Tiny Buddha

Tag: beliefs

  • How I Stopped Living a Sad, Frustrating, Disappointing Life

    How I Stopped Living a Sad, Frustrating, Disappointing Life

    “The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I’m not going to let myself pull me down anymore.” ~C. JoyBell C.

    There I was lying on my sister’s couch, which had doubled as my bed. I had hit my rock bottom. I felt depressed, anxious, and disappointed about my situation.

    I couldn’t understand where it all went so wrong. How did I end up here?

    I was thirty, single, and pretty much homeless. My life wasn’t supposed to end up here. By this age, I was supposed to be married with kids and have a successful career and a beautiful home. Well, that was the expectation anyway.

    This is where I found myself at a crossroad. Either I continued to wallow in my self-pity and blame the world for my situation, or I made a commitment to myself and started the journey to change.

    I started delving into my life—picking apart my upbringing, my platonic relationships, my failed romantic relationships, my lack of drive, and my social anxieties—and found that I was paralyzed by fear. The fear of failing, fear of being judged, and fear of not being accepted, which all culminated into a severe lack of self-belief and self-love.

    Why was I so afraid to believe in myself, and why was so afraid to fail?

    When I thought about these questions and reflected on the beginnings of my life, I realized that it had all started with belief and failures.

    I didn’t just give up on my first attempt to walk; instead, I continued to fall until I took those first few steps. And I didn’t just give up when I couldn’t string a sentence together; gibberish continued to flow out until I made sense.

    But why, as an adult, did I no longer have the ability to accept failure and believe in my ability to eventually succeed?

    “I should do this,” “I might do that,” or “I’ll see how I feel”… I was never able give definite terms. It was always could, should, and maybes. I always left the door open, giving myself a way out for when the inevitable non-follow through would happen.

    It wasn’t because I was just too lazy. No, it was giving myself an excuse so that if I did fail, it was because I hadn’t really tried, which made it less painful and less embarrassing.

    Somewhere along the lines I molded the belief that failing was tied to shame. Something I wasn’t ready to bring upon myself. So I floated through life, barely graduating school and only doing so to please my parents, then finding a “temporary” job that lasted eight unfulfilling years, all the while staying in a relationship that had run its course years before it ended.

    The common thread that ran through my life: I was comfortable, and so that’s where I stayed.

    I had programmed myself to believe I wasn’t capable of succeeding, achieving a fulfilling life, or finding a happy relationship. So instead I stayed on the sideline. Because on the sideline I was safe and nowhere near any situation that could lead me to fail.

    The more I reflected, the more my default behaviors became apparent, and so came my commitments to change my story.

    If you’ve also paralyzed yourself in fear and struggled to believe in yourself, perhaps my lessons will be helpful to you.

    How I Stopped Living a Sad, Frustrating, Disappointing Life

    1. I made myself 100% accountable.

    I was great at blaming my situation on everyone else, pointing the finger at my family, my girlfriends, my bosses, and well, just about everything under the sun. But I never turned the finger on myself.

    I came to the realization that I was 100% responsible for my situation, no one else. I had made my decisions without any gun pointed to my head, and even doing nothing was a choice.

    I accepted that I couldn’t control every situation that happened to me, especially those moments where life seemed to knock me down for no reason. But, I could control how I responded to those moments. I could either decide to stay down or decide to put in the effort to overcome the challenges.

     2. I stopped seeking validation.

    Instagram quotes telling me not to give a sh*t about people’s opinions were everywhere. I remember reading them, feeling empowered in that moment, and then carrying on with my day, worrying about what everyone thought of me.

    A classic pleaser, I put on different masks just so I could be accepted and fit in. I was incapable of giving my opinions, saying no, or even disappointing someone.

    The turning point came when I acknowledged that I was seeking validation and self-belief through others’ opinions, and that a big part of my life had been living out my family’s expectation of what my life should have been.

    I began to put myself first, not to be a jerk, but to give myself permission to be a priority instead of trying to please others. It wasn’t easy, but it got a lot easier the more I did it. I realized the world didn’t collapse when I put myself first, and doing this not only gave me more confidence but also a sense of self-respect that I’d never had.

     3. I got comfortable with being uncomfortable.

    I was an expert at avoiding situations where I could be judged and people who made me anxious. In order for me to overcome the avoidance, I had to do the opposite and learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

    So, I started to look for things to make me uncomfortable. I volunteered to take on more responsibilities, gave presentations at work, voiced my ideas in meetings, disagreed with others, and asked for help.

    The more I allowed myself to feel the discomfort and do it anyway, the easier it became and the more confidence I gained.

    It helped that I had listed down every significant moment, no matter how big or small, on the notepad app in my phone. Then each night I read through all my ‘wins’ that day and felt the empowerment flow through my body.

    4. I gave myself permission to be vulnerable.

    A lot of my issues stemmed from my fear of being vulnerable and not being able to see that it was courageous to try, even if I didn’t succeed.

    But it subdued my fears when I accepted that vulnerability doesn’t mean embarrassment, shame, and weakness; it means strength, courage, and confidence.

    Most importantly, vulnerability has allowed me create deeper relationships, since I’ve been able to share my thoughts and troubles with those close to me while stripping away the power my anxieties once had over me.

    5. I’m learning, and that’s okay.

    Before, I believed that I wasn’t good enough and would never be. I thought my abilities were fixed and that I didn’t have the qualities required to be successful.

    The list of ideas that never made it off the scrapbooks was endless, and every time I would get close to going through with an idea, the voice would play through my mind saying, “You’re not good enough to do it.” “Others will do it better than you.” “You’re going to fail.”

    It wasn’t until I became aware of the way I was talking to myself that I was able to change it. I made the commitment that I was going to be a lifelong learner. That my mind wasn’t fixed but instead was malleable.

    I have the ability to learn new skills, to develop myself and continue grow. I will fail, which comes with the territory of trying to achieve something new. But knowing that I will learn from each experience motivates me to go further, whereas it used to paralyze me before I would even begin.

    Since making these commitments to myself, I have left the unfulfilling job to forge a new career, purchased my first home on my own, and followed through with a goal to run three half marathons in a year. These achievements would never have been possible if I didn’t give myself permission to be seen, to be heard, and to believe in myself.

    —

    Change starts with what we believe about ourselves. If we believe we have the potential to learn and grow, and we’re willing to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations—even if we feel vulnerable and there’s a chance we might fail—almost anything is possible.

  • How Unhealed Childhood Wounds Wreak Havoc in Our Adult Lives

    How Unhealed Childhood Wounds Wreak Havoc in Our Adult Lives

    “The emotional wounds and negative patterns of childhood often manifest as mental conflicts, emotional drama, and unexplained pains in adulthood.” ~Unknown

    I am a firm believer in making the unconscious conscious. We cannot influence what we don’t know about. We cannot fix when we don’t know what’s wrong.

    I made many choices in my life that I wouldn’t have made had I recognized the unconscious motivation behind them, based on my childhood conditioning.

    In the past, I beat myself up over my decisions countless times. Now I feel that I needed to make these choices and have these experiences so that the consequences would help me become aware of what I wasn’t aware of. Maybe, after all, that was the exact way it had to be.

    In any case, I am now hugely aware of how we, unbeknownst to us, negatively impact our own lives.

    As children, we form unconscious beliefs that motivate our choices, and come up with strategies for keeping ourselves safe. They’re usually effective for us as children; as adults, however, applying our childhood strategies can cause drama, distress, and damage. They simply no longer work. Instead, they wreak havoc in our lives.

    One of my particular childhood wounds was that I felt alone. I felt too scared to talk to anyone in my family about my fears or my feelings. It didn’t seem like that was something anyone else did, and so I stayed quiet. There were times I feared I could no longer bear the crushing loneliness and would just die without anyone noticing.

    Sometimes the feeling of loneliness would strangle and threaten to suffocate me. I remember trying to hide my fear and panic. I remember screaming into my pillow late at night trying not to wake anyone. It was then that I decided that I never wanted anyone else to feel like me. This pain, I decided, was too much to bear, and I did not wish it on anyone.

    As an adult, I sought out, whom I perceived as, people in need. When I saw someone being excluded, I’d be by their side even if it meant that I would miss out in some way. I’d sit with them, talk to them, be with them. I knew nothing about rescuing in those days. It just felt like the right thing to do: see someone alone and be with them so they wouldn’t feel lonely or excluded.

    Looking back now, I was clearly trying to heal my childhood wound through other people. I tried to give them what I wish I’d had when I was younger: someone kind, encouraging, and supportive by my side. I tried to prevent them from feeling lonely. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing—it’s kind to recognize others in pain and try to be there for them.

    The problem with my strategy was that I chose people who were alone for a reason: they behaved badly and no one wanted to be around them. I chose people healthy people would not choose to be with. People who treated others poorly and did not respect themselves, or anyone else for that matter. That included me.

    And so I suffered. I suffered because I chose badly for myself. And I chose badly for myself because I followed unconscious motivations. I obediently followed my conditioning. I followed the rules I came up with as a child, but playing by those rules doesn’t work out very well in adulthood.

    I never understood why I suffered. I couldn’t see that I had actively welcomed people into my life who simply were not good for me. It didn’t matter where I went or what I changed; for one reason or another, I’d always end up in the same kind of cycle, the same difficult situation.

    At one point I realized that I was the common denominator. It then still took me years to figure out what was going on.

    Eventually, my increasing self-awareness moved me from my passive victim position into a proactive role of empowered creator. Life has never been the same since. Thankfully. But it wasn’t easy.

    I had to look deep within and see truths about myself that were, at first, difficult to bear. But once I was willing to face them and feel the harshness of the reality, the truth set me free. It no longer made sense to play by rules I had long outgrown. I didn’t realize that I had become the adult I had always craved as a child. But I was not responsible for rescuing other adults—that was their job.

    I have since witnessed the same issue with everyone I meet and work with. One particular person, who had endured terrible abuse growing up, was constantly giving people the protection he had craved but never received as a child. He gave what he did not receive. And yet, in his adult life it caused nothing but heartache for him.

    When he saw, what he perceived as, an injustice like someone being rude to someone else or a driver driving without consideration for others, he intervened. Unfortunately, he often got it wrong and most people didn’t want his input, which left him feeling rejected and led to him becoming verbally aggressive. Eventually, his ‘helping’—his anger and boundary crossing—landed him in prison.

    He was not a bad person—far from it. He was simply run by his unconscious motivation to save his younger self. He projected and displaced this onto other people who did not need saving and never asked for his help. But his conditioning won every time and in the process wrecked his life.

    What ends this cycle is awareness, understanding, and compassion.

    We must learn to look at the consequences of our actions or inactions and then dig deep. We must ask ourselves: What patterns do I keep repeating? What must I believe about myself, others, and life in order to act this way? Why do I want what I want and why do I do what I do? And what would I do differently if I stopped acting on my childhood conditioning?

    Beliefs fuel all of our choices. When we don’t like the consequences of our actions, we must turn inward to shine a light onto the unhelpful unconscious beliefs we formed as children. Only awareness can help us find and soothe them. Only understanding can help us make sense of them. And only compassion can help us forgive ourselves for the patterns we unknowingly perpetuated.

    We didn’t know what we didn’t know. We couldn’t have made any different choices. But once we begin to see and understand how our minds work and how our conditioning drives everything we do, we grow more powerful than we ever thought possible.

    It is then that we are able to make healthier, wiser, and more life-enhancing choices for ourselves. We can then break the cycles that previously kept us stuck in unfulfilling and often harmful situations and relationships.

    There is always a different choice. We just have to begin to see it.

  • How to Break Painful Relationship Patterns

    How to Break Painful Relationship Patterns

    “Until you heal your past, your life patterns and relationships will continue to be the same; it’s just the faces that change.” ~Unknown

    First of all: honey, you are not broken. We are all works in process. There is nothing inherently wrong with you. We all end up in a loop here and there. Sometimes it’s because we haven’t healed pain from the past. And sometimes it’s because we’ve healed our pain but still hold on to past habits. When we do this, past habits will promote the replaying of past events and, therefore, the pain will return.

    This happens at a psychological and practical level. The type of beliefs we have about reality will shape the way we perceive it, react to it, and interpret it. This is a neurological reality that has been proven scientifically: the brain creates concepts and finds ways to validate them.

    This is the way prejudice is built, but is also the way you expect sweetness and tartness out of an apple.

    The moment you read the word “apple,” you already started generating the necessary enzymes to digest one and enjoy its flavor. You already started reacting to something that isn’t even here, based on the concepts (beliefs) the brain (mind) has constructed on it according to previous experiences.

    This is one of the many ways science has validated that “life is an illusion.” This is great news. It means we can choose, in a way, what kind of illusion to believe in and, consequently, co-create in our lives.

    Past experiences—especially our childhood experiences—inevitably shape this concept-system in the brain. They create what we refer to as a value system in the mind. These, in turn, determine our thinking habits. The thinking habits will define how we speak and act.

    In other words, the way we perceive apples will determine how we react to them or even the idea of them.

    If you believe that you should expect sweetness out of apples, you will seek apples that provide sweetness, and you will react by preparing to enjoy the sweetness, which will allow you to do so at a higher level than if your body didn’t salivate and prep your taste buds for it. By expecting sweetness, you get to experience it with heightened senses when you get it.

    This idea also applies to unpleasant concepts. This is also a neurological reality and was designed as a survival mechanism.

    Go get your ears pierced and you will see what I mean. When you get ears pierced the first one is barely perceivable. However, the next one hurts quite a bit. Why? Because the brain was expecting pain; therefore, it reacted to the second experience with a concept of pain.

    You think, “This will hurt,” and, therefore, you experience more pain. The tool is still the same. The pressure did not change. Reality is the same as with the first one; however, your brain constructs a concept of pain, so that’s what you get.

    Your earlobes will heal within six weeks. But when you expect unpleasantness out of other life experiences, that’s what you will repeatedly get. In order to produce change, we must let go of a value system that constructs realities of pain and difficulty. This truth is evident in relationship dynamics as well.

    The Loop: What We Think About Relationships Defines How We Experience Them

    I want to make a disclosure about what you are about to read: taking responsibility for your thinking habits and how those affect what you expect from relationships does not mean that anything is your “fault.” It also should not be used to justify abuse.

    Abuse is not justifiable. However, as a survivor of abuse, I can say from experience that it’s actually empowering to realize how much is in my power. I can change how I think, how I talk, how I perceive situations, and how I react to them. I can co-create my relationships.

    I happened to grow up in a culture of fear. I grew up thinking work had to be hard, people had to be in a bad mood when they got home, marriages are meant to be hard, and you should not expect the best, ever; you needed to expect the worst.

    I was married for almost eight years and got divorced a year ago. Since then, I’ve found myself making similar mistakes in the way I seek partners, and all of my relationships have ended up leaving me drained and resentful. But why? I was doing what I thought was supposed to be done: I was being of service in a relationship where one person needed to be saved and I could be their savior.

    There are so many memes out there with the phrase “You saved me” phrase on them. It’s supposed to be romantic! Well, that did not go so well for me. It bred unhealthy and unbalanced relationships, and an environment of codependence that led to pain for both people.

    So I went on a quest for my own healing and discovered why I was constantly trying to save the people I date (more on this later). Finally, I was ready to get out there again. But this time, there was no saving involved. Because I was ready for a healthy relationship. I was at peace.

    I went on a first date with a wonderful man I’d met on a dating app. Before leaving, I called a friend to share how excited I was. She suggested that I calm down, keep “low expectations,” and keep my guard up. I decided not to follow that advice. It comes from a place of good intentions, but it’s really a chain of fear.

    On a vibrational level, to act that way would not allow me to attract my highest good. On a practical level, it would set me up to not look for the best in this person, which would produce a reality where I would be unable to see it even if it hit me in the face.

    I went in there with the same attitude I approach everything currently: at peace. No negative or positive expectations. Just being in the present moment.

    I ended up having the best date of my entire life and building a deep connection with my now-partner.

    We cheat ourselves out of wonder if we tiptoe around in life afraid to get hurt. We must be strong and self-confident to allow ourselves to expect goodness. I did not get here right away. It does take practice to make progress. But it really doesn’t have to be considered an “impossible” in our brains.

    How to Hijack Your Way Out of the Loop and Start Flowing Upward!

    These are some of the things that helped me heal and rewire my brain before I finally downloaded the dating app, posted a cute picture of myself, and hoped only for the best.

    1. Observe your thoughts. What are they based on? Which beliefs no longer serve you?

    A tool that helped me greatly in this step was John Bradshaw’s book Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child, which includes exercises to heal past experiences. This releases the brain to freely create new constructs and prevents us from staying on a loop.

    I was having trouble as an adult voicing my needs. I would be terrified and would be physically unable to communicate what I needed.

    During my work with myself I discovered that when I was four years old, I was so terrified of being physically and emotionally abused by my caregivers that when I was hungry, I would not dare voice that need. I have memories of hiding in a cabinet eating raw rice from a bag in order to feed myself without being a “bad girl” and bothering my caregivers.

    I recognized then that this was why I fell into a pattern of focusing on my partners’ needs and trying to save them: I was expecting that it would be painful if I voiced what I needed.

    So, I recognized the source of the problem, now what?

    2. Release the vibrational memory of emotional baggage.

    Once you recognize the roots it will be time to release their emotional baggage. That way you won’t be triggered by old stuff in your new relationship. In other words, you won’t fall into the same old patterns because you’re driven by emotions from the past.

    There are many ways to release emotional baggage, including meditation, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping, Mental Emotional Release (MER) therapy, and journaling. Explore, experiment, and find what works for you.

    I went to an Emotional Release Body Balance therapy specialist. It’s the best investment I’d ever made in my life.

    I also engaged in regular cleansing rituals with sage at home.

    Finally, I used release affirmations and prayers daily. One that especially worked for me was a Unity prayer that states: “I release from me all energies that are contrary to what I am creating for myself. I cut them off and release them to the Universe to transform into beneficial forms of energy. I now fill myself with love, peace, and perfect health.”

    Okay, I am no longer controlled by emotions from my painful past, what’s next?

    3. Learn new skills.

    This is the ongoing step. It requires our willingness to learn new skills. New thoughts. New ways of communicating, new brain constructs about relationships, and new ways of having faith in ourselves and others. In my case, this meant learn to voice my needs instead of stifling myself in fear.

    To accomplish this, I attended virtual classes. I enrolled in a communication workshop and practiced those skills. It was just like learning how to read: practice, review, assess, practice again. You will need support here. Someone to practice with. I do so with my best friend. We exchange notes and debrief with one another.

    The skills you need to learn will depend on what you ascertained about your beliefs and expectations and what pattern you fell into as a result of them. It doesn’t matter if you attend classes, read books, practice with friends, or join a support group. What matters is that you do something to learn and strengthen the skills that will help you break your pattern.

    But… why?!

    Now, why go through all this? Baby, ‘cause you are worth it! Plus, there is no magical soul mate in the Universe who will heal your low self-worth concepts and create positive expectations of healthy relationships in your brain.

    You either do the work you need to complete on yourself before you get out there, or you will be stuck in an ongoing loop of pain, with a list of exes that turn out the be the same dog with a different collar, calling them “toxic” instead of owning your own need for growth.

    I’m rooting for you. I bless your journey. The best is already within you. What you want in a partner is out there looking for you as well. May you find each other at the right time and may you have the skills to enjoy your union. Ashe!*

    *Ashe is a West African philosophical concept through which the Yoruba of Nigeria conceive the power to make things happen and produce change.

  • What I Believe and Why My Life Is Better Because of It

    What I Believe and Why My Life Is Better Because of It

    “Seeing is not believing; believing is seeing! You see things, not as they are, but as you are.” ~Eric Butterworth

    I didn’t always understand this, but I now know that my beliefs shape my experience of the world.

    As I learned from Tony Robbins, our beliefs guide our choices, which ultimately create our results.

    Our beliefs can either be a prison, keeping us trapped in negative thinking and behaviors, or they can be empowering and lead to courageous action and new possibilities.

    For example, if you believe people are fundamentally bad, you may live life guarded, close yourself off to new relationships, and end up feeling lonely and bitter.

    If you believe people are fundamentally good, you’ll try to see the best in them, develop close bonds with some of them, and end up feeling connected and supported, even if people occasionally disappoint you.

    If you believe good things never happen for you and they never will, you’ll likely sit around feeling indignant and never make any effort.

    If you believe the past doesn’t have to dictate the future, you’ll probably keep trying different things and eventually create possibilities for passion and purpose.

    Same world, different beliefs, different choices—totally different results.

    Knowing that I can choose what I believe, and that this can either fill my life with meaning or leave me feeling empty, I choose to believe the following:

    1. Life happens for me, not to me.

    “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” ~Steve Jobs

    Sometimes, it’s near impossible for me to believe this. I don’t expect anyone reading this to easily adopt this belief either. Because in those moments of pain and suffering, boy, it feels like life is happening to me, and it’s not even remotely helpful to think about how life could be happening for me. However, in time, as the clouds disperse and the pain passes, I’m able to look back and connect the dots.

    Were it not for my mental health struggles, my personal development journey may have never began and I would never have grown into the strong person I am today.

    Were it not for my string of failed romantic relationships, I never would have learned the power of loving myself first.

    And although I sometimes struggle to see that life is happening for me, a deeper part of me knows it benefits me to believe this is true.

    This deeper part encourages me to look back and connect the dots, and sometimes, in the midst of suffering, look for meaning in the moment by asking questions like: What lesson could this be teaching me? And what is the opportunity here?

    This deeper part of me knows that, no matter what happens to me, I can choose the meaning I give to what’s happening and how I respond.

    As Viktor E. Frankl wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

    When I believe life is happening to me, I feel like a helpless victim. Although there is no shame in feeling like a victim, I don’t want this to become my full-time identity.

    Undeniably, life is hard, cruel, and tragic, but life is also beautiful. By choosing to believe life happens for me, I’m sometimes able to move from victim to victor.

    2. More is possible than I currently think.

    “Just remember, you never know what’s possible until you risk finding out.” ~Jasinda Wilder

    When it comes to knowing what’s possible for me in my lifetime, I know nothing.

    How could I? How could anybody else? Knowing requires me to be certain, and I know I’m certain more is possible than I think.

    Human history teaches us the boundaries of possibility are forever being pushed. Or perhaps, it’s more accurate to say that our willingness to discover what is possible is forever being pushed.

    Just think about how many Ideas were once considered impossible, even crazy!

    Electricity, the Internet, putting humans on the moon!

    As I look back over my own life, much has happened that at some point I thought was impossible, like speaking another language and being able to play the piano reasonably well.

    This belief empowers me because it makes life feel like a never-ending adventure, a game, where I get to discover and challenge the boundaries of possibility for myself.

    3. My life is about “we,” not just “me.”

    “As we lose ourselves in the service of others we discover our own lives and our own happiness.” ~Dieter F. Uchtdorf

    A wise friend of mine once advised me to “give away freely the very things I wish to receive.”

    At the time, it seemed counterproductive. I mean, to give money even though I want to receive more. To offer praise to others when it was me who wanted to be praised. To make an effort to be more understanding when it was me who wished to feel understood.

    Having faith in my friend, I decided to live life this way for a while, and so I gave away freely the very things I wished to receive without any expectations or hypotheses of what would happen.

    I gave more money—to the homeless and sponsoring friends for events.

    I gave praise—reaching out to people I love and admire, just to share my appreciation of them.

    I gave my ear—listening non-judgmentally so I could better understand people.

    I gave and gave and gave, and true to my friend’s advice, I received—so much more than what I’d given away.

    I received a sense of connection to the world and to the people in it, a deeper connection than I’d ever felt before. I realized the idea of separation is, as spiritual teachers often suggest, an Illusion. We’re all connected to one another—tied together by something the eye can’t see but the heart can feel.

    Through giving, through living in service of others, I received back abundantly, which helped me to form my third empowering belief, that life is about “we” and not just “me.”

    What makes my belief so empowering is the sense of connection that comes from knowing my life is connected to yours and to every other life, tied and woven by forces greater than I know or understand.

    This sense of connection alone gives my life meaning.

    —

    My life is better because I choose to believe these three things, and I act on them. Which beliefs make your life better?

  • How to Break Free from the Past and Start Feeling Good Enough

    How to Break Free from the Past and Start Feeling Good Enough

    “My biggest fear is that I’m not good enough. I have this voice in my head that I’ve been battling for years that says, ‘You’re not really talented enough. You don’t really deserve this.’ ” ~Rachel Platten

    When we’re continually surrounded by unrealistic beauty standards in the media and highlight reels of others’ success on social media, it’s no surprise that many of us feel like we don’t measure up or fit the ideals of perfection.

    At some point in our lives maybe we were rejected for the color of our skin, the shape of our bodies, or for the way we looked, and we decided that we were somehow separate from the world.

    These events can be detrimental to the beliefs we hold about ourselves and turn into thought patterns that continually chip away at our self-esteem.

    For me, the feeling of not being good enough started in my early childhood. My older sister looked like she’d stepped off the catwalk, and she was extremely academic. I, on the other hand, consistently got low grades at school and was rarely complimented for my chubby appearance.

    My feelings of low self-worth continued when I started high school. I was the only Indian girl at my school and was constantly bullied for my skin color, my religion, and being ‘different.’ Kids would throw things at me on the bus and push me around in the hallway. I started to hate who I was and the color of my skin and felt even less attractive than I did to begin with.

    As I reached my teens, I would jump from one relationship to the next, hoping that validation from a boyfriend would somehow make me feel better about myself, but it didn’t. The highs were short-lived, and those relationships soon spiralled into a cycle of rejection, which made me feel even more unworthy.

    Like me, maybe you too experienced a string of events while growing up that made you feel like you weren’t good enough. Whatever the experience was, no matter how trivial, when we have low self-worth, our internal dialogue keeps it alive, like an echo that continually reverts to unresolved traumas long after they have passed.

    Most of us don’t enjoy digging to the root of our beliefs and delving into why we think, feel, and act the way we do; instead, we’re wired to sweep things under the carpet and use alcohol, food, drugs, or sex as crutches to help us to mask our emotions and maintain our sanity.

    It can feel unnerving to unearth years of buried emotions and take a trip down memory lane to explore painful events, but to break free from low self-worth it’s vital for us to understand what parts of us require healing. Otherwise, it’s like going to a doctor with a pain in our tummy and asking them not to take a scan to determine its cause.

    The way we feel about ourselves on the inside directly influences what we will create for ourselves on the outside. If we don’t feel good enough when we’re in the privacy of our own thoughts, it often impacts the quality of our relationships, the level of our financial success, and the amount of love, health, and joy we allow ourselves to experience in our day-to-day lives.

    Many of us trap ourselves by looking at our lives through a lens of low self-esteem and telling ourselves stories based on outdated perceptions of past events.

    For a long time, I clung to the story of how I’d been a victim. I believed I had no control over what had happened to me—the abuse, the bullying, the heartbreaks, and the rejection. I would pity myself for having to endure all the events that had played out in my life.

    Instead of believing I had the power to take responsibility, I allowed past events to define who I was and how I saw myself, because I didn’t have the knowledge, awareness, or tools to know any differently.

    I was taught the importance of focusing on my education, finding someone to marry, and how to build a home, but I wasn’t taught resilience, I wasn’t taught about unconditional love or self-acceptance, and I wasn’t taught how to deal with life’s challenges.

    I wanted more from my life, but the story I told myself made me believe I wasn’t worthy of having it and that it just wasn’t going to be my fate. I would replay events in my mind and continuously felt like things were happening to me. I couldn’t see that the events were happening for me.

    If I hadn’t been bullied, I wouldn’t have built resilience. If I hadn’t been abused, I wouldn’t have developed compassion and empathy. If I hadn’t have been abandoned, I wouldn’t have the drive and ambition to be independent.

    When I recognized all I’d gained from my past, I was able to shift my perception and start seeing myself not as a victim but as someone who was strong and empowered. I began to re-frame my experiences.

    Knowing I’d been through hardship helped me to recognize that I had an inner strength to overcome challenges, and my strong sense of compassion and empathy toward others allowed me to recognize my ability to be emotionally intelligent. Seeing the gifts in my challenges allowed me to view myself in a more empowered way, and as a result, I started showing up in the world differently.

    It’s easy for me to see this now that I’ve moved through my story, but when I was in a war with myself I found it difficult to embrace the lessons.

    It’s hard to appreciate the painful events that have plagued your life and destroyed any ounce of self-esteem you had. It’s easier to blame the world than accept that although you may not have deserved what happened to you, it happened, and that the only choice you now have is to pick up the pieces and move beyond it.

    Most of us struggle to move beyond our stories and continue replaying them repeatedly in our minds, which only reinforces our beliefs into our reality. The more we replay our negative story in our minds, the more we continue to manifest the same events—until eventually we get fed up of living life on a loop and are desperate to break free.

    We may believe we don’t have the power to reshape our stories because they are so deeply ingrained into who we are and how we respond to situations, but we do. And when we rewrite our stories, we break free from our past and transform our lives.

    If you would like to release your feelings of low self-worth and shift the energy you put into the world, this powerful exercise can help.

    Story Time

    Take a journal and write down the story of your life.

    How do you define yourself?

    Is your story full of your greatest achievements and happiest moments? Or are you listing down all the bad things that have happened to you and how unhappy you are?

    When you pen down your thoughts you’ll instantly get insights into how you currently view yourself.

    Are you able to spot any common patterns? Is there a recurring theme of rejection, shame, or resentment? Are you blaming specific people or events for how your life has panned out?

    You’ll soon get valuable clues on what beliefs or experiences are dictating your story, and how you choose to view your life.

    Now, journal your answers to the following questions:

    • What did those experiences help you to learn?
    • What skills have you gained because of those experiences?
    • How can you apply those lessons and skills to your current life?
    • If you could go back in time, what would you change about those events? Or do differently?
    • Are you ready to let those experiences go? And if not, how does it serve you to hold onto those experiences or feelings?

    With this newfound awareness, I’d like you to re-write your past story, and see if the language you are using to describe your past has shifted.

    Often, when we look back on our past with a newfound perspective, we’re able to re-frame our negative experiences into positive lessons that have shaped the person we are today. Without our experiences, we wouldn’t be blessed with the wisdom we’ve gained because of them.

    When we allow ourselves to move into a space of gratitude for all that we’ve learned, we automatically shift away from feeling like a victim and reclaim our power.

    Remember, you, as much as anybody in this universe, have the power to change the direction of your future. You just need to be willing to let go of what no longer serves you.

  • Why I No Longer Believe There’s Something Wrong with Me

    Why I No Longer Believe There’s Something Wrong with Me

    “Our thoughts create our beliefs, meaning if you think about yourself a certain way for a long enough period of time you will ultimately believe it.” ~Anonymous

    You’re ugly. You’re stupid. You’re a loser.

    Imagine thinking this way about yourself every day. No exaggeration. That was me.

    When a girl didn’t want to go on a second date with me, I told myself I was ugly. When I didn’t know what someone was talking about, I told myself I was stupid. When my Instagram post only received two likes, I told myself I was loser.

    I spoon-fed myself toxic thoughts like these on a daily basis for years. And what’s worse is I believed them.

    But why? Where do these toxic thoughts and beliefs even come from? Well, for most of us they come from our childhoods, and they are largely based on experiences with our caregivers.

    My belief system (which fuels those not-so-nice thoughts listed above) was formed by the tragic death of my mother when I was three-and-a-half years old and by my rageaholic cocaine-addict father. I internalized Mom’s death and Dad’s crazy behavior (trust me, it was bad) the only way I knew how to: I thought I was the problem.

    You see, my dad never sat me down and apologized for bursting into my room in the middle of the night high on cocaine and torturing me. He never apologized for not allowing me to celebrate my birthdays. He never apologized for making me get in front of my soccer team and tell them that I was a bad boy and couldn’t play in that week’s game.

    Since he never apologized to me, my growing little mind took it personally and figured I must be the problem. I thought I deserved to be punished and as such, a negative thought pattern was born.

    Like a kid at school writing on a chalkboard because he did something wrong, my thoughts wrote in my mind over and over again: I did something wrong. I did something wrong.

    This consistent negative self-talk eventually turned into a core belief: I am wrong. I am wrong.  

    Imagine growing up believing that your very existence is wrong. That was me. I was hard-wired by my parents to believe this. It was like being sentenced for a crime that I didn’t commit.

    As an adult I actively looked for validation in other people as a result of this belief. I became a people-pleaser, a yes man, a guy that would do anything for you to like me. Please like me, please tell me I’m okay.

    If you liked me, I felt less broken, but one person liking me was never enough. If I was in a room with 100 people and all of them but one liked me I would worry and fret, wondering what I had done to upset that one person.

    I also thought I had to be perfect in every area of my life. My hair had to be perfect. My clothes had to be perfect.

    I had to say the right things. Do the right things. Be the right thing.

    I also used each failed attempt for your validation as proof that I was broken. See!

    I would go to bed at night saying I was done with that kind of behavior, yet I would wake up in the morning and start it all over again. It was like the movie Groundhog Day. I was living the same day over and over again, and I couldn’t stop.

    I hit what I’ll call my rock bottom eight years ago when I was thirty-seven-years old. I hated myself and the life I had created and desperately wanted change.

    But how? How do we let go of deeply rooted false beliefs that no longer serve us? The same way we formed them.

    You begin by detaching from the individual thoughts that reinforce the negative belief, then you let go of the belief all together. I’ve heard them called illusions, false beliefs, and even lies. It took time for me to believe these lies and it took time for me to undo them.

    Henry David Thoreau said, “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

    In order to let go of false beliefs, we have to practice observing our thoughts and recognize when we are acting on old stories about our worth. By repeatedly choosing not to get caught up in the old stories, we can begin to experience the world in a new way.

    You don’t go to the gym once and suddenly you’re in the best shape of your life. No, you go five to six times a week, eat healthy, and get plenty of rest. And you do this over and over again.

    The same goes for our minds. The more we work toward mindfulness and self-kindness, the quicker we will default to it. When you catch yourself having a negative thought, recognize that you don’t have to get attached to it and choose to let it pass. If you’re having trouble letting it go, tell yourself a new, more empowering story.

    And above all else, just remember, it had nothing to do with you. You did nothing wrong. You are not flawed.

    I didn’t commit a crime. I just absorbed the information given to me the only way my eight-year-old mind knew how to.

    So where do we start? It’s different for all of us, but if you’re reading this and relating to any of it then that in and of itself is a start. That’s the beginning of self-awareness.

    For me it was all about becoming self-aware. That was my first step toward personal change.

    I knew I couldn’t do things on my own (been there, tried that), so I started with a twelve-step program. Liberation would never be possible if I kept reaching for validation from other people, so I took a deep breath and courageously stepped into my first meeting and admitted that I had a problem.

    It was there that I opened up and allowed myself to be seen for who I was: a wounded man who sometimes still felt like a scared little boy. Eventually, little by little, I shared my childhood secrets and I was loved for doing so. It was an eye opening experience, which immediately changed my thought process to: I did nothing wrong.

    For the last eight years I’ve been letting go of false thoughts and beliefs, which in turn has created new possibilities for how I think and feel in relationships. I hope you can do the same.

  • 9 Beliefs You Have to Let Go If You Want to Find Inner Peace

    9 Beliefs You Have to Let Go If You Want to Find Inner Peace

    “Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” ~Adyashanti

    I don’t know exactly when it happened.

    It was probably about eighteen months ago, maybe a couple of years. I can’t really remember, and it doesn’t really matter.

    I was up to my neck in stress, and having one of those days.

    It was one of those days where you wake up late and your neck is a little stiff. One of those days where you skip breakfast, and you immediately feel that you’re behind schedule on every little piece of work. Where you have calls that you’ve forgotten to make, and emails that you’ve forgotten to send. One of those days where you know there’s no way you’ll have time to go to the gym later, even though today’s the day you need it the most! Just one of those days.

    So I got home from work, sat in my meditation chair, and tried to calm myself down. But the stress and the frustration weren’t going anywhere. I wasn’t going to simply breathe it away.

    As I sat there, struggling to relax, I found myself more and more wound up, until a deep pressure was gripping my forehead. Suddenly, in a split second, I just let go, and the flood gates poured open.

    I let go of wanting to solve any issues in my life. I let go of trying to be calm, or trying to be stressed. I let go of trying be happy, I let go of trying to be sad. I let go of problem solving, and I let go of ideas of procrastination.

    It wasn’t the kind of letting go where your mind subtly grips onto something else. The kind of letting go when you scream “I just don’t care anymore” but you know you’re now just holding onto the idea of “not caring.”

    It wasn’t that. It was just… letting go. And I realized at that moment that all my worries were tangled up this thick web of beliefs I had about what I should have been experiencing.

    See, it sounds like a cliche, and maybe it is, but I realized that I didn’t need to get anywhere. Exactly where I wanted to be was hidden behind layers of beliefs. It was cloaked behind a thick forest of shoulds and should-nots.

    But as much as I’d heard this before, it wasn’t until I was actually able to give in that I could start to clearly see the unconscious beliefs that had been getting in the way of my inner peace.

    To some extent, everyone seeking change and peace are initially guided by ideas. But I’ve come to realize since then that the real change happens when you let go of ideas, as opposed to following new ones. After a long process of meditation and journaling, I found that the nine beliefs l describe below are what we often hold onto unconsciously.

    I also came to the understanding that training my mind to “be present” or “be calm” could only get me so far. While I had many fleeting moments of peace, they often felt as if they came on top of a background of noise and confusion.

    When I started to let go of these ideas, the inner peace became the background, and the noise became what would visit and leave.

    Here are nine unconscious beliefs about life that get in the way of our inner peace.

    1. “I need to be doing something right now.”

    This is an incredibly subtle belief that most of us don’t even realize we are holding onto. It stems from our obsession with productivity and achievement, and it manifests as a constant, itching discontent.

    Though our ego tricks us into believing we need this feeling to get things done, when we can let it go we see a lot of our anxiety dissolves and our relaxation deepens. We’re also much more likely to enjoy what we need to do without the constant internal pressure of feeling that what we’re doing in this moment is never enough.

    2. “When I get what I want I will be happy.”

    This is another cliche that I’m sure most of us are aware of. But despite acknowledging that we don’t need to get anything to be happy, it’s easy for us to get caught up in the chase.

    To overcome this, we need to be mindful of when we have the feeling that we need something before we can be happy. When we see we’re doing this we can practice letting go of that need, even if only for a brief moment. The more capable we become at doing so, the more we will naturally experience happiness in the present, and the less our minds will fixate on ideas of the future for fulfillment.

    3. “Finding inner peace is difficult.”

    This is another myth that gets in the way. Many of us feel that we are far from inner peace, and we idolize those who seem to have found it. Because of this, we unconsciously believe that it’s a long way away from where we are in our lives, and we need to go on a long journey to find it.

    Maybe we’ve read books that suggest that fundamental change in how we feel or act takes years of difficult training or some sort of pilgrimage. But often it is letting go of the belief that what we want is so far away, and understanding that when you stop striving so aggressively you will start to see the calm you’re looking for. It is this process of turning your beliefs upside down that becomes the journey in itself.

    4. “If I express my emotions honestly people will think I’m weak.”

    We’re often taught, as we grow up, to keep a lid on our emotions. This is common for responses that are considered socially inappropriate such as anger, fear, and sadness. Though in many ways we’re also taught to limit how much we show our positive emotions such as joy and excitement. This leads us, in adulthood, to believe that honest expression will be met with disapproval by others.

    The irony in this is that as everyone is dealing with the urge to be authentic, those that actually do so are often met with respect and admiration.

    5. “If people knew the real me, they wouldn’t like it.”

    This is similar to the issue we have with emotional expressions. We hide certain aspects of our personality, defining ourselves publicly by what we show and privately by what we’ve hidden. The reality is that you are a lot more than either of those stories, and people will gravitate toward the real you because they appreciate honesty.

    6. “I should be happier right now.”

    In our culture, we fixate too much on social comparisons between individuals. When we don’t feel good, we look at what we have and feel guilty for not being happy enough. Or, we look at what we don’t have and wonder why we’re not as happy as the next person. Happiness isn’t something you need to have all the time; it comes and goes, like any experience, but it’s not a prerequisite for being human.

    7. “Not being the best me isn’t good enough.”

    There’s been a huge movement in the last twenty years toward personal development. Though a lot of these ideas are healthy, they can be driven by toxic motives. Most people don’t feel they need to better themselves out of a genuine need to improve their community, but out of the feeling that they’re not good enough in the first place.

    When you can strip yourself of this idea you’ll soon realize that the chase to being your best self is infinite and anxiety-inducing. You’ll see that you can love and appreciate yourself now, as you are, without needing to be someone else before feeling okay.

    8. “I owe the world.”

    This is a tough one and is related to the feeling of needing to be your best self. Though gratitude is important, it doesn’t mean we should walk around with the feeling that we’re in debt to the universe. We see this when people pathologically try to prove their worth to others. When we let go of the deep feeling of debt and obligation, we can then really start to give people what we have to offer.

    9. “There was a time in my past that absolutely sucked.”

    Often we become so identified with bad times in our past that they get in the way of us enjoying the present. We define ourselves with these past experiences and feel we need to share them with everyone we know before they know the real us. But when we come to realize that they are far less significant than we initially thought, we stop feeling like imposters and we let old memories fall away.

    —

    Many of these beliefs still come up in my day to day life. Sometimes when I start getting close to new people, I have the feeling in the back of my mind that they don’t know me until I’ve retold them a series of clips from my life story. I understand though that these stories aren’t who we are in this moment. What other people think of us and what we think of ourselves is constantly changing.

    Other times I find myself tired, or sick, and there’s an itching feeling that I should be happier, or I should just be doing more with my time. And like many of us, I still need to work on expressing my emotions honestly, without the fear that others will see it as a weakness.

    All of this is okay. These beliefs took a lifetime of conditioning to cement themselves in our minds, so it’s only right they should take a little time and effort before they’re able to be completely let go.

    Fortunately these constructs don’t have the same kind of grip over my psyche that they once had. In time, my anxieties have started to fade away and I’ve been able to ruminate less over unnecessary questions.

    What do you think about these unconscious beliefs? Have you had any experience with them? I’d love to hear from you. Share your thoughts in the comments!

  • 4 Simple Techniques to Erase Subconscious Negativity

    4 Simple Techniques to Erase Subconscious Negativity

    “As you sow in your subconscious mind, so shall you reap in your body and environment.” ~Joseph Murphy

    The subconscious mind is like a computer’s hard drive.

    It saves whatever information you feed it, without any bias. It does not discriminate between useful information and trash information. It just saves everything!

    The subconscious mind learns through repetition. So if it’s fed the same information multiple times, it keeps overwriting it until the information gets etched in.

    As you would have guessed, such information is harder to erase.

    For example, let’s say you write “I am not good enough” on a piece of paper. Now keep overwriting on top of this. The more you overwrite, the bolder the text becomes and the harder it gets to erase it later.

    Let’s look at another example. When you first learned to ride a bicycle, you found it hard to balance. But you kept trying and could maintain balance for five seconds and then ten seconds and so on. Finally you could maintain balance for longer periods of time. Because of the repetitions, your subconscious mind picked up what it takes to maintain balance.

    Once the subconscious mind learns, it falls back on this information whenever it is required.

    So the next time you sit on a bicycle, the subconscious mind automatically switches on the default bicycle-riding program and without any effort, you start to ride your bike.

    What is interesting is that if you learned to ride the bike in a faulty manner, you will keep riding the bike in a faulty manner.

    For example, there are people who find it difficult to drive a car while wearing shoes. They can only drive the car barefoot! This is because when they were learning to drive, they did so barefoot. How do I know? Well, I am one of them!

    For me, learning to drive a car while wearing shoes was like learning to drive the car all over again.

    So what does this tell you?

    Once the information is fed to the subconscious mind, and is repeated enough times, it simply gets etched in the mind and is hard to erase later.

    Yes, it is erasable, but erasing it would require extra effort. This is exactly the reason why bad habits are so difficult to break. And this holds true for both physical habits and mental habits.

    Physical habits equate to stuff that you do. Like your daily routines.

    Mental habits are thought cycles like your self belief, your insecurities, your view of the world etc.

    In a way, your mental habits fuel your physical habits and vise versa. It’s cyclic in nature.

    Rewriting Negative Subconscious Programs

    As mentioned earlier, your subconscious mind is like a computer’s hard drive. And just like we can erase and put new software into a hard drive, we very well can reprogram data into the subconscious mind.

    Hypnotists have been doing this for ages.

    But the technique we are going to look at is far stronger than hypnosis. Plus it is very simple to do. In fact, the technique is so simple, you might be forced to think, is that it?

    So let’s see what this simple technique is.

    The best and most effective technique to alter your negative subconscious mind patterns is awareness.

    That’s right, you simply become aware of the subconscious patterns.

    Once you become aware, the additional actions required to make the change follows automatically.

    Becoming Aware of Subconscious Mind Patterns

    Subconscious mind patterns are called subconscious for a reason. They are below (sub) your level of consciousness. In other words, you are not consciously aware of them.

    For example, I used to have the habit of shaking my leg non-stop when sitting down, also known as restless leg syndrome. It would be many minutes, sometimes even hours before I would become aware that my leg was shaking and I would stop doing it. But moments later when my attention shifted to something else, my leg would start shaking again.

    What helped me eliminate this issue was to develop body awareness. I started to become more and more aware of what my body was doing at any given point. So whenever my leg would start shaking, I would become aware of it within a few seconds as opposed to many minutes like before.

    Over a period of time, the shaking stopped. I still do it occasionally but it is very rare. And each time I can catch myself quickly and stop doing it.

    Body awareness not only helped me tackle this issue, it also helped me become aware of tense body parts so I could relax them more often.

    For instance, I noticed that whenever I worked on my computer, the muscles around the base of my skull (known as the suboccipital muscles) would tense up badly. This would cause fatigue, headaches, and back pains. Body awareness helped me sense this and consciously relax my muscles whenever that happened.

    This is just one very small example of how you can overcome a subconscious habit by becoming aware of it.

    This habit is easy to catch as it is happening on a physical level. But there are many mental habits that happen on a mind level. You cannot see them; they just happen.

    For example, just like me, you might have the habit of judging others. The strange thing is that the judging happens automatically. The problem with this habit is that you not only judge others, you judge yourself too. It always works both ways. Also, what you perceive of the other can be massively different from reality because you perceive from your own belief system.

    The way to become free from this habit is, again, to become aware of your thinking patterns.

    As you become more and more aware of your thinking patterns you will be able to catch your mind judging others. As you catch yourself judging, you do not blame yourself or force yourself to stop; you simply become aware of it—“Ah, here I go, I am judging again!”

    As you continue to do this, slowly but surely, your judgments of other people will start to reduce.

    Developing a Deeper Awareness

    Awareness is a habit and the more you practice it, the more it becomes second nature. I find the following four techniques to be extremely useful in developing awareness of your physical and mental processes:

    1. Consciously watching your thoughts

    In our day-to-day life, we are lost in our thoughts for the most part. The goal is to detach from your thoughts for a few moments and watch them as a neutral observer.

    This practice can help you become aware of negative thought patterns. You will find yourself questioning your beliefs and thereby weakening negative beliefs and consciously replacing them with positive ones.

    Here’s what you can do:

    Sit comfortably, take a few deep breaths, and calm yourself down. Start to become aware of your mind producing thoughts without engaging with them. If you find yourself getting engaged with the thought, take a moment to acknowledge that and return back to watching.

    If certain thoughts produce strong emotions in you, feel the emotions instead of trying to suppress the thoughts. Divert your attention within your body and feel the energy behind these thoughts.

    As you watch your thoughts, you will become aware of many negative thought patterns running in you. Simply becoming aware of these patterns is enough for them to start disintegrating.

    2. Consciously feeling your emotions

    Becoming aware of your emotions helps you understand the thought-emotion connection—in other words, what kind of thoughts produce what kind of emotional responses in your body.

    This can help you weaken and release the hold of strong negative emotions.

    What I find works best is to consciously recreate emotional responses when you are by yourself.

    Let’s say certain situations cause strong anxiety in you.

    For example, there were times when simple things like walking into a crowded restaurant made me feel anxious. There was this feeling that everyone is looking at me and judging me negatively, and that thought gave rise to a set of emotions that clouded my thinking and made me feel extremely anxious and unwelcomed.

    When you are in such a situation, it is hard for the untrained mind to do anything. But there is a workaround. You can use this situation to train your mind when you get back home.

    When you are back home, you can sit down in a calm place and recreate that exact scenario by running it in your mind. Doing so will evoke pretty much similar emotions. This time though, instead of being lost in your thoughts and overcome by the emotions, you have a choice to consciously feel your emotions. Feel them fully as they arise without becoming afraid of them. As you feel your emotions this way, they start to lose their power over you.

    What you are doing here is becoming aware of thought patterns and the reactions they create in your body. This awareness slowly starts to dissolve existing thought patterns and their corresponding emotional responses.

    Next time you visit the same restaurant, you will be aware when certain thoughts start getting generated and your body’s emotional response. But because you have already felt your emotions consciously and because you are aware of your thought patterns, you will find that they have significantly weaker reactions. Continue this and soon the reactions would die down completely.

    3. Consciously feeling your body

    Becoming aware of your body can help you learn how to relax your body and thereby aid healing.

    For example, you might have body parts that tense up when you are engaged in work or some activity. For me, as I mentioned before, it was the back of my head and the suboccipital muscles (muscles near the base of the skull) that tensed up when I was engaged in work.

    This would lead to extreme headaches and back pain and would cloud my thinking, leading to frustration. It was only after I started becoming aware of my body that I could feel these muscles all tensed up and relax them consciously. I had to relax them consciously many times over while working and after a few months they automatically started to stay relaxed.

    A simple technique you can use to become aware of your body is to feel your body from within during a meditation practice. Simply feel the inside of your body starting from the soles of your feet to the tip of your skull. As you scan your body this way, find and relax various tension points along the way. If you find certain parts aching, spend some more time there and relax these parts.

    Relaxing your body is key to healing. The more relaxed your body feels the more rejuvenated you will feel. This exercise is best done before going to sleep, so you feel fresh and rejuvenated when waking up. In-fact, you can do this lying down in bed.

    Getting in touch with your body can also help you better feel and release your emotions.

    4. Consciously focusing your attention

    In any given point of time, our attention is divided between a myriad of things. Most of us don’t have any control over our attention. It just wanders like a wild beast anywhere it wants to go.

    This method will help you gain control over your attention. The more control you have, the better you will be able to practice the above-mentioned methods.

    For instance, you can feel your emotions for longer periods of time without getting pulled into thinking. Similarly, you can watch your thoughts longer without getting lost in the thoughts often. You can also stay mindful for longer periods of time.

    There was a time I found it extremely difficult even to read a few paragraphs of an article. Within just the first few lines, my attention would drift away into my thoughts. I would be reading, but not understanding anything. I would then have to re-read the lines again. This is what happens when you don’t have mastery over your attention.

    And the most effective way I found to gain mastery is focused meditation. All it involves is to divert your attention to your breath and keep it there for as long as possible. If your attention wanders, bring it back again. As you keep doing this practice, you will start to gain control over your attention and your ability to focus.

    —

    These four methods are the gateway to deeper awareness. They can be practiced together or separately, depending on what you find beneficial at the moment. I believe these techniques can help anyone become free from low self-worth, limiting beliefs, anxiety, depression, and all other types of issues related to the mind.

  • Think You’re Not Good Enough? How to Stop Holding Yourself Back

    Think You’re Not Good Enough? How to Stop Holding Yourself Back

    “Stop holding yourself back. If you aren’t happy, make a change.” ~Unknown

    Growing up in a culture where physical beauty determines how successful you are in finding a job, a suitable husband, and a promising career, and most importantly, bringing honor to your family reputation, I was a disappointment to my family, especially to my mother.

    She was the definition of a perfect beauty—5’6″, slim, big eyes, high-bridged nose, perfect skin, and gifted with charisma. I was the opposite.

    As I got older, my mother’s negative words got louder and louder. They were a constant reminder that I wasn’t good enough; I was useless and ugly, and nobody would love me because of the way I looked. I was excluded from all of our family trips and left alone in the house for days with my grandmother. Because of how I was treated, I started to believe that I would be a loser for life.

    At twenty-nine I thought I was healed, until one phone call changed everything and forced me to re-evaluate what I believed about myself.

    I got a job offer to oversee one of the biggest commercial real estate investors in North America. The job consisted of creating twenty-two financial budget packages in three months, while convincing the client to sign a two-year deal with the company and restructuring the entire accounting department.

    I was convinced that I could not do this job, despite all the encouragement I received from my husband and best friend. I knew it would be a great opportunity for me to advance in my career, but I wanted to turn it down because I believed wasn’t smart enough and thought there were better candidates out there.

    We all grow up with both positive and negative memory banks, with one being larger than the other, thanks to our parents and the environment we were raised in. As we get older we add to our memories through our life experiences. Every time we encounter situations we’re not prepared for, we refer to our memories to support our decision making.

    Mine was full of “You cannot do well in this position,” “You don’t have enough knowledge,” “Other candidates are smarter than you,” “You cannot wear these clothes since you don’t have the body for it,” “You need to wear more make-up,” and the list goes on. So it was hard for me to seriously consider seizing this opportunity.

    After much consideration, I decided to sleep on it. The next day, I looked back at everything I’d done so far in my life and realized that if I kept holding myself back, I’d never get to where I wanted to be. Happiness would never become a reality for me. I knew I didn’t want to live a life of “what if.”

    I decided to accept the job, and three months later, I submitted twenty-two financial budgets on time, got that two-year agreement signed, and completed the restructuring three months after.

    Here’s what I learned along the way. If you’re holding yourself back, like I formerly did, this may help.

    1. Change your attitude to reflect what you want to become.

    Your attitude will either move you forward or backward. It’s greatly affected by what you believe, since what you believe determines the decisions you make. Your beliefs largely stem from your past—what people said and did to you and what you concluded those experiences meant about you.

    Become aware of what people told you when you were a child and ask yourself if those statements were actually true. Study your accomplishments and your environment, go over what you have done so far and see if they align with the accused statements.

    Here’s what I discovered when I did this exercise:

    Untrue fact number one: I was ugly. And yet people outside my family have complimented me on my looks. At first it was hard for me to believe the compliments were genuine. However, as I observed and listened to the actions and words that followed, I realized that I am not ugly, as my mother led me to believe. We’re all beautiful in our own way, and the beauty on the inside is more valuable than what’s on the outside.

    Untrue fact number two: I was stupid and not good enough, unlike my siblings. And yet I graduated with a business degree from a reputable school, went on to get an accounting designation, and now work as a Manager of Business Solutions for one of the biggest commercial real estate companies in North America.

    Untrue fact number three: I was useless. And yet every two years, I would travel back to my home country and help the elderly, who were abandoned by their families, with the essentials they need to survive. I also donated money to rebuild old temples so monks and nuns can continue their studies and have a safe haven away from home—all with my own money.

    These are just some of my personal experiences. Write yours down and use them to shed any negative beliefs that don’t fit into your present situation. You don’t necessarily need to get rid of every belief right away, but start with something, no matter how small it may seem, so you can start letting go of your past traumas.

    2. You know more than you think.

    Stop selling yourself short by saying, “I don’t know” and instead say, “I will figure it out,” and ask yourself “How can I do this better?”

    You have the ability to ask for help and connect yourself to the right resources as part of your self-development journey so you can become more, know more, and prepare for the challenges ahead.

    The moment I decided to accept the job, I knew that I didn’t know everything, but I also knew I had the ability to reach out and get all the tools I needed to complete the project.

    3. Let people in.

    I started to believe in myself when I decided to surround myself with the right friends and mentors, both from work and at home. I opened up to them about how I felt, what I wanted to improve, and how I wanted to move forward from there.

    I believe that having the right people behind you is one of the most critical parts of forming self-belief. That may seem counter-intuitive, since self-belief comes from inside, but it’s easier to develop confidence when we have people in our lives who believe in us and motivate us to go after the things that will make us happy.

    Don’t be afraid to reach out to those you feel comfortable with and let them in on what you’re going through. When you believe in yourself enough to reach out to others, trusting that you’re worthy of their support, you will become a magnet for opportunities that you never thought were possible for you. Take a chance, be honest, and life will surprise you.

    4. See obstacles as opportunities.

    Life will never stop throwing obstacles at you, no matter how much you try to avoid them. Instead of running from them, learn to see them as opportunities to make what you currently have better.

    I used to throw in the towel the moment there was a problem or a glitch in my life and my job. These days, I ask myself, “What are these problems going to teach me? What is life trying to tell me? What are the lessons I’m about to discover?”

    Obstacles are there to show you new lessons. The message behind them will only be revealed to those who work hard to overcome them.

    What I have learned after successfully completing the project for my new job is that I can do practically anything if I give myself a chance and time to learn and grow. By giving myself a chance in this job, I learned how to approach people better and how to get things done faster, more effectively, and more efficiently.

    5. Do not allow defeat to win over triumph.

    Remember in the beginning when I said we all have a memory bank? There are two kinds of memory banks. One is “Defeat” and the other is “Triumph.” In the first you store all your memories of things you believe you haven’t done well; in the second, memories of times when you’ve succeeded.

    Everything you’ve ever experienced lives in one of these memory banks, which you will withdraw from in the future to inform your decisions. Your choice will inform your habits and behavior, which ultimately dictate your success and happiness.

    Be mindful and guard your mind carefully so you don’t allow yourself to withdraw from your “defeat bank account.” I didn’t, and that was what saved me at the end.

    6. Embrace mistakes as teachers.

    Don’t be too hard on yourself. Mistakes are part of life. I have learned to love them. Though I don’t look to make mistakes often, they are my teachers in growth and self-improvement.

    During my first job after graduation, I was friendly with a few people. We would have lunch together and share our thoughts on the company and our jobs.

    Later on, they used the information I shared against me later. Thankfully, I didn’t lose my job, but it definitely hurt my chances for future promotions within the company.

    Looking back, I’m glad I went through that early in my career, as it set a strong foundation for how I now interact with colleagues, which helps with my professional achievement7. Don’t give up just because things get hard.

    If you really want something, you have to be prepared to seize opportunities, work hard for it, and never give up.

    There were many times during my new job when I wanted to walk over to my boss’ office and give my resignation because every day it was a struggle to get just one thing done. However, deep down I knew that if I quit and went back to my old job, I would live an unhappy, unsatisfying, and regretful life.

    Of course, that doesn’t mean you should never quit anything. You need to set goals that align with your values. If your values change along the way, as we all know may happen as we get older, it is okay to give them up and embark on a new journey. Knowing what you really want will help you determine when to give up and move forward, and when to stick to your guns.

    —

    You have the power to overcome the limiting beliefs that stop you from realizing your full potential and creating happiness. It starts with the choice to stop giving them power and start seizing new opportunities.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Why would any woman stand for this?

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

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

    I disregarded my anger and I disregarded my needs.

    Why Burying Anger is a Recipe for Unhappiness

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

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

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

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

    Why We Often Choose to Bury Our Anger

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

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

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

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

    Embracing Your Anger Does Not Mean Throwing Tantrums

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

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

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

    Treat Every Inner Disturbance as a Clue

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

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

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

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

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

    My message was accepted with a small apology.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Deeply Exploring Your Anger Involves a Commitment

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

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

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

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

    You are Richly Rewarded for Embracing Anger

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

    You consciously make choices true to your heart.

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

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

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

  • 7 Lessons to Remember When Life Seems to Suck

    7 Lessons to Remember When Life Seems to Suck

    “I’m grateful for past betrayals, heartaches, and challenges… I thought they were breaking me; but they were sculpting me.” ~Steve Maraboli

    I winced in pain as I climbed off the elliptical. This was one of the few times that I had ever set foot into a gym. And it was out of necessity rather than choice.

    That necessity came from chronic lower back and leg pain, which I had been living with for the better part of six months. At the time, I didn’t know it would end up being just chronic, idiopathic pain.

    All I knew was that it hurt, and I was limping with every step I took.

    The pain had a definite impact on my quality of life.

    For those first two years I could rarely sit for more than five minutes at a time, as a burning sensation would soon envelop my hip and thigh area, making it uncomfortable. The only way to alleviate the sensation was to stand. This was difficult for me, as I am an engineer who makes his living in front of the computer.

    In my quest to get better I saw enough specialists to count on both hands. Because I lived in a small town, they were often two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half hours by car, one way! Imagine the challenges of trying to sit in a car for that long a period of time when the very act of sitting was uncomfortable for me.

    Each time, the doctor would say that he didn’t know what was wrong with me. The good news, at least, was that I was not in danger of dying anytime soon.

    Little did I know at the time that I would find myself on a journey of self-improvement, borne out of a spiritual necessity. As a result, I would make drastic changes to my life.

    I would eventually learn to stop using pain as an excuse not to exercise. I discovered what it meant to make a decision—to decide, really decide.

    I would also discover that I am my own worst enemy, what with the constant barrage of negative thoughts that consumed every waking moment as I sought answers from one doctor to the next.

    Through it all, I would discover the power of meditation to help me deal with life’s stresses (people or situations).

    Four years later, this chronic pain is but a distant memory. From time to time it returns as nothing more than a mild muscle soreness or tension.

    These are the lessons I wish to share with you today.

    You Are What You Think

    Among many of the things I started changing were my thoughts.

    Because I have a history of cancer in my family, when I first started the doctor visits, I constantly assumed the worst.

    Several relatives had already passed away from this disease. My father had two bouts with cancer. Both times, he was fortunate enough to walk away.

    Unfortunately, after each time he still believed the disease was in his body, despite the doctor declaring a clean bill of health some ten years after his first bout.

    Sound familiar?

    Because I had the best training in the world, I saw doctor after doctor, trying to find something wrong with me. I refused to accept the second, third, or fourth opinion that I was really fine. That there was nothing wrong with me.

    Be in the Habit of Questioning Your Beliefs

    It starts with a subtle shift of consciously being aware of your thoughts and questioning them. I’m not saying that you should be constantly monitoring your thoughts. That would be tiring.

    So long as you are able to step back every now and then to ask yourself these questions, you are in good shape.

    • Why did I just think what I thought?
    • From where did I get these beliefs?
    • Are they correct? Is it possible that my beliefs are wrong?
    • What other perspectives are also correct?
    • How are these beliefs helping me?

    Question your thoughts, for they lead to emotions. Watch your emotions, which lead to actions. Examine your actions (or lack thereof), which ultimately lead to results.

    Another way to look at things is this: If you don’t like where you are, begin by looking at your results. Then look at the actions you took to achieve those results. Look yet another step backward to the emotions associated with those actions. Going further back, look at the thinking that created those emotions in the first place.

    Now, can you see why what we think is so important?

    Sometimes Things Have to Get Worse Before They Get Better

    Those words were from my chiropractor, and they would keep echoing through my head as I fought back the waves of pain running down the lower right side of my body.

    I almost laughed when he first said them to me, thinking they were terribly cliché. Yet, this doctor was doing something none of the other specialists could do: alleviate my pain. Within the first hour of seeing him, my discomfort had almost halved.

    Not only was he helping me with my pain, his simple words motivated me to start an exercise program for the first time in my life, despite the pain.

    Keep in mind that two other doctors had also suggested this, but I dismissed their advice, thinking it was crazy to suggest exercise to a patient in pain, since I assumed it would exacerbate his condition. In other words, I thought I knew best.

    As for what led up to those waves of pain, I was on the elliptical, trying this strange machine for the first time in my life. And I was hurting.

    It had only been ten minutes, but they were grueling. The guy next to me made it look easy, clocking in at thirty minutes and still going. I was hurting too much and had to jump off the machine.

    As I stood there wondering what was going on with my health, I had a do-or-die moment: I could give up, go home, piss and moan about how much everything was hurting and what a dumb idea it was for the doctors to suggest that I start an exercise program, and never come back.

    Yet, the words of my chiropractor kept playing back in my head. It shifted my perception: Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.

    At this moment in my journey, my back was to the wall. I had no other direction but forward. I would decide then and there that I would give it another month to see if my condition would improve better.

    Many more times on the elliptical, something amazing gradually happened: My chronic pain was starting to go away!

    The Bad Times Are a Gift

    And so it is with things you are attempting for the first time. It may seem to really suck, when you’ve failed for the 100th time, with success seemingly a long ways off.

    It’s in these bad times that we choose to shift our perceptions and decide that failure is just a feedback mechanism. We learn both from our mistakes and our missed takes in life, about both the situations and ourselves.

    And when we finally achieve success, we can truly appreciate what had at the time seemed like terrible moments in our lives. It’s these moments that brought forth the hidden potential within us. In other words, we discover truly powerful and resilient parts of ourselves that would have lain dormant had these “bad” times not been gifted to us.

    Stop Finding Excuses for Why You Can’t

    Instead, look for reasons why you can.

    Over time, I added weights to my repertoire in order to strengthen my core. Initially, I was concerned about lifting because of my scoliosis. I soon attracted a Crossfit crowd into my life. This would be a source of valuable workout information for me.

    In particular, I met a power lifter (this guy can lift 700+ pounds!) and asked what he thought about scoliosis and lifting. He told me about Lamar Grant, a power lifter who stands at just 5’2” and has scoliosis.

    What was amazing about Grant was that he could deadlift 661 pounds at a bodyweight of 132 pounds. Grant holds world records for deadlifts in his weight class.

    What this friend was telling me was in essence this: Stop looking for excuses for why you can’t do something. Instead, go do it in spite of the situation.

    In my case, I should be lifting to strengthen my core because I do have scoliosis. I should be lifting because Lamar Grant is a prime example of someone who persevered in spite of his circumstances. It was because of his circumstances that he went on to set world records.

    Successful People Are Thankful for Their Circumstances

    Lamar Grant would not have been the Lamar Grant if he never started lifting because of his scoliosis.

    If not for his deafness, Beethoven would have fallen into obscurity as just another live concert performer. In spite of his growing and near complete deafness, Beethoven went on to compose some of the world’s most moving and beautiful symphonic pieces. Almost 200 years after it was written, his music is still listened and enjoyed today.

    These people rose above their circumstances. They asked themselves, “What is it that I am to learn from this particular set of circumstances at this time? How does the Universe want me to grow?”

    In other words, they stopped blaming whatever hand they had been dealt and learned to play it as best they could.

    In my case, I learned the discipline of working out three times a week on top of working through my pain. This discipline would transfer to other areas of my life.

    No matter how tired I am after work or how little I feel like going to the gym, I still do it. I know that as soon as I develop the habit of not going to the gym, then it’s over. Likewise, I simply developed the habit of going to the gym.

    It’s the same with other things I dislike doing. I do them anyway, as they are necessary to the path of success.

    You Can Calm Your Mind Through Meditation

    When I first learned how to meditate, it was one of the most difficult things to do. I would often fall asleep. Or, my mind would wander in totally different directions. I even gave up for some time.

    As I was still studying self-improvement, the concept of meditation kept coming up, especially among highly successful individuals. They often credited meditation as one of the pillars to achieving lasting success.

    So, I decided to give it another shot (or ten!) Over time, I was getting better at dismissing thoughts as they entered my mind, without any judgment or emotions.

    When you learn to mediate, you start to live in your own world, in your own terms. People who would have normally pushed your buttons no longer have the effect they used to have.

    I frequently get comments from my coworkers, who wonder how I can be so patient with so-and-so. They even thank me for being a buffer, or tell me they might have lost it already. I tell them that the “secret” to my inner peace and calmness is meditation.

    The “old me” would have been fuming for days after the offending event. The “new me” responds much differently.

    I have discovered another benefit of meditation. When I was first going through my chronic pain issue, one night I was able to “disconnect” my brain from my body. In other words, for that moment I felt pain-free!

    I now meditate every day for about fifteen to twenty minutes when I first wake up. This is the best time to meditate as your brain is still closest to emitting theta waves. Theta waves are generated during sleep and are the closest to accessing your subconscious you can get.

    By meditating during this time, you tap into the true self within you. As an example of why you would want to tap into your true self, consider this: You might have at one point in your life woke up, hit Snooze on your alarm, turned back to sleep, and said, “I hate my job. I don’t want to go to work today.”

    By meditating right after waking up, you will get closer to finding what truly gets your juices flowing. You discover what your real values and passions are so that you can start living authentically.

    Those intuitive thoughts or random ah-ha moments that you’re trying to tap into during meditation do not necessarily come during meditation. For me, 99% of the time they come when I’m taking a five-minute break, sipping some tea, working out, taking a walk, washing dishes, or doing something as mundane as sitting in the dentist’s chair.

    In other words, the payoff is outside of meditation. Through meditation, you learn to first let go of random thoughts so that you stop obsessing over the ones that hurt you. Instead, you want to focus on the ones that resonate with you.

    Most of All: Decide!

    You have to decide, really decide, what it is that you want. We have all made half-baked decisions in our lives. We put in the effort for a little while before giving up. That’s not really deciding.

    You already know what it is. When you have really decided, you feel it in your gut. You know that no matter what happens, no matter how long it takes, no matter how hard it is, you will see it through to the end.

    For me, it was that do-or-die moment when I was in pain from being on the elliptical. My back was to the wall, and I truly had no place to go but forward.

    Even to this day, when I am about to make a big decision, I think back to this defining moment and the emotions it wrought. I know I have really decided when I feel those same emotions.

    So grab hold of that feeling. Or, look for it when you make a decision. That’s how you know if you truly meant it when you decided.

    The Lessons at a Glance

    To sum up the lessons learned, here they are.

    • You are what you think. So, choose carefully!
    • Question your beliefs.
    • Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.
    • Stop finding excuses for why you can’t. This is called blaming. Instead, find reasons why you can. This is called taking the initiative.
    • Be thankful for both the good and the bad in your life for both are gifts.
    • Meditate
    • Really decide.

    I used to wonder if, given the chance to be spared those three years of pain, infirmity, and uncertainty, would I take it.

    I have come to realize that at any given moment, life brings with it challenges. With each challenge is the amazing the opportunity to grow, so long as we see it this way. Others may rail against it.

    It’s made me the person I am today. I would have missed all those important lessons and tremendous opportunities for self-growth. More importantly, I would have missed sharing those lessons here today.

  • You Have to Know You’re Worthy to Attract a Healthy Relationship

    You Have to Know You’re Worthy to Attract a Healthy Relationship

    “Your problem is you’re too busy holding onto your unworthiness.” ~Ram Dass

    Three years ago I went through a breakup with someone I loved deeply.

    I had no idea what had happened to me after I fell in love with this girl. I now know that I was asleep from the beginning to the very end of the relationship.

    I was totally encapsulated with this girl to the point where I could not see what was in front of me. I was unable to see the red flags that were there in the beginning.

    When I first laid eyes on her, I felt a magnetic pull. I knew that she was it for me. I had her as the one before I had spoken a word to her. And what made it even harder was that when I was with her, it felt like home, as if I had known her before.

    So, no matter what she said, I had it sealed in my mind that this had to work.

    When it all started she was almost impossible to get a date with. She bailed on me three times. On the third time I was aggravated, and she knew it. We had to have a phone conversation about why we couldn’t go out.

    This had never happened to me ever before, and the weird part was that I went along with it. I had the conversation and everything was fine and dandy when we went on a date just a few days later.

    On the first date it was as if I had forgotten about the initial weirdness and aggravation. I was sucked in. But as weeks went by, I noticed that I was only able to see her once a month, even though she lived in the next town over from me.

    We would have to resort to FaceTime, when she was just at home. I couldn’t pick her up at her house because she wanted me to avoid her parents. But at the same time, she had pictures of us on social media, so it wasn’t like our relationship was a secret. I was confused, but I kept on with it.

    I remember my birthday came around and I didn’t get so much as a card. And it was sad because that didn’t dawn on me until I actually broke up with her. All I wanted from her was her time, and that was limited, and at her convenience.

    I should also tell you that I was not the kind of guy that just harbors all my frustration and doesn’t talk about issues.

    I would try to talk about my feelings and concerns, as well as try to understand her, but she would never want to hear it or talk about it. There was constant neglect.

    What could I do? How could I show her that I loved her? What would make her open her heart to me? Take her to more dinners? Buy tickets to a game? None of that seemed to make a difference. But I felt for her and understood she had been cheated on previously, so I used the excuse that “she just has her walls up.”

    I would tell myself that eventually she would understand that I was a good guy who loved her. She would eventually not be this way. In other words, eventually she would be what I thought she could be.

    I looked past her avoidant personality, the distance she needed, and the fact that we were in different chapters in our lives. I also was willing to set aside my needs to fulfill hers, and only hers. My self-worth was at an all time low. (Or had it always been that low?)

    The poison in this toxic relationship set in early, and I decided that I would enjoy more of it until the point where I needed to leave. Let’s not forget the idea that men have to pursue, pursue, and pursue. Because anything worth having won’t come easily, right?

    After she put me completely on her backburner in the relationship, I knew that I was worth more. I cut the poison chord and licked my wounds for a long time after.

    But there is healing in the “licking of my wounds.” The healing was sparked by a curiosity that I had developed in the search for myself.

    Why did I attract this type of person into my life? How could I move upward so that I could attract healthier relationships going forward? 

    I wasn’t going to just blame her and just get on with it. I didn’t want to be in denial about the fact that I had chosen to be with her. She was just being her, and how could I blame her for not being the person I wanted her to be? I needed to take some responsibility for my choice and work from there.

    I found that amongst my own mommy issues, there was some childhood bully issues, and I’d been living with the “I’m not good enough” belief for years.

    Suddenly, I was awakened.

    I was awakened to the fact that the purpose of this relationship was to spawn a new discovery in my life, and that was the search for who I really am. It wasn’t just figuring out who I thought I was or being a better me, it was the search for my deeper self—my soul.

    I believe this whole event was put forth for me to learn my worth.

    Right after the relationship, I took time to grieve. That encompassed the generic reaction of drinking and going out, because at the time I didn’t immediately get the lesson; I was still working from the only place I knew.

    But I realized that doing what the generation would consider normal—drinking, going out, and hooking up with other girls, just to run from the pain—wasn’t going to make anything better.

    In the past it may have worked, because I wasn’t as emotionally invested and didn’t care as much when relationships ended. But this particular time was unique, because, at the time, I was looking for my soul mate.

    This time around I had much higher expectations and a deeper attachment. That’s what had caused the pain from the start. I wasn’t hurting because she wasn’t the girl I wanted her to be; it was the expectation of what I thought she was rather than who she was in reality. 

    Had I been present and awake, I wouldn’t have dated her at all because I would have seen that she was the complete opposite of what I needed. But how do I know what I need? And do I feel that I deserve what I need? Am I worthy of it?

    On a simple level one could say, well, of course you deserve it and of course you are worthy. But I realized that inside I didn’t feel that way.

    I eventually realized that my upbringing wasn’t surrounded by much love, not in the way that I needed. I was taught tough love, meaning little acknowledgement and praise, and as a result I never felt good enough.

    Since there was an absence of love in my childhood, I didn’t know that I was worthy of it.

    This model that I had worked with since my childhood affected who and what I would eventually attract. I projected unworthiness, and thought that women who love, care, and are nurturing didn’t exist, basically setting forth what came into my life.

    I realized that if I didn’t let go of my issues, the pattern would continue. The pattern would show up slightly different from time to time, but I would continue attracting unloving relationships if I continued believing I was unworthy and unlovable.

    If you’ve had similar experiences, my message is to be present and be aware. This enables you to see the person you’re dating for who they are, as opposed to focusing on who you want them to be, and to see yourself more clearly as well.

    This is an opportunity to not place blame in your relationship but rather to learn about yourself and your patterns.

    Ask questions to help you dig deeper, such as: What is causing me to feel this way? Why was this event brought into my life? Where do I need healing? What issues, thoughts, or beliefs am I holding onto that are keeping me from where I want to go?

    If you can just be present you will be able to notice your own thoughts and your attachments to stories in your own mind—stories about the past, the future, fear, control, unworthiness, and other issues that you may be holding onto.

    Some questions I ask myself today when I’m meeting someone for the first time or seeing someone in the beginning include: Is this person my friend? How is their heart? Is it open?

    Simply put, when I’m with that person, my heart is open to seeing who is there.

    Do the work to heal your own wounds and to escape from your unhealthy patterns, and your heart will be open as well.

  • 6 Lessons to Remember When Someone Judges or Criticizes You

    6 Lessons to Remember When Someone Judges or Criticizes You

    “Every judgment, all of them, point back to a judgment we hold against ourselves.” ~Lynne Forrest

    I sat across from my good friend Anna over a cup of coffee. We had been having issues in our friendship and had finally gotten together to discuss them. I’m not a fan of conflict and call myself a “recovering people pleaser,” so I was very nervous.

    I noticed immediately that the conversation didn’t seem to be going very well. I addressed my issues concerning our friendship and tried hard to own my part. But Anna kept saying things like, “There are things that you do that really bother me as well, but I don’t say anything about saying them.”

    After hearing a variation of this phrase for a third time, I asked what she was talking about. She had never addressed any of these issues with me.

    She took a deep breath and said, “Angela, I don’t think your relationship with your higher power is very strong. Also, you know those Facebook posts you write about peace and mindfulness? I don’t see that reflected in your personality. One more thing: Your relationship with your mother seems poor, and I think that’s why you are emotionally needy.”

    I stared at her in absolute shock. I felt like I was punched in the face. The worst part is this girl was a very genuine person, so the fact that she saw these qualities in me broke my heart.

    My spirituality and my sense of peace are things I have been cultivating intensely since I was sixteen. Here I was sitting across from this girl, who’s supposedly my best friend, and she doesn’t even see these positive qualities in me. I was devastated.

    I walked out of that get-together saying I needed some time to be alone and process. I was deeply hurt.

    Before we met, I had envisioned us having a positive conversation, fixing our relationship, and spending the rest of the coffee date laughing. Instead, I left feeling like someone had ripped out my heart and like I was going to throw up.

    It’s been quite a process wrestling with this event, and I’ve had the opportunity to learn (and relearn) some amazing lessons.

    1. Someone’s criticisms and judgments aren’t the problem. Believing them is the problem.

    I’ve been criticized before, but these judgments particularly crushed me. I couldn’t stop crying. I felt exposed.

    I realized the reason I was having such a hard time with what she had said was because there’s a part of me that believes her judgments about me. For example, if she had told me I was mean, I would have shrugged it off, because I do not believe that about myself.

    On the other hand, I do have insecurities concerning my spirituality and sense of peace in the world. While I try to cultivate both of these aspects in my personal life, I’m not perfect. I struggle just like everyone else.

    Once I realized I was upset because I believed her accusations to be true, I could stop blaming her. I was in pain because I was torturing myself with these beliefs and blindly believing them.

    2. When someone shows us how we’re out of alignment with ourselves, we have an opportunity to change our beliefs.

    I’ve seen again and again that the world is a mirror. When we think a thought and believe it, the world will give us an example to prove that thought to be true. Anna showed me the part of me that believed these insecurities. She gave me the beautiful gift of questioning if I wanted to hold onto these beliefs. Remember, we do not have to believe our thoughts.

    I heard an example about thoughts once that has stuck with me. Thoughts are like cars zooming on a highway. The highway represents the mind. We get to decide which car we want to jump into. Do we want to jump into the car and believe the negative thought? Or do we want to take the positive route? (Highway pun intended.)

    So, I get to decide. Do I really want to hold onto the belief that I don’t have a strong spiritual relationship? That seems like a painful story to believe about me. Instead, I am choosing to reframe the belief. Instead of believing that my spiritual relationship is weak, I choose to believe that it’s a work in progress. It’s beautiful because it’s not perfect, but even still, I spend time cultivating it every day.

    3. It’s not our business how other people see us; it’s our business how we see ourselves.

    A lot of the time when we are feeling in emotional pain, we are not in our business. It’s not my business what other people think of me. My thoughts and assumptions of me are my responsibility, and that’s enough to keep me busy.

    Once I get clear on what’s actually my business, it’s amazing how many of my troubles simply vanish. It also gives me the opportunity and the time to change my thinking and take care of myself.

     4. Look for the truth in the criticism and leave behind the rest.

    Take this piece of advice with a grain of salt. If you can find what’s true about the negative things people tell you, it can be a great tool to strengthen your character. But it’s not an excuse for self-abuse.

    For example, some of the things Anna said, I don’t find to be true for me. But I do sense that sometimes I can be emotionally needy with my friends. This doesn’t mean I beat myself up about this character quality. I can reevaluate how I am sharing my emotions and with whom I’m sharing them, and see if I am becoming co-dependent with certain people in my life.

    I believe the depth of my emotions makes me beautiful, and sharing it with others has positively deepened many of my relationships. But it’s a good reminder for me to evaluate if I was sharing my emotions in a healthy way or if I was dumping them onto my friends to make me feel better.

    5. Find gratitude in every situation.

    I believe it’s important to find the gift in every event so we can grow. If we look deep enough, we can find the seed of gratitude in any situation. I realized after sitting with this experience for a week how thankful I was for my friend, for giving me the opportunity to see the painful beliefs I held about myself. Now I had the opportunity to clear them. What a blessing!

    I also realized how thankful I am to have a friend who will be honest with me and tell me what she believes to be true. This does not mean that I have to take her judgments on as my own, but her reflections of me are pertinent in my journey to releasing these painful beliefs.

    6. Always try your hardest to forgive people and yourself.

    Forgiveness is one of the most difficult but powerful processes. I believe forgiveness is twofold. Not only did I need to forgive her, I needed to forgive myself. While I realized it was a blessing that she said these things, letting go of my anger for “exposing me” was hard. I knew intellectually I needed to forgive her, but actually doing it was a different story.

    Once I realized I needed to forgive myself first, letting go of my anger became easier. I had to forgive myself for blindly believing these judgments about myself and not questioning if they were true. I had been holding myself hostage; she had just shown me that I was the one keeping myself behind bars.

    —

    Our relationship is not back to the way it was before we started having issues. While I hold a deep sense of respect and love for Anna, I realized at this point in my life that I didn’t want to be best friends with someone who saw me that way.

    This doesn’t mean I don’t love and respect her. I have a deep sense of gratitude for what she has shown me about myself, and I have hope that our relationship will be even greater one day, because it will be more honest.

    I still have to questions these judgments about myself, because after carrying them for so long, they don’t magically go away.

    Once I become secure about these qualities and come into a more loving relationship with myself, I will think about rekindling the friendship, but maybe not. Only time can tell. Till then, I will keep on forgiving myself, questioning these beliefs, and reframing them to come into a more loving relationship with myself.

    What has helped you respond well to criticism and judgment?

  • Coping with Loss and Heartbreak: How to Get Through the Pain

    Coping with Loss and Heartbreak: How to Get Through the Pain

    Broken Heart

    “The unendurable is the beginning of the curve of joy.” ~Djuna Barnes

    November, 2014. A story you’ve heard a million times. The person I believed with all my heart to be “the one” ceased to feel the same way about me.

    My heart and soul shattered, I had no desire to live, the whole works.

    Having your heart broken, especially by someone you truly loved is, from my perspective, the worst kind of pain there is. It makes you lose all sense of self, reality, purpose, and faith. To me, it felt like my soul was being severed into teeny tiny pieces.

    When we’re in that much pain, it seems like it’s going to be a forever deal. We forget that it’s all temporary.

    To make matters worse, we feel we’re all alone in it—we are rushed to “just move on already” when we can barely find enough energy to open our eyes.

    So keep in mind that there is no shame about the situation that is most painful to you and how long you’re taking to process it.

    You could be facing your darkest hour brought by the death of your pet fish. Or by the fact you didn’t get that dream job.

    Whatever the situation is, do not compare or believe your pain is less legitimate than others: your journey here is your own, and it is just as sacred as that of someone you perceive to have “more legitimate“ reasons to be in pain.

    Also, take your time getting through it. It’s your story. Your shoes. Your life.

    I’d like to remind everyone out there going through a hard time that pain is in fact the greatest catalyst for growth.

    You can’t see that when you’re smack in the middle of it; in fact, you might even say, as I did, “No growth is worth this much pain.” But when you come out on the other side, my friends, it’s like you’re seeing in color for the first time in your life.

    So keep going! You’ll be happier than you ever were once you’ve transcended it, I promise you.

    Here are five of the many lessons I learned throughout this year that I believe can help anyone, at any point, with any struggle, to reach out into all the happiness and bliss that life can offer.

    1. Gratitude

    While I was in that place of suffering, gratitude seemed like a dark humor joke from the skies. How can you possibly find something to be grateful for when you feel you’ve been stripped of every shred of happiness or love and there’s nothing left but pain?

    That feeling kept me in limbo for a while. I kept reading and reading about recovering from a severe heartbreak and every single one of the texts I read were emphatic about gratitude. So at one point I thought “there has to be a reason for this.”

    Finally, I picked up a pen and piece of paper and told myself to write ten things I was grateful for.

    It was hard at first. Only a few things came to mind, like family and a roof over my head. But I kept on trying, day after day.

    By the end of the first week, ten things were too little.

    You begin to see everything as a blessing.

    Now, with a year’s worth of practice, at the end of each day, looking back at things to be grateful for on that one day feels actually overwhelming at times—there’s just so much to be thankful for.

    I feel important to share that what made me click was the realization that gratitude isn’t about exercizing it as a virtue because you should. It’s about the wonderful state of being you put yourself in deliberately. Ultimately, gratitude is about being happy.

    2. Beliefs, beliefs, beliefs

    Next, I was smacked in head with the premise that you create your own reality. Accepting responsibility for your pain is awful, to say the least—until you realize how empowering it actually is.

    What it comes down to is that what you truly believe about yourself and the world is, in fact, what you’re going to experience in your life.

    If you believe that the universe conspires against you, surely enough, that’s what you’re going to get. Every time something goes wrong in your life, you’re going to read it as if you’re powerless and the universe is after your bottom in particular.

    The silver lining is: beliefs are changeable. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you chose instead to believe that the universe conspires in your favor?

    A great technique I picked up from Tiny Buddha itself is: find a belief that you’re holding on to that you feel is doing more harm than good, and work on it.

    Let’s say, for instance, you feel unlovable. Take a piece of paper and write down the opposite of this, e.g. “I am lovable.” Then actively look for evidence that this is true, day by day.

    Every time you felt loved during the day, write it down. If someone was kind to you, if you received a compliment or a warm touch, or were praised in any way, write it down.

    Little by little, you’re going to convince yourself of this, and then proceed to see it more and more in your experience.

    3. You are complete.

    We tend to attach certain situations, people, and experiences to certain feelings. This makes us think that in order to feel complete we need to reach out for these people, situations, and experiences, which obviously causes us more harm than good.

    Take me, for instance. I attached the love that I felt for my ex partner to that person in particular. One meant the other. And it was the most beautiful feeling. So when they were no longer there, I felt I was left with a huge hole in my soul.

    But I came to realize that love I felt had been inside me the whole time. What they did was bring it to surface.

    Which is to say: you can’t feel anything that isn’t within you already—you are a complete being. No one, and no circumstance, puts feelings inside of you.

    It’s easier to let go once you realize that, much like a piano, all of your feelings are already within you in potential. What your reality does is play the notes that bring them into your awareness.

    The beauty is: you can play that piano yourself.

    Find your music.

    It’s the best you’ll ever hear.

    4. Disidentification

    I can’t stress enough how important it is to disidentify with your pain or struggle. We feel it’s so entrenched in us that it’s like an arm or a leg. So I want to be very clear: you are not your pain.

    In my experience, heartbreak felt like it would be forever a part of me. That there was nothing I could do about it because it was so profound and painful that standing for even a minute looking at it made my heart go physically nuts (which was quite scary).

    The moment I learned, and I mean actually understood, that pain serves you immensely by pointing straight at parts of yourself you need to heal, and is not part of your now-being, everything changed.

    So, imagine your pain as a separate entity from you. Imagine seeing your pain in front of you, talking to it, hugging it. Dress it festively according to the occasion, hang out with it, draw it, make a Play-Doh version of it. Be creative and let loose.

    It’s going to become a second nature to you to actually love your pain.

    5. Integration, integration, integration

    This came as a consequence of the latter lesson. By loving your pain, you integrate it. You don’t reject it or try to run from pain; you accept it.

    What happens next is that you expand. And that is the best thing ever. Trust me.

    Everything becomes that much full of life, of passion, of color.

    It’s so important to understand this. Every time you integrate an aspect of your pain, you’re going to feel more joyful, more awake, more excited.

    So don’t run from your shadows. Instead, invite them over for a cup of tea and have a nice, honest, accepting chat.

    —

    These five lessons helped me form a new understanding of life—I went from dreading each and every day to feeling excited and passionate for every new morning. I hope they can help you find your way there as well.

    Be gentle with yourself and hang in there—it’s worth it!

    Broken heart image via Shutterstock

  • Beware of Any Belief or Ideology That Promotes Separation

    Beware of Any Belief or Ideology That Promotes Separation

    Beware

    Source: Project Happiness

  • 10 Powerful Practices to Take Good Care of Yourself

    10 Powerful Practices to Take Good Care of Yourself

    Woman Meditating

    “You don’t pass or fail at being a person, dear.” ~Neil Gaiman

    I discovered my spiritual path early. As a teenager I would read my mother’s self-help books. I spent most of my twenties actively pursuing self-development by studying, attending workshops, and going on retreats all over the world.

    At the time, I thought I was searching for happiness and inner peace. I see now that I bought into a rigid idea of what a ‘spiritual person’ was and tried to live up to that.

    My inner world was not happy or peaceful. The way I treated myself was far from soulful. In fact, it was down right abusive.

    I thought I needed ‘fixing’ because even after all the learning and work I had done, I would still beat myself up whenever I wasn’t perfect. My internal story about myself continued to be judgmental and negative, and I remained fixated on gathering evidence to prove I wasn’t good enough.

    Over a decade later, I was married with a child and had gained many qualifications that helped solidify a life without self-abuse. It didn’t occur to me until I had my second child—nine years after my first—that I wasn’t really being nurturing or caring toward myself either.

    I knew I was doing something right, because my experience the second time around was completely different; it was a lot more joyful.

    I reflected on exactly what the difference was between my two experiences. I came to realize that the answer was me.

    I had changed so much—my thoughts, my expectations, my beliefs, the way I responded to emotions and stress, all of which had a flow-on effect that influenced everything else in my life.

    Then something so minuscule happened. I would escape the house and my newborn for thirty minutes, once a week to read an inspirational Tiny Buddha article over coffee.

    This was enough to keep me ‘topped up’ so I wasn’t completely depleting myself while caring for my family during those first few months. No big revelation really that taking time out for yourself is going to be a good thing.

    Yet, this simple act had such a huge impact on me. I really started focusing on self-care. It became an intention.

    Instead of forcing myself to exercise and lose weight, I listened to what my body needed (as a result I didn’t beat myself up if exercise wasn’t achieved).

    I stopped expecting myself to complete everything on my to-do list.

    I questioned certain beliefs (like defining what being a mother, wife, and woman meant to me).

    If any unkindness about myself crept into my thoughts, I challenged it. If there was some truth to the thought, I met that with acceptance, which invoked a compassion that wasn’t present before.

    I started paying attention to what was different from a good day to a bad day. I explored when I felt pain and suffering trying to locate why it was there (hint: usually when reality was different from what I wanted it to be). All this eventually turned into an inner practice for me.

    An inner practice doesn’t tell you what to think, or what to do. It invites you to explore how you think, and why you do something (or don’t do it).

    Here are some tips for creating your own inner practice:

    1. Connect with yourself.

    Self-awareness is being able to explore aspects of yourself with curiosity instead of judgment. Once we develop this ability we can deepen the connection we have with ourselves—not just our mental self, but emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

    2. Connect with acceptance.

    Acknowledge what’s true about yourself, today, in this moment, exactly as you are—without seeking to immediately change anything. This is acceptance.

    Ignoring, rejecting, or refusing to acknowledge any part of yourself will never bring about effective change. Acceptance brings the possibility of transformation. A caterpillar transforms into a butterfly; it doesn’t change into one or become a better caterpillar. When we practice self-care, transformation shows up in our life.

    3. Connect with self-kindness. 

    Offer yourself kindness. You are not any less special from anyone else on the planet, so why would you show others kindness and not yourself? Is abuse toward anyone (including yourself) ever acceptable?

    You have a choice whether you meet your inner world with kindness, ambivalence, or meanness. (Tip: life is easier with kindness in it).

    4. Connect with self-compassion.

    Have compassion for yourself when you aren’t able to achieve kindness. Acknowledge your flaws, faults, and failing by meeting them with compassion.

    Either being human and judgment go hand-in-hand, or you align yourself with being human and compassionate. Which would you rather? Only one can exist at a time.

    5. Connect with your needs.

    Most of us spend our lives caring for others. Sometimes we sacrifice our own needs, but is it really the grand loving gesture we convince ourselves it is? Do you over-give to others so you don’t have to listen to what might be lacking in your life?

    What do you need physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually? What do you feel deprived of?

    We have to decide that our needs are non-negotiable and put boundaries in place to ensure that we receive what is vital for our well-being.

    If you asked yourself how your life would be different if your needs were met, the answer would be a positive one. (Although it is important to note that needs and wants are completely different things).

    6. Connect with your thoughts.  

    If we have been unkind to ourselves for a long time, it can take a while to break that habit. Being aware of your thoughts gives you the opportunity to choose whether they are true or not. You should challenge a thought’s truth, kindness, and purpose.

    Sometimes we aren’t even aware of how a single thought can ruin a good mood. For example, have you ever looked at a photo of yourself from a few years ago and thought, I was much prettier /slimmer/ happier/more fun, then? Wouldn’t you think it was a bit rude if a friend said those same things to you?

    Or, do you place your future self on a pedestal like I used to. Future Belinda had achieved so much more than me; she was way more confident, wiser, more spiritual, happier, and healthier. It’s so unkind (and painful) to compare yourself to a version of you that doesn’t exist.

    7. Connect with your beliefs.

    Sometimes our feelings don’t match what our logical brain is telling us. When this happens, the answer often to that contradiction lies in our beliefs.

    We formed a lot of our beliefs about the world as children. As adults we can still unconditionally continue to believe what a child interpreted as truth.

    Self-care is exploring what beliefs you hold—giving yourself the option of whether you wish to continue to believe them or not. Start with your beliefs about self-care—do you think that it’s selfish or self-preservation?

    8. Connect with your expectations. 

    Our expectations can change the way we view everything in our life. I notice that on days I am able to completely disable my expectations, I usually have a really good day because there are no conditions placed upon it.

    What happens if you don’t achieve the expectations you place on yourself? Why is the expectation there? Self-care is ensuring that your expectations serve you—not you serving them.

    9. Connect with your wants.

    There is a gap between how things are now and how we want them to be. Sometimes we fill this gap with worry, pain, and stress.

    Explore this gap between what is and what you want. What exactly would you like to be different? What would be useful to help narrow this gap?

    10. Connect with your intention. 

    Intention is behind everything we do. For one day, one week, or one month, make your main intention self-care.

    That means that every decision you make is with the conscious intention of doing what is best for you and your health. Do you think that you would make the same choices? How would life be different?

    —

    We are all perfectly imperfect, so we are going to temporarily fail at some point. The main thing to remember when creating any practice is: begin, continue, and repeat.

    Woman meditating image via Shutterstock

  • Open-Minded People

    Open-Minded People

    Open-Minded People

    Source: The Mind Unleashed

  • 5 Things That Stop You from Achieving Your Goals and How to Overcome Them

    5 Things That Stop You from Achieving Your Goals and How to Overcome Them

    “Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.” ~Oprah Winfrey

    I’ll never forget being filled with utter disappointment as I watched my mum cross the finish line at the Paris marathon. I should have been celebrating her achievement. Instead, all I felt was regret for not crossing the finish line alongside her.

    I had set myself the goal of running a marathon and invited my mum along for the challenge. Unfortunately, I have still yet to reach my goal.

    After returning home from Paris I did a lot of soul-searching to see why I had been unable to complete a goal I’d had for three years.

    Although a personal crisis had contributed to the situation, I realized a number of things within my control had held me back. If you struggle to reach your goals, these five things could be standing in your way.

    1. Your core beliefs are holding you back.

    We all have a set of core beliefs around what we believe is possible for our lives. I had set myself a challenge to run a marathon, but in fact my core belief was that I couldn’t, because I had failed to stick to my fitness goals in the past.

    We can never achieve anything that contradicts our core beliefs, but we can change our core beliefs. By having small wins each day we can prove that what we believe about ourselves isn’t necessarily true.

    2. You don’t have a schedule (or you’re not sticking to it).

    It’s not what you do every now and then that counts, it’s what you do on a daily basis. I created a training schedule, but I didn’t commit to making progress on a daily basis. It was easy to talk myself out of runs and before I knew it, it was one month before the marathon and my fitness levels were nowhere near where they needed to be.

    Create a schedule and make sure you are sticking to it each day. Commit to doing everything in your control to make progress and you’ll be surprised how far it will take you.

    3. You don’t have an accountability partner.

    It’s one thing to set yourself a goal, but it’s another to be held accountable to it. Having another person hold you accountable will make it that much harder to quit when the going gets hard.

    Although I had signed up to do the marathon with my mum, she was in New Zealand and I was living in England. Finding someone to train with on a weekly basis would have helped to hold me accountable to my schedule.

    To achieve your goals you have to be self-motivated, but it also helps if someone else is also on your case. Pick an accountability partner who can relate to what you’re trying to achieve and will make sure you stick to your plan.

    4. You want it for the wrong reasons.

    When I was studying at university I told a friend that I wanted to run a marathon one day. “You’ll never do it,” he replied. It made me angry that he had no faith in me, and so I set out to prove him wrong.

    Do you want to achieve a goal because you want to prove someone else wrong? Are you working toward a goal because someone else decided you should? Find out what you really want, don’t be motivated by the opinions of others. Aim for a goal because it’s the right thing to do for you.

    Although I was partly driven to run a marathon because I was told I couldn’t, I did have other positive motivations. Overcoming a massive challenge, getting fitter, and achieving a personal goal were just a few of the positive reasons why I wanted to complete a marathon. I should have focused on these motivations, not wanted it because another person had no faith in my abilities.

    5. You let your past experiences define you.

    Just because you failed to reach a goal in the past, that doesn’t mean you will always fail. Even though I have yet to run a marathon, I’m proud of myself for setting the challenge and I know I will eventually reach my goal.

    Many people have goals, but never attempt them. While leading up to the marathon I significantly improved my fitness levels and took part in a half marathon. Something I may never have done without the goal of running a marathon.

    When you fail, don’t start calling yourself a failure. If you have failed in the past it shows that you have attempted to take risks. Be proud of yourself for stepping out of your comfort zone, learn from the mistakes you made, and help them propel you forward to achieving your goals in the future.

    There will be times in life when we fail, but what we learn from our failures is extremely important. Those who achieve their goals also face failures, but they grow from their mistakes, get up when they stumble, and make progress each day in the direction of their dreams.

    Remember, you are just a few small adjustments away from achieving your goals.

  • Why We Should Never Force Our Spiritual Beliefs on Other People

    Why We Should Never Force Our Spiritual Beliefs on Other People

    Monk Meditating

    “A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” ~John Steinbeck

    Around six years ago I started to meditate. I had a spiritual awakening, and life started to look really different.

    I have always been a feeler and reader of emotion, but this was different. It was like I was synchronized with everyone around me, as if everyone else was connected to me in some strange and mysterious way.

    It later turned out to be the case that everyone is connected to me, the same way everyone is connected to you. That we are all made up of the same stuff and really we are just one giant organism connected to the same sphere of consciousness.

    I believe that if you project hate, hate is what you will receive, and if you project love, you will be showered with love.

    This is a strange concept, and one that I am sure many of you think is a little crazy, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and what is a reality to me may not be a reality to you.

    For me to claim my version of reality is the one truth that exists from over seven billion minds on the planet would be pretty egotistical and naïve.

    The fact is science could account for everything, in the same way a higher power could or evolution or the collective consciousness of humanity.

    We could have been put here by a lifeform more intelligent than ourselves, or our planet could indeed be just a cog in a bigger organism that we do not understand. We could be a hologram or a hallucination or something conjured up in the mind of someone or something. The truth is we really do not know!

    But when I had this moment of spiritual enlightenment six years ago, I did know. There was clarity, things made sense, and the world seemed like a better place. I thought that I had stumbled upon secret wisdom and that I was in some way elevated to a deeper level of mind than most other people.

    I knew this was the answer not only to my own problems, but the problems of every man, woman, and child on the planet. The only problem was no one who I knew was sharing my enthusiasm.

    Over the last six years since that first moment of clarity, I have come to realize that when you have a spiritual awakening it is only the start of a journey that has no end. You learn more and more about yourself as the days go by, but with each new answer multiple questions will be asked.

    If I had written about spiritual awakenings six years ago or even one year ago this article would have been very different, and if I write one six years from now, I am sure I will have many more revelations and differences from the opinions I have now.

    When I started out, I was certain that everyone else needed to meditate, that everyone else needed to jump on the spirituality bandwagon. And if you were not into spirituality you were in some way less enlightened than I was. But I now know this was my ego getting in the way.

    Because of this I alienated myself from friends, my behavior became erratic, and it nearly cost me my relationship with my girlfriend. Something that I learned from this experience is: you should never force enlightenment, information, spiritual beliefs, or a way of life on anyone else.

    I wrote this article because after coming to this realization, I noticed that it was not all that uncommon for people just starting out on the spiritual journey and even those who have been living it for a very long time to develop this spiritual snobbery and an aggressive need to inform people who are really not that interested in this way of life.

    The fact is people need to come to their own conclusions in life. No matter how big an opportunity, no matter how easy it is, even if something is so painstakingly obvious, it doesn’t matter. People want to make their own decisions and we have no right to force our way of life upon them.

    One of the main reasons we seek to recruit others when we go through transformation is to seek validation. The spiritual journey is a cosmic experience that can sometimes leave you questioning reality. If you have someone to join you it seems less scary. But you have to embrace the fear and do it anyway!

    The same rings true for a lot of other things—we may want our partners to come and see a show with us even though we know they are not interested, or we may need a buddy to join us at a martial arts class because we do not have the confidence to attend alone.

    However you dress it up, human beings generally crave acceptance and validation of their decisions.

    The truth about spirituality is that while it is one of the most connecting things that you can do, it is also one of the most solitary and individual experiences that you sometimes need to face alone. This is not to say that you should not seek guidance (you should), but a good teacher will lead you, not show you, and every conclusion and realization that you come to should be your own.

    This is why you cannot force your beliefs onto others, because while spirituality is a personal experience for you, it is also a personal experience for others; and if you do convince someone else that it is the right thing for them, they will only be doing it in an attempt to seek your approval.

    The best thing to do is be available to those who want your help and are asking questions. It can be very fulfilling to help someone who is just getting started, but ultimately they will still need to find their own way.

    There are plenty of people and communities where you can connect with those who are on the same path as you are. People who have experienced a spiritual awakening are usually pretty friendly, so don’t be afraid to reach out to others who have common goals and interests as you.

    They will usually (not always) have more of an understanding of what you are going through than your friends and family, so sometimes it is just good to be able to chat with someone whose beliefs are in line with yours.

    To wrap up, the things I have spoken about in this article do not only hold true for spirituality, but also any other journey that goes against the grain. The opposite could be the case; you are not spiritual in nature and are surrounded by people who are deeply spiritual and do not understand you.

    Maybe you have escaped the rat race and found a great business opportunity, which is being met with the same kind of resistance. Or maybe you have found out that you can reverse disease naturally and no one wants to listen to you.

    Whatever it may be, remember the only life you can live is your own; you cannot control anyone else’s destination or path. So get to know those around you, connect with people with common goals, stop seeking approval of others to validate your journey, and get out there and start living!

    Monk meditating image via Shutterstock

  • 5 Beliefs That Hurt Your Relationships (And How to Let Them Go)

    5 Beliefs That Hurt Your Relationships (And How to Let Them Go)

    Couple with Arms Raised

    “Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy.” ~Tony Robbins

    “I’m not great at relationships.” This is something I used to say all the time, to others and myself.

    I’d had quite a few unhealthy friendships that ended in dramatic showdowns when our combined issues proved toxic.

    My romantic relationships weren’t any less volatile—largely because my deep-seated shame affected the type of men I attracted and compromised my ability to be there, with and for others.

    But even after making significant progress with my insecurities and working through some painful experiences from my past, I realized I still felt terrified of somehow messing up relationships.

    As much as I wanted to believe the future could be different from the past—that I could be different—I couldn’t let go of that one sentence: I’m not great at relationships.

    I had to challenge my beliefs about myself, and I also needed to recognize and unload my subconscious self-judgment. Because when I said, “I’m not great at relationships,” I wasn’t making an objective observation. The unspoken ending to that sentence reads, “…and it’s because I’m lacking as a person.”

    I needed to believe I was worthy of healthy connections, and capable of forming and sustaining them, even if I’d struggled in the past. Otherwise, I’d never allow myself to let my guard down, let others in, and then, freed from the burden of my own defenses, show up fully for them.

    Over the years, I’ve identified countless limiting beliefs like these, and I’ve seen tremendous improvements in my relationships by releasing their grip on me.

    We all have beliefs like this, and they can compromise our ability to show up for the people we love if we don’t acknowledge them and proactively work to let them go. Perhaps you’ll recognize some of these tendencies and beliefs in yourself:

    1. COMPARISONS: If someone appears to be doing better than me in some area of their life, that means I’m less than—and I have to catch up to prove that I’m worthy.

    We all want to feel happy for the people we love, and we want them to feel happy for us when we’re doing well. This can be challenging, though, if we allow comparisons to convince us we’re somehow behind and therefore inferior or inadequate.

    The solution? Work on nurturing a sense of self-worth that has nothing to do with what we achieve. Every last one of us will experience highs and lows on our journey. Sometimes we’ll thrive when friends struggle, and vice versa, and sometimes we’ll thrive at the same time.

    If we can work at valuing our efforts and ourselves regardless of the outcome, we’ll be better prepared for the inevitable lows, less attached to the highs, and more supportive of our loved ones—regardless of where they are in their journey.

    2. SCORE KEEPING: If I don’t get exactly what I give, someone is devaluing and disrespecting me, so things always need to be even.

    Nothing suffocates a relationship like keeping score. It communicates to the other person, “I suspect you’ll cheat me if I don’t keep track and remind you when you’ve fallen short.”

    I’m not suggesting we give and give without regard for receiving. The key is to create an atmosphere of caring and generosity by giving without always expecting reciprocation, and then trusting that you’ll receive that same courtesy.

    It’s about creating a team mindset and recognizing that we all have different strengths, and we all give in different ways.

    I may do more laundry than my fiancé, but he’s an excellent cook. We each contribute in our own way, in all aspects of our relationship. (Keep in mind this isn’t always the case. If you always give and never receive—despite communicating your wants and needs—you may want to rethink that relationship.)

    3. ASSUMPTIONS: I know why people do the things they do, and they often have selfish or hurtful intentions.

    Formerly, I assumed the worst of everyone. If someone hurt me, they meant to. If someone did something I didn’t understand, they were selfish and thoughtless. Primed as I was with these cynical beliefs, I frequently brought out the worst in people.

    That’s often what happens when you guard yourself with these kinds of assumptions; people guard themselves in return, and seem to confirm your fears.

    The truth is we can never know why other people do the things they do unless we ask—and then trust the answer. More often than not, people are doing their best, just like we are, and would never intentionally hurt us.

    Stephen Covey wrote, “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.” If we assumed that other people have positive intentions, we’d all judge each other a lot less, and feel better about each other, and ourselves, as a result.

    4. EXPECTATIONS: If someone doesn’t meet my expectations, that means they don’t care or value me, or intended to hurt me.

    It happens all the time: We expect a certain outcome, or response, and then we feel disappointed and disrespected when things don’t go according to plan.

    Things rarely, if ever, go to plan. Even when we communicate our wants and needs, it’s entirely possible that someone else may fall short—because they’re imperfect, just like us, and dealing with their own challenges.

    I’m not suggesting we don’t expect anything of anyone, but rather that we try our best to recognize and appreciate what people do “right” instead of maintaining a list of all the things we think they’ve done “wrong.”

    Think back to when you were young. What would have motivated and empowered you more: being praised for your efforts, or being chastised for your shortcomings? The same holds true in adult relationships.

    5. BITTERNESS: I can’t let go of what hurt me because that would be letting that person off the hook.

    For years when I was younger I tried to maintain a relationship with someone while holding on to anger and bitterness. As a result, I unknowingly made this person “pay” for their lack of compassion in the past by treating them without compassion in the present.

    Not only was I not “being the change I wished to see,” as Gandhi recommended, I was losing self-respect by becoming the very thing I’d condemned.

    Eventually, I realized I needed to make a choice: I could let go and recreate the relationship anew, or let go and move on—but it was no longer an option to hold on to both the person and my bitterness.

    I chose the former, aided by the belief that hurt people, hurt people—and conversely, healed people, heal people.

    Forgiveness may be “letting someone off the hook,” but that doesn’t mean we deserved whatever happened, or that it was okay. It simply means we’ve accepted it, and chosen to grow through it.

    Nothing could be healthier for our relationships, with others and with ourselves.

    —

    Obviously, this is all a lot easier to neatly summarize in a list than it is to regularly apply. But we don’t need to tackle all of these beliefs all at once. We just need to try our best, each day, to recognize when we’re getting caught up in one of these limiting beliefs.

    Even the tiniest bit of progress can make a huge difference, so give yourself credit for every small shift you make and then watch as they all add up.

    This article first appeared in Best Self Magazine, the digital magazine for the next generation of seekers and doers. Couple silhouette via Shutterstock.