Tiny Buddha

Tag: anxiety

  • Mindfulness, Creativity, and Nature: A Healing Trifecta for Lasting Peace

    Mindfulness, Creativity, and Nature: A Healing Trifecta for Lasting Peace

    “It is the marriage of the soul with nature that gives birth to imagination.” ~Henry David Thoreau

    Before my accident, before we had kids, after we divorced, after my father died from Covid, before the pandemic…

    We tend to divide our lives into the before and afters that define our world, whether personally or on a grand scale. These divisions offer context, providing a kind of roadmap that supports us in reflecting on the beauty and darkness, the decisions we made, and who we might be if certain things had never occurred.

    I have always believed that the only reason to look back is to learn. Still, I can’t help but wonder: What if, when my marriage ended, I already had mindfulness skills in place? What if I had known the infinite ways nature could soothe my soul? Would my life have been different if I had consciously known that creativity was the safest place to process my emotions?

    Perhaps I would not have been paralyzed in grief and sorrow. Maybe my children would have been spared a terrible custody battle. I suppose there is a chance I would not have gone bankrupt. I wonder if I would have ever gotten divorced at all.

    Here’s the biggest question: Would I change any of it now?

    Not a chance.

    As difficult as it all was, I learned that every tool I needed to survive and thrive was right in front of me, and always will be.

    My journey led me to a path of sharing what I am most passionate about: helping others find their way, through what I called a “spiritual toolbox”—a personal supply of healthy actions and practices to choose from or combine when things become difficult.

    Your spiritual toolbox can hold things like creativity and gratitude practices, exercise, meditation, time in nature, and journaling; a hug, the love of a pet, a hot bath, and even an occasional glass of wine. It’s wonderful to open in the moment, and it’s even better to use as preventative medicine (the toolbox, not the wine).

    My “aha” spiritual-toolbox moment came when I accidently discovered the transformative power of combining three tools specifically, as a trifecta. These were: creativity, meditation, and time in nature. 

    This trifecta insight divided my life into two parts: asleep and awakened.

    The first part is quite literal: at age nineteen, I fell asleep while driving and didn’t walk for nearly a year afterward. My accident was the synopsis and ending of a carefree childhood and adolescence, where I suffered no hardship that would have “awakened” me to anything beyond plans for the next evening.

    However, while I physically woke up pinned under the tire of my car, I also woke up spiritually: I was alive, and my two best friends who were with me, were uninjured. I was officially “awake” on infinite levels, primarily to the deepest sense of gratitude. And, while I metaphorically “went to sleep” later in other areas of my life, the trifecta was always there to support my awakenings.

    From the time I could crawl, my preference was to do it outside. My imagination was my best friend, and my mother could more easily find me digging mud from the creek behind our house rather than playing next door. I made togas from my curtains, spoke in my own language, and told everyone I was “Elizabeth from another land.”

    Obviously, I had no way of knowing about the robust and ever-growing body of research indicating that artmaking and creativity have been shown to increase positive emotions, decrease depression and anxiety, reduce stress, and even boost the immune system. That art therapy could boost the memory of Alzheimer’s patients, or reduce the side-effects of chemotherapy.

    I didn’t know that indulging creatively literally creates a “cascade of endorphins, serotonin and dopamine, the brain chemicals that affect our well-being,” increasing feelings of joy and contentment.

    I hadn’t yet wrapped my head around the fact that everyone is creative, and the benefits have nothing to do with artistic skill. I simply knew that I was happiest when I was being creative, and that artmaking could pull me out of almost any funk.

    I was intuitively awakened to creativity.

    Then, at age forty, my marriage collapsed. I collapsed with it, down a slippery and medicated slope, into what was later diagnosed as “brief psychosis disorder.” I struggled with insomnia, bankruptcy, a custody battle, losing my home, and losing my business, all at once. 

    And, while I am a believer in whatever prescribed medications are necessary and helpful, mine were not properly prescribed, so my body and mind simply gave up.

    Thankfully, I had recently awakened to meditation.

    You can quote me that meditation and mindfulness are the most powerful tools you will ever discover on your path to well-being, in every single aspect of your life. The research on this topic goes back thousands of years.

    But here’s where it gets interesting: The brain responds to meditation and mindfulness in a similar way to how it responds to creativity—in both cases, external stimuli is blocked out, and the front of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, quiets down. The pre-frontal cortex, AKA the “gatekeeper,” is like a control center, and is very much involved in emotional regulation, decision making, planning and attention, and self-monitoring.

    In other words, dialing back the “gatekeeper” can free us up from planning, worry, projecting, and ruminating. Who wouldn’t feel happier as a result? 

    Armed with the foundations for my spiritual toolbox, I soldiered on, raising two boys on my own, supporting myself in various marketing and PR endeavors, discovering my inner advocate through non-profit work, writing two books, and facilitating creativity retreats. My love for the outdoors had evolved, and my first choice of exercise was hiking.

    I did not know that studies had linked time outside to reduced anxiety and depression, or even that nature inspired creativity. I had no context for nature therapy, where nature is literally characterized as a therapeutic environment.

    I hadn’t read the Time Magazine research about how spending time in nature can lower levels of cortisol, improve heart health, promote cancer-fighting cells, help with depression and anxiety, inspire awe, and increase overall well-being. All I knew was that for me, outside was better than inside.

    I had awakened to the healing powers of nature.

    I began meditating outside, tuning into the natural world. I practiced walking meditation and was awestruck by the beauty and felt sense of connectedness. I was present in a way I had never experienced.

    Before long, I began gathering materials from nature and making art with them. I realized that I was more at peace than I had ever been—and there was a definite “carry-over” of calm, peace, and joy into my overall functioning. 

    I can’t recall if I was on top of a rock in Nevada or in a California canyon, but then came the moment: It was the trifecta of nature, creativity, and mindfulness that was changing my life. When I used these tools together, my depression lifted and my fears dissolved. For the first time in a long time, I experienced hope.

    Slowly but surely, my spirit began to heal. I had a safe, accessible, and powerful way to safely process my experience, build resilience, and move forward, joyfully.

    Since that time, I have awakened to many other tools that go inside my spiritual toolbox. For now, as an emerging art therapist, meditation junkie, and nature lover, it is my honor to awaken you to simple practices that support you in the most powerful trifecta I know.

    Creating Peace on Earth

    The peace sign is a powerful symbol that is universally recognized. It connects us, consciously and unconsciously, in something positive. It’s also simple to make, right outside, on the earth, implementing the spiritual toolbox trifecta of creativity, mindfulness, and nature. Here’s how:

    Head outside alone or with a friend or loved one. Kids will also enjoy this practice!

    Breathe deeply and move more slowly than you normally would, taking in the sights, sounds, and sensations of nature. Pause and let this experience sink in.

    Let objects in nature call you: Begin gathering stones, branches, leaves, or wildflowers. Observe how each object looks, feels, and smells as you touch it with your hands. If you are with someone, share your observations with them.

    Find the right spot and create your peace symbol. This could be in your own yard or in a public place, like a park or beach, where other people can see and enjoy it.

    Have fun, indulge, and witness. No one is looking! Sink into your experiences and senses for this brief time. Take a few long, deep breaths, feeling and smelling the earth.

    Reflect on the peace symbol. What does it mean to you? What memories or sensations arise in your body as you reflect on this powerful symbol?

    Set an intention to bring forward any feelings of peace and wellness that you have experienced in this practice.

    Be patient and honor your journey. Wellness and healing are lifelong endeavors. Stepping into intentional self-care is an act of compassion, for yourself and the world.

    Be grateful. By creating “peace on earth,” you are implementing the healing trifecta while sharing a powerful message that others might see and experience on their own nature walk. You are also awakening to peace, within yourself.

  • You’re Bent, Not Broken: A Mindset Shift That Can Change Your Life

    You’re Bent, Not Broken: A Mindset Shift That Can Change Your Life

    “Bent but never broken; down but never out.” ~Annetta Ribken

    I lived for a long time thinking I was broken beyond repair.

    Let me rephrase: I thought I was unloved, unworthy, scarred, and broken. What a package, right?

    It started young, never feeling like I was good enough for anything I did. Being the youngest of the typical modern recomposed family in the eighties, I never knew on which foot to dance and always thought I needed to bend left and right to be seen and loved.

    I carried this baggage under my badge of anxiety, feeling like no one and nothing could ever make me happy, that no one could love the real me, that nothing could ever make me feel worthy.

    It reached a point as I was entering my forties when all I wanted to do was disappear. I wanted to not be who I was. I wanted to die.

    I thought that was my only solution.

    I believed the world would be better without me.

    What I didn’t understand then is that by thinking I was broken, unworthy, unloved, and all the other awful things I told myself daily, I was pouring salt into old wounds that had no chance to mend until I stopped the self-loathing.

    The more I told myself I was broken, the more I was breaking my soul. The more I told myself I was unloved, the less I loved others and opened myself up to love. The more I told myself I was unworthy, the more I interpreted others’ words to mean the same.

    I didn’t know what I could do. I didn’t know how to get out of the storm I was stuck in. I didn’t know what could help me live in the moment and stop hurting from the past or getting scared of the future.

    How do you get out of hurting so much you want to die?

    For me: writing.

    It was the only thing I could do.

    I was losing friends left and right, closing up like an oyster, hurting myself and others with my words and actions—but my pen and paper were my salvation.

    I bled tears and words until the day I could take a step back.

    The pain, the feeling of being broken and unworthy was still here; I could barely look at myself in a mirror, even less love anyone properly. But as I was playing with my pencil not finding words for a poem I needed to write to survive, I kept pushing into a crack it had. And I pushed my nails into it, and I played with it, and picked at it and some more not really thinking what I was doing, desperately trying to find words, until the pencil broke in two.

    No, let me take responsibility—until I broke the pencil in two.

    I looked at the two pieces in my hand.

    I had played with that pencil’s crack until I broke it.

    My fingers kind of hurt, but I smiled.

    This wasn’t me. This couldn’t be me. I really didn’t want this to become me.

    I wasn’t two parts of one entity.

    I was still one.

    And if I was still one, I wasn’t broken, I was just scarred. I was just bent.

    From that moment on, everything shifted.

    I wasn’t broken, just bent. I could learn to love myself again.

    It became like a mantra I repeated daily.

    And if I wasn’t broken, just bent, then maybe I wasn’t unlovable but loved by the wrong people. And maybe I wasn’t unworthy but only surrounded by people who didn’t recognize my worth, or maybe I was blind to my awesomeness.

    And if I wasn’t broken, if I stopped playing with my wounds, then maybe the healed scars could tell a story. And if I could tell my story and help others in any way, maybe, just maybe my pain and hardship and years of anxiety and depression could become more than a feeling of brokenness.

    So maybe I wasn’t broken. Maybe I was indeed just bent.

    It was hard to say it out loud, it was hard to explain, but the moment I shifted my mindset, I felt a relief.

    I knew then I could rise from the traumas I’d gone through. Even the smallest ones.

    I could give myself a second chance at life by healing and sharing my story.

    I wasn’t broken; I was made to break the shell of my past and show that if I could do it, you could too.

    Because here is my biggest secret: I am no one, and I am everyone.

    My story is the same story as most of yours. I didn’t deal with my traumas, and they caught up. I thought I had dealt with the past by putting a bandage on it when I really needed an open soul surgery.

    I thought I could wear a mask and be loved for who I thought people wanted me to be, but this made me feel unloved to the core.

    I thought I was broken when I was only bent by circumstances I needed to untangle. I thought I was unworthy but I was capable of creating art with my scars and shining a light on the most common depression story ever to tell others they weren’t alone and could get out of it too.

    So don’t tell yourself that you are broken.

    Don’t think you need an extraordinary story to help others find their light.

    Don’t believe you are no one, because we are all no one, and we are everyone.

    I’m not a life coach, I’m not selling classes, I’m not even trying to save your soul. I’m just like you, trying to find a light of love and joy. And together, we are healing, and we have a story to write. A story about the power of choosing to see yourself as someone with strength, value, and purpose.

    Change your mindset today. See yourself as just bent, and don’t try to straighten yourself up.

    Allow yourself to be bent, and let the shift happen.

    Broken is irreparable.

    Bent is not.

    It’s not a big difference, but it might change your life.

  • 4 Ways to Save Your Sanity When Life Gets Hard and Overwhelming

    4 Ways to Save Your Sanity When Life Gets Hard and Overwhelming

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

    In December of 2020, we noticed Mom’s speech seemed difficult. Like she had stuffed cotton balls in her mouth, and someone was restraining her jaw from moving. We asked her about it, she said it was nothing.

    We hadn’t seen each other since we got together over the holidays. On New Year’s Day 2020, we clinked glasses filled with sparkling wine and shared bold predictions about how this was going to be our best year yet (spoiler alert, it wasn’t).

    With every passing week and conversation, it got worse. We brought it up many times, my sister and I. We pleaded with her to see a doctor. We were separated by thousands of miles and a closed border. My sister in Virginia, me in California, Mom in Canada.

    She said no, it wasn’t a big deal, it was getting better (spoiler alert again, it also wasn’t). She insisted she was fine. She could eat, drink, work, and speak. It was all good. She repeated this message as our worries grew. We felt powerless to help, especially in the face of her denial and refusal to get care.

    In March of 2021, I got an odd message on Facebook messenger. It was from a woman who said she worked with my mother, asking me to call her. She had taken my mother to the hospital the night before, where she was admitted for extreme dehydration and exhaustion.

    Her symptoms made no sense to them either, so she endured a battery of tests. Ultimately, it was revealed that what ailed her was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. A horrible progressive nervous system disease that causes loss of muscle control. It is always fatal, with no known cure.

    Her disease first attacked her ability to speak and swallow, an unusual first set of symptoms. When she was hospitalized, she finally admitted she hadn’t eaten a real meal in thirty days and had been able to drink less and less.

    My sister and I are both career women with young families. I work for a tech company. The work is fast moving, complex, and nuanced. I used to pride myself on my “meeting endurance.” I often tackled days with ten to fourteen meetings, with enough energy left to crank out work deliverables, do an intense workout, and spend time with my six-year-old twins.

    With my mother’s diagnosis and the new responsibilities of caregiving during a pandemic, I had to revisit many of my previous beliefs and assumptions. Here’s what I learned. I hope it helps you too.

    Lesson 1: Out with stretch goals, in with baseline goals.

    I’m a (sometimes) recovering overachiever. I have a history of establishing huge stretch goals and basking in satisfaction when I smash them. For years I was motivated by the striving to do more, be better.

    Until I wasn’t.

    With my mother’s diagnosis and the challenges of parenting and working in a pandemic, overwhelm swallowed me whole. It felt like I was surrounded by fuzzy darkness. Like I was moving through molasses.

    I wasn’t alone, of course; mental health issues skyrocketed globally. Rates of depression and anxiety are rising. The term “languishing” was introduced to express the lack of thriving many more experienced.

    I had to rethink my relationship to accomplishment.

    I have given myself a break from stretch goals. I now set what I call baseline goals. Baseline goals are super small, completely achievable objectives. They are daily or weekly practices that have compounding impact when practiced consistently over years. Simply put, baseline goals are the smallest possible thing you can commit to that will support your well-being.

    Instead of an overwhelming big picture, you create a concrete short-term focus.

    Instead of a lengthy, high-intensity fitness routine or a stretch goal (let’s train for a marathon!), the baseline goal is fifteen minutes or more of movement six days a week. Walking counts. Slow yoga counts. Dancing in the living room definitely counts. I can do fifteen minutes.

    Instead of kicking off a complex transformation project (let’s reinvent how we interact with our customers!), the baseline goal is each morning to determine the biggest priority for the day, and the absolute minimum action that needs to be taken. Then do that thing first. I can figure out one priority. I can do one thing.

    It turns out that when you’re super clear on your minimums, it frees up a lot of the capacity used up by trying to do it all. It releases the guilt from impossibly high standards.

    Lesson 2: Separate your future problems from your current problems.

    It has become almost a mantra for me to say, “That’s not a problem I need to solve today.” There are SO. MANY. PROBLEMS. So many decisions to make.

    I had to learn to be discerning about which problems I needed to tackle now and acknowledge that there were many I didn’t have enough information to figure out, so it made no difference to think about them.

    When my sister and I moved my mother into an assisted living community, our minds were invaded by the “what ifs,” and “what will we do when?”.

    “What if she needs more care than they can give?”, “What if we can’t support the costs?”, “What if we need to move her again?”, “What if they close the borders?”, “What if they disallow visitors?”.

    We started asking ourselves, “What problems do we need to solve right now?”.

    The only problem we needed to solve was immediate care and needs. We didn’t need to know the future. We could respond to new needs as they emerged.

    It’s clearly not a healthy long-term behavior to ignore the future, but in crisis, clarifying where action and decisions are needed has been helpful in deescalating anxiety.

    Lesson 3: Self-compassion is the new black.

    There are many days when I feel like I’m failing in every dimension. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, I am racked with guilt and self-criticism because I’m not somewhere else, doing more.

    Self-compassion is when we give ourselves the same kindness we’d extend to a good friend. When the guilt comes (and I haven’t yet figured out how to keep it at bay), and the self-critical talk starts, I pretend I’m talking to a dear friend. I’m doing my best. That’s all I can do.

    Lesson 4: Embrace the suck.

    It’s easy to become overwhelmed. To let my thoughts spiral into fear, worrying about the future in anticipation of what’s to come. I’ve now come to realize that when I do this, I am borrowing problems from the future. I am suffering in anticipation of things that may or may not come to pass.

    All I have to do is be here, now. That’s all. I don’t need to live the future yet; I just need to live the present.

    Jon Kabat-Zinn said, “Give yourself permission to allow this moment to be exactly as it is, and allow yourself to be exactly as you are.”

    And right now, there are many moments that are difficult and painful. And I am often sad, depleted, and upset. That’s okay.

    I can’t skip the hard parts; I have to experience them. And only by experiencing the most excruciating parts can I also fully experience the joyful moments.

    You only ever have to deal with the moment you’re in right now. We can do hard things.

  • To the Expectant Mom with a Million Questions and Worries

    To the Expectant Mom with a Million Questions and Worries

    “Have a little faith in your ability to handle whatever’s coming down the road. Believe that you have the strength and resourcefulness required to tackle whatever challenges come your way. And know that you always have the capacity to make the best of anything. Even if you didn’t want it or ask for it, even if seems scary or hard or unfair, you can make something good of any loss or hardship. You can learn from it, grow from it, help others through it, and maybe even thrive because of it. The future is unknown, but you can know this for sure: Whatever’s coming, you got this.” ~Lori Deschene

    As an obstetrician in Manhattan, I see the following scene often…

    A woman who is newly pregnant walks into my office, her eyes wide, her fingers clutched around her phone or a notebook and pen.

    She has just come from her first ultrasound and is now looking at me in total fear and anxiety. Not because she was told she has had a miscarriage—there is a beautiful heartbeat noted. Not because she has been told something looks abnormal with the baby—the baby looks healthy, like a little jumping peanut, as they all do early in pregnancy. Not because she has medical complications that make her pregnancy extremely high risk.

    Instead of taking a deep breath and feeling relief that the ultrasound showed a healthy pregnancy, her mind immediately goes to the million things she needs to get right and understand and process to ensure that she does everything right. To ensure that she receives an A+ in pregnancy and growing a healthy baby.

    Her look is a reflection of her inner emotions related to the unpredictable nature of pregnancy. She is scared to death because she realizes that she is no longer in control. She can do everything perfectly and still something bad may happen.

    This may be the first time in her life she has ever felt this way. So she desperately wants to control every bit of the process and soak in every detail she can in regards to statistics, testing, the effects of her diet, exercise, stress, work environment, and household and dietary toxins.

    She is clinging to any bit of power she has, to make everything turn out alright. To make sure she has a good pregnancy, an uneventful birth, and goes home with a healthy baby that will flourish and go to the top schools and become a happy and successful person.

    She also wants to maintain control of herself, the self she has cultivated for years and involves her career that she has worked hard for, her body that she has meticulously cared for, and her ability to work hard and be successful in everything she does.

    Now that all medical records and patient notes are available for the patients to see, a colleague of mine has coined a code word to add to such patient’s notes so that everyone who sees them understands they will need double the standard time for these appointments to answer the long list of questions that will inevitably arise.

    They should be prepared for questions on everything from birth plans to whether or not they should do invasive testing for Down’s syndrome even if the very sensitive screening tests return normal to what their chances are of getting gestational diabetes to whether it is safe to paint their nails and color their hair.

    They often bring a bag full of the supplements they have been taking and the makeup and skin products they have been using and ask the doctor to review and comment on each and every one and the safety and risks and benefits of each in pregnancy. If we do not have a good enough answer based on the available data, they want to know what we personally would do, as uncertainty and lack of direction is not an option.

    These moms require a little extra gentleness and support from their doctors; however, it can be difficult, as often no matter how many questions I answer and how well I try to ease their fears, I know that they may never be fully satisfied with my responses.

    The information I give them involves many responses that reflect a lack of a complete knowledge of all of the answers to their questions.

    I cannot definitively tell them how the face cream they used before knowing they were pregnant may affect their growing baby. I may not know how likely their fibroid is to cause preterm contraction or pain compared to women who have fibroids in other locations or of different sizes

    I can try to reassure them that even if they can only tolerate bread due to extreme nausea, their baby will get the nutrients they need; however, they may never fully believe me and feel that they have already done something wrong that is causing irrevocable harm.

    What I want to tell them, but often don’t due to my concern for their response and thinking that I do not take them seriously or provide the level of support and intensity they need, is this:

    Pregnancy is scary because most things that happen are beyond our control. Life, and everything about life, is also beyond our control; however, pregnancy is often the first time we come face to face with the fact that we really just have to let it be and accept what comes. 

    This is terrifying. We want to feel that we can influence the outcomes—the harder we work, the healthier we are, the better we follow all of the rules, the better our outcome will be. But just as someone can eat healthy, exercise every day, and get hit by a car crossing the street, a mom can follow every rule and recommendation and end up with a baby with a heart defect or have cervical insufficiency and lose the pregnancy. 

    The more we can accept the unpredictable nature of life and death, the more we can just be during the pregnancy and not live in perpetual fear of possible negative outcomes. 

    The truth is, worrying about it does not lessen the pain if a bad outcome occurs. So spending our time worrying about what may be is not helping us in any way and is actively preventing us from fully living in the present.

    This is the first lesson of being a parent, and an important lesson for everyone in life, no matter if you desire to be a parent or not: You cannot control your children; you can only do your best to be present and conscious and support them so they can flourish and grow into their own authentic selves. 

    Do the same for yourself during pregnancy and in life in general. Try to be present in the moment instead of focused on all of the ways that things could go wrong. Be conscious of how you treat your body. Provide yourself with nourishment, rest, exercise, and self-care so you can thrive during the pregnancy and beyond.

    Oftentimes pregnancy provides a window of time when women will actually focus on themselves more instead of on taking care of everyone else, as they understand that their well-being inextricably affects the well-being of the baby growing inside of them.

    If you notice yourself becoming very anxious or stressed, take some quiet time to sit with these emotions. You may intuitively discover what is causing them, and often it will be your lack of control and the uncertainty that is inevitable during pregnancy.

    Try meditation, yoga, or other mindfulness activities to re-center and get into the present moment. Be grateful for how your body is supporting you and your growing baby. Journaling and talking to a therapist, alone or with your partner if you have one in this pregnancy, may also help uncover the underlying programming and conditioning that lead to your current emotional state.

    Oftentimes there are roots going back to our own childhood and feelings of inadequacy, low self-worth, or invalidation that make us feel we will somehow mess up or not be a good enough parent. We become very anxious or worried that we will either make the same mistakes our own parents did, or that we cannot live up to the standards we have set for ourselves if we have placed our own parent(s) on a pedestal.

    We may have become a perfectionist at a young age to emotionally cope with the dynamics in our own families. We may even have avoided risks or failure during our adult life so that we never had to deal with the sense of not being good enough.

    Pregnancy brings all of these emotions and more into focus. It can become a time where we are either forced to turn inward and address our personality traits that developed in our own childhood or risk becoming very anxious, stressed, and depressed.

    During my own pregnancy I went to an extreme. I detached from my pregnancy, as the thoughts of all of the negative outcomes I have seen in my professional experience were too much to bear.

    I did not have the proper tools or self-awareness to explore it and heal myself. Rather than face the crippling anxiety and work through it, I dissociated from the pregnancy and did not allow myself to connect or bond with my daughter until she was born.

    I always was very relaxed and nonchalant at my own obstetric visits and sonogram appointments because I had forced the emotions so deep inside that no one could even see them. I eventually developed severe postpartum anxiety and depression that stemmed from this lack of confronting my true feelings and understanding where they came from so that I could heal them.

    I was completely unaware that I was even suffering from severe anxiety and depression for almost two years after the birth of my daughter. This was how deep the schism was between my emotional response to pregnancy and having a baby was and my ability to process and understand these emotions.

    Not everyone who is anxious or depressed during pregnancy or postpartum has similar feelings to my own. However, I have noticed that women who come into the pregnancy already very anxious and worried are more likely to develop worsening of these symptoms during pregnancy and postpartum.

    It may be related to the fact that initially the concern is over having a normal healthy pregnancy, but as birth looms closer they realize that the birth is also out of their control, and then as going home with the baby looms closer they realize that breastfeeding, soothing the baby, and the temperament and health of their baby is also out of their control.

    We go from facing a finite period—we just have to get through this pregnancy—to an infinite period,  parenthood, in which the older our child gets the less control we have. This is terrifying to someone who is naturally a perfectionist, type A, someone who has learned through life that the more they do and the harder they work, the better the outcome will be.

    Instead of struggling and succumbing to the toxic, negative emotions and fears, we have to learn to acknowledge them and then let them go. We must learn to just be. To sit with the uncomfortable nature of the unknown. 

    This does not mean you should not ask questions. This does not mean that you will never worry or feel anxious. But it means that you can also let in moments of calm and relaxation. Moments where you trust your body to do what it innately knows how to do without our conscious interference.

    Your doctor or midwife cannot and will not be able to fully reassure you and hold your hand and tell you everything will be okay. We will do our best to answer all of your questions and support you in a nonjudgmental and compassionate way; however, no matter how many notes you take we cannot release you from the anxiety that comes from a feeling of lack of control. Only you can do that.

    I recommend trying to avoid the triggers that will make it worse, avoiding pregnancy apps where other women write comments that are often not based in science, and limiting the amount of books and classes you digest during your pregnancy and parenthood.

    There are whole industries created that exist and profit off of our desires and needs to feel perfect and in control. The truth is that perfection does not exist, and the future is never predictable.

    Instead of allowing fear and anxiety to control me and close me off from all of the wonderful, deep emotions that come from embracing vulnerability and the unknown, I now choose every day to consciously work to uncover my anxieties when they appear.

    I thank my inner self for showing me I still have work to do, and then bring myself back into the present moment and back to the gratitude for what I have right now, no matter how messy or imperfect it may be.

  • Better Help: Affordable Online Therapy, Anywhere in the World

    Better Help: Affordable Online Therapy, Anywhere in the World

    **This is a sponsored post to introduce you to BetterHelp, a company I highly recommend!

    I hear it all the time—”I’m feeling more depressed than ever, and nothing seems to help.”

    I see it in blog comments. I read it in forum posts and social media replies. I also get stories like this in my inbox from people who are struggling to find a sense of peace and control in the constant chaos of their lives.

    And I empathize with all of them. I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed and stuck, physically and emotionally, and helpless to change what isn’t working.

    Many will tell you the answer to overcoming depression is medication, and I don’t deny that it can often be a crucial piece of the puzzle.

    But I don’t believe it’s the only piece. It wasn’t for me. It took me a while to recognize it, but my depression stemmed from unhealed traumas that had left deep scars and created faulty programming. And I couldn’t heal until I addressed them.

    If you’re struggling with depression now, maybe a traumatic past played a role for you as well. Maybe it’s circumstantial—you’re grieving the loss of someone you love or struggling financially. Perhaps it’s related to a health condition. Or maybe you’re predisposed to mental health issues because they run in your family.

    Whatever your unique situation, I suspect that, like me, you’d benefit from digging deep to understand not only what caused your depression, but also which choices exacerbate it—and what you can do to help alleviate it.

    That’s where therapy comes in. I credit therapy with saving my life, since it enabled me to not only peel back the layers of trauma but also develop healthy coping skills so I could free myself from bulimia and self-harm.

    But I know not everyone is as fortunate as I once was. Therapy isn’t always covered by insurance, and it can be hard to find a specialist in your area that addresses your specific needs and issues.

    This is why I’m happy to have aligned with one of Tiny Buddha’s newest sponsors, BetterHelp. I know their online therapists are saving lives by offering counseling—accessible from anywhere in the world—at an affordable price.

    If you’ve wanted to try therapy but have a hard time motivating yourself to get out the door, or the cost has been a barrier, BetterHelp may be the perfect vehicle to provide the help you need.

    More About BetterHelp

    After you take a quick, free online assessment, BetterHelp can match you with a licensed professional therapist in under forty-eight hours.

    The service is available worldwide, and all sessions are done securely online. And not only is it more affordable than traditional therapy, but you might also be able to get financial aid if you need it.

    You can choose to schedule weekly video or phone sessions, whichever feels more comfortable for you, and you can log into your account to message your therapist at any time.

    I can tell you from personal experience that it sometimes takes a couple tries to find the right therapist. Someone might look perfect on paper but might not feel like a great fit once you connect.

    The beauty of online therapy is that you don’t need to trek to different offices in different cities to find someone who can address your specific issues. With BetterHelp, you can easily switch therapists at any time, without leaving your couch, if you feel your therapist isn’t a great match for your needs.

    —

    I consistently recommend therapy to those who comment and email me because I realize self-help can only go so far. You can read all the blog posts in the world but still feel clueless as to what you, specifically, need, or how to get out of your own way and apply all the good advice you’ve read.

    That’s because we’re all different—what works for one person might not work for someone else. And just knowing what might help doesn’t give you the strength, motivation, and faith to get up and give it a go.

    Sometimes you need outside assistance to make a plan, break your patterns, and take back control of your life. A BetterHelp therapist can help you do just that.

    Click here to learn more and take a free assessment, and as a Tiny Buddha reader you’ll get 20% off your first month.

    I wish you peace, joy, and healing, friends!

  • Why Fibromyalgia Is the Greatest Gift of My Life

    Why Fibromyalgia Is the Greatest Gift of My Life

    “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” ~Rumi

    TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains discussions of difficult topics, including suicidal depression and a fatal car accident.

    I’ve always been an active, athletic person. In my twenties I was huge in tennis, squash, and swimming, and I began every morning with an intense workout that cleared my head and let me confront the day’s challenges with a relaxed, positive attitude. So, when I started experiencing mysterious pains and fatigue that didn’t go away no matter how much sleep I got, my life was turned upside down.

    After two years of doctors’ visits, I finally received the earth-shattering diagnosis: fibromyalgia. My worst nightmare had come true. The doctors told me I would have to stop exercising as all the sports I loved are hard on your joints, and according to them I needed to take it easy. But physical activity was my life, and I quickly found that “taking it easy” was emotionally devastating for me.

    Without my workout routine, my depression and anxiety spiraled out of control. I couldn’t find meaning or purpose in my day-to-day life anymore. The days blurred together, and all the energy I usually released through exercise turned inward, against me, in the form of daily panic attacks.

    Worse than anything was the sense that my body—my best friend and my #1 support system for so many years—had betrayed me. And on top of this, the symptoms of my fibromyalgia were not getting better despite the enormous sacrifice I had made of giving up exercise. In fact, they were getting worse.

    My turning point came several years after my diagnosis, when I was in my early thirties.

    My condition had continued to decline, and I was ready to give up—on my body, on myself, and on life. It’s not something you can really understand unless you’ve experienced it yourself, but I had reached a point where I had no interest and no motivation to go on living. The uphill battle just wasn’t worth it to me anymore.

    I remember the moment like it was yesterday. It was nighttime, pouring rain outside my third-story bedroom. I opened the window, put my head outside, and screamed from the top of my lungs into the howling wind: “Why, God, why do I have to go through this?” Then, overtaken by a sudden urge, I lifted my leg to climb out of the window, to fall to my death and put myself out of this agony.

    At that moment, something happened that I still, to this day, cannot rationally explain. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a child standing by my side—a child I quickly recognized as the younger version of myself.

    She looked up at me with pleading eyes and begged me to keep going. She told me to go back to my workout, that exercise would be my remedy, and that fibromyalgia, my greatest struggle, would lead me to my destiny.

    I closed my window, feeling like I had just woken up from a dream. That night I made the choice not to give up on my life, somehow knowing my story would not and could not end here. I realized I had more to offer—instead of turning my misery into someone else’s grief, I could turn it into a gift that I could share with the world.

    Although I had promised my friends and family that I would take it easy and not work out anymore, the next day I spent an hour swimming at the public pool. While I was there, I shared my story with a lifeguard who in turn shared some unexpected wisdom with me: “A doctor reads the book, memorizes it, and repeats it to the patient, but the patient knows her body.”

    His words resonated with me. I started doing a mild exercise routine: a few hours a day of swimming, which was easier on my joints than tennis or squash. After a while, I decided to retry some of the other sports I had loved to play before my diagnosis and found that, as long as I was careful, I could enjoy them without too much pain. The trick was knowing my body—learning and recognizing its warning signs, keeping a close eye on how I felt, and not letting myself overdo it.

    The young girl, the one who had stopped me from taking my own life, was right: exercise was my remedy.

    My mental health started to improve, and while I was still experiencing body aches, swollen joints, and all the other joys of my disease, I had a renewed, intentional outlook that made them possible to manage. I couldn’t choose to live my life without pain, but I could choose to live it without suffering.

    I will not lie to you and tell you it was a smooth recovery. I had bad days—days where all I could do was curl up in bed and cry, days spent feeling sorry for myself and angry at the universe. Days where my symptoms got so bad that I forgot all about my positive mindset and the mission I had set for myself, to turn my struggle into something positive and use it to help others.

    I experienced a serious setback when, almost ten years after my diagnosis, I was driving with my best friend and we got into a horrific car accident. I was the one at fault. My friend, who was thrown from the car, ended up being declared brain dead at the hospital; I myself suffered severe injuries that badly worsened my fibromyalgia symptoms, and I was told by doctors that I would likely have to start using a wheelchair if my condition did not improve.

    (Incidentally, while receiving psychiatric treatment for extreme suicidality in the days following my accident, I was also diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia—a fact that might once have given me consolation or comfort in understanding why I am the way I am, but given the circumstances, only served to depress me further.)

    My physical decline combined with the trauma of causing my friend’s death was more than I could bear, and I again spiraled into hopeless agony. It was one of the darkest periods of my life, even worse than the few years after I was first diagnosed with fibromyalgia. But I did not succumb to misery as I almost had back then. And now, looking back, I see why.

    This disease, and my active and consistent determination to make the best of a bad situation, had given me the best possible tools to deal with whatever hardship came my way.

    I was in worse physical and emotional shape than ever before. But years ago I had made a choice to keep going, and followed through with that choice for many years, and because of this my mind was in perfect shape to keep me from falling apart when I hit rock bottom.

    So I kept going. Through my tears and my pain, I got up each morning and faced the day, whether I wanted to or not. Not only did I continue working out, I became certified as a yoga and Pilates instructor. It was during this time that I got my black belt in Taekwondo, though it took me six years. I even started working as a fitness trainer, finding that my experience with fibromyalgia gave me a unique perspective on physical and mental health that my clients appreciated.

    This realization was the beginning of a much larger realization about the struggles each of us will face in our lives.

    First, setbacks are an inevitable part of any recovery process.

    If you’re not seeing forward progress on a day-to-day basis, that doesn’t mean you’re not still moving forward! I went through long periods of nothing but bad days, but I wasn’t giving up, and that’s what mattered. Continuing to fight is an active choice—you are making progress every day that you choose to stay alive.

    Second, no matter what you’re dealing with, you have the power to turn it into something amazing.

    Fibromyalgia made me a better, more compassionate, and more open person, allowing me to connect with people on a deeper level and help them more than I could before. It opened up opportunities and put me on personal and career paths I would never have followed otherwise. It taught me patience, gratitude, and—more than anything—that I am capable of so much more than I think.

    Fibromyalgia has been the greatest gift of my life, but I need you to understand that it is a gift because I chose to turn it into one. The universe handed me an awful situation, and as you now know, I came close—too close—to letting it destroy me. It was my own decision to turn my pain into the blessing that it has become, for myself and for those around me.

    Life is full of hardships, but the incredible thing about being human is that we have the ability to choose how we respond to them. You can choose to fall apart, or you can choose to turn your pain into a gift.

    What will you choose?

  • How Shifting Your Attention Can Be the Cure for Anxiety

    How Shifting Your Attention Can Be the Cure for Anxiety

    “Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.” ~Paulo Coelho

    “Am I focusing too much on my anxiety?”

    This very question weighed heavily on my mind as I found myself in yet another bout of anxiety. I was playing professional baseball at the time, and I just couldn’t seem to free myself from the constant and unending worrisome thoughts racing through my head.

    A lot of these thoughts centered around how I would perform the next game. What my teammates were thinking of me, whether they saw me as a valuable part of the team. I often thought about why I was playing baseball and if I was wasting my time.

    All of these worries did nothing but lead to further thoughts, centering around much of the same, leading to a terrible cycle.

    This was not the first time I realized the presence of anxiety in my life. It has been something I’ve dealt with for as long as I can remember.

    In college, I even worked with a sport psychologist who taught me coping mechanisms to alleviate the anxiety I felt surrounding baseball.

    We addressed my self-talk, with him generating a routine I could use the night before games. He also focused heavily on process goals. As focusing on the process, rather than the outcome, is a major way to reduce anxious thinking.

    After completing a master’s in psychology and beginning work as a mental performance coach, I felt as though I had a solid understanding of how to cope with anxiety. Why was it then that I once again found myself in its grasp?

    Well, the truth is, no matter how strong you build your mind and how much work you put in, anxiety will still find its way into your life. Some time or another, those pesky worrisome thoughts will enter your head.

    What matters is how long you allow those thoughts to stick around. And what’s interesting is, sometimes the more we try to rid ourselves of anxiety, the more we invite it to stay.

    That is the mistake I made, and why, after all my years of work and learning, I found myself faced with great difficulty.

    Energy Flows Where Attention Goes

    Have you ever heard this saying before?

    I’ve heard different interpretations of its meaning, but one I really resonate with is, wherever we place our attention will be amplified.

    This means the more we focus on our anxiety, the greater the strength we give it.

    So if we want to not feel anxious, one of the worst things we can do is try to not feel anxious.

    When I recognized I was giving my anxiety too much attention, I realized what needed to happen instead. The decision I made involved the same techniques I’m going to show you later in the article.

    For now, I want to address just a little bit about why we focus so much on anxiety in the first place.

    Can’t I Just Will It Away?

    I’m the first to admit to having fallen into this type of thinking in the past.

    Whenever I would grow overly anxious before a game or experience anxiety in my daily life (which was all too often), my natural response was to try and force the anxiety out.

    But that only worsened the problem. I remember feeling the anxiety actually grow within the more I tried to get it out.

    So why do we continue to believe we can rid ourselves of anxiety through focusing on it?

    The main reason is due to the fact we are anxious people in the first place. Do you know how hard it is to stop thinking about something? Especially when that which has captured your attention is as powerful an emotion as anxiety.

    So, one, the easiest option is to grow anxious over the anxiety, thus focusing on trying to will it away. Two, anxiety is a scary feeling. Having uncontrollable thoughts that lead to a dizzying feeling of dread is not fun.

    As a result, we try to get rid of it as quickly as we can. Removing our attention from the anxiety and trusting in some other technique does not feel as safe as simply focusing on how terribly we feel and hoping the anxiety will go away.

    But as I already said, giving too much attention to our anxiety only makes it worse. So, what can we do instead? The answer lies in attention, the shifting of attention that is.

    The Power of Shifting Your Attention

    Since we know where we place our attention is where our energy will be directed, a shift in focus can drastically improve our mental state.

    When I questioned whether I was focusing too much on my anxiety, it became clear to me that I was obsessing over why I experienced it, where it came from, and how I could get rid of it.

    So, I decided to make a switch and instead, give my attention to how I wanted to feel. This meant focusing on ways to feel confident, relaxed, and so on.

    Do you see the major difference? Understanding that everything is heightened based on how much attention we give it, you realize it’s only hurting you further to focus on what you don’t want.

    Once you accept the anxiety you feel, it’s now time to turn your attention onto how you wish to feel instead. Always focus on things in the affirmative rather than the negative. Pay attention to how you want to feel, not how you don’t want to feel.

    To become more relaxed and confident I employed the use of meditation and visualization.

    Using Meditation and Visualization to Train Focus

    I sit for mindfulness meditation twice a day and just relish in the moment.

    I have found the practice so powerful in training my mind to focus on the present moment. Not only has it taught me to give attention to feeling relaxed and calm, but the more present I am, the less anxiety I feel.

    That’s because anxiety, by definition, is a child of the future. To feel anxious means you are worried about what may happen or something not happening the way you wish.

    To practice mindfulness meditation, simply follow these steps:

    1. Get into a comfortable position with your back straight. I prefer sitting on my knees, but feel free to sit in a chair if that’s more comfortable.

    2. Set your timer. You do not want to be wondering if you’ve meditated long enough. Give yourself five to ten minutes if you’re a beginner. Choose a calming alarm, as you don’t want to be startled out of your mindful state.

    3. Close your eyes and begin breathing deeply and rhythmically. Focus on your breath and as your mind wanders, simply return your focus, without judgment. Thoughts will keep coming. The goal isn’t to stop them. It’s to allow and observe them, then let them pass.

    I also use mindfulness is during the day. Whenever I feel anxious, I’ll pause and take a few breaths to center myself in the present.

    I usually add some count breathing into this—breathing in for a count of five and out for ten.

    Visualization has been an equally powerful tool in training my mind to manage worrisome thoughts.

    After my meditation is complete and I’m relaxed, I visualize myself full of confidence, calm, and relaxed in different scenarios where I typically feel anxious.

    Once again, I am not seeing myself as not anxious, but rather as the way I wish to be.

    Usually, I’ll decide on one situation each day and visualize it in detail—what’s going on in my environment, who’s around me, what they’re doing. This allows me to mentally practice facing these situations with ease.

    Throughout the day, whenever I feel anxious, I bring this image back into my mind, reminding myself to operate off my ideal vision of myself rather than my past conditioning.

    These techniques have been tremendously helpful in shifting my attention off anxiety. And the less attention I give to feeling anxious, the less hold anxiety has on my life.

    If you are struggling with anxiety, I encourage you to ask yourself the same question I did, “Am I focusing too much on my anxiety?” You might be surprised by how your anxiety eases when you stop giving it so much attention.

  • A Natural Approach to Mental Health: How to Reduce Anxiety Through Gardening

    A Natural Approach to Mental Health: How to Reduce Anxiety Through Gardening

    “When the world feels like an emotional roller coaster, steady yourself with simple rituals. Do the dishes. Fold the laundry. Water the plants. Simplicity attracts wisdom.” ~Unknown

    I’ve suffered from anxiety since my childhood, but it was only seven years ago that I was formally diagnosed.

    My symptoms began to get worse after my long-term relationship ended and I felt like my world had collapsed around me.

    I was suffering from extreme fatigue, having trouble concentrating, not sleeping well, and I was constantly worrying.

    Over the next couple of years my mental health continued to deteriorate, and I had trouble finding the energy or motivation to get through the day.

    Eventually, I quit my high-stress government job and moved back to my hometown to live with my elderly mother.

    I was unemployed for the first time in my life, and I struggled to find a reason to get out of bed in the mornings.

    I was prescribed medication for my anxiety, but I suffered from weight gain and other side effects from the treatment.

    After seeing no improvement from the medication, I decided to try healing myself naturally.

    I sought advice from a variety of different practitioners including a naturopath, herbalist, and kinesiologist, which helped a bit, but I was still worrying excessively, having negative thoughts and occasional panic attacks.

    I’d read about the benefits of gardening for mental health, so one day I decided to tackle the overgrown mess in the corner of my mom’s backyard.

    At first the task seemed overwhelming, but I spent about fifteen to twenty minutes each day digging up weeds, and after a week it was looking like a proper garden again.

    I wasn’t an experienced gardener, so I did some research to find out which vegetables were the easiest to grow.

    I settled on lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchinis and I bought the seedlings from my local nursery.

    As well as the plants, I also installed a small bird bath so I could watch the birds while I was out in the garden.

    I really enjoyed watching the birds splashing around, so my next project was to make a bird feeder so I could attract more birds to the yard.

    Healing was a gradual process, and it took a few months before I noticed that my symptoms were improving.

    I was feeling calmer and more centered, and I wasn’t worrying about every little thing.

    The garden is now my sanctuary and the place where I feel the most peaceful.

    Gardening has many physical and mental health benefits including:

    Mindfulness

    When I’m out in the garden my mind is fully focused on the task at hand, so I’m not stressing about things from the past or what’s going on in my life at the time.

    I make an effort to appreciate and admire the beauty of the plants, and it’s really satisfying to watch them grow from tiny seedlings into mature plants.

    As well as vegetables, I’m now also growing herbs and a variety of different flowers, which are great for attracting bees and butterflies to the garden.

    Strength

    When my anxiety was at its worst, I had no energy or motivation to exercise. Even just doing the bare minimum tasks like showering and cooking left me drained.

    As I started spending more and more time in the garden, I noticed that my energy was improving and my body was getting stronger from all the bending, weeding, and digging I was doing.

    Sunshine

    Being out in the beautiful sunshine lifts my mood and it’s a great source of vitamin D, which can help to reduce the symptoms of anxiety and depression, while also boosting the immune system.

    Nutrition

    Being able to harvest beautiful fresh herbs and vegetables from my garden inspired me to try new, healthier recipes so I was eating better than I had in years.

    The crisp lettuce and juicy tomatoes straight from the garden were so much more flavorful than anything I’d tasted from the grocery store, and I’m sure they were much more nutritious as well.

    If you have the space in your backyard to create a little garden, I’d definitely recommend giving it a try.

    What if you don’t have a garden?

    Try container gardening.

    There are many different vegetables that can be grown in containers including radishes, peppers, lettuce, spinach, and other salad greens.

    Get some indoor plants.

    Indoor plants are great for bringing a touch of nature indoors, and there are lots of compact plants that are ideal for apartments like succulents, air plants, or African violets.

    If you have more space, you could try a peace lily, rubber plant, or prayer plant.

    Create a windowsill garden.

    If you have a nice, sunny windowsill you could start a small herb garden with parsley, chives, and thyme.

    Herbs are fast growing, easy to care for and great for adding flavor to your meals.

    Join a community garden.

    Community gardens are popping up all over the place in cities around the country, and they’re great for meeting likeminded people who can share their gardening experience with you.

    Spend time in nature.

    If you’re not a green thumb you can still get the benefits of plants by getting out in nature.

    Try going for a hike if you have trails nearby, take a walk around your local park, visit a botanical garden or read a book underneath a tree.

    Next time you feel stressed or anxious, try surrounding yourself with plants and see if it helps you to feel calmer.

    Whether it’s caring for a small house plant, creating a garden of your own, or simply spending more time in nature, your mental health will benefit from having plants around you.

    I hope this has inspired you to give gardening a try!

  • How I Overcame My Chronic Digestive Issues by Learning to Breathe Right

    How I Overcame My Chronic Digestive Issues by Learning to Breathe Right

    “If you know the art of deep breathing, you have the strength, wisdom and courage of ten tigers.” ~Chinese adage

    Let me share a little secret: I started healing from decades of debilitating chronic digestive issues when I stopped looking for the next best solution and trying to heal. Instead, I did nothing. And I took a breath.

    Let’s start at the beginning. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease (an irritable bowel disease) at the age of eighteen, which would have marked the beginning of my oh-so-anticipated adult life, but instead, I thought my life was over.

    I had every symptom you can imagine—constant bloating, diarrhea, non-stop pain that would keep me bed-ridden for days. There were nights when I would fall asleep hugging my toilet. I could not keep food down and lost twenty-two pounds.

    My dream of going out and having fun with friends, stuffing our bellies with fondue and wine (typical French dish—I was living in Paris at that time) and so many more experiences I was anticipating, were slipping away from me. Instead, a painful, horrible reality was settling in fast.

    After being given medication for life and the advice to “manage my stress” by doctors, suffering from side effects from the treatment with no signs of getting better, I became my own wellness warrior.

    For a decade I went on a crusade for the “right” answer. I experimented with so many diets—the elimination diet, the low FODMAP diet; I quit carbs, then reintroduced them but took out gluten and dairy, while sitting in the lotus position as much as possible to reduce my stress and manage my anxiety. Sound familiar?

    Yet I had no real, sustainable improvements. My flares kept coming back. I realized healing had become my identity. I was desperately trying, looking for the next best wellness promise that would alleviate my symptoms.

    It was exhausting, but I desperately wanted to feel better.

    To not be afraid that any food, as healthy as it may be, would trigger a parade of symptoms. To not have to go to a meeting thirty minutes early to ensure I got the seat closest to the bathroom. To not be defined by my bowel disease and to live my life to the fullest.

    The day I had my first “pooping accident” in the middle of dinner with friends I realized something had to change.

    My quest for the best solution to heal my gut was so desperate, obsessive, and life-consuming that I almost stopped breathing. And when I took the time to take a step back and do nothing, it dawned on me: I had been so disconnected from my body that I literally did not remember how to breathe. 

    I don’t know if my anxiety affected my breathing pattern, which exacerbated my gut disease, or whether my gut disease caused my stress and anxiety, which changed my breathing pattern.

    Either way, a digestive issue, in any form, has as its main root cause what is going on in our head: our self-talk, our stress triggers, more than the foods we eat.

    The connection between our gut and our mind is strong and undeniable. Our digestive tract has its own nervous system and it sends constant information to our brain, our central nervous system.

    We’ve all said to ourselves or to others “trust your gut,” “go with your gut,” “I have a bad / good gut feeling.” It is literally the nervous system in your digestive tract sending signals to your brain that something is wrong or right!

    Similarly, we’ve all heard about foods that help balance our gut microbiome (the trillions of organisms that live in our gut)—fermented foods, probiotics, clean fiber-rich foods to feed our good bacteria. But how often do we hear about our true gut feelings—fear, anxiety, sadness, dread—that can actually kill all the bacteria in our gut we tried so hard to feed through nutrition? And how do we diminish them?

    If we focus on just nutrition to lower the symptoms of the gut, it is only one part of the picture. We have to look at our whole body and ourselves as a whole person. So by also focusing on diminishing stress, anxiety, and depression we can reverse the issues in our digestive system.

    Beginning to Breathe the Right Way

    Eventually, after seven years, I became tired from outsourcing my healing powers to “experts,” and I realized that the solution was not in another medication or diet but rather in my own hands. I took some time to listen to my body and to my breath. I had to re-learn how to breathe right to be re-connected to my body (and my gut).

    I noticed that what goes on in my brain is felt by my gut. When I felt stressed, my gut felt it too. Friends and family advised me to chill out or relax, but if you are dealing with a life situation that is super stressful, it’s hard to know where to start.

    So I took the first step and put one hand on my belly, the other resting on my diaphragm, and gave them love. I told myself, “I am safe, and I trust my body will guide me toward the path to wellness.” I focused on my breath as my belly rose and my diaphragm followed, and as I exhaled, I let go of every thought that was holding me back from my true healing.

    At first, I was overwhelmed with emotions of sadness and self-blame. How could I have let myself become so disconnected from my own body, my own breath? But as I stayed with these feelings and focused on my breath, I reconnected with my body in an unprecedented way. I felt strong, vibrant, and grounded in a way that I had never experienced before. I developed faith that that my body is a beautiful tool that knows what it needs to heal.

    If given half a chance, the body will heal itself by itself. We just need to stop and let it.

    I moved from being obsessed with healing to a space of not trying to heal, of doing nothing, and that is where my healing started. That state of “nothing” allows the little voice in your gut to come out—first quiet, injured, and confused and then a little clearer and more resilient each day.

    That is the voice that you need to acknowledge. Get familiar with it. Learn to trust it. Because this is where your healing and the life of your dreams begin.

    How to Optimize the Power of Your Breath to Benefit Your Gut

    1. Recognize stress.

    Stress manifests in various ways. You might experience it when you cook and your children are wrapped around your ankle, or when you have to spend time with someone you don’t want to see.

    Whatever causes you stress, you will be able to tackle it when you learn to recognize the first signals of stress in your body: a racing heart, irritable bowel, sweating, redness in your face, muscle tension, or jaw clenching.

    Take some time during the day to check in with how you are feeling.

    Go to a quiet place even for two minutes. Put your feet on the ground and feel the sensation of groundedness. Imagine you are at the roots of a big, majestic tree. Do you feel tingling in your hands, a burden on your chest, a pounding in your head?

    Do you experience feelings of anger? Fear? Joy? Anxiety? Happiness?

    Stay with these feelings. Tell yourself that you are safe. Breathe through those feelings and sensations.

    When we slow down and breathe mindfully we are allowing the mind to unpack the stress that can stimulate gut irritation.

    2. Get out of your head and into your body.

    I used to feel anxious and fearful about being in debilitating pain for the rest of my life. I wanted to stop feeling this way so bad. We all want to get rid of uncomfortable feelings as quickly as possible, but this can actually create more anxiety. Stress and anxiety disconnect you from your body, and you get cut off from emotion and intuition.

    It’s natural to feel fearful or anxious when something stressful happens, or we’re thinking about what’s going to happen in the future. But if we focus on what could go wrong, we catastrophize and our internal monologue can derail us.

    It’s important that you don’t criticize yourself for these feelings. Instead, love yourself through it by saying, “This is a normal response to my circumstances, which are stressful or difficult. It’s okay to feel this way.”

    Then do something to get out of your head and into your body. Do some light stretches, take a walk, dance to your favorite song. Anything that gets you physically moving will help you stop obsessing and dwelling.

    3. Calm anxiety by accepting it.

    When we let anxiety run its course without fighting it, it reduces. Fighting the feeling of anxiety is what can trigger a panic attack.

    You may have heard of the phrase “what you resist persists,” and you may have experienced it.

    Recognize and understand your anxiety: Tell yourself, “I feel anxious and nervous because I’m worried about …”

    Then, just breathe: Inhale and exhale slowly for several deep breaths.

    As you continue with this practice, you will get in tune with your body and learn to trust it.

    4. Learn to breathe the right way.

    How are you breathing? Through your mouth or your nose? Maybe you haven’t ever noticed how you breathe. That was me for so long until I started paying attention.

    We should be breathing through our nose. Breathing through our mouth tends to stimulate upper chest breathing, which is more shallow. It places our body in a state of stress, which increases inflammation. When we breathe through our nose, we breathe calming breaths through our diaphragm.

    Studies have shown that when we breathe through our diaphragm we are massaging our internal organs, including our intestine, reducing inflammation.

    Breathing through the nose allows us to breathe more efficiently and stay in a state where the body can heal itself.

    How Should We Start Breathing Correctly?

    Become aware of how you are breathing throughout the day. When you catch yourself breathing through your mouth, switch and breathe through your nose. If you feel stressed or anxious, that is an indication that you are breathing through your mouth.

    Try breathing through your nose as much of the time as possible. The more you practice it, the more you’ll train yourself to calm down quickly.

    Next time your physical symptoms arise, instead of looking for the next best solution and trying to heal, creating stress and anxiety, take a breath and ask your body: What do you need to heal?

    Then listen to the signs it gives you, as it is the perfect medicine for you.

  • How Perfectionism and Anxiety Made Me Sick and What I Wish I Knew Sooner

    How Perfectionism and Anxiety Made Me Sick and What I Wish I Knew Sooner

    “Perfectionism is the exhausting state of pretending to know it all and have it all together, all the time. I’d rather be a happy mess than an anxious stress case who’s always trying to hide my flaws and mistakes.” ~Lori Deschene 

    “That’s not how you do it!” I slammed the door as I headed outside, making sure my husband understood what an idiot he was. He’d made the appalling mistake of roasting potatoes for Thanksgiving instead of making stuffing.

    He was cooking while I studied, trying to make sure I got a semblance of a holiday. We lived away from our families, and I had exams coming up. I was on the verge of losing it most of the time—and he was walking on eggshells. Or roasted potatoes.

    I was in my first year of law school. Every student knows that if you look to your left and then to your right that one of those people won’t be there next year—they will have dropped out or failed. I was terrified of failing.

    Every morning, I had a pounding headache that no amount of painkillers touched. My shoulders sat permanently around my ears (try it, you’ll see what I mean). I had insomnia, was highly irritable, and often felt panicked. 

    My friendly barista made me a triple vanilla latte each morning at 7:00, and by 10:00, I was out of energy. I bought Red Bull by the case to get through the rest of the day, and in the evening, I’d switch to red wine. My digestive system was distressed to say the least.

    I was hustling so hard, trying to get it all right. And then, I got a C on my Torts midterm. And sobbed for three days.

    I know this must sound ridiculous. A big part of me thought it was. I beat myself up for being such a “drama queen” and not being able to move past it.

    But at the time it was devastating. My sense of self-worth was so inherently tied to my achievements that I felt like a giant failure.

    I didn’t tell anyone. I was too embarrassed. What would they think of someone who got that upset?

    I knew that I appeared to be highly functioning externally, and that was something. I had friends, I went out to dinner, I went to the gym, I walked on the beach. Internally, though, I was in turmoil.

    My husband encouraged me to go to the doctor. He could see how hard I was on myself and how it was impacting me. As I relayed my physical symptoms, she asked whether I was under much stress. I replied, “No, not really. Just the usual.”

    I didn’t know what to tell her. Partly because I’d lived much of my life this way and didn’t know it was anxiety, partly because I felt so out of control, partly because I was ashamed, partly because I assumed she’d only be able to help with the physical.

    And … part of me knew that saying it out loud would shatter the illusion of having it all together. 

    So, I went away with a diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome. It wasn’t funny, but it makes me laugh now. My bowel was definitely irritable, but that irritability was nothing compared to what was going on in my head. It was a piece of the problem, but certainly not the whole problem.

    It wasn’t so long ago that I figured out I’d struggled with anxiety for a long time before I even knew what it was. Like many of us, I learned that if a feeling wasn’t “positive,” it wasn’t acceptable. So I stuffed down all the “negative” emotions we’re not supposed to have: fear, rage, jealousy, and sadness.

    Because I’m a highly sensitive person, I have a lot of big, deep feelings. A lot to shove down, or suppress, deny or project. I was good at this, and I looked down on people who expressed their feelings.

    I thought they must be needy. The truth is, I was scared of my feelings. And I didn’t know I had needs.

    Rather than daring to let either my feelings or needs show, I used perfectionism to make it seem like I had it all together. Perfectionism made me feel like an anxious mess. But I couldn’t admit that because it would be acknowledging a problem.

    That makes it hard to ask for help. It’s also exhausting. As Lori Deschene said in her quote at the beginning, “I’d rather be a happy mess than an anxious stress case always trying to hide my flaws and mistakes.”

    Life is hard enough without stressing about how we appear to everyone else. It’s just not worth it. When I allow myself to be fully human, I can laugh at myself, talk about my struggles, and show up in my imperfections. It makes life so much easier.

    Here are five things I wish I’d known earlier:

    1. Perfection is unattainable because it can’t be quantified.

    What is perfection anyway? Do we actually know? I don’t.

    It’s something I kept setting up for myself—an arbitrary standard I thought I was supposed to meet. But once I’d achieved something, I was already looking for the next thing.

    Where does it end? It doesn’t, and that’s the problem.

    2. No one looks back on their life and wishes they’d had worse relationships.

    This seems obvious, but it’s something I think about. I don’t know if I’ll ever completely untie my self-worth from my achievements, or find an amazing balance where I feel fulfilled yet not striving. Maybe? One can hope.

    I do know that when I’m on my deathbed, that’s not what’s going to matter. My people will matter. And I don’t want my striving or perfectionist tendencies to get in the way of those important relationships.

    3. Anxiety feels very real, and it’s just a feeling.⁠

    If you’ve experienced anxiety you’ll know how awful it feels. For me, it’s a racing heart, shaking hands, flushed face, and a feeling of dread.

    It’s important to remind yourself to breathe. And to keep breathing. It will pass.

    Anxiety is fear, and fear can’t hurt you, as much as it can seem like it might.

    4. Anxiety is the stress response in action. It’s physiological and nothing to be ashamed of.

    Anxiety was my brain telling my body that it believed there was a dangerous situation. That’s it.

    While the fear of falling short is hardly a saber toothed tiger running toward you (as our cavemen ancestors had to worry about), my brain didn’t know the difference. And where’s the big stigma in that? To be clear, I believe there should be no stigma around mental health either, but I’m painfully aware that there is.

    Reminding myself there was no tiger, and thus no real danger, was useful.

    5. Imagining the worst in every situation isn’t as helpful as you’d think.

    Going straight to the worst-case scenario did seem helpful at the time. On some level, I believed if I could plan for the worst, I’d be prepared for it. But it can also create a lot of unnecessary anxiety about unlikely (even extremely unlikely) possibilities.

    For example:

    “If I get a C, I’m not going to make it through the first year. I’ll get kicked out. That would be a disaster. It also means I’m a failure. People might pity me. They will definitely think differently of me.”

    Helpful thoughts would have been:

    “If I get a C, that means … I got a C. Nothing more. Perhaps I could learn differently. Perhaps I could seek extra help. Or perhaps I could remember that I’m doing my best and that is enough.”

    Unravelling what fuels anxiety, learning to manage it differently, and being able to extend a lot of compassion to myself has been a journey. Wherever you’re at with yours, I hope something here makes a difference for you.

  • How I’ve Eased My Anxiety by Being More Present: 4 Practices to Try

    How I’ve Eased My Anxiety by Being More Present: 4 Practices to Try

    “Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.” ~Oprah Winfrey

    In 2012, during my community college years, I began to experience mild anxiety.

    I assume it was the stress and fear that came with maintaining a good GPA in hope of transferring to a well-known university, alongside deciding what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Or perhaps it was because of the time I knew I’d wasted slacking in high school to fit in with what I was surrounded by and to preserve my loud-mouthed drama-seeking status.

    The next few years, I thought about the past and future a lot, cried, and grasped for many breaths during anxiety attacks near the campus pond.

    In late 2016 I faced my first severe anxiety attack in the laundry room of my parents’ home while sitting against the washing machine and holding onto my legs curled up against my chest.

    For the first time ever, I felt a heavy pain in the core of my body as if there were rocks piling up all the way to my throat and closing my airway to breathe. I had never felt so disheartened, lost, empty, and hopeless.

    Soon, my anxiety attacks got to the point where I faced numbing and tingling sensations in my head, face, hands, and feet.

    It wasn’t until countless severe anxiety attacks in that I had a glimpse of awareness behind my ongoing stream of thoughts. I found that I was experiencing stress and fear about what had happened in the past or would happen in the future and realized that I’d lost the present moment.

    Many of us face day-to-day suffering through anxiety. We worry about progressing in our careers, getting an education, making a decent income, being there for our families, putting food on the table, and always working toward a means to an end.

    I realized that many of us are constantly on the run to the future trying to be certain about what’s next, and if we slip and fall along the way, we worry about why it happened, which takes us into the past—eventually emerging from an egoic-state of fears, wants, needs, and expectations. That was me.

    There’s always going to be something new that we’ll want, need, and expect while trying to stay up to par with the people and situations that surround us. We’ll spend a lot of time sulking over setbacks, failures, and loss. Ultimately, suffering from stress and anxiety will bury what we’re meant to experience, learn, and grow from in this moment, the present moment. Because we can’t fully immerse ourselves in this moment if we’re worrying about the next or regretting the one prior.

    I’ve spent the last few years exploring, reading, learning, and practicing how to heal stress and anxiety with the simple, yet profound practice of being present, conscious, and aware.

    With this practice, I’ve strengthened my ability to acknowledge and allow suffering to take its course when facing life’s inevitable difficulties and challenges.

    The following are a handful of ways I practice presence, which has not only dissolved my anxiety, but also awakened my gratitude for the great joy and peace we can experience once we become conscious and aware in this moment.

    4 Ways to Practice Presence

    1. Practice non-judgment, non-attachment, and non-resistance.

    You can lose yourself into the past and future when you’re judging, getting attached to, and resisting what is. This is because we become fixated on our wants, needs, and expectations of the moment instead of fully experiencing it. If we want to minimize our suffering, we need to be here in the present moment and allow what is to be and pass.

    I know this practice is easier said than done.

    I’ve had days where I was over the moon with immense joy during moments of achievements, when sharing laughs with family, and while celebrating milestones like my wedding. I also became attached, wanting the moments to last forever and feeling saddened that they had to come to an end.

    On the contrary, I’ve also had days where I felt gutted and devastated over the loss of my dad, and I couldn’t help but judge and resist the experience of losing him. I had expected him to be around for future milestones and heartfelt moments.

    Yet, I’ve learned that moments are undeniably and inevitably temporary. Joy doesn’t last forever, but neither does pain. Allow the painful moments to be and pass and truly savor the good ones with your presence and full attention.

    Practice being and experiencing this moment as it is without judgment, attachment, and resistance. Enjoy the good moments and learn and grow from the ones that aren’t that great.

    This will allow you to surrender to and accept the process and flow of life, which is the key to decreasing your suffering.

    2. Focus on your breath.

    Realize that you have no control over your past or future breath, only the one in this moment right now. Similarly, you have no control over what happened in the past and can never be certain of the future.

    In many experiences in life, from meditation, yoga, exercise regimes, and sports to childbirth and even suffering, we’re always reminded to just breathe. It’s the breath that guides us into the present moment where the actual being and doing is.

    Try your best to concentrate on the inhaling and exhaling momentum at a gentle and patient pace throughout your day. It’s a form of meditation that can be done anywhere and anytime to dissolve any stress and anxiety you face.

    I practice this throughout my day all the time whether I’m at work or on the couch, just to redirect my focus into the now, especially when I become aware of nonstop thoughts, which can set the stage for suffering.

    This practice brings you out of your head and into your body and allows you to immediately shift your focus away from your worries, fears, and regrets.

    3. Immerse yourself in nature.

    Have you ever felt immense peace while looking at the sunrise or sunset and a calmness when around trees, flowers, plants, rivers, lakes, and waterfalls?

    When you’re with nature, you instantly become connected to its stillness, silence, and simplicity.

    Even during the roughest storms, nature reminds us to become in sync with what is to allow the storm to take its course and pass.

    To be in nature, you don’t have to go far. Step into the backyard or take a walk around the block. Pay attention to the beauty of the flowers or the rustling wind in the trees and embrace the peace and joy that arises from it.

    You’ll find that nature truly has a way of reconnecting you to this moment.

    4. Be grateful and trust what is.

    So grateful, I whispered to myself as I stood outside in the backyard watching my puppy Oakley running back and forth on the grass, my husband playing with him and the sun setting.

    It would have been easy to lose myself to thoughts about what’s next and why I still at times feel lost and hopeless, but those thoughts never resolve how I feel and only ignite my anxiety. I decided to instead be grateful for the blessings in that moment, trust that what’s next will get here when it does, and for now, practice being present with what is.

    Be grateful for what is right now, even if you’re going through challenging times. Let your trust for the process be bigger than your fear, stress, and anxiety. When you trust the process, you tell life that you are one with its flow and allow the experience to make you stronger, teach you something new, and guide you onto a path of growth.

    Take a breath to recenter yourself into this moment and look around to see what you can appreciate. Perhaps it’s this blog, a family member, your pet, a plant, a cup of coffee, or a meal. Maybe it’s the sun or rain.

    It’s easier to let go of the past and stop trying to control the future when you’re fully immersed in the now. Whatever your life entails in this moment, be present with it, because that is the ultimate path to healing and finding your power in life.

  • It’s Okay to Feel Scared: How to Stand Up to Fear by Standing Down

    It’s Okay to Feel Scared: How to Stand Up to Fear by Standing Down

    “It’s okay to be scared. Being scared means you’re about to do something really, really brave.” ~Mandy Hale

    When it comes to plane travel, I frequently quip: “I’m not a nervous flier, but my bladder is.”

    In a way, this is true. Aside from brief freak-out moments when there’s a patch of turbulence or when a flash from my catalog of gruesome “what-if” scenarios forces its way into my mind’s eye, I remain blissfully disconnected from my fear. Meanwhile, my bladder takes the brunt of it, with hourly pit-stops to the lavatory alongside a persistent, dull ache.

    While this is physically annoying, my strategy has its utility: it conveniently shifts the blame and shame for my irrational fear onto my bladder so that I don’t have to face up to it. (Otherwise known as somatizing my emotions, if you or my therapist want to get technical.)

    So, as you might imagine, when I recently boarded my first plane flight in two years amidst a still-very-present Covid pandemic, my bladder felt even twitchier than usual. Especially at the abrupt jolt of going from socializing at a distance to being packed like sardines into a confined space with a bunch of breathing, coughing, possibly infectious humans.

    At least, that is, until a little boy said something heart-stopping.

    A Cry for Help

    No more than six years old, the slender boy with a mop of golden-blonde hair had just clambered into the window seat of the empty row in front of me, trailing his white satin-trimmed fleece pillow and blanket.

    While the boy fiddled with his seat belt, I noticed that his mother and grandmother—each equally youngish-looking with lemony hair and tanned skin—were still lingering in the aisle, conversing in hushed tones. As I casually eavesdropped, I learned that they were debating which of them would sit with the boy versus with the rest of the family located several rows up.

    At first, I cursed my luck to be seated right behind a kid too young to be vaccinated or keep his mask up. Thanks a lot, universe, I grumbled internally.

    But as his mother began walking away to sit with her younger child (presumably expecting that her older son was in good hands with his grandmother), the boy wriggled upward in his seat, shoulders tensed, assessing the situation. Then, he called out quite loudly, without a hint of self-consciousness or shame: “Mom, I want you to sit here with me, because I’m scared and I need you.”

    Instantly, the radius of chatter around Row ten fell mute.

    Like a silent lightening strike, the boy’s words charged the atmosphere with an almost electric energy. For two long seconds, they hung there in the air above us, almost too sacred to desecrate with sound. During that time, I swear, you could practically feel our collective hearts opening. Then, a sincere chorus of “Awww”s and “Bless his heart”s rang out, cushioning the silence.

    A Permission Slip

    As I marveled at what had just transpired, I realized that, in one simple sentence, this young boy had done something remarkable: he’d given us permission to be human.

    After all, how many times had many of us felt just as fearful in life yet pretended we didn’t? How many times had we wanted to cry in the midst of overwhelm (if not wail like hell for our mommies), yet told ourselves to “buck up” or “be an adult”? And how many times had we rushed to the side of a friend in need yet readily denied ourselves this small grace?

    Perhaps the reason the little boy’s words stirred us so deeply, it struck me, was that he reminded us of what we already knew yet stubbornly denied: Of the power in vulnerability. Of the courage in asking for support. Of the importance of honoring our feelings, especially our fear—meeting it with acceptance, rather than my preferred method of hastily swatting it away like a poisonous wasp.

    Meeting Fear with Acceptance

    Fortunately, the boy’s mother was much more adept at dealing with fear than me.

    Making a beeline back to her son’s side, she enveloped him in a warm embrace, murmuring, “I’m so sorry, honey. It’s okay, I’m here for you,” (a relational repair that was powerful in itself).

    Spying through the narrow slat between our seats, I watched as the boy’s shoulders immediately unknotted. Seconds later, he began chattering to his mother about the character on his video game player—his fear a seemingly distant memory.

    It was then that I realized something even more remarkable: to the boy, the preceding moment was likely just an ordinary moment.

    Too young to be fully conditioned by our cultural garbage around fear or gender “norms,” he had no idea that he’d done anything profound, much less impacted a plane full of people much older and “wiser” than him. He was simply acknowledging his fear and taking care of himself.

    Okay, Lisa, I told myself. If that little boy can unabashedly proclaim for all to hear that he’s scared, then the least I can do is acknowledge my own fear to myself.

    Especially considering that, the very day before, a beloved teacher of mine had providentially reminded me about the power of acknowledgement. How, oftentimes, just acknowledging our feelings can considerably ease our unease. And sometimes, she claimed, it’s the only thing we need to do.

    Huh, I realized with a wink to the universe. You’re giving me an opportunity to practice this right now, aren’t you?

    And so, I did. Closing my eyes as the plane taxied down the runway, I felt into my fear and whispered: Okay, fear. I see you. I hear you. And it’s okay that you’re here. In fact, it would probably be abnormal not to feel you on my first post-pandemic plane ride after two years of semi-hermitude.

    From there, I stayed quiet and present in my body. I didn’t try to do anything with the fear, other than “stand down” so that its stifled energy could move through me.

    A minute or so later, wouldn’t you know it, the tight ball of yarn that was my bladder muscle magically slackened. Even my abdomen, I noted, no longer bloated out like I was carrying a small fetus. My entire body felt lighter too, as if I’d released a leaden weight I didn’t know I was carrying. Holy moly! I boggled, gazing down at my body in both awe and glee.

    “Alrighty, folks,” the captain’s disembodied voice announced over the PA system just then. “We’re about to head out, so sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.”

    Grinning to myself, I silently replied in my head: You know what? I think I will.

    *A Magical Postscript*

    Incredibly, the story doesn’t end there.

    Toward the end of the flight, I tentatively caught the attention of the boy’s grandmother, whose name I’d soon learn was Beverly.

    “Um, pardon me,” I started, “but I’m a writer, and I was so inspired by what your grandson said before the flight that I actually just wrote an article about it!”

    “Oh, really?” Beverly replied in surprise, my unanticipated admission taking a few seconds to sink in. Then, her surprise gave way to delight, as her eyes crinkled into a smile above her mask and she added, “Wow, that’s so wonderful!”

    “I’m happy to email it to you if you like,” I continued, “but I really just wanted to thank your family. For providing such a powerful moment for me—as I’m sure it was for many others.”

    “Well, let me tell you something,” Beverly responded, leaning toward me with an unanticipated admission of her own. “That moment was a bigger deal than you know. You see, my grandson has autism, and for him it was a very big deal to express his feelings like that.”

    Straightaway, goosebumps traveled up and down my arms. Of course, the writer in me couldn’t help but be tickled by the added significance to the story. But the real eye-opener for me was the extent of my own ignorance. That I assumed the moment was important to everyone but the boy. That I assumed there was only one “giver” and one “receiver” in the equation. As if the universe ever worked that way.

    When the plane touched down soon after, tears sprang to my eyes as the full-circle nature of the experience hit me.

    Thank you, universe, I humbly mouthed—this time meaning it.

  • I Thought Meditation Would Fix My Anxiety – Here’s Why It Wasn’t Enough

    I Thought Meditation Would Fix My Anxiety – Here’s Why It Wasn’t Enough

    “Your mind, emotions, and body are instruments and the way you align and tune them determines how well you play life.” ~Harbhajan Singh Yogi

    The earliest memory of my anxiety was at ten years old in fifth grade.

    I remember it so vividly because in middle school the bus came at 6:22am exactly in the morning.

    Each night I would look at my Garfield clock and think, “If I fall asleep now, I’ll get five hours of sleep…. If I fall asleep now, I’ll get four hours of sleep… If I fall asleep now, I’ll get three hours of sleep…”

    And without fail, my sister would slam my door open at 6:15 because my alarm didn’t wake me, yelling that we’re going to miss the bus, and this is the last time she’s going to wake me up.

    I didn’t know I had anxiety.

    When my doctor asked my mother, “How is she sleeping?” the answer was always “She’s never been much of a sleeper.” And that was that.

    Or when I couldn’t concentrate in school and do my homework, the “answer” was ADHD and I was given medication, which helped a little but didn’t solve the problem.

    In high school, the anxiety about going to school was worse. I couldn’t eat breakfast because I was too nauseous in the morning from stress.

    By college, my TMJ was so bad that there were months when I could barely open my mouth because my jaw was so tight. I had started scraping at my knuckles with a dull butter knife as a physical distraction from the angry swirl of anxiety in my stomach.

    More of this as the years went on.

    In my late twenties, after panic attacks that sent me to the emergency room, codependent relationships driven by the fear of rejection, and a wreck of a body with daily tension headaches, stomach issues, and a barely existent immune system… I finally figured out that this was all anxiety.

    It was starting to make sense why my pursuit of symptom relief for all my physical ailments was not working—I wasn’t getting to the root of the problem.

    In came meditation into my life.

    And it helped—a lot!

    It helped calm me. It taught me how to breathe properly. It gave me time every day to care for myself.

    And because I was also practicing yoga, eating a healthy, vegetarian diet, going to the gym, smoking pot, and taking medication, my anxiety symptoms improved. But my anxiety didn’t go away… yet.

    Without really understanding what anxiety is and why meditation helps (and what is missing from the equation), I was stuck from progressing further in my recovery.

    What is Anxiety, Really?

    We often confuse stress and anxiety.

    Stress is an important bodily system.

    Stress happens when a triggering event (like a bear or a tight deadline) activates our sympathetic nervous system to send cortisol and adrenaline through our body so that we can fight or flee our situation in order to keep ourselves safe.

    It diverts energy and resources from “non-essential” systems like digestion and reproductive and immune systems so that it can divert it to our heart, lungs, and large muscles.

    This is a reaction that lasts give or take twenty minutes (or until the immediate danger is no longer present).

    Anxiety is when our thoughts continually activate our stress response.

    While our bodies are built to recover from acute stress, they were not built for prolonged stress.

    And that’s why we end up with symptoms like:

    • Exhaustion
    • Muscle tension
    • Gastro-intestinal disorders
    • Immune suppression
    • Fertility and menstrual disorders
    • Headaches
    • (and like a hundred other things)

    How Meditation Can Help with Anxiety

    Like I said, I was definitely seeing the benefits of meditation, but I wasn’t seeing more progress with my anxiety.

    That’s when I realized I had to change how I meditated and learned how to “practice” even when I wasn’t meditating.

    Meditation is more than just focusing on your breath. It is a training exercise for your mind.

    The goal isn’t to relax (though that is often a wonderful side effect), it is to change your relationship with the thoughts that come into your head.

    That was the first lesson that made a world of difference in my practice, learning that “you are not your thoughts.” It blew my mind at first, but then it made sense. I have thoughts. I have ideas, stories, and sentences constructed by my brain to try to explain a situation. They are not me or the truth, just neurons firing off ideas.

    A focused-attention meditation, like mindfulness meditation, teaches us three main things: notice, acknowledge, and redirect.

    When we meditate, we notice when our attention has been taken away from our focal point (like our breath).

    Then we acknowledge this without judgment, maybe even label what we were thinking about like “planning” or “worrying.”

    And then we gently release our hold on that thought and redirect our attention back to where we want it—our breath.

    This process of noticing, acknowledging, and redirecting teaches us how to:

    • Be in the present moment
    • Become consciously aware of our thoughts
    • Choose curiosity over judgment
    • Practice self-compassion and patience
    • Let go of control

    These are all skills essential to learning how to relate differently to the thoughts that cause our anxiety.

    Once I started thinking of meditation as practice—like football practice—I began to realize that each two, five, or twenty-minute session of meditation was really preparing my mind to handle the real-world stressors off of my meditation cushion.

    So, when I texted a friend and she didn’t text back (an old trigger of mine), I was learning how to:

    • Notice: “Ah, I’m feeling anxious because I am thinking the reason she hasn’t replied is because she doesn’t like me as much as I like her, and I’m believing that her reply would prove that I am good enough and likable.”
    • Acknowledge: “This is an uncomfortable feeling, but I will allow it to be here until it has passed. Even though she hasn’t replied, I choose to love and accept myself.”
    • Redirect: “I open to the possibility that her lack of reply could have another explanation—she may be busy or sick or forgot to reply. I can wait or I can message her again. Even if she is angry with me, I can make amends because I am a good person.”

    Instead of swirling down the rabbit hole of “what is wrong with me?”, I was learning to recognize these thoughts as just ideas that my brain served up based on a habit I’d cultivated after years of believing I wasn’t good enough.

    While this understanding didn’t stop me from having those thoughts, it reduced them, and it taught me to change my relationship with them. Instead of believing them as truth, I was now able to see them for what they are—a defense mechanism to try and keep me safe.

    But even after I understood that meditation is really a training practice, I was still missing an important piece of how it can help with anxiety.

    Even though I had made huge strides with my anxiety, I still kept feeling some of the physical symptoms that went along with it like tightness in my chest and a constriction in my throat.

    This is when I learned that meditation engages our parasympathetic nervous system—our rest and digest mode.

    We have a sympathetic nervous system to engage our defenses, and a parasympathetic nervous system to disengage that defense system.

    That’s why we often find meditation relaxing. Anxiety keeps our fight-or-flight mode engaged, so by slowing down, focusing on the breath, and relaxing our body, we’re able to tell our nervous system that we’re safe and it’s okay to chill out.

    Our Emotions Get Stored in our Bodies

    Even though I’d made huge progress in disengaging from anxious thoughts, and I was able to stop believing the ideas that “I’m not good enough and no one likes me,” I still felt that physical anxiety tension in my body.

    That’s the piece that was missing for me for many years—the knowledge that our emotions get stored in our physical body. By that I mean we carry a muscle memory of how our body responded to our stress triggers in the past.

    Have you ever had a meeting coming up that you know you are ready for, yet still you feel nervous? Or you try to relax, and you have nothing to be stressed about, yet your body is still tense? That’s what I’m talking about.

    While meditation helped me reduce these physical symptoms, I still held that tension. I came to realize that we each need find the right tools for us—beyond meditation—to continually and regularly engage our calming systems.

    There are lots of ways to do that. Practicing yoga, walking or dancing, laughing, singing, petting a cute puppy… all of which helped me some.

    There are other embodiment practices as well that can send sensory information directly to our vagus nerve (a huge part of our parasympathetic system) that we are safe and we can relax

    I found it fascinating to learn that it is our nervous system that creates our muscle tension. For example, if you were put under anesthesia, your muscles would go limp. Once you woke up, your nervous system would remember where it was tense and tighten back up.

    This feeling of physical tension sends a signal back up to our brains that we are not completely safe, and that’s why it’s hard to shake that feeling of anxiety even when all is well.

    The practices in addition to meditation that helped me personally to release that lingering tension were things like:

    • Acupuncture (I had a huge physical release after a session once that blew my mind!)
    • Tapping (EFT)
    • Reiki
    • Kundalini breathwork
    • And a few simple vagal nerve stimulation practices that send sensory information directly to the nervous system

    One example of vagal nerve activation is to lie on the floor with your nose pointed toward the ceiling. Using just your eyes, look to the right and hold the gaze until you notice a shift in your energy, a need to swallow, a sigh, or a deep breath. Then relax back at neutral and repeat by looking off to the left.

    If you’ve practiced meditation to help with your anxiety and it didn’t work, or didn’t completely work, try the notice, acknowledge, and redirect technique I mentioned above to take power back from anxious thoughts. And if you still feel the emotions trapped in your body, perhaps trying new embodiment practices can help you release that stored tension.

  • When You’re Becoming a New You: 3 Lessons to Help You on Your Journey

    When You’re Becoming a New You: 3 Lessons to Help You on Your Journey

    “There is no place so awake and alive as the edge of becoming.” ~Sue Monk Kidd

    From a small café overlooking the boat harbor in Seward, Alaska, I looked out the window at the enormous mountain peak of Mount Alice that protruded from the earth behind rows of tour boats, sailboats, and a cruise ship large enough to carry several thousand passengers. The last few days of my summer there were coming to an end, and I reflected with gratitude on my time there.

    Located directly off the Gulf of Alaska and within Kenai Fjords National Park, Seward is a place people dream about: bald eagles cut through the sky as frequently as clouds, humpback whales breach the calm bay on a quiet morning, and wildlife roam freely within rows of pine trees that crowd the hillside and hug the small town.

    Seward was my home for the summer of 2019. I lived in a camper van next to Resurrection River with a full view of Mount Alice. At night I could hear the soft, constant mumble of the river.

    When I wasn’t working downtown at a local coffee shop, I read next to the river, practiced yoga in the black sand that blanketed the bay, flew in a new friend’s helicopter above the wild landscape, ate breakfast on a beach where the whales welcomed the day, or sat beside a crackling fire under towering trees and mountain peaks.

    It was dreamy. But I didn’t arrive there randomly nor without trials. In fact, my environment both externally and internally looked much different just a couple years before when I wrestled with questions and dilemmas that are common for many of us on the path of becoming.

    The Confusion & Inner Turmoil of My Early Twenties: A Brief Backstory

    Two years before, I was in the depths of the uncomfortable tension I felt between two opposing decisions: should I stay on my current, stable path or leave it entirely to pursue something more in line with my values?

    I was a fresh college graduate, and I had recently started a job at a nonprofit organization that paid me well and offered many advantages I felt lucky to have. I was also working my way into the political world and imagined myself one day running for office. On top of working, I was also trying to keep the wheels moving on a nonprofit organization I’d started to train women to run for public office. My mind played with ideas of buying my first house and settling into this life path.

    I was twenty-three, highly ambitious, and working toward a life that I didn’t really want. But I struggled to understand that feeling because I didn’t want to seem ungrateful or, even worse, delusional for letting go of what I had.

    Another side of me was creative, free-spirited, and very much opposed to a linear life route. In fact, I never wanted to attend college. I had dreams of being a photojournalist or a writer who gathered knowledge by exploring and experiencing the world. I valued adventure, curiosity, and creativity. Yet here I was—not only pursuing a path that didn’t fit those values, but telling myself and others I was passionate about it.

    My mind was a warzone of opposing beliefs and opinions about who I was and how I should live my life. I felt stuck and lacked direction. I was certain about nothing and questioned everything: my identity, my thoughts, and the direction I was heading.

    I was also in a relationship with a man stuck in a cycle of self-sabotage and harmful drinking habits that grew out of his feelings of worthlessness.

    I spent my days cultivating the professionalism I didn’t value and my evenings at my boyfriend’s house, smoking weed on his frameless mattress and teetering between my contrasting desires for rebellion and obedience.

    There were nights I’d fall asleep next to him and the bottle of whiskey lying in the crevice between his mattress and the wall, then wake the next morning feeling drained, lonely, and lost on a path I was unsure how to step away from.

    I’d unintentionally assumed the role of my boyfriend’s caregiver in a time when I needed my care the most. I was navigating the chaos, uncertainty, and vulnerability that often meets a person in her early twenties, all while reprimanding myself for not being where I thought I should be.

    As a teenager I often made promises to myself I would follow my heart and choose a life I desired regardless of the circumstances, but in my early twenties I realized that was far more complicated than I initially thought.

    Life has a way of guiding you in a direction that diverges from what you’d planned for yourself. Trying to navigate that divide can produce anxiety and inner turmoil–especially when you’re young, naive to the power of life’s unplanned circumstances, and still learning how to properly adjust your sails to work with its winds.

    That’s the situation I found myself in when I was twenty-three, full of ambition, and feeling stuck in circumstances I didn’t want but had somehow still manifested. Through that time, I learned three key lessons that I hope you may also carry with you as you continually adjust your sails and navigate life’s shifting tides on your path of becoming.

    Lesson 1: If you don’t know how to overcome your current challenges, look for lessons that can help move you forward instead of forcing yourself to take immediate action.

    In the midst of my inner turmoil, I wanted to exit the discomfort immediately and be in a state of ease. But my Buddhist-inspired beliefs and mindfulness studies taught me that in the center of the challenges I needed to sit with what I was experiencing and listen to what there was to learn. Rather than taking immediate action, I needed to observe. What was I feeling? What were my emotions trying to communicate? What was stirring in my soul?

    I spent many evenings journaling the raw thoughts in my mind without trying to make sense of them. I allowed emotions to arrive and stay as long as they needed. I gave myself space to not know what I wanted nor what was to come next. I asked questions without needing an answer. I considered my needs at every moment and did my best to meet them.

    By doing so I learned that staying present and accepting the current moment doesn’t mean neglecting action. It means being alert and cognizant of what lessons the moment has to offer so that one can move forward with the insight, tools, and knowledge needed when it is time to take action.

    Lesson 2: Focus on the things you can control, then take action and adjust as you go.

    In time—by being still and aware within the confusion and fear I felt—I realized I needed to leave the situations that I didn’t want. I needed to adjust my sails to steer myself in a different direction, even if I didn’t know exactly where that would lead me. I didn’t need to know the future in order to know that I wanted to (and could) change my present circumstances.

    Within about eight months my relationship naturally fizzled, I gave notice at my job, found a new job in Alaska, bought a van, gave away many excess things I owned and didn’t need, moved out of my apartment, and hit the road from Wyoming to Alaska. I shifted my sails.

    Rather than focusing on the areas of my life I couldn’t control—like the potential consequences of changing so many aspects of my life—I leveraged the choices and agency I did have in order to produce different outcomes.

    Lesson 3: Remember, sorrow or joy, this too shall pass.

    One summer morning after arriving in Alaska, I sat at the end of the boat harbor overlooking the jagged peaks in the distance. I watched and listened as the boats swayed gently in the water and the birds sang their songs in the blue sky.

    My body felt different. The anxiety had receded. There was more space in my mind, and I felt a sense of direction even in the lingering uncertainty. I still didn’t know what would come after my short summer in Alaska. But more than anything, I felt an immense amount of gratitude and contentment for my life at that moment. Where else would I rather be? I thought to myself.

    In times of joy, I often forget the challenges that led me there, and I fall prey to the belief that the joy just might last forever. But that morning on the dock I understood that the joy too was temporary, just like the moments of hardship that preceded it. Regardless, something within me had faith that I was right where I needed to be in both phases of my life.

    Life’s changing tides have taught me the same lesson: both joy and sorrow pass through our lives like eagles cutting across an Alaskan sky. We often yearn desperately for joy over sorrow and grasp for a future where–when it finally arrives–all our hard work and desperation will pay off and we’ll live the remainder of our lives in ease.

    But despite our relentless attempts to prove otherwise, the magic of life isn’t found in eternal happiness nor in the future moments that might follow the one right in front of us. It’s in feeling the depth of every experience, regardless of what it contains. It’s staying present in what’s scary and uncomfortable as much as it’s staying present in what’s exciting and fulfilling, all while knowing that whatever meets you here and now will pass in the same way as the moment before it.

    —

    It’s been two years since I spent that beautiful summer in Alaska. Within that time life’s tide has continued to rise and fall, bringing both challenges and joy. Just as I’d anticipated, the ease I felt that summer passed, then came again, and passed once more. Each wave of experience has delivered numerous lessons, like little gifts waiting to be opened, observed, and put to use.

    Staying present in the challenges leads to immense growth and strength, and being present in pleasure generates gratitude and bewilderment. We need both. A meaningful life depends on our ability to value all aspects of the spectrum. It’s all critical to the process of becoming.

    If you’re currently sitting in hardship, you may believe it’s your job to find the next joyful experience as soon as possible, but that’s not your job. And if you’re engrossed in happiness, you might feel that it’s your duty to maintain the current environment of your life so you never have to experience hardship again. But that is also not your task.

    Your job is to sit in what you’re experiencing without infusing it with judgment and forcing your emotion into shapes it doesn’t belong in. Explore it. Find gratitude for it. Ask questions. Listen. But do what you can to not wish for it to end nor wish for it to stay. Get curious about this simple invitation: Can you let this moment simply be, and if so, how deeply can you delve into it without attaching to it or its outcomes?

    Wherever you are, it’s just a moment in time. It, too, will pass. But there is a purpose to its presence despite its impermanence. It has something to teach you about who you are. So while it’s here, dive into it and expand the depths of your dynamic and vibrant human experience. How deep can you go? The lessons and experiences you find along the way will mold you into your becoming.

  • Forbidden Emotions: The Feelings We Suppress and Why They’re Not Bad

    Forbidden Emotions: The Feelings We Suppress and Why They’re Not Bad

    “The truth is that there is no such thing as a negative emotion. Emotions only become ‘bad’ and have a negative effect on us when they are suppressed, denied, or unexpressed.” ~Colin Tipping

    Emotions are constantly and powerfully guiding our lives, even when we are not aware of them, even when we do not feel them or are convinced that we can exclude them from our experiences.

    Emotions give us precious, sometimes indispensable information about what is best for us, about the best choices we can make, about how to behave. They give us information that we often do not listen to because we devalue them or simply because we have not learned to identify or understand them.

    In many families, however, some emotions are forbidden.

    Without even realizing it, some parents naturally teach their children not to feel certain emotions. Growing up, were you told “Don’t be angry!”, “Don’t cry!”, or “You are just a child, you shouldn’t feel sad”? Or you were criticized after expressing a certain emotion?

    If so, you learned from your childhood that the specific emotion—the forbidden emotion—was dangerous, inappropriate, and disapproved of.

    As you grew up, you perfected the art of excluding it from your emotional repertoire to the extent that today you might be referred to, for example, as someone who never gets angry or never cries, and so on. Parents can massively influence their children’s mindset, and if trauma from childhood is not healed, we carry it with us into adulthood. We are like children wearing adult suits.

    If you think about how you feel when you get triggered, do you recognize that your reactions might be similar to how you used to react when you were a child? I recognized it in myself, especially since making the decision to finally listen to my emotions years ago.

    I grew up having my emotions dismissed on a daily basis. Feeling sad, anxious, or angry was forbidden in my family life. But those feelings didn’t go away, they kept piling up until I couldn’t take it anymore.

    I remember one time when I was a child, I had a difficult day at school because my usual bully was mean to me. When I went home, I wanted to vent about what had happened to my parents, as I was feeling sad and anxious. I wanted to be heard and understood, but most of all I wanted to be able to express my feelings freely so that I could find some level of comfort.

    The words I was told in that very moment were “Don’t worry about it, it’s not that bad,” “Stop feeling anxious,” and ‘You will be fine.” Not being heard as a child, especially on that occasion, instilled the belief in me that I wasn’t worthy of being listened to, and unfortunately the feeling of anxiety stayed with me over the years that followed.

    As I got older, I felt guilty every time I felt sad or anxious and tried to suppress those feelings, like I was taught. For example, in my early twenties, one of my dearest friends decided to end her life. She was young, and there had been no apparent signs of her deep unhappiness and the desire to not be in this world anymore.

    When I heard the news, I was in shock. Sadness and anxiety came up, but I had this paralyzing feeling telling me that I couldn’t be sad, I couldn’t be anxious, I couldn’t cry, I had to let it go straight away because it was the ‘right’ thing to do. Unfortunately, as a result, I didn’t grieve her death, and it took me many years before I finally accepted her loss.

    It was only after I made the decision to consciously embrace and face my emotions and improve my life that I started to feel better.

    My parents are lovely people, but they were (and still are) hurt from their own childhood trauma, and they instilled in me their own beliefs, emotions, and behavior, whether it was positive or negative. Whether they did it intentionally or unintentionally, they did the best they could.

    I spent years being angry at them until I made the decision to forgive them, also readying myself for when I have children, so that they’ll learn to embrace and manage the forbidden emotions I mentioned earlier.

    There is nothing we can do about how our parents raised us, but our well-being is our responsibility to sort out.

    Just as there are forbidden emotions or categories of emotions in every family, there are also encouraged ones. Having learned to suppress awareness of certain emotions, a child will find compensation in expressing what has been allowed instead.

    In one family, for example, anger might be forbidden but sadness is allowed and encouraged. The child in this family will learn that sadness will receive attention, whereas anger will be punished, criticized, or ignored.

    Over time, the child may replace sadness with anger and manifest it indiscriminately, for example, when following a loss, when it is natural to feel sad.

    Regaining possession of the forbidden emotions then becomes a necessity. One can finally make sense of confused and apparently inappropriate and misplaced feelings. And they can start making better decisions, since authentic emotions guide authentic choices, providing a sense of fulfilment and reducing the possibility of feeling empty, frustrated, and insecure.

    Being free to feel means being free to choose how to act, rather than feeling overwhelmed by others and events and powerless in situations in our work, love, and family lives.

    Identify Your Forbidden Emotions

    Were you not allowed to experience a certain emotion as a child? What is your forbidden emotion?

    I will leave you with two hints that may help you identify it:

    What emotion do you struggle to understand or embrace when you see it in others?

    What emotion do you tend to criticize or minimize when someone else expresses it?

    Reflecting on this can be complicated, but it can also help you make sense of a discomfort that probably depends on a prohibition that you made your own and believed to be true and legitimate for a long time.

    A prohibition that you can now, if you wish, transform into permission.

  • Why Feeling Anxiety Was the Key to My Happiness

    Why Feeling Anxiety Was the Key to My Happiness

    “Lean into the discomfort of the work.” ~ Brené Brown

    Anxiety was the core of my existence for decades.

    When I look back at my life over that time, what comes to mind first is the constant tension in my chest, a knotted stomach, and a lump in my throat.

    From the outside, my life looked great. I was college-educated, had a good job, was in a relationship; I lived in a nice place, had a decent car, and enough money to buy organic food and a gym membership.

    But I was miserable.

    Not only was I anxious all the time, worrying that people would judge me, I felt like I couldn’t feel happiness.

    Even when the situation around me was a happy one—a surprise birthday party for me, getting gifts on Christmas, a lazy Sunday morning with nothing to do but enjoy a nice cup of coffee, or a hilarious scene in a comedy movie—true happiness never seemed to surface.

    Those were all my favorite things, but I couldn’t feel the happiness in my chest and my gut. I felt like I could only intellectualize happiness.

    All I really felt was discomfort, and not just because of my anxiety but because I was constantly resisting it. I refused to accept sadness and fear as perfectly normal emotions. I thought I shouldn’t feel them, so whenever I felt that familiar tension in my mind and body, I shut down, trying to block out all the negatives.

    My Resistance to the Discomfort of Anxiety Blocked Me from True Happiness

    We can’t turn off one emotion without blocking the others. It took me a long time to learn this. In my journey to learn how to stop worrying about what other people thought of me, practicing meditation to calm my body and strengthen my mind, or learning how to deal with heartache in a healthy way, I began to lean into the discomfort.

    By that I mean I gave the tension and discomfort permission to be there. It’s like the difference between trying to pull your fingers out of a Chinese finger trap as opposed to pushing your fingers together to loosen the grip of the trap so you can eventually wiggle your fingers out.

    Years of anxiety left me feeling numb. I thought I would never truly feel happy. That was for lucky people. Or people were just lying about how happy they were.

    But as I progressed along my journey, leaning into the discomfort allowed it to flow through me instead of staying stuck.

    I leaned into the discomfort physically, mentally, and emotionally. I would sit there and breathe slowly, relax the tension and resistance in my body, and allow the discomfort to be there. I would think, “Okay, this sadness is uncomfortable. I feel it in my stomach and my chest. I give you permission to be here while you work through me.”

    And I would sit and watch the emotion instead of fighting it. It brought the wall down. I would feel the intensity lessen as I was compassionate toward it and to myself. I felt it shift. Sometimes it went away completely. It made me feel more in control. Which is a funny irony, gaining control by letting go.

    Our Emotions Can Become Stuck in our Bodies

    When our stress response is triggered, it sends cortisol and adrenaline through our veins to give us the energy and motivation to fight or flea. Once the danger has passed, if there is extra adrenaline in the body, we mammals naturally shake it off to burn the rest of it.

    For example, if you almost get in a car accident, you might notice your body shaking after. Or maybe you laugh out loud (even though it’s not ha-ha funny). These are ways we naturally “finish” our stress response.

    But us smarty-pants humans often stop this process from finishing. We get stressed at work and hold in our emotions so we don’t look weak. We experience a loss, so we hold in laughter because “it’s inappropriate” to feel happy right now. We feel sad or afraid and we stuff it down to ignore it.

    All this ends up leaving us disconnected from our full emotional experience. You can’t deny fear without also blocking joy. You can’t hide from sadness without also hiding from happiness.

    Paradoxically, by leaning into the discomfort, without fear, without judgment, we get closer to happiness.

    Without Anxiety, I Cry More

    Today I no longer “suffer” from anxiety. Sure, I get anxious if I have something important coming up—that’s perfectly natural. But I accept that anxiety and let it move through me instead of fighting it and shutting down.

    For the most part, I’m the chill person I’d always hoped I could become.

    And the funny thing I’ve noticed lately is how much more I cry. Not tears of sadness, but of happiness, pride, appreciation, and gratitude.

    I watch the news every day, and there’s almost always a feel-good story at the end. So nearly every day as I sit there sipping my coffee, I look forward to that energetic surge swelling up from my gut, through my chest, up my throat, and watering my eyes.

    Watching a talent show like America’s Got Talent, I cry every time someone does a great job feeling incredibly proud of this stranger who I know nothing about.

    I love feeling genuinely happy for others. It’s something I never fully appreciated before. I couldn’t embody the emotions even when I mentally knew “this is great.”

    If you find yourself feeling numb to happiness, know that there is hope if you’re willing to start letting yourself feel the full range of emotions.

    It may take some time, but don’t be afraid to lean into the uncomfortable feelings that arise. Anger, frustration, shame, envy—none of these feelings are “bad.” And they won’t consume you. You just have to open up, feel them, and let them naturally pass.

    Relax your body, focus on your breath, and let the energy of the emotion work its way through. Know that this is only a moment that is uncomfortable. It isn’t causing you long-term harm, and it won’t damage your body (note, if you feel truly unsafe during a practice like this, it is better to do so under the supervision of a licensed mental health professional).

    It’s like the story of the second arrow. A soldier got hit with an arrow and it hurt. Pain happens, right? When that soldier started shouting in anger, upset that this shouldn’t have happened, wailing over the unfairness of it all… he created suffering on top of the pain.

    If you were watching this soldier, you would know that if he were to just sit, take some deep breaths, and relax his body, the pain would lessen. That resistance to the pain created more physical pain as his body tensed up, and mental pain as he fought the idea of what happened.

    Here are a few resilience-building practices that can further teach you the art of letting go and leaning into discomfort:

    • Relax your body in cold water instead of tensing up
    • Resist quenching an urge like eating a cookie when you know you aren’t hungry or reaching for your phone when you feel bored
    • Mono-task instead of multi-task, especially when you feel worried about getting things done

    And as you work through the emotions that arise in these scenarios, be sure to speak kindly to yourself.

    On your journey through your anxiety, or whatever “negative” emotion you’re tempted to resist, know that you might come across some interesting things, like joy and crying, and it’s all so worth it.

  • How a Simple Morning Routine Helped Me Heal from PTSD and Grief

    How a Simple Morning Routine Helped Me Heal from PTSD and Grief

    “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” ~Frederick Douglass

    In an eighteen-month window, I had a landslide of firsts that I would not wish on my worst enemy.

    I ended my first long-term relationship with someone I deeply cared for but did not love. She had borderline personality disorder, and I was not mentally strong enough nor mature enough to be what she needed in a partner. Within five minutes of me saying our relationship was over, she slit her wrist as we sat there in bed. This was the beginning of it all.

    Drug overdoses, online personal attacks, physically beating me, calling and texting sixty-plus times a day, coming to my work, breaking into my home to steal and trash the place, and general emotional abuse followed over the next ten months.

    Day after day, week after week, month after month.

    My heart started racing, and my breathing spiked every time my phone went off, and I mean EVERY time. I woke each morning to multiple alerts that someone had tried to hack my social media and bank accounts and people I barely knew messaging me saying, “Hey, don’t know if you saw this, but your ex is…”

    In the midst of this, my parents called a family meeting, and that’s when they told us that dad’s doctor thought he might be showing the first signs of Parkinson’s disease.

    I didn’t know at the time what this news would mean long-term for him and us as a family, but I soon found out.

    Dad slowly started deteriorating mentally and physically. Within a year, he had aged twenty years and wasn’t able to be left alone. The man I had once known to be the picture of health and courage was gone.

    I, too, was changing for the worse.

    Happiness was a feeling I couldn’t relate to anymore. I was constantly in a state of duress, from twitching fingers to a tightness in my chest. The most notable change in my life was the constant breaking down as I would shower in the morning.

    After I woke, I would kneel, resting my head on my shoulders and cry, in fear for what the day ahead had in store and disbelief that my life had come to this.

    Even as I huddled there under the warm stream of water, I would feel my eyes shifting back and forth, a mile a minute, it seemed. The effects of my anxiety, depression, and PTSD were touching all areas of my body.

    I did not know what to do.

    I couldn’t believe my life had turned out like this.

    How could this be happening to me?

    But the scariest thought that came to mind, as I knelt in the shower each morning, was how do I stop this? No one had taught this in school.

    I remember staring at my ceiling one afternoon (as I often did, not having any desire to do anything that I once loved or cared about) and saying to myself, “If I don’t take action, I’ll be like this till I’m fifty.” And this was the truth; I knew it wasn’t going to go away without consistent work to better myself.

    Over the following weeks to months, I started working on my morning routine, something that had never been part of my life before this. Most mornings had me showering and getting dressed as I scrolled through the gram, looking at negative posts, adding more unhealthy thoughts to my already full mind.

    It was a slow process.

    Most days I only lasted five minutes before I gave up and went back to bed, but slowly, over time, with two steps forward then five steps back, I created a routine that felt comfortable and achievable each day.

    The routine went like this:

    • Wake up at the same time each day, no matter weekday or weekend.
    • Hop into the shower right away and finish off the last thirty seconds with a full blast of cold water.
    • Make my bed after I get changed.
    • Make a glass of hot lemon water.
    • Sit and drink the lemon water in silence as I look out the window.
    • Finish the time on the chair by saying five things that I am grateful for, no matter how small—”I am grateful for this tree outside my window.”
    • Put on a pot of coffee.
    • Write in my journal as the coffee brews, exploring how I am feeling at the moment or how I felt yesterday and why.

    Not until I had my coffee in my hand, around forty-five minutes after waking up, would I get my phone and flick it open to see what I had missed overnight.

    I had created a morning routine that put me ahead of everything else going on in life. There were no sudden jolts of unease or stress from outside sources like a text message, email, or social media post. 

    I was in control of my life for at least forty-five minutes every morning.

    I would use that confidence to extend those positive vibes further and further into my days. At first, they didn’t last very long, but over time I was able to look at the clock and see mid-day was here, and I hadn’t given up on being productive.

    My morning routine saved me. It gave me the confidence to add other tools to my mental health toolbox. I started eating healthier foods, working out more often, reading in bed instead of watching TV, and going to therapy. All of these things aided me in battling my mental health struggles.

    I’ve learned that sometimes, when our challenges feel daunting and unbeatable, we need to think big and act small, taking it one day at a time, or one morning at a time, or one breath at a time.

    Sometimes one small positive choice can have a massive ripple effect and change everything—especially when it enables us to tune out the noise of the world and reconnect with ourselves. Life will always be chaotic; if we want calm in our lives we have to consciously choose to create it.

    I write this to you three years after creating this morning routine, still doing it every damn day.

    It has evolved and adapted as I have grown as a human from these life experiences that shook me to the core.

    But I still make sure of one thing. I keep my phone out of my hands until my morning routine is done.

    This is my time.

  • What Creates Anxiety and How We Can Heal and Ease Our Pain

    What Creates Anxiety and How We Can Heal and Ease Our Pain

    “Beneath every behavior there is a feeling. And beneath each feeling is a need. And when we meet that need, rather than focus on the behavior, we begin to deal with the cause, not the symptom.” ~Ashleigh Warner

    Do you ever wonder what creates anxiety and why so many people are anxious?

    Anxiety doesn’t just come from a thought we’re thinking, it comes from inside our body—from our internal patterning, where unresolved trauma, deep shame, and painful experiences are still “running.”

    It often comes from false underlying beliefs that say, “Something’s wrong with me, I’m flawed, I’m bad, I’m wrong, I don’t belong.”

    Anxiety can be highly misunderstood because it’s not just a symptom, it often stems from what’s going on subconsciously as a result of past experiences, mostly from when we were little beings. And yes, the body does keep score and remembers even if the mind doesn’t.

    Anxiety is often a signal/experience that happens automatically from our nervous system. It’s emotions/sensations letting us know that we don’t feel safe with ourselves, life, or the person we’re with or situation we’re in. It’s our inner child saying, “Hey, I need some love and attention.”

    Maybe, instead of blaming, shaming, or making ourselves feel bad or wrong for experiencing anxiety, we can be more compassionate and caring, knowing it often comes from deep unresolved pain.

    Just taking a medication or doing symptom relief may help ease the anxiety, but are we really healing the “root” cause? Are we taking time to understand what the anxiety is conveying? Where it’s actually coming from and what it’s showing us about what we need?

    Many people are living with anxiety but aren’t even aware it’s happening. Our minds and bodies aren’t at ease, and we may try to soothe them by being busy, over-eating, drinking alcohol, scrolling through the internet, smoking, compulsive shopping, over-achieving, or constantly working.

    From my earliest memory I felt anxious. I didn’t feel safe at home or at school. I felt different than the other kids; in a sense I was an outcast.

    I was alone a lot, and food became my companion and coping mechanism. When I was eating, I felt like I was being soothed. It gave me a way to focus on something else to avoid my painful feelings, and it also helped me cope with being screamed at or ignored by my family.

    At age eight I started experiencing dizziness, which was another form of anxiety showing up in my body. My parents took me to the doctor, and they checked my ears and did other tests but couldn’t find anything wrong with me physically.

    That’s because the dizziness wasn’t caused by something physically wrong with my body, it was stemming from the fear and anxiety I was experiencing. I was afraid of everyone and everything—I was afraid of living and being.

    I was experiencing extreme panic. I didn’t know how to be, and no one comforted me when I was afraid; instead, my father called me a “big baby.”

    When I was ten my parents started leaving me at home alone, sometimes at night, where it was very scary for me, and I cried and sat at the door waiting for them to walk in. When they did, there was no acknowledgment. They just said, “Go to bed.”

    They didn’t meet my needs for connection; my needs to be heard, loved, seen, and accepted; or my needs for safety and comfort when I was hurting and afraid. Because of that, I experienced severe panic and anxiety. I didn’t know how to be with myself when those feelings were happening, which was constantly.

    Then, when I was thirteen, my doctor told me to go on a diet. I became afraid of food and started using exercise to soothe my anxiousness. Little did I know I would exercise compulsively, to the point of exhaustion, daily, for the next twenty-three years of my life.

    I couldn’t sit still for a minute. If I did, my heart would race, and my body would sweat and shake. My trauma was surfacing, and I didn’t know how to be. The only way I felt okay was if I was constantly moving and being busy. 

    I was also self-harming and limiting my food intake, so at age fifteen I entered my first hospital for anorexia, depression, cutting/being suicidal, and anxiety.

    Was there really something wrong with me? No, I was just a frightened human being trying desperately to feel loved, accepted, and at peace with who I was. I just wanted to feel safe in some way.

    I didn’t realize what was going on at the time, and the people who were “treating me” didn’t understand true healing. They were just doing symptom relief, which never took care of my inner pain, the trauma my mind/body was stuck in.

    Deep down I was living with the idea that there was something wrong with me, that I wasn’t a good enough human being, I didn’t fit into society. I had a shame-based identity, and I was trying to suppress my hurt and pain.

    I was stuck in fear and worried about the future and what would happen to me. I was trying to make the “right” decisions, but no matter what I did my father called me a failure. No wonder I was so anxious all the time. I couldn’t meet the standards on how I should be according to my family and society, and I never felt safe.

    When I was old enough, I started working and found that when I made money, I finally felt worthy, which temporarily eased my anxiety.

    This became an obsession, and I became a workaholic, basing my identity on my income and trying to prove myself through my earnings.

    I also hid my thoughts, feelings, and needs because I never knew, when I was a kid, if I would be punished for doing, saying, or asking for anything. This left me with many unmet needs and continuous anxious feelings. 

    How can someone live that way? We can’t. It’s not living, it’s running. It’s trying to just get through the day, but then the next day comes and the panic sets in, and the routine starts all over again. Living in proving, self-preserving, and trying to find a way to feel safe—what a life, eh?

    I also had to deal with the anger my family projected onto me for “being a sick puppy.” They said I was ruining the family, not to mention all the money my parents spent on treatment that never helped me get better. That really upset my father and made me feel guilty.

    All that panic, fear, guilt, shame, pain—feeling not good enough, unlovable, and unworthy—was going on unconsciously, and because I was trying to suppress how I was truly feeling I experienced the symptom of anxiety, as well as depression, eating disorders, cutting, and other ways of self-harming.

    Many people have these feelings but do a great job of covering them up through physical means. Internally, they’re at war.

    That’s why I share my story: I know there are other people out there who feel this too. If this is you, please be kind and gentle with yourself.

    Please know that whatever your survival/coping mechanisms, you’re not bad or wrong; in fact, you’re pretty damn smart, you found a way to help yourself feel safe.

    And, if you’re experiencing anxiety, please know it’s not your fault; it’s how your nervous system is responding to what’s happening internally and externally. 

    Sometimes anxiety can mean that we care deeply and we’re in a situation or with a person who means a lot to us. We want to be loved and accepted, so we get anxious about trying to do and say the right things, which makes it hard to express ourselves authentically.

    Anxiety can also be a response from our nervous system letting us know we’re in dangerous situations or our needs for belonging, safety, and love aren’t being met. However, there’s a difference between a real threat and a perceived threat based on outdated neuro patterning stemming from traumatic past experiences.

    Here’s the simple truth: We all have some anxiety—it’s part of being human—but when anxiety shows up in our daily living and it’s extreme like it was for me, it can be helpful to notice it with compassion and loving so we can do some inner healing.

    I started feeling at ease by embracing the part of me that was experiencing anxiety, listening to why it was feeling how it was feeling, and giving it what it needed; this is called inner child healing, loving re-parenting.

    I started feeling at ease when I made anxiety my friend and I saw it as a messenger from within. By taking the time to listen, I saw how anxiety was serving me; sometimes I really needed protection or a shift in perception, or to speak up or leave a situation, and I only knew this by listening.

    When I started loving and accepting myself unconditionally—my insecurities, my imperfections, my wild ways of being, my free, authentic, and crazy expression, the ways I love and care deeply and the things that frightened me—I became truly free.

    We’ve all been conditioned to be a certain way in order to be loved and accepted, and this often creates a disconnection from our soul’s loving essence and can cause us to be anxious with the false ideas that we’re not good enough and there’s something wrong with us. 

    For those of us who experienced trauma too—the trauma of not being heard, seen, or comforted when we were frightened or hurting, or not having our needs met as a little being, or being beaten physically or emotionally—well, it’s understandable that we would feel unsafe and anxious.

    When we’re in situations that trigger our anxiety, we need to take a deep breath and ask ourselves:

    What am I afraid of?

    What is this experience bringing up for me?

    What am I feeling and what am I believing to be true about myself, the other, and/or what’s happening?

    Is that really true?

    What do I need? How can I give this to myself?

    One thing that has really helped me is the idea that it’s not really about the issue or the other person, it’s about how I’m feeling, what I think it means, and what’s going on internally, as we all see the world through our own filters, beliefs, and perceptions.

    We find ease with anxiety when we make it our friend, relate with it, and respond to it instead of from it, and offer ourselves compassion instead of judgment. 

    We find ease with anxiety when we forgive ourselves for betraying ourselves to get love and approval and/or forgive ourselves for past mistakes, seeing what we can learn from them and how we can change.

    We find ease with anxiety by taking risks and making small promises to ourselves daily, which helps us learn how to trust ourselves and our decisions, so we don’t feel anxious when there’s no one around to help us.

    We find ease with anxiety when we realize there’s nothing wrong with us, and we take time to find out what unrealistic expectations we’re trying to meet in order to be a “good enough human being.”

    We find ease with anxiety when we have a safe place to share our fears, shame, and insecurities so we no longer have to suppress that energy.

    We find ease with anxiety when we notice the “war” between our mind and our heart—our conditioning and our true being.

    We also find ease with anxiety when we see it as a positive thing. Because of my anxiety, I’m empathetic and sensitive to my own and other people’s feelings and needs. This helps me understand what I need, as well as what my friends, clients, and other people need and what they’re experiencing internally.

    We find ease with anxiety when we understand what’s causing it internally; express, process, and resolve our anger, hurt, shame and pain; and offer those parts of ourselves compassion, love, and a new understanding.

    We find ease with anxiety when we pause, take a deep breath, put our hands on our heart, and say, “I am safe, I am loved.” This calms our nervous system and brings us back to the present moment.

    We find ease with anxiety when we experience a re-connection with our soul’s loving essence; this is where we experience a true homecoming, a loving integrating.

    If you’re someone who has experienced trauma, please don’t force yourself to sit with your feelings alone. Find someone who can lovingly support you in your healing, someone who can assist you in working with those parts of you that are hurting to feel safe, loved, heard, and seen.

    Oh, and one more thing, please be kind and gentle with yourself. You’re a precious and beautiful soul, and you’re worth being held in compassion and love.

  • 19 Techniques to Calm a Highly Sensitive Nervous System

    19 Techniques to Calm a Highly Sensitive Nervous System

    “You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” ~Timber Hawkeye

    The sun is setting, and the cold wind is gently blowing in my face. I’m sitting on a rock that’s about ten feet tall, overlooking the Peruvian city of Cuzco. I can hear dogs barking, groups of teenagers laughing, the low hum of traffic, and the music blaring from cars in the distance. As it goes dark, the lights of thousands of houses begin to flicker on like fireflies.

    I should be enjoying this picturesque scene, but I’m not. My mind is racing too fast for me to make sense of anything that I’m thinking.

    The only thing I’m able to fixate on is the intense ball of worry that sits in the top of my chest. Every thought introduces a new problem and a restless attempt to solve it. But the thoughts themselves aren’t that important. They’re really just a manifestation of a physical tension that I’ve been holding onto for far too long.

    This was my life with relentless anxiety.

    For years I didn’t understand why I would get anxious, nor did I have the capacity to relax my body when the physical symptoms came to visit. Was I just born with a sensitive nervous system? Had life experiences conditioned me to be that way? Was it both? Ultimately, it didn’t matter. Anxiety was there, and it was making itself heard, loud and clear.

    Fortunately, I learned, slowly but surely, in both my work with others and my own personal experience, that anxiety could be tamed and reversed. But it was only after I was able to bring greater awareness to my body and progressively convince my nervous system that I was safe and it was okay to be calm that I was able to make any lasting change.

    Calming your body and mind doesn’t happen overnight. It takes practice, but it’s a real possibility.

    Here are nineteen ways to calm a highly sensitive nervous system.

    1. Focus on the calmest part of your body.

    Instead of sitting directly with uncomfortable feelings, sensations, and tensions, we can place our attention on wherever in our body we find a sense of calm. By doing that, we can familiarize ourselves with relaxation and sit with it until it deepens. For example, your legs may be twitching, but perhaps you feel stillness at the back of your neck. Draw your attention there.

    2. Set boundaries and manage your energy wisely.

    If you’re dealing with anxiety, then you’re burning more energy than you usually would. And when your energy is low, it’s more difficult to regulate your feelings. That’s why it’s important to manage your energy wisely and not be afraid to set boundaries and say no to things that you don’t feel are in your best interest.

    3. Self-soothe through affirmations.

    Affirmations are only useful if they’re having a helpful impact on your state of being. Repeating positive phrases that you don’t truly believe in can actually have the opposite effect. So instead, choose an affirmation that feels true to you, such as “I am strong enough to survive this panic.” And try experimenting with how you talk to yourself—the tone of voice, pace, care behind the words—instead of just focusing on the words you are saying. A slow, calm, and reassuring internal voice can be a great tool to calm the body.

    4. Journal from the perspective of your stress.

    Sometimes your anxious thoughts just need to be respected and expressed coherently by getting them out of your head and down on a piece of paper. Writing from the perspective of stress, exploring what’s fueling it and what it wants us to know, also helps us take a step back from our worries.

    5. Journal from the perspective of your calm.

    When you’ve written down your stressful thoughts, you can dialogue (and reason) with it from the perspective of a calmer and wiser voice.

    6. Try Taoist Inner Smile Meditation.

    This meditation is one where you feel a smiling energy in your body. Most people find this easiest to do by visualizing a smile or bringing a slight smile to their face. The effect of the inner smile meditation is cumulative, and it can be an effective way to signal to your brain that you’re not under any threat.

    7. Finish the sentence “My nervous system wants to…”

    This is another journal exercise that helps connect your thoughts to your feelings so you can take a step back from your thoughts. You may discover that your nervous system wants you to take a break, rest, or get some fresh air.

    8. Create compassionate imagery.

    Like the inner smile meditation, compassionate imagery is a way to tell your brain that you’re safe and it’s okay to relax. You might want to visualize a person or a place, either real or fictitious, where you’d feel the most calm, safe, and connected.

    9. Increase bodily awareness.

    Anxiety can feel like it comes out of nowhere, but that’s rarely the case. By increasing bodily awareness, either through meditation, yoga, or just regularly checking in with how you’re feeling, you can catch the early signs of tension in your body before they get too difficult to manage.

    10. Slow down to six breaths a minute.

    Studies have shown that six breaths a minute seems to be the number at which we get the most benefits in terms of relaxation. As most of us breathe a lot quicker than this, any attempt to reduce the rate at which we breathe—with a focus on extending the exhalation—is a useful practice.

    11. Play around with your body language.

    How we position our bodies and physically move through the world has a big impact on our emotional state. Bringing more awareness to how you’re holding your body from moment to moment—how you sit, stand, communicate, etc.—can help you to address habits of tension.

    12. Establish a mindful movement practice.

    It can be hard to remember to be aware of our bodies, which is why a daily or weekly embodiment practice is useful. You might want to try yoga, qigong, or tai chi, the Feldenkrais method or the Alexander Technique, or any other practice. Just try to find something you enjoy and that works for you.

    13. Dance.

    Dancing is a great way to reduce stress and increase your bodily awareness. If you don’t like the idea of a formal practice, then this might be for you. And the good thing is you don’t need to get any special training or even leave your house—you can just blast your favorite song and get moving.

    14. Visualize a future calm self.

    Our minds are largely predictive machines, so when we expect to be anxious, that’s what will happen. We can begin to disrupt this cycle by visualizing a future state of calm, which sets a more useful expectation.

    15. Imagine your mind in slow motion.

    This is just another trick to break out of unhelpful patterns. An anxious mind will move rapidly, whereas a mind that is intentionally moving slowly will start to move us out of a state of anxiety.

    16. Laugh (even if it’s forced).

    Laughter is another great way to take our body out of a state of stress. In fact, the reason we laugh might be an evolutionary signal that everything is okay and that a perceived threat has been averted. It doesn’t matter if it feels forced; your brain will still get the message, and you might even find that you end up really laughing anyway.

    17. Try chanting or singing meditation.

    Both chanting and singing slow your breathing down and stimulate the vagus nerve, which is another quick way to transition from a state or fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest.

    18. Hum.

    Some people don’t like to chant or sing, but luckily humming does pretty much the same thing.

    19. Visualize healthy and rewarding social situations.

    A lot of bodily tension comes from an unconscious perceived threat in the world—particularly the social world. By visualizing healthy relationships and positive social situations, either real or imagined, we are convincing the social part of our brain that we’re connected and safe.

    —

    If my experience with anxiety and my work as a therapist have taught me anything, it’s that there is no best way to manage our nervous systems. There is only the way that works for you. By permitting yourself to experiment and play around with different techniques, you’ll be better positioned to uncover the most effective way to calm your highly sensitized nervous system.

    Let us know in the comments which techniques have worked for you and if there are any that we might have missed!

  • 6 Mistakes We Make When Depressed or Having a Panic Attack

    6 Mistakes We Make When Depressed or Having a Panic Attack

    “You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.” ~James Allen

    When I was eighteen I went through a very stressful period, which led to the onset of panic attacks. I often remember how in bed one night I was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of terror. I’d never experienced such fear before. Sure, I was scared of lots of things, but this new feeling was unique.

    The most accurate way I can describe it is a kind of animal-like horror. It seemed to have come from the deepest, darkest recesses of my subconscious mind, caused by primeval, bestial mechanisms.

    The feeling was so deep and all encompassing that it was as if nothing else existed, just this fear coursing through my body as I writhed about, sweaty and tense.

    The most unfamiliar and therefore terrifying aspect of the fear was that it didn’t have an object: it wasn’t clear what I was actually afraid of. From the very start, it was simply fear—unconnected to any tangible thing.

    That night marked the beginning of my period of panic attacks. Over time, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, and general health issues augmented these.

    At the age of twenty-four, I started to fight back; with the help of meditation I managed to get over my depression and panic, and now they no longer torment me.

    During my struggle I came to realize that I was hindering myself with mistakes I was making, and it was only when I overcame these that I started to make real progress.

    I often talk with people who have been or are going through the same kinds of problems, and I notice just how many of them also come up against these mistakes. So what are they?

    1. Resisting.

    When we feel a bad mood, depression, or panic coming on, our first wish is to get rid of it as quickly as possible, to change the “bad” mood into a “good” one. This is natural; it’s how we’re made. But all too often our attempts just make everything worse.

    Resistance forces us to think constantly about our condition, to focus all of our attention on it, to feel bad because it won’t go away, to wait tensely for relief.

    The simple truth is that you can’t control everything. Attempting to get your condition “under control” often leads to extra stress and unwanted bad feelings. It’s sometimes best just to let go and cease resistance.

    If we relax and let our depression or panic come, without trying to control anything, accepting that they’re only temporary feelings that will pass in due course, things become much easier.

    2. Feeling bad about feeling bad.

    We start to have thoughts such as “I’m going to die or go crazy,” “This’ll never end,” and “I hate that I can’t enjoy life like other people; I feel utterly miserable.”

    Our mind starts to add new fears and negative emotions to the depression we already have. And, as I saw for myself, these fears and feelings end up constituting the main part of our condition.

    It’s actually your mind, not the depression and panic themselves, which makes each episode so unbearable.

    If you don’t believe me, try this experiment: The next time you’re overwhelmed by an attack, try to simply observe it without getting caught up in or assessing it in any way. Just watch it in its pure form, without any thoughts. Try to notice which parts of your body you feel it in and how it comes and goes.

    In this way, you’ll remove your mind from the formula of your distress. You’ll notice how much weaker the attacks become when they’re no longer supported by your thought processes. Give it a try, making notes of the results if you like. Would it be true to say that it’s not all as terrifying and dreadful as it seemed at first?

    When you stop feeding your depression with fears and thoughts it becomes much easier to shake off.

    3. Comparing.

    “Everything was so good when I wasn’t depressed! What an amazing time it was, and how awful it is now. Why can’t I go back?!” These are the kinds of things many people think, me included, but such thoughts bring nothing but harm.

    If you want to beat depression or panic, you have to stop comparing. Forget that there’s a past and future. What’s happened has happened. Don’t dwell on it, and instead live in the here and now.

    Start with what you have, and don’t think about how it all was before. Learning how to live in the present moment will make your depression or panic much more bearable.

    4. Asking pointless questions.

    Many people spend hours asking themselves all kinds of questions: “When will this end?” “Why me?” and “What have I done to deserve this?”

    To make use of a well-known Buddhist parable, these questions are as much use as trying to figure out the source of the arrow which blinded you: it’s just not that important. What you need to know is how to pull the arrow out.

    Questions of the “Why me?” ilk just make your condition worse, forcing you as they do to complain and be upset about something that’s already happened. Focus on what will help you get past your depression and don’t bother with questions which don’t serve this purpose.

    5. Believing your fears.

    We think that because we experience such fear at the idea of going outside, meeting people, or going on the underground, it means that something bad is going to happen. There’s nothing surprising in this, because nature has made fear in order to warn us of danger. We’re made in such a way that we instinctively believe this fear and respond to it.

    But our fear hardly ever arises due to a real threat. For example, the fear of losing your mind or suffocating during a panic attack is simply fallacious. Stop believing this fear. Whatever it is you’re afraid of at these times isn’t going to happen.

    Fear is nothing more than a feeling, a chemical reaction in your head. If you’re overcome with terror when you go down into the underground, it doesn’t mean that something horrific is laying in wait there. It’s like a malfunctioning fire alarm—just because it’s going off doesn’t mean there’s actually a fire.

    So stop listening to your “inner alarm” every time it goes off. Don’t pay it any heed: go out, meet your friends, get on a plane, and let the alarm keep ringing. Nor should you try to “switch it off,” as this doesn’t always work. Just ignore it. In other words, stop taking your fear as something real.

    6. Seeking reasons for your depression in the outside world.

    This is another mistake I made myself. I thought that my malaise was linked solely to the way my life and work were going. I believed that if I could just change that, I’d be happy.

    But then, with meditation, I realized that everything I needed to be happy was inside me, and likewise what was causing me to suffer!

    I was so edgy, anxious, feeble, caught up in bad habits, undisciplined, and irresponsible that even if I’d succeeded in changing the external circumstances of my life, the traits that had given rise to my depression would still be there.

    In order to get rid of my depression, I had to get rid of the internal reasons that had caused it.

    So don’t keep telling yourself, “If I get a new job, everything’ll be smooth sailing,” or “If I get rid of everything I’m scared of, there won’t be anything to be afraid of any more.” Your depression and fears reside inside you, so wherever you are, they will be too, projected onto the outside world.

    Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t strive to improve your life. First of all, though, you need to direct your efforts inwards.

    Conclusion: Acting Against What Feels Like Common Sense

    Now, when I look at these mistakes and remember making them myself, I can see the one thing that unites them.

    The reason we make them is that when depression or panic pounces on us, we start to think and act in the way our instincts and gut feelings tell to us. “Be afraid, run away, resist, danger awaits you everywhere, you’re trapped,” they whisper.

    Tuning in to this during a bout of depression aggravates our situation. This is because our mind, emotions, and instincts are strongly conditioned by depression, so listening to them is like listening to the voice of a malicious, invisible demon intent on leading you to ruin.

    To free yourself from depression once and for all you have to drop all your notions of common sense; abandoning your sense of reason, you must act against them.

    Don’t resist your depression, accept your fears and allow them to simply pass; don’t get caught up in them and don’t believe them; don’t compare your current situation to how it was before—all things that feel illogical when you’re in a state of terror or intense depression.

    What I’m advising may seem to be the polar opposite of what your gut encourages you to do. But it’s precisely because people continue to give credence to and obey these feelings that depression is such a widespread complaint. You need to act somewhat paradoxically to get rid of it.

    My own experience has convinced me of this. The understanding I reached allowed me to come through my difficult situation and continues to help me cope with challenges I encounter on my journey.