them.

    Maybe that sounds like giving up. Maybe that even sounds a bit uncaring. However, I didn’t stop trying to be helpful to those struggling because I stopped loving them. I stopped because I saw it was not only not working, it was also contributing to their problems.

    When I made efforts to take on other people’s problems I would do too much. I relieved them for a moment of their pain; however, I wasn’t providing them with the space they needed to solve their own issues. If I kept jumping in to help them, they would keep relying on me, instead of themselves, which wouldn’t allow them to better deal with life’s many difficulties on their own.

    After years of doing the same things over and over again, with very little result, I decided it was time to change my approach. I was doing the very thing I wanted to see other people stop doing: I was contributing to my own problems. And it was time to stop doing that. It was time to be happy, not only for me, but for those that I cared about. It was time to be less helpful.

    Our efforts to be helpful might be based on good intentions, but those good intentions don’t always yield good results.

    By committing to learning what real help is, I came to understand that if I could manage my anxiety about other people’s problems and invest my time thinking about real solutions, I could change my responses and do something that was legitimately helpful.

    As the first step in this process, I began to define my true beliefs, values, and ideas about helping others.

    I’ve learned that in crisis situations, it’s best for me to calm myself down and respond as wisely as possible—when it’s needed and, of course, when it’s welcomed. The ability to manage my emotions in the highly anxious and emotional presence of another, especially a loved one in pain, is a lifelong mission of mine, because I truly believe it’s what will be helpful.

    If we can all manage ourselves in the face of other people’s problems, we can truly be present and accountable.

    On my journey to find out what it means to be truly helpful, I’ve found some tools I keep in my back pocket when the going gets tough.

    First, stay in touch.

    This isn’t easy to do in the presence of someone who’s very anxious and upset. Some people naturally create distance when anxiety is high. Thinking that you can’t help, or that the situation is too large, can lead you to run in the other direction.

    I try to stay in contact with people I care about, even if their problems are too big for me to solve or aren’t solvable at all, like having an illness. Staying in touch helps me manage myself around the big stuff I can’t solve, and learn to accept people as they are.

    Second, see the person past the problem.

    When I was walking around with a hammer, I was basically seeing everyone in my life as a nail. There was more to them than the issues they were facing, but I wasn’t relating to them as whole people. Now I look for other people’s strengths, and their ability to solve their own issues. People are more resilient than we tend to think.

    Third, respect others’ boundaries and ability to solve their own problems.

    Many people are vulnerable when they face life’s stressors, and some people look to others to solve their problems for them. These days, I try to respect other people enough to let them come up with their own answers.

    Determining how much to say or not say in each situation we face is not an exact science. I respect others’ boundaries by supporting their autonomy, being there for them but staying out of the way when my opinion isn’t needed. I make sure that any ideas for possible solutions come from them. I offer useful information without telling anyone what to do.

    Fourth, know your own limitations.

    It was humbling for me to find out how little control I have over the way others decide to live their lives. I changed my thought process from thinking I knew what’s best for my loved ones, to defining what I really could and couldn’t do; then my responses became clearer.

    I was able to be more open and honest about the reality of my own life and how available I could be for others. I learned the hard way that, most of the time, my limits of time and energy were reached before other people’s needs were met.

    Fifth, become more objective.

    Boy, is it hard to think objectively when it comes to our important relationships. In intense emotional situations, it’s easy to get pulled into it all and feel pressured to do something instead of taking a step back and seeing the bigger picture.

    With each situation I face, I work on getting more objective about it, reflecting on how I can remain calm and not feel the need to solve anything immediately.

    Remaining objective is about seeing the difference between reality and what you feel. So, for example, instead of thinking you need to break your best friend’s unhealthy relationship pattern because it hurts you to see her in the same painful situation over and over again, you might step back and recognize she’s making progress, even if it’s slow, and we all need to learn our own lessons in our own time.

    Sixth, work toward being open and honest.

    We all have a need to feel seen, heard, and understood. However, way too many people aren’t open and honest in their relationships. When we can be open about our vulnerabilities and share our own experiences, it can be healing and calming. We can let others know that we can relate to them. When we’re trying to solve and fix everything, we aren’t connecting with others at a deeper level. We’re acting as if we’re above them.

    —

    By making an effort to stop trying to be helpful, I saw many changes in my life. I no longer felt the pressure I once put on myself to be responsible for other people. I no longer made other people’s struggles about myself. And through all of that, I was able to foster better relationships with the people I care about—relationships based on reality, versus fantasies of who I wished they would be.

    What I describe here is my own personal experience. I share it as a way to get you thinking, but there’s no one-size-fits-all method for determining what real help is.

    The biggest lesson I learned in all of this is that I wasn’t helping anyone when I was swooping in trying to solve every problem without looking at the bigger picture. I understand now that when my “helping” is rooted in anxiety and an urge to smooth things over, it isn’t coming from a genuine place.

    I now know it’s okay to not have all of the answers; it’s okay to take my time to think things over; it’s okay to throw my hands up and say, “This situation really stinks right now, and it’s going to be hard for a while.”

    It’s okay for you to do all those things, too. Not every struggling person needs saving. Knowing that, and accepting it, might be the most helpful thing you can do.

  • How to Practice Joy and Bravery

    How to Practice Joy and Bravery

    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.” ~Alphonse Karr

    “You should have told them. You should have told them you like it. They need to know people are happy there.”

    “I know I should have. But I didn’t want to seem insensitive or make anyone feel bad.”

    We sat at the dinner table, my boyfriend looking at me, me staring at my cleaned plate. We’d had variations of this conversation before. I tell him my coworkers aren’t happy at work, but I am happy at work, and he is forever confused as to why I’m scared to voice up that I love this job.

    Part of the reason for my silence is that I’m the youngest in the office. The pay isn’t very high, but it’s everything my partner and I need right now. I love teaching and working with students. My commute is a twenty-minute walk down a picturesque Main Street.

    Obviously, there are times of stress, imposter syndrome, and downright exhaustion. But it’s nothing compared to the fear I formerly felt about not having a job and living 2,000 miles across the country from my boyfriend. Again.

    Thus, when my coworkers voice concerns over meager pay and little respect, I usually pretend not to hear them, hunkering in my cubicle. Putting earbuds in with no music. Looking preoccupied with something else.

    Their concerns are valid. They have families and decades more work experience than I do. We’re all in different places, which creates the spectrum of job dissatisfaction.

    To say that I loved this job, that it’s the best thing that ever happened to me, I feared would alienate me further from coworkers whom I admire and respect. I am the “new kid on the block” as one referred to me, but I desperately wanted to fit in and be one of the faculty members.

    I’ve danced this line before, wondering when it’s okay to accept and show joy even when others are not feeling it. How can I be respectful and supportive when I’m happy in others’ sadness? Rather than helping them off the ground, isn’t that throwing sand on their faces and walking away? What about empathy?

    My partner, a skilled outdoorsman who asserts the only emotions he feels are laughter and hunger, said it simply: “You can help them if you tell them the truth.”

    I’ve thought about the people who inspire me the most. The people who seem to overcome every odd: being the first in the family to graduate high school and college, finishing a Ph.D. while working full-time and raising two kids, and leading the fight against cancer when it took her mom’s life.

    Knowing that other people have faced hard circumstances and still find joy is inspiring. It’s realizing that you can turn around from the desert you’ve been staring at to instead view a mountainside of purple wildflowers. Other people’s strength gives us strength. This is what my boyfriend meant when he said, “you can help them.”

    More than finding happiness, intentionally looking for joy and reminding ourselves of the good things is an act of bravery. Sharing joy is an act of bravery.

    We don’t have to look hard to find culturally affirming messages that work should be hard. That we should hate our jobs. That getting older sucks. That something other than the present moment is “the good old times.” And of course, that life itself is just plain hard. It’s easy to feel jealous. It’s easy to ignore what would have made us happy years ago.

    That’s easy. Creating joy for yourself is hard. So, let’s all do the hard thing.

    I don’t have the balance between empathy and joy figured out. One of my fears is still being insensitive to others’ pain. But I have come to realize this from more conversations and reflection on my heroes: We help others more than we hurt them when we share our joy.

    We open possibilities for people when they see happiness. Gratitude. Presence. Acceptance.

    As one example, my grandpa passed away last April. Grandpa was the glue and epicenter of our family. His spontaneous jokes, wide smile, and contagious laugh will always be missed by everyone who knew him.

    He and my grandma had been married for nearly seventy years. The grief is still raw for her; she talks to him every day. But she chooses to keep living fully, saying, “I wake up every day, and I think to myself: Am I going to be happy today? Am I going to be sad? And I choose to be happy.”

    It’s not that my grandma doesn’t miss my grandpa. Her bravery to choose happiness doesn’t dilute anyone else’s pain. Instead, it lives out the legacy of a joyous man and gives strength to his children and grandchildren. It opens the possibility that we can be happy. Simply put, her joy helps us.

    Below are three thoughts I’ve returned to when faced with the question of day-to-day living: Will I choose joy? Will I share it with others?

    I choose to…

    1. Make the best out of this situation.

    In college, my roommate came up with ideas for dance parties while she was studying for cellular biology. The idea was simple: study hard for something you don’t really want to be studying at all, and take a five-minute break to dance like an idiot to a 2000s pop song. Occasionally, the folks below you might yell through the vents. But the point is, you make the best of something you don’t want to do.

    I’m forever thankful that my roommate taught me this and then demanded I join in. She taught me that whatever’s going on, we can make it fun. We can make a boring trip to Walmart fun by blasting music, we can make working out fun by making all our friends go with us at 7am, and we can make studying fun by sipping a new flavor of herbal tea with each biology chapter.

    We can all apply this to our lives. Choose music that makes you happy while driving to run errands. Look at clouds and trees and other things that bring you joy. Make up stories. Even just stopping to tell yourself, “I will make the best out of this. I will make this fun for me,” will consciously remind you to make life fun for yourself.

    I choose to…

    2. Acknowledge and accept all emotions—feelings of anger, hurt, boredom, jealousy, not-good-enoughness, sadness, and loneliness.

    Though I choose to see the good in everything, that doesn’t mean avoiding pain. I want to feel it so I can help others through it. I don’t want anyone to feel alone, and that starts with acknowledging that each of us has feelings we don’t want to feel. When we feel them, we get a little braver. It’s easier to ignore them. It’s a whole lot harder to acknowledge they’re there, and to accept them.

    One simple thought to say to yourself, “I will be real with myself. I will be brave enough to feel this, so at the very least I can help someone else walk through this.”

    I choose to…

    3. Focus on everything that’s going right rather than what’s going wrong.

    It’s easy to find problems with everything. One professor told me, “Everyone can find problems. You can be the one guy to find solutions.” And it’s true. Would you rather be a problem-finder or a solution-maker?

    My default setting seems to be anxiety and problem-finding. I can find anything to be stressed about, anytime of the day, anywhere.

    It takes more work for me to intentionally think about what’s going well. So, one strategy I like to use is the negative game (this especially works for me because I’m a great worrier).

    What would it be like if my boyfriend left? I’m so glad to have a partner here day-in-and-day-out who loves me (and tells me that every day), who cooks well, and sincerely loves cats.

    What would it be like if I didn’t have a job? I’m so glad I have the opportunity to work with students each day and to help them reach their goals.

    What would it be like if my parents weren’t here? I’m so glad to have parents I can call every day and who truly care about me, who would fly across the country to see me, who listen attentively to every student-story I share.

    Who wouldn’t relax a bit after playing this mind game? Choose to think about what you can do; what you do have. Even the basics are grounding: having nutritious food to eat, clean water to drink, a safe home to live in.

    I did end up telling my coworkers that I enjoy this job after one of them shared they’re planning to leave after the next school year. I offered up a tentative, “I like this job. It works great for me right now.” No one threw rocks or kicked me out. They agreed it was great for someone just starting their career.

    Don’t be afraid to share your joy, even if other people don’t share it. Who knows, you never know how you can help someone. Maybe my brief words helped my coworker find something positive in our workplace.

    I leave you with one quote:

    “Never dull your shine for someone else.”

    Help other people see joy, and be brave enough to practice it.

  • It’s More Important to Be Authentic Than Impressive

    It’s More Important to Be Authentic Than Impressive

    “The most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves is to remain ignorant by not having the courage to look at ourselves honestly and gently.” ~Pema Chödrön

    All my life I’ve chased after success, as I was encouraged to do from a very young age.

    When I was six, my father got me my first proper study desk as a gift for getting into a ‘good’ school. The type of desk that towered over a little six-year-old—complete with bookshelves and an in-built fluorescent light. In the middle of the shelf frame stuck a white sticky label inscribed with my father’s own handwriting in two languages. It read: “Work hard for better progress.”

    Little did I know those words would set the tone for me and my work ethic for the next twenty years—until I finally began to question them.

    Hard work became my ‘safe space’ whenever I felt insecure. When I struggled to make friends at a new school, felt rejected, or felt like I didn’t belong, I would put my head down and drown out my emotions out by working hard. It became my coping strategy.

    My younger self didn’t yet have the emotional resources to deal with moving around, changing schools, and facing social rejection. When it became too painful, it was much easier to stay in my head than to feel vulnerable with my heart.

    So, whenever I struggled to fit in at school, I just worked harder with the misguided belief that if I did well, then I would be celebrated. If I became impressive, then people would finally accept and like me.

    And of course, my parents encouraged this behavior. I was rewarded for my hard work and I got good results for it too.

    But outside of my home, nobody seemed to care about my results. I still wasn’t fitting in at school. I still didn’t have many friends. My strategy didn’t seem to be working.

    So I worked even harder.

    By the time I graduated from University, I had completely bought into society’s definition of being ‘impressive’ without even questioning it once. If it was a prize everyone wanted, I wanted it too.

    My definition of being ‘impressive’ expanded to include looking good, dressing well, staying fit, and making good money in a highly-competitive field, even if I had zero passion for that profession.

    By then, I’d long forgotten the reasons why I wanted to work hard to be impressive in the first place, other than “That’s just who I am.”

    I was drifting further and further away from my true self, and I didn’t even know it.

    For the next ten years, I spent a lot of my waking hours working as a financial analyst, studying for more degrees and certification, and chasing after the next shiny thing so I could sound even more impressive to others. Plus, I was making a decent income while doing so. Tick.

    While on the surface I ticked a lot of those “impressive” boxes I had set out for myself, on the inside I felt emptier than ever. On the outside I looked successful, but on the inside, I felt like a complete failure.

    What Happens When Your True Self Calls You to Come Back

    Cracks started to emerge both in my work and in myself. It became challenging to fully show up for work as I increasingly asked myself: “What am I doing here?”

    A soft inner voice whispered, “It’s time to get out of here, you’re not meant to be in finance. What are you doing here?” So I began questioning what I was doing with my life. I mean, if not that, what was I meant to do? I’d invested so much of my time and energy into my profession; I couldn’t just change directions. And who was this voice anyway? Where was it coming from?

    My fake enthusiasm became harder and harder to keep up. This sinking feeling became more visceral by the day, and the feeling of not belonging in my workplace became increasingly obvious.

    Yet I swallowed those feelings down with gritted teeth and kept pushing. Because what else was I meant to do if not keep persisting?

    When I suddenly got fired it was an abrupt wakeup call. I needed to challenge everything I believed in and confront those big questions I’d put off answering for so long: “Who am I really?” and “What am I really about?”

    What I Learned Through My Four-Year Journey of Self-Discovery

    I spent the next couple of years immersing myself in a whole range of subjects that covered different angles on self-knowledge, in an attempt to answer the question “Who am I?”

    For most of my seeking, I was still trying to find answers as if they resided outside of me. I was still trying to find where I belonged professionally.

    But what started as a business journey quickly morphed into an inner-transformational journey that became deeply personal.

    This deep inner work allowed me to reconnect to my internal guidance system and my true self once more.

    Through this process I was able to take a good look at myself, confront my shadow side, heal my wounds of rejection, and forgive everyone involved, including myself.

    As I’ve come home to my true self, I’ve realized a few things about the cost of chasing impressiveness:

    When we chase after something external, we lose self-connection.

    When I heard that soft, loving voice inside my head, it was a small glimpse of spiritual awakening. It was a momentary connection to my inner mentor’s light that seeped through my deep dark fog of disconnection.

    We all have our own inner mentor, but we have choose to listen to it instead of trying to be who we think we’re supposed to be.

    When we trust others more than we trust ourselves, we can end up giving our personal power away.

    If we believe that the answers we seek lie outside of ourselves, we can forget to check in to see what’s true for us each individually. The more weight we put on other people’s opinions, the less we trust our own inner knowing.

    People can only speak to what they know based on their own perspective, background, and life experiences. When we allow other people’s opinions to overpower the choices our true selves would otherwise make, we end up giving away our personal power.

    I’ve found that it doesn’t matter how many well-meaning opinions we get; we need to find what resonates with us the most by checking in with our inner authority—which means going against what we learned growing up, when we were trained to ignore our inner voice and do what we were told.

    The pursuit of ‘impressiveness’ is a hunger that can never be satisfied.

    When we keep chasing after ‘impressiveness,’ we are in fact on a hedonic treadmill of always wanting more. As soon as we achieve one thing, we fixate on the next. We keep wanting bigger, better, and more.

    As soon as we attain or do something, suddenly what we have isn’t good enough anymore, and so we must now keep up. We fall into the comparison trap. The external goalpost keeps moving. We keep looking over our shoulders to see how we’re tracking against everyone, and it becomes a tireless pursuit of keeping up with the Joneses with no real end in sight.

    Every ‘win’ is temporary.

    We mistakenly see ‘impressiveness’ as proof that we’re worthy of love.

    When we chase after ‘impressiveness’ we’re really chasing after validation, approval, and a sense of belonging. We think, “If I can be impressive then I can be accepted.” We want others to look up to us, praise us, and ultimately, love us.

    However, the pursuit gets dangerous when we buy into the false belief that we have to work hard in order to prove we are worthy of love; that we need to become ‘impressive’ through our accomplishments and produce tangible proof of our worthiness.

    I’ve noticed that a lot of high achievers, like myself, have bought into this belief, possibly due to the achievement-oriented upbringing we were exposed to from a very young age.

    The danger is that it can become an acquisition addiction, and an arms race to get more degrees, more cars, more houses, more shoes, more toys, and so on.

    We can become addicted to buying ‘cool’ things to impress other people, or work ourselves to the bone just to get those long lists of accolades instead of recognizing that we are inherently worthy of love. Regardless of what we have or have achieved.

    We risk losing our individuality.

    When we chase after external validation and approval, we compromise who we really are in exchange for more respect, more likes, more kudos from our peers. We showcase a more curated, ‘acceptable’ version of ourselves to the world, and we hide other parts of ourselves that we think might be rejected by others. Even worse, we end up chasing after things we don’t even really want.

    Some of us inherit strong beliefs about what ‘success’ means and some of us strive toward pre-approved categories of impressiveness as defined by society, without checking in once to see whether these pathways to ‘success’ fit in with our true selves.

    In the end, we lose our individuality—the essence of who we really are.

    It requires self-connection to recognize what is true for us versus what is conditioned into us. It requires even more courage to step outside of these pre-approved paths to ‘impressiveness’ and live a life that aligns with our true selves.

    How to Reclaim Your Authentic Self

    I’ve discovered that breaking free from the illusion of ‘impressiveness’ and reclaiming your true self is really a constant two-step dance between recognition and courage.

    1. Recognition

    To reclaim your authentic self you have to recognize that you have disconnected from who you really are in the first place. Your achievements, your accomplishments, all the cool stuff that you own, and even your toned physique—they’re not who you really are.

    2. Courage to be your true self

    We have to have courage to stand in our truth and be our authentic selves. Recognition alone is not enough. For many of us, it’s the fear of disapproval that holds us back from stepping out of those curated, pre-approved categories that we have created for ourselves, and fully owning who we are, in all our beautiful, strange glory.

    My wish is that this becomes your permission slip to fully step into who you really are and own it. Being your true self requires tremendous courage, but it’s worth it. And having the courage to fully embrace your true individuality in all its quirkiness? That’s impressive.

  • What Happens When We Assume the Worst of People We Love

    What Happens When We Assume the Worst of People We Love

    “Before you assume, learn. Before you judge, understand. Before you hurt, feel. Before you say, think.” ~Unknown

    There we were on a Saturday afternoon doing such benign things as running errands at Costco, Trader Joes, and the post office. Excitement galore.

    Yet, it would be a day I came to a major realization, understanding something I already knew in theory but wasn’t putting into practice.

    Here’s the realization: Mind reading in relationships leads to confusion, resentment, frustration, and name-calling.

    I’m not talking about psychic mind reading either! I’m referring to the kind of mind reading that you likely do every day, all the time, likely without even realizing it.

    Mind reading is when you assume you know what another person is thinking or feeling without direct evidence. In other words, you’re assuming their thoughts, beliefs, and intentions (and you’re usually assuming the worst).

    Big mistake.

    What Does Mind Reading Look Like?

    Here’s an example from the day I mentioned at the start of the post: We went to Costco and got a few things, and I asked him if he wanted to grab some sushi for lunch after. “Nope. I’m good” was his reply.

    “Hmmm. Well, thanks for asking me if I’m hungry,” I thought to myself. At this point I was sort of simmering in my own irritation but trying not to think about it.

    I’ve been battling this theory in my mind that no one really cares about me or my needs at all and that everyone else on the planet is selfish twit.

    So, another twenty minutes went by and he said, “We can go grab something small to eat if you want.”

    Cool! I was starving. That red bull on an empty stomach sure didn’t help.

    We needed to drop off the stuff at home first. As I was putting our groceries in the fridge, I pulled out two leftover sausages and threw them up on the counter to dump in the trash. We needed room and they looked icky.

    He immediately grabbed the sausage and a plate and started cutting them into pieces.

    I was mortified and pissed. What the hell????

    All I could think to myself is, “He doesn’t care about me or if I’m hungry. He’s hungry, so he’s going to eat and he’s going to do what he wants like he always does. Jerk.”

    My mind leapt right to it. I went right to assuming bad intentions and to assuming he doesn’t care about me or my needs. Quite a leap from him eating two sausages, I know.

    But instead of saying, “I’m hungry. I thought we were going to go eat. What’s up?” I yelled at him and blurted out, “It seems like you don’t care about me and the fact that I’m hungry, and you’re going to do what you want and you only care about yourself and you’re being a selfish jerk.”

    Oooops.

    What’s the Truth?

    His response was to look at me like a deer in headlights because he had absolutely no idea what I was getting so mad about, why I was yelling, or why he was suddenly a selfish jerk.

    At first, I was happy with myself. I had told him my feelings, right? I had stood up for myself. I had told him how I felt instead of pretending I wasn’t mad and always letting everything be okay. This was good, right?

    Actually, no, it wasn’t good.

    I had to stomp around for a while and simmer down, but as time went on, I realized we needed to resolve the issue, so I calmly asked him if he understood why I was upset.

    Of course, he didn’t. I tried to explain my side and where I was coming from and how my feelings were hurt by his insensitivity, but as he kept talking, I concluded that the issue wasn’t him being selfish. The issue was that I misunderstood him. I assumed he was being selfish. I inferred negative behavior toward him when all he wanted was a sausage.

    The truth is he thought I was putting the sausage up there for him to eat. He would eat the two sausage, still be hungry, and then we’d go have lunch. No harm. No foul.

    The poor guy thought he was doing what I wanted him to do and instead I called him names. My bad.

    I realized that my natural inclination to think that people are out to get me (which stems from childhood sexual abuse) is a problem, and that it’s my job to curtail this problem and stop acting out on it. I may feel a certain way, but that doesn’t make those feelings true.

    I need to be more careful about assuming the worst in my partner, and I need to be better at communicating my feelings more effectively (that’s an entirely different post).

    What to Do Instead of Assuming the Worst

    If you can relate to my story, first, you should try to remember that most people have good intentions. We all act to increase pleasure and avoid pain, and very few people go out with the intention to hurt you. Even when people do hurt you, they are likely still acting with good intentions for themselves rather than bad intention toward you.

    This doesn’t mean you put up with an abuser or a toxic relationship. It means when you are in a relationship with someone who cares but doesn’t always get it right according to your grand plan of the way the world should be, you stop assuming their intentions (especially if they’re negative), you give them the benefit of the doubt, and when in doubt, you ask.

    If you go around assuming the worst about your partner, you’ll get the worst.

    If you assume your partner doesn’t care about you, then you’ll end up with someone who doesn’t care about you.

    If you assume you know what your partner is thinking, think again.

    If you assume your partner knows what you’re thinking, think again.

    We go around assuming everyone else lives in our model of the world, and that’s just ridiculous. You have your childhood, your life experiences, your intelligence, your beliefs, and your emotional make-up, and everyone else has theirs.

    What we need is more compassion and understanding, and less mind reading and negativity.

    The truth is our entire argument (one-sided though it was) was based on a miscommunication and misunderstanding of the facts in evidence. The only true facts were 1. I put sausage out on the counter and 2. He started cutting up the sausage.

    Everything else was a complete assumption on my part.

    So, think about it next time you get upset with your partner. Do the facts support your belief(s), or are you assuming you know how they feel or why they’re acting the way they are? Are you assuming the worst of them, or are you assured that they care but maybe just suck at showing it the way you expect it?

    Only you have the power to control your thoughts, emotions, and reactions. Only you can seek to create a harmonious rather than a contentious relationship.

  • I Hear You: A Must-Read Book for Stronger, Happier Relationships

    I Hear You: A Must-Read Book for Stronger, Happier Relationships

    Have you ever felt like someone was listening to you but not really hearing you—or worse, not even fully listening?

    Maybe they were more looking through you than at you, just kind of zoning out, all the while nodding, as if taking in what you were saying, but not. Or even worse still, maybe they weren’t giving you any signs of engagement, but rather alternating between glances up at you and glimpses down at their phone.

    It’s rare these days to get someone’s full attention, and even more difficult to end a conversation feeling truly heard and understood—as if the other person not only got what you were saying but also empathized with your feelings.

    These are the kinds of conversations that fuel us, soothe us, and build stronger bonds, and yet they’re not easy to come by.

    To some degree it’s because we all have a tendency to get wrapped up in our own problems and caught up in our own emotions. But it’s also because this is a skill we’re never taught.

    In all our years of formal education, no one ever explores the art and power of listening, understanding, and validating other people.

    And no one outlines what it looks, sounds, and feels like to communicate with focus and empathy so we can create the kind of deeply fulfilling connections that make everything in life feel more manageable.

    I believe these are the kind of conversations that can change and even save lives.

    When we feel heard and understood, we feel calmer, more confident, and more comfortable with our own feelings—which means we’re less apt to fall into self-destructive patterns as a means to escape them.

    We also feel closer to the people who are validating us, since we know we can trust them and truly let them in to our complex inner workings.

    That’s why I’m excited to share with you Michael Sorensen’s powerful new book I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships.

    I consider myself a highly empathetic person, who naturally seeks to understand and validate others, and yet I still found this book to be tremendously valuable.

    In just 137 pages, Michael has outlined everything we need to know to communicate empathetically, both in personal and professional relationships, which will enable us to:

    • Strengthen our connections
    • Minimize conflict and unnecessary drama
    • Provide support and encouragement when we don’t know how to fix other people’s problems
    • Help more than we could by offering unsolicited advice
    • Create relief in conversations that may have otherwise felt tense
    • Help others feel safe and loved
    • Become the kind of person everyone wants in their life

    As a sleep-deprived new mother navigating the consuming world of parenthood with an equally exhausted partner, I’ve had plenty of recent experience communicating poorly.

    If you’re a parent, you’re perhaps familiar with the frustration and resentment that can quickly build up as you’re establishing how you and your partner will carry this joyful-yet-heavy new load together.

    It’s easy to fall into blame mode when you’re juggling more than feels manageable and sifting through a range of messy emotions, with only brief windows of relief.

    I’ve ended many a conversation feeling both annoyed and guilty, and consequently, less connected to my partner than usual—at a time when I’d rather be basking in shared bliss.

    But Michael’s book helped me see how he and I were invalidating each other, which kept us both stuck in frustration and defensiveness.

    The crazy thing is that we both had good intentions and had no idea what we were doing to so consistently inflame each other. Our hearts were in the right place, but we constantly felt like we were saying the wrong things and just getting each other more upset.

    Michael’s four-step validation method may be simple, but it’s powerful because it enables us to provide to the people we love the one thing we all want most: the comfort of understanding.

    It won’t solve all of our problems or give us the power to solve everyone else’s, but it will help us create relief instead of adding to a growing sense of tension.

    It won’t eliminate differences of opinion, but it can help us learn to hold another’s without invalidating our own.

    I especially appreciate that Michael peppered the book with real-world examples to help us apply this formula in varied situations. It’s easy to understand something intellectually but far more difficult to put it into practice, especially when emotions are running high. In tandem, the steps and examples shared in the book can serve as a wonderful blueprint for avoiding and defusing difficult conversations, even when navigating overwhelming feelings.

    I don’t read many books these days because my time has become far more limited, but I’m glad I added I Hear You to my reading list. It’s a quick read that I know will have a long-lasting impact on my relationships and my life, and I suspect it can do the same for you.

    If you’re interested in grabbing a copy, you can get one on Amazon here.

    **Though this is a sponsored post, with an affiliate link, you can trust that I only promote products and services I truly believe in. As my review conveys, I Hear You fits the bill!

  • Being Shy Made Me Strong, and It Can Do the Same for You

    Being Shy Made Me Strong, and It Can Do the Same for You

    “Never assume that loud is strong and quiet is weak.” ~Unknown

    This quote seems counterintuitive, right?

    For many years, I, too, scoffed at the idea.

    Having dealt with crippling shyness throughout my life, I know firsthand what it’s like to feel weak, powerless, and trapped because of it.

    As a child, I remember clinging to my mom’s leg and using her body to hide from strangers. Then, as I got older, this shy behavior manifested into a fear of speaking my mind, interacting with others, putting myself out there, and so on and so forth.

    My quiet and timid nature led to me being known as “the shy girl,” a label that followed me through my formative years and made me feel stuck inside a box of limitations throughout my adult life.

    During these years, my shyness did nothing but hold me back from being who I wanted to be. It felt like a dark cloud hanging over me, and I couldn’t escape.

    Until, one day, I realized that being shy got me nowhere. I was living a life of loneliness and fear where I had no close friends, no social life, and no happiness.

    I refused to allow myself to fall victim to being shy. So I chose to do something about it.

    Looking back, it’s been a long road to get where I am today, but I can honestly say that I’m a stronger person because of what I went through as a result of all of it. I’m thankful I went through the challenges that come with being a shy person because it forced me to make a choice: shrink or grow.

    So if you, too, are dealing with debilitating shyness, here are some things that may help.

    Challenge yourself.

    Feeling stuck? Then it’s time to shake things up.

    If you’re extremely shy then, chances are, you’re scared to put yourself out there. And why would you? Especially when your comfort zone is just so comfortable.

    I know what that’s like because I’ve been there myself. It’s easier to live your life within the confines of what’s familiar because there are no risks and no surprises. But there’s also nothing to be gained from an unchallenged life.

    From a young age, I recognized that my big ambitions were tethered on a short leash because of my shy nature. I was never going to reach any of my goals if I kept living my life in fear. And that thought alone scared me more than the thought of putting myself out there.

    For that reason, I saw my transition from middle school student to high school freshman as an opportunity for a fresh start. I knew I wanted to do something I never had the guts to do before.

    So I decided to take a theater class offered by my school. I saw it as the perfect challenge because, not only was it completely out of character, the mere thought of performing on stage terrified me.

    What better way to help me break out of my shell than taking a class that involves speaking in front of an audience?

    Skipping ahead to my first performance, I remember my face being beet red, my palms were sweaty, my heart was beating out of my chest, and my anxiety was through the roof. I was in fight-or-flight mode and, and while I would normally choose flight, this time I was determined to fight throughout.

    At the end of the performance, I felt an amazing rush. It didn’t matter how I did or what people thought. All that mattered is that I pushed through my fears and did it.

    I saw this as a huge victory in the battle against my shyness.

    So if you want to take a step toward overcoming your shyness, then it’s time to step outside of your comfort zone. Do something that scares you. Think of an activity you’ve always wanted to do but never had the guts to try and start there.

    It’s terrifying, and chances are you’ll second-guess yourself throughout the entire process, but what you feel once you get through it will make all of the anxiety worth it in the end.

    Don’t give up.

    While theater classes helped me learn to face some of the challenges that came with my shyness, it wasn’t until college where I really broke out of my shell.

    As you can probably imagine, social situations were a nightmare for me because of how shy I was around others. I didn’t know how to connect with people and, more importantly, I was scared to try.

    My life up to this point consisted of a nonexistent social life and friends who were mostly just classmates or acquaintances.

    However, that changed when I took a job at a local restaurant.

    At first, I despised the job. Everyone seemed so close and I felt like I didn’t fit in, which is why, within the first week, I wanted nothing more than to give up and quit

    All of my life I’ve felt like an outsider, so I assumed that this would be no different. Despite that feeling, though, something told me that I needed to stick it out and stay.

    So I did. And it paid off.

    Over the next few months, I became more comfortable talking to my coworkers, which turned into spending time together on lunch breaks and then getting together after work hours. Pretty soon, these people who were once nothing more than strangers to me became the friends I had longed for throughout my life.

    Because I stuck it out and pushed through the discomfort and fear, I was no longer an outsider and I loved my job. It was a complete 180 from where I was when I first started working there, and all it took was patience and effort.

    This experience taught me that anything worth having takes persistence. A self-defeating attitude will only keep you trapped within the limitations of your shy tendencies.

    If I had given up, I would have never met the people who became my closest friends, and still are more than a decade later.

    So when the going gets tough, dig deep and push through it. Changing a pattern like shyness is no easy task, but if you don’t give up, you could end up with something amazing.

    Practice makes perfect.

    Change doesn’t happen overnight.

    In order to break away from your shy tendencies, you need to do more of what gets you out of your comfort zone.

    For me, that’s socializing.

    Because of my shy, introverted nature, I’m typically more comfortable being by myself and, as a result, I tend to withdraw from others.

    Yet, despite those tendencies, deep down, I’ve always wanted to be a social person, somebody who’s confident in social situations and has no problem approaching people.

    So I decided that I was going to practice.

    Coincidentally, all of this took place after my twenty-first birthday, so the nights out on the town with my friends became a way for me to practice my social skills.

    I’ll admit, at first I felt extremely awkward and uncomfortable. In the presence of large crowds, I would typically shrink down and avoid talking to others. Because these skills didn’t come naturally for me, it took some time for me to break away from those habits, but eventually, I did.

    I continued to push myself to talk to strangers whenever I would go out with my friends. Granted, this was a lot easier considering that the people I spoke to were typically a few drinks in, but it still did the job.

    Pretty soon, the thought of approaching someone and having a conversation wasn’t as scary as it once was in the past. In fact, I actually started to enjoy it.

    I like to think of social skills like a muscle in the body. It may start out weak and exercising it can be painful, but the more you work out that muscle, the more it grows and the easier the exercise gets.

    Shyness can be debilitating if you let it take over your life. So practice socializing, having conversations, approaching people and anything else your shyness holds you back from doing. While it can seem impossible to overcome at times, with practice, you can come out on top.

    If I can do it, you can too.

    After spending most of my life feeling like a victim to my shyness, I now appreciate that it made me stronger. That’s because, as a shy person, it takes so much more effort and energy to put yourself out there. It’s going against familiar habits and causing friction that, hopefully, results in change.

    It’s easy to succumb to shyness, to stay within your comfort zone, and to be controlled by fear. And anyone who has pushed through and challenged those tendencies in order to live a fulfilled life knows that it takes a tremendous amount of work. It’s a constant uphill battle, but it does get easier if you’re willing to push through.

    So challenge yourself, don’t give up and practice.

    It’s time to own your shyness instead of letting it own you.

  • I Thought It Was Love, But It Was Actually Abuse

    I Thought It Was Love, But It Was Actually Abuse

    “Alone doesn’t always mean lonely. Relationship doesn’t always mean happy. Being alone will never cause as much loneliness as being in the wrong relationship.” ~Unknown

    I don’t know if it’s the conditioning of Disney movies that makes every young girl dream of finding her Prince Charming, but that was my experience. My prince entered my life just like that, saving me from my boredom and taking me on a roller coaster of excitement. He assured me that our love was going to last forever, and the naivety of being sixteen made me believe him.

    It didn’t take long for his true colors to emerge; sadly, it took me longer to see them.

    I thought the control was over-protectiveness. I thought he cared when he told me what to wear, who I could associate with, and where I could go. The Neanderthal behavior must have touched something primitive in me, and I was overwhelmed with the urge to please.

    Quickly, I went from princess to property. He shouted at me, berated me, and mentally tortured me. And I thought I was being loved.

    To anyone who has never been in this situation, the words “run, Forest, run” might come to mind. However, we say this from an adult perspective, older and wiser. When you’ve been brainwashed since you were sixteen, it takes more than a quote from a movie to see sense.

    Everything became an argument. Every argument taught me to walk on eggshells. If I didn’t conform, he would ignore me. If I refused to listen, he would isolate me. If I cried, he would scream at me. If I had no emotion, he would play the victim.

    I thought I could make him better. I thought he would receive the love from me that he was lacking elsewhere and that this would make him change.

    I thought wrong.

    Nearly fifteen years later, I am the one who holds a lifetime worth of memories that I can’t forget, and I’ve had to recondition myself into believing that this is not my fault. No amount of “what ifs” can change a person’s innate morality. Mentally and emotionally healthy people do not try to make others feel unworthy of love and dress it up to be love.

    If you asked me to define love, I would tell you it is the ability to be unselfish. To be willing to put others first and sacrifice your needs and desires at times. More importantly, love needs to be reciprocated.

    But when I was with my ex, I felt as though I had to work hard to receive love. I needed to shut myself, my thoughts, and my feelings down and simply become a doormat, or else he’d emotionally abandon me.

    So, I tried that. I became a “yes” woman. I lost myself in the world of conformity, and it still wasn’t enough. He accused me of being unfeeling, emotionless, and devoid of passion. So, I changed again. I tried to become more like him. I would scream and shout to try and gain control, and then he called me manipulative and psychotic.

    I tried to combine the two. I tried to be religious. I tried to be a party-goer. I tried to be dominant. I tried to be submissive.

    Nothing worked.

    I cried, begged, and pleaded to be treated like a human. I asked for compassion but received cruelty. I asked for love and had to be satisfied with lust. I wanted hope but felt hopeless. Until I realized that I was asking for something that he was unable to give me.

    A narcissist is incapable of recognizing the needs of another. He/she cannot fathom that people have emotions, unless they are used as a method of control. They thrive on the idea that you believe in them and, rather than granting you equality, they manipulate you into believing that the scraps they throw you are the only ones you deserve.

    He told me countless times that he loved me, so why have I spent the last decade and a half repeatedly asking the same question, “Do you really love me?”

    If he loved me, how could he not understand my pain? How could he be okay with knowing I felt so low? How could he constantly betray me? Why couldn’t he make the same sacrifices as me? Why couldn’t he just be the person I first fell in love with?

    The answer to those questions is simple: The narcissist is a multi-faceted creature, a chameleon who adapts to your weaknesses and uses them to maintain a position of strength. Because of their personality disorder, they are lacking in the qualities that make you who you are.

    They are determined to keep you in a position of subordination because this feeds their need to feel superior, and when you fight to break out of that role, they leave.

    They show you good times to ensure that you feel indebted to them and to make you yearn for them once again. They make up and break up with you so often that you may find it hard to move on. If you do, you likely feel distrusting of people, making you an incomplete partner for a mentally and emotionally healthy human being.

    After a breakup, we often try to make ourselves whole by seeking another, the biggest mistake we could possibly make. Would you purchase an item with pieces missing?

    It’s a little crude to compare a human being to an object, but we cannot expect to ‘move on’ if we are seeking to replace the void left by a narcissist.

    Moving on shouldn’t mean jumping into a relationship with another human. It should mean taking responsibility for why we stayed in this unhealthy situation, recognizing what needs to be addressed and healed within ourselves, and moving on mentally from our trauma.

    My trauma originated from never knowing my father. I yearned for someone who would fulfill the role of a protector. At the beginning, my ex did. It didn’t matter how many times we argued, I knew that he would always fight in my corner, and that made me feel safe. Eventually, the cons outweighed the pros and I knew that I had to break free.

    Now that I’m on my own, I have days when I wake up and forget that I am no longer in this toxicity, I have days where I remember the good times, and I have days when I regret laying eyes on him. However, my days are no longer concerned with how I stand in relation to him.

    I wake up and wonder what I am going to do today. I actively pursue my dreams of being a writer, or I focus on other ways I can improve my life. I research my MARs (Masters by research) topic, I cook the food I like, I wear the clothes that I look good in. Small victories for some, milestones for a victim of narcissism.

    I pray, I meditate, I exercise, and I write. Most importantly, every day I heal. I take back a part of my life that I lost because I made the mistake of trusting the wrong person with my heart.

    I rebuild the relationships I lost when I gave in to his attempts to isolate me from my friends and family—because I didn’t want to argue and because I was ashamed that, for all my outward strength and intellect, I couldn’t find the courage to leave.

    I cut out the unhealthy influences from my life, and if I can’t, I distance myself from them. I refuse to regress to the lost teenage girl and instead, harness the energy of a strong, powerful, and determined woman. I refuse to conform to the idea that a woman is “past her sell by date” and reject the notions of commodifying humans.

    I also reconnect with who I am beyond my roles. I’m more than someone’s mother, daughter, niece, and grandchild. I am a writer. I am a creator. I am a dreamer.

    There is a difference between being alone and lonely. Sometimes we need to be alone to truly rediscover ourselves. The relationship between you and yourself is more important than any other.

  • Never Forget That You Have the Power to Choose

    Never Forget That You Have the Power to Choose

    “If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Dedicate today to the power of choice. Your choice. You can’t choose everything that you experience in life, but what you can choose is mightier than any circumstance, outcome, or other person’s opinion.

    Where you focus your mind, how you use your words, and how you treat yourself and others are all up to you. One chapter at a time, you write your own story.

    We all have the power to choose what we absorb and what we release. We ultimately decide what we share, what we keep, and what we let go. How long we stay mad and how long we wait to reach for hope, when we say yes and when we say no, and how long we say only what others want to hear are all up to us. Whether we see the world with gratitude or resentment begins with a choice.

    It’s not that anyone chooses pain, though. I can’t think of a single person who’d choose despair or insecurity. No one elects shame to be their shadow. Not even boredom is a choice. We just forget our power sometimes or maybe underestimate the power of our intentions.

    For me, forgetting is a quick slide into control or fear. Every doubt, complaint, and fear leads me directly to more to doubt, complain about, and fear. The pressure builds. Tension rises. And even then, as much as I hate to admit it when I’m steeping in it, I have a choice.

    I can choose how closely I pay attention to my thoughts and how I respond to what I feel. Even if hours go by, days, years, it’s never too late to make a different choice. 

    My husband will be the first to tell you that I can hold on to things. I spent months holding on to a comment a friend made about my writing. I mentioned to her that I felt stuck on a project, and she told me, “It’s not it’s like real work. You don’t actually have to do it.”

    I was seething when she said this but didn’t say a word about it to her. I’d let the comment go for a few days, saying “it’s fine,” but as soon as her name came up? That was all I could think about.

    I can go even further back than that. When I was about six, a little boy on the bus called me a hag. It may seem like a small thing for first graders to tease each other, but I cannot tell you how many ways that one comment has worked its way into my self-image since then. At times I thought it was hopelessly stuck in my psyche. And still, thirty years later, I somehow made the choice to process and resolve that memory.

    It’s never too late to choose.

    When I remember the power of my intention, no matter how long it takes me, I come back home to myself with deepened perspective and goodwill. My choices soften the anger, fear, and sorrow I once felt. Remembering my power to choose restores the gentleness in my step and words. I see a completely new world around me. 

    From that place of remembering, all the positive, empowering choices available to me emerge from the mental fog. I can choose to ask a question, solve a problem, or call for help. I can choose to take a walk, meditate, have a snack, water the flowers, or count my blessings.

    Each positive step leads to more and more positive choices.

    So many things are out of my control, and I’m learning to let go of wanting it to be otherwise. I understand now that this only happens through my choice.

    I’ve historically wanted to follow a plan, not go with the flow. And I’ve depended on those plans going off without a hitch to feel safe.

    Here’s an example: When my husband mentioned finding a new job a few years back, I wanted to know all the details. No, I wanted more than that. I wanted to be so involved in the process that I knew exactly what was going on. When he didn’t get a new job, I wanted to know why and what this meant.

    Of course, life doesn’t work that way, and by hanging my security on details I couldn’t control, I gave away my own power.

    When I could acknowledge that pattern, I opened myself up to choosing differently. If I want more certainty, I can choose to look for the things I trust like my values, strengths, and the learning process rather than the things that could go wrong. If I want to feel more at peace, I can choose to speak to myself with more kindness not more criticism. Above all else, I can choose to have my own back no matter what.

    What I’m learning from this is there’s so much to be deliberate about and so many ways to choose.

    You can choose to set a small boundary when you’re exhausted from keeping the peace.

    I choose to be true to myself. May my honesty restore what’s been depleted.

    You can choose to broadcast loving-kindness when you see the images of suffering in the news.

    May all beings be safe from harm. May all beings return to peace. May all beings find freedom.

    You can choose to acknowledge our shared human experience when you feel most alone.

    In this moment, I remember that in my joy and suffering, I am connected to all of humankind. 

    And when you’re on top of the world, you can choose to bask in it.

    I dedicate this moment to the deep gratitude I feel. I choose to delight in this joy today. 

    There’s always something you can choose. So, choose soothing, however you’re able. Choose to look for things to feel good about. And if nothing else, choose to be as intentional as you can. Always with acceptance for the part of you that forgets. 

    Starting now, starting small, remind yourself of your power to choose. Here’s how:

    Begin with yourself. 

    Offer whatever you have on you right now—your beating heart, your breath, your hands, your eyes reading these words—to your power to choose. With that power, dedicate this moment in time to your health or happiness, to a new story, or anything that resonates with you.

    I dedicate this breath to my happiness. 

    I dedicate this day to my health. 

    With every word I read, may I remember my power to choose.

    From there, if you feel inspired, add on to it with another choice: Take a positive step that supports your health and happiness. Make plans to do the same tomorrow.

    If no step calls out to you, that’s okay. Smile and thank yourself for this choice all the same.

    Next, focus your power to choose on someone you love. 

    For just a moment, offer whatever is within reach to them. 

    I dedicate this hour to the people I love the most. May the beating of my heart bestow health, happiness, and security upon them.

    Again, build on this intention with a choice if it feels right. Pick up the phone, lend a helping hand, or send a quick text.

    If no action is needed or accessible now, that’s okay. Smile and imagine them receiving your dedication all the same.

    You can extend your power to choose as far out as you like. 

    Dedicate every step you take crossing the street to the well-being of all passersby. Then, add on as appropriate with another choice. Smile at them. Make eye contact. Mentally send them positive wishes for their day.

    Devote your commute today to bringing harmony to a challenging relationship. If it feels accessible, make another choice. List their positive traits. Name one way you could respond differently. Forgive if you’re able and willing. If nothing else, choose to be alert to how your attention feeds your internal experience of conflict and choose to nurture something new.

    With your power to choose, give a voice to your deepest wishes for the planet and all who inhabit it. Go as big as you like.

    I dedicate my words today to the message of love. May all who I encounter receive this message and help me spread it through their words. May this message proliferate and reach all beings.

    I send my love to the planet. May I aid in the purification of the air, the restoration of our oceans, and the health of all creatures in whatever way is available to me today.

    And then, take whatever action presents itself to you. If no action is available, that’s okay. Smile and know that you’ve strengthened your power to choose all the same.

    If a choice resonates with you, stay with it. Work with it for as long as it feels right. It could be a day, a week, a month, or more. Expand on it with more choices as is appropriate for you in your current situation.

    Pay attention to what happens as you practice this. Perhaps you’ll notice new ideas flowing more easily. Maybe you’ll feel motivated to take a positive step you’ve put off for a while. If all that happens is feeling more awake and empowered, then it’s well worth the effort!

    No matter what arises in your day or in your heart, remember there’s always something you can choose. May we all remember the power we have.

  • How to Free Yourself from Your Spiritual Drama

    How to Free Yourself from Your Spiritual Drama

    “You have no friends. You have no enemies. You only have teachers.” ~Ancient Proverb

    My very wise aunt, a talented psychotherapist and one of my spiritual teachers, has told me many times that the people, places, and things that trigger us are just “props in our spiritual drama.”

    This phrase has stuck with me for years because it’s catchy and it rings so true to me. If we are struggling, it’s not a matter of the external force, it’s about what it provokes in us.

    We don’t heal by trying to change others. We heal through breaking cycles; through knowing and honoring ourselves by creating healthy boundaries, processing the past, and living presently to make different choices.

    We don’t grow by staying in the same circumstances and hoping they will be different, or by leaving one set of circumstances only to repeat the same patterns with new people and places. We grow by stepping out of our inner default programming and into discomfort, and by consciously shifting away from the patterns we know and choosing different environments and dynamics.

    The people, places, and things that come into our lives are there for our spiritual journey, learning, and evolution. We can use these ‘props’ for good, we can use them to stay stuck, or we can use them to spiral down. As adults, the choice is ours.

    The props in our spiritual drama are what trigger us the most. They may be people, situations, or even certain qualities we notice in strangers.  

    My most challenging relationship is with my father, and while I could get stuck in that hardship story, I believe that he was placed in that role to assist me in the lessons I needed to learn while growing up and into young adulthood.

    The guy that I just dated, who I fell hard and quick for, was a prop in my relationship practice and process in continuing to clearly define what I want in a partner and what healthy boundaries I need to set.

    When I feel pain in my heart and want to stand up for the child who is being yelled at by a stressed mother on the subway, it shows me my own emotional hurt and the ways I haven’t expressed my truth about how my young inner child was treated poorly.

    When I feel anger when confronted with economic inequality, inconsideration/lack of caring, and other injustices in this world, it teaches me that I am not doing enough to feel satisfied and proud of the ways in which I contribute positively to society.

    Anything that I have not made peace with, found forgiveness around, or worked out within me yet continues to be a prop that encourages my spiritual growth.

    As I’ve contemplated the props in my spiritual drama, I trust they are there to assist me on my path.

    Challenging people and situations can be very difficult to live with and through, but I believe they serve an important purpose. If we are conscious and choose to move toward growth, freedom, and love, we can take this adversity and turn it into empowerment so we are more capable of being our best selves.

    Two main points have stuck out to me as I try to evolve through my spiritual drama.

    1. Situations repeat themselves until we learn the lessons.

    The lesson is ours to be learned, so if we don’t learn it the first or the tenth time, the pattern will continue in a vicious cycle until we finally get the message and choose a different way.

    Sometimes if we examine where or by whom we are triggered, the lesson is clear right away. Other times we need some guidance because we recognize something doesn’t feel right, yet we can’t get out of our own way enough to see it clearly.

    Friends, mentors, and family members we have healthy relationships with can be great at helping us understand our cycles and patterns so we can break free. Other times, we need to go within.

    When confronted with a low point, we have the opportunity to acknowledge what isn’t working and figure out in what direction our gut wisdom is guiding us.

    Personally, I had a habit of choosing men who were very passionate about their career or a serious hobby, and they would prioritize this passion over me, which led me to feeling hurt and uncared about.

    When I held up the mirror to examine myself deeply, I was able to see that as long as I wasn’t prioritizing myself and showing up to fully love for myself, I would attract partners who would partially reject me in the same way.

    A second layer of this was that I was subconsciously living vicariously through my partners’ aliveness and passion because I was missing that in my own life. Once I developed my own passions and started doing work I love, the need to feel this joy vicariously faded away and I started desiring partners who are more balanced and can have multiple priorities.

    The change may be uncomfortable, but usually quite rewarding in the end. And the discomfort we feel moving into the unknown is better than the despair we feel when repeating the same pattern over and over and staying miserable in the ‘known.’

    2. Our triggers can help us discover unmet needs, and meet them.

    Oftentimes we feel triggered by certain people, qualities, or situations because they represent ways we feel consciously or subconsciously uncared for, attacked, neglected, and rejected.

    For example, let’s say your boss gives you some constructive feedback regarding your work, and you feel like it’s a personal attack or a criticism instead of feedback intended to support you to help you succeed.

    In this scenario, instead of feeling attacked or rejected by your boss, you could ask yourself why you’re feeling such intense emotion. Is it because you’re hypercritical of yourself? Or do you feel shamed for not getting praise or approval because that’s a pattern you were taught growing up? In this instance, the trigger might teach you that you need your own approval.

    The more we can meet our own needs and lovingly re-parent ourselves, the more these triggers will fall away. So the inquiry becomes the key to moving through this spiritual drama.

    We need to ask why to understand our triggers more deeply, shift the immediate emotional response to curiosity, and eventually release the trigger by clearing past baggage and learning the lesson to show up for ourselves differently.

    Whenever, I’m feeling particularly triggered by a person or behavior, I take a few minutes to sit quietly, go within, and ask myself what it’s about and what I need to do to take care of myself.

    Maybe my inner child needs some reassurance that she is safe and loved.

    Maybe my body needs some relaxation because my nervous system is over-stimulated or stressed.

    Maybe I need to play, dance, and move energy through my body because I’ve been too much in do/go/on mode.

    Once I take care of my own needs, I’m not focused on the other, the prop, the trigger anymore. I am peaceful and present.

    This realization has served as a helpful reminder as I’ve moved through my life and felt the range of emotions that have come up. It’s never all about the other person; on some level, it’s about me. It serves me well to keep the focus on myself, what’s going on for me when the triggers come up, and what I can learn and process so that those triggers no longer live inside my body, mind, and soul.

    As we own and clear what is within us, the props in our spiritual drama fall away and we become lighter and can live more peacefully.

    May this serve you and may you be free.

  • The Power of Saying No (Even to People You Love)

    The Power of Saying No (Even to People You Love)

    “When you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.” ~Paulo Coelho

    “Yes, of course.”

    “Yes, that’s no trouble at all.”

    “Yes, I can do that.”

    “Yes, I’d love to help.”

    Yes, yes, yes. “Yes” seemed to be the key word in my relationships with partners, family, friends, and colleagues.

    I wanted to be helpful, kind, and thoughtful; I wanted to be there when people needed me. I didn’t want to let them down or disappoint or displease them. I spent a lot of my time devoted to my self-image as a capable, nice person who could be relied on. As a people-pleaser, I held niceness close to my heart.

    Unsurprisingly, people always assumed I’d drop everything to help them or do what they wanted me to do. They were used to me giving up my time for them and putting their needs and wants before my own.

    This was especially the case in my close relationships, in which I found it hardest to say no.

    I grew up believing saying no to others was negative, unhelpful, and selfish.

    As a child, I was often told not to cause a fuss or bother anyone and to expect very little. As a result, I believed that others were worthier than me and that their needs and wishes should take precedence over mine. I felt guilty for saying what I wanted or how I felt, as if I had no right to do so.

    Unsurprisingly, I found it difficult to voice my opinions and needs, and I believed that what I thought, felt, and wanted wasn’t important.

    I was also fearful of confrontation and avoided it at all costs. Saying no risked provoking someone’s anger and making them think badly of me. It meant possible abandonment, the withdrawal of approval and love. So it seemed far safer and easier to say yes, even if I wanted to say no.

    My readiness to say yes certainly didn’t gain me other people’s respect or consideration. Even though I consistently gave a lot more than I received in return and often felt hurt, resentful, and unappreciated, I kept saying yes.

    My habit of people-pleasing attracted into my life the sort of people who disrespected and used me. This included a relationship with a guy who turned out to be a bully.

    Throughout our time together, I went along with whatever he wanted. I kept saying yes to the relationship despite the fact that he emotionally and psychologically mistreated me. I kept putting his needs and happiness before my own, and of course he had no respect for me. Why would he when it seemed I had no respect for myself?

    It was only when things became unbearable and I got sick that I knew I had to say no to the relationship and start saying yes to myself.

    My inability to say no had created a great deal of inner turmoil, which had obviously impacted my physical and emotional health. I realized I had to say no to a lot of things and a lot of people in order to heal myself and protect my well-being.

    The end of my dysfunctional relationship made me see that it’s often in our closest connections that we most need to practice saying no because we often maintain unclear or flexible boundaries with the people we’re closest to.

    Say No to a Lack of Boundaries

    Boundaries are essential for healthy connections and show that you respect yourself and your partner. It’s through boundaries and our ability to say no to each other that we come to know our partners better and also connect with them more deeply. When we can freely voice our opinions, we meet as equals.

    People-pleasers often have a hard time setting boundaries, and this was certainly the case for me. We can develop a blurred sense of where our boundaries lie, if we have bothered to give serious thought to them in the first place.

    I realized that I had to set boundaries before I embarked on another relationship.

    I had to build up my confidence and begin to trust myself. I needed to work out what I liked and disliked, what I wanted and didn’t want, and where exactly my line would be crossed.

    I knew that if I continued to have hazy boundaries, I would remain vulnerable to mistreatment and would continue to attract into my life people like my ex-boyfriend.

    Say No to Inauthenticity

    I had mistakenly thought going along with what other people wanted would mean less disagreement and conflict. I thought it was good for my relationships, but in fact the opposite was true.

    Whenever I said yes in a powerless way, I was being inauthentic to myself and the other person. There was little honesty in many of the yeses I said.

    My need to be liked and approved of and to please the other person overshadowed my need to be true to myself.

    Suppressing my wants and needs meant that my partner could not know the real me. None of us are mind readers, so they could only guess what they thought I wanted, and most of the time they assumed I wanted what they wanted because I never said otherwise.

    When we don’t feel able to voice our wants and needs in a relationship, our connection lacks true intimacy. If we cannot be open to our partner, how can we be closely connected? If we continually hold a part of ourselves back from our loved ones, either from fear of conflict or a reluctance to drop our mask of “niceness,” we create inauthentic connections that cannot grow into something deeper and stronger.

    Intimacy cannot flourish from pretense, only authenticity.

    Say No to Self-Sacrifice and Being a Martyr

    In the past, I sometimes said yes reluctantly and with little enthusiasm, which, of course, didn’t please the other person. This went against my intention to minimize any conflict.

    These yeses were tinged with martyrdom; I felt I was sacrificing my time and energy. I was often bored doing things I didn’t want to do, all of which took away time I could never get back.

    When you feel obligated to agree to do something you don’t want to do, it usually backfires on you. You end up feeling resentful of the person who asked you in the first place, and you resent yourself and your weakness. The help you offer will lack genuineness, and people will be able to sense your unhappiness and resentment.

    I learned that in every relationship there must be compromise rather than one partner’s continual self-sacrifice.

    Say No to Catastrophizing

    People who have a hard time saying no are often worried about other people’s reactions and feelings. They tend to build up in their imagination all sorts of negative scenarios resulting from saying no.

    Yet we are not responsible for others’ reactions to what we say or do; the only reactions and emotions we can control are our own. This was a revelation to me, taking into account my childhood conditioning.

    When we catastrophize a partner’s reaction to our “no,” we show a lack of faith in their ability to respond like a reasonable person, and it reveals that we don’t really know or trust them.

    Would your partner be so angry if you dared to voice your opinion that they would actually leave you or stop loving you? If so, what do these reactions say about them? Would you want to be with someone like that anyway? If they prefer you to be a doormat and always compliant, what does this say about their view of relationships?

    If you say yes out of fear, you need to look at what makes you fearful in your relationship. Fear is an indication of a power imbalance and therefore an unequal relationship. There is a big difference between being afraid of your partner and being afraid of their opinion of you if you say no. Their disappointment in your no is based on their expectations of hearing a yes.

    If your partner is so averse to you voicing your wants and needs, you should leave that relationship. You cannot stay with someone who thinks their needs and wants are more important than yours. It’s not good for your self-esteem and, as I discovered, your health.

    Say No to Draining Situations and People

    There is a lot of positive power in using no in the right way. You don’t say no to purposely hurt others; you say no to protect yourself from people and situations that can hurt you.

    When you say no to draining people and situations, you open up the space for positive energy and relationships to enter your life. It allows more worthwhile activities and opportunities to come your way.

    Your no creates the necessary boundaries that give you time for yourself, time to focus on your self-care and interests and what matters most to you. You’ll also have extra time and energy to help people you genuinely care about in a much more meaningful way.

    I had to cut ties with certain people, realizing they didn’t contribute anything but negativity to my life. I had to say no to these relationships.

    Saying no in these circumstances is a form of self-protection. You have the right to say no to situations and people that threaten your peace of mind or well-being.

    How to Use the Power of No

    We have obligations to our loved ones and should be there for them when they truly need us, but we also have obligations to ourselves.

    When we say no, it shouldn’t intentionally cause another person any real harm; it should always come from a place of consideration and compassion, but it also has to be assertive and come from a source of strength.

    I found that it helps to focus on the fact you are not saying no to the person but to their request. This separation makes it feel a lot less personal.

    It also helps to start small. Begin by saying no to acquaintances and colleagues and anyone else you feel safer saying no to. Once you have gained some confidence, you can say no to less significant matters in your close relationships—such as what to eat for dinner, which movie to see at the cinema, what to do with your free time, and so on.

    Most of my friends and family were initially surprised when I no longer just went along with what they wanted. But their reaction to my no wasn’t negative. In fact, many were relieved and pleased that I was finally being assertive.

    I then practiced saying no to more significant requests for help or bigger favors that would take more time and energy. In time, saying no became easier.

    Don’t be rushed or pressured into making a decision if you need time to think about someone’s request. Simply say, “Can I get back to you?” “I need to check my schedule first” or “I’ll let you know.” Any impatience on the other person’s part is their business, and there’s no need to get caught up in a discussion before you give your answer.

    It’s important to remain calm when you say no. You don’t need to give lots of reasons—doing so can weaken your no—but you can apologize for not being able to help, if you wish. It depends, of course, on the request. A simple “Sorry, but I don’t have the time right now” or “I’m sorry, I’m not able to help” will suffice. Always use “I” rather than “you” when you give a short explanation for your response.

    When you say no to certain people, they might react with anger, surprise, disappointment, coaxing, or guilt trips. It’s important to not be manipulated by their reactions or swayed into changing your mind.

    Their response to your no is often an accurate indicator of the health of your relationship with them. They have become used to your yeses, and this has shown them how to interact with and treat you. They’ve gotten used to you putting them first, but now you need to give them a different instruction, which involves changes they might not like.

    In time, unless they’re a bully, they’ll adapt and even prefer the more assured you. They will have more respect for you and your time.

    But if they refuse to accept the changes, you must say no to the relationship.

    Say Yes to Yourself

    Your no protects your personal power in your relationships. It enables you to be more honest with other people, yourself, and what you want. Your no allows you to say yes to things that are important to you.

    When I realized my no could be linked to a self-affirming yes, it was a powerful revelation to me. Saying no didn’t feel negative anymore; it was something that empowered me and allowed me to prioritize my time. After all, our time is limited, so we cannot say yes to everything.

    I began to focus on the positive aspects of saying no: yes to more time to do what I wanted, yes to more self-esteem, yes to good relationships, and yes to greater control over my life.

    Say Yes to Self-Empowerment

    Saying no and taking better care of myself made my yeses feel more powerful because they were authentic and came from a place of strength. The more honest I was about saying yes and no, the more people respected my time and boundaries and appreciated my help.

    I also learned I can live with others’ disappointment, and I cared less about their reaction to my no. I was no longer afraid of upsetting people.

    Saying no doesn’t stop you from being a nice and considerate person. Sometimes, the kindest thing you can do is say no to someone, including yourself.

    When you are self-empowered, you know you are enough, and you know you are worthy. You know you don’t need to exhaust yourself doing everything for everyone else in order to be liked and valued.

    Helping those in genuine need, if you are able, is always a good thing. However, you can’t help everyone, but you can help yourself.

  • The Number on the Scale Does Not Dictate Your Value

    The Number on the Scale Does Not Dictate Your Value

    “To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    We try to give our bodies value with numbers. We’re obsessed with the number on the scale and the circumference of our waist.

    We also think our value lies in labels. Words like “obese,” “fat,” and “overweight” are triggers for many, and we abhor them like coffee breath, because we’ve been immersed in pocrescophobia (the fear of getting fat) from before we can remember.

    But we are more than a category on a pie chart. We are more than our body shape. Magazines tell us we are shaped like a fruit, but we are shaped by the experiences that have made us the people we are today.

    Our bodies may not be light, but inside we are shrouded with light. We may be soft where we’ve been told we ought to be hard and toned, but it’s in our softness that others feel comforted in the midst of their problems. We may not have a thigh gap, but there’s space between our arms for those we love to seek shelter.

    We are more than just a body.

    Our bodies are amazing. They can do so much, for ourselves and for others. We are each beautiful in our own right.

    But that’s not all there is to us. We are the imprint we leave on the planet during our short life on Earth. We are the heart that beats within us for the things we are passionate about.

    We are the smile that radiates out of our eyes when we experience a moment of pure joy, and the serenity that pervades us when we are content. We are the words we exchange, the words we write down, the words we guard in our minds at all costs. We are the feelings that pass through us, exhilarate us, drive us, guide us.

    We are the thoughts and memories and unique set of DNA that set us apart from everyone else. We are special. We are needed. We are designed for a purpose.

    We have value that surpasses everything society and the media wants us to obsess over. We have value apart from how we look. We have value apart from our relationship status.

    We have value apart from our income. We have value apart from whether we own a house or not, or have kids or not. We. Have. Value. Unchanging, unequivocal, perfect value.

    I regret that I wasted this whole weekend feeling depressed about how much I weigh now compared to how much I weighed in my early twenties (I’m approaching thirty). It seems so silly when you think about it, a stone here or there. But I found myself giving in to that black hole, falling-to-the-floor kind of despair.

    I should weigh less. I should look slimmer. I should try harder.

    I should be something that isn’t me at this moment in time.

    It seems like everyone is dissatisfied with the way they look. We will pay money and give up all our free time to try and achieve the illusion of perfection. Snapchat filters, Instagram filters, even paying for apps that will help us to create the perfect selfie, because heaven forbid we look anything less than perfect online!

    This, in turn, feeds into other people’s insecurities, spreading the toxic message that our “just as I am” is not enough.

    The thing is, weight is just one small way to measure health. My weight suggests I’m quite overweight for my height. But when you look at my waist-to-hip and waist-to-height measurements, I’m in the “healthy” category for both of them, with little-to-no risk of developing heart disease or obesity.

    Things just don’t add up. I’m left feeling like something is wrong with me. Am I in the red, or in the green?

    Do I need to lose weight, or can I breathe a sigh or relief?

    The thing is, it’s these categories and labels that have got it all wrong. Health can’t always be measured by numbers. It’s how you live your life. 

    Being obsessive isn’t healthy. Talking negatively (even in your mind) about yourself isn’t healthy. Striving for perfection isn’t healthy.

    What is healthy? Loving yourself exactly the way you are. Making good choices for your physical and mental health.

    Being balanced in everything.

    Some days I feel like I’ve come so far, that I truly do love and accept myself as I am, wobbly bits and all. Other days I feel lost in a sea of self-pity and a strong dislike for what I see in the mirror. I compare myself to other girls.

    Why can’t I be naturally skinny? Why has nature been so unkind? Then I remember that nature has been kind.

    I’m uniquely myself with my own combination of curves and body fat. Why would I want to look like anyone else?

    My thoughts go round and round like this. It can be so tiring.

    My parents used to tell me I had a “feminine figure.” My partner loves the way I look and never ceases to remind me, even when I’m in one of my funks and in a loop of obsessing over my supposed flaws. If I could only see myself through the eyes of those who love me, my obsessing and self-loathing would all stop in an instant.

    The thing is, we have to see ourselves through the eyes of love. We have to accept. We are craving our own love and acceptance.

    We need our own kindness. We need to talk about ourselves like we would talk to our best friend. We need to look in the mirror and say, “You are beautiful, just the way you are.”

    See your own value. Yes, your body has value. Yes, it is beautiful, exactly as it is.

    Shout it out! Proclaim it to the rooftops!

    But you are more than that.

    You are so much more than a body.

  • Love Doesn’t Mean Being a Hero or Being Saved

    Love Doesn’t Mean Being a Hero or Being Saved

    Most of us grow up believing that one day a handsome prince or beautiful princess will come our way and lead us into a life of “happily ever after.” No one knows what’s going to happen, but we’re certain it will be magical. We spend our childhoods desperate to grow up so that our lives can finally start when we meet “the one.”

    The one who will make us happy. The one who will take all our cares away. The one who will love us, and only us, forever and ever.

    Finally, we will be wanted and desired. We will be happy and feel great. Now our lives truly begin.

    Only it doesn’t quite work out like that. I found out the hard way.

    The Reality of Relationships

    Relationships work well when two people take responsibility for taking care of themselves and their partner. Together they create a great life. They discuss what each of them wants to do and make plans on how they can make it happen. They support each other in achieving their couple goals as well as their individual goals.

    No one expects the other person to make anything happen for them while they do nothing.

    A healthy relationship requires two individuals who both give their best efforts to being the best and most loving version of themselves. This requires action with a sense of purpose and agency.

    The Notion of Romanticized Love

    The notion of love we grew up with is unhealthy. It portrays one partner—usually the female—as the victim that needs rescuing, while the other partner—usually the male—is the hero that saves the victim from tragedy or from herself.

    This model serves no one. It is an outdated fairy tale that instills unhealthy beliefs in us that don’t match the realities of human relationships.

    I grew up believing that I was lacking and had to wait for someone to give me worth and purpose. I believed that I had to earn someone’s love and that then, they would take care of me and provide me with a good life.

    At no point did I ask myself what kind of life I wanted. In my mind, this was up to whoever was going to choose me. I took a completely passive position in life. I didn’t need to have visions or make plans because why would I, if my life was going to be provided by someone else?

    Now, it might sound ridiculous to put it all like that, but it’s true, and not just for me. I see it over and over again in my private practice as a psychotherapist.

    We may say that we are fully functioning individuals who don’t want to be rescued, but this is not what is happening within the adult relationships we are actually experiencing.

    The Problem with Romanticized Love

    Countless men and women come to me feeling disappointed, sad, and angry. They played out the roles they were given perfectly, and it did not lead to “happily ever after.”

    Instead, there is relationship conflict, high drama, and painful disconnection. Eventually, there is nothing left but disappointment, bitterness, resentment, and hopelessness.

    “What is wrong with me?” or “What is wrong with my partner?” they ask, but I can’t answer those questions because it’s not the people that are at fault; it’s the roles they unconsciously play.

    Many of us do well when we’re single, but once we enter a relationship, we naturally drop into the roles of our unconscious relationship blueprint: the way we believe relationships work. And for most people this consists of either the role of the helpless victim or that of the enduring hero.

    Sadly, both roles are highly disempowering, disrespectful and, in essence, unloving. This means that a healthy relationship is impossible.

    The Unloving Roles of Romanticized Love

    When I saw myself as someone who had to wait for someone else to make my life worthwhile, I didn’t realize that I was disempowering myself. I didn’t realize that I believed something that was untrue. I never questioned it. I just acted it out, by waiting.

    I was miserable and far from able to create a happy and healthy life for myself. What can you learn from sitting around and waiting? I didn’t engage in life. I didn’t seek out opportunities and experiences that would have taught me new skills.

    I stopped myself from learning, developing, and growing by sitting around and waiting, because what if I was busy doing something else while “the one” came looking for me? Then I would have messed it all up! It just didn’t seem worth the risk.

    But also, I didn’t really have any ideas of my own. I followed my career plans, but apart from that there was not much going on in my life.

    Believing myself to be a person who would find her worth and happiness in someone else utterly disempowered me. I did not see it then, but I can see it now as clear as day.

    I also never realized just how much my expectations burdened my partners and how these expectations ultimately ended the relationships I had with them.

    The Fallen Hero

    I believe that my past partners wanted to be my hero. I believe they tried.

    I know I wanted to be good for them and earn their love. I know I tried.

    But life just doesn’t work that way. Relationships don’t. Love certainly doesn’t.

    But we don’t know what we don’t know. And I didn’t know that 1. I wasn’t incomplete or broken, and not in need of fixing and 2. no person can gain their worth or happiness by saving or fixing another person. I’m pretty sure you didn’t know it then either.

    We got the rules of love all wrong, and the roles we play made it impossible for us to connect and relate to our partners in healthy ways.

    You would not believe how many fallen heroes I see in my practice. The majority of them are men, but the victim and hero roles are not gender-specific. They depend on the dynamic each couple creates, and some couples take turns in being the victim and each other’s hero.

    When I sit with a fallen hero, I sense utter deflation. They have tried everything they can possibly think of. They have taken responsibility for things that weren’t their responsibility to start with. Very often, they neglected themselves in an attempt to make their partner happy, to stop them from complaining, to please them in whichever way they possibly could think of.

    They are exhausted. They feel utterly drained by all of their attempts to be the hero not only their partner wishes they were but also who they wish they were. They’re disappointed in themselves and they feel like a failure, while also secretly—and sometimes not so secretly—seething with resentment toward their “difficult-to-please” partner.

    I relate well to these clients because I have also taken on this role in some of my relationships. I have tried to be the best person I could possibly be for someone else.

    The person who tries to fix all of their problems. The person who will go above and beyond to help them get what they want. The person who won’t say no and who is friendly to everyone. The person who is available at any time and will do anything—whether they feel like it or not, whether it’s a reasonable request or not, whether it’s good for them or not.

    Because the thing with heroes is that their sense of worth comes from making others happy.

    And so often it actually seems to work, which is why we keep trying. But it’s a self-perpetuating problem that eventually eats you alive. It consumes you so much you completely neglect yourself. You become a slave to the hero conditioning. You become cocooned within your role while all your dreams and wishes and desires silently suffocate.

    And that is just sad and unloving.

    No man or woman should have that pressure put on them. No one should ever accept that burden. There is no room for these kinds of unrealistic expectations in healthy relationships.

    Our romantic partners are not our saviors.

    They are not meant to fix us.

    And after all, we don’t need fixing because we are not broken!

    But we will play these roles because that’s what we think love means. We play them until we know not to, until we understand that they can never work and that they will only ever lead to two things: losing ourselves and losing our relationships.

    Letting Go of Relationship-Hostile Beliefs

    It’s not our fault that we play these roles. These roles are incorporated in our relationship blueprint, which consists of mostly unconscious beliefs about relationship roles and rules. Roles and rules we observed as children. Roles and rules that have also been culturally reinforced for decades.

    But awareness and understanding spell an end to these unconscious beliefs and patterns. It doesn’t matter which roles we assumed or which dynamics we co-created. We do not victimize ourselves to anything anymore, not even our unconscious conditioning.

    Instead, we let go of what no longer serves us and learn new, healthy, and loving ways of connecting and relating to our partner.

    Change happens when we see how what we have been doing makes no sense.

    If I am not broken, then why would I want someone to fix me? How could they even do that?

    If I don’t need to earn my self-worth, then why I am people-pleasing? Why am I doing things for others they are perfectly capable of doing themselves?

    If I want a healthy relationship, then why am I doing things that are disempowering and disrespectful? How can I expect to create something healthy when the input is unhealthy?

    What we believe about love, relationships, and our roles in relationships is what makes us miserable and costs us our relationships.

    We need to find those beliefs within ourselves and realize that they are not and never have been true. At the very least, they are not helpful and keep us from getting the one thing we really want: a healthy and loving relationship.

    And so, if the problem lies within us, then so does the solution.

  • How to Free Yourself from the Burden of Your Potential

    How to Free Yourself from the Burden of Your Potential

    “Changing directions in life is not tragic. Losing passion in life is.”

    We all have natural talents, and in some cases, we may have devoted years to honing our skills and turning them into a career. As we’re on the road to achieving our goal or fulfilling our potential, there may be this invisible weight that starts to bear down on us.

    That’s because there is a burden of potential. The burden is that fear that we’ll never reach our full potential, and the obligation and pressure we feel when we don’t want to continue on the path we’re on.

    Sometimes we tie our sense of self-worth to making this one dream come true, because we’ve told people that we’re trying, and we don’t want to seem like quitters or failures if we consider changing course. That fear can keep us glued to the track, even if we have a sense that we would be happier doing something else. It can be hard to believe there might be more than one way to reach our potential and live a satisfying life.

    My Own Struggle with The Burden

    I moved to Los Angeles to become a stand-up comedian.

    Once I got over my initial fears of getting on stage, the fear train just kept on coming. (This is one of the few forms of transportation that shows up with any consistency in LA.)

    The problem was that I was not a lost cause. I have memories of making packed rooms laugh and getting positive feedback from not only my friends but other comedians whose careers I had followed. I had potential.

    Did that mean I had to keep trying? Even on the days I bombed, or no one showed up because I was performing at an art gallery/coffee shop at 1am? Did I have an obligation to fulfill this potential?

    At the time I was getting into psychology and seriously considering changing tracks and becoming a therapist. I was afraid I was abandoning my dream and my potential. But my own therapist at the time reminded me that my own unfolding into my potential wasn’t done. I could be just as creative being a therapist as I could when I was doing stand-up.

    At the time I kind of rolled my eyes internally and prepared myself for the slow descent into mediocrity. I probably said, “Oh yeah, that’s a good way to look at it” while my doubts lingered. But now I know she was right.

    Though I still feel “in process” on my path, I’ve not only increased my creative output, I don’t feel that I’ve compromised on my dreams at all. Every day isn’t easy, and doubts still creep in, but I feel much more at peace with my choice.

    So how do you release the burden? Here are a few things to consider if the weight of your dream feels more like a shackle.

    1. Pick the path you won’t mind walking for a while.

    We all have heard the old adage “Life is about the journey and not the destination.” It’s frustrating but true. Nobody knows when their life might change or when they might reach their goal. Between the big achievements, there’s the slow meandering of everyday life. Pick the life you can love between the big achievements.

    What I loved about stand-up was the creativity, finding humorous ways to point to larger truths, and having a voice. What I didn’t like about stand-up was open mics, late nights in bars, drinking, most male comics (sorry, but there’s a lot to this for another article), and constant financial insecurity. So basically, most of it outside of being on stage. I didn’t like the day-to-day.

    You need to at least get some joy from the in-between stuff.

    These days, I like my day-to-day. Even on the days something “big” isn’t happening, I love that my day is filled with interesting conversations and making my own hours and being in bed by 10pm. Every day certainly isn’t perfect, and I still struggle some days but overall, I can do this for a while, in between accomplishments.

    2. Allow your dreams to evolve.

    Sometimes, we can get so attached to a certain idea of success that we don’t allow our vision to expand as we change and grow. If you play basketball, you might dream of playing in the NBA. If you are a dancer, it may be Julliard. But those aren’t the only ways to a happy life. In fact, there have been enough biopics to show that reaching the pinnacle of success isn’t always the path to happiness.

    In the Netflix show Losers, they show how a big upset or “loss” could lead to an even more successful outcome, one the athletes at the time couldn’t have imagined for themselves (like boxer Michael Bentt, who goes from defeat and despair to a successful Hollywood boxing coach for movies like Million Dollar Baby). “Success” seemed like a trophy, but it can morph into this whole wonderful life you couldn’t have predicted for yourself.

    3. Question why you have this dream.

    Sometimes a dream may not even be ours. It could be something our parents wanted to, but never did accomplish. It could be something we think society wants us to be, or we’re seeing someone else’s life and thinking, “If I could be like him/her/them, then I’d feel great about myself.”

    We need to investigate our chosen path and make sure we chose it for ourselves. Working with a mentor, coach, or therapist can help us look under the hood at our life path and see if it’s really where we want to go.

    Ultimately, it’s about learning to hang out between your ideas for your life and where you are now and understanding that how you feel now is the biggest indicator of how you will feel then. The accomplishment won’t be what makes you happy. The goal is to cultivate happiness wherever you are so it will be there wherever you end up

  • Why I Now Complain Less and Appreciate More

    Why I Now Complain Less and Appreciate More

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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