Tiny Buddha

Category: Blog

  • How to Release Emotions Stuck in Your Body and Let Go of the Pain

    How to Release Emotions Stuck in Your Body and Let Go of the Pain

    “The human mind is a relational and embodied process that regulates the flow of energy and information.” ~Daniel J. Siegel

    We are emotional creatures, and we were born to express emotions freely and openly. Somewhere along the way, however, many of us learned to repress emotions, especially those deemed “negative,” in order to fit in, earn love, and be accepted. This was my experience.

    I grew up in a home where the motto was “Children are to be seen, not heard.” There was little emotional expression allowed, let alone accepted. No one was there to validate or help us process emotions in a healthy way. Anger was met with anger, fear went unacknowledged, and there was plenty of shame to go around.

    My parents didn’t model how to deal with difficult emotions, as they struggled with that themselves. When those emotions showed up, I often felt overwhelmed and inadequate, ashamed of my failure to be a “good girl.”

    I learned to bury my pain deep inside, feeling invisible, ashamed, angry, alone, and unable to ask for what I needed. Trying to hide the pain—from others and myself—I built walls, put on masks, and soldiered on. For better or worse.

    My pain was buried so deep, I didn’t realize it was there until I had my own children. Motherhood opened up old wounds, the house of cards fell apart, and I began to unravel.

    In my thirties, faced with growing angst and creeping depression—and motivated to be the best parent I could be to my children—I began to deal with repressed memories and old emotional residue that has left me suffering from C-PTSD, chronic back pain, sciatica, headaches, and anxiety.

    As a child, I hid from the emotional pain by delving into the world of books, music, and academics. As an adult, I realized I was strong enough to face it. I wasn’t a little child anymore; I didn’t have to hide. Now I was more mature and had the resources I needed to finally face the pain that used to overwhelm my young brain—and begin to heal it.

    The truth is, we all hide our emotions occasionally. We pretend, avoid, and deny uncomfortable emotions in an effort of self-preservation, as a defense mechanism.

    We do this most often with difficult emotions like shame, fear, or anger. When we experience events that emotionally overwhelm us and we’re unable to process what is happening, accept our emotions, and express them through our body and mind, we hide them deep inside us where others can’t see them. And we end up hiding them from ourselves too. Yet, they’re still there.

    The unresolved emotions get trapped in our body, where they build and fester, draining our energy, leading to burnout, emotional imbalance, and eventually disease. When we chronically repress emotions, we create toxicity in our body, mind, and heart.

    This unprocessed emotional energy is stored in our organs, muscles, and tissues. It leads to inflammation and chronic health problems, and it undermines our overall well-being.

    3 Steps to Processing Emotional Energy Stuck in Your Body

    The opposite of repression is expression. In order to process our emotional distress and move it through and out of our body so it doesn’t get stuck there, we need to learn to express our emotions in a healthy way, in the body and mind. But first, we need to learn to recognize and accept our feelings as they come and go.

    Step 1: Recognize (self-awareness)

    The challenge is to recognize the emotion and feel it in your body. This is where mindfulness comes in. The goal is to notice what is happening within our body, accept it, and feel it fully, without judgment.

    If you’ve ever come across Tara Brach’s teachings on radical acceptance, the practice of R.A.I.N. should sound familiar. R.A.I.N. stands for recognize, allow, investigate, and nourish (with self-compassion), and it “directly de-conditions the habitual ways in which you resist your moment-to-moment experience,” according to Brach.

    Buddhist teachings tell us that human suffering is caused by aversion and resistance to what is happening. Acceptance is liberating, and the practice of R.A.I.N. teaches us to accept our moment-to-moment experience instead of running from it. It teaches us to face any difficulty head-on, with self-compassion and the understanding that it will eventually pass.

    We have to feel it to heal it—we have to fully experience the emotion in order to process and integrate it into our experience.

    But we must feel it in the body; this is the critical point. As Brach writes, “If the process of including difficult emotions in awareness stops at the level of cognitive understanding without a fully embodied experience, the genuine acceptance, insight, and inner freedom that are the essence of true healing will not be complete.”

    Practice mindfulness to get better at recognizing your feelings and observing the bodily sensations connected to those feelings as they come and go throughout the day. Offer yourself self-compassion as you go through more difficult emotions.

    PRACTICE:

    Sit still for a few minutes with your eyes closed. Listen to your body and become curious.

    What does your body feel like right now? Is there any pressure or tingling? Where? Do you feel heavy, hot, contracted, warm, or cold? What is the texture, weight, and shape of the sensations you notice in your body? What emotions are those sensations connected to? Can you breathe into the parts that call your attention? What do those parts of your body want to tell you? What do they want?

    Step 2: Respond (self-expression)

    Emotions need to be expressed to be processed. The goal is to move the energy of emotion through and out the body so we can let it go.

    This self-expression must be authentic and embodied. Remember, true healing occurs when body and mind integrate, so express the emotion on the bodily level first and foremost.

    Still sitting, ask yourself: What does this emotion you just connected with need from you? What feels right in this moment? What do you need?

    Maybe you feel the need to cry, scream into a pillow, go for a swim, walk or run, dance it out, hit a punching bag, do some gardening, tapping, yoga or TRE, paint your feelings out, or simply breathe deeply while facing the sun—whatever feels cathartic in that moment, do it.

    You will free the poisonous emotion that you carried within yourself and free yourself from its shackles.

    Follow this step with one of the best forms of emotional healing—journaling. Writing can be a very therapeutic experience of self-discovery, reconnecting with our true self, and processing our deepest feelings and emotions.

    When we write, we give our internal world a voice. We process and make sense of what is happening within us and around us. And we gain perspective; by writing about our fears and hurts, we can look at them from a distance, detach from their grip, and eventually let them go. That release can be truly healing.

    Practice journaling every day to get better at expressing and processing your feelings. Don’t censor or judge yourself; let it all out, completely unfiltered. Over time, your journal will become a safe space for you to free yourself, get unstuck, and move forward.

    We often don’t have the time and space to process emotions in the moment, so make sure you allow yourself the space to feel the emotions you’ve had through the day and journal about it at the end of each day.

    WRITING PROMPT

    What is happening in your life right now that you wish you could change? What is the biggest source of frustration? As you write, notice the sensations in your body. Tune into the parts that are numb, in pain, or frozen. What are they trying to tell you? What needs healing, attention, or change?

    Step 3: Reset (self-care)

    If we’ve habitually neglected our bodies and ignored our emotions, we have to re-dedicate ourselves to body-mind self-care and indulge in healing habits that will bring in the feeling of well-being.

    The goal is to realign back with your authentic self, reset back to a relaxed and open state, and come back into wellness and balance.

    Take time to slow down and be alone, get out into nature, make art, listen to music while you cook your favorite dinner, meditate to cleanse your mind and relax your body, or take a bubble bath or a nap to restore. Take good care of yourself to awaken to life’s joy and simple pleasures that will nourish your body, mind, and soul.

    My Own Healing Journey

    When I decided to take charge of my own healing, I had no idea where to start. A lifelong bookworm, I quickly discovered writing to be therapeutic. It became my refuge, a place where I could connect with my inner world in an authentic way. Writing became my most trusted way of processing emotions I didn’t even know I harbored inside since childhood. I discovered shame, anger, fear, grief, and eventually, self-compassion.

    With mindfulness, I learned to allow my pain to surface, if only for a brief time, then surround it with tender love and care. My pain was a part of me, and I was done running from it; it was time I faced it.

    I learned to sense into my body, little by little, as the anxiety of reconnecting with my physical sensations was very powerful. But I realized the only way out was through—through the body—so in order to move the stuck emotions that had a tight grip over me for decades, I had to allow and accept them; I had to feel the anger, the shame, the grief.

    Slowly, I learned to give my inner child the support she never received. I listened to and validated her pain—and helped her let go of it. I learned to love and accept her. And I finally learned to love and accept myself.

    Healing is a taxing process. Remember to give yourself all the care and compassion you would give to a friend doing this hard work. Offer yourself understanding, love, and care. This is hard work, and you are doing the best you can with what you’ve got.

    Trapped emotions get in our way. They sabotage our efforts to create the life we want and make us miserable along the way. Freeing this emotional energy stuck in our bodies can shift our lives in a positive way. It’s healing and liberating. And you are worth it!

  • Why I’ve Stopped Hiding My Struggles

    Why I’ve Stopped Hiding My Struggles

    “The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself… that is the moment you might be starting to get it right.” ~Neil Gaiman

    The road seemed to go on forever.

    Although it was only about 8:30 a.m., the summer sun was already blazing in the sky, shining down with such intensity I felt like an ant under a merciless magnifying glass.

    Seven miles into an eight-mile run and growing more and more tired with each step, I faced the final stretch along a tarmac path bustling with fellow runners, dog walkers, cyclists, and the occasional rollerblader.

    “Not… far… to… go,” I repeated to myself, as I trudged along with all the grace of a baby elephant. As faster and leaner runners passed me, I noticed my mind was slipping into self-comparison mode, but then I pulled myself back to the present moment.

    As I became more present, I observed.

    I observed the slight twinge in my left shin and the sound of birdsong from nearby bushes. To my surprise, I observed another more interesting phenomenon, an old pattern I thought I had beaten.

    As I passed other people walking, running, cycling, and blading in the opposite direction, I noticed my demeanor changed. I went from running like a baby elephant to galloping like a gazelle, from looking like the newbie runner I am to pretending to be a seasoned professional athlete.

    In the brief moments my path crossed with strangers, I hid my struggle.

    My posture improved and the grimace on my face turned into a confident smile.

    But why?

    Why did I feel the need to hide my struggle and present a more “I have it all together” version of myself?

    I pondered this question for a few days after this intriguing observation. Why do any of us feel the need to appear more together than we are?

    The answer I came up with is this…

    We hide our struggles because we’ve learned that showing signs of struggle or weakness is a bad thing.

    However, I believe this couldn’t be further from the truth.

    In our early lives, we were more than willing to show signs of struggle. When we were tired, upset, or frustrated, we communicated exactly how we felt (through cries and tantrums). A little bit older, when confused in the classroom, we were more likely to put our hands up and ask for help.

    We knew at a young age that struggling was a part of life, and a sign we were soon going to learn something new.

    Sadly, as we became older, it became more and more unacceptable to struggle and fail. Teachers and parents became less sympathetic and patient as their expectations increased. We began striving for perfection, which, of course, is unattainable.

    To wash away the false idea that showing signs of struggle is a bad thing, we need to remember these three important truths.

    1. Struggling is normal.

    It seems so darn obvious, but when I’m hiding my struggles, I’m denying the truth that struggling is normal. I’m buying into stories like “I should know better,” “I shouldn’t feel like this,” and “I should look like I have it all together.”

    The bottom line is, we’re human, meaning we’re all imperfect and we all struggle. No one has it all together. No one has a perfect life. And no one feels happy, confident, and positive all the time.

    Rather than feel ashamed and hide our struggles, we need to recognize that struggles are human and appreciate ourselves for doing our best in any given moment.

    2. Unless we show we’re struggling, we’re unable to receive help.

    Whenever I pretend I’m not struggling, the door to receive help is closed.

    In my early twenties, I went through a hard time. Facing financial struggles, daily anxiety, and dwindling confidence, I felt like I’d fallen down a deep, dark hole. I’d wake each day feeling helpless. But for almost two years, I lived a lie, in complete denial about my life situation. To the outside world, all was well.

    Eventually, it got too much and I had to get real. It started with a simple phone conversation with a lady from a debt agency. In two minutes, I felt like a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders. This was the start of admitting I was struggling and getting some help.

    No matter what our struggles are, right now there are people who can (and want to) help. No one could help me unless I helped myself first, and it started with getting real.

    3. Showing we’re struggling gives others permission to show they’re struggling too.

    The moment we take off the masks and make ourselves vulnerable, we give others permission to do the same.

    After tackling my financial struggles, I began to open up about my anxiety. I remember being sat in a pub with a close friend of mine when I decided to share with him how I’d been struggling with an anxious mind.

    His response shocked me: “That’s exactly how I’ve been feeling.” For years, we’d both been struggling with the same thing but had never once spoken about how we’d felt. How sad.

    When we share our struggles with those around us, we give them permission to voice theirs, if they wish to share. We may never know just how life-changing that permission may be to someone. They may feel alone, overwhelmed, or even at the end of their rope, and we could change it all by giving them an opportunity to receive our understanding and support.

    —

    Now when I lace up my running shoes, I leave the mask at home. And if I’m struggling at work, in my relationships, or in any other area of my life, I let other people in.

    I no longer pretend to be fine when I’m not because when I’ve been honest in the past, only good has happened.

  • What Heartbreak Taught Me About Creating My Own Happiness

    What Heartbreak Taught Me About Creating My Own Happiness

    “We accept the love we think we deserve.” ~Stephen Chbosky

    A few years ago I was completely heartbroken, and I thought I would never find love. I’d gone through a string of painful breakups over a number of years, but I thought I’d finally met someone I could be with for the long haul. I’d been dating this guy for a few months, and everything seemed to be going smoothly, until one day he stopped calling. Just like that, he disappeared from my life. It was as if we had never met.

    What was worse, he didn’t tell me why he left. Whatever it was, I’m sure I would have understood and carried on with my life if I had some sense of closure. What killed me inside was being left without knowing why.

    For the following year, I was tormented by thoughts such as “Is there something wrong with me?” and “Maybe I’m not good enough.”

    I had this sense of guilt, as if I had done something to cause him to leave. I was constantly trying to puzzle things together in my mind and figure out where I’d gone wrong.

    I felt completely abandoned, alone, and rejected. Meeting new men was hard because of my prevalent fear of rejection. I was scared to get hurt, so I put up a wall so tall that falling in love with anyone again was out of the question. My mind would automatically go to “What if he leaves too?”

    My heart was torn between, deep down, wanting to find a good man and not wanting another heartbreak. I didn’t like the spiral of fear I was living in; it caused me to close down and feel unhappy with my life and myself.

    The most challenging part about recovering after the heartbreak was believing in myself again. I felt like I had lost a part of myself. It was like I had a bottomless abyss inside. Every morning upon waking I was reminded of the pain because the man I had fallen in love with was no longer in my life.

    What I Learned

    One day it became clear to me that I had been agonizing over my ex for far too long. I was unhappy with my life and in need of a drastic change, so I decided to put an end to my struggle. How? I started to pay close attention to the kind of thoughts I was thinking on a daily basis and how they made me feel.

    I noticed that my daily thoughts focused on the fact that he’d left and rarely centered on reconnecting with myself. I obsessively thought, “He’s not here anymore,” “I will never find someone,” and “I’m not good enough.” These thoughts were playing like a broken record in the back of my mind, controlling me and limiting my life.

    Because I gave my attention to these thoughts, they acted as a constant reminder of what I was missing and how miserable I felt. It was as if I were keeping that pain alive by reminding myself of the heartbreak every day.

    Here I was, with a perfect opportunity to be single and enjoy life, but all I could think about was the pain of being abandoned. Sure, I needed some time to grieve, but this had gone on for far too long. Deep down I knew it wasn’t serving me, and I needed to put an end to it!

    The ah-ha moment came when I realized I had the power to choose whether to continue feeling the pain of his absence or to focus on the happiness I was suppressing. What good would it do to continue feeling sorry for myself and unworthy of finding a good man? Obsessing about what I’d lost and feeding my self-doubt was a surefire way to feel unhappy.

    For once, I put myself and my happiness first, and that’s how I fell in love with myself again.

    My thinking was, yes, the man I loved left, but he did not take my happiness with him. My happiness is not dependent on anyone or anything, and no one can ever take that away from me.

    The first step I took was to reconnect with myself by changing the way I looked at love.

    I decided to be more vigilant about the thoughts that played in my mind and how they made me feel. Whenever thoughts such as “He’s not here anymore” came up and I started to feel a hint of sadness, I would remind myself, “I’m grateful we met; because of him I know I deserve so much better.”

    Or, when the thought “I will never find someone” crept in and I felt sorry for myself, I would think, “I know he’s out there somewhere; it’s just a matter of time.”

    The second step I took was to reconnect with my happiness by doing things that made me feel good.

    Every morning when I woke up I asked myself, “What’s something I could do today that would make me happy?” Even if it were as simple as listening to a song I liked (one that didn’t remind me of him, of course!), it made a huge difference in my day.

    I became more playful with life and dared to explore my adventurous side. Being single gave me the time and freedom to do the things I passionately wanted to do. I reconnected with my girlfriends and together we skydived, traveled, and had weekend adventures getting lost in the California wine country while enjoying all the different types of wine.

    With time, I noticed that I felt alive when I shifted the way I looked at love and made time to do things I enjoyed.

    Heartbreaks disconnect us from our potential to be ourselves and live our best life, because, in the midst of the chaos, we lose sight of who we really are. It is up to us to reconnect with our inner self once we feel like we’re ready to move on.

    Realizing that no one can ever take away my happiness made me feel empowered. I began to view life with optimism, excitement, and curiosity for what my future held.

    I also felt a deep sense of self-respect because I was no longer going to let just any man walk into my life. For the past few years, I’d let men seduce me with sweet words even though they didn’t follow up with their actions, because I thought that was the best I could do. Like Stephen Chbosky quote says, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” I knew I deserved so much better, and I didn’t mind waiting to meet the right man.

    Love was no longer something to “find” because it came from within just like a spring of water flowing from the earth. The self-love and happiness I had reconnected with made me feel worthy, but most importantly, I felt whole. I was genuinely happy with or without a man.

    If I were to meet someone, I wouldn’t be hoping for him to complete me because I was already complete. Rather, there was a longing that I could meet a man who would also feel complete with himself, so when we came together, we could create something bigger and better. The vision of two complete people lovingly joining forces quickly became my new fantasy.

    My outlook on life changed when I shifted my focus to reconnecting with myself rather than attaining what was missing in my life. I became genuinely happy, playful, and open to meeting new men because I knew that no matter where I went, my happiness would always be right there with me.

    If you’re dealing with heartbreak and feeling like I was, ask yourself these questions to help you reconnect with yourself and your happiness again:

    1. When it comes to love, what negative thoughts come up on a daily basis?

    2. How does it affect your life when you give power to these thoughts? What do you do or not do when you obsess on them?

    3. How can you challenge and/or reframe these thoughts so that you feel empowered instead of defeated?

    4. What activities make you feel good? Aim to do one of your feel-good activities every day, even if you do them alone.

    The key is to remember you have the power to choose to focus on your happiness.

  • Sensitivity Means Passion, Not Weakness

    Sensitivity Means Passion, Not Weakness

    “The fact that you’re struggling doesn’t make you a burden. It doesn’t make unlovable, undesirable, or undeserving of care. It doesn’t make you too much or too sensitive or too needy. It makes you human. “ ~Daniell Koepke

    A while back, during one of my therapy sessions, I became acquainted with the word “dysthymia.”

    I was puzzled at first, but as my therapist dug deeper into the subject, I realized that complex-sounding term was, in fact, a birth name to the grizzly monster that has been shadowing me for years. It’s more commonly known as persistent depressive disorder.

    I can’t exactly remember the onset of an extended period when I felt lower than usual. It might have sneaked in unnoticed in my early teens and grown out of proportion since then. It might have been born with me. I have no idea.

    All I know is, I’ve had a pervading sense of hopelessness long enough to convince myself that something was wrong. It’s only natural for a child to feel threatened by the world around them. At least that’s how I felt, day in and day out.

    I was told it would only be a matter of time until I grew out of it and became a self-assured woman. Well, I’m twenty years old and this day has never come, and I’ll tell you, the old times were paradise. I was lucky to have my parents’ back in every situation, and the thought of loosening my grip on their protection with the passing years was a scary prospect.

    Inevitably, I grew up and things didn’t get any easier.

    My generalized fear mingled with an endless hunt for the meaning behind words, people’s actions, and even life itself. The existential nature of these questions made it impossible for me to get concrete answers, which overloaded my brain with the untold possibilities, thus fueling an anxiety disorder.

    Being an avid gobbler of pills and a depression sufferer herself, my mother suggested that I went to a psychiatrist. As expected, at sixteen I left the doctor’s office with an antidepressant prescription in hand, as I doubted both my sanity and worth.

    In a different session, I can recall my therapist drawing a chart of sorts, in order to illustrate my situation: she traced three parallel horizontal lines and named them “euphoria,” “neutrality,” and “depression,” from top to bottom.

    She then drew a squiggly line with stable highs and lows, yet mostly focused in the area between depression and neutrality.

    What that means is I’m bound to feel down most days, with the occasional bout of gloom and/or cheerfulness, depending on the situation. The mood sways aren’t fickle; they’re usually curbed into the same spectrum, but still, sometimes I wish the ups would last longer.

    “Don’t worry, that is very common in highly sensitive people,” she said to me. “Now that you’ve named that feeling, it will become easier to deal with.”

    At the time, that wasn’t helpful at all. Why did my personality have to be built this way? Would I have to deal with this for the rest of my life? That’s not what I came here for!

    I developed an unhealthy habit of comparison, as I envied the life of every extroverted and confident person I knew, even if that meant scrolling through their social media pages (which, let’s face it, makes everyone seem at the top of their game on a daily basis).

    For months on end I tried to stick to a fully positive lifestyle. Spoiler alert: I was doing it wrong. It took me a while to recognize that I didn’t have to be happy all the time nor rebuff my icky moments in exchange for a phony, dimmed spark of sunshine. I felt something was missing.

    I was in denial. I was rejecting myself, whom I’ll have to spend the rest of my days with whether I want to or not. Little did I know, refusing who I was wouldn’t do anything for me; it would only hinder the process of acceptance.

    All I had to do was skew my perspective, bit by bit. And I did, with the help of unexpected sources and events.

    Sensitivity Means Passion

    During a recent conversation with my brother, I came to the slow realization that I might have underrated what can prove itself to be a powerful attribute.

    His girlfriend had broken up with him, and his devastation was painful to watch. However, his main objection was that he felt guilty for “feeling too much while she felt way less.” I could identify with him at that moment.

    He would beat himself up and judge his past actions, wishing he could go back and suppress the excess emotion he poured into the relationship. Anyone who’s familiar with him would advise him to never change for a girl, and that the right one would see this supposed “defect” as a major quality.

    Being his twin sister, of course we’d share some traits– besides in appearance. And that’s it: we feel too much. Too much of everything, whether it be the pain of a heartbreak or the delight of succeeding at something, for instance.

    In discussing life’s matters, we’ve both agreed upon the fact that oftentimes we may be taken up entirely by emotion, to the point where even gazing at the stars opens our minds to an immensity of otherworldly interpretations. How amazing is that?

    Besides, we’re eager seekers of beauty in the little things and lovers of kindness. That depth in our mindset is what allows us to express everything so thoroughly, especially through writing and other kinds of art.

    What was supposed to be a wallowing session ended up giving us a different view of ourselves. Needless to say, we finished the conversation feeling way better than when we started it.

    See It for What It Is: Just A Trait

    About three years ago, something interesting came in the mail. One of my aunts resides in England, and she sends gifts every so often. This particular time, she had a special present for me.

    It was a book, but not just any book. It was a self-help book called The Highly Sensitive Person, written by Dr. Elaine N. Aron. It had highlighted passages and comments scribbled all over it, as if Auntie wanted me to pay special attention to them.

    I might have rolled my eyes at first, but that’s part of my proud nature. Also, never in my seventeen years had I read a self-help book, so I decided to give it a reluctant try in case she asked about it later and I had to whip off a review. I started reading, and to my surprise, it felt like staring at a mirror.

    The book, first published in 1996, promotes the de-stigmatization around sensitive people, often mislabeled as weak, shy, and even antisocial, to name a few labels. It has offered me the best advice I’ve been given, from someone who has been through similar struggles.

    It counts on interviews with hundreds of people like me—perhaps like you, too—who have offered their experience as HSPs. Their stories prove that we are not alone and that being sensitive makes us unique in our own ways; we just have to make an effort to see that amidst the haze of society telling us we’re somehow abnormal.

    I can relate to my aunt on many levels, especially because we have strikingly similar personalities, which is always a recurrent topic during family reunions. At some point in her life she had the same doubts I do now—she felt unfitting and lost. She gets me, and she made sure I had that in mind by giving me that book.

    “Think about the impact on you of not being the ideal for your culture. It has to affect you—not only how others have treated you but how you have come to treat yourself.” ~Elaine N. Aron. Ph. D.

    For the first time in a while, I accepted my wholeness. I felt an overdue relief in being myself, comforted to know that being dysthymic and highly sensitive by no means indicates than I’m worse than everybody else.

    I’m still coming to terms with my fragile essence. I haven’t left therapy or the medications, and I may need them for the rest of my life, who knows? Even so, in researching alternative ways to cope with my anxiety I stumbled across several posts that swore by meditation, so I decided to give it a shot—and it worked like magic!

    I meditate for at least ten minutes daily, and the practice has helped diminish common anxious and depressive symptoms, such as a fast heartbeat and racing thoughts. This happens due to meditation’s scientifically suggested power to positively modify our brains—yes, it’s possible! If combined with consistent daily activities such as exercising or anything that sparks creativity, it becomes a strong healing method.

    The good news is, my sensitivity has ceased to be a problem. Whenever it wants in, I won’t slam the door, I’ll just invite it in for a cup of coffee instead. Maybe acceptance is all it needs to rest cozy in my chest.

  • What to Do If You’re Tired of Feeling Half-Alive

    What to Do If You’re Tired of Feeling Half-Alive

    “Who you are is what you settle for, you know?” ~Janis Joplin

    I spent several years in a state of light depression without noticing.

    Why was it only “light”? Because I was functional: I went to work every morning, I managed to feed myself (mostly with convenience food, but still). My house was reasonably livable, though far from sparkling clean. And I wasn’t particularly sad, nor was I ever even remotely suicidal. It was simply like my life had been wrapped in a thick layer of cotton wool, with nothing much ever getting through to me.

    Why didn’t I notice? Because I told myself I liked it this way. I was honestly convinced that I was happy going to work every day, coming home in the evening. and then sitting down to read or play a computer game.

    I’d kicked my friends out of my life, and any required travel was an inconvenience, even if it was to see my family. I preferred being alone, and if it hadn’t been for my online gaming friends, I would have had no social contact at all.

    I’d become highly proficient at appearing “normal” to my colleagues at work. I even invented friends I was seeing at evenings or weekends so they wouldn’t think I was a loner. To be honest, I can’t even remember how I justified this to myself; in hindsight, it seems like I refused to even think about it. Denial can be one of the symptoms of depression, and I was very good at lying to myself.

    The Awakening

    There was an outward reason for my isolation, and that’s a sum of money I was paying back from a near-bankruptcy years earlier. I simply didn’t have the cash for a lavish wardrobe or nights out on the town because every cent I earned went into repayments. But that’s only half the truth—if I’d wanted to see friends, I could have met them for home-cooked dinners, after all.

    The truth is that I used my financial situation as an excuse, yet another reason not to see the depression that had swallowed me whole. Thankfully, the shell began to crack when this reason/excuse disappeared: I had finally paid back all my dues and began thinking about leaving behind my soul-eating, high-pressure job and moving back to the place where my soul feels at home: the West (of Ireland).

    I found a work-from-home role and made the big move across the country. I now had much less money every month, but you can’t possibly put a price tag on the quality of life in the absence of stress. I began to sleep better, eat better, take an interest in my environment again—it was like my entire being was breathing a slow, deep sigh of relief.

    In the following months, I re-connected with my friends, started dancing again (something I’d loved to do all my life, but “forgotten about” during the dark years), and, feeling rested for the first time in years, got curious about trying out new things.

    Healing Through Passion

    It took a lot of time. I needed to heal physically as well as psychologically; my body was in the worst shape it had ever been in, not just because of the pounds I’d piled on from all the junk food, but also from spending the last years in a sitting position, apart from walking to the car and back.

    I slept. I fell in love with whole, gorgeous foods. I took up mindfulness meditation. Then I slowly, very gradually started exercising, and when I say “slowly,” I mean five minutes of stretching on some days and nothing else.

    These first few months were mostly about well-being, feeling good and comfortable, which astonished me because I hadn’t even realized how long these feelings had been absent.

    As the healing progressed, my emotions returned. I’d been numb for years, but now I remembered that I’d always been a highly sensitive and highly emotional person. There were some very dark weeks to get through, in which I mourned all the wasted time and some actions I was ashamed of, such as not being there for my best friend when she needed me. Gradually, I made it through the swamp, and on the other side, I re-discovered my long lost enthusiasm.

    I have some rather unusual interests, and now I threw myself into them. I signed up for training in traditional archery and historical sword fighting. I kept exercising and dancing every day. Suddenly, I began to experience levels of happiness the likes of which I wouldn’t have thought possible a year before.

    What I’ve Learned

    I wish I could tell you that I lived happily ever after, but that’s just not how human lives work (and anyone who tells you differently is usually trying to sell you something). The point is not to be eternally joyful, in any case; it’s to experience the full spectrum of human emotions and to show up and sit with them as they occur.

    Striving for happiness and joy is a worthy pursuit, however. Like most things, it’s a habit that can be cultivated. I’ve learned that one shortcut to happiness is passion, or rather, radically prioritizing your passion (or multiple passions).

    I know this isn’t something that’s encouraged in our society. We’re brought up to be responsible and put duty first; work for a living, pay the bills, be a good citizen. While I don’t debate that these things are important, I’ll humbly submit that we’ve got the priorities wrong. What good is making a living when you’re just going to exist and survive, rather than thrive?

    The lure of mediocrity is strong. I see it all around and it’s most pronounced in my own story. If settling were an art then I’d be its master; I was prepared to settle for such a reduced version of my own life, I find it barely recognizable even from the distance of a mere three years.

    The Pursuit Of Happiness

    The way to fight this is to remember what truly matters in life. Our own well-being, our loved ones, and that elusive state, happiness. To leap out of bed every morning, looking forward to doing things that light me up, is something I’ll never, ever take for granted again.

    In order to achieve this state, we need to radically and consistently fight against the current that threatens to pull us back into settling. Life isn’t meant to be “all right” or “not so bad.” It’s meant to be ravishing, beautiful, and filled with joy.

    Whenever I feel myself slipping, I pull myself back up by putting a passion front and center. It takes some courage to say “no” to anything else until my passions are looked after, scheduled, and happening. Only then will I look at social commitments and distractions. The only thing I consider with a comparable priority to passion is my work—but then, the work I do today is a passion, too.

    I certainly don’t know everything, but I do know this: If I don’t fall in love with life all over again at least once a week, then I’m doing it wrong. It may feel like constantly pedaling a bicycle up the hill, but boy is the view from the top worth the effort.

    How You Get There

    If you feel like you’re just getting through your days, take some time to discover what needs to be in place in your life for you to prioritize passion. For me, it was the job and where I lived, but what you need to do might look completely different.

    Take some time to “audit” every area of your life—work, finances, self, relationships, health—and find out where you need to make changes in order to accommodate your passion(s).

    You may not be able to do everything at once, and that’s fine. It took a long time for me to be ready for my radical downsizing. You may also need to accept that there are some things you can’t change any time soon—if, for example, you’d like to move but you need to stay where you are for your family. The point isn’t to change everything, but rather to change something.

    Make a realistic plan to put all your steps into practice, and set down a time period for them too. Get the support you need, be it from a professional coach or from friends or loved ones.

    Just be sure to insert passion today while working toward your plan. If all you do is to plan, you postpone your joy to the future and never achieve it in the present moment.

    It’s always possible to find pockets of time. Be ruthless with this! Cancel other commitments if necessary, because your well-being comes first, and being joyful also enables you to be a better partner, parent, friend, or co-worker to others.

  • What to Ask Yourself When You Feel Overwhelmed, Stressed, or Anxious

    What to Ask Yourself When You Feel Overwhelmed, Stressed, or Anxious

    “Clear your mind. Your heart is trying to tell you something.” ~Unknown

    Words have incredible power. I’d like to share three little words that can unlock your inner magic. They can help you cut through the layers that stand in the way of your inner truth and help you get in touch with your highest self. The peaceful, compassionate, loving self that knows what you need in any given moment and wants to bring goodness to the world.

    But I better tell you now that they are simple words that may not seem earth shattering at first.

    These words have become part of my life in the last few months. When I am feeling tired, stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed I ask myself this simple question. It forces me to stop and listen to myself. Then I can take action from a calm and peaceful state.

    What Are These Three Words that Can Unlock Your Inner Magic?

    So what are the simple words I have found that help me to stop in the middle of stressful situations? How can I tune into the reality at the heart of every circumstance? With three little words, which form a simple question:

    What is so?

    Isn’t it often the simplest things that have the most profound impact? Allow me to share why these words have been so powerful for me.

    I am the mom of one high-energy and very curious four-year-old boy. We also happen to live in Japan, where I am a foreigner. Japan can be a stressful place for a foreign mom. I get overwhelmed. I misunderstand things. I feel out of control.

    I am a writer, but procrastination and the struggle to find the time to write kick my butt over and over again.

    Maybe you have those feeling too, whatever your circumstances.

    Learning to Make Choices to Respond Wisely

    There are key moments in the day when I have decisions to make. To be honest there was a time, not long ago, when I didn’t believe I could make those choices.

    There are moments when I would give in to procrastination when I should be taking action. Or moments when I would force myself to push through and do things when I need to sit and rest.

    Moments when I would get angry with my son when he needs me to be calm and help him process his own difficult emotions. Or moments when I would get stressed out by overcrowded places when I have no choice but to take my place among the crowds.

    There are voices that run through my head in those moments. They tell me things I should be doing or things other people shouldn’t be doing. I have a litany of judgments about how things should be different to what they are in the moments of my day.

    In those moments when I’m struggling, those voices come from somewhere other than my own inner wisdom. When I react poorly, it is often because I am more worried about what other people will think. My mind gets caught up in a million thoughts that do not serve me.

    I snap. I react. I get mad at people pushing me on a crowded escalator and push back. I become the thing I hate and judge myself along with everyone else.

    So I am learning to stop and take a deep breath and ask myself “What is so?”

    What Is So?

    These three words cause me to slow down long enough to listen to what’s going on with me. I may just be hungry or tired or distracted by something I read online that continues to run through my mind.

    If I am procrastinating on a writing project, for example, I need to listen through the fear and the doubt to the voice underneath. The voice that says, “You’ve got this. You are good enough. You are safe. Everything is okay. You have everything you need right here and now.”

    If I’m getting mad at how other people are behaving, perhaps it is because, as my husband always says, it’s their first time being human. Hell, maybe it’s my first time being human. We are all still practicing this humanity thing.

    Finding the Voice of Compassion

    And we all need to find the voice inside of us that is kind and compassionate. The voice that allows us to respond wisely to what life throws at us and not react out of our fear or worry.

    Few of us ever slow down enough to find that voice. We believe that the fear and doubt are the only emotions we are feeling; we are too afraid to dig beneath them. We find it hard to believe that the deeper reality, what is true and what is so, is always peace and love and goodness. We just need to sit with our feelings and listen to our highest self.

    We are experts at avoiding the unpleasant emotions. We never sit with the negative thoughts long enough to let them melt away. Facebook will happily offer up endless distractions. There’ll always be one more cup of coffee and another box of cookies.

    But if we always avoid the unpleasant feelings, we can never find our way through them.

    Acknowledging What’s Underneath the Fear and Negative Thoughts

    This simple question, “What is so?” frees me to acknowledge what is happening inside me. Invariably, I procrastinate when those ugly little words “I am not good enough” are raging unacknowledged within me.

    If I keep going and keep digging there might be a physical reason why I am not feeling in control and my best. I probably need to eat or drink or sleep or exercise. Maybe I need to sit down and journal through the feelings and find my equilibrium again.

    I’m still working on being the mom who responds calmly to whatever my son gets himself into instead of being the mom who screams “Don’t do that. Don’t touch that. WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!” Because what is so is that he is a healthy, happy four-year-old, and the light of my world.

    It takes practice to know that you have the power to act from love and not fear. It takes practice to strip away the anxious thoughts and find what is most deeply true in every moment.

    Will you join me and try it the next time you are feeling overwhelmed or stressed out?

    Stop, slow your breathing, and focus your attention inside your chest. What is so? What is so? What is so?

    You are alive. You are safe. You know what you need.

  • When You Feel Like You’re Going Nowhere and Life Has No Point

    When You Feel Like You’re Going Nowhere and Life Has No Point

    “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” ~Wayne Dyer

    How many days do you wake up feeling like you’re a hamster on a wheel? You brush your teeth, take a shower, drink your coffee, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch television, go to bed, and rinse and repeat.

    Do you wonder how you can keep going and keep everything together when it feels like you’re doing nothing, going nowhere, and living some life you weren’t meant for?

    Do you ever wonder what to do on those days where you feel like you can’t go on? On days where life seems to have no point? You’re going through the motions, but there is always an empty pit somewhere inside your soul that never seems to fill.

    It seems that no matter how hard you try, you end up in the same spot, in the same position having to start all over again, and your inability to change your messed up emotional patterns starts taking an excruciating toll.

    You wonder and think and read and try to break free from the subconscious battles within your mind, but the negative stranglehold has a strong grip and does not want to release you so easily.

    Maybe the pain has become intolerable, and instead of going away it has continued to eat away at your peace of mind bit by bit. But, then another day dawns and you’re still here and you live to start again.

    I have been in a cycle of rinse and repeat for more years than I care to remember. I have changed jobs at least ten times, apartments and locations twenty-three times, and boyfriends six times. I’ve had the same happy hour and the same weekends and the same soul-searching periods over and over and over again.

    I have tried to change all these external things because I figured changing the outside would change the inside. But like they always say, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

    Despite traveling the world, changing jobs, moving, and having relationships, I live my life in a little bubble because I feel safe there, and staying safe means being resistant to any real transformation. It doesn’t matter that I’ve changed my circumstances; the end result is always the same: I feel bored and empty and lost and alone.

    You feel bored and empty and lost and alone because you never really do anything different. Whether you stay stuck because you’re an introvert or you have social anxiety or you’re depressed or you’re lazy doesn’t matter. The fact of the matter is, change nothing and nothing will change.

    Look, I get it. I am a tried and true introvert, so developing relationships is exhausting. People think I’m extroverted because I can talk quite a bit one-on-one, but put me in a group and I’ll clam up. I become super anxious at parties or in large groups of people, preferring one-on-one in-depth interactions. Being an introvert makes life a little more challenging in a world that embraces and rewards extroversion.

    So, maybe there are days when you feel like you’re going nowhere and you don’t fit in and life has no point. But, you can change it, even if just a little. There are some little things you can do to change your patterns and your life.

    How Do You Keep Trying?

    First, you get up every damn day and say, “Today is a day for change” and you do your best and face the world, whether you want to or not. Every day you fight for yourself because if you don’t, no one else will. I know it’s hard and I know some days you want to stay in bed with the covers over your head. But, don’t do it. Get up. Go for a walk. Do something. Anything.

    Some days I force myself to get in the car and drive to the beach (okay, it’s only four miles) because I’m so comfortable in my apartment. Every time I get there I’m happy I did. I roll out my towels and read a book while listening to the waves crash, or I walk along the water’s edge watching the sand between my toes and squishing those weird little seaweed blobs.

    Second, you start becoming aware of the negative thought patterns in your mind and how they affect you when you get caught up in them. The truth is, you are reacting to events in your life in a way that is detrimental rather than helpful. Negativity breeds more negativity and keeps you stuck on that hamster wheel.

    I’m not saying it’s easy. I get it. Some days when I’m trying super hard to think positively, my mind says, “Yeah, I don’t care. I am going to feel or think this way anyway, so deal with it.” Some days I simply need to embrace how I feel instead of forcing myself to be positive. But I know I need to eventually shift my mindset or I’ll always be stuck. So, I keep trying. If you can’t change the way you see the world, then the world you see will never change.

    Recently I found myself on the verge of a breakup, a move, a deploying boyfriend, and no job. My head went into a tailspin worrying about what I would do or where I would go and why this was happening. But, with all the work I’ve been doing on myself, I decided to see everything in a new light.

    Maybe this was an opportunity for positive change instead of a devastating loss. I stopped worrying and started believing I would be okay. I was only able to do this because I have been practicing changing my perspective. Think of your mind as a muscle. If you strengthen it and work it out, it becomes stronger. If you let it sit there and wallow in self-pity, it never grows.

    I stopped focusing on the worst-case scenario, and do you know what happened? We didn’t break up. He signed for an apartment us, and I got a job within a week of his departure. I know things won’t always work out how I want them to just because I think positively, but I now believe I will be okay no matter what happens, and that’s making a huge difference.

    The same can be true for you.

    You may face unexpected challenges. We all do. Changing your mindset won’t guarantee that everything will be okay. But it will give you the insight and strength to believe that you will be okay and that you can handle what life dishes up. And it will also help you create a life that feels more fulfilling and less empty.

    The first step in any change is recognition. You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. Start to notice that you have a negative pattern of thinking that keeps you stuck. I’m guessing you will probably be amazed at how much and how often your mind wanders toward the negative.

    From there, start practicing mindfulness, which basically means you are aware of what you’re thinking, but you don’t get caught up in your thoughts. See if you can separate the negative thoughts from your being. Anyone who has studied meditation will tell you that you can use a technique to distance yourself from your thoughts. Try to place them in a balloon and watch them fly away.

    You are not your thoughts and feelings. You experience thoughts and feelings, but they don’t need to own you. I know this isn’t easy, but it is doable.

    Personally, my mind always sees deficit instead of abundance. Whether this came from years of sexual abuse or family upbringing or genetic coding, I’m not sure, and at this point I don’t really care why. What matters is that I want to change it because it has become exhausting to always be so unsatisfied.

    How Do You Effect All This Change?

    Tony Robbins says that change can happen in an instant, but I think that statement needs a little tweaking. I think the ability to change can happen in an instant. When you decide you want more or you deserve better or you become sick and tired of being sick and tired, then you have now opened the door to change.

    One way to start creating change is to change the words you use to describe how you’re feeling. Our language affects our emotions, and our emotions influence our choices. Tony Robbins offers a 10-Day Challenge that can help with this.

    I love this challenge because it forces you to take a hard, deep look at how you speak to yourself and how you treat yourself daily and even hourly.

    Next, try to cultivate more happiness in your life a little bit at a time. Research has shown that happiness is, in fact, a choice, and although you may have a certain “set point” of happiness, you do have the ability to make yourself happier by doing things like:

    Start meditating.

    Everyone must be spouting the benefits of meditation for a reason, right? Well, studies have shown that meditation can improve our health mentally and physically by reducing stress.

    You don’t have to turn into Buddha and sit under a tree for hours, but even five to ten minutes per day will give you a few moments of insightful reflection and peace. If you’re like me and have a wandering mind, start out with guided meditation because they’ll keep you more focused.

    A few of my favorites are The Honest Guys and Jason Stephenson.

    Begin a gratitude journal.

    Studies have shown that writing down three specific things you are grateful for every day for just twenty-one days will increase your happiness. Tiny Buddha has a great gratitude journal to get you started.

    Volunteer or find a way to help someone.

    Volunteering connects us to other people, and it can give us a sense of purpose. It can also be fun and enjoyable, if you choose something based on your interests, like working with kids in the arts or baking birthday cakes for underprivileged youth. Maybe you love animals but can’t afford one or aren’t home enough to take care of one, but you can take some time to volunteer at an animal shelter and help them find a furever home!

    You can likely find something that interests you at VolunteerMatch.org.

    Get out there and exercise.

    I love endorphins! If you’re type A and have a lot of energy, then the more energy you expend during exercise the happier you’ll be. If you hate the gym (like me), find something you enjoy doing whether it’s walking in the woods, doing yoga in the privacy of your own home, or joining a kayaking team. The options are endless.

    What about becoming a bad-ass by learning Krav Maga or starting martial arts? I mean, who doesn’t want to be as Zen as Bruce Lee?

    Figure out what you’re good at and start doing it.

    We all have strengths, and we feel a lot more fulfilled when we use them instead of sitting around, focusing on our weaknesses. If you’re not sure what your strengths are, take the character strengths survey here.

    Create a social support network.

    They say that people who have at least five strong social connections are the happiest. Many of us feel so lost and alone because we have Facebook connections, but no real or genuine face-to-face interactions with friends on a regular basis. If you’re an introvert it will be hard and you’ll have to work at it, but the reward will be worth it. Meetup is a great place to start.

    Write or scrapbook or create something.

    Being creative opens your mind to new experiences and new possibilities. Color in an adult color book, start a blog, knit, crochet, sculpt or paint, write a children’s book, or journal every night. Medium.com will allow you to publish your writing without starting a formal blog. Get your mind engaged in anything other than thinking!

    —

    Don’t try to do everything at once or you’ll likely become overwhelmed and feel like you’re failing. Pick one thing and do it for a week or ten days, then maybe add another and so on. Every little thing you add will build up like pebbles of sand on the beach, and over time you will have created something beautiful.

    We live in a society that wants immediate gratification, and when we don’t get it we tend to give up and move onto something else and blame the activity for not making us happy. Give it some time, be kind to yourself, take it a step at a time, and slowly you will see progress.

    If you struggle with something you’ve decided to start, shift your focus to one of the other ideas instead of being hard on yourself.

    Example: I signed up for a self-defense class to see if I wanted to join. Of course, I cancelled it before going. I told myself I wasn’t sure if I could afford it right now and I should wait. In part this is true, but in part I dreaded going to the class. However, I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I’ll try some other things right now and then I’ll put myself back out there and try again.

    For now, I re-started meditation, which allows me a few moments to reflect and set new intentions. I’ve also started writing more, which provides a creative outlet and gives me a sense of accomplishment.

    Beyond that, I’m keeping a gratitude journal and started a new exercise program. The gratitude journal is great for helping you focus on the positive rather than the negative, and exercise is a general stress reliever. I’m taking baby steps, and when I’m ready I’ll try something more social. It’s okay to go at your own pace.

    Regardless of what you choose, the point is to live more in the world and less in your head. Just try it.

    I promise there won’t be a day where you say, “Jeez, I wish I didn’t exercise” or “I wish I didn’t go for a walk” or “Helping someone really sucked.” But I guarantee if you don’t do anything you will regret it, and you will wake up one day wondering where your life went and how you got to the place you are. And that, my friend, is not what you want.

    On this day you can choose life. You can choose a new path and things can change.

  • Yes, I Am Afraid to Fly, But I Won’t Let My Fear Control Me

    Yes, I Am Afraid to Fly, But I Won’t Let My Fear Control Me

    “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” ~Susan Jeffers

    Let’s do a thought exercise together.

    I have flown, I don’t know two or four times a year since I was eighteen and a few times before that, and I am now almost thirty-seven. On the low end that puts me around forty times. On the high ends that is, what seventy-five times in my life? Let’s split the difference and say I have flown fifty-five times because I have never kept track of things like that.

    Also, I have jumped out of planes before. Yep, it was beautiful, and seriously it is only the first step that is the hardest, because after that you are totally involved. So, if that is something you want to do, just close your eyes and step out. But I digress.

    Recently (over the last two years), I have become terrified to fly. I blame it on a trip where I had a bit of what I would consider severe turbulence. Really, though, it has just been a growing fear. With each flight, with each significant life event I have been ill prepared to handle, with each death I had to fly home for, the fear and anxiety has quietly and sometimes loudly and harshly grown.

    Most flights I have not enjoyed. However, there was a time I do remember when I loved to fly. The spooling of the engines, the way you are pushed back into your seat at take-off, that moment of lightness you feel right at the top of the take-off.

    I loved watching out the little window as the people, trees, and buildings would get smaller and smaller as you climbed to altitude. I even loved when we would fly over different farm areas and see the different colored plots of ground.

    Then there is the opportunity to watch the sun rise and set from 30,000 feet in the air. Morning flights are so great for this. It’s just darkness with little color lights below, but as you watch out into the darkness, the nothingness, slowly the darkness begins to turn into these beautiful, rich, and warm reds, yellows, and oranges. They pull across the sky and stretch into memories and dreams almost.

    And the clouds, I love the fluffy ones, the heavy, wintry ones that are filled with a mixture of snow and rain, and the long, airy ones. These are my favorite; they stretch and dance across the sky like little fairy wisps.

    When I think about it now, safely on the ground, it feels beautiful and calm. Picturesque as I travel to some place beautiful that is full of opportunity to explore.

    Flying offers me a mixture of beauty and fear. The last time I flew was the worst I have ever had. The flight itself was merciful and calm. However, I have never had a panic attack that severe before.

    I knew I had to fly. I didn’t want to. With every fearful bone in my body, every muscle tensing at just the idea of leaving my house, I really didn’t want to. But I had to. I tried to figure out how long it would take to drive, if there was a way to cancel, if I could just say no.

    Those weren’t options. I had to fly.

    So, I did my preparations. I have been a long believer in cognitive based therapy and the thought records my therapist has used to help me.

    I did as much research as I could on statistics of flying, specific airlines, the best time of the day to fly; I watched turbulence maps, checked weather forecasts as well as historical weather maps. I read safety numbers and statistics galore from reputable and not-so-reputable places on the internet.

    I found calming techniques like writing with your non-dominant hand over and over again, listening to quiet and calming music (I chose loud and high-based EDM), and coloring. I even got prescribed medicines from my primary care physician to take the edge off.

    I did as much preparation that I thought I could. But I was still afraid. My body ached and pulled from all of the adrenaline. I was terrified in a way that I have never been before, and even with the medication my doctor gave me to calm my nerves, the thought record in hand, and coping mechanisms in place, it was still incredibly hard to get on the plane.

    I almost didn’t do it, and if I didn’t need to get there by a certain time that day, I would have driven the fourteen hours to my destination.

    It is amazing how fear can control us, can take us to that lizard brain level and win. That’s a hard and harsh reality for me because there are so many places I want to go. So many things I want to see and experience.

    Not everyone wants to travel. Not everyone has a calling to their soul that says, “But what’s over there?” What have you not seen, felt, or experienced that could be just on the other side of that mountain? But I do. I am a traveler at heart.

    There are so many places across this world that are filled with cultures and history I have not seen or experienced in the very real sense of just being present in it. Where you can taste the excitement, feel it in the air and in the music that has its own unique song for those who listen close enough.

    I love going new places, meeting strangers, breathing in the experiences with every breath. I crave that. I dream about it. And of course, I save pictures and research these exquisite places and daydreams to my Pinterest boards because I am unsure I can break the fear enough to go.

    That is until recently. I had a moment of pause the other day. A moment of realization that struck a chord so much that I am writing to you.

    I have this pain in my leg. It has been here for months and when I called the doctor to schedule they immediately thought it was a blood clot and sent me directly to the emergency room.

    After many tests, they determined it wasn’t a blood clot in my big important veins and sent me home. I still have no idea what it is or why it causes me so much pain, but I know it isn’t a blood clot.

    However, a few days ago it was aching noticeably again and a moment of “oh gosh” hit me. Being an anxious person, the immediate question of “could it be cancer?” came to my mind.

    For many people, I am sure that question probably doesn’t pop up. But my mother got cancer at thirty-eight, and my thirty-seventh birthday is less than a month away. It was breast cancer and she’s fine now. But my stepdad died of cancer two and a half years ago. Watching his experience of slowly getting sicker and sicker and the cancer spreading across his body still haunts my thoughts.

    For the record, his was also not cancer in the leg. But sometimes your mind just starts with an idea and attaches to it immediately and starts going with the what-ifs.

    At that moment, though, I didn’t play out what-ifs; I didn’t think about the medical procedures and things I would have to do if it really did turn out to be cancer. My thoughts did not do the dizzying spiral they normally do. I had only one thought at that moment.

    I went immediately to the looming fear of flying and my desperate, aching desire to see more of the world and asked myself if this was really cancer, if there was a sickness that was about to affect my entire life, would I no longer be petrified of flying?

    I realized at that moment I have a 100% chance of dying. Absolutely, unequivocally, I am eventually going to die. And it very much could come from this random pain in my leg, from cancer, or even from a plane crash (although statistically I have a much greater chance of the cancer than the crash).

    But I realized something I had never before, and that is I could die today. Now don’t get me wrong, I have had many days and thoughts of dying over the years. Through weird and not even logical ways of dying. But this moment was real, was higher than my lizard brain fears, was calm.

    And I had to decide, am I going to do the things I fear so I can see the things I dream of?

    I realized it’s okay that I am still afraid, it’s okay that I need medicine from my doctor, strong coping mechanisms, and research, but I have to go. If exploring is important to me the way I feel it is, then I am going to have to explore and accept that anxiety and fear might be traveling companions, but they do not have to be roadblocks. Not anymore.

    So, I am writing to you, people I don’t know, who may experience similar things, who may be terrified of flying too, to offer you this simple yet real realization.

    I am still very much afraid today, but I am going to book my next flight and leave room for my anxiety and fear to come along. Maybe one day they won’t accompany me on my trips, but I know I am going to ensure they do not stop me in the meantime.

  • Trust Your Intuition: If It Feels Like a No, It’s a No

    Trust Your Intuition: If It Feels Like a No, It’s a No

    “You will never follow your own inner voice until you clear up the doubts in your mind.” ~Roy T. Bennett

    One evening my husband and I decided that we, along with our daughter, would go together to a neighboring town about thirty minutes away the following morning. He had an errand to run, and I was going to take our daughter to a nearby playground.

    The morning arrived, and as I thought about it, I had a wave of feeling/thought that said, “I don’t really want to go,” or maybe it was more like, “I’d rather just stay around here because that would be more fun.” All I can say is that there was an inner nudge that told me not going would lead to a happier outcome.

    Instead of going with my gut, though, I asked my daughter if she wanted to go to the playground, and when she said yes, I let that change my mind. (She’s four! Of course she wants to go to the playground!)

    We piled into the car and headed to the highway. Before you get any ideas about this being a horror story about a car accident or other life-altering incident, let me assure you that nothing terrible happened. Just something that showed me I need to keep up my practice of listening to that inner voice we all have.

    We dropped my husband off and went to the playground. It was fine, I guess, but sort of frustrating: My daughter played for maybe five minutes before asking to go to the bathroom. After that, she said she was ready to leave the playground and have a snack in the car. It had been all of fifteen minutes.

    We got back in the car and drove to the spot where my husband was. After fifteen or twenty minutes of us waiting for him in the car, he came out, kind of a in a grumpy mood, and we debated who would drive back home.

    I have a story about not wanting to drive when my husband is in the car. I tell myself he makes me self-conscious and I’d rather just have him drive. I was already in the driver’s seat, though, and he didn’t seem to care either way, so I stayed where I was.

    As soon as I started backing out of the parking lot he told me to watch out. He was worried about me hitting someone. I got annoyed, but kept going.

    When we got to the road, I had to make a tricky left turn. It’s a spot where people are coming from all directions, and there happened to be a police officer waiting to pull out across the way from us.

    I was about to go, but a car came quickly around the bend. I felt like I was out too far and started to back up a little, then my husband said, “What are you doing!?” That did not go over well with me.

    I got a little hysterical, feeling trapped. I couldn’t make the turn, I couldn’t back up, and my husband refused to switch places with me because he thought the police officer across the way would be suspicious.

    I ended up yelling and freaking out, even dropping an f-bomb, which is so not the way I want to act, ever, but especially not in front of my kid.

    I finally made the turn, then got off the next exit and asked my husband to drive. Sitting in the passenger seat it hit me: My inner voice said I’d probably have more fun staying close to home, and I realized it was almost certainly right.

    The trip to the playground was a bust, my daughter and I had to spend a bunch of time in the car (half an hour both ways plus the time waiting for my husband) to do basically nothing, and my husband and I ended up having a bit of a blowout.

    I couldn’t have predicted how the day would go, but I knew in the morning I felt like taking it easy, and instead, I put myself in situations that had the potential to be stressful.

    It’s not that anything awful or life-altering happened; it was just a clear example of how going against what felt right, what felt like the most fun, ended up being not the best choice for me. And I was particularly annoyed because I’ve been dedicating time and attention lately to listening to my intuition.

    Overall, though, I have been getting better at tuning in and heeding the advice of my inner guidance. Here’s what I’ve done over the years to get better at it.

    I regularly check in with my body.

    My body is so much smarter than I am. She knows when she’s had enough to eat and she knows when a situation isn’t the right one for me. Experiences that don’t align with my innermost desires result in me having a tight feeling in my chest or a churning feeling in my stomach, and if things go on long enough, I’ve been known to manifest physical symptoms that send me to the doctor.

    I once ignored my intuition about taking a job. I only lasted there a year, and I was sick constantly. It’s rare for me to get sick at all, so this was just a confirmation of what I’d worried about from the beginning. The body knows, even when the mind isn’t willing to acknowledge it yet.

    I started looking at what made me feel light and happy.

    Like the body, emotions are an incredible guide for showing us where to turn next. If something makes you feel alive and excited, then go in that direction! If something makes you feel low-energy and sad, it’s time to change course.

    I look for the next right step instead of trying to figure out a thirty-year plan.

    Our minds want to have all of the answers right now, period. If you feel excited about a new and completely different career path but your mind can’t figure out how it can earn you a living, you may shut it down completely, ignoring your intuition and probably squelching your happiness.

    These days, I just try to figure out the next right step, the one for this moment, rather than trying to see how it will play out when I’m eighty. Sometimes the next right step is for me to go to sleep instead of thinking about it anymore!

    If I’m frazzled and worrying about a million things that are work or business related, I slow myself down and ask what has to be done right now. The answer is usually something simple, like answer this email or take a break for lunch and come back when I feel refreshed. If you take it moment by moment, it truly slows things down and simplifies them.

    I do the thing that makes me feel good whenever possible.

    It might seem counterintuitive, but it’s often much easier to get done what you need to when you follow the path of what feels best. For instance, one evening I needed to write a blog post, but I just wasn’t feeling it.

    Instead of forcing myself to do it, I made some art and watched some TV. After maybe an hour I felt jazzed up and good, and it was incredibly easy (and fast!) to write the blog post.

    I ask questions with the intention of getting an answer.

    Instead of walking around all day thinking “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do,” I now make a point of asking, either in writing or in my head, “What’s the best thing for me?” It takes practice, but you’ll get answers, even if they’re subtle.

    I can hear you wondering, “What am I supposed to do when I have to do something, but my intuition says it’s a no-go?”

    I’m the mom of a young kiddo, and even though I don’t always feel like getting up with her at the crack of dawn, or peeling the skin off her apple, or watching that episode of a cheesy cartoon with her one more time, I usually still do it.

    Time with her at this age (and in general) is fleeting, and to combat the feeling of obligation I remind myself that I chose this life. I also check in to see what I can do in any given moment to make sure I’m getting some feel-good time for myself. I think it’s important for her to see me enjoying my life and making choices that support my well-being.

    I know there are lots and lots of obligations we feel tied to, but I believe if your intuition is telling you over and over again that this is not right for you, you must start to listen and let it go.

    Perhaps you feel you can’t give up this obligation right this second, but how can you move away from it? How can you take on more of what feels joyful and right for you and less of what feels burdensome and heavy? Just do it a little at a time, if that’s what feels best.

    I’m really passionate about this subject, and it’s because I have seen how much my life has improved by going with my gut. I’ve also seen what happens when I don’t, even if it’s minor like the incident I described.

    When I see and hear other people struggling with decisions or doing something big (like getting married!) even when it doesn’t feel quite right, I want to reach out and hug them and tell them that going with their intuition will always pay off in the end, even if it doesn’t seem to make sense in the moment.

    You already know the answer; you just have to listen.

  • Freeing Your Truest Self When You’re Anxious to Please

    Freeing Your Truest Self When You’re Anxious to Please

    “Stress, depression, and anxiety are caused when we are living to please others.” ~Paulo Coehlo

    I came from a broken and very poor family. My father left the house during my teenage years, and it was just my mother, little brother, and I remaining.

    Like most single parents going through the hardships of singlehandedly caring for two children, my mother was often anxious about my well-being. And she overcompensated for her anxiety by being overbearing.

    I unfortunately inherited this anxiety.

    For the longest time, it was a daily battle for me.

    You know the feeling.

    Your muscles tense up, you feel an overwhelming sense of fear, and your heart begins to race.

    It’s the uncomfortable worries that surface as you play out worst-case scenarios in your head.

    Though we can feel anxiety about debt, work pressures, or any number of challenges, for me, it was mostly triggered by the fear of not being good enough and disappointing other people.

    My struggle with anxiety was one of the most crippling experiences, and as a result, I never grew.

    So, is it really possible to overcome anxiety?

    I realized the answer is yes, but first I needed to understand where my anxiety was coming from.

    Anxiety is Your Brain Trying to Protect You

    There’s a small, almond-sized part of your brain known as the amygdala whose main job is to look out for your survival. For example, if a mountain lion were chasing you, your amygdala would trigger fear so that it would activate your body to run for your life or grab a weapon to fight.

    Your amygdala doesn’t only watch out for your physical survival. You feel the same kind of fear when you are nervous about giving a public speech or going on a first date.

    When you experience anxiety in these situations, it’s your brain’s way of trying to help you survive emotionally.

    Unfortunately, your amygdala is not the greatest at accurately gauging how dangerous a situation might be. It often blows things way out of proportion.

    I remember what it felt like when I was a kid and wouldn’t see my mother the whole day because she was always working late. I’d wait for her to talk about something I was excited about only to have her turn the conversation toward things about myself that I should be improving.

    Even though this was her way of trying to make sure I survive in the world, because we were barely getting by, the constant requests to do things better made me feel like I wasn’t good enough.

    It felt like no matter what I did, I could never fully please her. If I accomplished something she requested of me, I’d get a quick “thank you,” then she’d move on to talk about what else I should do.

    I found it most hurtful when she would talk about how great someone else was. She’d update me about some amazing thing that one of her client’s children had accomplished and suggest that I should try to follow in that person’s footsteps.

    All that did was make me think that something was wrong with me.

    I ended up with low self-esteem, and because I thought I was worthless, nothing was scarier than the thought of making mistakes and failing, because that would confirm that I was not good enough.

    This was why I never took too many risks and searched only for options that seemed to have a guarantee for success.

    My anxiety made me develop a behavior of perfectionism, and it was ruining my life. The more I let it make my decisions for me, or lack of decisions for that matter, the further I felt from who I wanted to become.

    Ironically, becoming a perfectionist was my brain’s solution to helping me feel good enough.

    “Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgement, and shame. It’s a shield.” ~Brené Brown

    This toxic behavior put me in an endless cycle of working hard to achieve all sorts of cool things so that one day, I might feel good about myself. In reality, every accomplishment felt anti-climactic. I was always dissatisfied and constantly looking for the next big accomplishment to chase.

    No matter how much I succeeded, it was never enough for me, just like I never felt like I was enough for other people.

    It wasn’t until I met someone who could see the real me that I finally figured out how to overcome my anxiety.

    The Power of a Safe Space

    When I was a teenager, a man named Anthony saved my life. If it weren’t for him, I would’ve gone down a much more self-destructive path.

    He never questioned the mistakes I’d made unless I wanted to talk about them. And when I didn’t want to talk about them, he’d openly share his own horrible mistakes.

    I never once felt judged by him, nor did I feel like he had a set of expectations for me.

    Anthony helped me feel safe.

    I realized for the first time that for most of my life, I didn’t feel safe to be who I was.

    I was almost always in survival mode, shielding myself emotionally. All my behavior was in reaction to the anxiety of not feeling good enough for other people.

    Being in a safe space finally helped me put my guard down and look at myself objectively. It was in these moments that I became deeply aware that being a perfectionist wasn’t the answer to my anxiety, and that I was heading down a path toward depression.

    I didn’t come to this realization sooner because the pre-frontal cortex, the thinking part of the brain, is turned off when the brain’s in survival mode. This pre-frontal cortex is what’s capable of rational behavior, critical thinking, and emotional regulation.

    The only way to calm down the survival mode of your brain is to place yourself in environments where you feel safe.

    The thinking part of your brain will help you understand where your anxiety comes from and figure out an effective way to handle it.

    It was in this safe space that I finally realized that I had the power and responsibility to stay true to myself.

    How I Overcame My Anxiety

    Deep down, I hated myself for constantly giving in to other people’s expectations of me and for letting their standards determine my self-worth.

    But the reality is that I let this happen.

    And here’s the even harsher truth.

    I let it happen because it’s much easier to live a life that someone else wants you to live.

    The scariest part is that once you take ownership of the one life you have, you have no one to blame if things go wrong. At least following someone else’s path gave me the right to blame him or her.

    My brain would rather me let others’ standards dictate my life and sacrifice my mental health than do anything that might make me experience the emotional pain of looking like a failure and falling short of someone’s standards.

    Now that I knew all my anxiety was coming from my brain being in survival mode, I needed to figure out a way to regularly calm it down.

    This was when I discovered meditation. 

    I learned that brain scans in studies have revealed that meditation calms the amygdala and activates the thinking part of your brain.

    I started using the free version of an app called Headspace, and I learned how effective it can be to simply be present and enter a state of awareness.

    For most of my life, I’d been tossed left and right by my circumstances and was a slave to my emotional reactions. Meditation helped me become more aware of why I was behaving the way I did, especially in these reactive moments.

    I finally saw that almost all my anxiety led to irrational thoughts and behaviors.

    For example, I remember when I decided to start my business, it was hard to build my audience. Nobody was reading any of my articles, and I wasn’t getting any traffic on my website.

    I’ve given up on other ventures plenty of times before, and I was ready to give up on this one too. I took it personally and started telling myself the familiar narrative that I didn’t have what it takes. I just wasn’t good enough. Then I recognized that I was reacting to my anxiety as I’d always done, and I could choose a different way.

    I was able to be aware and think to myself, “I’m feeling anxious right now because this moment feels similar to a couple of painful experiences I had in the past.”

    The moment I became aware of this I gave myself the power to make a choice rather than to habitually react.

    So I told myself, “The old you would put yourself down and give up, but the new you can try to assess the situation objectively and see what is really setting you back.”

    After doing this, I was finally able to grasp that I didn’t have business challenges because of my character, but most likely because of the strategies and tactics I was using to market myself. Once I used different strategies, I got different results.

    Your Best Life Starting Now

    In order to live our best life, we have to calm our anxiety about disappointing other people and not being good enough and find the courage to be true to ourselves.

    It is one of the hardest decisions you will ever make, but it will also be one of the best.

    The first step to changing my life for the better was having awareness. The next key step was focus.

    What you focus on is usually what you will gravitate toward.

    The key to living your best life is not to run away from who you were, but to run toward who you want to become.

    As I meditated, my anxiety calmed down and I started to have such a clear idea of the person I wanted to be.

    I no longer wanted to be the anxious person who thought he was worthless. I wanted to become a great husband, father, and leader. Rather than worrying about not being able to meet these expectations, I started to engage the thinking part of my brain to figure out what needed to be done.

    I didn’t have all the answers, but I knew I could only make this life I wanted a reality if I started making changes and learned as I went.

    I wanted to learn what it took to become a better husband, so I started going to marriage counseling.

    I wanted to become a better parent, so I researched how children are wired and how to best communicate with them.

    I wanted to be a better leader, so I invested in credible leadership and coaching courses.

    And I did these things not because I wanted to prove something to myself, but more because it mattered to me deeply and I knew it was a part of who I truly was.

    I’ve spent too much time running away from opportunities for growth because I was afraid I might not be good enough. The problem, though, was that I was running away without knowing where I wanted to go. I ended up in destinations where I felt more lost than ever, and my anxiety kept catching up to me in the end.

    Now, whenever I experience anxiety, I tell myself, “This is anxiety.” I thank my brain for looking out for me and then I ask myself, “What do I need to focus on in this moment, and how can I get it?”

    Then, surprisingly, the anxiety calms down and the thinking part of my brain activates to try and figure out the best way to go about things.

    This is what changed everything for me.

    And I know it can for you too.

    While people might have expectations for you, the world desperately needs the power that comes from you living your most authentic life.

    If you are battling anxiety about not being good enough or pleasing other people, take a moment to slow down and acknowledge what you are experiencing. Then, identify what you need to feel safe so you can turn on the thinking part of your brain and start uncovering the answers you most need. That might mean meditating, talking to a close friend, or even just getting out in nature for a walk.

    It’s time to take a deep breath, be compassionate with yourself, and decide who it is you want to be.

    Stay aware and focused and you’ll be there sooner than you think.

  • Our Shame Does Not Have to Silence Us Unless We Let It

    Our Shame Does Not Have to Silence Us Unless We Let It

    “Empathy’s the antidote to shame. The two most powerful words when we’re in struggle: me too.” ~ Brené Brown

    There is so much power in giving yourself a voice, in choosing to use that voice for truth, in giving life to the secrets, judgment, and shame you keep hidden away. “Me too” can change someone’s life.

    I learned this firsthand almost a decade ago. It changed my life, and it’s changed countless others around me.

    I gave my shame a voice, and she was loud, strong, and bold. She brought light to a secret others would have preferred I kept. She brought comfort in my struggle. She brought wisdom in my pain. She began what would be a lifetime of courage, speaking up, and going first. She started it all.

    My Secret Shame

    Let’s go back to what started this story of shame to begin with. Rewind nine years. I was sixteen at the time, and there I was, standing in only lingerie and a pair of incredibly high and uncomfortable heels, applying makeup to make me look older…braces and all.

    Nine years ago I was a prostitute. I was legally allowed to have sex, yet I was illegally standing in a high-end brothel hours from home, trying my best to pretend I knew what I was doing—read as: I had NO idea.

    Why on earth was I there, you may ask? I made a choice. A misguided choice, but still a choice. A choice my mother supported because we’d both gotten caught up in the glamorized story her friend, also an escort, had created and manipulated us into seeing.

    “I just see men as money,” she told me, which sounded appealing given that we had little at the time. I was stronger than my mum, and we both knew it. So I chose; it would be me.

    At an age where I was supposed to be exploring what being in my body felt like for me, I was being passed around like an object so others could explore my body.

    Night after night I would go numb. I would silence the inner voice screaming to leave with Valium, alcohol (because I was nineteen, according to my forged birth certificate), and sleep deprivation. I was in all-out survival mode, and I was experiencing guilt, shame, and invasion again and again. The longer I stayed silent, the stronger it all became.

    I was a good little girl and kept my mouth shut, doing what I thought I had to do to survive. Be quiet. Say nothing. Just oblige. Don’t rock the boat.

    So I didn’t.

    I stayed a few weeks and spent many hours, sleepless days, and countless showers trying to wash away the shame I was carrying. Until I couldn’t keep it quiet anymore. I couldn’t not speak. I couldn’t not vocalize how I felt. I couldn’t not say no anymore.

    So I said no and began taking my life back.

    Many people will blame my mum. Some always will. Many can’t understand how I let the blame go. But I spent many years condemning her, and the world of victimhood sucked me in deep. In order to heal and move on, I needed to accept the decision we had both made. And I needed to accept that, like all humans, she did the best she could with what she had at the time.

    Please know there was anger there, and at times there still is. Sometimes I feel hurt, let down, and all the rest. But I choose to rise above it, and I choose a new future for myself by letting go of the need to be a victim in any of this. Because I never was, and never will be.

    Owning my past and releasing my shame is the most empowering decision I’ve ever made for myself. It all started with empathy. I had to stop believing that I was ultimately flawed because I had been a prostitute. I had to recognize that I too was doing the best I could at the time.

    I could not be living the life I am now, in the relationship I’m in with myself right now, without seeing the sixteen-year-old me with utter love and compassion, dissipating all judgment.

    I need you to know that speaking up about my shame was scary. I was outing a secret that impacted many more than just me. Yet I never hesitated in doing it. Why? Because I had a deep desire to let others know that they are never alone, and I knew there was a deeper meaning to all of this. There had to be; it’s what got me through.

    I couldn’t let my shame silence me. I never will again.

    The Gift of Voicing My Shame

    It was through experiencing shame and sharing it that I learned the power and freedom voicing our shame brings. And the understanding of what binds so many of us. How many people are walking through life silenced by shame? Unable to find their voice for fear of judgment? As a result, what kind of life are they living? In stuffing down their pain, they end up blocking themselves from joy.

    How fortunate was I to be able to experience shame and then release it? Yes, fortunate.

    I now appreciate that I was able to learn something early in life, at an age many others wouldn’t, that freed me from the chains that bound so tightly and weighed me down so deeply.

    Sharing my shame created a beautiful opportunity for me to look at my life so far through a totally new lens. I came to appreciate that my most painful experiences had gifted me the insight and heightened awareness I now have.

    What unfolded from me speaking was a declaration to myself, and to the world, that we do not need to stay silent with our shame. I publicly shared my experiences, as well as the self-harm and self-destruction that followed, and a sea of “me too’s” flooded in.

    People reached out thanking me for letting them know they aren’t alone.

    People reached out acknowledging me for being inspiring and giving them the courage to do the same.

    One woman even contacted me, saying she left the sex trade after my story went public, because… “me too.”

    All of this came from the courage to speak up.

    Lives were changed, and mine was never the same.

    Our shame does not have to silence us. Unless we let it.

    To anyone experiencing their own secret shame, this is what I want you to know.

    Whether you’ve experienced something traumatic or feel shame about not having it all together, speak up. Shame cannot exist if you have empathy, a voice, and acceptance.

    We all experience shame, for different reasons, at different times. It’s okay.

    There is no shame in being you. Please reread that again and again. You are not your worst decisions. No matter what you’ve done, you deserve love, empathy, and understanding. And you are never alone.

  • When You Keep Giving Up on New Habits That Are Good for You

    When You Keep Giving Up on New Habits That Are Good for You

    “If you have a bad day, remember that tomorrow is a wonderful gift and a new chance to try again.” ~Bryant McGill

    As I crawled back into bed after hitting the snooze button, my eyes heavy with sleep, I told myself, “You gave up once more” and rolled over back to sleep, annoyed with myself.

    Two months earlier, inspired by the book The Miracle Morning, by Hal Erold, I had taken the habit of getting up early (around 5am) every day to meditate for fifteen minutes, write for thirty minutes, and exercise for thirty minutes.

    When I started the new habit, it felt amazing. I was so proud of myself—I was doing it! On top of the satisfaction of achieving goals that I had set for myself, I really felt the benefit of being productive before everyone wakes up. It had a positive knock on effect on the rest of my life; I was upbeat, motivated, and I was going to work with a spring in my step.

    Then, about two months in, normal life happened: I had been to bed later the previous nights—drinks with colleagues, watching a movie—and tiredness, coupled with maybe the weariness of the new habits, quickly took over. That morning, I did not jump out of bed and I was longing to roll over instead of starting my “miracle morning.”

    If you are a human being like me, I am sure you are very familiar with taking up new habits, only to give them up two or three weeks or months later. The most notorious one is New Year’s resolutions. Who hasn’t promised themselves they’d go to the gym three times a week, they’d stop eating junk food, or they’d stop drinking alcohol altogether?

    We take up new habits, only to let them die away after few weeks.

    Have you noticed how different the feeling is between when you start and when you give up?

    When we start on January 1st, we cannot imagine there will be one more day in our life when we will not jump out of bed to go to the gym. We wonder, “How could I ever not have the motivation? It’s so exciting! And how did I not do it before?”

    Yet somehow, it happens and procrastination becomes the new habit. With procrastination comes guilt, and low self-esteem starts creeping in.

    There’s indeed a very negative effect on your life if there’s constantly a little voice in your head reminding you that you have failed this or that. My aim here is to help you feel good about yourself, even with the fallibility of being human and not being able to sustain new habits.

    You don’t have to beat yourself up for giving up new healthy habits. You’re not the only one out there; we’re all doing it (or not doing it).

    I used to be very annoyed with myself when I stopped a new routine, as it gave the feeling that my goal had not been achieved. However, unless you are in a life-threatening situation and seriously need to change your lifestyle, I think that we need to take a different perspective on things.

    Yes it could be better, but you cannot deny that you have, for whatever small amount of time it happened, spent your life doing something else that was better for yourself.

    Have you given up smoking, only to start again three months later? Think of it this way: for three months, your body was healthier and you’ve probably earned back few minutes of your life. Would it not be better stopping smoking for three months every year rather than not at all? If I told you now that your target is to stop smoking for three months, every year, would that not make it easier to handle?

    There are few ways that we can make these new habits easier to handle. I think we should focus more on the fact that even if we haven’t sustained it, we’ve done something good for ourselves. Here are three main elements you should consider:

    1. Set a limit in time for your new habit.

    If you suspect you will sooner or later give up on it anyway, why not set the end date when you start? This may sound simple, but the big difference is that you are in control of when you stop. This will also make it easier to digest, and you might be more likely to sustain the habit longer than if you hadn’t set yourself an end date.

    I’ve tried the experiment myself. On June 7th, I started a new healthy habit: wake up early, meditate, write, read news. I was of course excited about this new habit, but I thought I’d end up giving up anyway, as I had with all other healthy habits outside of my comfort zone.

    Then I had this idea: What if I tell myself that it’s labeled “summer healthy habits” and that I only have to sustain it until August 7th? Would that not make it easier? You can reduce it to one week if you tend to give up after few days.

    2. Reflect on what you have learned or gained, even if the habit has stopped.

    Stopping doesn’t mean you haven’t done anything productive. For three months, you did something different, and surely your brain or body benefited from it.

    You should also not only consider the direct effects of this new habit, but the fact that you have learned something different and probably raised your self-awareness. Let’s say you decided to stop drinking alcohol altogether. Even if the new habit only lasts a month, you will have learned something about yourself.

    I recently decided to test not drinking any alcohol at all on Friday nights with the colleagues at the pub. Surprisingly, I was as upbeat and enthusiastic as the night wore on, same as when I was drinking on a typical Friday night.

    This was a revelation to me! When I thought that my enthusiasm was related to my alcohol intake, it actually wasn’t; I was “drunk with social interaction.” This is exactly my point: I only did this two Fridays in a row, but I learned something about myself that I can take away for the future.

    3. Step back and reconsider.

    Working at intervals is a healthy process in a lot of disciplines. As a runner, it’s scientifically proven that I’ll be better off alternating fast and slow intervals during a run, and alternating workouts and rest over the course of a training plan, rather than always running at the same pace or running without ever recovering.

    It’s the same for the learning process: When you study for your final exam, it’s well known that taking breaks or moving on to another activity for a while is beneficial for the brain.

    We could even take a broader perspective: Living a healthy life is all about balance. Why not alternate the healthy new habits? Some examples: Stop eating bread for one month, then go back to your usual levels of consumption. Go without alcohol on Friday nights for one month, then stop. Life is also about experimenting different things.

    —

    As I am writing this article today, I’m at the start of a new habit streak. I’ve decided that I will take thirty minutes every day before breakfast to write on my blog. Disruptions in my routine (for example, holidays) are often the breaking point of my new habits, so I’ve decided that I will only keep this new habit for a couple months, until my next planned trip.

    Thinking about stopping this habit that I enjoy so much (mind you, it’s day two!) makes me sad, but after all if I want to keep it going, I can. But at least if I do stop on my planned end date, I won’t feel guilty and unaccomplished, because that was part of the plan. I will feel that I have achieved my goal, even if the habit only lasted a month. Then hopefully I can be excited to take it up again when I come back home.

    It’s great that you are trying to change your life for the better, but it should not have the consequence of making you feel bad about yourself for not sustaining it. If it does, it will create stress and be counterproductive.

    Take small steps toward a healthier lifestyle, enjoy the process, and take time to reflect on what you have learned about yourself. That’s the best way for your body and your mind to benefit from the change.

  • Why Social Media and My Addictive Personality Don’t Mesh

    Why Social Media and My Addictive Personality Don’t Mesh

    Twitter didn’t give me the flu or bronchitis, but it made me sick. Unhealthy. Ill-feeling. And it could have been any social media platform that did it, I just happened to have chosen Twitter.

    For years I avoided creating any sort of social media account. I complained to companies the old-fashioned way: calling or emailing customer service. I didn’t need to know what people I wasn’t in touch with in real life were doing.

    As someone who was married and not dating, there simply wasn’t the requirement to be on any kind of social media. With two kids, I spent my (little) free time watching TV or texting with a few friends. I would proudly state, “I don’t even have Facebook” when people discussed it.

    Then in January 2018, I decided to open a Twitter account, mostly to rant about things, as I had done a few years prior on a blog. Not big-issue political rants or anything, more “Why isn’t the first car on an advanced green turning?? YOU HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY, MAN” type stuff.

    I had conveniently blocked from memory the reason I had stopped blogging about all my anger-inducing experiences: I had felt like it was poisoning me. To always be posting something negative, it builds over time. As much as I liked expressing my anger, I didn’t like the feeling it created.

    Fast forward to the beginning of 2018 and I have a Twitter account. All fine and dandy for a bit: I build a little network of like-minded parent Twitter accounts, we follow the same accounts, and it’s fun to see people living the same type of kid-related dramz as I was.

    Then I realize that with Twitter, I have access to breaking news way faster than say, my husband (a complete non-social media user). So that’s fun. Then I realize I have easy access to celebrities—wow! Now I can communicate directly with them! And businesses! To celebrate or chastise them! Fun! Then I’m excited when I gain followers. Cool! But some are random accounts who I don’t ever see post anything, or weird corporations. Okay… still fun?

    Then I interact a few times with some celebrities. That goes to my head quickly—now I assume every tweet I send will result in some retweet or like by them. But no, it doesn’t. “Well, that’s crappy,” I think on more than one occasion, when I obsessively check my account to see if they liked what I wrote.

    I see parenting-related tweets by other users who gain hundreds or thousands of likes for some inane comment, and I think “But that’s not even funny or very observant.” I develop a never-ending circle of thought in my head, consumed by potential tweets.

    I start to feel what many people before me have felt: the highs and lows of social media. When it’s good, it’s good—your self-esteem is high, you’re feeling well liked, and well received. And when it’s low, it sucks.

    “Why didn’t anyone agree with what I said?” I would question. “How come my tweets don’t garner that much attention?” It started to become too much. I was turning into someone I had never thought I would be: feeling validated by the number of likes I got.

    Soon, it became obsessive. I was checking when I woke up (my phone having never been beside me at night), considering checking in the middle of the night when I woke up, checking while driving (something I had shamed people for doing previously), being logged in all day while at work. It was all day every day. I had become consumed.

    And it wasn’t lucrative; I had 200-ish followers and maybe 20 I actually interacted with. It had quickly turned from something “neat” into something destructive. Everything I was living I was thinking could be a potential tweet. Which meant in turn, while I was physically there, I wasn’t really present in my actual life.

    Along with parenting woes, I used Twitter to talk about my sobriety. I found it to be an awesome support network for the ups and downs and also to help others.

    Over the past year of sobriety, I, like many others in the same situation, have connected much more with myself, learning who I am more in the past year than ever in my whole life. I recognize when I am feeling sad, toxic, anger, jealous. I feel everything now. And so when I started to feel weird with Twitter, I didn’t ignore it. I looked at what was happening.

    And I realized it: as I now know, I have an addictive personality. I had become addicted and consumed by Twitter. It was now controlling my day. From wake up, to work, to driving, to watching TV, I was one tap away from seeing “what’s happening.” With strangers. And not actually paying attention to what I was living.

    Instead of living what was happening, I was typing it, sharing it, obsessing over who saw it and interacted with me. Instead of alcohol, I was now consumed by Twitter.

    So last week, I promised myself I would stop tweeting, stop checking it, and back away. Unfortunately you can’t hide your account. Either you have it and you just don’t use it, or you deactivate.

    This weekend I looked at it here and there to see if I had any likes or DMs. To get a sense of what I was missing. I had a few likes from some tweets posted last week, oddly enough a number of new followers (even after doing nothing for days, which is so bizarre)—nothing earth shattering. I didn’t scroll through at all, and I didn’t engage with anyone.

    And I realized: Nothing in my life actually changes if I am “connected.” In fact, I realized that being “connected” actually made me feel more isolated than ever. I was relying on something very independent to feel part of something. When in reality, it was very secluded.

    I found it serves as a distraction and delivers information that just makes me angry or depressed. And there’s already enough of that in life. I am quite happy to go back to using reality TV to unwind and let my sister being my sounding board for my road rage.

    I will give it another day or so and I will deactivate it completely. And luckily, goodbyes are not necessary. A nice clean break. I will miss some elements of it, but I know myself enough to know I cannot keep it. Like trying to moderate alcohol, it’s too much of a slippery slope.

  • How Failure Holds the Key to a Meaningful, Successful Life

    How Failure Holds the Key to a Meaningful, Successful Life

    “Perfectionism doesn’t believe in practice shots.” ~Julia Cameron

    Within each of us lurks a perfectionist. And perfectionists set themselves up for a lot of pain in life.

    How so? I’ll come to that.

    First let me describe how our first child took her first step. She was less than ten months old. A very bright girl, who wanted nothing less than my approval at all times.

    On one occasion, a few months previous to that, she was crawling on the carpet and picked up some small thing. As she started to put it in her mouth, I called out loudly “No!”

    That was the first time she experienced any negative or critical words from me. Otherwise, I had been steadily adoring. What was her response?

    She fell flat on the floor and remained perfectly still. It was as if she had been laid flat by a sledgehammer blow.

    That’s how much she had come to rely on my approval.

    So, what happened when one day she could finally stand up? I decided, as a very proud parent, to teach her how to walk right away.

    Now, walking is easy for someone who’s already confident with standing up. It’s more challenging for someone who’s just learned how to stay on their feet unsupported. I was too young and foolish and overeager to think through all that.

    In my excitement, I stood by her and urged, “You can walk. Just do this. Look at me. Just lift a foot like this and put it forward.”

    In retrospect, I was too hasty and cruel. I’ve grown to recognize that everything happens in its own good time.

    Anyhow, I was young and foolish then. So, allow me to tell you the rest of the story.

    Our baby looked very doubtful. I demonstrated a step once again. She remained hesitant.

    After some more cajoling from me, she decided to do something.

    She took the oddest first step you can imagine.

    Did she lift one foot as I kept urging? No.

    She simply hopped forward, keeping both feet on the ground. Like a baby kangaroo. That was only minutes after she had first stood up without support.

    Of course, not long after that she was walking very confidently, and then running, and has gone on to do amazing things with her life.

    Imagine if we were all so afraid of failure that we always kept both feet on the ground for safety. How much would that interfere with a full and meaningful life? How would that affect our ability to do whatever we considered to be good and important?

    We can see this quite clearly in babies. In order to be able to lift their head, they need to accept that they’ll sometimes flop.

    In order to learn how to crawl, they need to accept that they’ll sometimes fall flat on their face.

    In order to learn how to stand, they need to accept that they’ll sometimes fall in a heap.

    In order to learn how to walk, they need to accept that they’ll sometimes tumble.

    In order to learn how to cycle, they need to accept that they’ll sometimes fall off and get bruised.

    In order to learn how to swim, they need to accept that they’ll sometimes need rescuing.

    In order to learn how to read and write, they need to accept that they’ll get many things hilariously wrong.

    In order to learn to love wholeheartedly, they need to accept that some people will betray their trust.

    Whenever they want to do something that’s good and important in their lives, they need to accept the possibility of failure.

    It’s easy to acknowledge such facts, but it’s more difficult to live by them.

    Why is it that we often struggle with failure? Why do we so often consider it as a full stop rather than a necessary comma in our life story? Why does it seem more like a trap than a springboard?

    It may have something to do with our need for approval.

    Our daughter didn’t want to hear the word “No!” from her beloved parent. It crushed her the first time she encountered it from me.

    Only after I picked her up and comforted her did she loosen up and smile again. She was learning that she could get things wrong and still remain completely lovable to me.

    People can be good to us. They can build us up. They can teach us that it’s okay to fall and fail, because we’ll still be completely lovable.

    However, we’re all human beings. We don’t always do what we set out to do. We don’t stick to doing what we know to be good and important.

    As a result, we often wound others and are too often wounded by them.

    That tends to suck us into the rat race. Not content with being intrinsically and unshakably lovable, we tend to look for reassurance. And too often we seek it by trying to be one up on others.

    We sometimes pounce on the mistakes or flaws of others because it allows us to feel superior despite our own mistakes or shortcomings. We sometimes become overly reliant on praise because we’re terrified that criticism confirms how worthless we are under the surface. 

    All this tends to make life a bit like walking on thin ice. Even when it looks as if we’re winning, we’re on edge because we fear that the ice might give way at any moment. I know, because I’ve struggled with these things myself.

    Imagine a different way of living. A calm and courageous way of reaching for whatever we consider to be good and important in our lives, with full acceptance of whatever failures come our way.

    Paradoxically, the perfectionist is more likely to fail because they’re too afraid to bring out the best in themselves. They’re so hungry for approval, and so afraid of failure, that they often don’t do what they know to be good and important.

    They keep the safety wheels on their bicycles even though it slows them down. That’s because they’re convinced that failure will confirm their worthlessness.

    Imagine a different way. Imagine having a deep, unshakable anchor within yourself. An anchor of self-acceptance. No storms in life can then blow you out of the safe harbor of being intrinsically lovable.

    The baby who’s uncertain of being lovable might be too afraid to attempt anything worthwhile. It’s the same with us adults.

    Our perfectionism goes hand in hand with fear of failure. It’s like a prison. However, we have the key, or we can find it.

    This may be the most important lesson life has taught me, and I’m going to share it.

    You can get the key to calm, courageous living by letting others know that they are unshakably lovable despite their failures and mistakes and flaws.

    When you give this gift to others, you begin to believe it yourself. Not as a sterile principle. But as a reality that you feel deep in your being.

    Once you have this key, perfectionism loses its stranglehold over you. You recognize that you are intrinsically worthy and lovable, just like every other human being.

    Life becomes really good and inviting, failure can no longer terrorize, and you get more good and important things done.

    Once you’re prepared to fall flat on your face, life starts to sparkle.

  • Why “Focus on the Bright Side” Isn’t Helpful Advice

    Why “Focus on the Bright Side” Isn’t Helpful Advice

    There are so many memes and quotes out there that say, “Be positive, not negative. Focus on the bright side.” I’ve never been very good at ignoring the negatives and focusing on the positives.

    Call me a critical, over-analytical over-thinker if you want, but at no point in my journey of self-love and self-discovery have I learned to ignore all my flaws, all my mistakes, all my regrets. At no point in my journey of compassion have I learned to ignore all the times that someone has hurt me or all the destruction caused by abuse. That never felt right to me. And you know something? It hasn’t actually been necessary.

    Rewind to six years ago when I was staring at my makeupless face in the mirror. My thoughts said, “Ugly. Horrible. Pale. Look at those blemishes. Look at those hairs. Disgusting. Revolting. Put a bag over your head and hide.” But I kept looking.

    I couldn’t unsee those blemishes. There they were. I couldn’t unsee those hairs. There they were too. Plain as day. I also couldn’t stop myself from thinking that these were disgusting and revolting. Those thoughts were certainly there too! And no amount of positive self-talk was going to make them go away.

    What happened next was fascinating. In addition to observing those hairs, those blemishes, and those thoughts, I saw something else. I saw my face as pure visual information—the way I’d perceive the colors and shapes in an abstract painting. I was giving my face meaning, and I was seeing it as something meaningless.

    Those moments revolutionized my relationship with myself. I didn’t erase my negative self-image. I just added a new perspective. That new perspective balanced my view of myself.

    I think balance is a key word. What bothers me about the whole “be positive, ignore the negatives” idea is that I was abused by some very mentally unstable people in my childhood who did that very thing. They refused to see how they hurt others. They focused only on their good intentions.

    A certain amount of self-criticism, self-judgment, and self-doubt is absolutely essential. It’s what makes us apologize for hurting someone. It’s what makes us improve the areas of our lives that are lacking. It’s what makes us question idealistic, romanticized notions of the world and see things clearly. The so-called “dark side” is essential. It isn’t bad at all.

    A few years ago, my partner and I were in an argument. He was very angry, and the way he was expressing his anger to me was extremely triggering. I felt victimized, oppressed, disgusted. I thought, “I would never do this to you.”

    But then, something happened. Beneath his unhelpful delivery, I saw something. I saw him trying to communicate something about my behavior toward him. Something that hurt me to see. A huge blow to my ego. And he was trying to tell me about it. He was trying to say, “I don’t do this to you.”

    Sure, he wasn’t communicating about it well. But he was communicating something important. We ended the conversation temporarily and went to our separate corners.

    Alone, shame and self-hatred suddenly returned to me, like old friends who don’t bother to knock. My thoughts said, you’re a horrible human being. Look what you’ve done to your boyfriend. Look at how patient he’s been all this time with your intolerable actions, and look at how you treated him for trying to tell you about it.

    Extreme. It was all so extreme. And I couldn’t delete the extremism! I couldn’t remove my self-judgment, and I couldn’t remove my resentment for his angry words. All I could do was find balance.

    I told myself that just because I had made mistakes doesn’t mean I’m a horrible person. I told myself that I could acknowledge that I had room to grow and also respect myself as a human being. I could do both.

    As for him, I could admit that he had something valuable to say and that his communication needed some work. I could see our argument as something that contained pain alongside valuable feedback. It wasn’t good or bad. It was both. It was neither. It just was.

    These moments pop up for me all the time. Last month, when I was travelling, I had something stolen. I felt betrayed, angry, lost. I didn’t try to stop all those feelings, but I also didn’t stop with feeling them. I continued to explore my experience until I found new perspectives on the situation. So being robbed turned into an amazing learning experience! Not because I ignored the pain but because I balanced that pain with lessons.

    Life is paradoxical. Where there’s joy, there’s sadness. Where there is control, there is surrender. Where there is speech, there is silence. Where there’s destruction, there is growth. We do not need to ignore the so-called dark side. It’s an essential part of the way things are. We only need to add an awareness of the other side: what we call the “light.”

    I think this is especially important in these times of political and social unrest. When we try to replace darkness with light, red with blue, wrong with right, we create war. Because what we call dark and wrong exists for a reason. Sometimes, it exists because it is meant to serve us in some way. Sometimes, it exists because it’s a symptom of some bigger issue.

    No matter how much we try to triumph over and defeat our enemies (including our inner enemies), if we do not understand where they come from, they will keep returning in different forms. We need to wage peace, not war, and peace comes from understanding.

    My perfectionism, which destroyed me for many years, was not a malignant tumor to cut out of my experience. It is a helpful pattern. Sure, it doesn’t help when I’m looking at my face or my mistakes. But as I’ve learned to embrace the art of continuously perfecting something (without ever expecting it to be perfect), I’ve become a better writer and a better editor.

    My self-judgment, which almost brought me to an early death, was not a disease. It was overgrown, but it wasn’t unnecessary. My ability to look critically at things helps me expand my perspectives, open my mind, and understand people better. My ability to look critically at myself helps me work on myself, admit my mistakes, and constantly improve.

    My bouts of intense, debilitating self-loathing weren’t useless either. They always had a message. Sometimes, I hadn’t taken a break in months. Sometimes, I was ignoring my own needs while codependently following the desires of the people around me. Sometimes, I had allowed my anxiety to spiral endlessly for weeks and weeks, and my mind had just become tired. I realize now that, in my suicidal moments, I didn’t really want to die. I just wanted to rest. I wanted a break from it all.

    I’ve learned that there is no good or bad. There is only what is most helpful and useful at the time. The answers, as they say, are all within you. They are. And this also means that, in any given situation, some of your inner answers will be more appropriate than others. Everything has its time and place. Everything is a valuable part of your experience.

    This doesn’t mean we should condone rape, murder, or violence. But this attitude can help us understand these tragic occurrences more than judgment can. Why do some people feel like the right answer is to hurt someone else? I think this line of questioning will bring us to a more helpful place than calling those people heartless monsters. It can actually help us work toward solving those social issues.

    And learning to look at ourselves and, instead of asking, “How can I get rid of this horrible part of me? How can I stop doing this unhelpful thing?” We can instead ask, “What could this mean? Which needs might I be meeting with my actions, and how could I meet those needs in a way that serves me more?” We can focus on holistically understanding why something has happened and allowing ourselves to explore different, new solutions to the puzzles of our existence.

    I suppose what I’ve learned over the past six years has been more than self-love. I’ve learned balance. I’ve learned that real happiness is being unafraid of my emotions. I can be sad, angry, happy. I can feel it all, whenever it comes, and know that I won’t get stuck on it. I will let myself experience all the available emotions, and then I will come to peace.

    Instead of trying to focus on the bright side, my task is to let myself see all the sides, remove my judgment about what they mean, and try to appreciate the complexity of my experiences.

    That is the power we have as human beings. We can let ourselves be curious instead of always fearful. We can choose to work on understanding who we are instead of always trying to be who we think we should be. We can let ourselves see what is there and not only what we are used to seeing. We can choose to understand better. We can choose to be aware.

  • Why No One Else Can Make Me Feel Insignificant

    Why No One Else Can Make Me Feel Insignificant

    “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

    Significance.

    A phenomenon most of us only notice once we lose it.

    If you’re like me, you’ve had (and could still have) a love/hate relationship with significance. Simply because it often seemed so elusive. Just out of reach.

    Our journey together started as far back as I can remember.

    As the youngest of three siblings, I often felt unheard. Overlooked. Ignored. Insignificant.

    I thought it was normal. Didn’t all little sisters bear the same cross? Apparently not…

    As a young adult, I looked to my friends to fill my “significance” gap. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t. Teenage years are notoriously dramatic, and mine were no exception.

    Those were roller-coaster years, as I constantly yearned for a sense of significance. Always relying on others to fill my proverbial cup.

    Moving into adulthood proper, I simply handed the responsibility over to my various romantic partners. Looking back, those poor guys had no clue as to the immensity of the challenge they were taking on.

    Back then, my particular belief system firmly stated that any partner of mine was responsible for how I felt. End of story!

    It was his duty to pander to my emotional needs.

    It was his duty to make me feel good!

    I know, I roll my eyes in disbelief too.

    But what exactly is this significance we all desire?

    This sense of significance that we so readily measure our worth by?

    Think about it. How would you describe your sense of significance?

    Is it something you measure by another person’s judgment of you (e.g.: I’m popular, therefore I’m significant)?

    Or are you able to feel significant despite another’s opinion (e.g.: I feel significant even when I’m alone)?

    I had an incident a while back where, in a moment of desperation, I reached out to a close family member for support. And was deftly turned away.

    It was unexpected. Entirely. And it rocked my little world.

    This person was my support system. My fallback guy. My innermost circle.

    My feelings of insignificance exploded back into my reality. Briefly. But in that moment, they ran deep.

    Significance is often one of the ways in which we define ourselves within a relationship. Whether it be in work, family, friend, or romantic relationships. In other words, in these instances, we seek our sense of significance from someone else. Through their opinion of us, or in their attention to us.

    We believe that what they think matters. A lot.

    And when things are peachy and everyone’s on the same page, it’s awesome! We lift each other. We sing each other’s praises. Feelings of significance and worthiness abound!

    Yet, when the peachiness turns bitter and we stand facing each other, with differing perspectives, the opposite is often true.

    That familiar strength, support, and safety simply evaporates.

    Leaving us raw. Naked. Feeling insignificant.

    Now, before we all reach for the tissues, let me just say: There is value in this.

    It’s only in the nakedness, the rawness, and the full feelings of insignificance that we can actually begin to make a shift. Toward who we really are.

    Because here’s the thing: If we truly lean into those feelings of insignificance without fear, we realize that insignificance doesn’t feel like anything.

    In fact, insignificance doesn’t really exist. At all!

    You can’t see it. Touch it. Or taste it.

    It’s simply a concept.

    Born of the story we’re currently telling ourselves.

    And, as with any story, it’s all made up!

    I’ll venture one step further and suggest that it’s the fear of feeling insignificant that’s scarier for us mortals. And we’ll often do anything to avoid it. Mask it. Or stuff it down.

    When I stood in the face of my own perceived insignificance a few weeks ago, I was initially rattled. I felt small. Rejected. And very alone.

    But only for a bit.

    Because as I faced it down and let the essence of it flow through me, I noticed something astounding.

    Nothing. Had. Changed.

    Nope, I was the same person. I looked the same, smelled the same, and sounded the same.

    Even more importantly, the world didn’t end. Nor did the sky fall in.

    I was okay.

    So, here’s where I got to:

    I get to choose whether I’m significant. Or not.

    Nobody else is qualified to.

    Only my opinion of me matters. Ever.

    There is nothing that anyone (no matter who they are) can say that means anything about me.

    Any sense of insignificance that I feel is simply my own perception.

    Not real.

    A story.

    And if it’s all simply a story, then why not tell myself a good one?

    One where I am important. Worthy. And enough.

  • Why Introverts Feel Drained in Groups and How I Preserve My Energy

    Why Introverts Feel Drained in Groups and How I Preserve My Energy

    “In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.” ~Deepak Chopra

    When I was younger, I was always referred to as “the quiet one.” I didn’t mind it; I knew I was much quieter than most people I met. Not speaking and spending time on my own was natural for me.

    Friends and workmates recognized this but would still often ask me if I wanted to join them when they were going out, even though they knew I would usually say no. They understood me as quiet, but they didn’t really understand just how much I disliked the whole socializing thing and how much it would drain me.

    I’d always loved time on my own. Even if I was somewhere amongst people, as long as I didn’t have to speak or engage with others, I was fairly content. In both situations I could retreat to my own inner world.

    My thoughts and imagination were never boring; there were always observations to make about myself, the world, and other people. There was a sense of coming home whenever I became quiet. There was a familiar comfort in my inner world.

    For the first half of my life I was a very shy introvert. While I’m not so shy anymore, I’m still introverted.

    From Quiet on the Outside to Quiet on the Inside

    In 2001 I discovered meditation at the recommendation of my brother, and one of the first things that became extremely obvious for me was just how active my mind was.

    There was a very clear realization—that just because I was “the quiet one” did not mean I had a quiet mind. This might sound obvious, but before I started meditating, I didn’t realize how busy my mind was.

    My inner world was full of noise. Thoughts triggering emotions and emotions amplifying thoughts in a vicious, neverending cycle . It was comfortable and familiar, but when I paid attention I realized it wasn’t peaceful.

    Prior to this realization, I’d very much identified with the noise in my mind. The constant stream of thoughts, emotions, and stories created a certain sense of self. The flavor of how I knew myself.

    How does a fish objectify water when it has lived in it for its entire life? Contrast. It needs to experience what it feels like outside of water.

    For me there was a similar experience happening through meditation. I started having experiences of an inner quiet. In the beginning it was only moments, but it was like being taken outside of my usual sense of self, allowing me to objectify the inner environment I usually resided in.

    It was uncomfortable because I was used to the comfort of my usual inner monologue, stories, and moods, but a part of me that realized I am not the thoughts, emotions, dramas that made up my usual sense of self.

    Although there was a comfort that came with the familiar, it was far more peaceful outside of it, since my mental environment had become polluted. Still, my active mind did not want to let go easily. It took time. I could have given up when I felt discomfort and resistance to seeing the reality of my mind; however, there were two things that helped motivate me to keep going.

    The first was the relief I was starting to feel. Just like the peace that would usually come when I had time on my own after being with people, or when I’d spend time in the quiet of nature after being in the noise of the city, this relief came from letting go of my thoughts. It was more than a craving for quiet. It was a longing for depth… inside myself.

    The second motivator, which I believe should pique the interest of any introvert, was that I was starting to feel less drained in group situations or events. I was still an introvert—I still preferred time on my own—but the negative side effects of being around people were shifting.

    Understanding the Main Difference Between Introverts and Extrovert

    I always knew I was an introvert, but I never really understood what it meant in greater detail until last year when I heard Faris Khalifeh from Quiet Leadership in Vancouver speak.

    I’d understood introversion very basically as someone who tends to be quiet and prefers time on their own. As I learned from Faris, a major distinguishing trait between introverts and extroverts is that introverts gain energy by being alone and tend to get drained in groups. Vice versa for extroverts.

    I believe one of the reasons introverts get so drained among groups of people is because they are not quiet on the inside. Much like stress is an internal reaction to a stimulus (external or internal), for an introvert there is an internal reaction to our natural sensitivity when in groups of people, creating a certain stress that drains our energy. Quietening our mind changes our reactions.

    For me, the combination of my naturally active mind and sensitivity created an internal environment that made group events draining. In group events there was so much stimulation happening around me that even if I was only connecting with one or two people I would eventually become drained.

    For clarity, there’s no more stimulation happening around an introvert than an extrovert; it’s that the introvert is usually far more sensitive to it.

    I remember a work dinner many years ago. There were about eight of us, but we’d gone to a pub, so there were a lot more people in the space. I was chatting with a work friend, but the ambient noise from all the conversations happening around me was pulling my awareness in all directions. Sensory overload. Too much information at the same time. It was very difficult to relax, and I was more distracted than present.

    It was like being immersed in a soup of chaotic ambient noise. I wished I could just leave! This outer noise added to my own inner noise, amplifying my thoughts and inner monologue:

    “That couple over there is having an argument. When will this evening be over? The man behind me is drunk; I hope they ask him to leave. There’s an awkward tension between those two workmates sitting together; they don’t like each other. I’m running out of things to talk about. Who actually enjoys this atmosphere? Maybe there’s something wrong with me?” And on and on.

    All of this created a general sense of stress and agitation in both my body and mind. Over a couple of hours, I was gradually drained.

    I often wondered if I was the only one who found social events unpleasant.

    The problem was, I had nothing solid to rest on. The constant stream of thoughts and emotions that run through our mind give us a familiar sense of self, but for me, a familiar sense of self based on my active mind was not a very stable place when I was so sensitive.

    Sensitivity was not the problem; a lack of stability was. Sensitivity is an amazing gift, but without some stability it feels like chaos.

    The Antidote

    The antidote that was emerging for me was stillness.

    Stillness created a stability and grounding. It was extremely nurturing and recharging by itself, and the more I cultivated a relationship to it the more it was there where ever I went.

    Even though I was still sensitive to the ambient noise at group events, I had a stable center, an inner quiet that created a separation between me and the noise. Without the separation, I was the noise, and it drained me. With stillness, I was stable and free, and my energy was preserved.

    Introverts tend to accept that having their energy drained in groups is an inherent trait of their personality type. While this is true in the usual introvert categorization, I believe it doesn’t have to be like this. I was not looking for a solution to being drained at group events; I’d simply accepted this is how I was. But I was wrong. The solution presented itself as a side effect of my meditation.

    I’m not suggesting you will transform into an extrovert and gain energy by being in groups. I’m still an introvert and I still love time by myself, but being at group events does not drain me like it used to.

    As introverts, at some point we have to engage with people and attend extroverted events. I share my experience with you because these situations do not have to be a point of stress or anxiety. Stillness provides a stable resting place that can change our relationship to group situations.

    Stillness is your superpower!

    Though meditation is one of the best paths to stillness, it can also help to use the exercise below, which I call “Finding stillness amidst the chaos.” I would not call it a meditation in the truest sense, but I would call it a training for your mind.

    Finding Stillness Amidst the Chaos

    1. Go to a crowded place, preferably where there is a lot of noise. A busy food court at lunchtime is a good one. Perhaps before a conference or event when everyone around you is talking. The more people, the better.

    2. Remain quiet and start listening peripherally to all the people talking. Don’t listen to individual conversations or voices. Listen to them all at once. The peripheral noise.

    3. If thoughts come into your mind, just let them go and return to the peripheral noise. Don’t judge your thoughts.

    4. As you listen peripherally to the noise for a couple of minutes, start to notice there is the chaos of the noise all around you, but you are not the noise. This is important! There is a separation between you and the noise. It’s like the noise is a tornado and you are in the eye. Notice the stillness in the center. It’s the place from where you perceive the noise.

    5. The key here is that the noise and chaos are in the periphery and stillness is in the center. Thoughts will come and go, but keep your awareness with the peripheral noise and center of stillness.

    6. Pay attention to how you feel more stable when you can do this. You can still be aware of the noise, but you are not affected by it, because you are not the noise.

    It may take some time to get the hang of this, but like anything else, with practice you will see progress. You may even find this fun. Don’t worry, you’re not becoming an extrovert—you’re just cultivating your stillness superpower!

  • Loving Yourself When You’ve Become Addicted to Self-Improvement

    Loving Yourself When You’ve Become Addicted to Self-Improvement

    “Whatever purifies you is the right path.” ~Rumi  

    I’m tired of being good. It’s time to be deliciously free.

    How I wish I could say that without rushing in to assure you that I promise I’ll still be good.

    The truth is, I worry. Less than I used to, but still, I do.

    I’ve probably had every kind of worry you could imagine. There’s the kind about things that haven’t happened yet, things that didn’t but very nearly could have, things that are highly unlikely if not impossible, things that are commonplace; I’ve worried about the things I want and the things I don’t, the purpose and the impermanence of life.

    Underneath, they all seem to stem from the same big fear that I am not good enough.

    This worry manifests itself as indecision, overthinking, holding grudges, and comparison. My expectations and criticisms originate there.

    Peek inside my head in my most afraid moments and you’re sure to find a motivational poster gone horribly wrong:

    We all have the same twenty-four hours, so what’s your excuse? Hustle! No pain, no gain! Stop playing small. Take massive action, go all-in. They’re crushing it, why aren’t you? The steps to success are quick, easy, and proven. Do whatever it takes. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. The universe loves speed. #YOLO. 

    I’ve spent a lot of time and mental energy on what I thought was self-improvement. Now, I’m seeing it for what it really was: self-medicating. The pressure to always be moving, always be achieving, faster, faster, hurry up and keep up was an addiction.

    This addiction was a symptom of losing trust in my own worth.

    I’d wear the way I treated myself like a badge of honor as if it somehow made me more worthwhile. Yet, I criticized myself about it, too. “Don’t be so rigid,” I’d command myself, followed up quickly by, “But be more disciplined.”

    I thought for a while that my worries were about control, but now I’m seeing that control was never the problem. I thought maybe it was perfection I sought. That wasn’t it, either.

    This was never really about success or approval, and certainly not improvement. What I’ve been seeking all along is freedom, and that’s what scared me the most.

    My indecision wasn’t about the decision itself, it was about doubting my ability to decide freely. Staying in relationships even though they hurt me wasn’t about the love or the loss, it was about doubting my right to choose myself, freely.

    Underneath every fear, every worry, every grudge and comparison was doubt in who I am, what I’m worth, and what right I had to take up the time and space to figure this out.  

    And now that I see things more clearly, I am clear about what I truly want. I want liberation.

    I want to free myself from the ghosts of the past and fears of the future. I long to be free from shame and the barriers I’ve built against my own peace. I want to use my voice freely and heal my steadfast heart. I want to freely and lovingly inhabit this body that’s stood by me no matter how much I’ve abused it.

    I want to rise up, thank the day, and carry on. Freely.

    Even as I’m writing these words to you, I’m learning what I need to do to stop the cycle.

    I need to practice making different choices and voicing different beliefs: Time is not money, it’s medicine. I need not be so disciplined but discerning. Not productive but perceptive.

    I’m learning the difference between moving quickly and moving honestly, and I’m replacing “should” with “I can if I so desire.”

    Oh, and I feel the resistance to this. The resistance is withdrawal, and it’s a natural part of the recovery process.

    But even with this insight, the fear of the unknown and the craving of familiarity are still there.

    Who will I become if I were truly free?  
    What value will I have?
    What if I fail?
    What if I disappoint? 

    Each time I set myself free, I will fly back to my cage until I trust the process of healing and love myself unconditionally.

    This is the painful part about finding and expressing yourself that no one really talks about. Loving yourself and trusting fully in your inherent worth is risky.

    You will surely fail at your previous rules and fall short of your old expectations as you explore new, more open ways of being. Someone is bound to be disappointed when you start existing as yourself, for yourself. The people who thought they knew you when you were only a fraction of yourself will say you’ve changed. They may not know what to do with you anymore.

    There may be judgment and misunderstanding. There may be rejection. You may feel lost. You may get less done, things may take longer, your work may be less popular or less profitable.

    And there will be the trappings of who you said you were everywhere. I still have a drawer full of makeup and hair products, perfume, and high heels that I will never use again. Maybe it’s time to let that version of me go.

    As you move closer to freedom, the ghost of who you tried to be will linger, haunting you. It will show up as a craving for likes and shares, for affirmation from someone else of your worth.

    Little by little, as you shed the security blankets put down over the years, you will move away from the conditions of your worth. Through forgiveness, setting and enforcing boundaries, more authentic yes’s and no’s, and growing more clear in what you want and where your true priorities lie, you will find new depths of freedom and space. It will be empowering and terrifying.

    What I’m discovering now is that you need to meet these challenges with grace and compassion.

    Letting go gives you space, but it needs space, too. Space brings solace and allows expansion. If you need to, stabilize. There’s no need to feel like a complete stranger in your own skin. Seek comfort and familiarity, but do it consciously. If you fall into old patterns, treat yourself with kindness, not judgment.  And then carry on, consciously.

    Have the courage to ride the cravings out. Resist the habit of proving your worth and earning your freedom. The doubts will try to convince you that they’re making you better, more worthy. Remember that it never worked that way before.

    I’m seeing now that what I do or don’t do, how far I do or don’t go, what I do or don’t achieve has never been the question. The question is, what frees me?

    I may not know what my freedom holds, and I may still face that uncertainty with some degree of fear, but I’m learning to trust that the pins and needles of waking up are the cure to what’s really ailing me.

    The greatest opportunities are not found in safety or certainty. Just as in facing any fear, the old beliefs about your worth need to be threatened in order to be changed.

    Each time we practice asking ourselves what will set us free, we’ll learn to speak the language of our intuition that much more fluently.

    Each time we practice validating our own perspective, we’ll learn to distinguish between wisdom and sound bites that much more naturally.

    One layer at a time, we will build a foundation of trust in ourselves and our inherent worth, and I have to believe that this will set us free.

  • Maybe It’s Not All Good or All Bad

    Maybe It’s Not All Good or All Bad

    “You are the sky. Everything else—it’s just the weather.” ~Pema Chödrön

    A farmer has a horse for many years; it helps him earn his livelihood and raise his son. One day, the horse runs away. His neighbor says sympathetically, “Such bad luck.”

    The farmer replies, “Maybe. Who knows?”

    The next day, the horse makes its way back home bringing with it another horse. The neighbor says with a smile, “Such good luck.”

    The farmer replies, “Maybe. Who knows?”

    The following day, the farmer’s son rides the new horse and seeks to tame it. In the process, he breaks his leg. The neighbor says sympathetically, “Such bad luck.”

    The farmer replies, “Maybe. Who knows?”

    The last day of the story, the military comes to the village to draft all able-bodied young men to fight in a war. The son is exempt from the draft due to his broken leg. You can guess what the neighbor said, and how the farmer replied.

    This Zen Buddhist parable illustrates that we never really know exactly why things are unfolding the way that they are, and that labeling them as “good” or “bad” is useless. It only gets us wrapped up in the ups and downs.

    Riding the car of this dichotomy only takes us on a roller coaster ride while our emotions are following whatever storyline is in front of us.

    Because I’m a human, I do this all of the time. I think that something fits neatly into either category, and I place it there then try to not look back. Usually that ends with those contents spilling out all over the place. Like when I try to make certain foods “good” or “bad.” Food has no morality, and categorizing it in this way just brings me shame.

    David Allen explained that the Taoists have their own way of interpreting the complication: the yin and yang symbol. “Good” flows into “bad” and the two are even contained in one another. They can’t really be separated.

    How I’ve Found the “Good” in the “Bad”

    Not too far out of college I had a cushy tech job that I absolutely adored. I relished in the fact that I was doing what I loved, and that I had been promoted to that position after working really hard.

    The perks were great. We had flexible hours, leaving room for naps on my work-from-home days. My favorite perk was a giant snack room, full of all kinds of goodies. We were swimming in startup benefits, and by all measures, I was happy. However, I didn’t realize I was overworking myself until I collapsed.

    The long hours had taken a toll on me, emotionally and physically. My romantic relationships had also gotten me down. I’d been causing myself a lot of pain by continuously going after emotionally unavailable people. I had also been neglecting self-care, sleeping much less than my body required. My mental health deteriorated to the point where I no longer felt safe in my own skin.

    I’d struggled with my mental health throughout my life, but I thought I’d gotten to a good place. Turns out I was wrong. My mind had been slowly building up to a bipolar explosion that mixed mania and depression.

    My mania manifested itself in staying up too late, having impulsive sex, and taking on way too many responsibilities at once. My depression took the form of feeling worthless and losing interest in things I loved, and my hunger was either through the roof or absent. Suicidal ideation was a big part of the mix. This was the scariest part—the fact that I’d lost the will to live.

    As a result of all of this, I had a breakdown. I could often be found writhing in emotional pain, my brain wanting me dead. How quickly this “good” turned to “bad.” 

    Because I was deemed unsafe, I was taken by ambulance to a locked ward. Turns out when you show up to the hospital telling them you’re suicidal, they cart you away to a locked facility of some sort.

    Everyday things like my laptop cord and makeup mirrors were taken from me, lest I harm myself. I slept in a hallway of sixteen girls, and a nurse opened our doors every fifteen minutes at night to check to see if we were still breathing. The food was subpar at best.

    I wanted to die. I had a total mental health collapse and realized I had been running myself ragged at this job. I had to quit it because I knew that this hospital stay wasn’t going to be a quick fix. I had seven more hospitalizations that year, and I thought that my life was over.

    While reflecting on what had brought me to this point, I realized that not only was the job overly demanding on my time, the office had terrible boundaries, with lots of people dating one another (including myself at one point). Most harmful, though, was the unlimited stash of anytime booze. I’m a recovering alcoholic, and though I was able to stay sober, this wasn’t a healthy environment for me.

    Later, reflecting on the time I spent hospitalized, I realized my experiences weren’t all “bad.” 

    My time in and out of psych wards has reminded me how strong I am—the strength it took to get help instead of killing myself was something I didn’t know I had. I thought I’d stay on the path to destruction for much longer, but my will to live came through.

    Also, I was shown, despite my skepticism, that I’m indeed never alone; my loved ones showered me with support. People regularly visited me in the hospital, and their presence helped me heal.

    My friends showed up without judgment, holding space for all of my big feelings. They brought nothing but love (and some snacks). It was vulnerable to be seen in the condition I was in, but my friends proved they could be trusted to be with me in this state. Many of them had been in my shoes before, so they held compassion for what I was going through.

    Most of the friends that visited were AA companions. They were people trying to stay sober, just like me, and we were living many of the same values like acceptance and taking life one day at a time. With their support, I continued on the path of healing both inside and outside of the hospital.

    I’ve even managed to find the “good” in alcoholism. In fact, I now believe it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. My recovery has brought me beautiful friendships, immense personal growth, and ridiculous amounts of resilience. I’ve learned to be there for another person without constantly putting myself first, and I’ve grown to be a better partner.

    It took eighteen months of rest before I was ready to go back to work. I struggled with feeling inadequate and useless during this time. I was so accustomed to working like a maniac that rest felt foreign to me. But I’m now finally well enough to work, though I’ve gotten a job that pays much less than my last one and it isn’t even close to as prestigious. I’m calling it my “get-well job.”

    I’m still working through some shame around it, wanting to call this “bad,” even though I know it’s a mix of things. Instead of calling it “bad,” I do my best to return to “maybe” with a shrug.

    I’m not saying that I’m able to be perfectly non-judgmental and unattached, living without worry at my job and feeling perfectly confident when talking about it. But some days I can just let things be what they are. I can notice that voice inside that’s yelling at me and I can soothe it. I can create a new script and I can practice radical acceptance by not fighting against what’s going on in my mind.

    Looking back, I called my job “good” and the psych wards “bad,” though there were no clear categories. Good is great, but it doesn’t last forever. Bad can hurt, but it doesn’t last forever either. There was a bit of a mix of everything. Much of life is this way.

    I don’t know why things happen the way that they do, and I never know what’s going to happen next. Perhaps this job will benefit my life in ways I could never predict. Maybe it’ll keep me where I’m at, or make things worse; I just don’t know.

    The thing is, though, once I start to move past outcomes I can be more present to and flexible with what’s happening.

    I can just enjoy learning to use the espresso machine at my new job rather than worrying about what people think of my new job choice. I can practice gentleness around my mental health, remaining non-judgmental when I have a difficult day. I can do this instead of thrashing against what is, letting my mind carry me to dreams of what could be and feeling angry about how things are.

    I can work with whatever emotions come up, knowing that it’s all the path. I can’t prevent life from happening and I can’t always force what I want to happen. What I do have control of is l how I react to everything, and today I’m trying to have a “maybe” attitude.

    No matter what happens, I know I can handle it. Being knocked down by my job and mental health reminded me that the human spirit is wildly resilient. I got back up; I did it very slowly, but I did it.

  • How to Be Less Anxious About Things You Can’t Change

    How to Be Less Anxious About Things You Can’t Change

    “One of the happiest moments is when you find the courage to let go of what you can’t change.” ~Unknown

    Over the last few years, I’ve had to deal with a frustrating problem.

    It’s something that’s not uncommon, but it can be debilitating, and it has affected me every day. Some days have been incredibly tough, and they’ve tested my tolerance and my patience.

    The problem is chronic back pain.

    Every day I get up, knowing that throughout the day I’m going to have a discomfort that could oscillate between a mild annoyance and an intense burning. At some point, it’s going to distract me. Either while I work, while I eat, while I meditate, while I exercise, and sometimes while I sleep.

    You’d think by now I would’ve gotten used to it, that it would’ve become the unwelcomed friend that I’d learned to live with. Unfortunately, that’s only the case sometimes.

    But I am (slowly but surely) learning firsthand the value of something incredibly profound that the meditation teacher Shinzen Young once said:

    “Suffering = Pain x Resistance.”

    When it comes to the suffering we experience when dealing with physical pain, it’s not always easy to know exactly what is pain and what is resistance to that pain.

    In my own situation, every now and then, when the pain is very uncomfortable, I’ll start to ruminate. My mind will begin to make up stories about how severe the pain is, how much worse it’s going to get, what I could’ve done to prevent it, and anything else to resist the experience.

    But there are certain things you can’t know and certain things you can’t change. I’m doing the best I can to try and prevent the pain—I’ve seen a number of specialists, all with varying opinions.

    My focus now is, how can I reduce the resistance and alleviate the suffering?

    This is broadly related to another important existential issue and something that I want to explore with you in a little bit of detail.

    We all have to deal with situations that we have no control over; illness, death, and loss are inevitable. I’m going to share with you how I’ve faced this, in the context of my back pain, but it’s highly likely that you’re going through something comparable in your life right now. It might be something less obvious, like a part of your job that you’re not entirely comfortable with, or it may be a lot more serious, like the terminal illness of someone you love.

    Either way, we’re facing the same question: How can I be less anxious about the things I can’t change?

    Here are four things I’ve done to manage this anxiety.

    1. Keep track of the stories my mind is telling me about any situation.

    One thing that you realize by paying attention to your pain is that the mind is a master storyteller. The natural response to any uncomfortable situation is to create a mental novella equipped with a list of assumptions, a worldview, and a timeline about the past and future.

    Your job, however, is to tease out fact from fiction. If I have pain when I’m working, my mind might start to tell me the story of how I’m going to be late to the project I’m working on, or that I’ll never figure out how to overcome the pain, or any number of things that one, aren’t either true or knowable and two, aren’t the least bit relevant to the situation at hand.

    If you write down a list of the ideas you have about the thing you can’t change, you’ll start to see recurring themes and you can see the movie that’s playing in your mind without getting absorbed in it.

    2. Meditate on the pain and resistance and figure out which is which.

    Remember the Shinzen Young quote I shared earlier: “Suffering = Pain x Resistance.” Well, understanding when resistance to the situation is making up the bulk of your suffering is an incredibly useful skill to learn.

    You can do this in meditation by inquiring into your thoughts and feelings. I may ask myself “If I could accept this pain completely, just for a few moments, what would the pain feel like?”

    If the pain decreases significantly, it’s clear that the experience was dominated by resistance. If, however, there is little change, then it’s the physical pain itself that is the problem. More often than not I’ve found that resistance is worse than the pain itself!

    3. Highlight the positive aspects of the thing I can’t change.

    This is pretty much good old-fashioned re-framing. Focus your attention on what’s positive about the thing you can’t change, and very importantly, celebrate the little wins.

    For example, I try to tell myself, “My back hurts today, but at least it’s not stopping me from going to the gym.” And if I have a day where the pain is less serious than other days, I’ll make a mental note of it, and try to express it in some form, e.g.: “My day was good. I got a lot of work down and it was relatively pain-free.”

    4. Practice the art of letting go.

    This practice is something that comes hand in hand with noticing resistance. We don’t often think of letting go as a skill, but it is. In the same way we can become adept at holding onto something, we can learn how to do the opposite.

    There are two aspects of letting go that you can practice. Firstly, the depth of letting go; that is, how completely can you consciously let go of something that is bothering you.

    If I have a pain in my back and I exhale deeply, telling myself it’s okay, but five seconds later I’m thinking about how frustrated I am about the pain—well, I have a lot of practice to do.

    The second aspect is how appropriately you can do so in the moment, i.e.: how good your timing is.

    For example, if you spend all day worrying, but then you get home and right before falling asleep you let go, then your timing needs some work. If, however, you catch your mind telling you a story in the moment, and you can objectively see that it’s just a story, you’re on the right track! Meditation is one way to help you see things as they come up in real time.

    Learning to become less anxious about things you can’t change is an incredibly valuable life-long skill. It’s unfortunate that typically we have to come to learn this through real challenges and discomfort, but making the best of tough times is one of the beautiful things about being a human being!

    When have you learned to be less anxious about things you can’t control? Let us know in the comments; we’d love to hear from you!