Tiny Buddha

Tag: Anger

  • How I Overcame My Anger to Be Better for My Family

    How I Overcame My Anger to Be Better for My Family

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

    As a special-needs parent, it feels that I am in constant anger and fight mode.

    I am fighting with my children on the home front.

    I am fighting for their right to get access to services.

    I am fighting for their acceptance.

    I am fighting for my children to help them make progress.

    To be in constant fight mode can be overwhelming and exhausting.

    In my weakness, I let my emotions get the best of me.

    I lose my temper with my loved ones.

    The One Thing I Regret Saying to My Daughter

    A particular incident that took place many years ago stands out in my mind to this date.

    The principal of my daughter’s school told me she was causing lots of problems there. Her behavior was disturbing her classmates, and many parents had complaints about it.

    “We feel that this school is not suitable for her and it would be best to find her another school,” said the principal.

    I fought with the school to let her stay. This was the third school we had to fight for her acceptance.

    I felt that I was coming to another dead end.

    After that meeting, I headed home and was greeted with an onslaught of screaming and shouting children.

    Adding to that chaos, my daughter with autism poured out the contents of every toiletry bottle she could find into the bathtub. It is incredible how much children can do given one minute unsupervised.

    At that very moment, I snapped and yelled.

    “What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?”

    “Why are you always wrecking the house?”

    “Why can’t I have a moment of peace without you causing any trouble?”

    “I did not sign up for this!” 

    “I don’t want you!”

    My daughter with little communication skills stood frozen. I saw fear in her eyes. She felt every ounce of anger I had in me then.

    Why Yelling Further Delays a Child’s Development

    When children misbehave, yelling at them seems like a natural response. We feel that when we yell at them, we get their attention, we are disciplining them.

    None of us likes to be yelled at. When we yell at our children, they are more likely to shut down instead of listening. That is not a good way to communicate.

    For children on the spectrum, yelling can be particularly detrimental, as it may result in them retreating into their own world and not engaging with other people even more.

    The more we connect and engage with them, the more they can thrive and grow. Hence, yelling can never be a means to “discipline” them regardless of how stressful and frustrated we may feel at that moment.

    Not Yelling—Easier Said Than Done

    Trust me. No one understands this more than I do. When you are stressed and frustrated, releasing all that pent-up emotion seems like the only solution.

    I struggle at managing my anger. There are so many times I find myself regretting the way I spoke and raised my voice to my loved ones.

    With each angry word exchanged, I see my daughter retreating into her own world, and it pains me so much. Her mother caused all of that.

    The truth is, I am not angry with my daughter for the silly things she has done.

    It is not her fault.

    My beautiful daughter is not making life difficult for me, she is having a difficult time.

    For her sake, I’ve I had to find a positive way to deal with my anger issues.

    I’ve needed to help myself so that I could help her.

    Anger Is Just a Mask for Another Emotion

    Anger is often a secondary emotion. It is a mask that covers a deeper feeling that I am unwilling to address.

    Behind my anger are my fears, frustration, and insecurities.

    More than often, my anger stems from my inability to control what is outside of myself.

    I am unable to change the school’s decision not to accept her.

    My daughter is unable to receive decent therapy support in our home country.

    Instead, I have had to be my daughter’s therapist, and I felt insecure about my abilities to help her then.

    All these overwhelming feelings of being frustrated, being unfairly treated, not being respected, triggered the anger inside of me. Unfortunately, my poor daughter had to bear the angry burns of her hot-headed mother.

    How I Address the Real Meaning of My Anger

    In order to manage my anger, I’ve needed to:

    1. Acknowledge the emotion I am feeling.

    What am I feeling now?

     I am feeling angry.

    Telling myself that I am angry helps me to calm down.

    It’s important to recognize and feel the anger in these situations. By addressing it, I am acknowledging that I matter, and it prompts me to take a deeper look at what is going on behind the scenes.

    2. Identify the emotion behind the anger.

    What am I feeling besides anger?

    I am feeling rejected by what the school has done, and I am also feeling anxious about having the time to find another school for my daughter, or if I even can.

    My anger is always trying to tell me something. Once I listen to it, I’m in a better place to understand the situation and move forward toward the healing process.

    The more clarity I get about why I am angry and the more I acknowledge those emotions, the less my anger impacts me. By gaining more clarity, I can also find productive solutions to solve my problems.

    How I Manage My Anger

    1. Replace negative thoughts with more constructive ones.

    I realize that my attitude affects how I interpret my circumstances. It impacts my thoughts, energy, and above all, the actions I take.

    Much of my anger and frustration can be better managed when I practice reframing.

    Instead of saying, “My child is a brat who doesn’t listen and is out to make my life miserable,” I try to say, “My child doesn’t quite understand what I’m trying to tell her. I need to demonstrate to her what she is required to do.”

    By reframing my thought process and how I describe my children and my problems, I am able to see things with acceptance, compassion, and empathy.

    2. Identify common anger triggers.

    Identifying my common triggers helps me mentally prepare myself prior to the event.

    I start by visualizing a typical situation and ask myself how I can respond to it wisely. The more I practice this visualization, the more I can react to such situations more appropriately.

    It also helps to journal down what times and moments cause these triggers.

    3. Practice some relaxation/calming exercises.

    Using simple relaxation and calming strategies helps me soothe those angry feelings.

    Some examples of common relaxation exercises:

    • Having a cup of tea
    • Using breathing techniques
    • Practicing yoga and meditation
    • Listening to music
    • Exercising
    • Using stress-relief tools (e.g. stress ball)

    Since I’ve been practicing these exercises, homework and therapy times at home have been more pleasant for me and the children. Meditating for five minutes before homework takes away any lingering frustrations and stress.

    4. Focus on the solution, not the problem.

    All too often, when a problem occurs, I focus on the negative situation, and this puts me in a bad mood. I resolve more things when I focus more on the solution instead.

    To start, I take the time to fully analyze the problem and make a list of possible solutions.

    When I do this, I know I am taking proactive steps to improve our lives. I am focusing on what I can control instead of mindlessly reacting to my circumstances.

    5. Find humor in the situation.

    Sometimes laughter is the best medicine.

    Finding humor in a situation, even amid the most trying times, can be both relieving and empowering.

    I was in the car when my daughter started screaming and crying suddenly. I stopped the car and asked her what the matter was; no amount of coaxing, hugs, and bribes {sweets} was able to calm her down.

    I was feeling stressed with the situation, so in desperation, I made funny faces and fart noises at her. and she laughed hysterically. After a good laugh, my daughter explained that she was angry with me because I promised her earlier that I would bring her to the shop, but instead was driving toward home.

    If I had responded in anger then, I would not have been in a position of empathy to help her, and the mystery to her emotional outburst would remain unsolved.

    6. Take a time-out.

    When I sense a wave of anger coming up, I try to excuse myself from the situation. Taking a time-out prevents me from saying things that I may later regret.

    Finding a quiet area to cool down and practicing some of the relaxation exercises mentioned above has saved me on many occasions.

    When the anger has subsided, I find it helps to think of what I may say before returning to the scene.

    7. Practice forgiveness.

    It’s difficult to find peace when we’re bottled up in anger and pain. Constant internal hostility saps away our energy both physically and mentally.

    It helps me minimize the hostility within to see everyone like my daughter—not giving me a hard time, but having a hard time. It’s much easier to forgive when I consider that everyone else is struggling, trying their best, and sometimes falling short.

    By forgiving, I accept the events for the way they are. I am letting go of any negative attachments.

    By forgiving, I am taking control of my life by saying that this act no longer defines me, it no longer controls me.

    By forgiving, I can finally find peace and move on with my life.

    Learning How to Own My Anger

    I have seen first-hand how my anger affects my family. It doesn’t serve them at all. Out of love and necessity, I will do whatever I can to be a better person for them.

    Hence, every day in every way, I am making a conscious effort to control my anger before it controls me.

    There will be days when I still mess up. We are all human and we will never be perfect.

    I recognize my mistakes and acknowledge what needs to be done to improve.

    Slowly but surely, I am getting there. I am, and will always be, a constant work in progress.

    —

    Is your anger controlling your life? What strategies have helped you work through and let go of your anger?

  • How to Mindfully Calm Your Anger and Stop Doing Things You Regret

    How to Mindfully Calm Your Anger and Stop Doing Things You Regret

    “Neurologists claim that every time you resist acting on your anger, you’re actually rewiring your brain to be calmer and more loving.” ~Unknown

    One of the most impactful ways that mindfulness has changed my life is how I’m able to work with my feelings of anger.

    Anyone who has met me in recent years would never know how anger used to run my life. I often wish that people who are just now meeting me could realize the transformation I’ve gone through from my past. If people could see how mindfulness has changed me from an angry, irritable person who hated the world to a fun-loving, happy-go-lucky guy, I think everyone would give mindfulness a try.

    My mindfulness practice has allowed me to pay attention to what’s happening in my mind and body when anger is rising. I often call this the “volume knob” of anger, and I’ll dive a little more into that shortly.

    First, I want to give you a glimpse into my past so you can have a better frame of reference of where I used to be and where I’m at now through a practice of mindfulness.

    The Child of an Alcoholic

    I grew up as a child of an alcoholic mother, and this gave me a host of issues while growing up, but the biggest one was anger.

    I was extremely angry with my mom because I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t stop drinking for me. I thought that if she truly loved me, she’d be able to quit drinking for me, but she didn’t. My mom ended up getting sober when I was twenty years old, but it was twenty years too late, and I still had two decades of resentments toward her.

    Aside from the anger I had toward my mother, I had anger toward the rest of the world.

    Looking back on it, it seems completely insane (and it kind of was). It angered me growing up with kids who didn’t have to go through what I was going through in my home life. The kids I grew up with had great parents who made a decent amount of money and could buy them whatever they wanted. But it wasn’t just the material things; they actually had parents and family members who cared about them.

    A Life Full of Anger

    Being angry all the time was exhausting, but it was the only way I knew how to be. Because of this, I took my anger out on anyone who crossed paths with me.

    Although I wasn’t someone who got into many physical altercations growing up, I had words that were venom. I hurt many people throughout my life by saying the most hurtful things I could think of, and then I felt extremely guilty about it. While I thought that every woman I dated was at fault, I could look back at my past and see how toxic I was to anyone who had the misfortune of dating me.

    I forgot to mention that I turned into a drug addict and alcoholic myself around eighteen years old, but I managed to get sober on my twenty-seventh birthday in 2012.

    Part of the program of recovery that I work says that one of the main reasons we drink and use is because of resentments, which I could definitely relate to. Another part of this program is making amends. Making amends to the people I had hurt in my past was something that helped me forgive myself, but I’m also not a big fan of making amends.

    One of the issues with getting sober is that you don’t immediately become this spiritual being. I still had a lot of anger, and I still couldn’t control my temper. I was the epitome of someone who reacted rather than responded. Whenever I would react poorly, I had to humble myself to apologize. I needed to figure out a way to manage my anger before it got to that point, and that’s when I found mindfulness.

    Mindfulness is My Anger Management Tool

    I didn’t find mindfulness until I was three years sober. My anger wasn’t nearly as bad as it used to be, but it was still there. I knew that I still had a lot of self-improvement to do, so I gave mindfulness meditation a try.

    From the first time I tried meditating, I immediately understood how transformative it could be in my life, but I didn’t realize how much it would help me with my anger issues.

    One of the reasons I love the practice of mindfulness is because there are so many informal practices. As I started introducing different practices like mindful walking, mindful listening, and mindful communicating, I was becoming more mindful in my everyday life.

    What I began to realize was that I was only acknowledging my anger when I was ready to explode, and it was often something that had been building up for a while. Since I wasn’t recognizing the early triggers of my anger, I wasn’t able to deal with it before reacting in a way that I would regret.

    Some of the patterns of my anger triggers I started to recognize include:

    • Disrespected
    • Lied to
    • Being talked down to
    • Not being treated fairly
    • Not given credit
    • Not appreciated

    When I speak of the “volume knob” of anger, I mean that mindfulness has helped me begin catching my anger at a volume level of one or two rather than at a nine or ten. By the time my anger gets to the highest volume, it is controlling me rather than me controlling it.

    Being more mindful throughout my day has given me the opportunity to not only spot my anger in its earlier stages, but it’s also allowed me to treat it with compassion and curiosity.

    Now, when I feel that initial anger within my body or mind, I get really curious. I take a calm breath and simply think, “That’s interesting. Why am I feeling this way towards this person or situation?”

    Mindfulness helps declutter the mind and help me get to the root of what’s really happening within my own mind. Often times, I find that my anger is based on circumstances that are completely outside of my control, or they’re based on other circumstances that have nothing to do with the other person or people involved.

    Perhaps the most profound way that mindfulness has affected me is that it’s had me realize that my anger is often based on belief systems that are rather closed-minded.

    A Mindful Communication Practice

    A great practice you can begin using is mindful communication. This involves being fully present during a conversation, which involves listening while also being mindful of what your own mind and body are doing.

    I suggest you begin practicing this with someone who you may not get along with too well, but not someone who makes you overly emotional. This could be a coworker you’re not too fond of, a family member, or a friend in your inner circle. If this is too much for you, you can do it while browsing social media posts or watching the news.

    While communicating with this person, be mindful of the emotions rising in your body and the sensations you’re getting. Begin to notice what they’ve said that’s triggered this initial emotion and be aware of where you’re feeling sensations in your body.

    Rather than turning to judgment, just be curious. Be fascinated by why your body and mind are reacting the way they are in that moment. When you treat these thoughts and sensations with equanimity, you’re less likely to react poorly in the situation.

    When I speak of being fascinated, I mean to treat your experience with the curiosity of a child. This was one of my first lessons in mindfulness. When you’re being curious, you’re not judging. Inspect your experience like a child closely examining a leaf for the first time. This helps takes the power away from the strong emotion you’re feeling in that moment.

    This whole practice is extremely important because it gives us a chance to pause. When we pause, we’re able to respond rather than react. Reactions are often what the primitive part of our brain wants to do, and we don’t put much thought into it. This typically leads to regret and suffering. By being able to pause, and then respond, we make much wiser decisions.

    This is going to take practice until you have your temper under control, but over time, you’ll begin to reflect on situations that would have set you off. I’m personally amazed at how well my anger is managed today, and it’s something I continue to work on. Now that I know how to respond rather than react, I don’t find myself regretting the decisions I made out of a knee-jerk reaction to anger.

    As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I wish more people could truly understand how much mindfulness has changed me. Whenever I see senseless acts of violence such as domestic abuse, physical altercations between strangers, or even murder that happens due to somebody’s inability to manage their anger, I just think of how much different this world would be if more people learned this practice.

    My hope is to be an example to others when it comes to managing anger through mindfulness. If they can see how I respond to life’s difficulties on a daily basis, maybe they’ll decide to give this mindfulness thing a try.

  • The Negative Impact of Not Feeling Your Feelings

    The Negative Impact of Not Feeling Your Feelings

    “If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world.” ~Sidney Banks

    I spent most of my life scared of my feelings. Having feelings and expressing them made me mentally ill—or so I was led to believe by a large number of mental health professionals. When I felt sad, they labeled me as depressed. When I showed any signs of anxiety, they gave me another list of mental health disorders I needed medication for. And if I was angry? Oh well, that was the absolute worst. That clearly proved how insane and utterly out of control I was!

    I didn’t understand how they couldn’t see what was really going on for me. I couldn’t understand how everyone saw me as the problem when what was happening to me was the actual problem. But that’s a story for another time.

    I was brought up to be a good girl, which meant that any angry expressions were forbidden, shamed, and punished.

    I wasn’t allowed to express disappointment because that made me ungrateful.

    I couldn’t ask for what I wanted because that made me greedy.

    I wasn’t allowed to disagree with anyone because that made me difficult.

    I couldn’t express frustration because that meant I was out of control and needed to be left alone to think about my shameful behavior.

    I didn’t ask for help because good girls don’t inconvenience other people.

    I couldn’t be happy either because that made me attention-seeking and annoying.

    I felt all the feelings, but I was taught that they were wrong, forbidden, and shameful, so it didn’t feel safe to feel them. And so I tried to suppress them. I inhibited them, pushed them away, avoided them, shamed them, and feared them.

    Every time I felt something, I saw it as more evidence for how bad I was. Later on, I saw it as evidence for how broken and mentally insane I was. It drove me crazy. But it was thinking that having feelings made me insane that actually drove me insane.

    I believed that what I was experiencing was wrong. I saw my feelings as problems, so I tried to hide them and not feel them. So much so that I don’t even recall feeling very happy or excited about anything. All I remember is feeling tired, lethargic, and bored. I wasn’t even fifteen years old at that time …

    I continued like this for a very long time. My life felt lifeless and bleak. I don’t recall having any fun, adventures, or exciting experiences. Everything just seemed so hard. Life was something to endure, not enjoy. Enjoyment seemed to be reserved for a lucky few, and I most certainly wasn’t one of them.

    It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I learned that my feelings weren’t problems, and that they didn’t make me insane. My feelings only made me one thing—human.

    Feelings Lesson 1: Feelings aren’t evidence that we are broken or insane. They are evidence that we are human.

    I know now that I had always been perfectly healthy, but others taught me to believe that being a little human with feelings was somehow wrong and shameful.

    My feelings were a problem for others. They were inconvenient to them. And as a result of them not dealing with their own feelings—their own irritation, intolerance, and impatience—they tried to control and eliminate mine.

    But what happens when we try to control or eliminate our feelings is that we deprive ourselves from experiencing the richness of life. We numb them all because we cannot selectively numb. We feel it all or nothing at all.

    So if I am unwilling to feel my anger, I will eradicate other feelings with it—apart from maybe one or two that will be expressed more strongly than they would if we only let ourselves feel whatever it is that we actually need to feel.

    Feelings Lesson 2: We are meant to feel all our feelings and can’t selectively numb them.

    In my professional work, I have noticed that sad people usually suppress their anger and angry people usually suppress their sadness. It’s a simplistic generalization, but it is largely true. The problem is that the displaced feeling will be way more powerful and destructive than it would be if we didn’t try to control or avoid it. We avoid a feeling when it is shame-bound, when every time it arises we feel shame for feeling it.

    If we feel something excessively and intensely, it’s a sign that we have shame-bound another feeling, which means that this feeling was not tolerated in our childhood, and every time it arises, our anxiety level rises. We then try to push it down to stop ourselves from feeling it, but then the energy of that feeling gets displaced and added to a feeling we believe to be more acceptable to feel and express.

    The ‘more acceptable’ feeling then takes on a bigger form, and we end up having panic attacks instead of expressing our frustrations about someone. Or we get depressed instead of setting boundaries with people who treat us in disrespectful ways. Or we explode in a rage because we don’t allow ourselves to admit to feeling hurt, alone, and unsupported.

    There are thousands of examples like the above. Sadly, we always believe that our misdirected expression like rage or depression is the problem we need to fix, and so we focus on the result of the problem and not on its actual cause, which means that we cannot solve it.

    If we want to work through our issues, we need to identify which of our feelings are shame-bound and then reconnect with them in healthy and compassionate ways. This is a process. We are going against a lifetime of conditioning, so we need to be gentle with ourselves while persevering and getting honest with ourselves.

    But it is possible. We can remove the shame-binding from all of our feelings by reminding ourselves that our feelings aren’t problems, and that feeling our feelings is what makes our human experience special.

    Feelings Lesson 3: Shame-bound feelings express themselves in different and destructive ways, meaning we simply can’t not feel.

    When we inhibit what we are meant to express to protect others from our feelings, because we perceive that they’re a problem for them, we reinforce the message that our feelings are problems and that we are wrong to feel them. Believing this will negatively impact our mental health and enjoyment of other people and life in general, because feelings exist for our benefit.

    Our feelings exist to guide us through life. They show us what we want and what we don’t want so we can create more of the former and move away from the latter. When someone shames our feelings and encourages us to disconnect from them, they encourage us to disconnect from our emotional guidance system, which serves to help us create a great life for ourselves in which we can grow and thrive. This inevitably leads to creating an inauthentic, unfulfilling life, and stunted development.

    Our feelings also show us when we believe something harmful that isn’t true: a lie of the mind.

    If I believe that my anger is a sign that I am an inherently flawed human being, I feel distressed because this isn’t true. My guidance system is trying to tell me that I’m on the wrong track.

    Because just like the physical pain we experience when touching something painfully hot, emotional pain tells us to move away and let go of a harmful thought. And so, our emotions highlight our state of mind. They encourage us to let go, drop, and move away from anything that doesn’t serve us or promote our personal growth.

    Feelings Lesson 4: Our feelings tell us when we engage in harmful thinking.

    Once we understand the purpose of our feelings, we begin to see the beauty in them. We are made to have feelings—all the feelings! We are meant to feel our feelings. Our feelings aren’t problems. They are just here to give us the full human experience. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! We have the potential to experience it all. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

    But we cannot make the most of this opportunity if we go in blind. Being cut off from our feelings is just that. It’s like trying to sail the oceans without a compass, hoping to find paradise to live in. It’s navigating life without any sense of what we want or what is good and healthy for us. As a consequence, we make many wrong choices and keep believing all the wrong things.

    Our attention then goes into fixing our mistakes instead of creating a life that is most suited to who we really are. Because we simply don’t know what’s good for us and what isn’t because we don’t know what we are feeling. We are emotionally disconnected.

    We have feelings that try to move us toward what’s good for us, but because we don’t like how some of them feel, we disregard them all. We try to create a successful life without any sense of what successful actually looks like for us.

    Let me outline this with an example:

    What was my anger during my childhood trying to tell me?

    It definitely wasn’t that I was a bad and ungrateful child who was inherently flawed and devoid of any tender human qualities. My anger didn’t mean that I was disrespectful or manipulative and deserved to be hit, shouted at, shamed, and punished. My anger was trying to get me to act, to stand up for myself, to protect myself. Only I was too little.

    Then.

    Not now.

    But I lived by those shame-bound rules for most of my life. I hated my anger. I avoided conflict. I didn’t stand up for myself when it mattered and then got myself into situations that were abusive, full of conflict, draining, and traumatic—but also unnecessary.

    If I had been attuned to my anger, if I had responded to it immediately, nothing would have ever needed to escalate. I would have stood up for myself and moved away from whoever and whatever wasn’t healthy for me and didn’t contribute positively toward my growth.

    I would have made very different choices and I would have lived a very different life.

    Being cut off from my feelings and disconnected from my internal guidance system deprived me of the experience of life I wish I’d had.

    I was doing it the hard way. I was trying to succeed going in blind. It doesn’t work. I know you know that too.

    Feelings Lesson 5: Our feelings ask us to act in ways that are good for us.

    So why am I going on about feeling our feelings? Because it’s the solution to many of our problems.

    Instead of putting all our energy into avoiding, controlling, and eliminating our feelings, we have to become attuned to them. We have to reconnect with them so we can make better and healthier choices for ourselves. We need them. We are meant to have them. And the more we let ourselves feel them, the more easily we learn to respond to them in healthy and life-enhancing ways.

    Because our feelings aren’t problems. They are not inconvenient. They are trying to move us into the direction of health and well-being on a physical, emotional, and mental level.

    And in that way, they help us create a life we can actually enjoy. But only if we allow ourselves to feel them.

  • The Practice of Staying Present Will Heal You

    The Practice of Staying Present Will Heal You

  • My Home Will Be a Safe Space

    My Home Will Be a Safe Space

  • How Observing My Emotions Helps Me Let Go of Anger and Anxiety

    How Observing My Emotions Helps Me Let Go of Anger and Anxiety

    “Even when in the midst of disturbance, the stillness of the mind can offer sanctuary.” ~Stephen Richards

    One night my four-year-old daughter woke up crying, startling both me and my husband from sleep. He rushed into her room and I came in shortly thereafter, and I immediately got annoyed with how he was handling the situation. I’ll admit this now: I can’t even remember what he did, but in that moment I knew I would have done it differently and it made me feel irritable and angry.

    I left the room and went into the bathroom. While I sat there, I remembered something I’d heard to do in order to become a calmer, more mindful person: Observe myself and describe my emotions and what was going on in my body as if I was telling a doctor about medical symptoms.

    I simply noticed what was going on inside me as if I was another person watching myself and ran through what was happening. I described how I felt agitated and how my stomach felt knotty. I described how the anger felt hot and prickly and how it was consuming my chest.

    Then the most amazing thing happened: My anger completely vanished.

    I was astonished. Usually I can talk myself out of negative or overwhelming emotions with some time and patience by coming up with new thoughts or convincing myself to simply let go. But this, this was something different. It happened so quickly and easily.

    I was really struck by this experience, and a week or two later I tried doing something similar while I was meditating before bed one evening. That night I felt stressed out and sad, and I could feel how I was carrying a frown around with me, and a feeling of heaviness.

    During my meditation, I kept pulling myself back to the present moment and noticing how and where I was carrying those feelings. I didn’t judge them or try to change them; I just observed them. Within a few moments a strong feeling overcame me. I can only describe it as a wave of knowing that told me “those feelings are not you.”

    It was so soothing. I felt how I was the observer, and although my sad and anxious feelings were certainly a real part of my human experience, I saw that I didn’t have to become engulfed by them. I didn’t have to let them rule me or my life.

    I’m a person with a lot of emotions. I tend toward anxiety and sadness, though I certainly have some anger, or at least irritation, thrown in there for good measure. Being able to separate myself from these emotions has been so freeing.

    I’m not saying that emotions aren’t valid, or that we shouldn’t have feelings about things that happen in our lives. I do believe, though, we can move forward in the most helpful and joyful way possible if we take the time to observe those feelings and get some distance from them.

    If I’d stayed mad and acted out at my husband that night, over something so inconsequential that I can’t even remember the details of it now, a month or two later, would that have been the best outcome for me? I don’t believe so; middle of the night arguments never end well.

    I think noticing and describing emotions allows for the best outcome. If you’ve been mistreated by someone, by all means, allow yourself that anger and frustration. From there, though, step back. Take a look at what you’re saying to yourself and where that frustration lives.

    Once you’ve done that and given yourself some distance, then make your next move. Making a decision from a place of stillness and reflection can only make your life better.

    This is a practice that, well, takes practice. I have to remind myself to do it, and frankly, sometimes I don’t want to. A stubborn, bratty part of myself yells something along the lines of “I want to stay mad!”

    It’s worth it though, at least to me, and I’m incorporating it into my life more and more. I’m finding myself a calmer and more centered person, and that’s something I’ve wanted for a long time. Here’s everything that’s been working for me and how it can work for you, too.

    Get comfortable with the idea that you’re an observer. The older I get, the more I realize how much of what I do is just a pattern, a repetition of the ways I’ve done things before. That has allowed me to identify less with what my mind is telling me and to give myself permission to simply observe what’s happening instead of taking it all so seriously.

    Avoid judging yourself and your emotions. Just this morning I started getting worried about the sadness my daughter was expressing about going back to preschool after a break for vacation. I started getting frustrated at myself for getting sucked into my feelings and not doing better, but in that moment I realized I needed to let go of criticizing myself and instead just observe. And, as usual, it helped.

    Give yourself the time and space to practice. This is not what we’ve been taught to do. At all. We’ve been taught to try to control our emotions, we’ve been taught to express emotions in healthier ways, we’ve been taught to give in and feel emotions. The idea of observing our emotions? I didn’t hear of that until I was thirty-seven years old.

    Try to see your emotions as separate from the real you. I believe that at our core we’re compassionate and loving beings. The stories our minds tell us—about how we’ve been wronged or how things should be different—are just that: stories.

    Let yourself observe what the mind is telling you. Let yourself observe how those stories are causing you to feel. Take the time to really describe, in vivid detail, what you’re telling yourself and what you’re feeling physically. Are your shoulders up to your ears? Is your chest tight? Are your firsts clenched? What’s your face doing? Do you feel hot? Do you feel like you’re in slow motion? Describe it all.

    When you take the time to do that, you’re taking the time to see that those feelings, those emotions are separate from you. You’re the loving being who is observing them. You’re the one with the power to let them go.

    Just try it. Taking the time to increase my awareness and observe myself has improved my life in just a short time, and I think it can make anyone’s life more peaceful.

  • Accepting People You Dislike as They Are: How It Benefits You and How to Do It

    Accepting People You Dislike as They Are: How It Benefits You and How to Do It

    “We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction.” ~Aesop, The Eagle and the Arrow

    We can sometimes have difficulty accepting our friends, family, and loved ones as they are when their habits, quirks, or behavior annoy us. Our natural tendency is to try to change what we don’t like about them, which often leads to resentment. Nonetheless, given their importance and presence in our lives, we are usually willing to make an effort to accept them as they are.

    But what about people we dislike—people who cause us grief? For example, an overbearing boss, a scheming coworker, or an annoying relative. Should we also make an effort to accept them as they are?

    Before you decline to do so, consider that when we don’t accept such people as they are (and more about what that means shortly), the adverse consequences for ourselves can be even worse.

    One problem is that we will be prone to engaging them in combative, retaliatory ways, as was my modus operandi. I now realize that I suffered unnecessarily from my refusal to accept people I disliked or despised, in terms of both greater personal anguish and counterproductive responses to their actions.

    And especially so when I was betrayed by a business partner several years ago.

    I Refused to Accept My Business Partner for Who He Was

    During a particularly difficult period in my life when my first wife and I were on the brink of breaking up, a business partner was intent on squeezing me out of my most profitable real estate investment in the Midwest. He controlled the purse strings and withheld the money due to me from the investment.

    He also made disparaging remarks about my wife and me to our banker. The problem was, we shared the same banker—my partner introduced us—and my partner happened to be one of the bank’s wealthiest clients. The bank called my loans, and I didn’t have the means to repay them.

    Accepting this person for who he was and acting in my best interests under the circumstances was not even a consideration. Instead, consumed with unbridled anger and resentment, I foolishly launched a costly five-year legal battle that brought me to the brink of bankruptcy.

    My sense of urgency also caused me to miss important doctor appointments for the removal of a small lesion on my nose, which later resulted in my losing half my nose to a vicious tumor and enduring four major reconstructive surgeries.

    When an offer to settle came in shortly before trial, my attorney asked me what I wanted out of the case—meaning financially. I righteously announced to him my intention to make my partner stop taking advantage of people and change his unscrupulous business practices.

    Dumbfounded, my attorney turned to me and exclaimed, “Danny, you must be kidding! Do you really think you are going to change this man? That’s just not going to happen.”

    And it didn’t!

    What Acceptance Is—and Isn’t

    As I mentioned, accepting my partner for who he was and not trying to change him was not a consideration. At the time, I equated acceptance with surrender and excusing bad behavior—and being weak. I also believed that I had the power to change people’s ingrained ways, which I now know is myth conquering reality!

    I have since learned that true acceptance has nothing to do with surrender, backing down, condoning bad behavior, or the like. Rather, true acceptance means accepting people and things as they are without judgment or harboring negative feelings such as fear, anger, resentment, and the like (or at least minimally so).

    As such, true acceptance is the detached, even-keeled acknowledgment of the underlying or objective reality—the “how is” and “what is”—of the person or situation.

    With that mindset, you are able to accept someone you dislike as they are, and still terminate the relationship if you determine it is in your best interest to do so. You can also change the dynamics of the relationship if cutting ties is not practical or realistic.

    For example, you can accept a divisive sibling (or other family member) as they are, and still set boundaries, such as avoiding problematic topics of discussion, or choosing the type, extent, and frequency of contact you wish to have.

    Further, acceptance does not mean that you need be passive or give up principles and values that are important to you. Thus, whether in dealing with dishonest politicians or business leaders, or when you feel an injustice has been done, acceptance does not mean that you shouldn’t take corrective actions that voice your own “truths.”

    The Gifts of Accepting People You Dislike 

    When you are able to accept people you dislike (or anyone for that matter) as they are, you can then recognize the choices that will serve you best.

    Why? Acceptance induces a critical shift in focus from what you are powerless to change or do to what you can do to better serve your needs. In short, accepting what is lets you discover what might be—and no less so when dealing with people you dislike.

    I certainly had viable choices with my business partner besides pursuing the combative, self-harming course I chose. One choice was to not sue and instead devote my time and energy—and money—to improving my other properties. However, my unprocessed fear and anger obscured this much wiser path.

    A related gift of acceptance is that it brings you freedom by releasing the shackles that bind you to troublesome relationships. (This is particularly true when dealing with past parental transgressions, control freaks, and other “crazy makers.”)

    Acceptance is also a great stress and anxiety reducer. When you accept people and things as they are, you have little to stress (and lose sleep) over.

    Keys to Accepting People You Dislike

    Practicing acceptance with people you dislike is challenging. It is often a process that evolves over time and in which incremental steps are fruitful. Certain keys will facilitate the process.

    Process your fears.  

    Unprocessed fear prevents acceptance because it dominates our thoughts instead of allowing us to make the choices that serve us best. Apt acronyms for FEAR are “Future Events Already Ruined” and “False Evidence Appearing Real.”

    With my partner, for example, I was in that “already ruined” mode because of my strong fear that his actions would irreparably impact my livelihood—but they in fact wouldn’t because I had other profitable investments.

    We thus need to process and reduce our fears in order to benefit from the even-keeled type of acceptance I have described. Most fears are illusory and speculative; they diminish and even leave when they are closely examined.

    It helps considerably to examine the objective reality of the person or situation you are dealing with rather than be guided by negative speculations about what might happen and what could be. Face and lean into your fears. Their bark is much greater than their bite. When you so process your fears, their hold over you (and your thinking) will lessen considerably, and viable options and choices will be revealed to you.

    Defuse your anger.

    In much the same manner, our anger and resentment toward people we dislike obstruct acceptance. Moreover, anger can easily exacerbate situations in ways that are harmful to us, like it did for me when I dueled with my business partner.

    The late Carrie Fisher expressed it well in her book Wishful Drinking: “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” (I certainly drank a lot of poison while waiting for my former business partner to change his dishonorable ways!)

    It softens the edge of your resentment if you try to see things from the other person’s perspective. Many—perhaps even most—times, people’s behavior is based on their fears, anxieties, and self-interests and not on any intent to harm us.

    An overbearing and controlling boss, for example, is likely guided by fears and anxiety about his business rather than your job performance. A fierce competitor, whether in business or on the playing field or at school, is likely guided by her need to win rather than a desire to suppress you. And an unkind gossiper is likely guided by her low self-esteem and need to be liked rather than an intent to harm you.

    In the case of my partner, looking back I now recognize that he acted mainly out of the concern about how the break-up of my marriage would impact one of his largest investments.

    Look for the good!  

    Some—maybe most—of the time we are so engulfed in the turmoil with those we dislike, that we can’t see the “positive” influences that they have on our lives. I learned an awful lot from my partner during the years we worked together. He’s a very astute businessman. My departure totally changed my career trajectory. It lead to establishing a real estate investment company in which I have been able to apply what I learned from him in my own business dealings with great success.

    Another major gift was that he played a major role in helping me to prove to myself that I can take care of myself under severe pressures and adverse circumstances. I always had doubts about that.

    Recognizing these “good” things removed my anger and I was later able to accept my partner for the person he was, even offering a toast to his good health at a dinner gathering of friends following the settlement of the law suit.

    Acceptance Intentions

    Below are some intentions that will assist you in accepting people you dislike as they are.

    I will: 

    Process my fear and anger.

    Not take what they do personally.

    Recognize the fears and anxieties that drive them.            

    Pause, reflect, and think objectively.

    Not assume an intent to harm me.

    Set appropriate boundaries.

    Trust that I will be able to take care of myself.

    Be true to myself.

    In doing these things, you will feel less annoyed, more grounded, and more focused on taking care of your needs—and the gifts of acceptance will be yours!

  • Understanding the Cycle of Pain: How to Transmute Anger into Empathy

    Understanding the Cycle of Pain: How to Transmute Anger into Empathy

    “When we get angry, we suffer. If you really understand that, you also will be able to understand that when the other person is angry, it means that she is suffering. When someone insults you or behaves violently towards you, you have to be intelligent enough to see that the person suffers from his own violence and anger. But we tend to forget … When we see that our suffering and anger are no different from their suffering and anger, we will behave more compassionately.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    There is so much to be angry about every day because life is unfair.

    My own situation right now is infuriating. I left my job and my home country in large part to return back to the US and help my mom care for my father. During that time, my mother’s frustration with her role as caregiver, along with the emotional stresses and practical limitations it placed on her, often boiled over into rage directed at me. This situation persisted for ten months.

    Immediately after that, she herself became terminally ill, and now my role is caregiver. My whole life plan has had to change as a result, so my hopes of going back to my old life now need to take a backseat to my mother’s illness, which was brought about by her own behavior (smoking). For so many years I had asked her to quit, to which she reacted—you guessed it—angrily.

    When it was clear she wasn’t doing well, I encouraged her to see a doctor. She got angry with me.

    While in the hospital, she was frustrated at being confined to a bed. She took her anger and frustration out on me for that too.

    Now, faced with difficult treatments and limitations on her lifestyle, she lashes out at me every day or two. Me—the only one at home with her, and the only one of her four children who has the will and/or ability to care for her in this way.

    I’m not going to lie—it’s difficult to refrain from reacting in kind, and sometimes I do just that.

    In my cancer caregiver support group, I found this is a common thread—people are angry, and they have difficulty directing and dealing with that anger.

    One woman has a husband whose blasé attitude toward his cancer puts him in a lot of dangerous situations. This completely stresses her out because she is in a constant state of worry about his health and safety. But, rather than expressing these sentiments, she has internalized them, allowing anger to slowly fester.

    It was a significant and therapeutic step for her to actually admit that she was angry. Her way of coping thereafter was to withdraw from her husband in order to preserve her own emotional well-being.

    Another woman was angry because her husband, sick on-and-off with cancer for nearly twenty years, was also depressed through his illness, leaving her as the sole caregiver and breadwinner. Needless to say, her marriage was far from the storybook version she’d originally had in mind. Her way of dealing with her anger was to be productive—to be the best mother and caretaker she could be—and occasionally vent or break down to some trusted friends or our group.

    There is nothing wrong or shameful about either of these two approaches. Both women have shown incredible fortitude in the face of difficult situations. Furthermore, their reactions were certainly much more constructive and peace-promoting than simply popping off and reacting temperamentally.

    However, I have found it helps take me to an even more peaceful state to remind myself of the cycle of pain.

    In this cycle, as succinctly described by Thich Nhat Hanh above, people act out in negative ways (e.g. aggressive, uncaring, etc.) as a result of inner pain. Even if that pain is difficult for us as outsiders to understand, it is there as a matter of fact.

    Though it may help to intellectually understand the specific causes and dynamics of the individual’s pain, in most cases that isn’t possible because you cannot get inside someone else’s head. But we can still accept that the other person is in pain. Once we accept this, we can relate it to our own and therefore feel empathy.

    This is very difficult to do in the moment. What helps me when I feel the flush of temper is to take a deep breath and close my eyes. When I take in that breath, I imagine myself “breathing in” the other person’s pain, which appears to me internally as smoke or pollution.

    I then imagine in my head what they are going through. That is why it helps to understand what the pain is. In my mother’s case, it’s the fear of her disease as well as the discomfort with suddenly having to deal with the restrictions it places on her time and activities.

    I imagine them dealing with that pain, and as the breath comes in I feel a sensation permeate my body. I then let out the breath, which I imagine to be a vapor of peace. I feel lighter and calmer.

    I call this alchemy for the soul—transmuting anger into empathy.

    When I expressed this in the group, I was met with crickets, except for the woman who was angry about her husband’s careless attitude about his condition. She had two comebacks.

    First, she said although that was a “nice” sentiment, she needed to take care of herself at this point and not worry about her husband’s emotions. After all, as the cancer sufferer, he was receiving all kinds of sympathy from every corner. Fair enough.

    Secondly, she said that it takes a lot of energy and effort to “suppress” your feelings when you’re already feeling exhausted from being the caregiver. I understand that too.

    At that point, I dropped the matter, firstly, because I sensed her slight agitation and secondly, because I thought it might strain the dynamics of our safe place if I came across as a preachy teacher in a group of equals.

    What I wanted to say was that this is not about her husband’s feelings. In fact, quite the opposite—doing this would be all about her emotions.

    To hold onto anger and need to direct it somewhere, to me, is draining. I need to carry it around and find where to put it. I need to put effort into not blowing up at someone. To me, this exercise of alchemy for the soul feels like the opposite of “suppression,” whose Latin origin literally means to “press down.”

    When I perform my little alchemy ritual, the feeling is much more of a lightening up or dissolving kind of sensation. Rather than doing someone else a favor, I feel like I am treating myself well, which allows me to treat others well too (and not begrudge them for it!).

    Even when someone else is clearly the “cause” of your anger, it helps to remember that it isn’t really him or her—it’s his or her suffering that is at the root of the hurtful actions. Yes, they are responsible for what they do, but it helps to remember that it’s human to sometimes act out when you’re hurting.

    If you feel that this thinking lets the person off the hook too easily, remember that however hurtful someone’s actions are, no one can “make” you feel a certain way. Ultimately, how you react internally to someone’s actions, what you choose to focus on and how you think about it, is your own responsibility. To blame another person for how you feel is to give him or her power over you.

    To be clear, I’m not making excuses for bad behavior. If someone does something cruel or thoughtless or aggressive to you, it is his or her failing for doing so. But however hurt you may feel in the moment, that person does not have the power to make you carry that hurt with you in the form of anger.

    Once again, this has nothing to do with you being a saint and deigning to give that person compassion or forgiveness; it’s about you taking care of yourself by stopping the angry chain reaction that can lead to all kinds of hurt and unfortunate behaviors.

    Why not just allow yourself to just be angry and make up a sad story about what was done to you in which you are cast as the victim? In a sense, you’re totally justified in doing so, but where does that lead? How does that help you? The truth is, you very well might have been a victim of someone’s aggression in that moment, but only you can make yourself remain a victim by carrying around the negativity.

    When you help yourself by letting go of your anger, you help everyone else around you too.

    This is a practice that has very much helped me, but it’s not the only way to deal with anger. I’m always in search of new strategies myself, so please feel free to tell me what’s helped you cope.

  • How Forgiving Yourself and Others Changes Your Brain

    How Forgiving Yourself and Others Changes Your Brain

    “Be quick to forgive, because we’re all walking wounded.” ~Anonymous

    People often behave in ways that we find irritating, annoying, or worse. This can happen especially with people close to us.

    They can speak with little consideration for the impact of their words. They can criticize us and pounce on our mistakes. Sometimes they do unfair things that seriously disadvantage or damage us. Or they let us down when we’re counting on them.

    All these behaviors can lead to us feeling wounded. The scars can persist for years or even decades. The closer the offenders are to us, the greater the impact tends to be.

    Most of us would like others to understand us, to act reliably, and to be approachable when things go wrong. We’d like them to be kind in dealing with our mistakes or offences. We’d like them to understand that we aren’t set in stone, that we aren’t just the sum total of our mistakes.

    We deserve a chance to recover and show our better side. We’d like them to be more understanding and put a more favorable interpretation on what we did or failed to do.

    However, it can be different when others behave badly. Often, we spend a lot of time and energy going over the way we were wronged, mistreated, disappointed, disrespected, or disregarded.

    Dwelling on the perceived wrong kindles the fire of a grudge. The more we dwell on it, the bigger this fire grows.

    Can this fire burn us?

    When I was in high school, some of the coolest kids formed a band. Everyone wanted to be in that band. I played the piano, so I too wanted to be in it.

    One of my closest friends also played the piano, but not as well. It became a bit of a tussle between us. I was chosen, to my delight.

    When we started playing gigs, a piano was not always available. So I took to the melodica, a little instrument into which you blow. It has a keyboard.

    We started playing gigs, with quite a good response from audiences. Everything was going well, until we were invited to play a gig in a venue right near my home.

    The melodica was at the band leader’s house, because we rehearsed there. I asked for it to be brought to the gig.

    On the evening of the gig, my bandmates turned up. Unfortunately, the melodica could not be found. Apparently, it had been brought to the venue by the band leader but had disappeared.

    This was a bitter blow. I had so looked forward to strutting my stuff before a home crowd. I rushed around to various people who might have a melodica, but could not find one.

    The gig happened without me. I was downcast.

    Eventually, the real story came out.

    The melodica had been brought to the venue. The close friend I mentioned, who also played the piano, had simply taken it away and hidden it.

    I was outraged. I felt betrayed, violated, and angry. I felt ready to run my friend over with a large truck.

    We didn’t speak for a couple of years. Then I got an apology of sorts. Somehow, things were never the same between us.

    I went off to medical school and our paths have never crossed since.

    What happens to your brain when you cling to a grudge?

    The parts of your brain that specialize in criticism grow more active. They feed on your thoughts about the grudge. The neurons involved lay down more connections, strengthening this response.

    The next time someone behaves in a way that you disapprove of, your brain more readily jumps to criticism and judgment.

    All that is understandable, you’re not alone in practicing criticism. But there’s a price to pay for this practice.

    The same parts of your brain that criticize others also criticize you. You tend to become more unforgiving about your own mistakes. Self-acceptance recedes. It becomes harder for you to like yourself.

    Further, this can lead to a cycle of mutual criticism between you and people who matter to you. It tends to weaken the supportive relationships we all need.

    A recent study among 5,475 men and 4,580 women aged over 50 showed that a single point increase in negative social support score resulted in a 31% rise in the risk of eventual dementia. Negative social support is where you experience a lot of critical, unreliable and annoying behaviors from others, especially people close to you.

    What can you do to start breaking this downward spiral of mutual criticism and self-criticism?

    First, ask what stresses or problems may have led to the undesirable behavior. Try to find explanations that weaken the impact of the “bad” behavior on your mind. This is as true for self-criticism as for criticizing others.

    Perhaps there were circumstances that led to you acting in regrettable ways. If you regret it, don’t wallow in the regret. Find explanations to understand why you did what you did.

    Give yourself the gift of forgiveness, strengthen your resolve to do what is good and important going forward, then move on. This same gift of forgiveness may be given to others, recognizing that all human beings are vulnerable to errors or even terrible behavior.

    Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation with the offender. Reconciliation is the re-establishment of mutual trust. That requires a further step as part of negotiation.

    But forgiveness can proceed regardless of reconciliation and mutual trust.

    The more you practice understanding and forgiveness, starting with yourself, the more you strengthen the self-reassuring parts of your brain. These are the same parts that show empathy and compassion to others. They make you more accepting of yourself, with all your flaws and stumbles.

    We all have flaws and stumbles. That’s okay. It’s part of being human.

    If I could go back to my youth and replay my friend’s apology, I hope I would respond with more understanding. After all, if our positions had been reversed and I’d been blinded by envy, who knows what I might have done.

    For a better quality of life right now, with more self-acceptance, and for a lower risk of cognitive decline, try loosening your grip on grudges. And be gentle with yourself when you slip up in this effort. The steering wheel of your life often requires a little time, patience and practice before you can turn it reliably.

    I’m still practicing. That’s okay.

    Illustration by Kellie Warren. Find her on Instagram @kellistrator.

  • How I Transformed My Anxiety and What to Do If You Feel Emotionally Stuck

    How I Transformed My Anxiety and What to Do If You Feel Emotionally Stuck

    “There is still vitality under the snow, even though to the casual eye it seems to be dead.” ~Agnes Sligh Turnbull

    For as long as I can recall, I have always been a fretful and anxious person. Mine was a low-key anxiety that’s always colored the background of my life, a constant companion of ambiguous dread and imminent doom (just around the corner!)

    The annoying part was that I never quite knew why the anxiety hung around. There weren’t any real situations in my life that evoked this constant, nagging fear.

    I have tried various techniques to manage my anxiety. I tried deep breathing. I tried to balance out the fearful thoughts that sometimes follow the feeling of fear with logical investigation of the facts.

    I tried self-hypnosis—imagining a safe place in the depths of my psyche protected by multiple layers of force fields. I tried going toward the fear instead of running from it by putting myself in fear-inducing situations, so I could learn to tolerate it better. I tried self-psycho-analysis.

    All these produced various small results, but always, always there was something missing. I somehow felt like I did not go all the way to the bottom of my anxiety. 

    Then I picked up mindfulness, in those days before it became so well known. I learned on my own and in various courses, to make space for my anxiety.

    Above all, I discovered that my anxiety wasn’t me. That was an important piece of the puzzle. And yet, there was still a lot of the puzzle missing. My gut feeling was telling me, there’s got to be more.

    And then I came upon a book on Focusing. This is a method discovered by the late psychologist-philosopher Eugene Gendlin. He discovered that people who engaged in a specific kind of internal exploration of their experiences often came away feeling that their emotional struggles have transformed, quite literally.

    They no longer felt the same way before they started the internal exploration process. Even though the situation that had caused them to feel that way remained unchanged, how they understood it and felt about it had become radically different.

    I was entranced, so I read everything I could about this method. I tried it out on myself…

    And fell flat on my face. It didn’t work and I was still anxious. Only now, I was even more anxious because it was tinged with a near panicky sense that what I needed was just within my reach but I could not grasp it! I pictured my anxiety flashing the victory sign in my mind.

    Then thankfully, I took a course with a Focusing teacher in the United Kingdom and I got it.

    My anxiety started to shift.

    How I Understand It: Vital Emotions and Blocks

    We are all born with naturally flowing emotions that guide us and give us information about our lives, our worlds, and our needs. I call these “vital emotions.” No matter what form they take (joy, anger, grief, gratitude, and so forth), the experience of them moving within and through us unfettered makes us feel alive.

    Just look at babies. They are always experiencing naturally flowing emotions and they are little bundles of vitality. When they are angry, they scream without concern. When happy, their mirth is disinhibited.

    However, as we grow up, we learn to cut off these emotions. For instance, some people become overly rational at the expense of feeling emotions, like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. Alternatively, some of us fall into stuck emotional patterns that repeat over and over again without getting us anywhere but into trouble (my anxiety is one example).

    I call cutting off emotions or stuck emotions “blocks.” We tend to pick them up as we bump along in life. Focusing is a method to help us free up our blocks and get in touch with our vital emotions.

    What I Learned About My Emotions

    I learned in Focusing to take on a curious and self-compassionate approach to my emotions. I also learned to drop my awareness down into body to experience the sensations of my emotions in real time, and use these sensations to guide my discovery of the layers of information contained within my emotions.

    From there, I learned to decode what my emotions are telling me that I needed at that point in time. When I accessed this new understanding, I started to feel my anxiety transform.

    When I focused on my anxiety block in an open-minded and compassionate manner, I discovered that it felt like a kind of jittery electricity coursing through my body, and occasionally thickening into a lump in my chest.

    Fascinatingly, I also found that I had a tendency to hold back in my actions, my breathing, and even my voice (I had trouble projecting my voice). It was like I had put the brakes on inside myself.

    Through gentle and persistent questioning around these bodily responses, I discovered that I picked up my anxiety block because the adults in my life had subtly and not so subtly put me down when I tried to express my vital emotions.

    I remembered being shamed for showing my vital emotions like anger or even dizzy joy. Then I was told I was too sensitive when I was feeling vulnerable and upset. My anxiety was telling me that I could not let my guard down. I could not afford to be myself fully.

    At this point, my anxiety had started to shift physically and it was replaced by another emotion—sadness. Sadness that I wasn’t allowed to be myself.

    As I paid the same gentle attention to how my body held this sadness, it shifted once more and transformed into anger. I was angry that people could do this to me, no matter how well meaning their intentions. How dare they! How could they?

    With that line of thought, I knew that I wasn’t going to let people discount my emotions again! I felt physically stronger with this new determination. I had moved pass my anxious block and touched the procession of my vital emotions hiding by it. And then, I realized that my anxiety was trying to protect me from the devastating forces of shame and ridicule. I needed to feel safe in an unsafe environment.

    They only way I knew how was to block off my vital emotions least showing them got me into trouble. This realization gave rise to a warm feeling of self-compassion—I was doing the best I could to protect myself and my anxiety was my warning system.

    A Realistic Transformative Method

    Needless to say, I fell in love with focusing and undertook more training in it. I have found my method of transforming my life-long anxiety. Do I still struggle with it? Of course, but now it feels different. It no longer is a pervasive unknown fear. It has shrunk and only occasionally pops up. And when it does, I know how to engage with it to transform it.

    Try This Out

    The next time you feel emotionally stuck or have an inexplicable emotional reaction, take a moment to pause and focus on how it feels in your body as a sensation. Notice where in your body you feel it the strongest.

    A good place to start noticing is the space within your throat, chest, and belly. Simply spend a minute or two trying to describe the raw sensation of the emotional reaction, in real time—“Right now, how does it feel?” You might notice that the sensation changing. If it does, simple stay on top of it by describing the new sensation.

    Simply tuning in this way helps you create a unique and open-minded relationship to your emotions. It is also one of the crucial steps in focusing. See if you could make this into a daily habit. Remember, emotions transform when we try to understand them in an open-minded way.

  • How to Stop the War in Your Head and Find Peace

    How to Stop the War in Your Head and Find Peace

    “A mind at peace does not engender wars.” ~Sophocles

    There’s a classic Buddhist story about two monks who come upon a woman at the edge of a river. One of the monks carries her across and they continue on their way. Several miles on, the other monk turns to the first and says, “How could you do that? We have made vows never to touch a woman!” The first looks serenely at him. “Are you still carrying her? I set her down at the edge of the river.”

    This is exactly what our minds do, if we aren’t careful: We carry our upsets with us long after the original cause is over. (We also pick up imaginary burdens from a future that may never come.) It’s what I call “the war in your head.”

    You know what it feels like. On the surface, you are going about your day—at work, driving, shopping, watching TV. But in your mind you’re going over, maybe for the hundredth time, what your boss or neighbor or ex-spouse said last week. Or what they might say or do next week.

    Only a sliver of your attention is on what is happening now. The rest of you is in the future or the past, reliving an old battle or imagining a future one.

    I say the war in your head, but you will inevitably feel its effects in your body as well. Maybe your throat or your chest is tight, your breathing is shallow, and your stomach feels a bit nauseous. As far as your body’s concerned, you might as well be experiencing the scene in reality: the stress hormones flow just as surely, doing their damage.

    When the war is in your head, you are the loser, every time. It doesn’t matter how often you re-fight the battle (or fight it in advance)—you have ceded your peace of mind, and anything else that might be available to you in the present moment. You can wear yourself out, even boxing with shadows.

    I learned this the hard way, during and after my divorce. I spent hours, days, weeks, and months with a full-scale war raging in my head. I sleepwalked through the rest of my life to the accompaniment of a continuous background rumble of outrage, pain, and anger.

    Most of my energy and attention were sucked up in imaginary arguments with my ex-husband, his lawyer, and the judge. I would go over and over the same ground, inwardly reciting my grievances, telling them off, or spinning down the rabbit holes of innumerable “what if” scenarios. None of it did me any good—the war in my head only added to my suffering.

    Eventually I realized what I was doing to myself and laid down my arms in sheer exhaustion. The quiet in my mind was almost eerie, like a battlefield after the ceasefire is called.

    Although my divorce continued along much the same lines it had been, I refused to give up my entire life and energy to the fight. I consulted with my lawyer, did what was necessary when it was necessary, and slowly became aware of the life that had been flowing around me, unnoticed and unlived, while I fought my inner war.

    The truth is, the war in our heads harms no one but ourselves, and even a small-scale war can have major consequences. How often has someone cut you off in traffic, or made a rude remark that you ruminated on for the rest of the day? How often have you spent anxious hours worrying about a possible outcome that never occurred?

    Our mental real estate is too precious to give over to war and strife. Our bodies are too vulnerable to collateral damage. 

    Luckily, it is possible to stop the war in your head. The first—and most important—step is to simply recognize when it’s happening and what it’s doing to you. Most of us are so used to the war that we become essentially unconscious of it. It just feels normal.

    In the beginning, it will probably take a full-scale battle to get your attention, but eventually you’ll learn to recognize even a minor skirmish. When you do, the next step is to take a metaphorical “step back” from it.

    Put yourself in the role of a war correspondent, who is there to simply observe, not participate. You can’t stop the war through resistance—that will only fan the flames. You stop the war by removing the fuel it runs on, which is your unconscious participation.

    Imagine a dial that lets you turn down the volume on your thoughts, as if you were viewing a battle scene from a distance.

    Take some deep breaths, and let yourself be gently aware of any sensations in your body. You don’t have to do anything about them—just notice them and let them be. Becoming familiar with the negative effects of your mental war will help you to recognize it faster, and also give you the motivation to end it!

    If you’re a visual person, try imagining a breeze that blows through your mind, gently clearing away the thoughts… or perhaps waves crashing on a beach, leaving the sand smooth and empty. Then say to yourself: “I choose not to have a war in my head.”

    It really can be as simple as that. The war thrives on our unconscious participation. Once you become conscious of it, and make the choice to reclaim your mental real estate, the episodes of war will become both less frequent and less intense.

    When this happens, you actually become more effective at solving any actual problems you might have, because your thinking is not clouded by drama and noise. This kind of thinking—without the violent emotions and resistance attached—also doesn’t impact your body the way a mental war does.

    If you are tired of the war that rages in your head, join me in declaring a “no-war zone” in your mind and be vigilant in keeping it that way. There will always be events and situations in life that bring up resistance, anger, worry, and upset, but we can choose to be like the first monk and simply set them down rather than carrying them endlessly along with us.

  • Why Anger Isn’t “Bad” and How I Learned to Hear Its Hidden Message

    Why Anger Isn’t “Bad” and How I Learned to Hear Its Hidden Message

    “Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.” ~Maya Angelou

    I’ve always had a complex relationship with anger.

    When I was young, I used to think I was somehow above anger. I would brag to people that I never got mad. Sure, I’d admit, I hated some people, but at least I wasn’t angry.

    When I began therapy in my mid-twenties to deal with persistent depression and panic attacks, I started to see the feebleness of that particular story. I did get angry, it turned out, quite frequently, and I found that things went much better when I allowed myself to feel it.

    I began to learn that my anger often contained useful information about me and what I wanted.

    It alerted me to the fact that one of my boundaries had been crossed, or that there was something I wanted to speak up about. It let me know when I felt hurt. I saw how my closest relationships could allow for anger without falling apart, and I began to accept it as a normal part of the human condition, perhaps even a helpful one.

    Still, as I perused self-help books and blogs and learned from spiritual teachers, I read about the dangers of anger over and over again.

    It’s the enemy of nonviolence, Gandhi said. The Dalai Lama once asserted that it’s the main destroyer of a peaceful mind. Even the Buddha is quoted as saying that holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

    So I asked myself: Was it better to try to quell anger or embrace it?

    A Life-Changing Distinction

    I muddled through as best I could, hedging my bets and working to accept anger without amplifying its flames, until I began going to a local meditation class where the emphasis was on moving energy.

    The meditation is based on a blend of Buddhist and Taoist practices. In addition to developing mindfulness, we’re encouraged to notice the energy within us—whether emotional or spiritual—and let it move through us. We do this by noticing the physical sensations of the energy and then following their lead, either by making noise, moving our bodies, or simply observing with nonjudgmental awareness and presence.

    One day a fellow participant asked the teacher how to handle the large amount of angry energy she was feeling.

    “Move the energy of the anger,” my teacher said. “It’s not good or bad; it’s just what wants to happen. When you make space for the energy and allow it to move through you, it transforms you. Just don’t get caught up in its story.”

    I’d never heard anybody separate the story of anger from its energy before, but the distinction helped me a lot.

    I realized that when I feel the first flush of anger, I often come up with a story: Things shouldn’t be this way. He shouldn’t have done that. It’s her fault I’m feeling bad.

    Stories are about assigning blame, making people right or wrong, and moving into better than/worse than. They’re not so helpful. I realized that it’s anger’s story, not its energy, that “burns” us.

    Anger’s energy is neutral. It doesn’t seek to blame or make anybody right or wrong. When I feel anger in my body, I feel a burning sensation, a warmth, and a flow of intense energy. That’s it. It actually reconnects me to the strength in my core and reminds me that I’m powerful, capable, and alive.

    Hearing a Hidden Message

    It was while moving the energy of anger that I first heard its hidden message.

    Someone—a Very Important Person in my life—accused me of treating him poorly and having less-than-stellar intentions. I don’t remember his exact words, but I do recall that they implied I had been deliberately inconsiderate, selfish, and hurtful.

    I was outraged and began to tell a story. Why couldn’t he see my good intentions? It wasn’t fair; I was doing my best. He was being unreasonable, hurtful, and cruel.

    Fortunately, I knew enough to leave the conversation as soon as I realized I was triggered and go somewhere where I could move the energy. As I was feeling the burning heat of the anger, I realized that I was making the same movement over and over with my arms; pushing them out and away from my chest, I looked like I was trying to shove something away from myself.

    Suddenly it occurred to me: What I was trying to push away were the judgments, accusations, and negative opinions of my Very Important Person. It was almost like I was trying to set a physical boundary so that they wouldn’t penetrate my own being or take root in how I viewed myself.

    That’s when I realized that the energy of anger was trying to prevent me from internalizing my loved one’s criticism.

    An Inexhaustible Well of Strength

    As I kept pushing the negative opinions away from myself mentally and physically, I began to feel a sense of strength. I realized that I had a choice: I don’t have to take on anybody else’s judgments. I can choose to hold my own truth, one that sees the goodness in myself and everyone else, and I can act based on what feels right to me.

    Along with the sense of strength came a sense of immensity. It was like all the criticism and accusations had felt so huge and crushing just moments earlier because I had forgotten how big I was. Once I stood up to my full height, they seemed more like mosquitoes biting at my ankles.

    Feeling my own power and size again, I realized that I was free to say what I needed to say, no matter how difficult, without fear of how he responded. His thoughts and feelings couldn’t hurt me, after all. For someone like me with codependent tendencies who often cares too much about the opinions and expectations of others, this was pretty revolutionary.

    And then the most amazing thing happened. The anger burned itself right out.

    I believe this is because when I’m connected with my own power, I can advocate for and take care of myself. When I see clearly who I really am, nothing can threaten my sense of myself as a good person. Others have no real power over me.

    As a result, there’s no need for the anger, no need to either defend or attack, and no need to make my loved one wrong. After all, he’s really only trying to take care of himself in the best way he knows how, and no matter what he does, I have options in terms of how I choose to respond.

    All of this allowed me to go back to my Very Important Person, apologize for where I had been unskillful, express compassion for his suffering without taking responsibility for it, and let him know how the way he had communicated affected me. I was able to make a request about how he communicates with me when he’s upset.

    Afterward, we both understood each other better, and though it didn’t resolve the issue then and there, it did lay a foundation for finding resolution in the future.

    The Great Gift of Anger

    Anger is a perfect example of something that’s both/and, not either/or. It can be incredibly destructive if we pay too much attention to its story, and it’s also a healing and transformative force.

    It arises from a misunderstanding—that what I want and need is at the mercy of others—and it also contains within it the key to breaking free from that misconception.

    Anger arises when I forget that I already have everything I need within me (and by now I’m aware enough to recognize that this happens on a daily basis). I now see it as a fiercely loving force. It wants me to reconnect to my strength and size. It wants me to transform. It wants me to take back the power that is mine to treat myself with love and respect.

    It does its job by persisting until I am reminded of who I really am. I do mine by letting go of my small story long enough to hear its higher message.

  • 40 Ways to Create Peace of Mind

    40 Ways to Create Peace of Mind

    “Set peace of mind as your highest goal, and organize your life around it.” ~Brian Tracy

    There was a time when I thought peace was a destination, in much the same way I imagined I’d eventually arrive at happiness or success.

    It seemed like something I needed to chase or find—definitely not something I could experience without dramatically changing my life.

    I needed to work less, relax more, and generally revamp my circumstances and relationships in order to be a peaceful person.

    Despite seeing peace as an endpoint, I also saw it as something passive; after all, that’s why I was so stressed: I had so much to do.

    I’ve since realized that peace is always available, and like any desirable state of mind, it requires effort, even if that effort entails consciously choosing to be still.

    Sure, our circumstances affect our mental state, but they don’t have to control them, not if we make tiny choices for our well-being.

    Admittedly, it’s not easy to choose peace when we’re going through tough times. I still go through periods when I get caught up in worries and stresses, and it can feel like that’s the only available response to things that have happened.

    But it’s not. There are countless things we can do to create peace of mind, both in response to events in our lives, and proactively, everyday.

    If you’d also like to develop a greater sense of peace, you may find these suggestions helpful: (more…)

  • A Moment of Patience

    A Moment of Patience

  • How to Stop Sweating the Small Stuff and Let Go of Your Grudges

    How to Stop Sweating the Small Stuff and Let Go of Your Grudges

    “Let today be the day you stop being haunted by the ghost of yesterday. Holding a grudge and harboring anger/resentment is poison to the soul.” ~Steve Maraboli

    You are tired of it, aren’t you?

    You find yourself arguing again. You feel anger rising up in you.

    You realize there’s no use in trying to explain your position and decide to stop the conversation.

    But the topic still buzzes in your head…

    This used to define my marriage.

    The first few years of my marriage were constant arguing. After each argument my mind would run over and over the things he had done to hurt me, the things I was expecting him to do, the things that I couldn’t trust him with.

    I’d spend days without talking to him, my anger festering inside me.

    After a couple of days I could still feel those negative feelings eating me inside, so I’d half-heartedly reach out to the “enemy.”

    How long could we keep on going like this?

    The power struggles, the held grudges, the unhappiness were taking a big toll on our marriage. They were creating distance between us. The strong bond we had was dying.

    Finally I asked myself, “Where are we going? Are we going to let grudges ruin our marriage? Is our marriage going to become another statistic?”

    After some thinking I realized the arguments were always over minor things, not important values, not the things that made each of us who we were.

    Chores were a constant source of grudges for us. I’d expect him to spontaneously help. But he was wired differently. Unless I asked him to do something, he wouldn’t do it.

    Why wasn’t he more helpful? Couldn’t he see that I was tired and needed help with the dishes? I’d wait for him to offer to help but he’d just sit at the table.

    By the time I was done with the dishes I’d be so mad I’d snap at the first comment he’d make.

    It was not a healthy situation.

    We finally decided to make some changes. We decided to put our marriage first. To put small differences aside, at least most of the time.

    Grudges are poisonous.

    Deep down inside you, you know you should vanish them from your mind. They steal your happiness. And bottled up, that anger will rob you of your health, too.

    Is it worth it to hold onto grudges?

    Of course not!

    Avoid Sabotaging Your Happiness

    Whether it’s your partner, a friend, or a relative, grudges creep into our relationships. We are imperfect people living with other imperfect people in a very messed up world.

    But we get to choose if we are going to put a higher price tag on our relationships and save them from ruin.

    Of course, not every relationship is worth saving, but some are.

    If you reached the point where you feel you need to decide to stay in the relationship or pull the plug, it will help you to sit down, once your anger is gone, and go through these seven eye-opening points.

    1. Decide if you want to win the battle.

    At the time of the argument you decided that you couldn’t let go. It was an important issue for you.

    Is winning still important? Are you willing to permanently harm your relationship over this disagreement? You may find that the issue is very important or maybe not as much as you thought back then.

    It’s up to you to decide.

    2. Evaluate the importance of the argument.

    You can’t evaluate impartially when you are angry, so don’t be hard on yourself. But once you aren’t angry any more, maybe after a good night sleep, you can continue the healing process.

    Then ask yourself, am I compromising my beliefs if I let the grudge go?

    In our marriage, I realized our grudges were based on petty things and the solution was within our reach. Communication was the key.

    We didn’t change overnight. Years later we still have to work on letting go of grudges every now and then. But gone are the days of constant bickering.

    3. Know that every relationship involves at least some struggle and disappointment.

    No relationship runs smoothly all the time. You are going to have disagreements in every relationship. It’s part of living with others.

    You may wonder, “What if it happens again?”

    Grudges will happen again with this person and others. In our marriage disagreements happened again and again and again. We both had to learn how the other person communicated and the best way to work together.

    But ask yourself, are you willing to live your life alone? You’d be missing out on a lot of bright, fun, and happy moments.

    4. Ask yourself if you’re truly “winning” by holding on to your grudge.

    If you decide not to let go you’ll keep your ego intact. You “win.” Or do you?

    What are you sacrificing? What do you gain by holding on to the grudge?

    Sometimes the person you had the discussion with is not someone you should keep in your life, and sometimes it is.

    In any case, keeping grudges is not good for your inner peace. Your mind goes down negative circles and that harms you more than anyone else.

    5. Recognize the power of forgiveness.

    Forgiving someone can be difficult. Of course it depends on what you are forgiving, but it’s still not easy.

    But what do you lose by forgiving and letting go of this grudge?

    In my life I’ve found that forgiveness can be exercised like a muscle. Small acts of forgiveness, like forgiving someone who cuts you off in traffic, help you become a more forgiving person. It’s liberating and brings healing to your soul.

    6. See the bigger picture.

    Think about the months or years you invested in this relationship, the good times you had together, the great things you found in this person. Is it worth it to harm the relationship because of a disagreement?

    How important is the issue in the bigger picture?

    Can you let go of the issue? Or, even better, sit together and try to reach an understanding? Hopefully that’ll be the case and you can move on and have a stronger friendship.

    My husband and I sat together and put our grudges into perspective. It turned out our problems were not worth the grief they were causing, so we decided to work together to fix them.

    After a disagreement, and once we have cooled off, we’d sit to discuss what had happened. We’d analyze what was said, what was implied, and what each had interpreted. We tried to stay as impartial as possible.

    I realized I was jumping to conclusions.

    We needed to work on our communication. I learned that I couldn’t count on him guessing what I needed. If I wanted him to do something, I needed to clearly ask for it.

    It was not easy for me to ask, I was not wired that way, but I saw that when I’d ask for help he would be glad to give it. With time I got better at it and months would go by without disagreements.

    We reaped great benefits from those conversations. And our marriage is stronger today.

    7. Ask if you’re willing to ruin your relationship over this.

    You’re hesitant to let go. You think that means accepting the other person’s point of view. You think that if you let go you are giving in.

    Not true.

    Your position doesn’t need to change, but you don’t need to ruin a relationship because of a disagreement.

    You just chose to let go. You acted on your best interest to protect your health and inner peace against feelings of anger that want to bring you down.

    Decide to Purge Anger from Your Mind

    Grudges are like toxic clutter invading your soul and stealing your happiness.

    Should you let them run wild?

    Bottled up grudges and anger can make you sad and depressed, and they can cause health problems. Are you willing to submit yourself to that?

    You can see that to let go of grudges is one smart, sensible, self-preserving decision away.

    So choose to end the pernicious cycle of holding grudges and regain your inner peace today.

  • How I Forgave What I Couldn’t Forget

    How I Forgave What I Couldn’t Forget

    “Forgiving someone doesn’t mean that their behavior was ‘OK.’ What it does mean is that we’re ready to move on. To release the heavy weight. To shape our own life, on our terms, without any unnecessary burdens. Forgiveness is pure freedom—and forgiveness is a choice.” ~Dr. Suzanne Gelb

    I remember the feeling of blood rushing through my veins, my head pounding, and my heart beating faster. Every time I remembered what happened, I either cried or felt a wave of depression. This guy was someone who’d hurt me in a way that I never thought would happen. His deeds affected my family and me for years afterward.

    It was a complicated mess that he created, but he still managed to overtake the business we’d worked nearly twenty-five years to build. He took from us the ability to get back hundreds of thousands of dollars, some of which we’d been loaned against our home. He stole all this in a highly manipulative way.

    We met this man, a realtor, at my husband John’s parents’ auction. Since the house didn’t sell then, he was able to talk John’s parents into listing their house for sale with his small real estate company.

    Through this time we got to know him and his girlfriend, and shared a few visits with them. We went to their wedding, and he came to John’s dad’s funeral. Soon he and John started talking about how they could work on a big project together, since it involved investing, and more people would mean less money for each to put in.

    John, being a builder, would both invest and work on the construction of dozens of homes. Both the realtor and John would stand to make a good profit.

    The realtor never showed us the paperwork between the developer and the former owner, but he told us that the bank needed four lots as collateral for a loan for the land. We took a loan against our house for the lots, and also borrowed from John’s mom. It was an opportunity of a lifetime. What could go wrong?

    We were excited because this meant continuous work for quite a while, and John’s business stood to make a million or more within two to three years. Finally, we got the break we needed to make the business bigger.

    After investing much time and money, we began to worry about why the homes weren’t selling, and why the realtor always put off paying John.

    We decided to take a drive to the development. Maybe the realtor needed to hire new salespeople who could get something sold.

    While there, I looked at the table full of information on the choices of homes to build, the specs, and the info about the builder. I was shocked to see that the realtor had a new building company named on all the literature we’d provided. It was a building company the realtor had started himself.

    When we left the open house, John called our realtor friend. It wasn’t a pleasant conversation! We knew there was trouble, but we didn’t know to what extent.

    Our contract with the developer stipulated that we had to have sold a certain number of homes within a certain amount of time, or he had the right to hire a different builder. So the realtor just didn’t sell any homes for John to build because the realtor wanted to be the builder and the realtor in the development! We were asked to sign a release form so that our contract would be over.

    Sadly, our meetings with lawyers didn’t help us. The realtor had his assets in his wife’s name, so there was no money to get if we sued him. There were no houses sold. We thought we deserved at least a piece of future homes sold, but the developer’s and realtor’s lawyers simply said no.

    Our only option was to go to court. Our attorney estimated it would cost $30,000. and we would probably win. The downside was that the realtor could appeal the ruling. Then it would cost us another $30,000 to try to win again!

    If you remember, we’d borrowed against our house to invest in the lots, and we had no extra money because the realtor hadn’t paid John for a few months. We also had no work because John knew he would be devoting his time to this development. There was only one thing we could do: We signed the release and decided to move on.

    We could report him to the district attorney’s office. Hopefully, they would be able to prosecute him for the criminal acts he was doing. But there would be no money back for us, at least not for a long time.

    Since we had no work and a huge mortgage, which, amazingly, this realtor had found for us so we could buy the lots, we fell behind on our house payments. Thankfully, within a year John had found enough work to pay the mortgage, but if we fell behind again, our home would move directly into foreclosure.

    Looking back, we thought we were friends with the perpetrator. When we realized what he’d done and how he’d manipulated us to push us out of the project so he could benefit, we were furious!

    How does a person move ahead in their life when every day they experience something that is a direct result of something the perpetrator did?

    Even today, if I ran into him in public, I would avoid talking to him or even being in the same room. I wanted to forget what he did, but I realized that was impossible.

    I had the thought of hurting him back, physically, which was a thought I never had before. It scared me. But I knew it wouldn’t be worth the consequences.

    My husband also mentioned some unsavory ways of getting him back. But he also knew he couldn’t do that. I could understand how violence occurs in situations where the person who’s hurt can’t get the perpetrator out of their mind. It’s tough to forget! Am I right?

    John worked hard for three years with the hopes that an engineer we hired would be able to subdivide our land and sell a piece to lower our mortgage payment. We didn’t lose hope but pushed ahead. We weren’t quitters and we loved where we lived, so we did everything possible to keep our home.

    At the end of those three years, John was diagnosed with stage 3 throat cancer. He would be incapable of working for a year because of the intense treatment. I was not able to earn enough money to pay the mortgage.

    We had to move from our beloved home that we’d built and lived in for eighteen years. It was on thirty-two acres and held the memories of the time we spent there with our four children. We’d worked hard and put everything we had into the property.

    It was devastating to lose everything in our fifties! It was a big move backward, and I was overwhelmed at the thought of John being sick and leaving the home without his help.

    When you realize that you will never forget what someone did to you, you realize how enormous the job is going to be to forgive.

    There were many days that I had to push away the angry thoughts and tears. I had to work and be emotionally available for my kids. But somehow, eventually, I began to think of things in a different light.

    The struggle to give up hating someone for the pain they put you through is very intense. It is a battle deep within our very soul and minds.

    I had no answers for all the questions haunting me in my mind. Why was this guy so careless about negatively affecting the life of a whole family? How could he spend the energy it took to manipulate us to where he needed us to be so that he could pounce and move in for the steal? How could he sleep at night?

    Some people’s answer to forgiveness is that you just have to do it! We don’t want to live in hate purposely, but forgiveness takes time. If you deny the real feelings you have in order to forgive, just because it’s the right thing to do, your buried feelings could cause your emotions to backfire and come out differently later on.

    I moved ahead in my life, but not without feeling the pain and working through the emotions.

    Somehow I had to figure out how to move on. After all, everyone told me that I just needed to do it! Impossible? Could I forgive him and still dislike him?

    I struggled but somehow realized how to forgive. I had the thought one day that people don’t always understand the massiveness of influence and hurt they bring upon people. Plus, certain mental disorders cause people to not care about others. Only months or years of therapy can help this kind of illness.

    Even when we think someone doesn’t deserve mercy, could it be that they do? When I started thinking about why this man would deserve mercy, some of the following ideas came to mind.

    Maybe his family treated him badly when he was a child.

    Maybe he was taught how to scam people as part of his upbringing or influence from others.

    Maybe this person witnessed other adults thinking of themselves first, and he was just doing what seemed natural for him.

    Was he desperate for money?

    Did greed overtake him?

    Could he be mentally ill?

    Maybe he had never seen a single ray of true love and emotional well-being in his life. How sad is that?

    All these things are the sign of someone who is lost and not able to enjoy real peace in life. Did anyone ever genuinely care for him? Imagine what he has missed out on in his existence. Is he in bondage from adverse actions of those around him?

    We have no way of knowing why a person does what they choose to do. However, I believe there is a reason.

    I eventually realized, if I could let go of hating this person and what he did to me, by remembering the possible misery of his life, I’d be free from the very bondage that he was also in!

    It’s a vicious cycle, and I had the option to break it or continue in misery.

    I realized that I couldn’t live with myself, or love myself, as a person who couldn’t love others. And the kind of love for others may only seem like a tolerance at first, but it eventually goes deeper.

    I needed to open my eyes to the “why” of this person’s actions. If it was hate, jealousy, or selfishness, then I needed to be sad for that person who was unable to overcome those toxic feelings. That sadness for him is what enabled me to forgive and move on.

    However, forgiveness doesn’t mean I will never have negative thoughts or memories of him. I would have to remember why I wouldn’t remain angry toward him. I didn’t have to like him, spend time with him, tell him, or think of him. I needed to replace the bad memories in my mind with new plans and experiences for my future. It was a new way to live, and I had to accept it to get through it.

    I credit my husband for explaining it this way. When I would bring the situation up, he would say, “I’m finished with that, and I’ve moved on. That is in the past.” In other words, don’t let yourself keep repeating the experience in your mind over and over.

    Did you ever see loved ones of murder victims, for example, tell the murderer, “I forgive you?” I always wondered why in the world would they do that? But I think I get it now.

    We have to ask ourselves: Are we going to give this person the power to ruin our joy?

    We see the violence of unforgiveness all over our world today. When people hold on to the resentment, they get angrier until they eventually act out in some way. It can be deadly.

    We can hold on to the smallest things that family members and friends do and allow it to ruin the relationship. Maybe the person didn’t understand why they offended you. Maybe they were struggling with something you didn’t know about and were unable to be a better friend. Is it worth it? On our deathbed will we regret it?

    I don’t know about you, but I would like to be the person that says, “Hey, I’m not perfect, either. I forgive you.”

    So forgiveness is possible. The secret? Try to realize the sad state of mind that person was in when they hurt you.

    We are empowered when we are aware of the emotions that can get out of control and make us miserable. The emotions themselves are not wrong. When you feel something, it is real, and it should be acknowledged. But you need to let the anger go.

    I know I’m healthier, both physically and mentally, since I’ve learned to forgive this person and have moved on.

    My wish for you is that you take the time to work through your emotions and develop the ability to forgive others. We will always benefit when we let go of anger and embrace forgiveness. If enough people do this, our world will be a better place to live.

  • Forgiveness Isn’t Weakness – Don’t Let Anger Hold You Back and Weigh You Down

    Forgiveness Isn’t Weakness – Don’t Let Anger Hold You Back and Weigh You Down

    “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.” ~Gandhi

    For many years forgiveness was not in my mind, let alone my vocabulary. I was taught to believe that forgiveness was a sign of weakness, and I certainly did not forgive anyone who hurt me.

    In the past, I have engaged in acts of revenge, which I thought was the right thing to do at those times. I was wrong.

    One event that springs to my mind was when I was the target of a cruel prank. A group of guys had taunted a young man I knew, telling him that he was “whipped” by his girlfriend, who lived with him. To prove this wasn’t true and that he could “get anyone he wanted,” he pretended to like me and proceeded to call, text, and show an interest in me.

    I didn’t know that he had a girlfriend, and I liked him, so I went along with this, unaware of the game. I soon found out what was going on. So, what did I do? I released all hell and vengeance.

    I was hurt and embarrassed on so many levels to be the butt of a cruel joke. I felt like everyone was laughing at me behind my back. In retaliation, I contacted his girlfriend, went to their house, and showed her all the messages. We even got him to message me back while I was with her. We then waited for him to come home as we both sat there.

    She had thrown all his stuff outside and torn his clothes. She cut his guitar strings in front of him and kicked him out. Did I feel satisfied? I thought I did, but a few days later I felt so guilty. This guy was now homeless, the girl heartbroken, and I looked like a home wrecker. I know I did the right thing in being honest; I just went about it the wrong way.

    I have since learned the power of forgiving—both others and myself.

    The most important situation where I have forgiven myself was something that happened when I was only thirteen years old. This situation haunted me for many years.

    I told my dad I wanted him to die. I know that this happens between children and their parents; however, the difference here is that my dad killed himself that night.

    A lot led me to telling my dad to die, that I hated him, and that he would never see my brother or me again. Nonetheless, I said something I regret and I know that he listened to that message.

    How can you move forward from such an act? An act that was done in defending my mum and wanting to protect my loved ones.

    I have had to learn to forgive myself.

    My dad had already made up his mind up before I said what I said. He was mentally unwell and no longer wanted to live. Maybe my words tipped him over the edge. But for me to live and not die with my dad, I had to forgive myself.

    Forgiveness is one the best things you can learn to do for yourself. It can free you, eradicate anger over time, and leave you open to receiving wonderful things in your life.

    In my life, I have been hurt, I have hurt others, and I have lost people along the way. I have done stupid things and had awful things done to me. However, I eventually realized that focusing on the past and holding onto anger was not serving me. The answer is and was forgiveness.

    The only thing holding you back from forgiveness is fear. Fear of letting someone “off the hook,” fear of being hurt again in the future, fear that you may have to change, fear that you may be perceived by your peers as weak, and fear that you may become soft. These fears may seem rational, but they stop you from leading a loving, open life.

    Forgiveness is an art form that takes practice. It’s not something you ever fully master, as life moves on and each passing moment brings new experiences and new ways we can be upset or hurt. Each situation is a chance to grow and become more awake to a better life.

    I used to be so angry at the world, my family, and mostly, myself. I regret some of the things I’ve done in the past, but I know the best apology you can ever give is changed behavior, and that is exactly what I have done. I have changed how I treat others and how I respond when they hurt me.

    With commitment to change and increased meditation, I am working on forgiveness constantly. Each time a memory comes up or I see something that upsets me from my past, I send it love. The way to a better life is through love. Through love, we can forgive.

    I release my anger toward others, as it doesn’t assist me. Each time I feel a pang of jealousy, anger, or annoyance, I forgive myself and let it go. Forgiveness is an act of self-love.

    When working on forgiveness and opening your heart, painful feelings and memories may come up. But the rewards of choosing to stay open and forgive far outweigh the negatives.

    When we work on becoming open and eradicating all that blocks us, this opens us to love and possibility. When we hold in anger, we carry that situation or person with us and keep hurting ourselves. Why would you want to keep hurting yourself?

    You’ll never move forward unless you let go.

    When we choose not to forgive and hold in feelings of anger, jealously, and resentment, we remain in a negative state of being and living, and in turn attract more of the same situations into our lives.

    But there is another way.

    I will often laugh now when I trip up instead of getting angry. I don’t get mad at myself when I make a mistake, and I don’t get mad at other people as much anymore.

    I’m learning to forgive the man who cuts me off when driving or beeps his horn at me. I don’t let the fact that someone lies to me or tries to cut me in a queue upset my inner balance.

    It’s hard to do and I struggle sometimes, but I keep practicing, because keeping it in and holding onto it simply doesn’t serve me.

    When I slip up, I forgive myself and realize where I can do better next time. I don’t want negative emotions and memories inside me, so each time they come up I work on releasing and surrendering.

    If we want to experience happiness, relief, and true well-being, we must practice forgiving.

    When you feel anger or someone upsets you, be assertive but approach the situation from a higher place of love.

    When I am reminded of a past hurt or see something that upsets me, I will face it, imagine it surrounded in white light, and breathe in and out, with the out breath releasing the negative feeling.

    That does’t mean I forgive instantly; for some things, it comes in time. I give myself that time and work on it because I know forgiveness is an antidote for poisons that can corrupt the body, cause illness and disease, damage the soul, and pain the mind.

    When you are ready you will learn the freedom in forgiveness. Forgiveness for yourself if you aren’t the weight you think you should be, forgiveness to the ex for hurting you, forgiveness for yourself for hurting them, forgiveness for the times you messed up, because you simply cannot take these things back.

    Holding onto anger holds you back and weighs you down. Learn to forgive and feel as light as air. You’ll then be open to receiving all the goodness that’s available to you in life.

  • Your Anger is a Guide: Embrace It and Set Yourself Free

    Your Anger is a Guide: Embrace It and Set Yourself Free

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

    In the sixth year of marriage, my husband shocked me by telling me that he had decided on an open marriage. This would give him permission to do what he was already doing, having an affair.

    In one of my rare times of anger I argued and struggled with him. I can still see myself hitting him in the chest as he tried to put his arms around me to reassure me of his love.

    As he defended his position, he reminded me that I wasn’t being rational. I stopped protesting because that charge impacted me immediately. Logic and rationality were my guides.

    This surge of anger was new in my life. I had learned to bury my feelings, especially anger, growing up in my Japanese-American family where we hid most emotions.

    Adding to pushing down my feelings, I relied on intellect, my head, and dismissed my heart.

    When he attacked a vulnerable spot—to be rational—I became silent. It was the first of three betrayals I lived quietly through over the years.

    I swallowed two other screams of “No!” when, over the years, I learned about two other women, who intruded not only into my life, but also into my home.

    Why would any woman stand for this?

    Besides suppressing my emotions, I also learned from a young age to make the needs of the group, the others, more important than my own.

    Throughout my life, I let other people’s needs define my life.

    I disregarded my anger and I disregarded my needs.

    Why Burying Anger is a Recipe for Unhappiness

    When you bury anger, more than your anger is involved—you dampen all emotions, including joy.

    In my case, I was the model of a well-adjusted successful professional and, after I divorced my husband, a single mom.

    Inside a deep discontent lived undetected in my heart. It wasn’t until I slowed down in early retirement that I became aware of it.

    When you don’t have anger, you may think that there’s nothing wrong with your life.

    Why We Often Choose to Bury Our Anger

    You learn in childhood that adults don’t like you being angry. When you throw a temper tantrum, large or small, you get punished for it.

    This teaches you that being angry is bad and you should keep it to yourself.

    As an adult, when anger gets the best of you and you show it, people around you don’t respond well to it either.

    Some get frightened by anger. Others get defensive or angry in return. Exchanges full of anger often lead to regret and shame. They can even end a close friendship–a price you don’t want to pay.

    Embracing Your Anger Does Not Mean Throwing Tantrums

    When you express your anger, you think that you’re right and that the other person or situation needs to change. Or you say regretful, stupid things fueled by anger.

    In any case, you believe that someone or something outside you is the cause of your anger. This stance makes it easy to miss the early signal to go inside and investigate. 

    Embracing anger is turning inward to know your heart. It means spending time with your anger to learn what is under it—what’s really going on.

    Treat Every Inner Disturbance as a Clue

    Nothing changed in my life until I started to pay attention to all disturbances in peace I experienced, the little irritations, annoyances that were signs of anger. I began to appreciate whatever anger bubbled up because I saw it as a guide.

    Here’s an instance of a little annoyance I would have disregarded earlier in my life. I was talking with my partner on a walk through downtown about some insights I had about an important relationship. He interrupted me to point out how a new hotel construction was being completed, with details that could be barely seen at night.

    I felt disturbed, but instead of just burying that feeling like I normally would, I asked myself why I felt that way. I realized the annoyance pointed to anger about attention taken away from me. Needing attention from people who matter is a need I have. If I don’t get the attention, I feel like I don’t matter.

    I also recognized that my typical strategy would be to remain silent and let my partner go on. But instead of being silent, I stepped out of the pattern to speak up and stand with a new belief that I am important and deserving of attention.

    In this instance, once noticing the disturbance and realizing what it meant, I said, “What I’m saying is more important to me than what you’re pointing out that I can see another time.”

    My message was accepted with a small apology.

    Attuned to the energy of anger, I found it hidden in jealousy, envy, blame, frustration, disappointment, regret, withdrawal, stubbornness, and shame.

    I even found it in my lack of kindness in talking to my partner, my banging cupboard doors, my prolonged silence, and my criticism and judgment of others.

    When you follow each sign of anger you will find what is buried in your heart. You will discover what you need to resolve lifelong patterns that limited your growth.

    Through Your Anger You Discover Your Needs, Beliefs, and Strategies

    I began to know and honor the needs underlying my anger, such as my needs for acknowledgement and attention as I describe above.

    I also realized I had many limiting beliefs that stemmed back to my childhood, when my needs weren’t met. This is where my feeling of not mattering came from, but now I could recognize it and deal with it.

    Related to these beliefs I also saw the variety of limiting strategies I adopted trying to get these needs met. Some of these were being an over-achiever, a perfectionist, and overly self-reliant.

    To illustrate, I recently felt angry when I didn’t make the cut in auditioning for a voice ensemble. When I stayed with my anger, I found the pain of a wounded young-child who believed she wasn’t worthy, and saw clearly her strategies of people-pleasing and over-achieving that failed to get her what she wanted.

    Not only does your anger guide you to your needs but it helps you recognize the limiting beliefs and strategies that run your life. These were created and adopted early in childhood by a very young child and their limitations deserve examination.

    Deeply Exploring Your Anger Involves a Commitment

    Taking full advantage of honoring your anger involves taking the time to begin a process of discovery.

    This means remembering to remain the adult compassionate witness to what is there, and not identifying with or be taken over by the anger, and finally remaining with the anger long enough until you drop into what is beneath it.

    You may discover child-like vulnerability, fears, helplessness, and pain.

    When you integrate with lost parts of you, you deconstruct the patterns that run your life and free your original innocent heart to shine through.

    You are Richly Rewarded for Embracing Anger

    When you are one with your heart, you know not only your needs for safety, love, and community but your deep longings for meaning and purpose.

    You consciously make choices true to your heart.

    Then your heart opens—to love more and deeply; to reveal its wisdom; to see the world as an innocent child; to be present and accepting for all that shows up; and much more.

    Embracing anger may be counter-intuitive, but in doing so you become aware of old, unconscious reactive patterns. In becoming aware of these patterns you free yourself to choose from a place of power.

    Fully in your power you allow yourself to be fully present to experience life from the only moment you ever have—this present moment.

  • You Never Know How Much Time You Have, So Forgive While You Can

    You Never Know How Much Time You Have, So Forgive While You Can

    “Forgiveness is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.” ~Corrie ten Boom

    I sat next to my stepmother Elaine in her hospital room. I was thirteen. We’d met six years prior as she took a stepmother’s role and had a strained relationship and didn’t speak to each other for parts of it.

    Elaine was facing terminal brain cancer. So far she had kept herself together and composed, remaining strong on the outside. I was trying my hardest to do the same for her.

    It had all started back when I was seven and my dad took me to a carnival. My parents were still together at the time. It was there I first met Elaine and her son, four years my junior.

    Her son and I played a many carnival games together and we bonded quickly. Even as we grew more competitive, I found myself continually distracted by Elaine’s close presence and her friendliness with my dad. All I saw was that she was taking my dad away.

    A year later, my father sat me down and told me he was leaving for a little while. This immediately caused an internal alarm to sound. A little while?

    They didn’t really expect me to believe that, did they? He must’ve thought I wouldn’t understand. But deep down I knew this was only going to mean one thing: divorce.

    I even told my best friend about it. “My parents are fighting a lot. I think they’re getting a divorce.”

    “My parents fight too. It’s fine,” she said. But I thought to myself that it wasn’t the same, that everything wasn’t fine.

    Elaine was a strong, independent businesswoman who thrived in her sales occupation and went for runs religiously every morning at five o’clock. She placed a lot of importance on eating right and an overall healthy lifestyle. The mere fact she would be the one of all people to end up with terminal cancer shocked everyone.

    The cancer started in her stomach but soon afterward it rapidly began to metastasize and spread to her brain. It became brain cancer, something she strived to fight against. She still wound up staying in the hospital, defying her strong will and intent to get better.

    Although I visited her in the hospital many times, we never grew as close as I felt we should have. It’s one of my greatest regrets.

    I resented the fact that Elaine took my dad away from my mom. Or at least, that was my perception of what happened. As the resentment grew within me, so did the void between me and Elaine.

    During the course of Elaine’s relationship with my father, I fell under the impression that she was trying to buy my affection with material things. She took me to the mall more than once to buy clothes, jewelry, and other items for me—but why? On the inside, I refused to allow myself be bought.

    Then one Christmas, she wrote a poem about our relationship and how it really wasn’t where she hoped it would be. Upon reading this, I kept my head down and didn’t respond. She also presented me with a number of certificates one day each month to go places and do things.

    Such gifts included the spa, Barnes and Noble, the mall, various other stores, and more. These acts of generosity were overwhelming me, and not in a good way. I was beginning to feel like being bought was entirely unforgivable.

    One day, in a blaze of frustration, I asked Elaine if she knew my mother cried at night because of her. Elaine burst into tears. With my words, I’d stopped her in tracks in the middle of the many acts of generosity, but I felt it had to be said.

    These events had fractured our relationship even further.

    From that point on things didn’t improve much, until one day when I’d been running around outside of our lake house in the woods and became lost. I wandered for hours, growing more hopeless by the moment, until I heard something in the distance. It was a bell, and by some miracle it seemed to be ringing for me!

    Immediately, I began sprinting in the direction of the sound. To my amazement it was Elaine. She’d rung the bell in an effort to guide me back.

    I ran into her outstretched arms and collapsed into them while crying. “Everything’s okay now,” she said, holding me tighter than ever before.

    In this moment, something drastic happened. All of the previous animosity I had been holding onto began to melt away. She finally had me; she’d won.

    At first I felt defeated at the fact that I’d finally given in and accepted Elaine’s genuineness of her care for me. But these feelings would soon turn to regret when she first spoke to us of the cancer. As the word spread, people from all corners of life gave her gifts in wake of her diagnosis.

    I was amazed at the outpouring of generosity for Elaine. I gained more respect for her. She didn’t hesitate to pass many of the gifts on to myself and her son.

    One day, toward the end, I’d been reading one of Elaine’s books. It was about Corrie Ten Boom, a former holocaust survivor of World War II who forgave a former and repented Nazi concentration camp guard who approached her after listening to her speak. I was moved by her astounding compassion and I closed the book, in tears.

    I knew that I had to try and find that same forgiveness in myself.

    At the hospital, Elaine was deteriorating. As she’d become greatly overheated, I suggested that we pat her down with a wet washcloth. Without hesitation, she said, “I want Sarah to do it.”

    Something happened when I ran the washcloth across her forehead and body. I forgave her. In doing this, I’d become her servant and given her all the attention I had to give.

    During this experience, I learned that forgiving someone is easiest when they are in their humblest, most vulnerable state of being. When someone is on their deathbed, it doesn’t so much matter anymore what they’ve done or didn’t do during their lifetime. Their sins seem to dissipate or almost wash clean away.

    Soon after Elaine was moved to a hospice for care and I was set to attend a formal dance at my school. She was very excited and couldn’t wait to see me in my dress, which surprised me pleasantly. I entered her room in grand fashion, twirling from side to side in my blue gown with a matching blue rose in my hair.

    Before I departed for the dance, she gave me a long hug. Thinking the embrace had ended, I tried to pull back out of it, but she wasn’t letting go. She lingered and stared at me, which caught me off guard.

    At the time I had no real idea what was happening and what it all meant, but this was goodbye. She must’ve been sure of this on the inside but refused to let on to that. And in that moment she protected us from that knowledge and in a reassuring way said, “I think I’m getting better.”

    We left shortly afterward. Not long after that, Elaine passed.

    Later, I thought back to the conversation I had with Elaine in the hospital, when we were stuck in an awkward silence and both looking in opposite directions.

    I told her that I had been going through a hard time and I was feeling depressed. She said that she had struggled with multiple bouts of depression in her own life.

    This surprised me more than anything. “But you’re such a strong businesswoman and mom!” I said. She smiled and didn’t respond.

    She always held it together, staying strong in the face of adversity, and I was surprised to learn that even she struggled. In learning this, we had the chance to both share our stories and gain some common ground, giving us compassion for one another.

    In Elaine’s absence, I remembered what Corrie Ten Boom taught me about forgiveness: you can do it without feeling it. The faith in forgiveness comes first. Act in goodness and the feeling will come.

    “Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.” Corrie Ten Boom’s famous words have never left me.

    Even when I didn’t know which visit to Elaine’s hospice would be the last, when I couldn’t change my circumstances, I changed myself. In forgiving her, I forgave myself. And although I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye the way I wanted to, I felt there was peace and understanding between us.

    Forgiving myself was a harder, longer journey than forgiving Elaine. After she passed, I still regretted how much I resisted her. Her gifts now meant so much more.

    She had been seeking appreciation, and I had been withholding it from her. Life found a way to pull it from me through grief and time.

    She had been in my life for so long, yet I was only just beginning to realize the worth she sometimes lacked, the struggle she had with our strained relationship, and the persona she put on to make sure everyone knew she was okay.

    She wasn’t always okay. I never saw her vulnerability until the end, just a hardened exterior that only fate could unravel and reveal.

    She wasn’t my mother; she could never take that role. She wasn’t my stepmom really because she didn’t marry my dad. But she never gave up on me.

    Now when I think back to the poem that she read to me, I reflect on the lines

    “I was writing my list to bring Christmas joy…
    And I couldn’t think of anything to buy you but a boy;
    Since that was not practical and not really right;
    I thought I’d be more creative and shed some light;
    Like on our relationship that’s not quite there;
    But my heart still tells me I care.”

    I know now to live in the moment, appreciate the time I have with people, and in my heart try to forgive even when it’s hard. People still alive need me here and now, even though I want to turn back time. I can’t live in the past.

    Self-forgiveness is hard. It’s harder than forgiving those that hurt you. Imagine if they were on their last days, though. What would you say to them?

    Say that to them now. Learn from the mistakes of the past, don’t live in them. I had no idea there was a time limit to knowing Elaine, but there is a time limit on us all.

    We don’t feel this limit. We don’t realize how quickly time passes us by. Any day could be an unwarranted goodbye.

    We can’t control the outcome. I couldn’t stop the cancer, but I could stand up to it. I could make a difference in her life however limited in time we were.

    I wish now that I had let her in. I would have had a best friend. I should have shown her my feelings and given myself the chance to be reconciled with her.

    Even though I will never have that chance again, I served her at the end of her life. I believe we should all be serving each other.

    I was lucky.

    I didn’t learn this lesson too late even though I was running out of time.

    It is never too late to love someone, to forgive, to mend—until you run out of time. Even if it’s not reciprocated, you can respect another’s choice by leading in love yourself. Elaine never gave up on me.

    So I’m not giving up on you. You too can do this. You can live again once you forgive.

    It doesn’t mean everything will change, but the most important thing will be: You will be set right, set apart, and make a difference in someone’s life. Maybe even more than in your own.

    The world is a broken one, but there is beauty in the brokenness. It takes bravery to see it, to act on it, to respect it. Things aren’t perfect, but through forgiveness you can make the world just a little bit better.

    You need only allow yourself to.

  • How to Forgive When You Don’t Think You Can

    How to Forgive When You Don’t Think You Can

    Angry Couple

    “The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” ~Steve Maraboli

    Have you ever had a relationship, friendship, or marriage that ended so badly it took years, a decade, or even longer to heal? Have you ever wished you could forgive someone but just didn’t think it was possible?

    Fifteen years ago I was twenty-six and in a relationship with a man that was destructive. After an intense romance in his home country, I made the poor decision that he should come to live with me in San Francisco—a decision that, in hindsight, was immature.

    Three months and one visa sponsorship later, we were living together and immediately fell into the challenges of modern day multicultural relationships.

    Aside from the fact that my boyfriend was jealous, obsessive, and immature—a trait I hadn’t seen clearly in the beginning—he couldn’t work legally, we didn’t have a common fluent language between us, and he was far away from his family for the first time in his life.

    The worst and most difficult part, however, were our cultural differences. My boyfriend was jealous, obsessive, and controlling, whereas I was a young, driven, independent woman.

    He would become despondent, accusatory, suspicious, and sometimes even fly into a jealous rage whenever I left the house.

    Our relationship became emotionally abusive, yet I was scared to leave. He was financially dependent on me, he couldn’t work and didn’t have anywhere else to go, and he didn’t have any family in the United States.

    I was riddled with guilt and felt horrible, because I had brought him to the US and felt responsible for him.

    After a year of struggle, he moved out and I settled into numbness, not wanting to begin to unearth the emotions that needed to be processed in order to recover. I was emotionally scarred and suffered years of nightmares.

    Time passed and I pushed the hatred in my heart deeply out of awareness. We never spoke, until a few years ago.

    I had just been through a traumatic family experience, and had begun a Metta, or loving-kindness, practice as a means of understanding the circumstances taking place in my life. Surprisingly, the practice enabled me to find forgiveness in my heart for my ex-boyfriend.

    Metta is a traditional Buddhist tool for cultivating loving-kindness. In the practice, we sit as if in meditation and let the energy of love into our hearts.

    We repeat a mantra in which we hold in mind a life without danger, with mental and physical happiness and ease of well-being.

    We start by imagining happiness and compassion for ourselves, and then, progressively, we extend love out into the world, to a benefactor, a friend, a neutral person, a difficult person, groups of people, and finally to all beings.

    I sat in the Metta practice for ten minutes daily, and I picked my ex-boyfriend as my “difficult person.”

    At first I had difficulty when I held him in mind and wished him a life of happiness and well-being, as I didn’t really feel he deserved that. However, over time it became easier and my resistance subsided.

    One day, after about a month of the practice, I was sitting at my computer and on a whim decided to look him up on Facebook. I looked at some pictures of him rock climbing, and a smile came to my lips.

    I saw some images he had posted, of cliffs, mountains, and people bouldering, and by and by I came across a girl, a baby a few months old, words of congratulations, a graduation, and more congratulations.

    Lots of memories came flooding back, and this time I didn’t block them out. I remembered our tears, his pain at losing me, the very different places we had been at in our lives during the time we were together, how naive and young we both had been.

    I came to the realization that I had as much to forgive myself for during that time as I did him. The tears brought about relief and then happiness, as I found myself truly happy for all of the good things that had come to him after we parted, evidenced by what I saw on Facebook.

    Then some good memories came to me; I had blocked them out over years of resentment and the inability to see anything good in him.

    I remembered what he had given me, how he had opened my eyes to a new culture, helped me explore a new country, revived my love of the outdoors, and supported me during my foibles with Spanish.

    An image flashed through my mind of a day we finished a pitch on a long climb in Yosemite, and I remembered that day with true and genuine fondness.

    This experience moved me and was the final step in my full healing from the wounds of many years before.

    Letting go of my negativity and resentment toward him brought about a lightness. He no longer appears in my dreams; I am able to look at everything that happened as a learning experience.

    The Metta practice served as a tool for me to discover the compassion in my heart, for him but mostly for myself, enabling the pain to surface, be processed, and dissolve.

    How can we use the healing power of loving-kindness in our daily lives? Especially when we don’t feel ready to forgive, when the effects of abuse go too deep, or when we simply don’t feel the other person deserves to be forgiven?

    Like the Metta Practice, there are tools we can use to overcome our own blocks to forgiveness, even when our minds and hearts aren’t ready.

    Here are some tips to remember:

    We are the primary beneficiaries of the practice.

    Despite the fact that during the Metta practice we focus on others, we are always the primary beneficiaries of our efforts.

    We can forgive someone and it doesn’t require getting in touch with that person or making them aware of what we are doing in any way. Just as when we hold hatred in our hearts we are the ones who suffer from it, when we find love in our hearts we benefit.

    It is best to start by cultivating love and compassion for someone we already love.

    Often the easiest place to start is not with ourselves but with someone for whom we already feel great love—a child, a dear friend, someone we admire or who has helped us in our lives.

    Even if we never extend our practice beyond this point, we already reap the rewards of the process itself. We are the ones who feel the great energy in the heart when we focus on our true desire for another to be happy and free from physical and mental pain.

    We must forgive ourselves for not being willing to forgive.

    Some human experiences are simply so destructive, some abuse so acute that we may not have the energy to process it. In this case, we can still benefit from forgiving ourselves for whatever negativity we hold toward ourselves for not being able to forgive or fully let go of the pain of our experience.

    Choosing to keep debilitating resentment and pain out of our awareness so that we can function in the world can also be a positive choice, if we stop feeling guilty about it.

    We can always choose to go at our own pace.

    We are always in charge of our own pace of change. We might not feel like forgiving now, and this doesn’t mean that we can’t choose it in the future. In the same vein, we can let go of our fear of forgiving by remembering we can always go back and harbor some resentment if we want to.

    We do not deserve to suffer.

    One of the illusions that we must let go of is that if we stop suffering, our aggressor will somehow benefit or be better off for it. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We hurt ourselves, when we deserve our own compassion. Even when a person doesn’t deserve to be forgiven, we certainly do not deserve to continue to suffer emotionally over them.

    Before beginning a forgiveness practice, we can ask ourselves, “What do I have to gain from this?” and “How is holding this resentment harming or benefitting me?”

    There is always love and openness to be gained from forgiving, from processing our pain and grief, but when and how much we do is always of our own choosing.

    In choosing to forgive we choose ourselves and take back our power. It doesn’t mean that we need to befriend our difficult person or that we should begin spending time again with someone who has deeply harmed us in the past.

    In the case of my ex-boyfriend, we did not end up becoming friends again. However, I did end up sending him a Facebook message in which I shared that I had been engaged in a loving-kindness practice and that despite all our troubles, I had forgiven him and truly hoped he was happy.

    Almost immediately, there was a response. He was indeed a new father, living in his home country with his wife. He had forgiven me long ago, he said, and he had always felt grateful to me, for bringing him to the United States.

    After we parted, he went on to achieve some of his life’s dreams; he had climbed El Capitan, he had gotten his master’s degree, found a good job, and eventually moved back to Colombia with his wife to have a family.

    He was happy to know that I, too, was happy and successful in life, he’d always known and hoped that I would be. And truly I am.