Tiny Buddha

Tag: alive

  • Full Circle: Reclaiming the Me Who Felt Most Alive

    Full Circle: Reclaiming the Me Who Felt Most Alive

    “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” ~T.S. Eliot

    In my early twenties, I packed a backpack and boarded a plane alone with a one-way ticket to Southeast Asia. It was a move that baffled my father, inspired my friends, and quietly terrified me.

    I was drawn by something I couldn’t fully articulate at the time: a craving for freedom, truth, and a kind of belonging I hadn’t yet known. What I didn’t realize then is that this two-year trip would imprint on me a version of myself I’d spend the next twenty years slowly forgetting, and then, almost by surprise, begin to reclaim.

    Three weeks into that trip, I found myself in Northern Thailand feeling completely lost. I wasn’t sightseeing like I “should” have been, or checking off cultural highlights. I felt aimless. Lonely. A bit ashamed that I wasn’t “making the most” of the experience.

    The structure I was used to (school, expectations, a tidy plan…) had fallen away. I felt unmoored, as if I’d made a huge mistake. Who was I to think I could just wander and have it mean something?

    And then I met Merrilee.

    She was older, solo, sun-wrinkled and wise—the kind of woman who carries stories in her skin.

    Over an afternoon spent talking at our quiet guesthouse, she helped me see something I hadn’t yet understood—that the point wasn’t to fill the time. The point was to be with myself. To let the lack of familiarity and structure teach me how to listen inward. To begin trusting my own rhythm and desire without external cues.

    The kind of freedom I’d dreamed of required discomfort first and a willingness to stop outsourcing my worth to what I was doing.

    That single conversation changed the entire arc of my trip. And it changed me. Forever.

    For the first time, I felt connected to myself not because I was achieving something, but because I was simply attuned. I moved at a pace that felt good. I made decisions from joy, not obligation. I stopped trying to prove anything. And in the middle of that season of self-connection, I met the man who would become my husband. A new chapter began rooted in love and partnership, and eventually, in motherhood.

    And slowly, without really realizing it, the version of me that woke up in Thailand began to dim.

    Over the years, I became a mama to two beautiful boys. I cultivated a stable career. I managed a household. I became, in many ways, the kind of adult we are told to strive for: organized, reliable, efficient, productive. I wore those traits like armor, and at times, even like a badge of honor. But beneath it, there was a soft ache.

    I had flashes of her—that younger, aligned me—the one who had danced through temples, laughed with strangers, trusted the moment. I saw her in photos. I reread journal entries and marveled at how whole I’d felt. But the distance between us seemed too wide. I didn’t resent the life I’d built. I just felt like I’d built it around everyone but me.

    Some seasons are shaped by who needs us and how we choose to show up. And when we decide to set aside our deepest longings for the sake of others, it can serve as a useful contrast.

    Maybe that soft ache was there to remind me that while raising children, tending to aging parents, or holding together the invisible threads of a household can offer deep meaning and purpose… it’s not the whole of me.

    Somewhere in my early forties, with my kids nearly grown and a job that no longer felt right, the stirring got stronger. Roaring and insistent.

    Only this time, it didn’t send me packing to the other side of the world. It sent me inward. And I was ready for it now. I had the capacity to respond.

    I began exploring new trainings. I started a side business that brought me alive in ways I hadn’t felt in years. I slowly reduced how much I was giving to my secure job to devote more time to the work that felt aligned with my soul. I was awakening again, but with responsibilities and relationships that complicated the path.

    Eventually, I knew it was time to leave my job entirely. It was a leap that, while intentional, shook me more than I expected.

    The weeks after submitting my resignation were not the liberating breath I’d anticipated. Instead, I felt untethered, afraid, and riddled with doubt. Who was I now? What if I failed? What if all of this was some naive midlife fantasy?

    Every structure I had leaned on—title, paycheck, certainty—was gone. I felt like I was falling. And then it hit me: I’d been here before.

    That lost, floating, what-the-hell-am-I-doing feeling? It was the exact same emotional terrain I’d walked through in Thailand. Only now, I had more to lose. The stakes were higher, so the fear was louder, but the lesson was ultimately the same.

    To let go of structure without losing myself. To trust the process of becoming before I had evidence of it all working out. To believe that flow, intuition, and joy are valid guides, even in business.

    This time, there was no Merrilee waiting for me on a bamboo veranda. But there was embodied memory. There was me. There was the version of me who had lived it once and come alive because of it. The gift of having that experience in my early twenties wasn’t just the adventure. It was the blueprint it gave me for how to find my way back when I felt lost.

    I didn’t have to figure it all out from scratch. I just had to remember who I was when I felt most alive. What she trusted. How she moved. What she believed.

    She didn’t need five-year plans or marketing funnels or perfect clarity. She needed space. And courage. And breath. She needed to like herself and to let that be enough.

    And so, I began letting that version of me take the lead again.

    Building a business, especially one rooted in healing, service, and soul, isn’t just about offers and strategy. It’s a spiritual path. It asks you to meet your edges, again and again. It confronts your conditioning. It stirs up your doubts. But it also calls forward your truest voice: the one that got quiet when you were busy being “good” and responsible and reliable.

    For years, I looked back on that time in Asia with a kind of reverence—a fond and distant memory of a life I couldn’t believe I was once brave enough to have lived. I never saw it as a departure from real life, but I did place it in a separate category, a luminous chapter that shaped me, but felt hard to access again.

    Now I see it more clearly. That moment was the original map of who I am when I’m not trying to be what the world wants. And now, in this middle chapter of life, I get to choose her again.

    Not by backpacking across the globe (though I admit that’s tempting), but by waking up each day and building a life, a business, a version of myself that’s led by truth, flow, and trust. It’s scarier now. But it’s also richer. Because I know what it feels like to come home to myself.

    And I know the ache of the contrast if I don’t.

    Maybe you’re reading this and feel like you’re standing at a similar threshold, untethered, uncertain, trying to trust the pull of something deeper.

    If so, let this be your Merrilee moment.

    The path might feel blurry. You might question whether you’re wasting time, or if you are foolish for wanting more.

    But what I continue to learn in new ways is that the process of returning to yourself and recentering your needs doesn’t always come with clarity. It often arrives with chaos. With fear. With silence. With the pain of letting go.

    But what’s waiting for you on the other side of the unraveling is a more vibrant you. And that person is so worth meeting again.

  • 4 Things to Try When You Want Change but Don’t Know What to Do

    4 Things to Try When You Want Change but Don’t Know What to Do

    “If you get stuck, draw with a different pen. Change your tools; it may free your thinking.” ~Paul Arden

    For a year and a half, I could feel a career shift coming. I had worked hard to cultivate a career I loved, but I began feeling disconnected from my work. The meaning I had originally felt from it was no longer there. Each time I started a new project, I felt tired and unmotivated.

    At first, I thought it might be burnout. So I took a few weeks off to see if I could reset myself into feeling excited about my work again. But when I returned, I felt the same. The things that I had built my career around, that previously gave me energy and meaning, no longer resonated.

    I thought about the type of work I did daily and couldn’t imagine myself still doing it ten years from now. But what could I imagine myself doing? I had no idea.

    I struggled and strived to figure out what a career shift might look like. I read several books, including Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life by James Hollis (Ph. D.), but while I resonated with the ideas in several of them, I still felt no closer to an answer.

    I became very intentional about noticing when things gave me energy. At one point, I went to a dinner party where someone brought tarot cards and gave me a reading. It was so energizing! I went home and immediately ordered the same set of tarot cards. I began learning about them and started doing readings with friends and at parties.

    “What does this mean? Should I become a tarot card reader?” I thought. But that didn’t resonate for a variety of reasons.

    By this point, I was telling everyone who would listen that I was “directionless.” It was a new label I used often. When someone asked what I did for work, I would say, “Meh, I’m directionless.”

    Well-meaning friends and acquaintances started offering their opinions of what I should be doing next. I even googled, “How to make a career change.” I felt like I was walking around in a black fog where I could barely make out what was ahead of me. Sometimes I could see a slight shape—a glimmer of something that gave me energy. But what did it mean? And how could I use that information for what was next?

    I went through a cross-country move to a location where I had no friends. Because of this, I had more time to myself than usual. I spent each day going inward and connecting to my body through meditation, simple somatic practices, like stimulating my vagus nerve, and parts work.

    Finally, I realized that the answer was never in my head. It was in my body—wisdom that had been blocked by all the thoughts and old beliefs that had formed, and parts of me that wanted to protect me and keep me safe.

    I found that a part of me didn’t want a career change because it was too scary and unstable. Instead, it wanted to stay with what was known, dependable, and safe. I befriended this part and worked through the fears. As I spent more and more time going inward, the answer appeared clearer and clearer. It had been there all along, and finally, I was able to access it.

    If you’re feeling stuck, here are a few things to try.

    1. Identify parts that may be trying to tell you something.

    If you are feeling stuck, there may be a “part” of you that is keeping you there to protect you. These parts are often created during childhood when we might not have had as many resources as we do now.

    For example, maybe you learned during childhood that being seen by others can be unpredictable and dangerous. So a “part” of you could have been created that helped you make decisions based on that information. Now, as an adult, you likely have more resources, but that information never got to the “part” that was created.

    So, let’s say that you want to write a book and you just can’t seem to move forward. No matter what you do, you’re staying stuck. Why? One reason might be because this “part” knows that if you write a book, you will be seen by others, and based on experience, that can be unpredictable and dangerous. So it prevents you from stepping out and taking risks where you might be seen. You may not even be aware of this part consciously. Yet it could be there, working day and night to protect you.

    2. Meditate.

    Being stuck can sometimes prompt negative thoughts, such as “What if I’m stuck forever?” or “I’m not good enough.” These thoughts can then lead to negative emotions, which can then make us feel even more stuck and overwhelmed. It’s a vicious cycle. Meditation can help you break out of this cycle and receive clarity, which can help you find direction and move forward.

    Set a time each day to meditate. It doesn’t need to be that long—even just ten minutes is enough. If you have trouble sitting silently, you could search for a guided meditation on YouTube.

    Make it part of your routine and do it at the same time each day to keep momentum going. Doing it at the same time each day will help it become part of a habit and make it easier to remember.

    If you start thinking while you’re sitting silently, that’s okay! Just come back to your breath. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to cultivate some stillness and silence. This practice helps you drop out of your mind and into your body, where so much wisdom lives.

    3. Stimulate your vagus nerve.

    Your vagus nerve regulates your entire nervous system. When your vagus nerve is activated, it helps calm your nervous system, which helps shift you into a more creative, open state of being. It is from this state that you can more easily access wisdom within yourself.

    There are a variety of ways to stimulate your vagus nerve. Because the vagus nerve is connected to your vocal cords, humming or singing is one way to achieve this:

    1. Focus on your breath and notice anything you feel in your body. Maybe you feel pressure on your chest, a pain in your neck, a burning in your throat, etc.
    2. Breathe in deeply.
    3. As you exhale, say “Voo” out loud for the entire length of the exhale.
    4. Sit and notice how your body is feeling now. Is there any difference?
    5. Continue steps two through four until you feel a shift.

    4. Change your environment.

    Have you ever taken a trip to a new place or gone on a great hike and felt a sense of renewed inspiration, clarity, or presence? The reason for this is because we grow when we’re out of our comfort zone.

    Being in a new environment, meeting new people, and having new experiences takes us out of our comfort zone, opens our minds, and provides us with the opportunity to grow and learn more about ourselves. It shakes things up from our normal day-to-day experiences.

    Get out into nature or go on an overnight getaway. It doesn’t need to be something fancy—anything that will get you out of your current space can help shift the stuckness.

    Is there an area of your life where you feel stuck or don’t know what to do? Which of these actions most resonates with you? Or, do you have an action you typically take that works best?

  • You’re Never Too Old To Feel Inspired, Excited, and Alive

    You’re Never Too Old To Feel Inspired, Excited, and Alive

    “I do not want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” ~Diane Ackerman 

    I’m in the business of watching people take risks. I observe them tackling challenges, fear, and discomfort, and sometimes, “making firsts” in their life.

    I observe a lot as a flight attendant, and sometimes wonder if my official title should rather be “Human Observer,” or “Social Experimenter.” It feels more accurate, or at least it’s the part that I typically enjoy the most. I’m also what’s called a “Death Doula” and hospice volunteer, both of which I consider to be more of a passion rather than a kind of “job” or “position.”

    I not only enjoy observing and assisting people through their living process, but also through their dying process. That includes everything in between. My interest in humans isn’t just with the young (who the media unfortunately tells us are the only “relevant ones”), but I rather have a special spot in my heart for the old and the dying.

    I experienced a rather benign interaction a couple of weeks ago, walking to my gate in the Salt Lake City Airport at the beginning of my work trip. As I was passing the TSA security area, a hunched elderly woman, slightly ahead of me, dropped all of her belongings. Her belongings included a small rollaboard and a large tote purse. Her bags were ripping at the seams with the items I’m sure she diligently chose ahead of time.

    My husband, who also happens to be a “Human Observer” with the same Human Observing company, was walking with me. The timing aligned perfectly—she dropped her bags, resulting in several items spilling out, and we, following right behind her, were ready to help pick up the pieces.

    It was just the interaction I needed at that time.

    As with any job, position, or career, it’s easy to feel “burnt out,” rundown, or simply uninspired, given the right circumstances. No matter how exciting your job or life may seem to other people, it’s your “normal,” but likewise, it’s your individual responsibility to keep that flame of inspiration burning.

    A similar idea can be true for what may seem like a “boring” life or “boring” job: it may be your ultimate passion and inspiration. Either way, life and circumstances ebb and flow. Sometimes you just need to get out of your own head and stop thinking about the same day-in, day-out rudimentary topics of your life.

    At the time, I had been feeling fairly lackluster. I’d been working more than normal and had barely had time to myself to contemplate and be introspective (which I desperately need on a regular basis), let alone time to even be home. This interaction changed things for me in that moment and has stuck with me since.

    It was clear that she was traveling solo. I helped pick up her dropped rollaboard luggage as my husband started helping with her tote bag. I noticed that some of the items that dropped from her bags were French language and culture-related books. She was disorganized, no rhyme or reason for any items’ place, and you could tell she used every inch of space possible.

    “I’m going to Paris for a month, and I’ve never traveled before! This is everything I’m bringing!” She exclaimed, her smiling face closely looking up at me. I’ll never forget her look—that wrinkled, rough face with a peeling nose, disheveled short hair, and haphazardly put-together outfit. She was ecstatic, and it almost seemed as if she had been waiting to tell someone—anyone—about what adventures she was about to embark upon.

    As my husband worked on putting some items back in order, quietly talking to himself (“these will just fall out again if we don’t put them here”), I told her how excited I was for her and how amazing it is that she is doing this—going for it. Her excitement radiated onto me, and I couldn’t help but feel absolutely elated for her.

    We exchanged some additional niceties, and we helped her find her departure gate. For the next several minutes after parting ways, I had the biggest, dumbest smile stuck on my face.

    I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall (plane “wall” or otherwise) throughout her journey—to see her sense of wonder and curiosity with everyone and everything she was to encounter. I think about her now, conscious of the fact that she’s exactly halfway into her journey.

    This entire interaction then made me wonder, “What was it in her life that served as the catalyst for this decision of hers?” What made her decide, “Yep, this is the time. I’m just going to go for it. What have I got to lose?” She didn’t look like your stereotypical “adventurer.” She wasn’t trying to be anyone but herself.

    In a modern world where the young, adventurous ones are on Tik Tok, YouTube, or Instagram, it was refreshing to see a normal, mature person just going for it. I see and experience examples of this kind of thing on a regular basis, but I guess I just wish that perhaps someone from a younger generation who may be insecure about the direction of their life could experience these things with me.

    As much as I’ve experienced those who are brave and taking up hobbies or doing things that inspire them, I’ve also seen the opposite: those who are afraid of the new. It seems as if people get settled in their ways and end up saying to themselves, “Welp, this is it. This is my life now.”

    But why do we do that? It seems so counterintuitive to how life should be: full of exploration and wonder. I don’t think this is a particularly new or modern concept. I don’t think it’s because of social media that more mature folks aren’t taking risks or taking up hobbies they genuinely enjoy.

    This is not to say that I think everyone should get on a plane and go to Paris. Traveling isn’t inspiring for everyone. For some, perhaps the exhaustion or the stress outweigh any benefit. To each their own. Perhaps your version of exploring curiosity or wonder is creating a garden, deciding to read more, finally getting into stand-up comedy, going outside more, or digging into that sourdough bread kit.

    Deciding to lead a life full of exploration and wonder doesn’t need to fit a particular theme. It’s getting out there (or staying in there) and doing what inspires you. It’s doing it for you—no one else. And sometimes it may take a catalyst against your will to make something happen.

    I can’t assume that it was something perceived as “negative” that happened to our Parisian friend that made her, for the first time ever, embark on a month-long trip across the world. But I find it fun to explore the possibilities.

    Many may also say they have a fear of “failure,” but what are we defining as “failure?” Does “failure” even exist if you’re actively enjoying yourself and not doing it for anyone else? You’re never too old to find inspiration—whether it be through a hobby, an activity, or through others. Our lives and deaths are constantly in cycle. That cycle is always in motion. You’ve got to keep moving.

    I think Ms. Paris, who I admire so, knew this. We didn’t need to have this particular conversation for me to know that.

  • How ‘Griefcations’ Helped Me Heal from Loss and How Travel Could Help You Too

    How ‘Griefcations’ Helped Me Heal from Loss and How Travel Could Help You Too

    “To travel is to take a journey into yourself.” ~Danny Kaye

    The brochure read, “Mermaid tail, optional.” What forty-something mom doesn’t have a shimmering fish tail tucked in her closet for just the right occasion? Not me. I live in Minnesota. I’d borrow one when I got there.

    I took a flight from Minneapolis to Panama City, and then a water taxi to a backpackers’ resort. Not the kind with frozen cocktails and bad DJs. The next thing I knew, I was on a sailboat, swinging from an aerial circus hoop suspended over the sparkling Caribbean Sea, dressed as a mermaid.

    I felt free and alive and playful in my body.

    How did I, a grieving daughter, sister, and mother, end up there? That’s what I was asking myself. It’s both a long and short story.

    After a few years marked by death and loss, an “aerial and sail” retreat called to me. It would be a gift to my wounded self. That’s the short take.

    The longer explanation is the most painful, but probably speaks to why so many of us chase adventure or time away from our routines and responsibilities. We’ve got to work on ourselves outside of our regular lives. I certainly did.

    After losing my dad to cancer and my brother to suicide within a span of six months, I then had to say goodbye to the daughter we’d made part of our family for four years. We thought we would adopt her, but she went to live with another family.

    In my grief, I’ve redesigned my approach to life.

    It’s grief that pulls me to say, “Yes, I’ll try that.” Travel. The flying trapeze. Mermaid tails.

    An unexpected gift of grief is being cracked open and feeling the urgency of these opportunities. They are too fleeting and too precious to pass up. I’ve also embraced play and movement and taken up circus arts. The retreat offered some of the best aerial coaches out there.

    But aside from honing a skill, I craved an escape from the underpinnings of my everyday life and the frequent reminders of my missing family.

    Losing loved ones is something we will all experience, no doubt many times over. How each of us grieves is individual, but what I can say from experience—as a trauma psychologist and as someone living in grief—is that taking a journey out of one’s comfort zone can be profoundly healing.

    A “griefcation” won’t cure the pain, but meaningful travels can help us cope, possibly even heal.

    When I last Googled “griefcation,” it appeared just over 400 times on the search engine, with the earliest hits dated from 2017. That’s not a lot when you compare it to “staycation,” which appeared in more than 100 million articles. But I believe that travel is a conscious way to grieve that yanks us out of a funk of isolation and provides an opportunity for relief, insight, healing, peace, and transformation.

    Travel forces us to be in the moment, hyper-aware of new surroundings as we read a map, find a hotel, hail a cab (or look for an uber), and mentally calculate currency exchanges. All of this is a welcome reprieve from the overthinking and overwhelm that comes with grief.

    These days there are “grief cruises” and bereavement boats, with a chaplain on call. If you want to dip your toe into a travel experience, instead of fully diving in, retreats—mini-vacations, if you will—can be a good and less pricey alternative.

    I’m living in grief, but I am also lucky and privileged to work for myself, with flexible time off and enough travel points accumulated from business trips to orbit the planet. For others, your grief vacation might be closer to home or shorter in duration.

    I first sought out a short griefcation in the year after my dad and brother died. I had an urge to be with others who were grieving: those who would just know that I had no words for how I was feeling. I found a “Grief Dancer” retreat in Big Sur with a description that spoke to me: We invite you to a weekend retreat to hold together what should not be held alone.

    I flew to San Francisco and then drove the Pacific Coast Highway to what I affectionately called a “hippie’s paradise,” where primal music, soulful rhythm, and unselfconscious dancing helped me find joy in judgment-free movement.

    Ever since my dad and brother died, I’ve sought out places to travel, sometimes to escape traditions that now trigger me.

    My dad loved the gaudy, over-the-top nature of Christmas celebrations and would string twinkly rainbow lights all over our house in southern California. He collected singing snowmen from Hallmark, too. He had a dozen of them. He’d terrorize us, his grown children, by switching them on all at once so they’d each sing a different Christmas carol, competing for cheery seasonal supremacy.

    My dad died from cancer in November and after an early December memorial, my mom and my surviving brother retreated to our respective corners of the country to grieve alone. I hunkered down with my husband and two boys, hibernating in the dark cold of Minneapolis.

    And just like that, my family stopped gathering for Christmas. In its absence, I’ve worked to build a new holiday tradition for my sons that has a travel experience at its core. We now routinely head to sunny beaches to relax, read books, play together, and create special moments to remember those we’ve lost. No matter where we find ourselves on Christmas Day, we always set a place at the table for my dad and brother.

    I’ve learned that it’s possible to be living in grief, but also experience profound joy. Grief is an invitation to deeply value the moments of your life and find joy where you can, because of a renewed sense of how fleeting they are.

    We can travel to escape our grief, or we can focus on our loss as a significant component of the travel experience, creating activities to honor the lives of those we’ve lost.

    Dr. Karen Wyatt, a hospice physician and the founder of End-of-Life University Blog, has written extensively about the “safe container” that travel can provide to heal grief and loss. She defined six categories of grief travel to consider when making plans. Restorative. Contemplative. Physically active. Commemorative. Informative. Intuitive.

    Before a significant grief anniversary, I took another retreat, this time to Morocco with my husband and other entrepreneurs, to experience “radical self-awareness while leaving our comfort zones in a wild, extraordinary place.” While I wasn’t there to grieve specifically, I am always on that journey. There, my experience—to borrow categories from Wyatt—was contemplative, intuitive, physically active, informative. And commemorative.

    In the Sahara Desert near the border with Algeria, I honored the fourth anniversary of the death of my dad. It was a day of beauty and reflection. The shifting sand was a meditation on the transient nature of life. The stark nature of the landscape was an affirmation that life is never guaranteed to be long, and survival is not assured.

    The stunning beauty of the place, and the company I was with, was an invitation to honor the magic of this one “wild and precious life”—to borrow from poet Mary Oliver. It was both an embodied and soulful experience to dwell in grief. To hold in my body and spirit the importance of Dad’s memory. I grabbed handfuls of his ashes and sand and flung them into the air. Releasing. Weeping. Celebrating.

    You can’t live every day like it’s your last—if I did, I’d be broke, exhausted, and probably in prison—but you can do what makes you truly happy as often as possible.

    Travel, like grief, takes you to different lands, where life seems more precious and urgent. If you’re lucky, you will find joy amid the sadness, as I did. The memories stay with you forever.

  • How Embodiment Can Make You Feel More Alive (and 5 Ways to Do It)

    How Embodiment Can Make You Feel More Alive (and 5 Ways to Do It)

    “Embodiment is living within, being present within the internal space of the body.” ~Judith Blackstone

    When I was a little boy, I would dance whenever I heard a catchy pop song on the radio. There are photos of me throwing down dance moves, exuding joy and vitality. At some point, though, I lost my ability to dance.

    If I were to guess what happened, I would say that I stopped dancing when I became self-conscious. I was no longer just being; suddenly, I became aware of being someone with a body.

    So a long and complicated relationship with my body began. As a teenager, friends and family teased me for being unusually tall and gangly. As a young man struggling with my queer identity, I objectified my body; I felt ashamed of how ‘it’ strayed so far from the perceived masculine ideal. To make matters worse, one day my lungs spontaneously collapsed.

    Over the course of two years or so, I was in and out of hospitals as doctors struggled to fix my leaky lungs. Undergoing multiple painful surgical procedures, I experienced my body as a source of great emotional and physical pain.

    Life presented other challenges. In time, I concluded that being in a body in this world is inherently painful. I thought that in order to find peace, I had to become free of pain. To achieve this, my mind had to separate itself from bodily experience.

    Seeking a Way Out

    In my early twenties, I was already weary of life. Feeling alienated, I retreated into my inner world of ideas and concepts, where I could indulge in fantasy and philosophy through reading. Most of the time, I was just a head in front of a screen, browsing the internet—there was little sense of having a body.

    I also tried many things to minimize my exposure to pain and fear. Evading social interactions to evade the possibility of experiencing shame was a common strategy of mine. I was deathly afraid of feeling difficult emotions. Being a highly sensitive person, powerful emotions like shame would shut me down, leaving me incapacitated.

    Later, I embarked on a spiritual journey and became drawn to teachings that promised an end to suffering. I poured myself into meditation and became somewhat relieved by a growing sense of detachment. I thought it was a mark of progress, but actually, I was becoming more apathetic. Increasingly, I had difficulty engaging with life and other people.

    Recovering Authenticity and Aliveness

    Living inside my head, I became an observer of life—like an armchair anthropologist. Sure, I participated in the activities that society expected of me, but I always did so at a distance.

    We all come into this world as embodied consciousness. With our body we experience ourselves and contact our environment: we move, communicate, relate, and create worlds. We experience the world’s colors, melodies, temperatures, pulsations, and textures. And it is through our body that we feel joy, sadness, anger, fear, comfort, and love. Through tasting this smorgasbord of sensations, we also discover and bring out our unique expression into the world.

    Life with limited sensation and feeling is like experiencing the world in one dimension only. So, the work I had to do to find myself again involved coming home to my body.

    In a world that sometimes tries to erase or suppress our embodied, authentic expression, coming home to ourselves requires courage and a lot of support. By reclaiming our body, we can rediscover a sense of belonging in ourselves and in this world.

    5 Ways to Begin Coming Home to Your Body

    There are many approaches that can help us come home to our body and feel more alive. If you’ve experienced deep trauma, please find a trained somatic practitioner who can work with you. Here, I’ll just share a few simple things you can try doing more of to become a little more embodied. Make sure to listen to your body in order to discern whether these activities feel right for you.

    1. Breathe deeply.

    Proper breathing is essential to becoming more embodied.

    I learned from a bodyworker that I wasn’t breathing fully most of the time. My Zen practice taught me to breathe into my belly, but now, I wasn’t breathing into my chest much.

    To breathe more fully, breathe in deeply, filling the space in your abdomen as if you were pouring water into a jug. The air rises up to the chest as water rises up a jug. Breathing out, the air releases from the chest and from the belly.

    2. Touch the earth.

    Recently, my painting teacher offered to teach me how to garden. There’s something very healing about touching the soil with my hands. When we touch the earth, we connect with our larger body, which helps us recognize our individual small body.

    Today, so many of us, including myself, spend our days sitting in front of a computer. So I think it’s important to find activities where we can touch the earth. I remember the first time I walked on a beach with my bare feet, I thought to myself, “Wow! I can really feel my legs and feet… I feel so alive.”

    3. Nourish with quality food.

    One of the healers I worked with taught me that what we eat has enormous effects on our psychosomatic system on multiple levels. I’m not a specialist in this area, but from my experience, switching to a healthier diet was a game changer.

    It’s not just what we eat, but how we eat, too. By expressing gratitude for what I am eating and savoring the delicious sensations on my tongue, I celebrate the experience of being embodied.

    4. Move freely.

    Through practice, I’m becoming more aware of how I inhabit my body based on the way I respond to my environment. I may prop myself up to gain respect or walk briskly to keep up with the hustle. Giving ourselves space during our day to move more freely, in an uncontrived manner, can help us discover an authenticity that seems to flow with nature.

    5. Make art.

    When I reflect on the moments where I felt most alive, many of those moments involved expressing myself through art.

    Whether through painting, sculpting, playing an instrument, or dancing, we engage the whole of our being in the art-making process. It is not merely an intellectual exercise but a visceral engagement of our soul with the physical world. In artmaking, we allow our body to express its wisdom, a wisdom that moves us by touching the beauty that lies within.

    —

    Learning to become more embodied is a beautiful process of self-discovery. There never was any separation between mind and body—they are one. By reclaiming the space in my body, and reestablishing myself inside the temple of my soul, I’m learning to dance with life again.

  • How to Live Your Dharma (True Purpose): The Path to Soul-Level Fulfillment

    How to Live Your Dharma (True Purpose): The Path to Soul-Level Fulfillment

    “Dharma actually means the life you should be living—in other words, an ideal life awaits you if you are aligned with your Dharma. What is the ideal life? It consists of living as your true self.” ~Deepak Chopra

    From the moment I finished high school until my late twenties, I had “purpose anxiety.”

    I wasn’t just confused and missing a sense of direction in life; my lack of purpose also made me feel inadequate, uninteresting, and lesser than other people.

    I secretly envied those who had cool hobbies, worked jobs they loved, and talked passionately about topics I often didn’t know much about.

    I even resented them for living “the good life” and kept wondering, “Why not me?”

    Until it was my turn.

    What it took to begin embracing my purpose—or dharma, as I prefer to call it—was one thing: love.

    Let me explain.

    The 4 Keys to Living Our Dharma (Purpose)

    The Sanskrit word “dharma” has many meanings and most commonly translates to “life purpose” and “the life we’re meant to live.” I believe there are four main keys to living our dharma.

    1. Cultivating self-worth: the essential first step.

    I was bullied in high school, and as a result, I had very low self-esteem for many years. Looking back, I realize that feeling that low self-worth prevented me from embracing my dharma.

    Why?

    It was because I was too focused on trying to be liked and too worried about what other people thought of me to be in touch with my authentic self. I put all my energy into doing everything I could to look “cool” and be accepted by others rather than what my soul wanted to do, explore, and experience.

    The essential idea is that embracing our dharma requires living authentically. As Deepak Chopra says, “[dharma] consists of living as your true self.”

    The issue is that it can be difficult to express and live your truth when you feel inadequate, unworthy, and perhaps even unlovable. The risk of being rejected seems too high, and it feels unsafe.

    So the first step to living our purpose, I believe, is cultivating radical self-love. It’s a bit of a “chicken and the egg” situation because having a strong sense of purpose increases self-esteem, but low self-esteem makes it hard to embrace our purpose. It’s best to develop both simultaneously.

    Here are a few ideas to cultivate self-love that have helped me:

    The first one is meditation.

    Part of meditation is about allowing ourselves to become aware of and observe our own thinking. When we meditate, we disidentify from our thoughts and get to experience glimpses of who we truly are—of our essence—which is loving and infinitely worthy. As a result, we naturally start loving and accepting ourselves more. Meditation has undoubtedly been the number one thing that has improved my self-esteem.

    Another thing that has helped me is self-care.

    As I said, I didn’t have many friends in high school and spent much of my time alone. So I started going to the gym after school to do something with my time and be around people (even if I didn’t talk to them). Exercising regularly led to eating healthier and taking better care of myself in several other ways.

    I find that self-care is a practical way to cultivate self-love. When you take care of yourself, you show that you care about yourself. Over time, you start genuinely feeling the self-love you are showing yourself and believing it.

    The last (effective but cringy) thing that helped improve my self-esteem is an exercise that a therapist recommended.

    Here’s how it goes: In the evening, stand in front of the mirror and—looking at yourself in the eyes—say, “I love you, [say your name]. I love [say three things you like about yourself], and you deserve all the good things life has to offer.” Try it for thirty days; it may change your life.

    2. Being in touch with and following your inner compass.

    Jack Canfield says, “We are all born with an inner compass that tells us whether or not we’re on the right path to finding our true purpose. That compass is our joy.”

    Often, we seek purpose outside of ourselves, as if it’s some hidden treasure we need to find. But, as Mel Robbins puts it, “You don’t ‘find’ your purpose; you feel it.” What feels good—expansive, joyful, intriguing, exciting, or inspiring—to you?

    That’s an important question because, according to numerous spiritual books I’ve read, those things we enjoy are clues guiding us to our dharma.

    The main difficulty is usually differentiating our true desires from the ego’s “wants” and the desires that come from conditioning. The ego wants to feel important. It’s afraid of not being “good enough,” so it feels the need to prove its worth.

    The “wants” that come from conditioning consist of what our parents and society have told us we “should” do. If we follow those “shoulds,” even though they don’t align with our authentic selves, we risk waking up one day and realizing that we’ve climbed the wrong ladder and lived our life for others instead of ourselves.

    Here’s something that helps me differentiate those desires.

    Make a list of all the things you want to have, do, experience, and become in the next few years.

    For each item on your list, ask yourself why you want it. Is it because you feel the need to prove something or want to feel important or perhaps even superior to others? That’s the ego. Is it because you think that’s what you “should” do? That’s likely conditioning. Is it because it makes you feel alive? That’s your heart.

    To live our dharma, we must follow our heart’s desires—the things we genuinely love. This requires authenticity and courage.

    3. Savoring the experience of being alive.

    Another aspect of dharma is loving life—living with presence and appreciating the experience of being alive. There are a few things I find helpful here:

    The first idea is to keep a “Book of Appreciation,” as Esther Hicks calls it. Every day, take five minutes to journal about what you appreciate about someone, a situation, or something else in your life.

    To savor life, we must also be present. In A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle states that true enjoyment does not depend on the nature of the task but on our state of being—we must aim for a state of deep presence.

    He recommends being mindful when attending to even our most mundane tasks. I also like to go on long walks and observe (with presence) the natural elements around me—like the clouds passing in the sky, the smell of trees after the rain, and the sensation of the sun’s rays on my face.

    And, of course, having a daily gratitude practice is always a winner!

    4. Extending love through joyful service.

    Dharma is also about sharing—extending love. One of the best ways to contribute to the collective is to share our gifts in a way that’s enjoyable to us.

    We all have natural gifts—things that come easier to us than to others. Some people are good at writing, while others are great leaders or excel at analyzing data. Perhaps you like to create, manage, nurture, delight, support, empower, listen, guide, or organize.

    There’s also another, more profound aspect of contribution that comes from being rather than doing. I remember a passage from a book I read many years ago (I can’t remember what book it was) that went something like this:

    “Your contribution [to the collective] is your level of consciousness.”

    A higher consciousness radiates greater love, and one of the best ways to uplift others is by being a loving presence.

    Dharma: The Bottom Line

    Bob Schwartz, the author of Your Soul’s Plan and Your Soul’s Gift, says, “We are here to learn to receive and give love. That’s the bottom line.”

    This involves loving ourselves, others, and life in general, and also following our heart—doing things we genuinely love.

    I don’t know about you, but this perspective on dharma feels good to me. It has freed me from my “purpose anxiety.”

    I hope it can serve you too.

  • The Secret to Eternal Youth: How to Feel Excited About Life Again

    The Secret to Eternal Youth: How to Feel Excited About Life Again

    “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. ” ~Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart

    I am forty-nine years old, and I’ve never felt so young in my life. Many people my age feel old. Many people younger than I am feel old, while many people who are older than I am still feel young.

    What makes someone feel young? I can assure you it has nothing to do with how many wrinkles you have. It is something much deeper than that and yet something very simple.

    Most of us get serious about life around the time we are thirty. We devote ourselves to building our career, building our family, or both. From young people who care mostly about having fun, we become responsible adults. We need to prove ourselves, to make money, to buy a house, and to secure our future.

    “Along the way, I forgot to get excited about things. Everything became a project, something I had to deal with,” a friend told me when I asked her if she was thrilled about buying a new house.

    When we build our home, our career, our family, and our reputation, there is a part of us that we leave behind. When we enter the world of mortgages, insurance, and pension funds, fun goes out the window. And when that happens, we lose our fire.

    Fire is fun; it’s freedom, it’s joy. Fire is courage and boldness. Fire is passion and excitement. Fire is being spontaneous, taking risks, and saying your truth. Fire is exercising and moving energy.

    Fire is fighting for what you believe in. Fire is believing in yourself, believing in life, believing that you deserve to fulfill your wildest dreams. Fire is having wild dreams. Fire is learning new things and teaching them to others. It’s being inspired and inspiring.

    So often we are overwhelmed with life’s demands, and we forget to have fun; we forget to keep our fire alive, and we lose our mojo. Some of us got burnt by our fire when we were younger. Fun led to addictions and other destructive behaviors. We have learned to fear our fire and avoid it at all costs.

    During a few wild years when I lived in New York City, a friend once said to me, “In our twenties we have to do crazy things so that we have something to talk about in our thirties.”

    This is how we live, feeling that from this point onward, life is going downhill toward decay. We feel like our prime years were left behind. We try to reduce the signs of aging to feel better when we look in the mirror or at pictures of ourselves. But no matter what we do, we won’t look like we did in our twenties.

    About three years ago, I started feeling old. I’d always looked younger than my age, but I lost in the Botox race, as I did not do any. I lost my passion; I lost my desire to have fun and enjoy myself; everything was very serious.

    I hated looking at my pictures. All I saw was the lack of charm and beauty that I once possessed. I tried to convince myself that these were external, irrelevant, and unimportant concerns, but they were not; they reflected something deep that was going on in my life.

    Don’t get me wrong. During this time, I was already working at something I loved with all my heart. I loved mothering my son more than anything in the world. I loved my husband and was very grateful for our marriage. But except for my work and my family role, I didn’t care about anything. There was absolutely no time or ability to enjoy life.

    Then things got even worse. I got sick and was forced to constantly deal with my health and nutrition. My diet became more limited than it ever was; I could not enjoy food anymore. I thought I was going to die. I was already older than my mother when she passed away at the age of forty-four, and it just made sense that I would follow in her footsteps to heaven.

    But I was also lucky. I was lucky because there was something inside of me that was stronger than all of this. An inner voice told me that I was still alive and that I should not take it for granted. Every day I got to live was a gift. What was I going to do with this?

    Was I going to look back and cry for not being as beautiful as I once was? Or was I going to look forward and make my life the way I wanted it to be? I realized that it was all up to me. I could continue sinking down into my dietary limitations, my homework struggles, and my aging looks, or I could ignite my fire.

    I decided that it was time to make a big move, from Israel to the US, where I’ve always wanted to live. In order to be fully alive, I had to throw myself out of the nest.

    Even though my husband had no desire to make this move, I knew it was a matter of life and death for me and that I had to take the lead. It was my truth, and it required taking a huge risk.

    During the pandemic we could not even make a preliminary visit, nor could we know for sure if our son would be accepted to school, but we had to take our chances.

    Once we settled in Asheville, NC, I bought new colorful clothes. After years of wearing black bamboo jumpsuits, I added some flair to my wardrobe.

    I took some courses with great teachers who inspired me. I got back to practicing yoga and became a part of the local yoga community. I got back to listening to music that made me want to dance.

    I started writing and publishing my work. I started telling my truth more often. I had some big talks with important people in my life. I said some things I’d never dared say before. What did I have to lose? What does anyone have to lose?

    That’s the beauty of being older. You are wiser, more experienced, you know yourself, and you understand life better than ever before. You are mature enough to deal with your fire in a healthy way.

    You already know that there is no point in pretending or hiding. You can live your truth, you can be who you really are, and you can work toward the fulfillment of your dreams. And it’s rejuvenating, so rejuvenating, despite the wrinkles and the fact that your body is no longer in its prime.

    You can live like you’ve died and come back to life. What will you do differently? Do it. Do it today. Don’t wait.

    If your life does not excite you, make it exciting. If life is not fun, make it fun. Obviously, you can’t control everything. The human experience is not always fun, but no matter what your circumstances are, you can always make things better for yourself, even if it’s just a change of attitude.

    People, especially those on the spiritual path, dismiss fun, and I am the first one to admit that I do this. There are always more important things to do. It’s so hard to find time to mother, to be a partner, to work, to cook, to write, to meditate, to practice. Alcohol is bad, drugs are bad, and sugar is bad. All the things you used to have fun with in your twenties are bad.

    For years I prepared all of my family’s meals. When you eat out, the food does not have your loving energy and is not made with the same organic, local, and fresh ingredients. This is all true, but the pressure to constantly cook had a counterproductive effect on my health.

    Today, sometimes I eat out or order in, and it makes me so happy. I am more flexible, more open, and I am much healthier. It’s all about finding the middle path. If your path puts out your fire, it means that something is wrong.

    It’s not that igniting my fire has solved all my problems. The human experience is still hard. I am still facing many challenges, in some ways even more challenges. When you change, or say your truth, it’s usually not so easy for the people around you to deal with. But I am empowered to deal with my problems. I feel fully alive and beautiful.

    Today I love the way I look. I love the way inspiring aging women and men look. When you live out of passion, courage, and truth, you radiate beauty.

    If you are willing to look beyond the anti-aging ads, you can see that aging is a beautiful process. I’m excited to age. I want to get old. My mother did not have the chance to be old. I have so many dreams to fulfill, and I am grateful for every moment given to me to fulfill them.

    One thing is for sure: I will never lose my healthy fire again.

  • It’s Okay to Have No Purpose Beyond Being and Enjoying This Moment

    It’s Okay to Have No Purpose Beyond Being and Enjoying This Moment

    “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” ~Joseph Campbell

    I was sitting on my yoga mat with my legs stretched out in front of me. I bent forward into a fold, puffing and clenching my jaw as I extended my fingertips toward my toes. I was growing angrier by the second.

    A slew of sour thoughts marched through my brain.

    This is stupid. I thought yoga was supposed to be relaxing. I’m so out of shape. Other people have no trouble with this pose. This hurts. Why bother doing yoga at all? It doesn’t work.

    My mat resistance was strong at this moment, but it was also indicative of a much larger problem. Doing the pose “right” wasn’t the issue here; it was my belief that unless I could bend a certain way, I wasn’t progressing in my yoga teacher training.

    I wasn’t meeting my goal. I wasn’t being “productive.”

    And surely, there was no greater sin than that.

    A Collective Fungus

    The idea that you aren’t worthy unless you are producing results has seeped like insidious black mold into every facet of our modern lives.

    We are pressured to always be making goals, going somewhere, or achieving something. “Doing nothing” is scorned as lazy. Pursuing a hobby with no monetary value or social esteem is deemed a waste of time.

    You only have a certain number of days on this planet. If you don’t spend them hustling, you’re of no use to anyone.

    You’re writing a novel? Well, have you published it yet? How much money did you get for it?

    Oh, you’ve taken up jogging? Why? Are you planning on running a marathon? What are your weight goals?

    Don’t you want to leave a legacy behind? Don’t you want people to read off a list of impressive accomplishments at your funeral?

    But the truth is that the most meaningful things that happen to us in life have no clear point.

    You can’t cash in on the beauty of a sunset. There’s no “purpose” to stargazing. Listening to a song that transports you out of time and space doesn’t pay the bills.

    Moments like these are born from joy and wonder, and they are what give our lives meaning. It’s time we gave ourselves permission to feel them.

    1. Schedule time to do nothing.

    Once I realized how much the burden of being productive was curdling my overall joy in life, I started setting aside time to simply “be.” For me, this involved sitting on my porch with a glass of wine in hand, trying to simply be present to what was going on around me.

    No phone, no music, no screens.

    What became very apparent, very quickly, was how restless I grew without any busywork. I felt guilty and slothful. What was the point of just sitting here, enjoying the scenery? I should be out there doing something.

    But I did my best to ignore such feelings, and I continued to show up for these pockets of allotted rest. What I noticed was that gradually, the shame began to melt away. The more I gave myself permission to do nothing, the more I felt my spirit expand in the space I had created for it.

    These boozy relaxation sessions on the porch were only one way to cultivate gratitude and stillness. I tried other things as well, like bringing a more presence-focused—and less goal-oriented—attitude to my yoga practice.

    The “5-4-3-2-1” meditation was another helpful centering practice. It goes something like this:

    Take a moment to look around and note five things you see. Then note four things you hear, three things you can touch, two things you smell, and one thing you can taste. You can mix and match what senses go with which number.

    These moments of “being time” will look different for everyone. The point is to take a moment to note what is happening around you right here, right now.

    Let go of the shame that is so often attached to being “unproductive.” Give yourself permission to do nothing, even if it’s just for a few minutes a day.

    2. Abandon the idea that “self-love” means “selfish.”

    Granting yourself the grace to “be” is an integral component of self-love—a complicated and guilt-provoking term for many of us because we have so often been told that “self-love” is the same thing as “selfishness.”

    This misconception is yet another way our society has prioritized “hustling” over inner peace, and such an attitude often leads to the tragic dismissal of our own feelings and boundaries.

    Labeling self-love as selfish doesn’t stem from a healthy consideration of those around you, but from a devaluing of your own humanity.

    Self-love is the recognition that you have inherent value as a human being who takes up space on this beautiful green and blue marble.

    In practice, it means doing things that reinforce this truth—in whatever way nourishes you emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

    For me, it means eating greener and doing yoga. It means respecting my creative process by resting so I don’t burn out.

    It means giving myself permission to let go of relationships that are ruled by guilt or fear. It means practicing embodiment through breathing exercises and checking in with my mental health.

    These are my ways of practicing self-love. They don’t have to be yours. Pay attention to what makes you feel free and joyous. Then go do that.

    Try to embrace that fact that you are worth prioritizing, every day, until this idea blossoms into your lived reality.

    3. Give yourself permission to not have a “purpose.”

    Have you ever been in a job interview and had the person sitting across from you ask, “So where do you see yourself in five years?’

    Well, consider this your official letter of permission to have no clue what you’re doing in five years—or even one year. You don’t even have to know what you’re doing tomorrow.

    The only “purpose” we have as human beings is to move toward and reflect love. There are a lot of different ways to do this, and everyone deserves the space to discover the path that is right for them.

    Ultimately, life is about joy, not productivity or the subjective goalposts of success. Grant yourself the grace to exist in this world. Being alive is a miracle.

    You are enough simply because you are.

  • How to Reclaim Your Joy After the Pandemic: 3 Things That Helped Me

    How to Reclaim Your Joy After the Pandemic: 3 Things That Helped Me

    DISCLAIMER: Though vaccines have allowed many of us to return to more normal activities, the pandemic isn’t over, and it’s still crucial that we all follow the evolving CDC guidelines to keep both ourselves and others safe.

    “Perfect happiness is a beautiful sunset, the giggle of a grandchild, the first snowfall. It’s the little things that make happy moments, not the grand events. Joy comes in sips, not gulps.” ~Sharon Draper

    It was a rainy, late Sunday afternoon. The sun was already going down, and it was getting dark outside.

    “How are you?”

    “Oh, good. Nothing special. It’s quiet,” my mom responded when I called her a couple of months ago.

    “It’s quiet” had been her response for the past two years, possibly before that. My mom is retired. Since the pandemic, her life became even more “quiet” than before—fewer friends, fewer activities, less fun.

    I’m not retired, but I work from home, and the same happened to me. To some degree, I let it happen.

    I got used to not seeing people, not laughing, and not dancing. I got used to being alone, and it became more comfortable to stay home on Saturdays than going out for social activities. Was I developing a mild form of social anxiety? Maybe.

    Two things were for certain: my social skills had atrophied, and I had forgotten how to have fun. What was joy like?

    “I feel like this must be what it’s like for the elderly; when no one visits them and they don’t have many friends and activities, they sort of start dying inside.”

    “That’s how I feel right now,” my mom responded.

    Have you experienced that too at some point? Not feeling like doing anything and seeing people because you forgot how to connect with them and what you even enjoy doing?

    “I think it’s a slippery slope. We should do something about it. We should make an effort to break the pattern and start socializing and doing activities again before we die inside,” I told my mom.

    After hanging up the phone, I reflected upon what I had just said. I knew that “shoulds” wouldn’t make the situation better; I had to be proactive and do something about it. I took out a pen and a notebook and started writing an action plan.

    Here are the three things I wrote down that day that have most helped me to reclaim a sense of joy in my life.

    1. Do one thing on your list of “joys.”

    A piece of advice that was very helpful came from a friend who lost his partner to cancer a couple of years ago, just a few months after she was diagnosed.

    It was a shock to him. They had projects together, like buying a campervan, traveling around North America, and building a house off-grid. Suddenly, those plans were gone, and my friend had to learn to live alone again while coping with grief.

    One thing that helped him get out of depression and slowly regain his spark for life was to make a list of things that made him happy (even just a little). Every day for the next three months, he did as many things on his list as he could.

    I took that advice and created my list of fifteen “little joys.”

    They’re not complicated. They include things like watching the sunset, reading a book while drinking a mocha latte in the morning, walking in nature, wearing my favorite outfit, dancing to progressive trance music in my living room, and watching funny dog videos.

    Every day, I picked at least three things on my list to do that day; if I could do more, great! But I did at least three. Over a few days, this simple practice started making me feel happier.

    Of course, you’ll first have to create your own list of “joys,” but once you have it, it’s a wonderful tool to bring more joy into your daily life.

    2. Do one thing to trigger the “helper’s high.”

    Another thing that significantly impacted my mood and energy was to do one act of kindness every day.

    I had read articles about the science of altruism and happiness, and I knew that helping or being kind to others makes us happy. There’s even a specific term for it: the “helper’s high.”

    I began asking myself every morning, “What’s one act of kindness I will do today?”

    Since I don’t always feel creative first thing in the morning, I made a list of fifteen acts of kindness ideas that I could choose from. Like my list of “joys,” they aren’t complicated. They include writing a nice comment on someone’s Tik Tok video, posting an uplifting quote on Facebook, and complimenting someone.

    Just doing this one thing, intentionally, every day made me feel more alive. But in case you don’t feel inspired to do one act of kindness a day, here’s another idea.

    Another thing I started doing recently, which I learned from Tim Ferriss’s book Tools of Titans, is a ten-second loving-kindness exercise created by Chade-Meng Tan, the man behind the popular mindfulness-based emotional intelligence course for employees at Google called Search Inside Yourself.

    The exercise is very simple: A few times a day, randomly choose two people you see and secretly wish for each of them to be happy. You don’t have to do or say anything—just think, “I wish you to be happy,” with a sincere intention from your heart.

    I find both the ten-second loving-kindness exercise and doing one act of kindness a day therapeutic. They take our focus away from our problems and increase our sense of connection to others, even when the act of kindness is anonymous, and we don’t physically interact with the person.

    3. Do one thing every day to nurture your social circle.

    It took me some time to realize that my mental health was being affected by a sense of isolation. I’m an introvert and enjoy my own company. It wasn’t obvious that my desire to eat more ice cream than usual and my lack of motivation to get out of bed in the morning had something to do with spending too much time alone.

    Some weeks during the height of the pandemic, I talked to no one except my clients on Zoom and the cashier at the grocery store. And the more time I spent alone, the less I wanted to see people. The idea of socializing began to feel daunting, and I chose to stay home (alone) more and more often.

    But it was killing me inside. I had to break the solitude pattern before the hole I was digging and putting myself in became too deep.

    I started small but did something every day to revive my social life.

    One day, I commented on an acquaintance’s Facebook post. Another day, I messaged a friend on Messenger. The following week, that friend suggested we go for lunch, and I went.

    Friendships must be nurtured to grow stronger and thrive; otherwise, they atrophy.

    So, perhaps you can ask yourself every day, “What’s one thing I can do today to nurture and expand my social circle?”

    Start small.

    —

    I did a few other things to bring more joy into my life in the past few months as well, like taking on a new hobby (learning to play the djembe) and attending social events every other week. But the three actions I mentioned in this article are the ones that made the most significant difference in my well-being in the long run.

    What do you do to feel alive and inspired? Share with us in the comments so we can all benefit from each other’s wisdom.

  • How Happiness Sneaks Up on Us If We Stop Chasing It

    How Happiness Sneaks Up on Us If We Stop Chasing It

    One day a man met a hungry tiger. He ran. The tiger chased him. Coming to a cliff, he jumped, catching hold of a tree root to stop himself falling to the bottom where, horror upon horror, another tiger waited to eat him.

    He hung on for dear life to that thin root.

    Then a little mouse appeared and started to nibble at the root. The mouse was hungry and the fibers started to snap.

    Just then, the man saw a ripe red strawberry near him, growing from the cliff face. Holding the vine with one hand, he picked the strawberry with the other.

    How sweet it tasted! How happy he was!

    Buddhist Koan

    There’s no good time to have a heart attack. They really mess up your plans.

    The timing of mine could have been worse, though. I guess I should be grateful.

    It didn’t seem that way: alone, midnight, searing pain in my spine, chest, arms. Raw fear.

    At least I was at home. That’s something to be grateful for.

    Three months earlier I’d been directing a show in India. Then a short trip to run a corporate training in Malaysia. I was home in the UK for less than two weeks before I’d flown to China for more corporate work.

    Back from China, I drove north to Scotland to sort out my mother, moving her into a care home. A lifetime of books, pictures, clothes, and memories distilled to… almost nothing. How do you fit a lifetime into a small room?

    Through all those trips, in airports, mid-workshops, late in the night, I’d had shooting, crippling, breath-stopping chest pains, which I always found some way to ignore. They passed.

    I was in my fifties and fit. I was fine. There’s always some explanation, other than the obvious, when the obvious is too scary to face.

    The day of my heart attack, I drove eight hours from Scotland to England and, exhausted, collapsed to bed.

    I was woken by pain at midnight. At least I woke. That too is something to be grateful for.

    It wasn’t a good time to have a heart attack, but it could have been worse.

    There’s a lot I can be grateful for.

    “Looks like a heart attack,” said the paramedic, studying an ECG print-out in the back of the ambulance. “Let’s get you to the hospital to confirm.”

    “Yes, a heart attack,” confirmed the doctor, some time before dawn. “We’ll find you a bed and work out what to do with you next.”

    “Not a good time,” I thought, wires taped to my chest, old men wheezing and muttering in the other beds. “I’m due in Greece on Tuesday.”

    My clogged arteries didn’t much care I’d booked my flights. Things happen when they happen.

    ***

    I was in the hospital for ten days. There were daily discussions about how to treat me. My heart attack had not been very bad, but not very good either.

    Open-heart surgery or stenting?

    In the end they couldn’t decide, so they left it up to me. Open-heart surgery is more invasive but maybe safer in the long term. Stents could be done in an hour and I could go home. They might not be enough though.

    My choice.

    I chose stents. Attention to my body is the foundation of what I do. I couldn’t bear the thought of being cut open. At least, I couldn’t bear it as long as there was some other way.

    A good choice?

    Time will tell.

    I had to wait four days between decision and surgery. Four days in the hospital when I should have been in Greece.

    The morning after I chose my treatment, I experienced something very strange. Not another heart-attack, though it happened in the region of my heart. I discovered I was happy.

    Not happy about anything. Not happy because of anything. Just happy.

    Completely, unconditionally happy.

    I’d woken at 5am. It was June, so already it was light. The hospital was quiet.

    Sunlight streamed through the window, and I lay looking at the tree outside. My bed was curtained-off, so I was wrapped in privacy.

    I started reading my book, relishing the early hour, and being left alone.

    A bird sang outside.

    I felt spacious.

    I was happy.

    It was simple. It was quiet. There was a bird in the tree outside, singing, because that’s what birds do.

    All that existed was a very quiet “now.” Book, sunlight, scrubby early-morning birdsong.

    I was alive.

    I didn’t know for how much longer, but in that moment, I was alive, and that was enough.

    ***

    Two months later, I spent a week on an island off the Atlantic coast of Ireland. I was taking myself through a disciplined rehabilitation.

    Each day I walked a little further.

    I ate well and slept a lot.

    I worked my stress and anxiety, which I’d ignored for decades.

    A small Irish, Atlantic island in summer is warmer than in winter, but not much else changes. There’s wind and rain and wild beauty. I walked, morning, noon, and night. Each day I went further, took more risks. Slowly, I learned to trust my body again.

    On the third day, I stood at the top of one of the larger hills. There was a gale blowing off the sea, and the rain was sheeting down.

    It was viciously cold.

    My waterproof jacket had given up, and spiteful rain ran down my spine.

    I sheltered behind the hilltop cairn, and muttered, “This is vile.”

    Then a warmness of the heart.

    “I’m happy again,” I thought. Once again, not happy because, or happy to, or happy that, or happy for… Just happy.

    ***

    A few times in the eighteen months since, I have felt it.

    A moment of simple happiness.

    What is it?

    We spend so much time seeking happiness through achievement:

    If I can afford this house, I’ll be happy.

    If I am in relationship with this person, I’ll be happy.

    If I get this job or pass this exam…

    If I live by the sea…

    If I had more friends…

    If I had…

    If I…

    We seek happiness from outside. We see it as a consequence of things beyond ourselves. As if happiness was a perk of a new job, a company car, or access to the gym, or some secret room in a house we want, one day, to occupy.

    But happiness is not a by-product. Happiness is.

    We seek happiness from outside, extrinsically, ignoring that it lives only inside. Happiness is intrinsic.

    The things that come to us from outside, extrinsic rewards, are not in our control. To rely on them for happiness is to put ourselves at the mercy of fate and luck. If we find happiness within, though, it is truly ours. We can learn to nurture it.

    The new house, job, love, car, will not make you happy, though they may distract you from your dissatisfaction for a while.

    Only embracing happiness in this moment will make you happy.

    Like a grouchy old house cat that will not let you pet her, spurns the food you lovingly put out, and hisses if you get too close, happiness will, unexpectedly, curl up on your lap and comfort you from time to time.

    Does that mean that we cannot make ourselves happier? That happiness is arbitrary and we must suffer until it visits us?

    Though we can’t force that grouchy old cat to come, we can learn to sit quietly, giving her space and encouragement. We can learn to quieten our mind and allow the happiness of being alive—in this moment—to enter us. We can invite happiness in, by opening to it.

    Not doing things to become happy. Letting ourselves be happy.

    If I stop seeking outside of myself and start experiencing what it is to live this moment, then happiness might curl up in my chest and comfort me.

    Happiness lives on a mountain in a summer gale. It sneaks into an early morning hospital room. It is here now if, between one word and the next, I pause my typing, and I wait.

    It lives inside me, not in things I want, or think I need.

    It’s here.

    Now is a good time to be happy.

    Now is the only time there is.

    I am grateful I am here, now.

    I am grateful that, somewhere inside me, now, there’s happiness and if I stop looking for it out there, perhaps it will come to sit on my lap.

    How sweet it tasted! How happy he was!

    Buddhist Koan

  • How to Keep Going When You’re Not Good at Something New

    How to Keep Going When You’re Not Good at Something New

    I believe the people who are the most satisfied in life are those who feel the most alive.

    We generally feel most alive when we propel ourselves out of our comfort zone and seize new possibilities for meaning, excitement, and passion. But unfortunately, we’re wired to do what feels easy and safe, and it rarely feels easy or safe to be a beginner.

    No one wants to feel like Bambi taking his first wobbly first steps—weak, inept, like he could fall over at any time.

    And no one wants to feel as vulnerably exposed as Napoleon Dynamite during his awkward “Vote for Pedro” dance, an audience of underwhelmed peers staring blankly back at him, possibly judging in their heads.

    We want to feel competent, confident, and proud. Like we know what we’re doing and we’re doing it well. But that’s not usually how it works when we’re just starting out.

    Recently I’ve been helping produce a new podcast called Next Creator Up, a show that helps people get out of their own way and create what they want to create. In the first episode, Ehren Prudhel, my partner in many things, interviewed singer/songwriter Kelley McRae.

    After spending years touring, Kelley wanted to focus more on connection, community, and giving back, and ultimately started Song Rise Arts—a non-profit through which she helps underprivileged youth share their stories through song.

    Though her interview was full of aha moments for me, one thing that really stuck out for me was a discussion about getting a win quickly.

    She shared how she helps her kids complete something on day one so that they feel proud of themselves and motivated to continue.

    It’s such a simple idea, and yet incredibly powerful.

    Think about it: How many times have you tried something new and hard, felt overwhelmed, and then decided it wasn’t for you?

    I remember when I was really into step aerobics in my twenties. I liked to stand in the front row in class so I could see my form in the mirror.

    Since I’d been taking classes for months, I never felt insecure being front and center. In fact, I felt confident and proud of myself for hopping around up there with such precision of movement—so much so that it blinded me to the potential consequences of stationing my newby friend right beside me in the spotlight.

    Looking back, I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me that she likely wouldn’t appreciate being quite so visible while learning something new.

    Sure enough, she struggled throughout the entire class, every misstep reflected back to the whole group in the mirror; she felt discouraged and embarrassed; and she never again came back.

    I’ve had many similar experiences like this myself.

    Like the time I decided to learn to cook. One would think, after my aerobics experience, I would have recognized the importance of starting small and safe. But no.

    I didn’t try an easy recipe for one simple dish. I tried a four-course gourmet meal, burned most of it, then decided to go back to sandwiches and frozen food. Because I just wasn’t meant to cook.

    Then there was the time when I first tried painting. It would have made sense to find a class for beginners or a YouTube tutorial for something basic. But instead I overspent on art supplies, including a massive canvas, and quickly felt discouraged when I realized my piece looked like something I’d painted blindfolded. And drunk.

    In both situations, I expected instant perfection and set myself up for failure—not just in the moment but also in the long-term. I went from someone who could learn to cook and paint, in time, to someone who was afraid to try. Because I sucked at both… or so I thought.

    I now understand the importance of creating an early win, and continuing to create small wins over time, which I’ve learned requires me to do the following:

    • Adopt a growth mindset
    • Start small
    • Hold reasonable expectations
    • Avoid comparisons
    • Give myself credit

    If you want to feel more alive, and have identified a way to stretch into new territory, this is the path to seeing it through.

    Adopt a growth mindset.

    This is a crucial first step because you have to believe in your capacity to grow and improve, or you likely won’t allow yourself to keep going after your first imperfect attempt.

    Psychology professor Carol Dweck coined the terms “fixed mindset” and “growth mindset” over thirty years ago after studying thousands of kids and recognizing two opposing belief systems that influenced their efforts and their outcomes.

    People with a “fixed mindset” believe that success is based on innate ability—meaning you either have it or you don’t, and if you fail, it’s confirmation of the latter. It means you’re not talented enough, smart enough, or good enough, so there’s no point in trying any further because you’ll just make yourself look bad.

    People with a “growth mindset” believe that failures are part of learning, and if they keep trying, they can get better over time. Because they believe this, they keep showing up and eventually confirm their own belief. They may feel embarrassed when starting out, but they understand this is just part of the process.

    It turns out growth truly is possible for anyone. Research in brain plasticity has shown that through repeated practice—at anything—we can build new pathways in our brain, enabling continued progress.

    I remember when I was in Amsterdam, where more people ride bikes than drive cars. I had never ridden a bike in a street before, or ridden a bike at all since childhood, and I struggled to start up again whenever a red light turned green.

    On my first day, I was holding up bike traffic at an intersection as I tried to get myself going, so I turned my head and told the biker behind me, “Sorry, I’m not really good at this!” With a huge grin, he responded, “Not yet!”

    And he was right. By the end of my month there, I was stopping and starting like a pro, something that couldn’t have happened if I kicked my bike to the curb in resignation on day one.

    So before you go into this new thing, whatever it is, no matter how hard, recognize that ineptitude is just a starting point, and if you put in the time, even just a little every day, you will eventually see results. 

    Start small.

    When we feel a sense of accomplishment, it activates the reward center of our brain, releasing the neurochemical dopamine. Because we feel good, we’re then driven to do more.

    And the thing is, we don’t actually need to achieve massive success to feel a sense of accomplishment. Even a small win—like writing one section of a blog post or signing up for a class—can motivate us to keep moving forward.

    This isn’t relevant only when pursuing passions and professional goals; the same principle applies with everything you might want to improve in your life.

    If you’re struggling with depression or anxiety, applying one lesson or tool from therapy or personal research can help you feel encouraged and inspire more healthy choices.

    If you’d like to improve your financial situation, unsubscribing from one store newsletter or bringing lunch instead of buying it can empower you to make more smart money decisions.

    Or, if you’re trying to improve your health, walking ten minutes on a treadmill or smoking one fewer cigarette today could help you find the motivation to keep taking tiny steps forward.

    This was actually the most helpful approach I used when recovering from bulimia. The treatment centers preached abstinence, and for good reason, I know—setbacks can have fatal consequences when you’re putting such strain on your heart.

    But I was too far in to simply stop, and every slipup created massive shame, which then led to more slipups. So instead of expecting perfection, I told myself to do one fewer disordered behavior today, and to do at least the same tomorrow, or one fewer than that if I could.

    Sure enough, I eventually started to feel proud of myself, my pride built momentum, and through that momentum (along with continued therapy to address trauma from my past), I slowly healed.

    Hold reasonable expectations.

    In order to start small, you have to be willing to let go of any unrealistic expectations about what you should be able to accomplish.

    This isn’t always easy to do. We live in a culture that promotes extraordinary natural talent as an indicator of worth, and celebrates “overnight success” as the ultimate sign of accomplishment.

    But the truth is, even people with natural talent need to work hard to excel at their craft, and “overnight success” usually happens after months and years of work that no one knew to recognize, because it wasn’t public.

    So let go of the idea that you should be anywhere other than where you are. Release yourself from the burden of believing your current skill level says anything about who you are as a person, or what’s possible for you.

    If you’re going to expect anything as you start doing something new, expect that:

    • You may not be very good at it.
    • You may feel embarrassed if other people are watching.
    • You may follow every small win with (what feels like) a small failure.
    • You may feel frustrated and wish you could do more than you can do.
    • You may not be able to live up to your own taste level (another insight from Kelley’s interview).
    • You may want to give up because it feels too hard.
    • You may make slower progress than you’d like.
    • But if you accept all of the above and keep showing up anyways, you will eventually see results.

    Avoid comparisons.

    There’s a quote I love that reads, “Don’t compare your chapter one to someone else’s chapter twenty.” I’d extend this further to include, “Or someone else’s chapter one.”

    It’s tempting to judge ourselves based on someone else’s capabilities or accomplishments, especially since they’re in our face all day, every day, on social media. But all this does is feed into our insecurities and doubts and leave us feeling inadequate and discouraged.

    We’re all starting from different places, with different backgrounds, strengths, and skill levels. And we all have different wants, priorities, and values. Maybe you value balance, so you’re moving more slowly than someone else who works around the clock and deprioritizes family time and sleep.

    You could compare yourself to that person, but would it really be a fair comparison?

    And even if you are making a fair comparison, does it actually serve you in any way?

    I’m not going to lie; knowing this doesn’t always make it easy for me to stop comparing myself to other people.

    I sometimes see people who seem to be doing better, question if maybe they’re just fundamentally better—not just at whatever they’re doing, but also as people—and then get stuck in a cycle of shame and self-judgment. And sometimes this all happens so quickly I don’t even realize I’m doing it.

    If you find it hard to avoid comparisons, then maybe a better goal, for now, is to avoid comparison triggers.

    If you know you get down on yourself when you look at a specific person’s Facebook updates, unfollow them. If you can’t read about the greats in your niche without feeling like a failure, don’t read about them.

    Keep your eyes on your own path so you’re less apt to convince yourself your small wins are insignificant.

    Give yourself credit.

     A small win only has value if you acknowledge it, so stop and create some self-satisfaction by asking yourself the following questions:

    • What did I do right or well?
    • Why was this impressive or noteworthy for me specifically, based on my unique personality, past, and challenges?
    • What fears did I have to push through to do this?
    • In what way did this push me out of my comfort zone?
    • Why is this small win actually a big win?
    • What would I say to a friend or my child if they had a small win like this?

    Proactively choose to build yourself up for doing whatever you did, no matter how small, and you’ll be more likely to do the same, or even more, tomorrow. Then you’ll give yourself more credit, feel even more motivated, and slowly, over time, become the person you want to be and do the things you want to do.

    —

    If you’re interested in hearing the podcast episode I mentioned at the start of this post, you can find it here, along with detailed show notes.

    I’m incredibly proud of Ehren, the show’s host, who’s pushed himself outside of his comfort zone with this new venture, and has been collecting small wins over the last several months leading up to this launch.

    And I’m beyond inspired by Kelley McRae, a talented musician and brilliant teacher who’s making a tremendous difference for low-income kids by enabling them to tell their stories through song.

  • The Miscarriage: Why My Heart Feels Full In Spite of My Loss

    The Miscarriage: Why My Heart Feels Full In Spite of My Loss

    “Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and it’s spectacular.” ~Joseph Campbell

    They say all feelings have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

    The truth is that I’m still in the middle part, but I felt like it was time to share this story with you—not just for me, but for all women who have faced this and for all women who have made a plan and then surrendered as the plan changed.

    Two months ago, I had a miscarriage.

    The pregnancy was a little bit of a surprise. We’d been talking about it, but weren’t “trying.” (Sidenote: I got off birth control pills years ago when I quit drinking alcohol—best decision of my life, but that’s a different story.)

    Over the years, I really learned my body and I’d been able to sync up with my cycle, except for this one time a few months ago when I miscounted the days. Whoops.

    I took a pregnancy test. Two lines. I took three more pregnancies tests. All four said the same thing: two lines = pregnant.

    Were we excited? Were we scared? Do we celebrate? Did we just mess up our entire lives? Do we move? Do I cancel my work trips in the fall? All the plans. All the feelings. All at once. But the excitement was incredible—we made a baby!

    I started telling the women closest to me.

    My husband started calling and checking in more than normal.

    We were preparing in our own way.

    I was early. Only eight weeks.

    And I was eager to tell my family in person because I just so happened to have a trip already planned to see them.

    But before boarding the plane a few weeks ago, I could sense something was going on. I called a close friend and told her that I was starting to feel attached to the little creation growing inside of me and that I was scared I would lose it. Part of me already knew, even though I wouldn’t find out for another week.

    My wise friend said something I’ll never forget. She said,

    “Julie, no matter what happens, you’ll be okay.”

    She was right. She’s always right.

    A week later, when I started spotting, I was in my mother’s bathroom in Louisiana. I had told her the news the night before. I immediately called that same friend, then my husband, then the doctor. Tears and more tears. I knew what was happening.

    Emergency ultrasound.

    My sister (my closest friend and a nurse) moved into action, told me what to do, and pulled all the strings for my appointment.

    My mother sat on the couch with me, held my hands, cradled my face, and prayed with me.

    My father rushed to my side with fierce strength and held back his tears with loving tenderness.

    My husband, thousands of miles away, held strong—mentally and emotionally—and kept telling me that everything would be okay. One step at a time. Always, grounding and anchoring me.

    They were all strong for me, which allowed me to be soft.

    The ultrasound showed no heartbeat and a tiny little thing measuring only six weeks. It wasn’t time.

    I walked out of the doctor’s office and paused at the door before meeting my parents on the other side. I cried and held my womb and cried some more.

    I cried for the loss of the plans we’d made.

    I cried for the loss of what could have been our baby.

    I cried for myself, for my husband, for our family, and for all the women who have been initiated into this phase of life.

    My parents rose to their feet the moment they saw me. We stepped into the hallway so I could tell them the news without disturbing the pregnant women waiting for their appointments.

    I told them what I saw and what I knew. I cried and they cried. My mom cried for her baby and her baby’s baby. My dad cried for his little girl. My sister called fourteen times waiting for the news. My husband remained peaceful, hopeful, and calm on the other end of the phone.

    They were steady in the midst of my storm.
    My body released everything naturally. It was intense and beautiful. My hormones started to regulate. My heart is starting to heal.

    I say this again and again in the work I do, but I believe it to be truer now more than ever….

    In order to be fully alive, we must feel it all.  

    My heart was torn open into a hundred piece two months ago, but not just because I was sad. It was torn open as I learned to feel even more.

    My heart held grief and love in a way that I never knew could co-exist. To witness the miracle of my body, the beauty of being a woman, and the strength and resilience of my spirit blew me away.

    I am different.

    Clear. Focused. Fierce. Tender.

    I am more me than I’ve ever been.

    A new rite of passage. A new opportunity to deepen within myself.

    In many ways this little spirit baby birthed me. I am no longer the same.

    Life isn’t meant to be easy, or perfect, or happy all the time. Life is meant to confront us. It will get in our face and push our boundaries and stretch our limits.

    Life doesn’t do this to be cruel. It does this to remind us of our strength and bring us closer to our spirit.

    In the midst of grieving in a way I’ve never done before, I feel stronger than I ever have before. It’s such a weird paradox.

    That’s the beauty of life.

    With every twist and tug and pull, with every heartache and break, life is making us all. Making and molding and polishing our soul so that we may one day shine even brighter.

    This is life.

    I continue to welcome all of life—the heartbreak and hope, the pain and the joy, the smiles and the tears. There is room for it all.

    Above all things, I trust more than ever before that life is completely and utterly holding me. I don’t have to do a thing. Life has got me and if it’s not this, it will be something else because that’s the way life works.

    I feel a deep sense of peace and openness as I finish this note to you.

    My heart feels full. Full from love. Full from pain. Full from life. And that is a beautiful gift.

  • Always Find Time for the Things That Make You Happy

    Always Find Time for the Things That Make You Happy

    Always Find Time

    Source: Positive Outlooks

  • 9 Basic Needs We Have to Meet to Feel Happy and Alive

    9 Basic Needs We Have to Meet to Feel Happy and Alive

    “No person, no place, and no thing has any power over us, for ‘we’ are the only thinkers in our mind. When we create peace and harmony and balance in our minds, we will find it in our lives.” ~Louise L. Hay

    Seven years ago I felt a tangible sense of despondency about where my life was heading.

    Having ended a six-year relationship, I found myself alone, feeling isolated, often with only a bottle of wine (or two) for company on a weekend. For the first time ever I wondered if I had depression.

    After weeks of feeling helpless and sitting on my sofa crying, I decided enough was enough and started taking action to turn my life around.

    In doing so I discovered the “Human Givens Basic Needs.” Suddenly, everything made sense to me.

    I realized I didn’t have depression; I just hadn’t been meeting my basic needs in a healthy and balanced way.

    Working through the basic needs, I scored myself a number between one and ten for each, with ten being fully met.

    After taking action and pursuing a new diploma, I reflected on how much better I was meeting my basic needs for control, creativity, and stimulation, and how much happier and alive I felt as a result.

    I also recognized that I was meeting my need for status in a new way, as people were amazed when I told them what I was studying.

    Seven years on, I have never forgotten the basic needs. Every six months I take a few hours to do a stock check of my life to see how well I am meeting each of the needs, and where I need to take action or do something different.

    At the moment I am training for my third marathon, which is meeting so many of my basic needs in one hit!

    People tell me how awesome it is that I am running a marathon (attention and status), I look after my body better (mind/body connection), I have a goal (purpose), and I’m doing something positive with my time (creativity, stimulation, and sense of control).

    As we head into the New Year, I’d invite you to take an evening, curl up warm, put on some music you enjoy, and take a stock check of your life.

    Look at each of the different needs and mark out of ten (ten being fully met) how well you are meeting each one, and how.

    Where you are not meeting a need fully, don’t worry. Instead, think about what actions you can take to improve this area, and write down some steps to achieving that.

    Rather than trying to improve every area of your life all at once, I suggest focusing first on meeting one need that would make a considerable difference in your life, and then moving on to another.

    Like me with my marathon, you may find that while meeting one need, you end up meeting others naturally as a result.

    Finally, put your stock check or action plan somewhere you can see it daily.

    Take a Stock Check of Your Basic Human Needs

     1. The need for attention

    We need quality attention from the people in our lives. More and more people in the world live alone. Unless your needs are being met elsewhere, a lack of attention can lead to low self-esteem, feelings of loneliness, and a lack of connection.

    Join a meet up group, do an evening course, join a fitness group—anything that gets you out there and talking to like-minded people.

    2. Mind-body connection

    The way we look after ourselves physically directly impacts our psychological well-being. Feed your body good food and you’ll feel good. (That doesn’t mean pizza and wine!) Get out in the fresh air and get moving to get your serotonin and endorphins levels pumping, making you feel more alive.

    3. Purpose and goals

    Having a purpose or goal adds meaning to your life. Sign up for a 5K charity run, take up a night class, or volunteer for a local charity. Use your time to do the things you enjoy.

    4. Connection to something greater than ourselves

    A sense of connection to like-minded people or others who share your perceptions and work for a common goal is important. I chose to run one of my marathons for a homeless charity, for example.

    It may be being part of a group raising awareness about a shared cause, or working for an organization that shares your values.

    5. Creativity and stimulation

    Boredom and a lack of achievement can leave you feeling unsatisfied and depressed. Spending time reading about a subject that interests you, learning a new skill or craft, or doing anything that stimulates the creative part of your brain will see you feeling happier and more stimulated.

    6. Sense of security and safety

    Without a sense of security and safety you can feel anxious. You don’t have to own your home to feel secure. Security can come from having a supportive partner and family or even changing your beliefs about what security and safety mean to you.

    7. Intimacy and connection

    It’s important to feel that at least one person really knows you for who you are. Intimacy and connection don’t require a romantic partner; it can just be a close relationship with someone, even your pet!

    8. Sense of control  

    Feeling that you have no control in a given situation or in life can lead to feelings of hopelessness. In some cases people will over-control to compensate for feeling helpless. Trying to control people and situations you have no influence over will only suck your energy. Control the one thing you can—you.

    9. The need for status

    Being recognized for your talents helps meet your need for status. Take action to do something you have always wanted to do, such as a jewelry-making course, signing up to a sporting group, taking up dressmaking, or volunteering your talents where they would be well received.

    —

    Small changes in your life can create a big ripple effect, and, like me, you may be surprised by how much happier, healthier, and alive you will feel as a result.

  • Reclaim the Forgotten State of Wonder to Live an Extraordinary Life

    Reclaim the Forgotten State of Wonder to Live an Extraordinary Life

    Amazed Little Girl

    “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~Albert Einstein

    For years, I walked as if I were asleep.

    Autopilot steered me along the familiar paths between home and work and shopping centers and the gym. Paths I traveled so many times with my mind somewhere in the future or somewhere in the past, that everything around me passed like ghosts: present, unseen.

    Sometimes, in a moment between waking and sleeping, I glimpsed marshmallow clouds, a burnt sunset, the bruised hills, the star-studded night sky. But mostly I was pre-occupied with living my life: working, eating, sleeping, and sometimes playing.

    I didn’t even know that I didn’t notice what was around me, that I wasn’t paying attention or connecting to the world around me, until I had an encounter that changed the course of my life.

    Learning to scuba dive in the tropical sea, on my second ever dive, a small green turtle suddenly appeared and paddled gracefully through the water with her flipper-like limbs.

    As she moved in front of me, we locked gaze.

    In that moment, we were connected through an invisible essence, like all creatures and humans are connected in a way that we often don’t understand. I sensed her ancient wisdom and timeless soul, and was transfixed.

    Eventually, the turtle looked away then flapped her front limbs and swam away into the blue.

    I watched her until she was gone but she would never really leave me. That moment of connection flicked a light switch in my soul. From that moment I was hooked on diving and slowly I started to wake up.

    Some years later, in the midst of a career crisis, I quit my job in financial planning to be free for a while.

    I went to Thailand to pursue my love of diving and completed my Divemaster and Instructor courses.

    The way I lived changed completely: slow, in the sea, barefoot, lying on hot sand, riding motorbikes through jungle-covered hills, tangled hair, watching sunsets every day. I was wild and free.

    My senses were alive with bright colors, the scent of frangipani and the sweetness of ripe mangoes. I reveled in it all.

    I paid attention to everything—the moon’s fullness, the strength of the wind, the sun’s position to the horizon, and the presence of clouds for sunset’s potential beauty, although I always went to the beach to watch it anyway.

    Returning home to corporate, city life was a difficult adjustment; my free-spirit felt constrained, the concrete and glass buildings dead and cold, the routine numbing. But I carried within me everything I learned, and I knew that if I could see an amazing world overseas I could see one back home too.

    I kept a mindful writing practice called small stones, writing down at least one thing that I noticed every day, just as it was, in its beauty or plainness.

    I walked to work to escape the tired energy of the train and witnessed the city parks transform from green to tangerine to rust to paper bag brown to naked then back to green.

    I took time out to sit on the earth and feel the sun on my skin and the breeze brush my hair.

    As I opened my senses and my heart to the world around me, I re-discovered wonder—gasping “ah,” and “wow”—the essence of amazement that we all knew when we were children as we experienced something new only to forget how miraculous it was as the experience repeated became commonplace and normal.

    To be amazed and in awe of life is to feel fully alive and present in the moment.

    When we reclaim wonder in our everyday lives, whether we are washing the dishes, driving to work, or watching the clouds shift and change in the sky, we transform the mundane and the routine into a sacred experience.

    The ordinary becomes extraordinary and our lives deeper, richer, and more connected.

    You don’t need to spend money or go out of your way to find wonder. You can experience it right here, where you are.

    Simply stop and pay attention. Notice what is around you.

    Look with innocence and curiosity. Release the tendency to judge and describe with adjectives like ugly or pretty. Be grateful for what you witness and you will experience more.

    Let it move and inspire you. Write about it, take a photo, paint a picture, sing a song, say a prayer, dance.

    Your life is made up of some big moments but mainly many small ones. Without paying attention, your life will pass by quickly and your memory of it will be beige.

    But witness those moments with presence, gratitude, and wonder and your life will be vividly multi-colored. It will be extraordinary.

    Amazed little girl image via Shutterstock

  • When You’re Busy Looking for Happiness in the Future

    When You’re Busy Looking for Happiness in the Future

    Man Looking Through Binoculars

    “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop. Seek the wisdom that will untie your knot. Seek the path that demands your whole being.” ~Rumi

    It seems like there is so much busyness in the world today. When was the last time you stopped to focus on your breath and to truly settle into the moment?

    When we’re busy, we don’t always prioritize these precious moments of full presence with our own aliveness.

    Being busy can become like an addiction, an urge that drives us compulsively. But what are we really looking for in all those things that keep us busy?

    A friend recently told me she’s been busy for four years renovating her house. Now that it’s almost done, she doesn’t feel what she thought she’d feel. “It’s just a house, but it doesn’t necessarily feel like a home.”

    I’ve found that the circumstances we think we want aren’t always what we truly want; we want the feeling we perceive it will give us. We believe changing our lives is going to give us a sense of completion or happiness.  

    For many years, I had a vision of what my perfect life would look like—as if that picture of happiness was a destination.

    I spent my life chasing a sense of freedom. I stayed unhappily busy in a career that promised financial security so I could eventually do all the things I loved in the future.

    I was busy assembling an idea of happiness, but every time I got something I thought I wanted, I felt unsatisfied.

    When I established my career, I then looked for “the one” romantic relationship. When I got that, I felt happy, but I always felt I needed more to complete my perfect picture.

    I once heard it said that there is nothing wrong with ego, it’s just looking for love in all the wrong places. I was looking for freedom and completion in my circumstances.

    When you’re looking for love in your circumstances rather than in who you are inside, right now, in the present, you experience your life like a shell. Just like a house, it’s empty on the inside.

    You might have experienced it for yourself when you worked hard toward a goal but it didn’t give you that feeling of completion or satisfaction when you achieved it—and if it did, it was temporary.

    As soon as I realized I was chasing happiness in the future, I stopped. I radically started living for the now. I followed my heart into a new business, out of old relationships, and into new adventures moment to moment.

    Every time I acted on my heart, I felt an immediate sense of love that was different from what I felt when I made choices for love in the future.  

    Searching for completion in your circumstances is, in a way, looking for your sense of self in them.

    There have been times when I’ve gotten lost by misidentifying what I do with who I am.

    If you derive your sense of self or boost your idea of happiness through your life circumstances—your job, your financial security, or your relationships—it’s going to be painful when those things change form.

    The key is to stop making any of your circumstances mean something about who you are.

    When you find your sense of self in the wholeness of truly living for the now, you free yourself to occupy any life shell. Your contentment comes from who you are, which has nothing to do with what you do, what you have, or what you’ve accomplished.

    You can accomplish great things in this life. But when you know yourself at the depth of your being first, you don’t pursue goals to complete yourself; you pursue them to express yourself in the world, because you feel a love for expression as an extension of your love of life.  

    There is nothing wrong with being busy, but it can distract you from the love that’s already present in who you are at a level of being.

    It’s in moments of silence when I’ve laid down the chase for change that peace has found me, where I have wanted for nothing except just being alive. Happiness happens when you stop looking for it.

    So what are we all really looking for? I believe we are looking for ourselves in our hearts, the one we already are and always have been. I believe we are looking for a state of being—love, that feeling of happiness for no reason.

    Here is how we can find it:

    1. Slow down.

    Pause. Recognize why you’re busy and see if you can do less. Embrace the discomfort that comes from stopping and notice what you are avoiding by being busy. Be willing to sit in that discomfort.

    2. Stop focusing on externals.

    Stop pursuing goals with the idea that you’ll be happy when you achieve them, and put that energy into connecting with your heart. This will relieve the need to fix, improve, or change things out of fear.

    3. Know what matters to you.

    Ask yourself what’s truly important for you in your life. If you were going to die in one year, what would you do in your remaining time?

    4. Do what makes you come alive.

    Find the things that move you in your soul and create those experiences that touch your heart. It’s one step at a time, moment by moment.

    Be willing to turn your life upside down if you need to—get radical—and find support from those who also live by the movements of their heart.

    Man looking through binoculars image via Shutterstock

  • 3 Powerful Ways to Get Moving When You Feel Stuck in Life

    3 Powerful Ways to Get Moving When You Feel Stuck in Life

    “One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.” ~Unknown

    I realized I’m going to die soon.

    Not, you know, imminently. But soon. Even sixty is soon. Seventy, eighty, ninety, still soon. And I’ll be lucky if I get that old.

    I’m going to die.

    What’s gotten into me? Maybe it’s the Robin Williams story. That would make sense. A loss that’s shocking really resets your perspective.

    Life is fleeting, it’s brief. Even if it’s what we’d consider a long life, it’s short.

    This was a thought of mine in the shower today.

    I think it jolted me into feeling a little less uptight. A little less scared.

    The real scary thing is the big, black unknown. That vast mystery of whatever comes next. Whatever happens after life is snuffed out.

    And it will be snuffed out. In the grand scheme (even medium scheme) of history, pretty relatively quickly.

    That’s morbid, you may think. But I felt a little better today when I had this thought.

    After a good long stretch of isolating myself and digging further into a rut, I felt better about things I’ve been going through. Like cyclical insecure thoughts I’d been having. Apprehension, anger, regret, confusion. Fear. Anxiety.

    I feel good today. Because in the face of life ending too soon, and not knowing what comes next, I realize that I know what can come now. I can put together what I want. I can face things boldly.

    Compared to the uncertainty of whatever is in the afterlife, whatever my blind date thinks of me tomorrow is pretty manageable by comparison. While I’m here, I better embrace life a little.

    I imagine that future me will look back on present me very much the way present me looks back on younger me.

    I shake my head sometimes at younger me for her insecurities and hesitation and fear. I want to tell her it’s all going to go by so fast—enjoy it now.

    Enjoy it now.

    Right now is the time when future me may look back and wonder what on earth I was so worried about. I’m only thirty-one. Thirty-one! Forty-one year-old me would love to be thirty-one!

    And eighty-one-year-old me would really wish she was thirty-one.

    My god. I’m so lucky to be thirty-one.

    What am I doing wasting it on insecurity? Why do I freeze and gravitate toward inaction sometimes?

    Every moment that I’m unsure, worried, fretting, concerned about how I’m doing, or wondering if I’ve made the right choices, done the best I can, of if I should worry about what someone thinks, is a waste of precious time. It’s like fourteen-year-old me thinking she was fat. She wasn’t.

    Are you hesitant about a fork in the road? Feeling anxious about your options (or lack thereof)? Feel old? Regret something? I can’t tell you what will fix it, but I can share three things that have always given me motivation to really move forward and live.

    Walk through a graveyard.

    It seems creepy. It isn’t. A cemetery has a fantastic way of reminding you to live your life. Fear of whatever choices you have ahead, or any paralysis of action you may be experiencing, will melt in the presence of beautifully landscaped permanent resting places.

    Take a walk around your nearest or prettiest cemetery this weekend and try to quiet your mind. For me, this exercise always results in a great dose of perspective on life. Namely, that it ends. So any choice of action, regardless of how it turns out, is a gift.

    Imagine young you.

    Remember the school dance you were too scared to go to? Or the crossroads between starting your career or traveling after graduation? How about the girl you never asked out, or the boy you never told off for hurting you?

    Young you was trepidatious about a few things—occasions you wouldn’t hesitate to rise to now. So, too, would older you appreciate you finding the courage to drop the worries that are holding you both back today.

    Imagine the worst that can happen.

    Got a scary thing you want to do? Think of the worst that could happen and weigh it against how much you’d regret not trying. Or, if you’re not sure what to do at all, weigh the consequences of trying something versus doing nothing.

    Do something. Embrace the fact that you’re living. Failure, success—both are part of a full life. Living with complacency isn’t living at all.

    My favorite question to ask people is what they’d be most upset about if the Grim Reaper showed up and said they’ve got five minutes.

    Why wait?

    Get to it.

  • How to Stop Limiting Yourself and Feel Fully Alive

    How to Stop Limiting Yourself and Feel Fully Alive

    “You can only grow if you’re willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.” ~Brian Tracy

    I like my comfort zone and I hate it. It’s safe, but if I stay there too long it starts to feel like a cage. No wild creature is happy in a cage, and we’re all wild creatures at heart.

    Sure, we like the reliability of being well fed, clothed, safe, and loved. It’s my theory though (formed just this second) that we are meant to hunt, to seek, to struggle, to engage with a world that offers no guarantees.

    Like a caged animal, we become depressed when we play it too safe. “Safe” offers no challenge, no growth, and no newness. Without those things we wither and die inside; we watch too much TV, we eat junk food, we numb out.

    Could it be that the prevalence of depression in First World countries is because our lives don’t challenge us as much as we need them to?

    We all need exercise to be healthy. Muscles need to break to become strong. Do our hearts and minds also need challenge to thrive?

    About eighteen months ago I got sick. It was a weird benign tumor that caused a lot of pain, enough pain that I took myself to hospital at three one morning.

    Eventually, the tumor healed and the pain stopped. It didn’t go away; it just stopped hurting me. In the meantime, though, I became very careful, controlled, and I dropped out of my life. I felt afraid and limited. I lost faith in myself.

    My world got very small and I became too dependent on those close to me. I was not much fun. I lost friendships.

    Now I am rebuilding. It’s not always easy, but I’m on the way back.

    I can now see that my comfort zone isn’t comfortable. My fears and limitations have drawn the boundaries of my life, and that’s a small cage to live in.

    That’s not how I want to live. I remember more lively times and I want that power and flow back. I want to break through the darkness into the bright light, where life is colorful again.

    I want my life back.

    If you also need to expand your comfort zone, you may benefit from applying these lessons that are helping me:

    1. Get honest.

    Ask questions. Get really clear on what is true for you. What do you think? What do you feel? What do you want? What is useful? What’s the truth?

    Truth can be hard to take, but it puts you on solid ground. You can walk forward on solid ground.

    For me, right now I am “calling myself out” on the lie that I lack the power to make changes.

    2. Change is possible.

    We can make changes. You may have had a vibrant life before and you can make one again. Know you can change and try new things.

    When I decide I’m a victim, it’s a lie. It is just not true. Granted, while I was sick change may have been too hard, but that’s not true anymore.

    3. Change is uncomfortable, and that’s okay.

    It doesn’t come without risk. We can’t stay in our comfort zones and expand at the same time. Growing is going to be uncomfortable. It’s even going to feel wrong. Do it anyway.

    The only way to get a bigger comfort zone is to do things outside it until they don’t scare you anymore. Then repeat.

    4. Change happens step by step.

    Changes seem big when you start out, but they’re just a series of small steps. They’re just a tiny set of actions. They’re the sum of the things you do, day by day.

    A slight change in trajectory is a huge change over time. It doesn’t happen all at once.

    5. Explore possibility.

    Every day, write a list of things that may take you in the direction you want to go. Write a list of ways to expand your life. Write a list of solutions. Write a list of “could do’s”.

    You don’t even need to keep the lists. The good ones will stick. They’ll pop up again and again like your favourite muppet.

    6. Take one tiny risk a day.

    Set yourself one tiny risk. Commit to doing it. That means you have to do it. No second-guessing. You said you would do it; you’re doing it! It may not be the “right” action, but that’s irrelevant. It’s the thing you chose to try.

    7. Every action is an experiment.

    Not every little risk will pay off, but that’s life, that’s learning. Every action will teach you something.

    I did well in school; it’s taken me a long time to get comfortable with failing and actually “learning to learn.” The school of life is a better teacher and a tougher one. That’s my school right now.

    8. Courage is more important than success.

    I heard Brené Brown say, “Being courageous is more important than being successful.” I have that on my wall. I think it’s true. Taking small risks makes me feel alive. The other name for “fear” is “thrill.”

    9. Risk develops resilience.

    We gain resilience with practice by striving, failing, and getting up again. It’s how we build emotional muscle. Sure, have a cry, share your humiliations with a trusted someone, then get back up and take the next step. Being courageous feels scary and good.

    And so, right now, I extend invitations knowing I may be rejected. I commit to writing projects that may not be published. I open up more to those closest to me and really let them in.

    I open up my world one step at a time, and it’s scary and it’s thrilling. The colors are brighter at the edge of my comfort zone.

    I am learning that my fears are false dragons guarding the gold. The dragons look real, but really, only the gold is.

  • Mystical Moments: 10 Ways to Feel More Engaged and Alive

    Mystical Moments: 10 Ways to Feel More Engaged and Alive

    Meditation

    “Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.” ~Kahlil Gibran

    I had to learn the hard way that you don’t have to walk across hot coals or move to the desert and eat locusts and honey in order to have a mystical, life-changing experience.

    As a young man I was anxious and driven, always looking ahead to another goal, always hoping to find some ultimate experience. I believed that life was a challenge that needed to be constantly tackled. Often, this meant feeling overworked and pulled-apart, and I failed to enjoy the journey of life.

    I joined the Peace Corps with the naïve goal of saving the world and finding some kind of grand purpose. Instead, the complexity of our world’s problems befuddled me.

    I went abroad to help people and they ended up helping me.

    Growing up surrounded by wealth, I didn’t understand true kindness until my poor neighbors shared their simple meals with me. Raised in a culture where we are encouraged to hoard our wealth, I did not understand generosity until strangers welcomed me into their crumbling homes and offered me gifts right off their shelves.

    As I’ve gotten older, had kids, and experienced successes and failures, I’m still learning that the true measure of our lives is the way we enjoy the simplest experiences.

    Perhaps the gap between rich and poor does not matter as much as the gap between those who can enjoy the moment and those who can’t. And this is what the great mystics have always said.

    After trying to climb mountains, I learned that sometimes the simplest, most down-to-earth things, like how you eat an orange or enjoy the smile of a child, are the moments that make life amazing.

    A mystical experience is any experience where you pause and touch the perfect, wonderful present moment in a tangible and fresh way. Life is full of great opportunities. Be an instant mystic. Here are ten simple ways (nudity and drums optional).

    1. Play with a child. Play like a child.

    Children are the ultimate Zen masters. They come out of the womb fully enlightened, completely living in the moment, taking every experience in without all the extra layers of thought and worry we pile on. Then, sadly, they become adults.

    But you can get some of this back by dropping the rake, the bills, and the dishes in order to push toy cars, throw leaves, and make snow angels. Lose yourself in the moment. Act silly. Make a fool of yourself.

    Mystics often are mistaken for idiots. No kids available? I can loan you three, or I’m sure you have a friend or neighbor who would oblige as well.

    2. Laugh hard.

    Humor is a great way to shake off painful emotions and transcend the everyday.

    After a tough day, my wife and I will hit the internet and watch a few Saturday Night Live skits or some of the Colbert Report just to loosen us up and remind our heads that life should not be taken too seriously. A family tickle fest never hurts either.

    3. Attend a new spiritual service.

    Historically, church functioned as a weekly stopping point for people to reflect and connect. That’s great. But church can become a rut, especially if you go every week to hear the same book read by the same person who usually says the same stuff.

    Try a new service. Unitarian. Wiccan. Buddhist. Catholic. I recently tried out a Quaker service. We sat in complete silence for an hour. At first, I was petrified. I wanted to run out screaming. But then I settled into this beautiful state of relaxed peace.

    4. Read a mystical book by an enlightened person.

    There are so many great spiritual books out there that can help you step out of your frantic, everyday life and get you to look into to the soul. Eckhart Tolle is a current best-selling author with lots of good stuff. Fr. Anthony DeMello’s Awareness is wonderful and challenging. I love reading Allan Watts as a way to stretch my spiritual imagination.

    Pick up a Zen book, like Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, and puzzle over some of the classic riddles (called Koans). Or grab a classic in mystical living by the likes of Brother Lawrence, Meister Eckhart, Rumi, or Lao Tzu.

    5. Walk alone in the woods or by a river.

    No headphones. No talking. Walk slowly. You’re not working out your body; you’re working out your soul. Use a simple mantra or mindful phrase, like “In-Out, Deep-Slow, Calm-Ease, Smile-Release,” to stop your incessant thinking.

    Spiritual master Krishnamurti once summarized the essence of all mystical practices in two words: “don’t think.” When you’re alone in nature, your ego falls away, leaving you with yourself.

    6. Stargaze.

    Head to the country at night and lay out under the sky. Stargazing is a great way to remember the vastness of the universe. Inside us is that same vastness. We are made from atoms that were once part of the cosmos.

    Being mystical is not about floating away on a cloud of euphoria. It’s about fully being in the perfect moment. The stars are there every night. Are we?

    7. Listen to a great symphony or opera.

    A mystical experience can be any experience that forces you to slow down and activate new parts of your brain, triggering insight and expansive thinking. I love indie-rock, but after a long day of work, music without words gives space for my spinning brain to slow down.

    8. Fast.

    Fasting has been used as a mystical practice for centuries by nearly every tradition out there, and that was back when food was hard to come by! It’s a great way to test your self-control, learn to deal with difficult feelings, let go of ingrained habits, and commune with those less fortunate in the world. And it’s free. (Of course, with eating disorders on the rise, please make sure this practice is right for you by consulting with your doctor.)

    9. Volunteer.

    Get outside of your life, literally, and wrap yourselves up in someone else’s. I recommend spending time with the elderly, people who were alive before iPhones and Google (hard to believe). Consider not telling anybody what you’re doing; otherwise, volunteering just becomes another way to strengthen the ego.

    10. Meditate.

    Meditation is the mystical practice used for millennia by countless great spiritual thinkers. It’s been proven by scientists to extend life and increase happiness. Isn’t it worth giving a try?

    Stop your mind for a few moments. Look for the one inside you who knows you know. Count your breathing. Use one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s simple mindful meditations: “Breathing in, I smile; breathing out, I relax.”

    By meditating, you change yourself and the world. You transform your soul with silence and transform the planet by creating a small, but powerful, pocket of peace.

    If you really struggle with sitting still and calming your mind, use some light yoga. There are many great instructors out there who combine meditation techniques with yoga. Try ten or twenty minutes for a few days in a row. Notice the changes. You’ll be surprised.

    A mystical moment is simply any moment when you are fully alive, in the present, embracing what is happening. Doing dishes can be a mystical experience! But if all else fails, there’s always sitting naked in a cave beating a drum.

    Photo by Cornelia Kopp

  • 15 Reasons to Start Following Your Dream Today

    15 Reasons to Start Following Your Dream Today

    “One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.” ~Unknown

    Do you have a dream? A wish? A desire?

    Do you ever wake up and wonder: What would it be like to love life?

    People can tell you “follow your dream,” but is anyone really doing it?

    Not someone in a TV show or movie—a real, living, breathing human, just like you?

    Is it possible?

    The Depression

    Three years ago I couldn’t sleep. Night after night, I’d lie awake at 2am. My heart would pound in my chest.

    The anxiety overtook me. I welcomed it. If I fell back asleep, the next time I woke I would head back to that place. The place I despised.

    Fifty hours a week to a job that was slowly, inch by inch, sucking the life out of me.

    I was twenty-six years old, but I didn’t feel twenty-six. I felt old, tired, and overwhelmed.

    As I write this post, I remember that night. Staring in the mirror. I could barely look at myself. The breathing in my chest pushing in and out rapidly. Tears rushing down my face. I was a grown man, or at least I was supposed to be.

    Allowing Fear to Stop You

    I was so scared. I’d put all my work experience, degrees, and life into my career. Yet, I hated it.

    I had gone all in—and I was losing.

    I couldn’t argue with the tears flowing down my cheeks. Something needed to change.

    Follow The Dream

    I know what it’s like to feel depressed, lost, and burned out. But I also know what it’s like to follow a dream.

    I’m now thirty years old, and my life is a lot different than it was four years ago.

    Soon after that experience, I made a commitment to discover and follow my dream.

    What’s my dream? I want to become a ninja.

    Not a ninja in the traditional sense. It’s a childhood dream.

    Over the course of four years I quit my job in America, moved to Japan, and now I train extensively in martial arts.

    I arrive at the dojo at 7:30am Monday through Friday. Over the next year of my life I will train over 1,000 hours in Aikido (a martial art).

    I’m living, breathing proof that it’s possible to follow a dream.

    I’m thrilled to wake up each morning. I love my life in a manner I never knew possible. But this post isn’t about me—it’s about all of us. More importantly, it’s about all of our dreams.

    I hope with all my heart, today is the day that you begin the journey to turn your dream into a reality.

    15 Reasons to Start Following Your Dream Today

    1. You’ve always wanted to do this.

    When I think about the question: If you had a million dollars what would you do with your life? I can now say, “Exactly what I’m doing.”

    You’ve always wanted to follow your dream—so start today!

    2. You’ll experience things you never could have imagined.

    I’ve taken Japanese tea lessons with a fifty-year-old woman. I’m learning a new language. I eat foods that I never knew existed.

    The pursuit of a dream will give you experiences you never thought possible.

    3. You will become courageous.

    At some point your dream will mean so much to you that you will stop at nothing. When the dream overtakes you, no matter what your fears are, you will not allow it to stop you.

    You will stare your fears in the face. You will become a courageous person.

    4. You will become an inspiration to those around you.

    By doing what I want to do instead of what others want from me, I have been able to inspire others to follow their dreams.

    Focus on your dreams, not what others want you to do, and you will do the same.

    5. You will realize the incredible things you are capable of doing.

    When you step forward to pursue your dream, you will face challenges you never could have anticipated. You will allow nothing to stop you. You will shock yourself at your ability to plow through any situation.

    6. You will like yourself more.

    You will feel excited and energized by the life you are choosing to live. You will feel proud of what you are doing. And you will like yourself more for it.

    7. Life will become beautiful.

    As you realize your own potential, you will realize the potential in others. You will start to recognize the beauty that life, you, and others have to offer.

    8. Your joy and happiness will become contagious.

    When people are around you, they will feel better about themselves and life because you are living proof it is possible to live a dream!

    9. You will connect on a deeper level with the force of the universe.

    The pursuit of a dream requires an act of faith. You step forward and take action. When you do this, you will face experiences that will bring you closer to the force of the universe.

    10. You will smile more.

    Life is better when you smile more. If you follow your dream, you will enjoy yourself and this will happen!

    11. It will give meaning to everything you do.

    Before I started following my dream I would often wonder, “What’s the point?”

    Now, I know the answer to that question: Every action I take brings me closer to my dream.

    12. The food will taste better.

    Yup, you read that right! When you step forward with your dream, you will feel more alive and you will better appreciate all the beauty life has to offer. So, yes! Even the food tastes better.

    13. Every day you will learn new things.

    Every day I learn more Japanese, more martial arts, and more about myself. I’m challenged and excited. The deeper I get in my dream, the more I learn.

    14. Your happiness will show on your face.

    It’s true! When you are optimistic, excited, and happy, guess what? You are drastically more attractive.

    At twenty-six I looked stressed out and overwhelmed. At thirty I look happy and excited because I am happy and excited.

    15. You will love being around you.

    When we pursue a dream, we are connecting with our heart’s desires. It’s a way of telling our soul “I love you.”

    It’s pretty great to hang out with people you love—especially when it’s yourself!

    What has stopped you from following your dream?