Tiny Buddha

Tag: authenticity

  • The Freedom of Being Ourselves (Whether Others Like Us or Not)

    The Freedom of Being Ourselves (Whether Others Like Us or Not)

    “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” ~Oscar Wilde

    “Cringey” is what my kids called it. Me? I was just being Sam.

    After hitting “post” on my highly emotive Instagram video—one of those more-than-one-minute jobbies that winds up on Instagram TV—I closed the app and had a brief moment of panic. Maybe I said too much? Maybe I screwed myself by being too honest? Too open? Too… vulnerable?

    A few hours after sharing that five-minute, tear-filled video on not giving up on our dreams, I still didn’t have the courage to log back in to see how many followers I’d lost. Or to even delete the thing, because that would also require logging back in. I pressed on with my day and chastised myself for this classic case of Sam Oversharing.

    Dammit. When will I learn?

    To combat my feelings of anxiety, I usually resort to hitting the trails. The very act of putting one foot in front of the other soothes my worrying soul, infusing me with renewed perspective. So that’s what I did, the day I thought I shared too much: I went for a walk.

    And as is often the case, I began to see things a little more clearly after asking myself three questions:

    1. What were my intentions in sharing the video?

    2. Did I have something insightful and authentic to offer?

    3. Why did it matter what anyone else thought?

    Let me break it down for you, because I had an epiphany that seems so on the nose, I’m almost embarrassed to write about it. How could it not be more obvious?

    The answer to those three questions all circled back to one simple truth: I was just being myself. That’s it. 

    In the process of being ourselves, we let others see us for who we really are. Turns out, I’m an over-sharing, comfortable-with-vulnerability, sometimes dramatic, heart-on-sleeve gal, fraught with insecurities and rich in idiosyncrasies.

    I eat way too many chips, talk openly about my hormones and hairy legs, and appear to care deeply about the validation of others. It’s nice to meet you.

    Look, it isn’t the first time I’ve put myself and all my weirdness on display. I’ve a long history of posting about my Gong Show life and subsequently surviving the fallout.

    That time I was trapped in my new boots at the Toronto airport, yanking on a broken zipper while holding up the line as exasperated travelers sought to help pull them off. I wrote about it.

    That time I thought the dog was missing but had merely forgotten him in the car after he accompanied me on a midnight procurement trip for junk food. Shared it.

    Or when I left my sixteen-year career in finance. I wrote a short novel for that Facebook status, carefully crafting the narrative in case anyone decided to judge me for starting fresh.

    Other times, I’ve taken to the socials to passionately air my opinion on topics near and dear, like shaming the local news media for missing a triumphant story of international competitive success with my kids’ gymnastics team. Turns out, there was something printed after all, I just didn’t see it. So, let’s add “impulsive” to the list of adjectives defining me, and “one who doesn’t always do her homework.”

    My point is this: I’ve come to the conclusion that instead of wincing every time I share something, or show how I actually feel, I’m going to embrace it. I am who I am, and if it makes you uncomfortable, then you can move on. No hard feelings. 

    Since accepting that my unfiltered ways are simply me, I’ve felt unsurpassed freedom. If I get to be me, and it turns out that you like me, well, alright then! If I get to be me, but you shuffle along, that’s cool, too. The people who understand me are the people who are still here. I don’t need everyone and their damn dog to like me. I’ve been there, tried to do that, and it’s exhausting.

    But if we aren’t hurting anyone in our quests to truly be ourselves, why aren’t more people living this way? Maybe it’s because we assume that being ourselves just doesn’t cut the mustard. We’ve been conditioned to believe we aren’t shiny enough, young enough, rich enough, educated enough, or informed enough to exist in today’s performative world.

    And I’m tired of it, quite frankly.

    Part of the reason I left my career last January was this deep yearning I felt to live unapologetically. As myself.

    Although much of my time as a financial advisor was rewarding, I often felt stifled, required to behave as a version of myself that didn’t line up. I had to shove the real Sam back inside myself. Keep a lid on her. Keep her quiet for compliance and reputational reasons. I maintained this through all of my thirties and half my forties until I nearly broke.

    Over this last year, however, I’ve discovered a tremendous shift in what matters to me. Now unencumbered, I’m exploring my true self without any muzzle or handcuffs.

    If I want to submit a piece I’ve written and say how I really feel, I’m going to do that. Because I can. If I want to dive deep into my creativity to see where it leads, I will.

    For me, the pandemic has also illuminated some habits that were inadvertently hurting me. Being stuck at home has shown me that I’m actually quite introverted. I enjoy time to myself and often find it challenging to give my energy to people outside my family. This is just the truth. Pre-pandemic, however, I’d say YES to almost any invitation because my boundaries around my own mental health were not prioritized over the feelings of others.

    Now, if I don’t feel like Zoom-zoom-zooming, I’m more empowered to just say it like it is. “You know what? Not feeling it today. Still love you, but no. I’ve got a date with Netflix and a bowl of Tostitos. Let’s talk next weekend.”

    I used to view this as selfish. But what I’ve learned is I’m not doing anyone any favors if I show up cranky for something I really don’t want to be at. Because I’m a terrible faker—let’s add that to the list of why I am the way I am.

    I’ve also discovered that I am legit a wandering soul. I know this for sure, because the travel embargo has wreaked havoc with my natural tendency to hit the road. And I will no longer apologize for this passion of mine. Yes, I’m grateful for all the blessings and beauty of my own backyard, but you know what? I’m allowed to miss the wider world. It’s part of what makes me me, and I will no longer water it down.

    Because I don’t want to be an actress. Contrary to the world we live in, where every dish we eat, trip we take (okay, the ones we used to take), outfit we assemble, animal we groom, it’s all up for display, but we showcase only the best versions of our lives.

    We don’t want people to see behind the curtains… The dirty dishes strewn everywhere (check). The dental floss we tossed on the floor instead of in the garbage (check). The bottom half of our attire (long undies with holes in them). We take great pains to ensure that how we represent ourselves is attractive, enviable, and meeting a standard that says we have it all together.

    The thing is, I’ve decided wholeheartedly to embrace my obvious not having it all together. See, I know the truth—nobody has it all together. The second I accepted this universal tenet I became far more comfortable just being me. 

    And that has led to a feeling of freedom I’m just now starting to taste.

    I believe this is what everyone wants: freedom. If we are privileged to live in a world where we can show up as ourselves, that is a gift. For sure, not everyone has access to it. Some live in a world where they must hide their beliefs, their gender identities, dilute their dreams or worse, battle through atrocities the likes of which we have nary a concept.

    So, if we are lucky enough to live in a society where we can show up as ourselves so long as we aren’t hurting others, shouldn’t we be rushing to do so? Isn’t it our duty to interact with people in a richer, more authentic, more emboldened way? Aren’t you tired of trying to be someone else?

    It’s not that I don’t value growth. As long as we’re human, we will always strive for improvement. But there isn’t anyone else in the whole wide world like us. Everyone else is already taken. Therein is our own version of a superpower: an essence of what we can contribute because we are ourselves, not in spite of it.

  • How a Numb, Phony Zombie Started Singing Her Own Song

    How a Numb, Phony Zombie Started Singing Her Own Song

    “Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

    Six years ago, I came across a line from an old poem that punctured my present moment so profoundly it seemed to stop time.

    On an average Tuesday, there I was, sitting at my desk, ignoring the stack of papers I was responsible for inputting into a spreadsheet and procrastinating as usual on the Internet instead.

    At this particular time, Pinterest was my drug of choice—anyone else?

    As I was aimlessly scrolling through wacky theme party ideas and spicy margarita recipes, suddenly, here came this old-school poet Oliver Wendell Holmes with these words that leapt off of my laptop screen and stung me like fourteen different bee stings to the heart:

    “Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!”

    I was floored. It was as if Oliver’s invisible hand had reached into my day and popped the protective bubble of my well-established comfort zone, sending me crashing down to the ground of an uncertain reality that I had so expertly managed to hover above for years.

    When I landed inside of the truth of my life for the first time in a long time, here’s what I saw:

    A recent college grad whose dad had died in the first few weeks of her “adulthood,” who took a job in the marketing department of a reputable company because it “looked good,” who spent her time outrunning looming fears of growing up and grief by seeking refuge in extraneous purchases, greasy slices of pizza, late nights under laser lights, and the bottoms of bottles of wine.

    A numb, phony zombie in red lipstick who had forgotten her own song.

    As a little girl, effortless music oozed from my pores. I could laugh, cry, dream, question, create, and believe in magic, and other people, and myself, with such abandon; it was like I was a tiny conductor leading a spontaneous orchestra of full self-expression, always unrehearsed and totally freestyle.

    And I didn’t just speak, I SANG! And I didn’t just walk, I DANCED!

    Had I put no soundproof walls up around my being then? I could recall what it was like to feel that free. But the memory of my smaller, wilder self marching proudly to the beat of her own drum felt so distant from where and how I was living.

    So instead of continuing on with the endless spreadsheet that I was responsible for completing that afternoon, I decided to take a break. A long break. I found a sunny bench outside of my building where I could go to sit and think.

    Then suddenly, The Little Mermaid swam right into my stream of thought. I closed my eyes and saw the scene where Ariel trades in her powerful voice to the evil sea witch, Ursula, for a pair of legs. She is so certain that becoming a part of the human world is more important to her than speaking her own truth and singing her own song. And I wondered…

    In what ways am I living at the expense of my own inner music? 

    I began to examine the situations in my life where I found myself exchanging an authentic piece of who I was out of fear, in order to achieve a particular outcome in the world. Here are just a few places in my life where I discovered this was so:

    I’d sacrificed my passion, by accepting a job I merely tolerated, because I was afraid of failing and wanted to give the appearance of being successful.

    I’d pushed down my grief, numbing it with shopping, food, and alcohol, because I was afraid of breaking down and wanted to give the appearance of being “fine.”

    I’d sacrificed authentic connection for toxic friendships because I was afraid of being lonely while I found the right friends and wanted to give the appearance of being liked.

    I’d sacrificed my authenticity and ended up living a small life because I was afraid of vulnerability and wanted to give the appearance of being in control.

    That was the moment when I decided I was ready to ditch the legs—everything that was just about appearances—and dive deeply into my own true passion, grief, and longings for connection and authenticity.

    I quit my job and enrolled in a spiritual studies certification and celebrant ordination program.

    I hired a therapist to help me heal and a coach to help me dream; these two women would become some of the fiercest advocates for me and my inner music that I’d ever meet.

    I started taking courses in personal development, joined a business mastermind, and got myself into as many meditation circles and yoga classes as I could.

    I began to play around with my expression again, belting my favorite songs from my childhood, wearing colors that sparked aliveness in me, scribbling lines of poetry till I fell in love with my own heart’s language again, and dipping my fingers in rainbows of paint without a plan.

    It felt so good to seek for the sake of seeking, and to create for the sake of creating!

    I finally started to let some of the people that I loved and trusted in enough to really see, hear, and hold me.

    And I got present, like really, really present, slowing down for long enough to fully inhabit whatever moment I was in. From that place, it became so natural to tap into the very real magic that had always existed within and around me.

    I recognized the miraculousness of my two feet on the ground, the blessing of my breath, and the rhythm of my heartbeat. I started to notice the sound and sensation of my full-body NO and YES. This new level of awareness polished my lens of perception, allowing me to see my life through my child self’s eyes once again—from a place of curiosity, excitement, imagination, and hope!

    My dive has brought me to terrifying places where I’ve wanted to sell myself out to the sea-witch over and over again, but still, I keep on swimming.

    For my song cannot be silenced, and neither can yours, though both of us will spend months, if not years living in fear of what it will take to truly sing.

    There is so much music inside of you and me. And to be the highest expression of who we are here to be, we’ve gotta sing our songs and sing em’ loud! But to live like that, we’re going to have to give ourselves permission to feel, say, and do what’s true.

    So, maybe owning your truth doesn’t look like finally quitting a job or grieving the loss of a loved one. But I challenge you to really take some time to stop and scan through your life with no judgment, just wide-open eyes and a loving heart, and ask yourself:

    What do I desire? What fear arises in the face of my desire? Where am I selling myself out to run/hide from my fear? And what must I do to express the full potential and possibility of achieving my desire?

    Do you remember the fierce and fearless drive that you had as a child to learn and grow? Can you imagine how many times the little you tried and failed and tried again at mastering the skills you needed to really engage with life—walking, reading, writing, using your words to ask for what you want, feeding yourself, tying your shoes, wiping your own bum, etc.? Where does that invincible tenacity go?

    The answer is: YOU’VE STILL GOT IT!

    It has been and always will be within you. You and I have the capacity to thrive in any and all areas of our lives. How? By becoming brave enough to stop and listen to our own music, then allowing ourselves to be truly guided by it as we go!

    Belt out your song like your life and the lives of future generations depend on it, because they do. And if you miss a beat or sing a note or two out of tune, don’t be afraid to own it. It’s all just a part of the dance. 

    If you’re looking for me, I’ll be here, diving deep into the depths of my being, tuning into my own music, swimming through fear, and daring myself to sing. Over and over and over again until my very last breath.

    And you? It is my hope that you will have the courage and the willingness to go deep and begin unleashing the divine music that only you were born to sing.

  • The 6 Personalities of People-Pleasing and How I Overcame Them

    The 6 Personalities of People-Pleasing and How I Overcame Them

    “The truth is, you’re never going to be able to please everybody, so stop trying. Remember, the sun is going to continue shining even if some people get annoyed by its light shining in their eyes. You have full permission to shine on.” ~Unknown

    I used to be a rebel. I was the girl at the party who would waltz into a room and have everyone in awe, their attention and curiosity caught by my presence. I felt it, they felt it, it was magnetic. I loved it—I had become the girl I wanted to be.

    That was until one night at a party, while I was making a batch of popcorn in the kitchen, someone came up to me and asked, “Why do you need to prove yourself all the time?”

    This question caught me so off guard. I was instantly confused. I was staring into space trying to figure out how I was proving myself all the time. So, I asked exactly how I was doing this.

    It turned out that when someone shared a story about themselves, I would share one of my own, and it came across as bigger and better. This person went on to tell me, “Actually, no one likes it, and it’s totally not necessary to win over your friends.”

    Holy moly. My blood started pumping faster through my veins, my face was burning up, my gut was wrenching at the thought of these people who I called friends not liking me. I thought I had finally found my community of like-minded souls.

    In this exact moment, I made the biggest decision of my life.

    It was time to squash down who I was, again. You see, I was in my mid-twenties, and I finally felt free from my childhood patterns. I was confident. I had friends. I could finally be me—who I was without the filter.

    They needed a toned-down version of me.

    So, I began to hide.

    I would sit in the corner or behind someone else. I wouldn’t share stories of my life adventures. I stopped dressing to impress. I apologized for silly things, and I watched every move I made around these people. It was exhausting, but the fear of them not liking me was crippling.

    Over the years I perfected these new behaviors of how to not be “too much” for the people around me. I went from being a wild, carefree soul to someone who was filled with anxiety in every social scenario.

    These new patterns overflowed into my work, family, relationships, and friendships. I became oversensitive, reactive, and uncomfortable to be around.

    After a decade of self-punishment, I was on a call with someone who I was working with, and they called me out for apologizing for not getting something right, even though it was the first time I had tried what they were teaching.

    Then the words that flew out of my mouth were: I did it again.

    Seriously, here I was, thinking I had it all figured out. I had adapted my behaviors, beliefs, patterns, and values to get through life, all in order to please other people. This was the slap on the face that I needed.

    So, I went on a deep soul journey that involved journaling daily. I took a real good look at myself and what I had created in my life. I began evaluating friendships, my work, the people in my day-to-day life, my family, and my environment.

    I had created a reality where I was no longer happy.

    My life revolved around everyone else’s needs, and I placed them before my own. I had become so aware of people’s energy, reactions, body language, and tone that I felt like I was suffocating.

    And for what?

    To not have friends, to not have people like me, to sacrifice my life for others.

    From that moment forward, I chose me.

    In order to do that, I needed to recognize how I’d formerly denied myself and my feelings so I could become aware of when I was tempted to fall into old patterns.

    Let me share with you the six personality types I lived through for a decade, how they play out in our daily lives, and how I overcame them.

    The Six People-Pleasing Personality Types

    The Approval Seeker

    When I was living in approval-seeking mode, my actions were geared toward praise. I would do anything to be the best employee in my jobs, from working overtime to taking on extra responsibility. I would play by the rules when it came to my family. I would make an effort to be noticed by my friends, all while chasing that sense of belonging.

    Praise was the fuel that kept me going. It reinforced the things I was doing right.

    The remedy to being an approval seeker is self trust, owning my values and my beliefs instead of looking for external validation. I simply started by questioning my motives in my actions.

    If I suspected I was doing something solely or primarily to receive approval, I asked myself, “Would I make this choice if I were being true and fair to myself?”

    The Busy Bee

    As a busy mumma of two, wife, business owner, sister, daughter, and friend, there was a time when I thought I had to keep it all together for everyone around me. I was the person who organized all the parties, Christmas dinners, birthday celebrations, family get-togethers, kids’ school activities, groceries, holidays, and anything else you can think of.

    The people around me saw me as dependable and organized, and they knew that I would do any task to help out. Of course without any fuss because I was being of service to the ones I loved.

    After I spotted a yoga class I really wanted to attend and realized I needed to make time in my schedule, I started to review my weekly routine. I realized I didn’t have to be everything for everyone at all times, which was hard to accept since “acts of service” is one of my love languages. But I knew being less busy was an act of kindness and love for myself.

    The Conflict Avoider

    When people raise their voice or assert their authority to me, I tend to crumble. It looks like I am still standing there, but in my mind, I’m in the fetal position on the floor.

    Speaking up for what I believe in is sometimes easy when I am fueled by passion for topics I love, but there are a few people in my life who turn me back into the conflict avoider in a second.

    In tense situations with these people, I often observe what is about to play out and create an exit strategy. I ask myself, “What do I need to do? Who do I need to be? What do I need to say to get me out of here?”

    When I recognize I’m doing this, I now take a few breaths to ground myself before leaning into the discomfort I’m feeling. I consider how I can stay true to my values and respond in a way that opens the space for discussion.

    The Self-Sacrificer

    This is the most common form of people-pleasing because it’s driven by love. It happens with our nearest and dearest.

    I once had a boyfriend who was into punk music, and slowly, over time, while dating him, I turned into a punk chic. I listened to his music, I wore all black, I tore up my clothes, and I went from blonde to black hair. I would have done anything for his love.

    Self-sacrificing is when we put others’ needs ahead of our own, fitting in with their agendas and adapting to them, yet in this process we lose small pieces of ourselves.

    It’s a personal crime when this happens because it takes years to rediscover all the things we once loved.

    Experimenting is the cure to finding that feeling of pure happiness we once held. I took belly dancing and various yoga classes, went for walks in different places, and challenged myself to try new and old things to see if they lit me up. I also reminded myself that I don’t need to sacrifice my interests and needs for anyone else because, if they truly love me, they’ll want me to honor those things.

    The Apologizer

    Sorry! Oops, sorry. Oh yes, I would apologize for everything from accidentally bumping into someone at the grocery store to taking a long time getting drinks at a bar.

    I eventually realized I apologized all the time because I believed I was at fault in each situation—not just super observant and sensitive to other people, as I’d formerly believed. I blamed myself for all kinds of things, from meeting my needs to taking up space.

    One day I decided to walk the busy city streets with my head held high, no more side-stepping to get out of other people’s way or apologizing for almost bumping into them. I bit my tongue and simply reminded myself that it is okay to have my own agenda, I am not to blame for things that are out of my control, and I have a voice.

    The Sensitive Soul

    Often, I would guard myself against the world, even though I wanted to trust it, because I had a hard time creating emotional boundaries. The word “should” always hung over my head—I should always be available, I should be able to listen whenever someone needs me. But this took a huge toll.

    Everyone would come to me to share their story, offload their junk, and then move on, leaving me with a negative energy load. I would push down my feelings and pretend everything was okay. Also, I felt like I couldn’t share my story with others because they were in a bad mood, feeling sad, or the timing wasn’t right. I was a doormat.

    I needed to address my conditioning in order to stop taking on other people’s problems. Why did my feelings come second to others’? Why were their stories more important than mine? I discovered that I had been putting others on a pedestal and that I needed to dig deep into the “shoulds” and start tackling them one at a time until I was able to speak up and set limits.

    —

    I started people-pleasing because someone told me I was always trying to prove myself, but ironically, that’s what people-pleasing is—trying to prove you’re a good person by doing all the right things so no one will be upset or disappointed. Ultimately, though, we end up disappointing ourselves.

    Since I’ve started challenging these personalities, I’ve slowly offset my need to please. It hasn’t been easy, but I’m now a lot closer to the person I used to be—someone who likes who she is and has nothing to prove to anyone.

    Do any of these personalities sound familiar to you? And how are you going to tackle it?

  • How I Found My Place in the World When I Felt Beaten Down by Life

    How I Found My Place in the World When I Felt Beaten Down by Life

    “Some people are going to reject you simply because you shine too bright for them. That’s okay. Keep shining.” ~Mandy Hale

    After I finished school, I was excited about moving forward with life.

    I thought about the career that I hoped to have, where I hoped to live, and the things that I wanted to accomplish.

    After starting off as a secondary high school English teacher and becoming disappointed with the ongoing changes in the public school system, I went to graduate school for law. I thought it would open up a lot of possibilities, but it did not.

    I never had any dream of being an attorney in a courtroom. Instead, I always wanted to work in Europe or South America with people from different cultures, nationalities, and backgrounds. I wanted to make a positive difference in a humanitarian way by working with people personally to implement change and improve their lives.

    Life had something different in store for me, though. I ended up being rejected endlessly, well over a thousand times for every application that I sent out over a period of years.

    Disillusionment set in. There was the feeling of “why even continue to try anymore?” As the rejections piled up, friends that I had known for years began leaving as well. Their calls and visits became less frequent. They moved on with their lives, careers, marriages, and kids.

    I felt left behind and rejected not just by jobs, but by life in general. The hurts and betrayals were leading me to lose my passion and enthusiasm. Then there were the callous remarks from friends, people in the local community, when I asked if they knew of a position, former professors who couldn’t assist in any way now that I’d graduated, college career center advisors, and even extended family members.

    It took time, but I finally came to the realization that those who were endlessly rejecting me weren’t the ones who really mattered. I would keep shining brightly with or without them.

    Here are the four things that helped me to finally “reject” the non-acceptance and rejection that I was experiencing from others.

    1. Realize that “there is no box.”

    Our background, degrees, friends, teachers, families, and the larger culture as a whole try to get us to conform to a narrow set of parameters. If you went to school to be a teacher, you have to be a teacher.  If you studied to be an auto mechanic, you have to be an auto mechanic. And you have to live in this place or this country, because that’s where your family have always lived.

    Someone once told me, “there is no box.” Society tries to “box” us in and to restrict us to defining ourselves within certain narrow limits. However, I realized that there really is “no box,” and that I could apply my skills and talents in other ways and in other places.

    I didn’t have to conform to where I was or seek acceptance from those who were currently around me.

    I started meeting new people and looking at other places and countries, and I stopped trying to seek the acceptance of those who had already decided that they weren’t going to accept me for who I was. The employers, institutions, and agencies told me I was  “overqualified” or that that there were “many qualified candidates” and I hadn’t been considered, or they’d keep my resume on file.

    It was as though no matter what I accomplished and no matter how hard I worked, it was never “the right skill set” or “enough” for the particular place or person that I was submitting to.

    In a way, I came to accept their rejection, because I knew that the answer was getting out of my box and realizing that someone else would be more than happy to accept me for who I was.

    2. Let go of the need for approval by others.

    Letting go of the need for approval opens up exciting new doors. We are finally free to be who we really are.

    I wanted to live up to the expectations of family and society. I think that’s why it hurt so much to receive so many rejections over such a long period of time. I wanted to be “successful” according to society’s expectations. I wanted to follow the path of what everyone told me was a “regular” and “secure” life.

    I’ve since realized that I get to define success for myself.

    Success, for me, means doing what I love—teaching, reading, traveling, meeting and working with people from throughout the world, studying languages, and experiencing different cultures.

    Everything changed for me when I decided to live my life on my terms now rather than looking for a company, agency, government institution, or some other entity to provide me with the chance or opportunity. I wasn’t going to wait for permission from someone or something else.

    I also realized I can use my skills in the world outside of the narrow and limited context of the jobs and people who were rejecting me.

    For example, I can teach, and I can work to help others, but it doesn’t have to be within the rigid structure of the public education system.

    I can use the skills that I’ve acquired to be a global citizen and to learn and grow every day without confining myself to the parameters of one place, country, or culture. I can be an amalgamation of all of them, as I continue to grow as a person, both personally and professionally, but on my own terms, not those that are dictated to be by someone or something else.

    As I let go of the need for others to approve of me, my world expanded, because now I could go after those things in life that I was passionate about rather than just trying to conform and satisfy others.

    3. Start journaling.

    Journaling and connecting with our true selves, and what really brings us joy, can make us value ourselves again in spite of any opposition and rejection that we experience from the world.

    It can also help us reconnect with the things we used to love when we were younger—the passions we lost after going through years of school and trying to do what we thought we had to do in order to be successful in the eyes of society.

    Journaling helped me get back to my uniqueness as a person and was what really motivated and inspired me. It helped me pay attention to what made me happy again and those things that I’d really like to do or accomplish.

    I was inspired by my experiences in the world that were outside of my comfort zone and by the rich and varied cultures and experiences that were waiting out there. As I continued journaling, I also realized I’d always been inspired by the possibility of teaching and helping others, but in an international capacity.

    As a result, I’ve had the opportunity to help students with autism, to teach English to students and adults internationally, and to write for a variety of places abroad that did accept and value my work. However, I would never have explored these aspects of myself if I had been accepted by those who were rejecting me. Which means really, their rejections were blessings in disguise.

    4. Support those who support you.

    “Your circle should want to see you win.  Your circle should clap the loudest when you have good news.  If they don’t, get a new circle.” ~Wesley Snipes

    We can reject rejection by supporting those who support us through both the good and the more difficult times in our lives. Why support those who are only there for you when life is good?

    The hard times made me realize who really was on my side. The people who stayed with me and continued to believe in me supported me through both the victories and the disappointments. There was a tremendous difference between those individuals and others who no longer answered calls or emails, except when I was “successful.”

    Now, I may not have as many friends as I once did, but those that I do have are an important part of my circle and people that I can rely on.

    Someone once told me, “Now I know who the true believers are.” I feel that way about those who have proudly celebrated my successes and have also been there for me during my darkest moments.

    I hope you’re fortunate enough to have people in your life who genuinely support you, even if it’s only one person. If you don’t, try to open yourself up to new people, and stop giving your energy to people who accept you conditionally or regularly disappoint you. Creating a supportive circle begins with that first step of making a little room.

    —

    It wasn’t easy for me to overcome rejection and non-acceptance, and I still struggle with it at times. No one wants to feel left out or like a failure. But I’ve realized I can only fail by society’s terms if I accept them—and I don’t.

    Instead, I’ve rejected the “box” other people tried to impose on me, gotten outside my comfort zone, let go of the need for approval, started rediscovering what excites me, and shifted my focus to those people who have always supported me, regardless of what I’ve achieved. And I’m far happier for it.

  • My Attraction Experiment: Why I Created a Dating Profile with No Pics

    My Attraction Experiment: Why I Created a Dating Profile with No Pics

    “Being attracted to someone’s way of thinking is a whole different level of attraction.” ~Unknown

    I have been divorced for ten years now and thought it would be fairly easy to find “the one” once I was set free from the ties of the wrong one. To my surprise, it has been harder than I thought it would be. I have found many but not “the one.”

    I have been on Match, Bumble, Plenty of Fish, and blind dates, and even dated a longtime friend to only find myself single going into my fiftieth year on this planet. It has taken me a long time to figure out what I have been doing that has attracted what isn’t right for me.

    I have been in years of therapy, talking out my thoughts and recognizing patterns that don’t serve me. After my marriage, I was in a two-year relationship with a guy who cheated on me. I was in a four-year relationship with a guy who stole a quarter of a million dollars from me, and my fifteen-year marriage was not a friendship.

    With all three partners there was one common denominator: I put a lot of energy into my looks to connect with them. In other words, I wasn’t an innocent party in these crimes of the heart. I got charged when a man was really turned on by me. I was addicted to someone wanting me. I needed to be desired.

    These men were overly visually stimulated and easily physically distracted. They all fixated on my physical and tolerated my mental. I never had a friendship with any of these guys. I had lustship.

    They questioned my deep, soulful emotions. They turned a cheek to my equanimity mindset. They made a face to my immense empathy. They shrugged at my compassion toward others.

    After my last relationship ended, I made an oath to myself. I was going to be celibate and single until I turned fifty. I had been holding onto a really nice bottle of champagne, reserving it for a special occasion. I went to the fridge with a sharpie and wrote, “Drink October 2021.”

    One restless Monday night, I decided to write out who I was and what I was looking for. I started writing with the mindset, “If I were going to go on a dating site . . . this is what I would write” sort of thing.

    As I was writing and reading and editing, I started to really like what I was reading. I thought to myself, “Damn—I am a good writer!”

    I wrote about the good, the bad, and the ugly in a charming, humble way. I was honest to the core about my shortcomings and my endeavors. I left out nothing because I had nothing to lose.

    It became a cathartic experience for me. I rewrote it and reread it until I said to myself, “Damn—I am a really good person!” I got to a place where I wasn’t embarrassed to share the raw truth, yet wasn’t at the total other end thinking, “I don’t give a f*** what you think.” I was in a good place.

    I was proud of myself and wanted to share my story. I felt very accomplished for just being able to put into writing my love life and be able to read it like it was a heartfelt story. It made me smile.

    That Monday night I decided to do an experiment. I got a one-month membership to Match.com and paid extra to only allow people I “liked” to view my profile. I created my profile calling myself “AbbieNormal,” a reference to the hilarious Mel Brooks movie Young Frankenstein.

    I answered all the questions about myself even filled out the random topics Match prompts to help people to get to know you. I typed out the long summary I had created, and when it came time to upload a profile photo, I chose not to. This was the experiment.

    The experiment was to see if any man would be interested in my mind before seeing my body. I was a single woman looking for a single man with a profile that had a novel to read and no photos.

    What guy would read instead of view? What guy would trust without being shown? What guy would take the depth without superficial bait? Who was going to buy the cow without seeing it was a cow?

    There is no doubt that my last guys wouldn’t respond. My ex-husband would think I didn’t post a photo because I was fat. The boyfriend that took my money would think I was some woman trying to get away with cheating on her husband.

    I looked through profiles of over one hundred men and chose about twenty to view my profile, or as Match calls it, “liked” them. I had very little faith that any man would message me. It was an experiment for which I had already fabricated the conclusion.

    My write up started like this, “I have never been single longer than a blink, and I think it’s partially because men are visual creatures. I am taking a gamble with no photos. I would prefer you to read about me and decide if you want to continue than to see me and make my words fit into the pretty little package that I am, emphasis on pretty, not ego :)”

    I went to bed feeling at peace with myself for allowing people to read about the real me, and confident that this experiment would not disrupt my champagne oath. I woke up the next morning, Tuesday, to find three men had messaged me. I was shocked!

    Each one mentioned how refreshing it was to read such an authentic profile. One man did say that a photo would be nice, but no pressure, which I thought that was sweet. Another one mentioned that he too was a big Young Frankenstein fan. He got points for recognizing the reference.

    I wanted to write them back, but apparently on Match you cannot message people unless you put at least one photo up, which is silly because I already gave them money. The site must be owned by men. I was hesitant to post a photo, so I waited another day.

    Wednesday morning one of the three men messaged me again asking to connect. I felt the need to respond so that my intentions didn’t seem like a ruse. I posted a photo and responded to the three men saying the same thing to each one, “Thank you for taking the time to read my profile.”

    On the Wednesday after I posted my photo, I received messages from the rest of the twenty men that I had “liked.” Before keeping track of them became a full-time job, I gave the first three guys my attention. They were my priority.

    Guy 1 – fizzled out after a few texts  :/

    Guy 2 – asked for more photos  :[

    Guy 3 – we texted, talked, and met  🙂

    I did give some time to a handful of the second-round guys that messaged me after the photo went up. One guy didn’t understand how I wasn’t bitter about losing a quarter of a million dollars. Another made a comment that I should post more photos because I am so beautiful. And most of them wanted to meet right away.

    I also kept looking through all the profiles that Match sends daily as their algorithms do their matchmaking. Although I have to say, they always sent me my ex-husband’s profile as a “Super Match,” and he is by far not that.

    The experiment was pretty much over. I had a photo up, and now I was acting like I was dating or something. I needed to focus on my champagne oath and just stop.

    My experiment surprised me.

    I gained a new appreciation for the male species / human race. Who knows what intentions the three guys had when choosing to message me solely on the basis of my words and no photo? I would like to believe that they were genuinely interested in what they read and wanted to ride with faith that there would be a physical attraction. That is my final answer.

    The experiment taught me a lesson.

    I was being hypocritical as I looked at every man’s photos picking out who was going to have access to my profile. As painful as it is to say that I was looking at men’s physical attributes, my attraction always came from what they wrote. I do know without a doubt, if a man “liked” me with no photo and his words moved me, you better believe I would message him back.

    The experiment gave me a new perspective.

    Like I said, I was not innocent in how men viewed me or what type of man I ended up with. I wanted someone to see me for who I really was, but my shell was sparkly and shiny while my center was elaborate and profound.

    I realized I had longed for someone to want, desire, and be turned on by the elaborate and profound and then be happily pleased with the sparkly and shiny.

    For all of my dating life, men wanted me for the sparkly and shiny then tolerated, challenged, and ridiculed the elaborate and profound. The experiment allowed me to feel wanted for who I truly am for just a brief moment, and it was an incredible feeling.

    I will forever remember this experiment as the moment I learned who I really am in terms of a partner. I had been blaming the men or the quality of humans or my poor judge of character, and it wasn’t any of those things. I had to learn who I am to understand who I wanted.

    I bet you are wondering what happened to Guy 3, right? I am still dating him. As for the champagne oath—that I’d be celibate and single until I turned fifty—let’s just say when I told Guy 3 about my oath he said, “That’s not going to happen, you better just drink it.”

  • Why I Now Love That I’m Different After Hating It for Years

    Why I Now Love That I’m Different After Hating It for Years

    “Only recently have I realized that being different is not something you want to hide or squelch or suppress.” ~Amy Gerstler

    I grew up during the traditional times of the sixties and seventies. Dad went out to work and earned the family income, while Mom worked at home raising their children. We were a family of seven. My brother was the first-born and he was followed by four sisters. I was the middle child.

    I did not quite know where I belonged. I oscillated between my older two and younger two siblings, feeling like the third wheel no matter where I was.

    I was the one in my family that was “different.” I was uncomfortable in groups, emotionally sensitive, intolerant of loud noises, and did not find most jokes funny. Especially when the jokes were at the expense of someone else. Oftentimes that someone else was me.

    Yes, I was the proverbial black sheep. I stood on the fringes of my own family, a microcosm of the bigger world.

    Life felt hard and lonely. I felt isolated and misunderstood. Too frequently I wondered what was wrong with me and why I did not quite fit. Others appeared to be content with the status quo. I never was.  Others didn’t questions the inequities I saw in life. I did. Others did not seem to notice the suffering of others. I epitomized it.

    Being different did not exactly make me the popular one. In fact, quite the opposite. Who knew what to do with my awkwardness? I sure didn’t.

    As a result, I was depressed a good part of my life. That was not something that was identified or talked about then. Too often it still isn’t. A disconnected life and feelings of loneliness and isolation will lead to depression, among other things. 

    I hit my teens and did what too many do: I looked for ways to be comfortably numb. My choice was alcohol. It gave me an opportunity to “fit in” or at the very least, not care about the fact that I did not. I rebelled. I self-destructed. For years.

    As life will have it, I grew up, feeling my way in the dark, wondering when the lights would go on. I turned inward looking for the comfort I could not find from the world. I hid my pain and lostness. At times, I prayed that I would get cancer and die.

    A heroic exit was not to be my path.

    Do you know what I am talking about?

    Maybe you feel what I have felt. Maybe you know the pain of chronic isolation and what it means to be different in a culture that prefers sameness. Do you wonder if you will ever be okay? Do you wonder if you will ever fit?

    Well, let me tell you:

    First of all, you fit. You have always fit. You belong. You have always belonged. You are needed—more than you know. These are truisms.

    Others do not have to think you belong in order for you to know you do. Others do not have to treat you as insider in order for you to know you are.

    Knowing, intellectually, that you belong is one thing. Feeling like you belong, now that is an entirely different thing. That is an inside job. In other words, that is your work to do.

    So, I did what I had to do to bring change, in order to get the life I wanted. I stepped up to the challenges in my life, which came through my work world and my personal relationships.

    I often ran into conflict with authority figures, changing jobs frequently. I didn’t know how to let others close to me. I was afraid of being rejected, so I used anger and avoidance to distance those that mattered to me the most. I was not happy, content, or at peace. I felt that more often than not.

    So, I faced my pain and hurt instead of numbing it.

    As I got more honest with myself, I began to consider that maybe there was nothing wrong with me.  Maybe there was something wrong with the world or the system that wants to tell me there is something wrong with me.

    So, I began to view myself through different eyes. I began to make some noise. I got out of the bleachers and stepped into the ring. I chose to participate in life as I was, not as others thought I should be. I started to push up against the boundaries that others had set.

    Yes, I faced rejection. I dealt with disapproval. It was hard. Really hard. It hurt. I cried. I stomped my feet. I cried again. I gave myself permission to feel angry.

    In spite of the internal chaos, in spite of the hurt, in spite of my turmoil, I would do it all again.

    When we are trying to make changes, when we are owning our own lives, when we bump up against the expectations of others, it frequently gets messy before it gets better.

    DO IT ANYWAY! Because it does get better. For every person who rejects you, another will embrace you. But you can only meet those people if you first embrace yourself. Because you need to accept yourself to be able to put yourself out there.

    When you feel afraid to move forward, move anyway.

    When you want to quit because it feels too hard, rest. Do something nice for yourself. Then get back up and keep moving.

    There is light. Even when you can’t yet see it.

    There is hope. Even when you can’t find it.

    There is love. Even when you can’t feel it.

    Work at finding your voice by getting quiet and paying attention to your feelings and inner nudges. Learn to trust yourself by acknowledging that only you know what is true and best for you. Know your worth by recognizing your intrinsic value as a unique person with an abundance of admirable qualities.

    Start caring more about approving of yourself than waiting for others to approve of you. Own your life and take responsibility for your well-being and happiness. No one can do that for you.

    Figure out how to forgive yourself for the mistakes you will inevitably make. Learn how to love yourself more than anyone could ever love you.

    Accept yourself—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Then get about changing the ugly as best you can.

    This is what I have done. This is the hard work that brings transformation.

    In the process of all of this I made a phenomenal discovery…

    ME!!

    What a discovery! I have gifts to bring to the world. Gifts that will leave this world better than I found it.

    When I was younger, I didn’t like how sensitive I was to the energies around me, how I felt things to the core of my being, and how I hurt when I saw someone else hurting.

    Those around me seemed playful and fun, though, I could see the hurt in them. Life did not feel playful and fun to me. It felt serious. People were hurting. Why didn’t anyone other than me notice?

    I was hurting. Why didn’t anyone notice?

    I gravitated to the heavier side of life, fully identified with the suffering around me.

    I wanted to be anything other than what I was.

    I now understand these qualities to be empathy and intuition. Two things the world greatly needs.

    I learned to trust those qualities. They led me down a road I could never have imagined. I now have a thriving counseling practice, helping others to heal. I get to watch them discover their gifts. Better than that, I get to watch them go from hating who they are to loving and embracing who they are.

    Then they go out and find ways to help others do the same.

    But this story is not just about me. It is also about you.

    There is nothing wrong with you. You are amazing and beautiful, just as you are. Flaws and imperfections included.

    Don’t change yourself for a world that wants to tell you who you are.

    You tell the world who you are. Let’s change this place together and allow difference to be the norm, because our beauty is in our diversity.

    I invite you to take the journey inward to self-discovery. Then bring what you’ve learned and share it.

    Bring who you are and let’s change this world, one person at a time.

  • 7 Reasons I Was Scared to Take up Space and How I Boosted My Confidence

    7 Reasons I Was Scared to Take up Space and How I Boosted My Confidence

    “You are allowed to take up space. Own who you are and what you want for yourself. Stop downplaying the things you care about, the hopes you have.” ~Bianca Sparacino

    I deserve to take up more space. Plain and simple. By taking the space I deserve, I further build the confidence I need to live a rich life that resonates with who I truly am.

    Over the past several years, I’ve had to navigate a new life after hard breakups, difficult career transitions, and moving back home. I’ve had to face the feeling that I’m not doing enough. That I am not enough. That I don’t deserve to take up space. To be seen, felt, and heard with all of the faults that scatter among all my strengths.

    I know I owe it to myself to show up. I know I owe it to myself to be present as I am. I know I owe it to myself to finally come out from the back curtains and take center stage where my heart can shine.

    I deserve to take more space in my presence around others and to be truly seen.

    I deserve to take more space in my voice in a loud world and to be truly heard.

    I deserve to take more space in my heart and take care of my needs first.

    Because I know these things, I now try not to make my voice small when I want to speak so loudly that it hurts.

    I try not to be apologetic for taking the time to express what I feel to others when the person I should be accommodating first is myself.

    I try not to bottle up my emotions because the longer I do, the longer it will take to get past ignoring them.

    After taking moments to pause and breathe, I gently remind myself again that I am enough. That I deserve to speak from the heart and to be heard. That my thoughts, opinions, and voice matter.

    Over time, I’ve recognized the reasons why I lacked the confidence to take the space I deserved, and I’ve also identified what I need to do to change.

    7 Reasons I Was Scared to Take up Space (And How I Changed)

    1. I lacked confidence in my communication and overused apologetic terms, which minimized my opinions.

    I used to say sorry a lot in my interactions, if I thought I’d made a mistake or I interrupted a conversation, for example.

    Research shows that when you say sorry, people tend to think less of you. I may have thought that I was displaying myself as a nice and caring person, but I was actually sending the message that I lacked confidence.

    “Sorry” isn’t the only word I needed to watch out for. These 25 limiting words diminished my statements. For example, with the word “just”—if I was “just wondering” or telling someone it will “just take me a minute.”

    There’s no need to use minimizing words. My needs and opinions are as important as others’. I built more awareness and confidence by flipping the script and being firmer in my conversations. I started saying phrases like “Thanks for pointing that out” or “Here, let me get out of the way” or “It will be a minute.”

    2. I thought it was unkind to say no, even if something didn’t align with my priorities.

    By consciously saying no to one area, I am confidently saying yes to another more important one. I don’t want to give my space away without consideration of what the true cost is. I need to protect my time like it is my most valuable commodity.

    Saying no is not a natural response for many of us, though. We often feel nervous about creating conflict with others and tend to value others’ needs more highly than our own.

    At least for me, I have learned to please others by being kind and helping those who ask for it. I tend to say yes because I want to be seen as caring, selfless, and generous. I didn’t realize that the ability to say no is closely linked to self-esteem.

    So how did I start to say no without feeling bad about it? I kept my responses simple and to the point. I learned how to strengthen my delivery and not over-apologize.

    Sometimes, when I provide too many details, I get caught up in the why behind my decision to say no. I’ve learned that there’s no need to overanalyze, and that I have the right to say no as much as yes. I just need to remember that I’m not saying no to the person, I’m saying no to the request. Also, I’ve learned not to take someone else’s no personally. Sometimes their no means “no for now.”

    3. I didn’t realize my thoughts can contribute to a richer conversation.

    Sometimes, it’s been easier for me to keep quiet and listen to the entire conversation without saying a word. I’ve learned that I have a seat at the table, and with every word I speak, the more confidence I gain.

    I know I have many valuable thoughts that could add a new perspective to the conversation at hand. Whether it’s in a work meeting or hanging out with friends, I consciously remind myself not to hold back my voice.

    The world benefits when we all find our voice. Whether it’s to elevate good ideas or discuss alternatives to bad ones, speaking up is how we arrive at the best outcomes.

    4. I struggled with being vulnerable because I worried about what people thought of me.

    Vulnerability is consciously choosing not to hide your emotions and desires from others.

    Being vulnerable with others is scary and uncomfortable for me because it’s letting go of what people think of me. When I’m not afraid of what other people think, that’s when true confidence begins to grow.

    Vulnerability bridges connections and helps me build confidence in the relationships I am creating. Vulnerability frees me up to share personal stories that others can relate to. Vulnerability sparks conversations that allow me to move beyond fear to a place of shared experiences.

    Connecting with others by being vulnerable—as opposed to overcompensating and trying to get everyone to like you—will result in some of the best interactions and relationships of your life.

    5. I felt insecure about sharing my dreams and achievements along with my mistakes and failures.

    I needed to let myself be excited and proud in order to build confidence in what I’ve accomplished. Sometimes I have to be my own cheerleader to keep the confidence going and be okay with that.

    By sharing my successes, I hope to inspire others and kickstart them in a direction that helps them on their journey.

    By sharing my failures, I accept the mistakes I’ve made along the way. I’ve built confidence by taking the lessons learned and continuing to strive toward my dreams.

    6. I felt uncomfortable asking for help.

    It’s hard to ask people for help. Like most people, I’ve been taught to carry all the weight on my own. To be independent. To be self-sufficient. When you ask for help, people may say no, but it doesn’t hurt to simply ask. Each ask will give you confidence for the next.

    Most people like helping others by sharing their time, knowledge, and experiences. I realized I am in a village where others look to help me, which in turn helps the entire village.

    Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. Asking for help is uncomfortable because it’s a behavior I wasn’t used to. But it gives me the confidence to know others are there along the way to support my dreams and goals.

    7. I didn’t realize how much I have to offer.

    There are times I thought I didn’t have much to offer to others, but I now know I do. I possess a wealth of experiences that can help others live a brighter, more confident life. Whether it’s sharing how I aced a job interview or how I created a fine-tuned budget, there are people out there seeking my help.

    As I started to offer my knowledge to others, I was surprised by how many people I began to help. By being of service to others, I built confidence that I have more to give than I realized. I am a wealth of knowledge and experience that can help others build their own confidence.

    —

    I’ve learned that my thoughts and needs matter—that I matter. That I can speak up unapologetically, say no when I need to, share my successes and failures, ask for help when I need it, and make a real difference for other people. I just need to let myself take up space, knowing I deserve it, and the world is better off because of it.

  • The Joy and Power of Realizing I Am More Than My Job

    The Joy and Power of Realizing I Am More Than My Job

    “Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.” ~Brené Brown

    “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

    “It’s so nice to meet you. What do you do?”

    These are the questions we are asked our entire life. When we’re children, everyone always asks about the future. They excitedly ask, “What will you do?” The subtext of this questions is:

    “How will you be productive in society? How will you contribute?”

    Being asked those questions all the time as children turned us into the adults that ask them. We are in the same cycle and do not seem to know to ask instead, “Who are you?”

    For a long time, my focus and self-identity was tied up in what I did. I would tell people, “I am a filmmaker.” When I was young, I knew I wanted to make films. I loved to tell stories. “I want to be a movie director!”

    When I grew up and actually got jobs in Hollywood, I realized that most people are not movie directors. Most people are not even filmmakers. They work in film. It takes many people to make one, but only a handful of people get any recognition or able to consider themselves filmmakers.

    “What do you do?” people would ask. I would struggle to figure out how to explain that I was a production assistant who worked on films. I was basically a glorified secretary, a personal assistant. But I was not a filmmaker.

    I worked on other filmmaker’s films. I personally had not made any art or films for over six years. I was so busy and tired of trying to work in the industry I wanted to work in that I forgot about myself.

    When I could no longer define myself as a filmmaker, I became disillusioned. If I wasn’t one, then what was I? People always got excited when I said I worked on movies. Their eyes would light up, and they would pester me with questions about the famous people I knew or inside secrets.

    They never wanted to know how much sleep I missed or how many friends and family events I sacrificed for the bragging rights of Hollywood. They didn’t want to know what excited me about life or who I was. They only wanted to know “what I did.”

    This discontentment grew. I became angrier and angrier at the film industry as a whole. I felt used. Worthless. The world was nothing but egos and money. I would never be them unless I sold myself and played their game.

    I wasn’t willing to play the game, find the back doors, penny pinch, or be downright cruel. I was beginning to see that the industry was soulless. The art and stories were being dictated by companies that wanted to earn as much as possible.

    The stories were not chosen for their value and need in the world, but by which would make the most money. They profited on these stories and off the handwork and sacrifices of the below-the-line workers that were seen as disposable.

    Celebrities made millions, and I made minimum wage, but I didn’t have the luxury of a free jet ride back home and an apartment for my girlfriend. I was reprimanded for refusing to work on a Saturday after only five hours off.

    Slowly, I began to question if this was who I was. If this “works in the film industry” was really. me. And I felt guilty! I felt like I was being ungrateful. I was working on big movies! How could I not be happy? I had “made it.”

    I could only go up from here. I could get to be the next Stephen Spielberg, the next Tarantino, the next Lucas? Then I worked for one of these types of famous guys. He was just a human. He wasn’t the god I held him up to be. He was flawed.

    Sure, he got the adrenaline rush of making art, but at my expense. I was lucky to have my name in the credits. I wasn’t part of the golden ones, the actors and producers who were the “real” movie.

    If I didn’t want to play the “Hollywood” game I could go independent. But I felt guilty that I called myself a filmmaker when I hadn’t made a film in years! I didn’t even have any desire to even come up with one.

    I had friends who were making films on the weekends. They dedicated every free second to it. All I did was sleep. Then drag myself for dinner or a date and pretend I had a social life before I had to be back at work. I felt guilty and afraid that if left the industry I would be seen as a failure.

    I was afraid that I would be seen as weak or people would think that I couldn’t hack it. The more angst I felt, the more I turned to my unhelpful habit of Googling advice.  There is nothing helpful about hours of reddit and self-help blogs. They are all contradictory.

    This Googling, however, led to some articles with actual facts. This is when I started to read about Americans’ tendency to identify with our jobs. Our self-worth and identity are wrapped up in what we do.

    We say things like, “I am a lawyer.” “I am a physicist.” “I am a teacher.” We don’t say, “I practice law.” “I study physics. “I teach.” We put the emphasis on the job and not the I.

    I started the long, tedious process of separating myself, the me, from the filmmaker and the woman who worked in film. I realized that I was uncomfortable calling myself a filmmaker because I wasn’t one.

    I struggled to define my title to other because I didn’t really believe that it was who I was. I am a woman who enjoys movies and stories. More importantly, I am energized by stories.

    Filmmaking was just a job. The intense zealotry aspect of the film industry had always sat wrong with me. Now I know why. I am not a job. I am more than the work I do.

    Through this process I came to slowly accept that I wasn’t happy with the work I was doing. There was a disconnect between it and the way I saw myself in life. I needed to walk away for a bit and allow myself to heal from the harm I and the toxic industry had infected upon my soul.

    It is not just the film industry that is toxic. American work culture is. We have created an environment where work has to be our passion. Confucius said, “Choose a job you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” I disagree. Work is work.

    You might enjoy it, but as long as you are giving your time for money you are participating in a business transaction, and it is work. Just accept it as work and accept that you can be a whole person outside of your job. Your job is only a small sliver of the much larger person.

    Our work culture throws around the phrase “We are like a family.” It is encouraged and suggested that your team members and colleagues are family. They aren’t.

    You can get along with them, be friends with them, but by labeling them as family there is a pressure to feel loyal and not let them down. Our alliances are manipulated to be given first and foremost to work. Any time spend doing something for yourself or your actual family is seen as selfish.

    A year after my last film job I still struggle to see myself outside these identities. I am now enrolled in grad school and I want to label myself as a student. But I am not. I am Dia. I study mythology.

    Sometimes I am a storyteller, but that title does not and cannot encompass the whole and vastness that I am as a person.

    Identifying ourselves by our work is like trying to fill a mug with the ocean. At some point the ocean will overpower the mug, and we will be left wet and feeling bad about ourselves.

    The next time you are at a party, after the pandemic, and you meet someone new, maybe don’t ask, “What do you do?” Instead ask, “Who are you?” Create the space to meet the real, whole person; the person who is vast, deep, and full of wonder for the world.

  • My Secret to Overcoming the Painful Trap of Perfectionism

    My Secret to Overcoming the Painful Trap of Perfectionism

    “A meaningful life is not being rich, being popular, or being perfect. It’s about being real, being humble, being able to share ourselves and touch the lives of others.” ~Unknown

    Hello, I’m Kortney, and I’m a recovering perfectionist.

    Like so many of us, I spent the greater part of my life believing that unless something was perfect, it wasn’t good at all. There was really no in-between. If it wasn’t perfect, it was a failure.

    One of the problems with perfectionism is that it’s common to believe it’s a positive thing. In our society, people tend to value it. If you’re someone that aims for perfection, you must be accomplished. Driven. Smart.

    Have you ever had a sense of pride over being called a perfectionist?

    I have.

    Have you ever thought about why?

    Speaking for my own experience, when someone called me a perfectionist, I felt like even though I didn’t believe I was perfect, it meant that they were perceiving me as being perfect. They saw me as being one of the best, or as someone who was talented. It was validation that I was seen as someone who was good at things.

    My rabid thirst for this sort of validation fed the perfectionist machine for years.

    If you’re wondering what it means to be a perfectionist, here are a few traits:

    • Perfectionists obsess over mistakes, even when it’s not likely that anyone else even noticed.
    • Their self-confidence depends on being perfect.
    • They think in black and white—things are either good or bad. Perfect or failure.
    • They have unrealistic expectations and crazy-high standards for themselves and beat themselves up when they don’t meet them.
    • They put up a front that everything is perfect, even when it’s not, because the thought of someone else seeing their imperfection is unbearable.
    • Despite their quest for perfection, they don’t feel anywhere close to perfect.
    • They can’t accept being second-best at something. That’s failure.
    • They spend excessive time on projects because they’re always perfecting one last thing.
    • They spend a lot of time searching for external approval.
    • No matter what they do, they don’t feel good enough.

    At one point in my life, all of those bullet points described me well. I wasted so much time worrying about approval and validation so that I could feel like I was awesome. But I never felt even close to awesome. I never felt good enough at anything.

    Sure, there were times when I felt like I was good at something, but then I had to raise the bar. Just being good at something wasn’t enough. There was always another level to reach. The bar kept getting higher and higher, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for people who are striving to make improvements in a healthy way, but for a perfectionist whose self-worth hinges on reaching the bar every time it’s raised, it’s not a positive.

    It was exhausting.

    After a lot of struggle in my life, I knew I needed to explore my perfectionist ways and find a way to be more compassionate toward myself. Perfectionism was holding me back from loving my life. And to be honest, I don’t think I intentionally set out to rid myself of the perfectionist mentality specifically. It came as a byproduct of a great deal of other personal work.

    I began to realize that I had many beliefs that were etched into my brain that weren’t helpful. Beliefs that I never thought to question. These beliefs also severely hindered my ability to be happy and to live the life I wanted to live.

    We all have belief systems that we don’t really think to question. We’ve grown up with them. We’ve learned them from the media, culture and society. But if we actually take a step back to notice that these thought patterns that inhibit our ability to grow and progress are there, we can start to question them.

    Some common limiting beliefs that keep people stuck in perfectionism are:

    • People reward me for having high standards. They are impressed and I gain approval.
    • The only time I get positive attention is when I am striving for big things or achieving.
    • If I make a mistake, I’m a failure.
    • If only I can make so-and-so proud with my achievements, he/she will love me, and I’ll be happy.
    • If I fail, I am worthless. Failing is not okay.
    • If I don’t check over everything multiple times, I’ll miss something and look like an idiot.
    • My accomplishments are worthless if they’re not perfect (i.e.: receiving a “B” instead of an “A” in a class is a failure),
    • If others see my flaws, I won’t be accepted. They won’t like me.

    The good news is that thoughts like these are examples of faulty thinking—faulty belief systems that keep you stuck in perfectionism. By identifying the specific thoughts and beliefs that keep you stuck in perfectionism, you can start to build new, more helpful thought patterns and belief systems.

    I also stumbled upon another secret for overcoming perfectionism.

    The secret is that I became okay with being average. I worked to embrace average.

    If you’re a perfectionist, you know that being called average feels like the end of the world. It’s a terrible word to hear. My inner critic was not having it. “How dare you even think average is okay?” it hissed.

    As a teenager, a twenty-something, and even a thirty-something, my world would have come to an end if I had accepted being average.

    But sometimes life has a way of making you better.

    Life has a way of putting things into your path and it presents opportunities for you to grow. Everyone has these opportunities at one point or another, but you have to notice them and choose to take advantage of them.

    There was a time not too long ago when I went through a really difficult time and had to rebuild my life.

    Looking back, I can see that the situation was an abrupt “lane-changer”—a push in a new direction to make a change. I was not living my best life and I wasn’t meant to stay stuck in that lane. I struggled with depression and anxiety, much of which was triggered by perfectionism.

    By working on thoughts like the ones I listed above, and working to accept lowering my standards—the ones that told me that achievement and success were the only way I would be worth anything—I gradually learned to replace my old standards with this one:

    Just be happy.

    Learning to make this my standard led me to a place where I am okay with being average. Eek! I said it. Average.

    Today, I can honestly say that I’m pretty happy with being average. Do I like to do well? Sure. But it doesn’t define my self-worth. While it’s created more space for me to fail, at the same time it’s created the space for me to succeed.

    The difference is that my self-worth isn’t tied to whether I succeed or fail.

    Here’s how I look at it:

    I’m really good at some things, but I’m not very good at other things. You are really good at some things.  And you aren’t very good at other things too. The good and the not-so-good all average out.

    At the end of the day, we are all just average humans. We are all the same. We’re humans trying to live the best life we can. We are more similar than we are different.

    Don’t you think that if we all ditched our quest to be perfect, or better than everyone else, we’d feel a little happier? Don’t you feel like we’d all be a little more connected?

    If you struggle with perfectionism, I invite you to take a look at the list of limiting beliefs above and see what resonates for you. What evidence can you find that can disprove these limiting beliefs? What would you like to believe instead? Try on those new beliefs and build them up with new evidence to support them.

    And along the way, work on accepting that you are enough, even if you’re average.

  • When You Struggle with Being Yourself, Remember This

    When You Struggle with Being Yourself, Remember This

    “Make the most of yourself… for that is all there is of you.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Every day, it was more or less the same. I presented an edited version of myself to the world. I felt a deep level of discomfort with the idea of letting myself go. Could I? Should I? The answer was “no” every time, even if it wasn’t always a conscious decision.

    It felt wrong to be myself in a society where we’re conditioned to believe that we have to look and be a certain way to fit in. I believed that no one would accept me as I was. That it would result in my personality being mocked or criticized.

    After all, how can anyone understand someone who’s both quiet and bubbly? The two aren’t said to go together. If you’re bubbly, it means you’re outgoing, fun, lively. On the other hand, a quiet person is likely to be just that—quiet, all the time. At least, that’s what most people think.

    And if you’re both, then there’s something about you that isn’t quite right because you can’t be put into one box.

    As for the side of me that likes to laugh, be silly, and squeal in delight at rainbows, how childish. I need to grow up. I should be more mature like everyone else; play less and get serious about life because that’s how it is as an adult. Less fun, more… boring.

    Those thoughts held me back for years. The “shoulds” I imposed on myself were endless, and they rarely worked in my favor, so parts of me remained hidden like some shameful secret that could never be revealed. It felt like the biggest annoyance to not be able to show all sides of myself.

    As time passed, I started to notice some things about the way I interacted with people. I noticed that on some occasions, I would feel completely relaxed in a person’s presence. Talking to them felt like talking to someone I had known for years.

    There was no tension, no paranoia about what they might be thinking of me, and no unnecessary mind chatter trying to convince me that I looked stupid or weird.

    The second form of interaction was the kind of encounter where I felt judged with every breath I took.

    The vibe was off, a total mismatch, and the conversation was strained. Was it me, and was I the cause of this disconnect? Perhaps, at times, my obvious feelings of awkwardness or self-consciousness left the other person with a feeling of discomfort. Maybe they gave up after hitting the invisible wall I’d built around myself.

    And then, there was and still is the third type of interaction. The kind where I’m happy to talk to someone, but I make a conscious decision to not show all of who I am. It’s not necessarily because I don’t like the person or that I have anything against them. It’s often because I don’t feel a connection with them where I would want to show other sides of myself.

    Sometimes, but not always, I see myself as a prize. The more we get on, the more of me you win. The deeper connection I feel, the more of the prize you get to see, which may come across as pompous to a certain degree. But this isn’t about thinking that I’m better than anyone else or getting to choose someone’s level of deservability.

    It’s the level of connection that matters the most. In my mind, it’s not necessary to show everything to everyone all the time just for the sake of it, and perhaps that’s the introvert in me speaking. But that’s what has helped me to feel more okay with being myself.

    No pressure, no forcing. Just doing it my way and understanding that I get to choose: In interactions, I either reveal more of myself or I don’t. And if my holding back results in my missing out on establishing a deeper connection with someone because they took off due to seeing me as “hard work,” then that’s both of our loss. A loss, however, that won’t break us, unless we let it.

    So, when you struggle to be yourself, remember, you too have a choice. Always. And you don’t need to feel guilty or bad about not being your true self around others, especially when you don’t even want to. Sometimes, it may not even be appropriate.

    Showing up as your full-blown glorious self can feel terrifying, and that’s okay because you’re human. So obvious but so easy to forget.

    As humans, we ride the waves of life every day. Some of the waves are far too tumultuous for us to bear, and we’re left feeling battered, bruised, and shaken.

    We believe that what we’ve experienced is an unshared experience—no one will ever understand; we think that what we’ve done shouldn’t be revealed—people will think ill of us; we presume that what we’ve not done is going to be held against us. That may be the case in some instances, but the rest of the time, we’re safer than we realize.

    Being yourself is important, but forcing yourself to make it happen isn’t. You’re allowed to practice. You’re allowed to take two steps forward and five steps back. You’re allowed to trip up multiple times. You’re allowed to be human.

    So, be patient with yourself and focus on embracing your humanness because that, more than anything, is what we all share. And when we embrace it, we make it easier for ourselves to accept what, who, and how we are.

    It’s the remembering that we’re human and the compassion that we have for ourselves that steer us closer to being ourselves. Trying to be yourself while ignoring your human tendencies and being hard on yourself only leads to more trying.

    It’s time to stop trying, especially if you’ve been trying for years. Instead, spend more time noticing just how human you’re being today. Spend time noticing just how human others are being too. You may not always like what you see, but there’s no getting away from the fact that it all comes back to us being human. Multifaceted humans.

  • I Got Fired for Struggling with Depression, and It’s Not Okay

    I Got Fired for Struggling with Depression, and It’s Not Okay

    “About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won’t like you at all.” ~Rita Mae Brown

    The stigma associated with mental illness has improved in recent years, but there is still work to be done.

    I am a certified life coach and a certified personal trainer. As an employee of a major global fitness studio chain, I was once discriminated against for my mental health issues.

    I have always been an athlete, and I love sports. Before deciding to go to college for engineering, I thought I’d take the medical school route with the goal of becoming an orthopedic surgeon—I was always fascinated with the body’s structure and how all of the muscles, ligaments, and tendons worked together. But I chose the engineering path and kept my athletic pursuits and fascination with body mechanics and such as hobbies.

    When I was going through my divorce, I decided to get my personal trainer certificate. I had been a stay-at-home mom and part-time photographer since my first child was born, and divorcing meant I would need to go back to work. However, I was not interested in a corporate cubicle job.

    I studied hard, took the exam, and quickly landed my first training job as a coach for a global fitness studio chain. The classes at this particular chain were basically high-intensity interval based, combining treadmill running, rowing, and strength training. The classes of up to thirty-something athletes were coached by one trainer who timed the intervals and explained the workouts.

    It was a very high-energy workout and atmosphere with loud, pumping music and drill-sergeant-like yellings of encouragement.

    The training for this position was an intense week-long ordeal. I worked my butt off during that week with no guarantee of a job (which they neglected to tell us until the week of training was almost over).

    When I was ready to teach my first class, I was excited and nervous, but I ended up loving coaching the classes. There were many unfit individuals who barely knew how to do a squat, and I loved not only teaching them but encouraging them and helping them believe that they could master these exercises and become good at them.

    I helped many people see themselves as athletes when they went from barely being able to walk for three minutes straight to actually running for three minutes straight.

    We had member challenges, including a weight loss challenge. I loved it, and given my background battling an eating disorder, this was my chance to come at weight loss from a place of healthy living—not losing weight to measure up to some ridiculous standard.

    After each class, members of my team would stay after to ask questions about nutrition, exercise, and recovery. I loved sharing my knowledge with them as well as cheering them on. I knew they could reach their goals, and they did. My team won the challenge.

    During this period of time working for this company, I was struggling with my own personal hell. I would show up to class to coach and put on my high-energy, happy face, blast the music, and yell those firm, but loving words of encouragement for my athletes to give it everything they had during each interval. But inside, I felt like I was dying.

    I lived with a sinking, sick pit in my stomach. I’d often leave the studio and cry in my car before going back to the lonely home that once housed a family.

    During my tenure at the studio, I was hospitalized for severe depression twice. Both times required me to take a short leave of absence—a few days the first time, and nearly a week the second time.

    I also took a last-minute trip on Christmas Day back home to see my family so I would have some family support for that first Christmas without my kids (they were with their dad that year). I got someone else to cover the class I was scheduled to teach.

    When I returned from my trip, I came back to work and taught my scheduled classes. As I was leaving, the head trainer and one of the main investors of all Maryland franchises made me stay so they could fire me.

    They told me that my performance wasn’t up to par and that they had to let me go.  

    Funny, I had never had anyone give me any indication that I needed to improve anything to keep my job. Not even in my evaluation with the head trainer—she gave me some constructive feedback but also indicated that I was doing a good job. There had been zero warning signs.

    After my departure, a large number of my students reached out to me asking where I was and why I wasn’t teaching anymore. When I told them the reason, they were appalled and angry. One or two even canceled their membership.

    They loved my classes and would come because they liked my style of teaching. I asked to see member surveys for my classes, but management refused to show them to me stating that “surveys don’t tell the whole story.”

    Other trainers, including another head trainer who had been with the Maryland franchises since the first location opened, thought the whole thing was absurd and offered that I could come back and teach at his location. As much as I loved coaching, I was still too upset at the way the company had handled my dismissal to take him up on his offer.

    I tell this story because what happened to me was cruel and heartless and should never happen to anyone who is genuinely giving their best effort in a job. It should never happen to anyone without proper warning.

    I was struggling on a level I doubt either the twenty-something head trainer or bougie investor ever had to endure, and they let me go for some made-up reason that, below the surface, really came back to my mental health struggle.

    Authenticity is a topic that is near and dear to my heart, and I feel that authenticity in the workplace is sorely lacking.

    All too often, we feel like we can’t show up as our authentic selves for fear of looking weak or incompetent. We need to be competitive and not show any sign that we aren’t anything but perfect for fear someone else might get ahead because of an incorrect perception (one that is wrongly distorted by mental health struggles) that others have of our ability to get the job done.

    I did my job as a coach and trainer, and I did it well. Ask any of my students. But on some level, management sensed my weakness and decided I didn’t fit the “brand image” of this very popular and trendy international fitness studio chain because I was struggling with mental illness.

    If you asked them, I am quite certain that they would argue their reasoning had to do with other factors, but the facts just don’t add up.

    I had never been let go from a job in my life. This added to my depression and anxiety. I understand that if I had not been able to perform my duties, that would have been grounds for dismissal. But I gave it my all and never received any negative feedback indicative of my job being in jeopardy.

    My struggle with depression at that time was no different than someone struggling with a physical illness.

    If I was undergoing treatment for cancer, I am quite certain this scenario would have gone quite differently. I am certain there would have at least been a conversation about the situation, rather than just flat-out making up an excuse that my performance wasn’t up to par and firing a single mom without another job to go to.

    We have to remove the stigma mental illness has in the workplace. We have to make it okay for people to show up and say, “Hey, I’m struggling right now. I am doing my best, but I’m having a hard time.” That shouldn’t be a weakness. If anything, it’s a strength to admit when you’re struggling and need some help.

    Are strides being made? Yes. But the disparity between the perception of physical illness and mental illness is still too great. This needs to change.

    How could my former employer have handled this differently?

    First of all, if they didn’t think my performance was good enough, they should have given me a chance to improve. They should have told me that I needed to change something, because I’m the type of person that, when given feedback, will do everything possible to nail it. At that point in my life, I was still firmly rooted in perfectionist mode, and the very thought of someone thinking I’m not perfect would have been enough to send me into a frenzied mission to correct that perception.

    If they were not thrilled with the time I had to take off for my hospitalizations and my last-minute trip where I had someone else cover one class, the head trainer should have communicated to me that it was unacceptable and given me a warning. That would have given me a chance to have an honest conversation about the struggles I was having.

    In even a minimally caring environment, it makes more sense to help employees succeed rather than throw them away the moment you don’t like them. It’s much more expensive to go through training a new employee than to try to improve one you already have.

    In the fitness industry in particular, I feel that there is little room for perceived imperfection, and there is even less room for a flawed trainer or coach. The fitness industry perpetuates the lie that trainers and coaches have their sh*t together—that’s why they’re the ones training you. That’s why you can’t get these results yourself—because you’re not perfect and you don’t know how to be perfect.

    Authenticity in any workplace is so important. When we are afraid to show up as ourselves with not only our flaws but also our gifts and talents, that’s where creativity ends. When we aren’t able to exercise our creativity, innovation is thwarted. And when innovation stops, that’s where everyone gets stuck.

    Looking back, I now know that I never want to be employed by such shallow and uncompassionate people, but I also know that just wasn’t the place for me. There is no place I want to be where I can’t show up as my true self and say, “Hey, I can bring a lot to the table, but I’m also flawed and I’m okay with that.”

    The reaction should be “Yeah, me too. Welcome to the club,”

    Because we are all imperfect. And that’s a fact.

  • Be the Reason Someone Still Believes in Love That Doesn’t Have an Agenda

    Be the Reason Someone Still Believes in Love That Doesn’t Have an Agenda

  • The Importance of Finding and Standing in Our Truth

    The Importance of Finding and Standing in Our Truth

    “What I know for sure is that you feel real joy in direct proportion to how connected you are to living your truth.” ~Oprah Winfrey

    If we cannot live in and from our truth, then we cannot be authentic. The process of self- actualization is not striving to become the person we are supposed to be. It is removing what is not true for or about us so that we can be the person that we already are.

    The hardest part of living in my truth was coming to understand and accept that it didn’t matter how anyone else experienced my childhood and my life but myself. That includes my father, mother, and three siblings. It also didn’t matter how others were affected or not. For our recovery only our truth matters

    Why is standing in our truth so important? It is impossible to build a solid life on a foundation of untruths, lies, denial, fabrications, and misinterpretations.

    Many of us have built our lives according to what we were taught and what we gleaned from a childhood spent in dysfunctional homes. We were asked to play a role that served our dysfunctional family system and not ourselves. We learned not to question the status quo, to follow unwritten rules, to live in denial and fantasy.

    Growing up I thought my family was fine; everyone else was messed up. I thought everyone’s mother drank themselves into a stupor on a daily basis and everyone’s father had become a ghost. Neither of my parents was available for support or counsel.

    I was no good, according to my father’s constant criticism, and would never amount to anything. I was a good football player and I would come off the field feeling I’d played a good game. That was until I reached my father and all he wanted to do was to talk about the block I missed or the tackle I didn’t make.

    Slowly, I stopped to try to impress my father, and eventually I stopped trying anything at all. Then I found drugs and alcohol during the summer between ninth and tenth grade. 

    I fell in love with partying and cared little for anything else. I quit football immediately and later quit school altogether. I was a sixteen-year-old boy making life decisions by himself due to his parents’ dysfunction.

    Little did I know that no one looks favorably at partying skills, and they get you nowhere in life. It took me thirteen years to figure that out, after which I went to rehab and have been clean ever since.

    I don’t think that I lost myself; it’s more like I never had myself. I was just pieces of those around me. I had tried so hard to be who everyone wanted me to be that I left myself behind.

    “…human beings universally abandon themselves for five major reasons: for someone’s love, for someone’s acceptance and approval, to keep the peace, to maintain balance, or to stay in the state of harmony. When we abandon ourselves for someone’s love, pretending to be other than who we are in order to get someone’s love, acceptance, or approval, it is a form of self-abandonment.”  Angeles Arrien Ph.D., The Four-Fold Way 

    I had spent my life being who others wanted me to be—who I had to be to get by, to be safe, to fit in, to not make waves. I no longer knew who I was, who I wanted to be, what I liked, and what I believed. I had been a chameleon for so long and had shape-shifted so many times that I didn’t know who I was.

    This never hit me as hard as when I was a new member of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic therapy group. One of the older members confronted me during our check-ins. He said, “I don’t care what your sponsor or father thinks or what anyone else thinks; I want to know what you think.”

    In working with that statement I came to realize that I didn’t have many original thoughts or beliefs. That I had let other people and events decide who I was for me.

    “What you live with you learn, what you learn you practice, what you practice you become, and what you become has consequences.” ~Earnie Larson, a pioneer in the field of recovery from addictive behaviors 

    It is devastating when you realize that you are inauthentic. That in some ways who you are and what you present to the people and the world around you is a lie. On the other hand, this awareness is also a blessing, because without awareness there can be no change.

    I realized that I would not be able to find my truth while being subjected to the influence of my family. That I had to spend time away from them to do the work needed. That doesn’t mean that I had nothing to do with them. I just kept my time with family members short and superficial.

    I also began to spend time with myself contemplating and writing in my journal. I began to question my beliefs, understandings, and positions.

    John Bradshaw talks about coming to realize that the thoughts we are thinking aren’t our own. That it is someone else’s voice in our head and we need to determine whose. For me, I came to realize that so much of the self-critical thoughts were actually criticisms my father had of me that I had chosen to own.

    In recovery, we say that “everything that we know is up for revision, especially what we know to be true.” In my own search I was so confused and uncertain of my truth that I had to start with discarding what I knew was not true—the things my father had told me, for example. The things that I was unsure of, I had to try on and drive around the block for a while.

    Today I am aware that my search for the truth is a spiritual endeavor, which includes prayer, meditation, and contemplation. My hope and prayers are that all who read this will strive to find and live in and from their truth.

  • Why I Chose Authenticity Over Fitting In or Standing Out

    Why I Chose Authenticity Over Fitting In or Standing Out

    “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” ~EE Cummings

    For many years I felt like a fish out of water, but I desperately wanted to belong in the pond. I grew up wanting to be ‘normal,’ to fit in and be like everyone else. As a result, I was not in touch with who I was because I didn’t think there was another choice.

    The blueprint was clear: find a man, settle down, and prepare for a family. Do the career you’ve trained all your life for and climb the ladder because more (status, money, etc.) is always better than less. Buy things because they’ll make you happy. Be busy because this is a sign of success, even if it means you’re stressed and on the verge of a breakdown.

    So I did all those things and it didn’t make me happy, and for many years I denied the things that would. I wanted to feel important and successful, so for many years I put off my dream jobs—writing, yoga, and new age hobbies.

    I didn’t want to be the only gay in the village, so I denied my sexuality.

    I was desperate to shed all these false goals and the materials things I’d collected, which weighed me down.

    We are inherently people pleasers, so we want to fit in—to not rock the boat. But we also want to be successful and be noticed—try to stand out.

    It’s a competing paradigm that tests our authenticity and takes us further away from who we are with this pressure to be something else. Whether we deny ourselves to fit in or push ourselves to stand out, we’re having to be someone else, and that’s exhausting.

    This was certainly true for me, and I tried both!

    Scared of being different, I adopted other people’s styles and opinions and shaped my life to look like everyone else’s—the job I had, the people I hung out with, and the hobbies I pursued. It didn’t make me happy. In fact, it was an exhausting act in a play that didn’t feel like my life at all.

    When I got older, I began to feel pressure in the other direction—to get noticed, to stand out.

    When I started dating there was a pressure to dress up to be noticed and get picked; similarly, at school there was a pressure to try to be top of the class, be noticed, get picked for the team.

    As I climbed the career ladder I felt the pressure to stand out again—to be more extroverted despite my introvert tendencies, to speak up, be the hard-nosed business woman, to chase down the big promotions and be noticed by the bosses, to be picked again.

    Two pressures in opposing directions, but the same results. None of it was me, and both related to my need to please people, conforming and doing what I thought I should, not what was deep in my heart. Hell, I hadn’t even known what that was given how little attention I’d paid to it over the years.

    It can be our people pleasing tendencies that compel us to conform or try to stand out, but our fear of failure is also a huge contributing factor. We don’t want to fall short of society’s ideals, not be like everyone else, not make our parents proud, or not fit the mold for ‘success.’ We don’t want to be left on the shelf or be seen as different, undesirable, or unsuccessful.

    I spent my life doing what I felt I should, what those around me did, what felt ‘normal’ even when it didn’t feel right, even when it disconnected me further and further away from myself. It was only when I felt burnt out and exhausted from a lifetime of acting and feeling desperately unhappy that I thought things must change.

    I wanted to be me and find others who were themselves, but I also needed to find out who that ‘me’ was.

    My resulting action was quite drastic: I quit my corporate career, left my relationship of seven years, and traveled around the world in search of answers. I felt a need to get away from this place I didn’t belong in and wipe the slate clean to rebuild my life in accordance with who I really was.

    A trip around the world isn’t a prerequisite for embracing your authenticity; it’s actually much simpler.

    Ask yourself what you used to dream about as a kid, what is it that you admire most about others, what legacy do you want to leave the world, and what are your values? What do you love to do, and do you currently make time for these things?

    Take a moment to consider what your strengths are and get clear on your values. It also helps to seek out like-minded people. Not only do we feel at ease with them, they help us grow and flourish in accordance with our true selves.

    This need to fit in or stand out can show up in many ways: sending your child to a certain school because it reflects on your status as a family. Taking over the family business because you want to make parents proud. Driving a certain car that reflects your importance and status as a human. Wearing the right clothes because they are ‘in fashion’ and are what everyone around you is buying.

    There is another way, and it involves listening to your heart, not what others say. Follow your own dreams, not those society prescribes. Know who you are and stay in touch with that. Make decisions based on your values and the legacy you want to leave. Rediscover what matters to you instead of worrying about what you think you ‘should’ be doing. And ensure you prioritize your time based on your true priorities—the ones that make your heart sing.

  • It’s Okay to Be Who You Are – Forget Approval and Show Your True Colors

    It’s Okay to Be Who You Are – Forget Approval and Show Your True Colors

    “Don’t trade your authenticity for approval.” ~Unknown

    How often do you find yourself doing things just because you have to and not because you want to? I’m not talking about the hard work we do to improve at our jobs or the responsibilities we have to our families. I’m referring to those things we do just to please others, to project a certain image of ourselves to the world that isn’t in line with who we really are.

    A few years ago, I was searching within myself to find out who I really was.

    I’d been so obsessed with creating a mask that people would love that I could no longer recognize myself in the mirror.

    I am an ambivert, and I don’t express my feelings much. I tend to smile rather than squeal with joy. I fall silent rather than shout with anger.

    Because of these traits, people used to call me “poker face,” and I felt as if something was wrong with me. Determined to shed this label, I forced myself to be loud and attended all social events with my friends inspite of exhaustion. But deep inside all I wanted was a quiet appointment with myself.

    Assuming that being extroverted was the only way to make friends, I pushed myself too hard, which led to an emotional breakdown. As a result, I fell prey to self-destructive habits like skipping meals, binge eating junk food, staying up late at night, and waking up at odd hours, which landed me in the hospital.

    After that, I spent a lot of time reflecting on what had caused that situation and looked inside myself to know what I really wanted.

    Since then, I’ve listened to my inner voice more than I’ve listened to others. I’ve started to be myself without worrying about anyone else’s opinion. And I’ve stopped fulfilling people’s expectations of me and started feeling comfortable in my own skin.

    Some of the lessons I learned during the journey were…

    Face your fears.

    The two words that changed my perspective on life were “What if?” What if I spent my evenings curled up with a book? What if I excused myself from a social gathering when I felt exhausted? What if I chose not to express myself loudly?

    Think about what really scares you. Think about what restrains you from unleashing your true self.

    Is it the possibility of creating conflict between you and your friends? Is it the prospect of being different? Or do you fear your own inner critic?

    Exploring your answers to all these questions will start you on a beautiful journey of self-discovery and open up different sides to your character that you may not be aware of. Spelling out loud what you actually fear is work half done to make it go away, which leads me to the next two steps on how to tackle them.

    Calm your inner critic.

    I discovered that, more than anything else, I was scared of my inner critic.

    There is something inside all of us that alerts us when we go down the wrong path—our conscience. But I’m not talking about our conscience, but rather the voice that stops you from achieving your full potential. The voice that prevents you from doing something even though you know deep inside that it is the right thing. The voice that beats you up for the slightest error.

    This voice inside me grew louder when I did something against the grain, like excusing myself from a party to enjoy a quiet evening. It accused me of being an anti-social, self-centred person. It made me think my friends would drift away if I continued this behavior. I felt controlled by this voice of mine, which turned out to be my vice.

    Remember, this voice, which you’ve trained your mind to believe, is the result of the misconceptions about friends and life in general. So suppressing this voice is not the solution; the more you suppress it, the louder it grows.

    Rather, this voice needs to be answered with reason. When I started explaining to my inner critic that it’s not always possible to be there for everyone else and that caring for myself does not amount to being anti-social, I felt the voice becoming feeble.

    Repeat positive affirmations to yourself when the critic inside you grows stronger.

    Whenever your genuine self feels threatened by others’ opinions, you need to love yourself enough to stand up for it. It’s only by fostering self-respect that you gain the confidence to face the world without a mask. Self-respect acts as a shield that protects your true self from the confusions of the external world.

    Cast away the fear of being different.

    It’s okay to have different wants and desires as long as you don’t hurt anyone. Your perspective on life does not have to be the same as all your friends’ perspectives.

    Don’t pretend to share someone else’s view just to fit in. Understand that being different is not equivalent to being weird.

    Having a different say on the matter brings with it the possibility of conflict. But conflict is not something to fear and be avoided, as it provides a chance to understand the person in front of you better and it can lead to interesting conversations, if you stay civil and open-minded.

    I opened my eyes to the fact that nodding my head in approval at whatever my friend says does not bring me closer to her. When I started sharing my ambiverted views on socializing with my extroverted friend, we started arguing initially, but slowly we came to understand each other.

    I gained insight into how extroverts have a natural tendency to express feelings loudly, and that being around people makes them happy. My friend, on the other hand, understood my need for a weekend at home to energize myself for the week ahead. She recognized that I actually enjoy spending time by myself. It proved to be a learning experience for both of us.

    Only when you convey your opinion calmly, without needing to be right, can you forge a connection with someone. Accept the fact that you are unique just like everyone else.

    Pause before saying yes.

    Before you commit yourself to attending an event or helping someone else, pause and think about why you want to do it. It’s important to ask yourself first before saying yes to others.

    The prospect of saying no often brings with it the fear of coming across as a rude person and potentially losing your friends. This rarely turns out to be true because in healthy relationships, both people understand that they need to provide space for each other.

    When I decided to take a break from social obligations, I noticed that one or two of my friends distanced themselves from me, but nothing changed in my close relationships. They accepted and respected my decision.

    Pushing yourself too hard will eventually lead to resentment. You can only be happy, and share that happiness with others, if you prioritize creating satisfaction from within.

    Find your forte.

    Everyone has a spark inside that needs the right channelling to shine. Experimenting and discovering what you really love doing is a great way to connect with your inner self.

    When you do something that you love and have a natural flair for, you connect with yourself on a deeper level. You see the talents you possess. This gives you the confidence to be yourself without worrying about others’ approval.

    Now, when someone calls me “poker face” it never bothers me because I know I am not an insensitive person with no emotions. I just choose to express them differently than others—through my writing. Writing helps me explore and express my emotions far better than speaking about them.

    Make yourself feel good by taking some time for your favourite pastime. Engage yourself fully in that activity. Enjoy the feeling of getting lost in it.

    Practice your art regularly, not for exhibiting it to the world, but to mirror the artist within you.

    Strengthen your core values.

    Core values are the principles that define us, and we should never compromise them just to please other people. Strong core values help us make choices that are right for us. They show us the path to peace in the midst of chaos. But it can be tough to hold on to our values when faced with outside influences, such as the people around us and the media.

    When I was younger I believed that my work should do most of the talking, and I was confident in what I did. I used to believe that friendships happen, not by searching for them, but by putting myself in situations where I’d meet other people and having an open mind and heart.

    When I started college, the urge to impress people made me forget these basic principles of mine. The idea of fitting in with my peers turned me into someone whom I barely recognized.

    Eventually, I reinforced my basic beliefs by working hard to achieve my study goals and allowing myself to be authentic. I also listened to people with an open mind rather than dominating conversations. These small actions helped me reconnect with myself

    Celebrate your true self.

    Every person in the world has their own strengths and weaknesses. No one is perfect, even if they seem that way. What meets the eye is just the tip of an iceberg. So never beat yourself up for mistakes, embarrassments, or for having negative thoughts. All of these contribute to the uniqueness of your character.

    The moment I started being myself, I noticed a lot of people just like me, lost and isolated in the big world. I actually made new friends who loved me as I am.

    The world wants to know your authentic self, with all your flaws, rather than a staged, perfected version. So never be afraid to show your true colors.

    —

    We must grow and improve to reach great heights, but reach out only for those goals that truly appeal to you. Life has insightful lessons to teach—learn them your way, at your own pace.

    Reveal your genuine self and expose the glorious treasures buried deep inside you to the world. Remove the shadows of self-doubt from your life and let your immaculate self soar high beyond boundaries.

  • How Embracing My Sexuality Helped Cure My Need to People Please

    How Embracing My Sexuality Helped Cure My Need to People Please

    “If you are busy pleasing everyone, you are not being true to yourself.” ~Jocelyn Murray

    The love I felt for her wasn’t like the romantic love our culture idealizes in books or movies. There was no moment where I knew that she was the one for me, and I didn’t feel lots of butterflies when our paths crossed.

    Instead, the love I felt for her was deep and sustaining. While she is one of the most kind, gentle, and loyal people I had ever met, the way she loved me was the most remarkable thing to me. I could be completely vulnerable with her and feel no shame. I felt supported and embraced. Through her love, I felt restored, and it deeply affected my sense of love and belonging.

    I was extremely surprised when I realized that I had romantic feelings for this woman. What fueled this surprise was the fact that I had always identified as being straight. While my mother is very accepting, the South—where I grew up—is not always the most supportive place for homosexuality. I felt shame from my religion, some friends and family, and myself.

    Unfortunately, I soon became aware that there was deep homophobia hidden within me. While most people would always describe me as accepting and liberal, there was a huge part of me that felt absolute shame for liking a female.

    What would all my conservative, religious family and friends think of me? Would they love me anymore? Was I going to hell? These were just some of the questions that ran through my mind.

    I came to a point where I realized that no matter what people thought, if the opportunity ever arose for us to be romantically together, I would seize it. I wouldn’t be ashamed due to her gender; in fact, I would love to shout it from the rooftops (or write about on Tiny Buddha), because even just the act of loving someone so incredibly beautiful has brought me tremendous joy and healing.

    Here are a few lessons I’ve learned through embracing this part of myself about the need to please and letting go of seeking approval.

    1. “You cannot live a brave life without disappointing someone.”

    I was watching an interview with Oprah and Brené Brown recently. Oprah said the exact statement written above. This hit me right in the heart. Surely this couldn’t be true. Do I really have to sometimes disappoint people to be brave? Like many humans, I have this need for people to constantly approve of me.

    I remember when I told one of my best friends about how I felt about this woman. I knew she would not agree with me being confused about my sexuality, and I was so unbelievably terrified. I was afraid I was going to lose one of the people I loved most in world.

    When I finally got the words out, she responded in a very kind way. Though she did make it known that this was not a part that she agreed with, she promised to love and support me through my journey. This brings me to my next lesson.

    2. Some people will not be okay with your decisions. Challenge yourself to be able to accept their position as well as your own.

    I was very aware that I had family and friends who were not going to approve of this part of me, but I was curious if I could still maintain the relationships.

    I realized that if I was not seeking approval, my friendships could continue to grow. I came to the realization that, while it was nice if everyone supported my decision, I really didn’t need every single person to agree with me. As long as they still chose to respect me and love me, their opinion on my choices were their business.

    That being said, I know it’s very difficult when close friends and family don’t agree with something fundamental to your sense of self, especially when it does not seem like they are going to change their opinion.

    I’m still in a process of learning how to handle this in a healthy way. I do know that when I am unfailingly kind and loving toward myself, it helps lessen the weight of other people’s opinions, because how I view myself comes first.

    3. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries

    This is one of the hardest things for people who seek approval to implement. I have found with this experience, I have to set boundaries for what behaviors I will tolerate concerning other’s reactions. This is applicable to all areas of life. It’s important to set boundaries as to what is okay and not okay in interacting with others.

    I will tolerate questions. I will tolerate confusion. I will tolerate respectful disagreement.

    I will not tolerate blatant rudeness. I will not tolerate ignorance. These are my boundaries. If people cross these boundaries, I will politely inform them that they have overstepped a line and I will not be participating in a discussion with them concerning this topic anymore.

    4. I want to choose to be vulnerable every day no matter how hard it feels.

    There are times in my life that I have regretted not being 100% authentic. But not once when I look back, have I ever regretted being vulnerable.

    Sometimes it doesn’t feel the greatest afterward. I call that a “vulnerability hangover.” It feels like this giant pit in my stomach and I feel tired, but eventually it goes away. While they usually seem scary, the best decisions in my life have usually also been the most vulnerable ones.

    I don’t believe in defining my success on external factors such as getting a job, getting married, and traveling the world. Instead, I aim every day to be more vulnerable and braver than the last. There will be days I will fail and hide behind fear, and that’s okay, because I am imperfect and filled with flaws. On the days that I do choose to be honest and open, I feel like my soul is on fire.

     5. Be willing to refine who you are.

    When I first wrote down this lesson it read, “Be willing to redefine who you are.” But, I realized that I don’t think we can, or even need to, “redefine” who we are. Instead, I believe we should refine the already beautifully imperfect person we have become.

    When I realized that I liked this woman, it made me examine myself differently. I had always seen this picture of me being with a man. All of the sudden that story seemed very fuzzy now. It actually brought a bit at sadness at first and I let it be. This picture of my relationship for the future came shattering down, and I realized that I didn’t want to pick up the broken pieces. Instead, I want to create a new picture. Except this time, I want to refine it day by day and let it be ever-changing.

    6. Do what’s best for you first and everyone will benefit.

    I’ve learned that self-love is like a waterfall. When I am doing what is best for me and feels right in my truth, it trickles down to the people in my life.

    I have found that when I am living authentically and loving myself, my actions toward others are more loving and honest. While I still may not be or act exactly how someone wants me to, if my intention is loving, that’s all that matters. When you act in an authentic way, everybody wins.

    I don’t know what the future holds for me—much less my love life—but I am confident that whatever it holds will be beautiful, because it will be honest, vulnerable, and authentic. More importantly, it will be beautiful, because my decision won’t be based on someone’s opinion of me. It will be my truth and my story.

  • Don’t Trade Your Authenticity for Approval

    Don’t Trade Your Authenticity for Approval

  • If You Want To Know Love, Stop Lying

    If You Want To Know Love, Stop Lying

    young couple in love outdoor,illustration,digital painting

    “Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.” ~Bell Hooks

    I was once a liar. I didn’t know I was a liar at the time. I didn’t consciously tell an untruth. Instead, my entire being did.

    Lying isn’t just something that is done with words. We can lie with our actions. We can lie with our silence. We can lie with our complicity. We can lie by pretending to be who we aren’t.

    I was the lie.

    I played dress up for most of my life. It didn’t happen all at once. I didn’t walk into someone else’s closet and come out with a new wardrobe. It happened slowly, over time.

    Each time I said or did something that didn’t get approval from the world around me, I chose to pull a garment from the imaginary closet of people who are lovable. By the time I was twenty, my true self was so far hidden that even I didn’t know where she was.

    It first began by disappearing. I felt rejected by my peers in grade school. It felt like so much work to be liked and popular. So I decided to give up trying. But instead of just being myself, I decided to hide away. Being unnoticed seemed easier than being seen for who I was.

    College was my opportunity to reinvent myself. But when I got there I found out I couldn’t force myself into being outgoing or easily likable. So I turned awkward. I was hyper self-conscious that I was not being myself, but I didn’t know how to let myself just be. So my body got stiff, my movements fidgety, and my voice uncertain.

    I began to watch other people and would, in the slightest ways, begin to mimic them. I’d adopt someone’s laugh, another person’s style, and someone else’s slang. This mishmash of what I thought it meant to be likable only kept me further away from the truth of who I really was.

    I had friends, but no one really knew me. I was lost and lying about who I was. I pretended like I had it all figured out because admitting that I was clueless would mean my world would come crashing down.

    When we build identities for ourselves we can’t risk allowing them to crumble. So we lie. We create more masks to wear and keep ourselves further from the truth. Our egos know that if one brick loosens, everything we’ve worked so hard for will be ruined.

    When we choose to deny who we truly are, we are lying. Lying is a choice, one that deeply harms ourselves and oftentimes, those around us. And even though it is a choice, it’s one that is very easy to hide from. In our search for love we will do almost anything to attain our goal even if it means denying ourselves the truth.

    The irony, though, is that love itself is impossible without honesty. If you find yourself desperate to know what love really is, take a deep breath and look at how honest you are about you.

    Do you really know yourself? Do you share who you are with the world? Are you overly concerned with what other people think about you? Will you change yourself to be accepted by others? These are all great questions to help you recognize how comfortable you are with your true self.

    Uncovering yourself is part of the path. It’s okay to share with people that you don’t know. That you’re confused. That you’re lost. That you feel pain. That you’re in the process of getting to know yourself.

    You don’t have to use all your energy to put on the facade that you’ve got it all figured out. It’s okay to not have it all together. When you begin to open up and communicate with others about who you truly are, you begin the opportunity to discover what love is.

    The people who open their hearts to you will create a beautiful container for love to grow. Those who are triggered by who you are will move their own way. Let them go. Stay connected to your truth and keep sharing with the people in your life.

    As I began to test the waters in my friendships I started to open up about my feelings of shame and guilt.

    I have one memory of sitting at the kitchen table with a girlfriend and telling her something I had never told anyone. I could feel the space opening between us as she acknowledged my feelings and matched them with her own experiences of similar feelings.

    Sharing ourselves allows us to know love. Love makes us feel safe and wanted. It makes us feel connected and like we belong.

    We often lie when we’re afraid of the truth. When we lie about who we are, we tend to be afraid that who we are isn’t lovable. If we show our true selves and we aren’t loved and accepted, we don’t know how we’ll recover.

    We recover by loving ourselves. But you can’t love yourself if you don’t know who you are. You can’t love yourself if you’re using all your energy to put on an act for everyone else. And other people can’t love you when they don’t know who you are.

    So if you want to know love, show yourself. Take off the mask. Let go of all the energy it takes to be someone else and use it to discover who it is you truly are. Love that person up and watch as the world loves you back.

  • Happiness Hacks: 10 Ways to Infuse Your Life with Joy

    Happiness Hacks: 10 Ways to Infuse Your Life with Joy

    Happy

    “There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Life seems complicated these days.

    We’re all busy pursuing happiness, yet how many of us ever reach that goal?

    Success, money, and busyness are top of our priority list, yet deep in our hearts we’d prefer time, love, and security.

    It’s the age of making a living, but perhaps at the cost of making a life.

    What really makes us happy, and how do we find it?

    I spent many years trying to fit in, to be someone else, to pursue the dream of success, in my jobs and my relationships.

    I collected material things, often at the cost of what really mattered, and I was left unfulfilled as a result.

    I quit my corporate job and left my long-term relationship to go on a journey of self-discovery. Here are my top nine happiness life hacks, from my experience and the things I’ve learned along the way.

     1. Authenticity: Be who you are, not who you think you should be.

    We live in a world where we are surrounded by ideals, and with a tendency to compare ourselves to others, it’s no wonder so many of us feel like we’re not enough.

    I’d tell myself that writing was a hobby, not a “real job.” I sought approval through promotions and success through status, neither of which made me happy.

    To find happiness, we must be true to ourselves, live our own dreams, and be proud of what makes us unique. So, instead of comparing yourself to others, look to see if you’re fulfilling your own potential in accordance with what you value.

    2. Self-care: Respect yourself.

    Health and happiness are inextricably linked; you can’t have one without the other.

    Our nutrition is so important, as is getting enough sleep and regular exercise. In a world where lifestyle-related disease is at epidemic proportions, taking care of our own health is increasingly critical.

    Yoga, meditation, and regular walks help me look after myself and keep me strong. These practices were key in helping me overcome corporate burnout.

    Sometimes these practices seem too basic, and we ignore the simple principles of good health. It’s often the last thing we prioritize and in our busy lives. But taking time out to care for our health is fundamental. Without our health, we can achieve very little.

    3. Mindfulness: Live in the now.

    Our minds are so busy, and with the evolution of technology, we are now connected 24/7. We never switch off. As a result, we are spending less time in the present.

    Our thoughts are consumed with rehashing the past or worrying about the future.

    The past has gone and we cannot change it, and the future never arrives. The only time we have is now—the present—and of course, this is life.

    In a world where multitasking is seen as a necessary skill, being mindful is the opposite. It’s slowing down and focusing on one thing at a time, one moment at a time.

    Mindfulness is acceptance of what is, without judgment; being yourself, at home with yourself; and seeing the beauty in every moment. It teaches us to slow down and notice more. This leads to a true happiness that arises from within, independent of external circumstances.

    4. Resilience: Learn from experiences.

    Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “The art of happiness is also the art of suffering well.”

    To be happy, it is critical that we embrace the tough times, too. They come to us all. It’s how we deal with them and bounce back that impacts our happiness. This is our resilience.

    We spend much of our time trying to avoid the bad times and cling to the good, yet both will always come and go. Embracing this and shifting our perspective is key to happiness.

    5. Appreciation: Be grateful.

    In our consumer-driven society, it’s all too easy to focus on what we can get, and to be never feel fulfilled. This leads us into constant craving. Like a bottomless bucket that can never be filled, we always want more.

    I learned that happiness is not about getting what you want; it’s about loving what you have.

    There are many things we are lucky to have, yet take for granted: fresh air, clean water, warmth, shelter, family, and food. It’s not until these things are taken away that we realize how fortunate we are. Gratitude helps us remember our priorities and focus on the things that matter.

    6. Simplicity: Let go.

    We feel we need to have things in order to be free, when in fact it’s the opposite. Our struggle to hold on to things brings the very pain we are trying to avoid. We are terrified of letting go, for fear we’ll have nothing, but this is the true path to living well.

    When I went from a corporate job and material wealth to having nothing and living simply, it put things into perspective for me. After all, everything material we have can be lost tomorrow.

    The irony is, if you’re asked what you most value, it’s likely to be the things money can’t buy—things like love, health, and family.

    There are also things within us that we need to let go of. This can be hurt or anger from the past, or limiting beliefs about ourselves. These things hold us back, and like heavy baggage we carry around with us, they break us down.

    7. Self-empowerment: Look within.

    We have a tendency to look for inspiration externally, in our teachers or gurus, yet we have infinite potential within.

    Often, these people help us tap into our inner well, but so do other ordinary people in our life, along with our own experiences.

    We are capable of amazing things if we stop doubting our abilities. It’s often during our biggest challenges that we find out just how much strength we possess.

    8. Compassion: Reach outside yourself.

    Happiness is less about survival of the fittest and looking after number one, and more about collaboration and acts of kindness. Doing good makes us feel good. The best jobs I’ve ever had were voluntary, unpaid roles helping others.

    Our natural response to seeing someone in distress is the impulse to help. We care about the suffering of others, and we feel good when that suffering is released.

    Feeling like we’re making a difference in the world and helping those who need it brings us joy and meaning.

    9. Enjoyment: Do things you love.

    We need to earn a certain amount of money to provide the basics, and few of us are lucky enough to have a job we love. However, we all still have a whole life outside of work with which to create happiness.

    Instead of just making a living, be sure to make a life. Do things you love every day, spend time with those who nourish your soul, learn new things, take time out for you.

    This can involve small things, like a chat with friends, a walk on the beach, or a cup of tea in the garden; or the bigger things, like enrolling on an art course, traveling to that place you’ve longed to visit, or writing that book.

    10. Challenges: Try something new, something that scares you.

    Sometimes we’d like to change things, but it’s just too hard. We know we’re unhappy where we are, but the alternatives are too scary. We prefer the devil we know, and the familiar feels secure, even if it doesn’t make us happy.

    For me, leaving my relationship, changing careers, and speaking in public all left me gripped by fear. I was afraid of the unknown, and also failure. But it’s only by facing these fears that we are able to grow into the people we’re capable of being.

    To get somewhere you’ve never been, you might have to do something you’ve never done. Life begins at the end of our comfort zone!

    —

    Life doesn’t have to be complicated. Happiness shouldn’t be hard, but we often make it so.

    One of the things I’ve discovered is that we are responsible for our happiness, and it comes from within—which is great news, because it puts us in control and makes it possible!

    It takes work, and it may not be easy, but small steps in the right direction put us on the path to happiness.

    Try focusing on one of these life hacks each week and see how your life changes.

  • Authenticity May Feel Risky But It’s Worth It

    Authenticity May Feel Risky But It’s Worth It

    You Were Born to Be Real

    “Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.” ~Brené Brown

    Growing up I experienced a rollercoaster of emotions. One minute I would be on top of the world and the next I felt overwhelmed by anxiety. I didn’t know how to share my difficult emotions in a healthy way with my friends and family, so I started suppressing them instead.

    I realized early on that it felt safe to hide my feelings, because no one could judge me if I kept them to myself. I believed that emotions were a sign of weakness, and there was a reward for keeping it together—I never rocked the boat, and everything around me remained peaceful.

    But I learned that you can’t trade authenticity for safety and expect to stay true to who you are at the core.

    Although it seemed like I was protecting myself, suppressing everything erected walls around my heart and reinforced the belief that it was not safe to share my genuine feelings with anyone else.

    As a result, I started having issues with food, and it soon turned into an eating disorder and resulted in anxiety and depression.

    Rather than being truly authentic with others, I became strategic; everything I said or did was a thought-out plan to gain acceptance. Being truly authentic with others was just too risky.

    I’ve since learned that we cannot truly experience the benefits of a relationship if we are not authentic. To fully feel the love and connection we all yearn for, we have to show people who we really are.

    As I let go of what others thought I should be, feel, and say, I started becoming more authentic with those I trusted most. And as I shared feelings that felt risky to expose, the people who truly cared about me received them with love rather than judgment, and those relationships got stronger.

    Other times, I shared my true feelings and learned I couldn’t trust certain people with them. I had to let go of some relationships because they were holding me back from being my true self. Although not easy, this was necessary in order for me to evolve and grow.

    Authenticity connects us. It is a great gift we give to another person when we let them see behind any masks or the walls of emotional armor.

    Even more so, authenticity is a priceless gift we give to ourselves.

    How do we become authentic in our relationships?

    Begin practicing authenticity with someone who will not judge you, advise you, or try to interrupt your process.

    This person can be a dear friend, family member, mentor, coach, or counselor, who will receive the gift of your authenticity with compassion.

    For me, it started with owning my own story and starting to share it with others. One of the first things I did was write a letter to one of my dearest friends telling her about my struggles, and she embraced all of it with love.

    Develop rituals.

    Rituals teach us to be disciplined and deliberate. Develop rituals that you will use daily to practice authenticity and let go of shame and guilt.

    The first two hours of each day are for me. I exercise, journal, and on a good day, get some meditation in too.

    It allows me to set my intentions for the day, and to say thank you. It allows me to be exactly who I am with myself so that I can be the most authentic person with others. I love my time in the morning and ever since I started consistently doing this, my life has changed.

    Trust your intuition.

    That feeling in your gut that tells you what is right and wrong. Not always easy to do when you’re fighting against the naysayers and those who can’t handle the most authentic you. Trust and follow it anyway.

    This has been a practice for me. I have not always been good at listening to my intuition for fear of standing up, rocking the boat, and being judged. I have learned that my gut is never wrong, and I now listen and trust.

    Forgive yourself.

    If you are holding onto something that isn’t allowing you to move forward, forgive yourself and let it go. Not forgiving yourself will keep you swimming in a swamp filled with your gremlins, and unable to experience healthy and happy relationships.

    I have made many mistakes in life. I followed the wrong crowd, I didn’t always do the right thing, and I held on to that guilt and shame for many years. It didn’t serve me.

    It wasn’t until I was able to forgive myself that I was finally free to move past the mistakes I had made. I was finally able to move forward and become my true authentic self and tell my story.

    Respect and value who you are.

    When you do, you set the standard for how others treat you. You have permission to be you—unapologetically and authentically you. To have strengths and weaknesses and know that those are what make you unique and amazing.

    The truth is that others will treat you with the same respect you show yourself. I didn’t believe I was worthy of having healthy relationships with people who valued who I was, because I didn’t know how to value and love myself. I often sabotaged friendships and relationships with good people.

    When I started my healing journey and practiced self-love, meditation, and positive affirmations, I then started to believe that I was worthy of healthy relationships.

    Know that you are valued and needed by others.

    People need you, and the right people will value who you are and what you stand for when you are authentically you. The world needs to hear your story.

    My healing process started when I shared my story and spoke my truth.

    I learned that it was okay to be vulnerable and authentic. There are people who related to what I had gone through and were inspired and grateful that I could share. It allowed them to be okay with sharing their story and start their own healing journey.

    —

    Just like most skills in life, with practice your ability to recognize and tolerate emotions and be authentically you will improve. Increased self-awareness is the key to having successful, long-lasting, authentic relationships.