Tiny Buddha

Tag: beliefs

  • 7 Ways to Learn from Your Negative Thoughts

    7 Ways to Learn from Your Negative Thoughts

    Positive and Negative Thinking

    “The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” ~Plutarch

    I remember when I first learned about positive thinking. I was to observe my thoughts, then sort them into “useful” and “not useful.”

    This made sense to me, and it surprised me how many “not useful” thoughts I encountered. On a daily basis, I was telling myself that I was not good enough, that things could never work out, and that I was on the verge of being fired from my job.

    “Not useful, not useful,” my mind kept repeating. And yet the thoughts persisted. Why was this? Why wasn’t my positive thinking working?

    I began repeating affirmations. I made a list of everything I hated about myself, then reframed it in the positive and read it every day. I repeated mantras. I watched YouTube videos with subliminal messages.

    And yet I was calling myself a worthless P.O.S. on a daily basis.

    It was only when I began working with a therapist that I began to see the value of my “negative” thoughts. I told her about my sorting process, and her response was, “That’s good, but you’re missing some in-between steps.”

    Those in-between steps involved looking deeply at the negative thoughts, questioning their validity, and then redefining them.

    Rather than rejecting a part of my mind, I began to lean toward it, to learn from it. Thoughts that don’t feel good are merely opportunities to redefine, to change reality as you know it, and to help your own mind to suffer less. When you know how to handle them, they are gifts.

    Here are some steps you can take to lean toward negative thoughts and redefine them:

    1. Observe (without judging) your emotions.

    However you feel is fine. Really, it is. Emotions are attention-getting devices that the mind uses to help you observe your thoughts. Notice, especially, when you don’t feel good. When do you experience fear, hopelessness, or anger?

    2. Notice the thoughts behind the emotions.

    Feelings are caused by thoughts. You can access these thoughts by asking “Why?” Why are you afraid? Why do you feel hopeless? Why are you angry? The thoughts behind the emotion can show you your mind’s misunderstandings, because any thought that causes an unpleasant emotion is likely caused by an assumption. And assumptions can be redefined.

    3. Channel your inner two-year-old.

    And “why?” And ask it again. Why do you think what you do? And why do you think that? What might you be assuming? And what are you basing that assumption on? Who are you considering to be your authority? Question, question, question. Dig deeply, and look at every facet of that assumption. It might be helpful to type or write this out.

    4. Look at the “evidence” for your belief.

    The mind can only see evidence for what it already believes. So what experiences, conversations, etc. is your mind using to prove its “negative thought” true? List them. Then ask why they are true? Do they make sense?

    5. Come up with other possibilities.

    What other explanations are there? For example, if a co-worker yells at you and you are assuming it is because you are lazy, what other reasons could there be? Could they be stressed out at home? Pressured by deadlines? List as many other possibilities as possible.

    6. Find evidence for at least one possibility.

    Your mind is subconsciously finding evidence for its assumptions, and now you are going to fight fire with fire. Why should your redefinition be true? Prove it to yourself!

    7. Repeat.

    Repetition is how the mind learns. You will need to repeat this process, even if it seems to be verbatim. And you will need to vary the wording, as your mind presents it to you. Eventually, your subconscious mind will accept your redefinitions, and you will see a natural end to your negative thoughts.

    For me, this process was life-changing. I began therapy living in a four-bedroom house, working in the job I had held for ten years.

    I did not love the job. I did not want to raise my daughter (who has autism) in that school district, which would provide her with minimal help. I did not want to retire in that town, where people used four-letter words in restaurants and teenagers pushed baby buggies down the sidewalks.

    So, as I redefined the beliefs I held about myself, I found that the limitations I had placed upon myself disappeared.

    I had wanted to move to a warmer climate, but I doubted my ability to land a new job. So I tried. I pulled the right strings and landed a Skype interview 1,300 miles away. The day after the interview (which I had deemed to be a failure) I received a job offer.

    We emptied our house, signed it back over the bank, and took whatever our Volvo station wagon would carry to Houston. A year later, we moved onto a small thirty-five-foot sailboat. Our goal now is to be cruising full time within the next five years.

    In the meantime, we are enjoying our life in the marina, which is a tight-knit community that will always be “home” to us. And I am not afraid to try new things, to take “risks” and to see exactly what my potential is.

    What is the moral of our story? Don’t let your thoughts and fears limit you. They may seem like gospel truth, but nothing actually is. Everything you think, everything you feel, is up for questioning. If it doesn’t make sense to your mind, it can be redefined.

    Had I been limited by my beliefs about myself and my fears, I would still be living in that house. Instead, I am free to explore the world, and to re-invent the “American dream” as my family sees fit.

    I have learned that I am more than those fears that kept me stuck in that job for ten years, and my life consists of more than that house and the property that we thought was “ours.”

    Take nothing for granted, and don’t accept anything as the “way it has to be.” Look closely at your negative thoughts and redefine them in a way that helps you to reach your own potential.

    Positive and Negative Thinking image via Shutterstock

  • How to Transform Self-Criticism into Self-Appreciation

    How to Transform Self-Criticism into Self-Appreciation

    Sad Woman Reflection

    “Stop hating yourself for everything you aren’t. Start loving yourself for everything that you are.” ~Unknown

    They stop you dead in your tracks.

    Critical thoughts.

    Like tiny knives, they slash at your happiness.

    In public, you feign confidence. You can easily squish down your critical thoughts. You push yourself to smile, laugh, and even be the life of the party.

    But when the dust settles, and you are all alone, the thoughts start, first as a trickle: “I shouldn’t have said that. Why couldn’t I say smarter things?” And then they start to crash harder and stronger with, “I am so stupid. I can’t believe at this age I’m not more confident.”

    Do you sometimes feel like you’re drowning in a sea of similar critical thoughts?

    I know how embarrassing and terrible that feels.

    When I teach yoga, I try to help people—to open their bodies, notice their thoughts, and release their limitations. Yet, at times I drown in self-criticism and feel like a fraud.

    Sure, you see my serene face, but a storm of critical thoughts often brews behind my smile. I feel like an imposter because I’m not as serene as I appear.

    Recently, something completely changed my perspective: scientists discovered that the more people try to avoid certain thoughts, the stronger these thoughts become.

    College students were told to think of everything except white bears, and guess what they couldn’t stop thinking of? It’s called ironic rebound. When you try to push thoughts out, they come back even stronger.

    This idea infuses most mindfulness practices. It’s different from telling yourself, “Think positive.” Because if you stamp down the critical thoughts, they only come back stronger. I tested this theory in my contemplative practices.

    When I relinquished rigid control of my inner experiences, I learned to slow down the critical thoughts.

    Where I once felt frustration for my negativity, I now accept my thoughts, challenge faulty beliefs, and make peace with myself. And the more I feel the critical thoughts, the more I can release them. I’ve noticed that the thoughts come less frequently when I don’t try to suppress them.

    You and I both probably accept that criticism, especially toward ourselves, is destructive. So we try to suppress self-criticism. But when we try to avoid a thought, it’s never far away.

    By suppressing, we empower our faulty beliefs. By looking deeply and challenging the belief behind the thought, we finally get relief. 

    Ready to find out how?

    1. Observe your thoughts with curiosity.

    Imagine yourself sitting on a riverbank, watching your thoughts flow by with the stream. Sometimes fast and rushing, other times calm and gentle.

    Resist the urge to push critical or negative thoughts away; learn to welcome and observe all thoughts. This might feel unnatural or even painful at first. I understand. But remember that this is a process that will lead you toward a place of self-understanding and love.

    When thoughts resurface repeatedly, we subconsciously assume they’re true. Scientists call this a hard-wired cognitive bias in the human brain.

    When l catch myself thinking, “You are too quiet and shy and not animated or interesting,” I resist my urge to deny and suppress; instead, I observe and allow the thought into my body.

    2. Identify the underlying belief.

    Now you can dig a little deeper. What belief lies behind your thoughts?

    If you’ve spent a lifetime trying to push critical thoughts away, you may have unconsciously turned them into self-limiting beliefs.  I’d often think, “I’m too shy. Why couldn’t I have said more? Do people think I’m stupid?”

    I believed that because I was shy, I was inferior and somehow deeply flawed. When I used my breath to be in my body, I felt empowered to be in the present. I allowed myself to feel the pain of feeling inferior.

    You’ve observed the thought, so now can you identify the belief that causes the thought? Beliefs are about how you are as a person as opposed to transient thoughts about your actions.

    If this is scary, use your breath to come back to your body and the present moment. Know that you are okay.

    3. Feel the belief in your body.

    Can you identify where the belief is planted in your body? Accept that you cannot control your mind’s content—but you are learning to change your reactions. And take back your power. When you physically identify sensations the belief triggers, you return to the present moment. And you take the power away from the self-criticism.

    You can heal because you’re no longer a victim of your thoughts or deeply rooted beliefs.

    Because feeling is not the same as believing.

    What happens to your breath when you allow the belief to come into your body? Where do you feel it? Maybe in your heart or your belly button?

    When I allowed a belief into my body, a deep pull manifested around my solar plexus, just under my rib cage. It was definitely painful but less scary. And through feeling and clearly looking at the belief, I became empowered to challenge it.

    4. Challenge and dissolve the belief.

    Now that you’ve observed your thoughts and pinpointed the belief, can you challenge it? Negative beliefs about ourselves are simply not true, and they cause the flow of critical thoughts.

    You and I need to release them so we can find inner peace. As scary as it feels, verbalize the belief. Because you must face the untruths head-on to let them go.

    Ask yourself a few questions to unearth the belief. How else could you interpret this belief? Can you see any evidence that this belief is true? What would support that this belief isn’t true? Remember that other people’s words are not necessarily truths—especially judgments and criticisms.

    Now it’s time to let the belief go. Inhale deeply, and feel your lungs fill with air. Exhale completely, and feel your body relaxing. Imagine the critical belief dissolving like a cloud.

    With each breath, you’re releasing your clouds of criticism. Feel the beliefs slowly leaving your body as your exhale and relax. Remind yourself that this belief isn’t true, and you’re letting it go. Continue to breathe until your belief and the pain goes away.

    I challenged the belief behind the thought: “Because you’re shy and not always talkative (thought), you’re inferior and flawed (belief).”

    I compared myself to other charming and talkative people, and I believed that I had to be just like them. I realized that I had family, friends, and students who loved and appreciated that I was authentic.

    When I used my breath, the knot at my ribs dissolved a little bit with each breath, and so did my belief that I was flawed.  I’m empowered to release that belief. And I’m left with profound clarity: the clouds have disappeared.

    5. Uncover your new truth.

    When you clear away your clouds of self-criticism and faulty beliefs, a sunny truth can shine. You’ll learn to appreciate your unique strengths and attributes.

    What surfaces now that you’ve let go of the mistaken beliefs? Perhaps once you felt deeply inadequate, but now you realize you are humble and eager to learn. Don’t be afraid of letting your positive traits out into the world. You won’t become an egomaniac by simply accepting yourself.

    I now see that my shyness has benefits: I’m an intuitive listener, compassionate yoga teacher, and empathetic nutritionist. As I continue to breathe, I feel better about who I am. And I accept my unique way of being.

    You can do this too.

    Become Your Most Powerful Ally

    Over time, you’ll get more comfortable allowing those scary criticisms to surface. Like vampires that fear the sun, when you bring them out into the light, you take away their power. And they’ll slowly dissolve.

    You’ll feel happier because you aren’t hiding your most valuable traits behind critical thoughts.

    And rather than being a prisoner of your negative beliefs, you’re using them to fuel your transformation.

    Let your inner light glow. Brighten the world.

    Because only light can drive away darkness.

    And you’re ready to start now.

    Shall we?

    Sad woman with reflection image via Shutterstock

  • 5 Limiting Beliefs That Sabotage Your Dreams

    5 Limiting Beliefs That Sabotage Your Dreams

    “Remember your dreams and fight for them.” ~Paulo Coelho

    You have a dream. Something that you’ve wanted for a long time. But that dream continues to elude you.

    You blame circumstances—your daily responsibilities, lack of time, finances—or perhaps your family for holding you back.

    What if none of the above is to blame for your dreams not coming true?

    What if it’s something else?

    Madison Square Garden, New York, 18,000 people 

    Four of us performing. Our band’s name—Oracle. Thousands of fans singing along with us.

    That was my dream. Our dream. And it never happened!

    In the year 2000, we recorded a demo album and sent it to a few of the biggest recording labels.

    But not a single company signed us up.

    I was nineteen, arrogant, and thought the world of our music. Not getting a contract anywhere was the last thing I had expected.

    I could have kept trying to build a career in music. But I was devastated, so I gave up. The band also dispersed, and we went our separate ways.

    I decided to forget about music for the time being, continue my education, and get a job.

    A New Dream

    After beginning to work in the corporate world, I realized that I truly enjoyed working with people. I had always been passionate about psychology, meditation, and learning more about the mind. So I started working on a new dream—to build my own training firm.

    After a long time, I finally had found a career path in something that I was truly passionate about!

    A New Journey

    Things weren’t easy when I quit my job to follow my dreams again. But this time, I was determined not to quit, no matter how much hard work or sacrifices success would entail. I am incredibly lucky to have a wife who has supported me and encouraged me every day.

    Over the years, my perseverance paid off. I am now doing well and growing.

    But here’s the funny thing…

    I now realize that if I had invested the same amount of time and effort toward music as I had done in my company, I could have become a successful musician.

    How do I know this?

    Because the fourth member of our band went on to become a professional musician. He now works in movies with some of the most eminent names in the industry.

    So why did I fail?

    Was it because I didn’t have the talent, the time, or a network of people in the music industry who could support me?

    No. I never lacked any of the above.

    I failed because of my limiting beliefs.

    Our beliefs create our reality.

    Our beliefs create our thoughts. Our thoughts determine what we do—our decisions, our everyday actions, and the way we work toward our dreams.

    Most of the time, the only things holding you back are your limiting beliefs.

    The following are five limiting beliefs that sabotage your dreams.

    Belief 1: It’s too difficult.

    How difficult does your dream seem to you? Do you feel that you don’t have the necessary talent, money, time, education, network, or other resources?

    That’s what I felt like when our demo album got rejected.

    If you feel that your dream is too difficult, just ask yourself: What small steps can I take that will take me closer to my dream?

    If you want to run a marathon, start running for five minutes every day.

    If you want to start your own business, start networking with people in that industry.

    If you want to be a world traveler, look for jobs that will allow you to travel.

    But why do dreams seem so difficult and so distant?

    Usually because of the next belief.

    Belief 2: I have to become successful quickly.

    How quickly do you want your dream to come true? Definitely sooner than ten years, right?

    In the year 2000, I was nineteen years old, and even two years seemed like a lifetime then.

    I lacked the patience to work hard consistently. On the contrary, my friend carried on—learning, singing in other bands, and consistently working toward his dreams.

    It took him thirteen years to get there after our band broke up.

    If that sounds like infinity to you, just ask yourself:

    “Would you rather get there late? Or would you rather not arrive at all?”

    Belief 3: Either I’m famous or I’m a failure.

    I can hear you asking, “Your friend might be working in the music industry, but is he a star? Has he played at Madison Square Garden? Isn’t that what the dream was?”

    No, he isn’t a rock star, but does he really need to be one?

    He’s doing excellent work in one of the most challenging industries on earth, making good money, and most importantly, having a great time.

    Maybe you have a specific dream in mind. Does it mean that you have failed if you have only achieved a fraction of that dream?

    You might never become a New York Times Best Seller or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Does that mean that any achievements short of those goals is a waste of your time?

    Belief 4: It’s too late for me.

    Do you feel that your time has passed?

    Maybe if you were younger, it might have been possible, but aren’t you too old now?

    I felt the same—when I was nineteen years old!

    In a world where people become stars in their teens or billionaires in their twenties, no wonder we feel that we are too late.

    I have a friend who has won three National Geographic contests and traveled to four continents, photographing polar bears in Alaska as part of his expeditions.

    He did all that after he retired.

    What’s admirable is that he never abandoned his dream of becoming a successful photographer.

    If he can live his dream, why can’t you?

    Belief 5: It’s too risky. I might fail.

    What if you don’t make it? Despite all your efforts, what if your dream remains unfulfilled?

    You might end up damaging your career, losing money, and alienating people.

    You are right; you might fail. But here’s what you must ask yourself: Are you completely happy with your life right now?

    In your twilight years, when you look back, will you regret not trying hard enough?

    But hold on. What about your responsibilities toward your family? Isn’t it selfish to pursue your dreams if you have to neglect them?

    A woman I know who has built a thriving organic food business once told me, “I had to sacrifice a lot to follow my passion. But if I didn’t pursue my own dreams, how would I have proved to my children that they can succeed at their dreams too?”

    Don’t you think that’s a risk worth taking?

    Question Your Limiting Beliefs

    I have been held back by every single one of these limiting beliefs. But I didn’t let them stop me from fulfilling my second dream of building my own firm.

    If you have a dream, you have a duty and responsibility to make it come true—not only to yourself but also to those who love you.

    Examine your thoughts and question your beliefs. Your dreams are closer than you think.

    What small steps will you take today to make your dreams come true?

  • 9 Ways to Release Your Limiting Beliefs So You Can Find Love Again

    9 Ways to Release Your Limiting Beliefs So You Can Find Love Again

    “The less you open your heart to others, the more your heart suffers.” ~Deepak Chopra

    The end of my marriage was a life-shattering event that rocked my world and made me question my existence.

    My breakup led to a full existential, spiritual, and personal crisis.

    After putting the pieces back together, I feel like I’m ready to love again.

    It took me a long time to feel open to another relationship because I was stuck in the past, replaying the story of my former relationship over and over again in my mind.

    I also held a set of disempowering and limiting beliefs that prevented from moving on.

    Some of the sabotaging thoughts that I had to confront included:

    I’m broken.

    I thought a severe heartbreak led to a permanently broken heart. The wounds were so deep and heartbreak so heavy that my ability to love someone else was broken forever.

    No one will ever love me again.

    After my last breakup, I thought I was done. I felt rejected by one person but it felt like that one person represented all women and I wouldn’t find someone else. Ever.

    I have nothing to offer.

    I believed my heart muscle was used up and my capacity to love was depleted. I felt like there was nothing I could give to anyone else because I had given everything I had.

    There must be something wrong with me.

    I believed the harsh comments my ex made about my character, shortcomings, and behavior made me an unworthy person. There must have been something wrong with me because she knew me so well. I’m no innocent bystander here; I said my share of hurtful words and am sorry for them.

    I’ll find the same kind of person again.

    I believed a future relationship would bring more of the same struggle and pain. I’d continue to attract someone like my ex or find myself attracted to someone like that again. Once again, we’d have the same kind of fights and challenges.

    There’s no one out there for me.

    After my last relationship, I came up with a mental checklist of values and traits I wanted in a future partner. I believed the exact person I was looking for likely didn’t exist, and that meant there was no one out there for me.

    I’m a failure.

    I had failed in picking the right partner before and failed in the relationship. And I had failed in a few other things as well. In fact, my beliefs caused me to believe that I was a failure in all parts of my life. And as a failure, I wouldn’t be able to meet anyone new. Who wants to be with a failure?

    Love is too painful.

    After my painful, soul-crushing breakup, I would have preferred to walk through a lion and tiger-filled African safari than get into another relationship. I wanted to play it safe and not take a risk on love again.

    It’s dangerous to be vulnerable.

    In my last relationship I’d put myself out there, revealed almost everything about myself, and placed my heart in another person’s hand. I’d been as vulnerable and open as I could be with my previous partner. But now, after heartbreak, I didn’t want to be open or vulnerable again. I wanted to build large walls to protect my heart so I wouldn’t have to bare my soul again.

    As you can see, I dealt with a full can of worms of negative thoughts and disempowering beliefs.

    If you have similar beliefs because of a breakup, you know that it’s virtually impossible to meet new people and start over again in your love life.

    Here are nine ways to set aside your limiting beliefs and open your heart to a new relationship.

    1. Recognize your limiting beliefs and know that they stem from your past experiences.

    You only believe these things now because of what happened in the past. Beliefs are based on your subjective experience; they can be changed or seen through a different lens.

    2. Remind yourself that the past doesn’t equal the future.

    What happened once can be seen as a teaching experience so you’ll know what to avoid in the future. You are wiser now; your past doesn’t have to repeat itself. You can grow from failure and disappointment.

    3. Challenge every limiting belief you have about relationships.

    When you think a disempowering thought, like “all relationships lead to pain” or “I’ll never find love again,” challenge it. Come up with reasons why those thoughts are not facts.

    If you look around you at friends and family, you’ll find strong relationships that work. Relationships that are filled with commitment, love, kindness, and mutual respect.

    You’ve also likely experienced positive and love-filled relationships in your life. Remind yourself of what’s possible in a loving and wholesome relationship.

    4. Spend less time focusing on your heartbreak and the negative beliefs you’ve developed because of your past.

    Focus more on yourself. Take care of your health by eating better and exercising more. Be more compassionate toward yourself by taking more time off and getting more sleep. Commit to becoming the best version of yourself by working on your confidence, overcoming your fears, and following your dreams.

    Do work that brings you joy, surround yourself with supportive people, and create a zone of positivity around you.

    5. Strive to live more in the present moment by letting go of thoughts about the past.

    When thoughts and feelings about the relationship come up, don’t cling to them. Acknowledge that your mind is pulling you back to the past and wants to drag you through a cycle of pain and sadness.

    Simply acknowledging what your mind is doing will help you be more conscious of its tricky ways. Watch those thoughts pass by like clouds passing in the sky.

    It will help to focus on the task at hand. If you find your mind drifting back to the relationship, just come back to what you were doing before your past popped up.

    6. Look for love all around you.

    What you focus on tends to show up in your life.

    If you look at pain and struggle in the world, you will see more of that. If you search for heartache and loss, you will find that.

    If you keep focused on doing work you love, spending time with people you love, and engaging in activities you love, you will be in a much better place to invite romance into your life.

    7. Become more loving and kind to yourself.

    Become the kind of person you desire to have a relationship with. Work on the qualities that prevent you from being the kind of person you’re capable of.

    In order to become more loving, I had to let go of the ego, anger, and resentment that clouded my life.

    I had to take stock of my life and reflect upon the way I showed up in my relationship. I also had to take responsibility for my shortcomings .

    I realized that I had to reign in my anger, check my controlling behavior, and wash my ego with more love and compassion.

    8. Cultivate more positive views of love.

    Try affirmations, meditations, journaling, and other practices to help you shift your beliefs about love. Interpret events that happen to you through a new framework of love—not the old framework of heartbreak.

    When someone calls you or wants to take you out for dinner, think in terms of the possibilities of a new relationship, not all the things that can go wrong.

    Instead of thinking “here we go again” with new circumstances in your life, remind yourself that you have the opportunity to show up more wisely and with a more open heart.

    9. Find the courage to be open to love again.

    Take small steps to trusting someone, sharing with someone, and opening your heart to someone new. If you’re overwhelmed by the gravity of a new relationship, take it slow and build trust in that person over time.

    I’ve come to learn that relationships can be our greatest spiritual assignments. Even if the worst happens, you’ll be growing and learning as a person.

    A broken heart can lead to an open heart. And an open heart is fertile ground for a stronger and deeper love.

    It’s not too late to set aside your resistance to love and your limiting views of relationships to find the person who’s just right for you.

    Do you have lingering negative beliefs about love? Please share them in the comments below and let me know what you’re doing to work through them.

  • You Don’t Have to Believe You’re Not Good Enough

    You Don’t Have to Believe You’re Not Good Enough

    “I don’t know a perfect person. I only know flawed people who are still worth loving.” ~John Green

    “I’m not good enough.”

    I cannot possibly count the number of times this thought has passed through my head over the years. It’s been applicable to nearly every aspect of my life from childhood to my current status as an adult, parent, and business owner.

    Still, both the frequency with which this thought enters my head and the length of time I spend believing it have dropped considerably, so I think my story and the lessons I’ve learned are worth sharing—especially since I know I’m not alone in struggling with this belief.

    One of my earliest memories, if not my very first one, is of teetering on the edge of a nubby brown armchair, putting my head between my father’s downward cast eyes and whatever book it was in which he was so engrossed.

    Alas, my repeated attempts to get his attention did nothing. What could a preschooler assume in this instance? Even now, more than thirty years later, I don’t see how anything other than “not good enough” or “not interesting enough” could have crossed my mind.

    That was certainly not the last time my father’s behavior fed my worries that I was not enough. However, he has since passed from this world and blaming him does absolutely nothing to help me move forward; I am now an adult capable of making my own assessments of my value as a human.

    In other words: I am responsible for allowing myself to feel not good enough.

    But I didn’t know that for a long, long time, and I let others take me down a notch without ever questioning it.

    When a boy in my gym class made a mean comment about the size of my thighs, I never questioned him; instead, I simply believed he was correct and that I should feel badly about my body.

    When a close friend chose another friend over me and then, years later, a boy over me, I took the blame: obviously I was not enough. It never occurred to me that maybe she was the one with the issue.

    When I got paid less than I was worth, when I my writing was rejected, when I couldn’t solve every single one of my clients’ problems, when someone unsubscribed from my mailing list, I took all of this personally. I took it as proof that I was not good enough.

    Yet the years have certainly changed me for the better. In 2008 I learned that I was, in fact, in control of my thoughts. I could choose to believe or not believe the stories I was telling myself.

    I also learned that everyone struggles with feeling good enough, and that I was not alone.

    I learned that I could spend more time feeling good about myself if I chose to. I learned that the people who taught me I wasn’t good enough didn’t do it on purpose; they struggled with their own self-worth.

    Today I am a grownup who is mostly satisfied and happy with herself and confident in her place in the world.

    Yet it still creeps in. There are times, especially when it comes to motherhood and running a business, when I feel ill-equipped. When I feel the world crashing down around me, and the familiar “you’re not good enough” slithers into my thoughts, nearly undetected.

    But when it does happen, I have the means to turn it around. It doesn’t own or control me anymore. Here are the basics of turning “I’m not good enough” into “I’m really okay the way I am.”

    Your thoughts create your world, and you can absolutely take charge of them.

    It’s impossible to overstate the importance of paying attention to what stories you’re telling yourself and learning how to change those stories into ones that best serve you.

    Yes, you can spend your life repeating “I’m not good enough” over and over, but why? You can write a new script. You can also learn to let your negative thoughts float on by, like a feather in the breeze, instead of grabbing hold of them and getting sucked in.

    Try telling your story a new way.

    Building upon the previous point, try this exercise: Think of the most important events in your life, or a particularly trying period of your life. Write your story down the way you normally would tell it.

    Next, pretend you’ve been told to write the same story, but with a humorous slant. Then write it again, this time as though you were attempting to inspire others with your tale of overcoming adversity. And again, as though you were writing about a great adventure.

    The purpose of this exercise is to see how the same set of events, the events that shaped your beliefs, life, and thoughts, can take on many dimensions depending on your perception of them. Just knowing this may help you see yourself in a new light.

    There is plenty of proof out there that you are good enough, you just need to look for it.

    I bet you can think of a million ways you’re not good enough but struggle to list just a couple of ways in which you are. For instance, sometimes I struggle to feel like I’m interesting enough to be heard, and thus have trouble saying what I’m feeling and thinking.

    To counteract that, I must take the time to list the evidence that I am, indeed, enough. I actually write down the proof in a journal, or say it out loud to my husband so that it feels concrete.

    In this case, examples that I am in good enough include:

    • I do my very best to be open, honest, and authentic, which I know gives my words value.
    • I care deeply about others, so when I speak, I am trying my best to be supportive and helpful, which I believe makes me interesting and worthy of being heard.
    • Others have asked me to tell my story, asked for my help, or just wanted to get together to talk, so I must have something worthwhile to contribute.

    To try it yourself, pick one area in which you’re particularly struggling to feel like you’re enough. From there, look for any proof, any scrap of evidence, that you are. Write down every single thing you can think of, and make a regular habit of rereading the list and adding to it.

    Remember that you’re not alone.

    I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t, at one time or another, felt insecure about their worth or value or skills or intelligence. Somehow I find it helpful to know that even the most put-together, successful person out there struggles with the same things I do.

    Reach out to others, even if it’s only in your mind.

    If you have someone in your life that loves and cherishes you, why not ask for a little boost? I have gone to my husband many times when I felt down on myself, and hearing his perspective or just feeling his embrace does wonders to turn things around.

    Or perhaps you’ve got no one nearby, or want to rely on yourself to feel better. In that case, try thinking about yourself from the perspective of your parent, child, best friend, sibling, or spouse.

    Also, depending on your spiritual beliefs, you can try to see yourself through the eyes of your higher power, if you believe in one.

    In either case, write down what they might say and what they see in you for maximum impact and memorability.

    The truth is, I am good enough, and so are you.

    Maybe you’re not a good enough ball player to make it to the big leagues, maybe you’re not a good enough dancer to make a career of it, but as a human, you are just right. And when it comes to what’s most important, just do your best and tell yourself a new tale: I am good enough.

    Smiling woman image via Shutterstock

  • 5 Beliefs About Happiness That Make Us Unhappy

    5 Beliefs About Happiness That Make Us Unhappy

    “There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.” ~Anthony de Mello

    Do you believe in soul mates?

    I did. I also believed that the only way to be blissfully happy was to be with mine.

    At a New Year party, I finally found her. As we chatted and danced through the evening, we fell in love. It seemed perfect.

    Life, however, had other plans. Soon after, she moved to another city. I never saw her again but continued to be in love with her for the next four years.

    Why? Because I was consumed by the belief that she was my soul mate, and that fate would bring us back together someday.

    It’s strange, isn’t it? How each of us have our own beliefs about the “secret to happiness.” We live our lives in accordance with those beliefs, rarely questioning them.

    Over those four years, my belief that I could never be happy with anyone else held me back from finding love and happiness elsewhere.

    But I was so wrong. I did meet someone else later and have been gleefully together with her for ten years now!

    We define our reality by what we believe.

    Our beliefs make us who we are and determine the choices we make. Very often, those beliefs, far from leading us into happiness, bring us truckloads of pain and trouble.

    The good news? We can be far happier and contented simply by altering our beliefs and looking at the world differently.

    Here are five beliefs about happiness that actually make us unhappy:

    Belief 1: I need other people’s approval to be happy.

    Do you often do things only to please other people?

    Human beings are driven by “social proof.” Approval is extremely important to us.

    We wait to buy the latest gadgets to look cool. We attend boring office parties to fit in. We don’t pursue our dreams because our families don’t approve.

    But just ask yourself: Are these actions (or inactions) bringing you any real happiness?

    The pursuit of approval is very different from the pursuit of happiness. Let’s not fail to distinguish between the two.

    Belief 2: I will be happy when I have…

    …a bigger house, a promotion, a baby, awards, respect, those designer shoes!

    Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar calls this the “arrival fallacy” in his book Happier. It’s the belief that when you arrive at a certain destination (or attain a specific goal), you will be happy.

    The reason why this belief is so strong is because it’s partly true. Yes, you will feel happy when you get promoted or buy a house.

    The question is: Is this happiness lasting?

    While you will escape your landlord’s ranting, you will have to pay new taxes and spend good money maintaining your new house.

    Each level of accomplishment will bring its own set of problems.

    Does this mean you stop working toward your goals? No! Goals are important, and one needs to be ambitious.

    However, think about this: You can be happy now and also when you get the promotion.

    Do you really need to postpose your happiness?

    Belief 3: I can’t be happy unless everything goes right.

    Have you ever lost your luggage on a vacation? It upsets everything, doesn’t it?

    Instead of enjoying the charms of a wonderful new city (or countryside), you’re running around buying clothes and other stuff, wondering if the airline will ever return your luggage.

    That’s what happened on a vacation with my family.

    Strangely, now when we think about that vacation, the trouble we faced because of the lost luggage doesn’t bother us. We just talk about the wonderful time we had.

    The vacation didn’t have to be perfect. The only thing that really mattered to us was that we had an opportunity to have a great time together.

    Think about it: are vacations, parties, dates, or any other special occasions ever perfect? If something goes wrong does that mean the entire trip or evening is a failure?

    Yes, it is a failure, but only if you believe so.

    Let’s extend the discussion further: Is anything in life ever perfect? We have ups and downs every day.

    Life is imperfect—perhaps that’s what make it more interesting!

    Belief 4: I can’t be happy because of what’s happened in the past.

    The past controls us in mysterious ways.

    You might have lost a loved one to misunderstanding or death. You might have failed to achieve your dreams. As a result, you may have developed one of these beliefs: “I am not meant to find happiness” or “It’s not my destiny to be happy.”

    Personally, I haven’t lost much in life, but I know someone who has. I used to wonder how she could enjoy life despite such tragedies, until she revealed her simple secret…

    She believes that she has the right to be happy, despite her past misfortunes.

    Your past doesn’t control your future unless you let it. Millions have turned their lives around. If they can be happy, why can’t you?

    Belief 5: Happiness is not a habit that can be learned.

    Can you actually learn to be happy? Like learning baseball or the guitar?

    Yes. Happiness is a skill—one that you build through a number of daily choices.

    Numerous studies have indicated that people who are happier have certain habits: they exercise, meditate, pay attention to their relationships, pursue their goals diligently, lead balanced lives, are grateful.

    Research shows that by thwarting negative emotions, such as pessimism, resentment, and anger, and fostering positive emotions, such as empathy, serenity, and gratitude, the brain can be trained to become happier.

    Happiness does not depend on fate; it depends on our habits—habits that anyone can learn.

    ____

    Our beliefs can bring us happiness or sorrow.

    Question your beliefs about yourself, your life, and happiness from time to time. See if they still serve a positive purpose. If not, change them.

    What beliefs do you think you need to change to be happier?

  • How to Change Your Life by Changing the Stories You Tell Yourself

    How to Change Your Life by Changing the Stories You Tell Yourself

    Jumping Happy Woman

    “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” ~Norman Vincent Peale

    I used to watch people on the streets and in restaurants and think that their boisterous conversations and broad smiles were evidence that they lived a life much better than mine.

    I assumed that they were happier than me, smarter than me, and worth more than me. All around me was evidence that this was true: my meager bank account, my junky car, my thrift store clothes.

    I would sit in my apartment and try to imagine what it would be like to be someone else.

    I wondered what it would be like to be someone who could afford to go to the movies and go out to eat, someone who bought new clothes and shoes, or someone who had a good job. Even imagining this seemed too hard. I felt as if life was stacked against me.

    Have you ever felt like everyone else was doing better than you? Have you ever felt like the deck was so stacked against you that you would never catch up? I understand that feeling. I had it for much of my adult life.

    I was always a dreamer with big ideas and ridiculous plans, but I was unable to make those plans a reality because the story I told myself was that I wasn’t enough. As long as I continued to tell myself that story, I would continue to be not enough.

    The current state of your life is a direct result of the stories you tell yourself, and what you really believe is possible—not what you say is possible, but what you believe deep down in your core.

    My story about not being good enough showed itself in every aspect of my life—my job, my family, my social life.

    Until I was able to open my eyes and change my story, these aspects of my life were not getting better. You receive what you are telling your subconscious mind you deserve. I was telling my mind that I wasn’t good enough and that’s what I saw all around me.

    If you change the limiting stories you tell yourself, you will be able to change your life.

    I realized this one day when I was watching a Tony Robbins video on YouTube. Yes, I’d heard it plenty of times before, but for some reason on that day, at that time, it really clicked. You will learn the lessons you most need when you are ready for them, and I was finally ready.

    Identifying Your Story

    The first step in changing a limiting belief is identifying it.

    Identifying my story about not being good enough was surprisingly difficult for me initially because I told myself that story for so long that I didn’t think of it as a story at all. I thought of it as true and that was, at its heart, quite ridiculous. It took a lot of thought before I even realized that this was the story I was telling myself.

    What limiting story are you telling yourself? Maybe it’s that you’ll never find love or that you’ll never earn over a certain amount of money. Maybe it’s that you are too shy to speak in public or that you are terrible at small talk. Maybe you think you’ll never make a living doing what you love or that you are not smart enough to succeed.

    All of these things are stories. The difference between you and the people doing the thing that you’ve always wanted to do is the stories you tell yourselves. Changing that story is one of the most important steps to changing your life.

    Shifting Your Story

    Now that you’ve identified your story, you have to make a new one for yourself.

    For me, it was simply deciding that I was just as good as anyone else and I deserved just as much as anyone else. It’s a really simple non-specific story, but it countered my previous limiting one. Think about your limiting story. How can you change that story to make it empowering?

    Supporting a New Story

    A new story in itself is not always enough. That story needs to be rooted in something. You have to believe it, and changing your beliefs can be the most difficult thing of all. When I decided to change my story about myself, I looked around at my life for evidence that the new story was true.

    For example, I knew I had friends and family who loved me and certainly thought I was good enough to receive that love.

    When I looked at my life objectively I realized that I’d actually accomplished quite a bit. I’d always done well in school. I’d written quite a large body of work that I enjoyed and liked. I always went out of my way to be kind and helpful to others. These are all things that, in my eyes, made me just as good as anyone else.

    As I started to look at my situation more, I realized that one of my core problems was “the anyone else” part of my story. I was comparing myself to others, and that will lead to unhappiness most of the time.

    Instead of thinking of myself as just as good as anyone else, I started to change my story again to simply say that I am good.

    Can you find evidence around you that can support your new story? Does looking at that evidence make you realize that you need to make any changes to your new story?

    Emotions Are Key

    Supporting your new story with facts will help you believe it, but what really anchors it into your life is associating it with positive emotions.

    I started meditating every morning and every evening for twenty minutes. Once my meditation was over, before I got up, I’d visualize something that is connected to my new story. Because my story was so broad, that visualization could include any number of things.

    I’d imagine myself having relaxed conversations with people at a social event where I was contributing equally to the conversation. I’d imagine myself working at a job that I loved and doing really well at it.

    I’d imagine these things very concretely. I’d really get into the visualization and wouldn’t get up until I felt the joy that these activities would bring me deep inside.

    I am a writer and am prone to imagination, so this was quite easy for me. We all have the capability to imagine, so give it a shot and see what happens.

    Nothing Happens Without Action

    Sitting around visualizing isn’t enough to make change happen in your life. I’m a strong believer in action. That’s where you really start to see the change happen.

    Now that you have a new story about your life, you’ll be able to see opportunities in places you’ve never noticed them before. You’ll also have the courage to try things that you never did before.

    I immediately started challenging myself. I started making a conscious effort to speak up in social situations and to express my opinion. I started asserted my needs more. I was able to see things for a more positive perspective.

    I’m not saying that I am always successful. I most certainly am not. Sometimes I fall back into old habits, but I remember that simply making the effort gets me a step closer to my ideal than I was before.

    Be Kind to Yourself

    The physical circumstances around you won’t change overnight. You won’t change your story to being abundant and then suddenly have millions of dollars in your bank account the next morning. What will happen, though, is that you will recognize the opportunities that will get you there.

    Don’t be angry with yourself or the universe if it doesn’t happen fast enough for you, or if you fail to make the changes you want all once. Taking small steps in the right direction every day will get you were you need to be. It’s important to be consistent.

    Don’t beat yourself up if you fall back into old habits. We are often our biggest critics. Just pick yourself up and start again. It’s the ability to continue moving forward that will get you to your goal.

    Happy woman jumping image via Shutterstock

  • You Are Not Your Thoughts and Feelings, and They Don’t Have to Bring You Down

    You Are Not Your Thoughts and Feelings, and They Don’t Have to Bring You Down

    Woman in Tree Pose

    “Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. ” ~Reinhold Niebuhr

    Think about the future! Don’t do something you’ll regret! You need to plan for tomorrow! I wish I hadn’t done that! Will things ever work out? Why did they do that? Will I ever find happiness? Why has life made me the way I am? What’s wrong with me?

    Around and around it went inside my mind, a never-ending internal conversation full of questions and uncertainties—the not knowing driving me insane and the desperation increasing every day. I must be able to resolve this, I thought. I need answers. I was overwhelmed by questions, uncertainty, indecision, paralysis, and fear.

    I couldn’t hold on to jobs or relationships. I became depressed, hurt the people I loved, and coped with it all by losing myself in drink and drugs. I was either reckless or petrified. I couldn’t communicate for fear of saying the wrong thing, but I desperately wanted to tell someone.

    The truth is I felt liberated when I couldn’t think. When the internal conversation was either struck dumb or so garbled I could laugh it off, I had some sort of respite.

    Later I would learn that I was self medicating for a generalized anxiety disorder but, at the time, I just knew that being out of my mind was preferable to being in it.

    Change Is Possible When We Act Mindfully

    I was extremely lucky. I live in a society that has within it people who understand and services that give support. Most importantly, I have an incredible family and true friends.

    When I needed it, was ready to make a change, and able to accept responsibility for my own behavior, my recovery began.

    During my recovery I was taught and used a behavioral model called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (or ACT.) This is based upon three basic concepts:

    Acceptance

    I learned to foster greater acceptance for my own thoughts and feelings, other people, events beyond my control, and the beliefs I held at any given moment. By doing so I was able to break away from my preoccupation with anxiety and focus upon my recovery.

    Commitment

    I committed to change—to focus upon moving toward the things that really mattered in my life and to travel through the spiral of change on my own journey of recovery.

    Behavior

    I changed my behavior through mindfulness. I learned that regardless of my circumstances or the thoughts that colored my perception, my behavior could either move me away or toward the things that mattered to me. I had a choice. Not necessarily an easy choice, but a choice nonetheless.

    The Importance of Just Being

    I was one of the many with an addiction who had learned to act mindlessly. This is not to say that my behavior was without reason. Far from it.

    I always had good reasons to get wasted. I was feeling anxious and told myself I couldn’t cope, or I was angry and couldn’t see the point, or I was happy and felt like celebrating. In fact, I had an inexhaustible supply of reasons.

    I had learned a coping strategy that enabled me to manage my condition. Just like learning to drive or making coffee in the morning, I behaved on autopilot, without awareness of my own behavior.

    There’s nothing wrong with this psychological process. It’s an important part of being able to function. If every time you got behind the wheel or wanted a coffee you had to consciously relearn the process, your day would soon become totally unmanageable.

    Autopilot behavior like this is learned by repetition and sits in our subconscious, ready to be put into action when we need it. This is fine as long as the behavior benefits us and moves us toward the things that we need. Like driving us to work.

    The problem comes when the behavior not only takes us away from the things we value but also starts to create more problems than it solves.

    This was the nature of my addiction. Beyond the physical dependency (brutal but relatively short lived through medical detox), I discovered that my sense of self had been replaced by a yearning to be someone or something else. Something not me. Not me at all.

    I’d developed an obsession with wanting to become—become free from anxiety; become a more interesting person; become relaxed; become fulfilled; become happy.

    It was my desperation to change that led me to stay the same for ten years.

    How Living In The Now Changes Everything

    Acting mindfully and being aware of the now changed everything for me. As Eckhart Tolle so wisely wrote, “…the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.”

    I discovered that I am not who I think I am.

    My thoughts are my own but they do not describe me. Because I think or feel anxious, that doesn’t mean that I am anxious. It means I am experiencing the symptoms of anxiety, not that I am anxiety.

    If I am aware of now, then I notice these symptoms as they elevate my heart rate, dry my mouth, place intrusive thoughts in my mind, and push me toward “fight or flight response.”

    By noticing these sensations, I can be an observer of them and no longer a slave to them. I choose to identify them and give them a name. I choose to look at them in their stupid faces. Yes, it’s uncomfortable, but I have learned to be comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.

    I do not need to compensate for the things I feel or believe because they are simply thoughts and sensations that cannot harm me.

    If we are self-aware and mindful of behavior, then we can exercise choice over what we do right now. We can act not in response to the pressure of our thoughts and feelings, but because we are aware of what we value.

    Noticing is key. If we don’t notice what’s happening, then we can’t have a choice over how we respond to those things (whatever they may be).

    If I go to a room I’ve never been in before, open the door, and meet a person I’ve never met before who then tells me that I look ugly, I will have an emotional response. I can no more control those circumstances or my emotional response than I can the orbit of the planets.

    By noticing my reaction, I can accept my thoughts, feelings, and the reality of my situation. If I don’t, I will probably just react to the way I feel. Perhaps I’ll cry, shout abuse, or even take a substance to “help me calm down.” However, if I am aware and I notice what’s going on for me, then I have another option.

    I can pause before I act. I can choose my behavior based upon my awareness of both the situation and what matters to me.

    I have let go of trying to change the way I feel, and of trying to become something or someone else. I am simply living in the now, and I know that only my behavior shapes my destiny, regardless of my thoughts.

    I am aware of my behavior and I can control it; and, in doing so, I am living my life with purpose.

    If like me, you have struggled or are currently struggling with anxiety, mindfulness could help you, as well. You are not your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. You don’t need to try so hard to control them; you just need to accept them and come into the present moment so you can control what you do.

    Woman in tree pose image via Shutterstock

  • 5 Childhood Mantras That Are Poisoning Your Happiness

    5 Childhood Mantras That Are Poisoning Your Happiness

    Unhappy Little Girl

    “So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us.” ~Gaston Bachelard

    I woke up to the sun peeking through the bedroom curtains and I cautiously opened one eye to check if my little brother was still asleep on the other side of our room.

    I was excited about the day. The sun was shining and we were meeting up with some family friends for a picnic in the park later that day. All I cared about was we would be having lots of treats at that picnic and the park we were going to had a giant swing set. This was going to be a good day.

    An hour later, my brother and I were in our parents’ bedroom, with my mom gently explaining that Daddy had left and he wouldn’t be coming back home.

    I was only six. I had thought everything was okay, but it wasn’t. I wasn’t expecting this.

    I felt sucker-punched. I promised myself, “I won’t let my guard down like this again.”

    Fast-forward twenty-five years…

    I stretched out beneath the shade of a huge umbrella, wiggling my toes in the white sand and watching my husband snorkel in the bathtub warmth of the ocean. There was nothing to do but sit and soak in the paradise of a tiny island in Malaysia.

    This was my dream vacation—one that I had waited years for.

    This should have been one of the happiest moments in my life. But I wasn’t happy.

    I remember at one point that day telling my husband that I should have brought my laptop with me so I could do some work while I was at the beach.

    I was genuinely struggling to relax and embrace an experience that could have offered me pure joy. I couldn’t just let go.

    Perhaps something similar has happened to you.

    Let me save you a few hundred dollars in therapy.

    This vacation made me realize that this was only one of many times in my life that I had gleefully anticipated an activity, but when I was actually in the moment I wasn’t able to feel very happy.

    I wish I could tell you that after I recognized this pattern, I immediately began a journey toward emotional wholeness. It wasn’t until years after that vacation, when I was finally brave enough to start digging into things that were holding me back.

    I started to see a therapist regularly, but I have a hunch that you might relate to what I discovered.

    So what did I figure out?

    I should have been paying more attention to what I was telling myself—mantras from my childhood were heavily influencing my adult life.

    I realized the childhood mantras or “tapes” I was playing inside my head had a significant impact on my ability to feel happiness—ones that were formed in my early years and may sound familiar to you.

    Do you recognize any of these mantras that you’ve told yourself for years, therefore diminishing your own potential happiness?

    Mantra #1: I won’t ever do that again.

    Earth-shattering events happen when you are younger. There may have been major traumas or minor events that felt traumatic to your younger self.

    As kids we often react to such events by making a vow or promise to ourselves. We do this to protect ourselves, but as we grow older we don’t stop to re-examine if this vow is helping us or holding us back.

    I wanted to avoid the unexpected pain I felt when I was abandoned as a child, so I had promised myself that I wouldn’t let my guard down again.

    Could a vow to stay guarded at all times affect the ability to feel true happiness? Most definitely.

    Mantra #2: This can’t last.

    Brené Brown identifies a major limitation to our happiness in her chapter about joy and scarcity in The Gifts of Imperfection (a book recommended by my therapist).

    She explains, “We think to ourselves: I’m not going to allow myself to feel this joy because I know it won’t last…I’d rather not be joyful than have to wait for the other shoe to drop.”

    Does this resonate with you?

    Unforeseen trauma when we were younger can create a sense of dread—we start to expect something bad is going to happen, especially in the times we are feeling most happy, or vulnerable.

    Did events from your childhood create a fear that good things happening were an invitation for something bad to happen?

    Mantra #3: It’s not okay to do that.

    Oh, the complexities of the rules within each family!

    Whether spoken outright or implied through reactions to certain behaviors, each family has a code of conduct with a profound influence on us, well into our adult lives.

    Maybe emotional expression was frowned upon in your family? Or perhaps there was an unspoken rule about how you should conduct yourself in stressful situations.

    I can remember the implied rules about money in my family. In the wake of my father leaving, money was tight and I quickly learned to stop asking for any treats. I had determined that it’s not okay to spend money on non-essentials.

    There can be so many facets to the family culture of your early childhood—some good and some not so good. Are there rules from your younger years that restrict your ability to feel happy?

    Mantra #4: This actually means that.

    Assumptions we make as kids, about the way the world works, can deeply influence our thoughts as adults. We become aware that the world does not consist of just ourselves and we start forming a framework of decisions about how life works.

    Is it possible that, back in your childhood, you decided that relaxing meant you were being lazy? Alternately, you may have assumed achievements meant love from your parents, so if you stopped achieving you would lose that affection.

    Can these childhood assumptions inhibit our ability to enjoy the moment? Absolutely.

    Mantra #5: I’m no good at that.

    Neglected dreams or passions that you had as a young child can be an amazing compass toward rediscovering your happiness.

    Is there an activity that you used to love doing as a child that you no longer do? Perhaps due to someone’s criticism, you decided you weren’t good enough to keep doing it?

    I had an embarrassing incident in gymnastics class when I was younger. (Let’s just say that the balance beam won). I refused to go back to class, resulting in an abandoned passion that I didn’t reconnect with until just this year.

    Was there a dream you had that you forced yourself to let go of, in an effort to be more practical or realistic as you grew up?

    These buried passions offer us an opportunity to remember what used to truly bring us joy. It is an invitation to welcome happiness back into your life.

    The Next Brave Step in Banishing Your Childhood Mantras

    I’m guessing that at least one of these mantras jumped out at you. We all have a default “tape” that is worth examining, to understand if it is suppressing our happiness.

    Be brave. Recognize this impulse and decide to make a change.

    Now what?

    It’s actually pretty simple—not easy, but simple.

    You need to start playing a new “tape” inside your head instead of the ones that are diminishing your ability to be joyful.

    I chose to start telling myself that it is okay to let my guard down. This involved literally chanting inside my head that the world would not fall apart if I allowed myself to enjoy the moment.

    I had to constantly reassure myself that even if something bad did happen, bracing myself for it would not make it hurt any less and was actually robbing me of joy.

    It actually didn’t take too long before I started to believe this. Surprisingly, this removed a huge obstacle to giving myself permission to feel happy.

    How to Amplify Your Happiness

    The good news?

    You’ve already taken the first step: pausing to ask what you are actually telling yourself.

    How about some more good news?

    You can choose one thing that you are going to start saying differently to yourself and you will be amazed at how quickly you can change the narration.

    It is tempting to cling to the voices of our past, but wouldn’t it feel amazing to be able to truly embrace your happiness?

    Try out your new script today and congratulate yourself on moving toward a happier life!

    Unhappy little girl image via Shutterstock

  • How to Change What You Feel and Believe About Yourself

    How to Change What You Feel and Believe About Yourself

    “Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.” ~Robert Gary Lee

    A year ago, I began to accept that I was depressed, and had been for a long time. It was scary. I broke up with my live-in boyfriend of almost three years, quit my job, and though I didn’t want to, I moved halfway across the country to move back in with my parents.

    I was a wreck; all of the feelings that I had been suppressing for years, some literally since childhood, came flooding back. My only defense in the past had been to ignore these feelings, though I did so quite poorly and ended up being an emotional basket case most of the time anyway.

    After months of talking to my therapist and anyone who would listen, I finally began to heal. I started to find strength in myself, in my own thoughts, and was able to stop denying the truth that has always been inside of me. Now, when I get upset, I am able to accept it as a feeling, not as a truth; and I no longer have to run from my feelings.

    This is a process that I wrote out, but came from a combination of help from good friends, said former boyfriend, and of course, my wonderful therapist.

    1. Identify your feelings.

    Where in your body do you feel it? What does it feel like? What thoughts come up?

    These thoughts are what your mind is defining as your “truth.” You can redefine your truth. You may be thinking, “I’m not good enough,” “I’m weak,” “I’m broken,” or something similar.

    These are not feelings; these do not describe how you feel. They describe what you think you are, your false “truth.”

    Change “I am” to “I feel” when these “truths” come up.

    When you hear, “I’m broken,” replace it with, “I feel broken.”

    My personal false “truth” was, and sometimes still is, “I am incapable.” When changed to “I feel incapable,” I really notice the difference in emphasis.

    I used to truly believe that I was incapable of a lot of things, usually relating to work or school. “I feel incapable” is a statement of the negativity that my mind was stuck in, a false belief, not a “truth” about myself.

    Now that you’ve recognized you aren’t this thing—you only feel this way—dig deeper. Ask yourself why you feel this way; what’s behind the feelings?

    2. Accept your feelings.

    Repeat them to yourself. Don’t judge them; just feel them.

    If you feel like crying, let yourself cry. If you have tension, sit with that tension; breathe it in and breathe it out.

    I felt incapable because I had performed poorly in jobs before, and I used this as evidence that I truly was incapable of doing better.

    This acceptance hurts, but it ultimately brings us peace by releasing the negativity that we are holding onto.

    3. Replace your old truths with new ones. Back them up with reasoning, and trust that this is the real truth.

    For example, you might change “I feel that I’m not good enough” to “I am good enough. I am having a hard time because… and I accept that. I am working on these issues to become even stronger.”

    By accepting that I felt incapable because of the past, I could now remember the good things that happened at work—the projects I was proud of, the people who I had helped, the difference I made.

    4. Repeat the new “truth” back to yourself.

    Notice what feelings come up and compare them to the feelings that came up from step two.

    Which feels better to you? Which sounds more true to you now?

    The intent of going through these steps is to examine these “truths.” In your gut, you know the real truth.

    You may feel a sense of relief after doing this once. You may not feel much different at all. But if you trust your intuition, the new “truth” will become the new voice in your head, after going through the steps more times.

    I knew on a deeper level that I was actually capable of doing a good job at work, a job I could be proud of. The negative “truth” hid what I really know I am capable of.

    5. Do something constructive with these good thoughts.

    Write. Make art. Make music. Dance. Exercise; do something physical.

    Do something that expresses how you feel now, that solidifies in your body as well as your mind what your “truth” really is, and how good you deserve to feel about yourself, no matter what unpleasant circumstances you may be going through.

    Our bodies contain memories that we don’t consciously know of. Doing something active with these new ideas and feelings will bring positive body associations.

    I find journaling and yoga to be very healing. I sit and give myself time to really think and feel instead of never questioning the false “truth” that I sometimes carry around with me. I write that out. And I reinforce the new truth when I am going through the movements in yoga poses. My body remembers that feeling.

    —

    Each time the old “truth” comes up, go through these steps. Your brain currently has a habit of jumping from a negative feeling to a false truth in your consciousness as a single thought. Sometimes these thoughts are also subconscious, as they were for me, because you’ve ignored them for so long as your mind tried to shield you from the pain of admitting negative feelings.

    “I am incapable” actually led me to feel so poorly about myself that I really did perform inconsistently at work. Once I started to dismantle it, I was able to start fresh and not let the subconscious “truth” fester and keep me from being productive.

    Even better than waiting for these thoughts to come up, practice this daily. Soon, you’ll change the habit of clinging to false truths so to the positive, real truth becomes your first thought.

    Instead of the old thoughts festering, these new thoughts are mindful, and they creative positive energy, which will continue to build.

    If you still can’t get yourself to really feel that this new truth is reality, just try to trust it. Trusting it is trusting yourself. And once the habit forms, it starts to feel like the truth.

  • Are Limiting Beliefs Holding You Back and Making You Feel Bad?

    Are Limiting Beliefs Holding You Back and Making You Feel Bad?

    Held Back

    “If you believe yourself to be limited in some way, whether or not it is true, it becomes true for you.” ~Brian Tracy

    I have often wondered why the most formative years of one’s life, in early childhood, tend to be the hardest for us to recall.

    Most of us cannot even begin to tap into those memories. Those scant memories that do bubble up to the surface are often fog-tinged and dreamlike. Images or sensations may appear, but the linear, day-to-day recollection evades us.

    Perhaps Mother Nature does have a sense of humor, because, oddly enough, it is usually only those traumatic or intense moments of our lives that seem to come up.

    Can I remember winning the sack race when I was six? No. Do I recall my first day of school? I remember in vivid detail walking up to the school gates clutching onto my mother’s legs, panicking that I would never make any friends.

    I have always thought that these types of memories don’t simply vanish into thin air but rather get stored somewhere in our subconscious.

    The problem is that we don’t know the password to access them. The same can be said for things people said to us when we were young children. Those words and life lessons, whether positive or negative, became imprinted on our psyche.

    If you were one of the lucky children that constantly heard “The world is your oyster” or “You can do anything you set your mind to,” you probably carried these beliefs into adulthood.

    The positive reinforcement received from a young age seems to sustain a secure sense of self, which guides these people through their lives. More often than not, they turn out to be successful, because why wouldn’t they?

    (Of course, there are those that receive positive reinforcement from a young age yet somehow morph into self-entitled monsters, but that’s another article.)

    If others tell you, and you believe, that there is nothing stopping you from achieving your dreams, then chances are you will take more risks in life and your life rewards will increase exponentially.

    But what if the opposite were true? What if you were constantly fed a diet of negativity as a child?

    If others regularly told you that “You will never amount to anything” and that “You are worthless,” what kind of foundation do you think that provided? A shaky one, and from shaky foundations come insecurity and a wavering sense of self.

    Sure, some people who have this kind of upbringing find great success in life, but it is often overcompensation for this self-limiting belief that spurs people on to greater heights and bigger lives.

    The drive comes from a need to prove that what they heard as children was wrong; it’s not a drive emanating from the belief “I deserve this” or, to quote L’Oreal, “because I’m worth it.”

    I strongly believe that whatever our parents (or parental figures) told us during these formative years remains in our bodies on a subconscious level.

    Have you ever had a situation when someone said or did something to you that felt like it struck a nerve? Did someone make a comment to you that unexpectedly brought back a plethora of sensations, fears, or worries that you haven’t felt in years? How does that happen?

    We subconsciously reinforce those messages and viewpoints that our loved ones continually reinforced until they become our very own beliefs.

    And then we unknowingly pass them on to our children, and on and on the cycle spins. But what would life be like if you could learn to separate yourself from a belief pattern that has no foundation of truth but nonetheless has a hold over you?

    My self-limiting belief revolves around money and my attitude toward it. From a young age my parents worked very hard, holding multiple jobs and doing everything in their power to give us what we needed.

    As they built their business together, their lives and incomes improved; however, their attitudes toward money did not.

    Having come from a place of lack, they didn’t want us to find ourselves in that same place. So the constant message was that saving money is important, and they frowned upon spending frivolously. We learned that you buy only what you need.

    While these financial beliefs helped me greatly in certain aspects of my life, I’ve run into some residual issues as a result. In the dominant memories of shopping with my mother, the all important question was not “Do you like it?” but rather “How much is it?”

    My mother did not encourage spending on anything but the basics, and she hardly ever splurged on herself.

    I internalized the message that it is a bad thing to treat yourself to nice things.

    Years later, despite having worked hard to find myself in a financially stable position, the first thing I do when out shopping is to look at the price tag. The voice in my head tells me it’s too expensive. I tell myself, “You don’t need this; what are you thinking?”

    In the event that I decide that I do, in fact, need it and like it very much, I drag myself to the register yet spend a good thirty minutes afterward berating myself.

    I am fully aware that I do this, but can’t seem to stop myself.

    The first step toward change is awareness, and I am consciously aware that I’m a work in progress.

    These days when I find myself in the midst of a heated argument with myself in the fitting room mirror, I give myself a pep talk. “Do you like it? Can you afford it?” If the answer is a resounding “yes,” I go right ahead.

    So, what’s your self-limiting belief? How does this way of thinking hold you back in life? By encouraging an open dialogue, we can begin to free ourselves from the invisible shackles of these negative beliefs.

    The more we hear, read, or speak a word or phrase, the more power it has over us. By staying aware and refuting these beliefs as they come up, their authority starts to wane.

    Being consciously aware that we have the power to choose how we think can be wonderfully liberating. We no longer need to react according to some outdated belief system that we inherited, which doesn’t serve our highest potential.

    What we choose to shine a light on can no longer carry a hold over us. So maybe it’s time to get out the flashlight, get really honest, and work through those beliefs that no longer serve us so we can put them where they belong, in the trash.

    Held back image via Shutterstock

  • Overcoming the Painful Desires and Beliefs That Feed Addiction

    Overcoming the Painful Desires and Beliefs That Feed Addiction

    “Taking responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change them.” ~Byron Katie

    I had spent five horrible years in and out of rehabs and support groups for my substance use problems. Along the way, there were a few periods where I cleaned up for six months, eight months, and almost a whole year one time, but nothing seemed to stick.

    The worst part was that even with all of the painful effort it took to keep the drug and alcohol use going, and all of the painful consequences that were piling up, I was happier in that life than I was during the sober, trouble-free times.

    I believed that getting high and drunk was really great, and I believed that sober life was complete drudgery. These beliefs played themselves out quite predictably.

    I felt tortured and deprived when I was sober. I would trudge to work, then I would trudge home and hope that I could fall asleep quickly to end the misery until the morning.

    Then I would wake up and do it all over again. I lived with a painful desire to get high and drunk the whole time.

    I thought about it when I got up in the morning. I thought about it while I worked. I thought about it when I met with my counselors and therapists. I thought about it before, after, and during the support group meetings that were supposed to help me to resist the desire to get high and drunk.

    I was hanging on by a thread—resisting my desire to get high and drunk one day at a time. Eventually, resisting would become too painful, too unfulfilling, and too unsatisfactory to maintain any longer.

    I was resisting this desire so that I could stop bad things from happening in my life. But then I just ended up lacking bad things. I didn’t have any good things going on.

    When I was abstinent, I didn’t have the thing I believed I needed to be happy and comfortable: heavy drug and alcohol use.

    I took it for granted that I would always have a painful, overpowering desire for heavy drug and alcohol use. I could fight it or give in. I repeatedly gave up the fight and gave in to the desire.

    But then I found a new approach. After years of being taught how to fight the desire, and years of failure, I found a way to change my desire.

    I learned to accept my substance use habits as a simple pursuit of happiness activity (rather than as a compulsion). I learned that I was desiring it and doing it because I believed it was my best shot at feeling good. I learned that I could re-examine that belief once I acknowledged and accepted it.

    I know this might be scary to people who’ve been taught that such habits have nothing to do with choice, but think about it—everything you do is because you believe you’ll benefit from it in some way.

    In some cases the benefits are small, like when smoking a cigarette, which is an extremely mild stimulant that may provide a good feeling for a few seconds or minutes. In other cases the benefits can be big, like when going to college, which can result in more employment opportunities and job security that lasts a lifetime.

    Everything we do is driven by our belief that it will bring us closer to some sort of happiness or benefit.

    Now, getting back to my substance use habit, I had to take responsibility for my beliefs about drugs and alcohol.

    I believed that drugs and alcohol were cure-alls, and that I needed them:

    • For the traumatic pain left over from my childhood
    • For my social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and depression
    • To have a good time at all in any way
    • To feel normal
    • To wake up in the morning
    • To go to bed at night
    • To be creative
    • To clear my mind

    That’s a crazy list of powers I believed that drugs and alcohol had. Several of them are contradictory; yet, these beliefs are not uncommon at all.

    Every time I hear someone express that they’re struggling to stay sober, such beliefs are involved. In fact, I saw someone complain about struggling to stay sober on Facebook recently, and she said:

    “I hate that I can’t have a drink because I know it’ll quiet my mind and I’d relax.”

    This is what creates desire. If you believe you need something to be happy, then you will desire it.

    Unfortunately, our culture has done a great job of convincing us that drugs and alcohol have amazing powers to cure all of our ills. They have also done a great job convincing some of us that we need to “self-medicate” with these substances too.

    The thing is, drugs and alcohol don’t medicate anything. But as long as you believe they are your medicine, you will feel deprived and suffer when you don’t have this medicine. The sooner you stop believing that they are medicine, the sooner this desire will go away.

    The fact is, most of the emotional and behavioral experiences people have while using drugs and alcohol are subjectively created. They’re mostly an effect of expectancy. As a noted addiction researcher observed:

    “Sometimes alcohol may be a relaxant (the martini after the hard day at the office) and sometimes it may act as a stimulant (the first drink at the party).” ~Norman Zinberg, Drug, Set, and Setting, 1986

    Isn’t that a bit unbelievable? It’s a total contradiction and thus literally impossible. Stimulants and relaxants are total opposites. Yet, you probably know from your own experience or watching others that people can have both of these effects while drinking.

    The key is to realize that these effects don’t come from the alcohol itself. They come from you.

    The fact is that you don’t, in reality, need alcohol to relax, and you don’t need it to get wild at a party, because alcohol itself does neither of those things. If you want to relax, you can do it, with or without alcohol. Same goes for getting wild at a party.

    And the same goes for the plethora of things we think drugs and alcohol do.

    The reason for this is that you are actually cognitively creating these states with your intentions. You expect to have these experiences when you drink or drug, and that expectancy itself creates the experience.

    There are plenty of other ways to intentionally put yourself into a relaxed state or any of the other states we believe are caused by substance use. The self-help world offers plenty of good advice on how to do this through mindfulness and other techniques. This website is a great resource for that.

    I encourage readers to seek out such techniques if you feel you need them. However, before you do so, the best thing you can do is rid your mind of the belief that substance use is a cure-all. It is not.

    If you haven’t broken these beliefs first, then in that moment that a new coping skill you learn doesn’t work so well for you (or you just don’t feel like using it—we’ve all been there!), you might feel tempted to return to substance use to deal with the problem.

    If you have broken these beliefs, then you won’t feel tempted to use substances to cope. In this case, when a coping skill doesn’t work out, you’ll rightly look for a different coping method, rather than back to drugs and alcohol.

    Stop giving drugs and alcohol credit for things that they don’t really do. Be mindful of these beliefs, and have the courage to change them. Once you do, you’ll find that you have much less of desire to use substances.

    By severing the connection between stress and substance use, you can permanently end the phenomenon of feeling triggered to use substances when you encounter stress.

    The same goes for severing the connection between substances and any of the other false benefits we’ve been taught to attribute to them. Then it’s up to you to decide how to deal with these life problems, but it will be much easier to solve them without the specter of a “relapse” hanging over your head.

    I embraced the responsibility I had for my beliefs about substance use, and I examined them. I changed them. I ended up believing that drugs and alcohol didn’t have much to offer me anymore, and I believed I could be happier dedicating my time elsewhere.

    Changing my beliefs was my choice. No one else could do it for me. Methadone couldn’t do it for me. Meetings couldn’t do it for me. Even the people who showed me these ideas couldn’t do it for me.

    It was up to me to consciously question what I believed about the objects of my addiction, and how happy they could truly make me.

    As a result of changing my beliefs, I haven’t had an issue with drugs and alcohol for twelve wonderful years now. I don’t feel deprived. I enjoy a drink now and then, without feeling desperation or loss of control.

    When the normal troubles, hard times, and disappointments of life come along, I no longer feel like I need a drink or drug to deal with them, because I no longer believe they’ll help with the situation. When I’m bored, I no longer feel like I need substances to be entertained.

    I now get to live my life feeling free of addiction, and it’s wonderful.

  • Releasing Negative Beliefs: How Letting Go Sets Us Free

    Releasing Negative Beliefs: How Letting Go Sets Us Free

    Free

    “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” ~Andre Gide

    I have walked on water.

    The frozen wasteland known as Chicago had kept me inside, wary of the intense cold that was breaking records that particularly frigid winter. But after interminable snow days, I began to feel like a caged animal that needed to break free.

    I woke early one morning, overcome with the urgent need to connect to something living, something wild. I wrapped myself in countless layers like the kid in The Christmas Story and ventured out into the urban tundra. I felt compelled to walk to the beach that was a few miles from my house.

    An eerie, otherworldly feeling washed over me as I walked, achingly aware of the stark, endless whiteness all around me. The world itself felt as it was hung in frozen suspension and apprehension. Everything seemed to be hushed in reverence.

    When I reached the shore, I was hyper aware of the need to maintain a safe distance from the water, but I felt compelled to get as close as possible.

    As I moved forward across the frozen sand, I tried to gauge exactly where the land ended by using various items as points of reference—a fence, a wooden bench, a recycling bin. I inched my way toward the lake until there were no more reference points, and then became as still as the land beneath me. Or what I thought was land.

    I looked down at my feet and realized I was standing on a frozen wave, not a snow covered sand dune as I originally thought. I had walked out too far. I could both hear and feel the movement of the wave beneath my feet.

    I felt a juxtaposition of fear, exhilaration, and an overwhelming sense of weightlessness. My first instinct was to run, but I wasn’t sure of my footing. I was terrified that if I shifted my weight too quickly, I might fall through. I had no idea how deep the water was where I stood.

    At that moment I zeroed in on my true purpose for coming to the water. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a little bag filled with small strips of paper like confetti. On each one I had written something I wished to release from my life.

    • The fear that I will never find the type of love I want and need.
    • The commitment to being alone.

    I opened the bag to the wind, letting the belief-covered papers flutter out over the frozen lake. I did this quickly because I sensed the danger to my body on that unstable surface, and the danger to my heart if I held onto those stories a moment longer.

    With my task completed, I gingerly walked back to solid land. I let out a deep breath and knew so much had been released with those papers still floating on the wind.

    That moment on a frozen lake taught me a few very important things about surrender.

    • Surrender is about vulnerability and receptivity.
    • The opposite of surrender is resistance and control.
    • And it all comes down to fear and trust.

    I realized that my heart had become like that lake. A living thing that is supposed to flow, constricted by a lack of warmth and space into a frozen and dangerous place.

    One of the ways we keep our hearts frozen is by holding on to negative beliefs. These beliefs may be seem like they are about others or life in general. Usually, however, they are based on our perceptions. Negative beliefs are born from our wounds and stories.

    Eventually, every life experience becomes colored by these beliefs. Everything we see, say, do, and even feel is filtered through these limitations, judgment, patterns, conditionings, and doubt. The sad and scary part is that these beliefs tend to hide themselves in our subconscious, making us think that we are acting from free will.

    We may not even be conscious that we are holding on to negative beliefs.

    Unconsciously, we begin to nurture our negative beliefs without even being aware that we are doing so. We feed them and help them grow by giving them energy. We affirm them by attracting experiences that validate their existence. This becomes a vicious cycle. Holding on to negative beliefs justifies our need to be right.

    Many of us hold on to our grievances and emotional scars with fierce protection. They become like badges of honor.

    We think that without our constant vigilance, the memory of our wounds or broken hearts will be forgotten. We believe that we are some how “honoring our personal story” by holding on. If we do not act as the constant “keeper of our wounds,” our suffering will have been in vain.

    But spring must come if life is to flourish again.

    We must allow our hearts to thaw. We need to frequently evaluate our belief structures and release the stories that no longer serve us.

    Releasing our attachment to our personal histories doesn’t invalidate the emotional pain we suffered. It doesn’t mean that the defenses and barriers we erected to protect ourselves weren’t based on a real need for self-preservation at those times. Instead, it means that we assimilate the lessons we have gained from the experience while loosening its ability to control our lives.

    Just like the coldness and bareness of winter allows the Earth to rejuvenate, and ultimately makes everything stronger, so too do our personal winters allow us to access our depths. Every wound makes us stronger as we heal it, and gives us greater access to our power.

    Letting go of beliefs puts a great responsibility on us. If we connect with our personal power we must give up the illusion that we are victims. We can longer view ourselves as passively vulnerable to the whims of others. We now must take responsibility for how our life unfolds.

    This realization is a lot scarier than standing on a frozen lake.

    To truly open our hearts, to truly wield our power, we must be willing to participate in life.

    This requires both owning our part in situations and allowing experiences to unfold as they will. Accepting others’ actions and emotions without making them fit into some box as a hero or demon. And especially releasing our mental constructs about how life should be, what we should or should not be doing, and how other people should interact with us.

    Releasing expectations and resistance is one of the most empowering acts of life. Resisting what is can be emotionally, spiritually, and physically exhausting. We get stuck in patterns that begin to define how we interact with the world. And even though they are painful, because they are familiar and usually hidden, we can stay stuck for years.

    I had developed many of my beliefs to protect myself after a series of breakups and broken hearts.

    I convinced myself that believing I wasn’t worthy of love was safer than opening myself up to the possibility of love. If I never opened my heart to anyone, I would never be disappointed or have to experience the excruciating pain of heartache.

    I was keeping myself lonely and cut off from life. Trying to protect myself from pain, I was actually constantly hurting myself more.

    When I finally relaxed enough to let go of my old beliefs, my life began to flow with greater ease and grace.

    I walked out onto that frozen water because I needed to have a close encounter with life. I needed to let the primal elements cleanse me of my outmoded ways of being.

    I went beyond the fear and conditioning because, finally, being alive mattered more than being comfortable. Now I recognize that I must trust that life will always provide the situations and experiences required for my evolution. And that surrender is the only way to be free.

    Photo by Andi_Graf

  • The Real Reason Some People Always Seem to Push Your Buttons

    The Real Reason Some People Always Seem to Push Your Buttons

    “Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.” ~Buddha

    I always felt invisible whenever my husband and I got together with a certain couple.

    Every time we saw them, it triggered feelings of rejection because they would go on and on about themselves and never ask about how I was doing or feeling. I went home feeling ignored and sad every time.

    Finally, after putting up with this non-reciprocal relationship for a number of years, I decided that it was best for us to break free from it. 

    For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why this self-absorbed behavior bothered me so much.

    Eventually, the light bulb went off and I realized I kept hoping that one day this couple would validate me, in the same way that I kept hoping and hoping that one day my father would validate me.

    You see, my biggest negative childhood trauma was feeling invisible and unworthy of my father’s love. So anytime someone, like this couple, ignores me and I feel invisible, the little girl inside me feels pain.

    You may have people that trigger the young vulnerable parts of you, leading you to feel unloved, unworthy, and invisible.

    This little girl that is frozen in time in my psyche felt worthless and not enough.

    She eventually had had enough of me ignoring her, and she sought redemption by making me have a two-year battle with depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.

    Antidepressants and therapy took the edge off, but they didn’t heal the source of the hurt.

    I was searching for answers on how to permanently get rid of emotional scars, like a gardener looking for a way to dig up and discard the roots of stubborn weeds. My search ended when I discovered a little known powerful, rapid, and different method of healing emotional scars through self-led re-parenting and unburdening young parts of toxic memories.

    The young parts of you that hold negative emotions of shame, guilt, rejection, abandonment, and unworthiness need the love and reassurance from you that they never got when they first experienced negative events.

    I went back into the old toxic experiences that created the faulty beliefs that I was unlovable, unworthy, and not enough. I “re-parented” that little girl by telling her she is lovable, worthy, and enough.

    I explained to her that Dad didn’t know how to show his love. He was acting from his wounded parts, and that’s why she grew up in an environment that was filled with emotional misery.

    The little girl now understands what happened, and she’s able to believe that she is worthy, enough, and lovable because I told her she was. She is no longer frozen in time and has come into the present with me, where she resides in my heart.

    As a result of loving this young part, I recovered from depression, anxiety, and panic attacks for good.

    I also stepped into my father’s shoes and now know that validating me is something he was not capable of, because of his upbringing. I have forgiven him and now have compassion for him instead of anger.

    I am so thankful that this couple was in my life. They gave me the gift of identifying my most painful emotional wound.

    Who pushes your buttons? What is the gift they are giving you to help you identify your most painful wounds?

    This re-parenting technique that resulted in unconditionally loving myself has positively and permanently shifted my happiness set point and boosted my self-esteem and confidence.

    Nothing is holding me back from being happy now and in the journey to living to my potential and making a difference.

    My wounded part showed up as depression. Your wounded parts may show up as health and weight challenges; addictions such as eating too much, drinking too much, shopping too much, and procrastination; self-sabotage; anger; perfectionism; or overachievement.

    The following steps will help you heal your emotional scars at their source, delete the limiting beliefs that keep you stuck, and reprogram your brain with positive beliefs.

    1. Identify who triggers you.

    Which feelings do they trigger? Who is the parent, teacher, sibling, or old boyfriend/girlfriend with whom you originally felt this way?

    2. Step into this person’s shoes.

    Understand how much pain they are in from their own past. This will help you have compassion for them and forgive them.

    3. Access the young part of you that acquired the faulty beliefs as a result of interactions with this person.

    Examples of faulty negative core beliefs are: “I’m not lovable,” “I’m not enough,” “I’m not worthy,” and “I’ll never amount to anything.”

    4. Recall a scene that made you believe you were bad.

    Be with that part and give it the love and reassurance that it never got when that event happened. Tell it that it is lovable, worthy, and enough. Soak in the image of your loving self of today kissing, loving, and hugging this young part.

    5. Unburden yourself of the original negative feelings and beliefs.

    Imagine the ocean washing away the faulty beliefs of “I’m not lovable,” “I’m not worthy,” and “I’m not enough.” This energetically releases the bad memories and beliefs from your body.

    6. Bring that young part into the present.

    Have it be part of your team to move you forward and be happy.

    Healing myself through this technique has allowed me to create a new narrative for my life story. I now believe the Universe purposely gave me negative experiences for the evolution of my soul.

    These events gave me the gift of finding my life’s calling. 

    You too can figure out your life’s mission by healing your emotional scars first. Then you can figure out the new narrative that helps you make lemonade out of your lemons. As a result, you can live fully with joy and purpose before you die. 

    When you heal the emotional scars that keep you unhappy, you can significantly improve your happiness set point and positively change the course of your life.

    So, if you have people that push your buttons, thank them for being in your life. They are a gift because they help you find the source of your deepest wounds, which hold you back from being shameless and confidently showing up as the happiest version of you.

    Do you have emotional scars that are triggered by certain people?

  • You Don’t Have to Believe Your Negative Thoughts About Yourself

    You Don’t Have to Believe Your Negative Thoughts About Yourself

    “The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.” ~ James Allen

    We all have a picture of ourselves in our minds. A picture of what we believe we are like. A picture we choose to believe no matter what.

    We can cling to this idea about ourselves all we want, but that will not make it true. This is not as easy to realize and even harder to accept, but it’s an important step toward a conscious life.

    I believe we all go through dark phases when our image of ourselves breaks and we start thinking less of ourselves. This phase can pass after some time if we let it, but if we insist on clinging to the picture of  ourselves in our minds, it will be harder to get through it.

    The good news is: You are whoever you choose to be.

    It’s not a coincidence that all the great spiritual masters spoke about detaching from our thoughts. Our thoughts do not represent reality. We are the ones who choose to believe that they are real, when, in fact, they have nothing to do with reality.

    No matter what situation life presents us, we can always choose to view ourselves the way we want.

    You can either view yourself as a victim or as the hero who lived through all the controversy. It’s all a matter of perspective.

    Whichever you choose you will become, since you believe that is who you really are, so you will ultimately behave that way.

    This has nothing to do with the person you actually are; it solely depends on how you choose to view yourself.

    I was an anxious person all my life. Anxiety, panic attacks, depression, phobia—you name it, I had it. I had so many issues that it was hard to view myself as sane.

    I had to realize that these feelings were never my identity; they could never define me because how I chose to see myself, despite my feelings, was my choice.

    I remember sitting on the couch and making myself sad by thinking about what a horrible person I was.

    I used to believe that I was somehow not normal and that I didn’t belong here. I chose to stay at home all the time because I believed that if I went out and lived the life of a normal person, something horrible would happen and I’d end up hurting others or myself.

    I also felt pity for my husband, because he had to spend his life with such a horrible person.

    I was not insane or different, no matter how much I believed that I belonged in a mental institution. It took me a long time to realize that what I thought of myself had nothing to do with reality, and an even longer time to apply this knowledge in my life.

    I was not perfect, I’m still not, and I never will be, but nobody else is either. We tend to believe that we are the only people struggling. Always remember that you are not alone. When you feel horrible, know that there are countless people out there who feel just like you do.

    If you feel alone and different from everybody else, this is just a thought; it’s not real. We can choose to believe it is, or we can choose to see that we are never really alone, and so many people share our feelings.

    Just because you believe something does not make it true.

    People who promote positive thinking would advise you to start thinking positively. I think this is obviously better than negative thinking, but it’s still not the solution. I believe in letting thoughts go.

    Let go of all the destructive thoughts you hold about yourself. Once you are able to accept that you are not what your thoughts are telling you, you will become free.

    You will no longer limit yourself with your thinking because you will accept that your thoughts are faulty.

    Once you realize that your thoughts are faulty, there will be nothing else standing in your way. And when you realize that there is nothing standing in your way, you will see it was your thoughts that were holding you back from being who you wanted to be this whole time.

    When I look back at how I used to be, I see a girl who was always such a nice, kind-hearted person, but for some reason chose to believe that she was something completely different and, therefore, isolated herself from the world.

    I hold no false ideas about myself nowadays. Since I acknowledged that all my opinions about myself are just thoughts that have nothing to do with reality, I realized I am who I choose to be. Nothing and no one, not even myself, can stop me from being the person I want to be.

    I embrace who I am now. I love being outside, enjoying the company of people and nature, and I know that I can bring a smile to people’s faces with my kind and loving attitude. I care for my husband even more because I know that my love and attention is valuable.

    I even started writing my first fiction novel, which is something I always wanted to do. I envied the authors who could come up with magical worlds and could use their minds to build up something beautiful. I thought that my mind was not a place of wonder, but since I let that thought go, I’ve started to build the wondrous world I never thought I could.

    I still have thoughts in my mind that I sometimes think shouldn’t be there, but that is also a part of me. As long as I can identify them for what they are, they can do no harm. I know now that nothing can control my actions, only me.

    Don’t let your mind push you around—just let it go.

  • Overcoming Fear and Perceived Threats to Work Toward Your Dream

    Overcoming Fear and Perceived Threats to Work Toward Your Dream

    10 Steps for Overcoming the Fear of Making a Change

    “Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” ~Pema Chodron

    I awoke with a jolt. I heard the steady breathing of my sleeping partner next to me. I checked the clock; it was 3:30 AM. With a deep exhale, while rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I reached out to my bedside table to grab my phone.

    For a moment, I hesitated. I knew that tickets went on sale at 4:00 AM New Zealand Time and that they would be going fast.

    The U.S. event I wanted to attend would require a considerable financial investment (air travel and accommodation in addition to the costly ticket) and, given my track record, I was worried that I’d be wasting my money, once again.

    I looked back at my history of getting really excited about something, only to lose steam halfway through and find all sorts of excuses why it was impossible to continue. How could I be sure this wouldn’t happen again?

    Could I trust this time that fear would not take over and destroy my best intentions?

    I knew that I wasn’t just buying a ticket to an event. From the moment I heard about the conference, I was certain of one thing: I had to be there because I wanted to get up on stage and talk, even though I never thought that I’d have ambitions to be in the public eye, to disrupt the comfort of my calculable days, or to allow those really grand dreams into my consciousness.

    Instantly, after recognizing that I couldn’t shake the desire to talk in front of hundreds of people—in public and in a foreign country—I heard the familiar naysaying voices. Faint at first, they whispered that I should go back to sleep and not waste my money.

    Together, they wondered what excuse I could tell my friend, whom I had promised that I’d be at the event this year. What would be the most plausible reason why I couldn’t go?

    It was undeniable; fear was here. Reliable like the clock that was ticking in my bedroom, fear had crept up to me out of the darkness.

    Now, holding me fully in its grip, it spoke with a booming voice while breathing ice-cold air down my neck.

    “Put your phone away and go back to sleep. Don’t be so stupid,” it hissed. “Money doesn’t grow on trees, don’t waste it on this little fantasy of yours. You’re never going to board that plane anyway, I can tell you now.”

    Fear is one of the most excruciating and potentially destructive encounters we have to face. It is the enemy that attacks us from within.

    While reliable enough for us to know that it will show up, we can never be sure when we will have to brace ourselves. As I was lying in bed at 3:30 AM, phone at the ready with the intention to take the next crucial step towards realizing a long-held dream, fear showed up.

    Its presence usually triggers the following events for me: my heart starts to beat faster, my breathing accelerates, and my body temperature rapidly fluctuates between hot and cold, all while I spiral downward into a mental and emotional abyss, resulting in the total collapse of the dreamer within who triggered it all in the first place.

    Fear puts me in survival mode and pushes aside everything else that has a whimsical, magical, and expansive quality to it.

    I know this sequence so well. Many of us do. So that night, tired of being tossed around by fear-induced tidal waves, I hatched my own four-step process for dealing with fear and transforming it into positive action.

    1. Ask yourself if it’s a real or perceived threat.

    Undeniably, fear is a powerful emotion. And it’s useful too. I want fear by my side, heightening my senses and alerting me to potential dangers when a loud noise wakes me up at night.

    But I realized that fear is not as clever or cunning as it may seem. It cannot differentiate between a real threat and a perceived threat. Differentiating those nuances is not its job, really; it has no time to categorize. Once there is any kind of threat on the horizon, it kick starts the survival program to keep me safe from harm.

    My job is to recognize that fear is here and has begun to lock me into survival mode. Once I brought full awareness to the fact that I was scared, I was able to look at the trigger. It occurred to me to ask if what I’m fearful of is actually a real threat or a perceived threat.

    Real threats are usually quite obvious. They are potentially very dangerous and more often than not involve physical harm. For example, I would not think twice about protecting myself from someone trying to climb through my bedroom window at night.

    Perceived threats, on the other hand, are usually mental images such as memories or ideas. They are based on past experiences or on future predictions; they are walls we erect to protect the delicate structures of the world as we know it.

    Perceived threats are mere illusions that hold us back from pushing our boundaries and exploring new shores. So perceived threats are, in reality, opportunities for immense personal growth.

    Unless we live in an unstable region, I would argue that 90% of the time we experience fear, it is a perceived threat. What an insight! Once I realized that I wasn’t dealing with a life-threatening situation, I steadied myself with a calming breathing exercise.

    2. Use fear’s energy as a lever to break through.

    A little calmer, I saw that fear set free an incredible amount of energy. My heart was still beating at one hundred miles an hour. What to do with it?

    Busting through those sturdy walls I erected in the past takes a certain oomph. I realized that I can redirect the energy let loose by fear and rattle those walls until they crumble.

    Suddenly, fear became not so much an emotion to give in to blindly, but an invitation to actively participate, to identify where its energy was needed most and to use the powerful physical and emotional tidal wave to wash away those outdated, internal boundaries.

    3. Go deep.

    I scrubbed. I mean, I really scrubbed! I looked in every nook and cranny of my being, brushed away the cob webs, and shone a light into those dark corners where I don’t usually like to look.

    I wanted this personal growth. So, like old and weak leaves from trees in stormy weather, my own limiting beliefs were removed from my mental catalogue and dissolved.

    How do we do this? We take every fear-induced mental image and transform it from a negative to a positive experience.

    I saw myself boarding the plane instead of watching myself construct plausible excuses why I couldn’t go. I pictured myself at the conference, on stage, talking in front of hundreds of people that loved every word I said instead of seeing myself sitting at home in Auckland on the weekend of the conference.

    4. Take action.

    I checked my phone; the ticket sale had started. “This is it,” I thought. “Go for it.”

    After the intense standoff with my own fear, I decided to be gentle with myself. With a deep exhale, I closed my eyes and anchored those positive mental images in every cell of my being until I was ready to take the next courageous step towards realizing my dream.

    And with reassuring peace and newfound freedom in my heart, I purchased.

    What fear is holding you back? Is the danger real or perceived? Can you see a mental image of your dream coming to life? And how can you channel the energy of your fear to take action toward your dream?

    Photo here

  • How to Start Feeling Confident, Worthy, and “Enough”

    How to Start Feeling Confident, Worthy, and “Enough”

    Confident

    “The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.” ~James Allen

    Low self-esteem is like a garden weed. Uproot it while it’s small, or face the consequences of an unruly mess down the road.

    Its true, I have gone to extreme lengths to supplement my low self-esteem. Hair colors, tattoos, new hobbies, new jobs, moving in, moving out. I was always waiting for there to be “enough.”

    Enough what? Enough things where I could rest, feel satisfied, and be “equal” to everyone else. However, even though I often got what I wanted, the rewards were either brief or nonexistent.

    None of the fillers ever provided what I needed, and like a fool I’d move onto the next thing thinking, “Ok, this is really what I need!”

    “Your family is supportive, you have enough money, you’re attractive, you’re talented,” a good friend once told me candidly. “I can’t for the life of me figure out why you’re so insecure.”

    It was strange to stop and contemplate what he had said. I’d never thought of myself as the normal person with a complex that didn’t make sense. I’d known others with my problem, but usually their reasons were evident, like demanding parents or school bullies.

    “Why on earth am I like this? My life is so bland and…regular,” I thought.

    Eventually, after much wasted time, money, objects, friends, and opportunities, I stopped accumulating.

    I realized I was never going to reach my long-awaited mecca of “enough” and I had only accumulated junk anyway. The wheels had been spinning, but the car hadn’t gone anywhere.

    I noticed that a lot of other people didn’t need anything in particular. It was as if they were “born whole.” The reassurance simply couldn’t come from outside sources or people, because I’d tried that. It did no good.

    This led me to the tough truth. Real progress comes from helping yourself and doing what’s hard. Real progress certainly does not come from avoidance and shallow reassurances.

    What I had been doing the whole time prior to this discovery was irresponsible.

    The problem with a negative self-image is that it feels like a fact. Imagine trying to convince someone that water isn’t really water, it’s soda. Yea. Not gonna get many quick believers on that bandwagon.

    Another thing is that maintaining a negative opinion of yourself is extremely easy. A lot of us self-haters are lazy-boned veterans, sitting atop a throne of self-pity. In a sad sense, it’s the only thing we’re sure we know how to do.

    However, there are some things you can do to quell this horrible habit.

    For one, every time you find yourself hesitating to act because you’re afraid or you don’t believe you are “worthy,” rationalize it.

    For example, “My idea is just like everyone else’s at this board meeting. In reality, no one is going to think much about it. Even Bob from accounting gave his input, and his was a bit silly.”

    Now I’m not saying to knock others down, but making light of the situation often makes you realize the triviality of the thing you are worrying about.

    Another thing that’s important is risk-taking. No, I don’t mean driving backward on the highway is going to heighten your self-esteem. Those are the kind of superficial risks I would take to try to prove something to myself.

    But the really difficult and meaningful risks to take are emotional risks.

    Letting others in on how you feel, telling someone your fears, or reaching out to an acquaintance you don’t know too well. These are all noble risks, and often people with low self-esteem miss out on the growth opportunities that come with them.

    A psychologist once said self-esteem = achievements/expectations. So if you have ten expectations of yourself and you’ve only achieved one of them, your self-esteem won’t be so great.

    On the other hand, if you have five and you are achieving all five of them, you’ll likely feel at peace with yourself.

    So to simplify, determine what your goals are, and then do them! Make sure they’re attainable and your expectations aren’t extreme.

    If you’ve always wanted to be something and you’re not working at it, you’ll never be proud of yourself—because you’re not even being yourself.

    Maybe self-help tapes aren’t your cup of tea. And maybe you shudder at the thought of standing in front of your bathroom mirror chanting, “I love myself.” But you really are going to have to do things that are a bit outside of your comfort zone.

    Never underestimate the power of waking up and putting on real pants. (I know I used to.) Moping around in pajamas all day is not an option. Think, “What would confident me be doing right now?”

    You might feel like you’re faking it at first, but over time, the “real you” and the ideal “confident you” will slowly morph into the same person.

    Photo by LadyReddevil

  • Think Like a 5-Year-Old to Start Living the Life of Your Dreams

    Think Like a 5-Year-Old to Start Living the Life of Your Dreams

    Kid Photographer

    “Don’t grow up. It’s a trap.” ~Unknown

    A little over a year ago, my brother and I decided to write a book together. At the ages of nineteen and twenty-nine, this was a really scary thing for us.

    Neither of us considered ourselves “good writers,” and we especially didn’t think highly enough of our writing to imagine that we’d ever write a book.

    I made C’s on most of my papers in high school and college and, quite frankly, my confidence in my writing was pretty low.

    Each time I tried to sit down and write even a two-to-five-page paper, I would spend countless frustrating hours banging my head against the keyboard and writing all night in an attempt to reach the page limit. For me, writing was an extremely painful process.

    I’d made myself believe that I was bad at it. All of the bad grades and papers full of red ink had me convinced that it was a lost cause. They told me I’d never be a good writer.

    So when my brother and I decided to write a book, you can imagine all of the thoughts running through my head…

    “I’m not a good writer. Why would anyone want to read my book?”

    “I can’t even write a three-page paper. How will I ever finish a book?”

    “What if nobody buys the book?”

    And the list goes on and on. These types of thoughts keep most people from going after their dreams. They keep us paralyzed in fear, afraid to take the first step.

    Seth and I had to overcome these insecurities as writers to get started. We pushed past them with childlike curiosity and channeled our inner five-year-olds by asking questions, making mistakes, and reaching out to successful authors for advice.

    I’m going to tell you a few things that helped us through these insecurities, but first I want to ask you a question. When’s the last time you truly thought like a five-year old?

    You know, thoughts like: “I’m going to be an astronaut one day” or “When I grow up I’m going to be the president.”

    As children, we tend to believe that we truly can do anything we want. But a funny thing happens: as you go to school, get a job, and eventually retire, the world’s expectations and beliefs about you shrink your own beliefs.

    This process looks a little like this…

    Belief Funnel

    The things we believed we could accomplish slowly start to melt away and become unfulfilled dreams.

    Our dreams of doing humanitarian work in Africa or playing in a band never see their start because we begin listening to others and accept that these things won’t happen.

    It’s hard not to listen because many of these people have pure intentions. Some of them are people we love, who love us back, but they have no idea what is possible because it isn’t their dream.

    Nevertheless, we follow the path they suggest based on their own beliefs of what is possible. Unfortunately, it can take years, decades, and even a lifetime to realize how our dreams were derailed and why.

    Possibilities Funnel

    What you can actually do continues to grow, even as your beliefs (what you think you can do) get in the way of that.

    So how do you push past your insecurities and start believing in yourself again? How do you take advantage of the endless possibilities available to you when your beliefs about yourself won’t let you take the first step?

    1. Start thinking like a five-year-old.

    Ignore your doubts and negative feedback from others. Five-year-olds don’t pay attention when someone tells them they might not be a princess and an actress when they grow up. They just keep believing.

    When my brother Seth decided he wanted to be a musician, many people around him suggested he try for something more realistic. Despite the insecurities and the extremely small chance of success, he believed in himself and went for it. Now he plays around the world with his band NEEDTOBREATHE.

    When you start believing and acting on your five0year-old dreams, there’s a good chance you’ll be surprised by how often they come to life.

    2. Be the biggest loser.

    The weird thing about our potential is that it often gets hidden. It gets covered up by doubt and by the discouragement we get from others. We often forget our potential exists, and it takes a friend or coach to remind us of it and encourage us to take action.

    The NBC show “The Biggest Loser” is a classic example of this principle. Before coming on the show, the contestants fail to lose weight on their own because they lack the willpower, the time and, most importantly, the belief in themselves. After getting on the show and working with trainers, they uncover abilities they never knew existed.

    If you’re looking to make a serious change in your life, find a coach or accountability partner to work with. They’ll help you tap into your childlike thinking and uncover beliefs, abilities, and innate talents.

    Because of our lack of experience, Seth and I reached out to several successful authors for help and coaching on our book. Reaching out to people you respect can be a scary process, but each time you do it you’ll learn something new.

    3. Don’t be so scared of failure.

    Many times we quiet our inner five-year-old because of the fear of failure. We fear that if we go for what we actually want, we might fail and look stupid. This was my fear before writing the book.

    The best learning moments in life are when we fail. If you never fail, you’ll never make a difference in the world.

    Think of the people who you admire the most. How many times do you think they’ve failed in their lives? Probably more than they can remember. These people are successful because they failed early and failed often. They got out there, gave it a shot, and learned with each failure.

    Failure means you’re making progress. Don’t be so afraid of it.

    When you were five, falling down and pushing yourself back up was an opportunity to build your muscles. You ran to explore possibilities because at worst you would learn something new and get stronger doing it.

    If anything is b-o-l-o-g-n-a, it’s forgetting how to run and hope and dream the way we did when we were kids. So next time you’re feeling discouraged or insecure, ask yourself: “What would my inner five-year-old do?”

    Editor’s Note: Chandler has generously offered to give away five signed copies of Breaking Out of a Broken System, his new book, co-written with his brother Seth. Each book purchased saves someone’s life through a life-saving malaria pill. Their mission is to save 10,000 lives by selling 10,000 copies.

    To enter to win a copy, leave a comment below. You can enter until midnight EST on Monday, March 10th.

    UPDATE: The winners for this giveaway have already been chosen. Congrats to M, VictoriaP, Tiffany Joi, Priya, and Alex

    Photo by Praveen Kumar

  • What to Do When You Feel Caged: The Key to Lasting Freedom

    What to Do When You Feel Caged: The Key to Lasting Freedom

    Flying Free

    “Wherever you go, there you are.” ~Confucius

    Everything I do is about living and sharing freedom. But what is freedom anyway?

    To understand freedom, it’s helpful to understand its opposite. The opposite of freedom is feeling caged, constricted, and ruled by guidelines you don’t believe in.

    For many people, their job feels like jail. For some people, their community feels like jail. For others, school feels like jail.

    I’ve been in all those jails. And for the most part, I was in those jails because I didn’t know there was an alternative. Now that I know the alternative, I have consciously created a life of freedom, but it wasn’t always this way.

    I grew up in very religious schools, which felt like a jail, mentally and physically. There were strict rules governing what you could wear and eat and what was expected from you. Living in that jail mentality was stifling, and my need for freedom was bursting at the seams of my soul.

    For several years I was curiously obsessed with social justice and the prison system. I now recognize that my fascination stemmed from my feelings about living in a jail of sorts during my youth.

    At seventeen I left my hometown and embarked upon finding freedom and discovering who I was.

    When you live in a jail-mentality for the bulk of your life, you get out into the big wide world and feel utterly lost. That was me—lost, and essentially going from one jail to another.

    From the strict schools of my youth, I went straight to University, not knowing about the other options that were out there. And once again I felt caged. I felt jailed by the confines of my schedule and limited resources.

    I was desperate to break free, so I found a summer job in New Hampshire that would give me room, board, pay, and a new experience.

    I was taken by New Hampshire the moment I read the state’s license plate: Live Free Or Die. I knew I had landed in the right place. There, I met people from all over the world who had a similar freedom-travel-spirit mentality.

    Coincidentally, I met someone there who shared my intrigue with the prison system and social justice, and informed me that I could talk to prisoners on death row.

    While communicating with one inmate through letters, I learned that true freedom is in the mind.

    That shook me.

    I had heard that phrase before, but it wasn’t until I heard it from somebody who was really locked up that it hit home and touched my soul.

    Imagine being constrained to solitary confinement. Imagine being thrown into the prison “hole,” a place of pure darkness, without the freedom to see. Imagine having your every move watched, being told when you can eat, shower, and sleep. And imagine even after all that, recognizing that you can still have freedom because it is in the mind. That’s a powerful awareness.

    I knew that I was the only one putting the shackles on me. Although this message penetrated, it would take me several years to fully understand it.

    After I left New Hampshire, I had a string of adventures and travels that allowed me freedom, possibility, and a life outside the status quo.

    For several years all the outward travel fed my need for freedom. But there came a point where it was no longer freeing. I was starting to fall back into feeling jailed, despite making free and adventurous choices.

    I knew I had to start moving inward if I was to find true freedom. So began my inner journey.

    I started seeking out spiritual books from Deepak Chopra and Louise Hay, and reading the words from John Kabat Zinn, which resonated with me more than anything else. His book Wherever You Go, There You Are was like lightning hitting my heart.

    That line was exactly what I had experienced—despite all my travels, where I searched for freedom on the outside, wherever I went, I was still there. I still had to deal with my own limitations and the blocks that I was creating within my own mind.

    These limitations pertained to my self-confidence and self-worth—how I thought about myself, and what I believed about my ability to go after what I wanted and succeed. In perpetually thinking I couldn’t do things I wanted to do and that I wasn’t worthy of them, I paralyzed myself with fear.

    You need to believe you can do something before you can find the motivation to take action on it. And my beliefs were limiting my actions. Although I was traveling from place to place, my internal limitations came with me.

    It’s been a decade since I got that book, which focused heavily on meditation. I have since found the practice of pure presence to be one of the most powerful gateways to freedom. Meditation has this uncanny ability to break away the false self—the self-sabotaging thoughts and limiting beliefs.

    So where is freedom? Is it inside us? Is it about our outside choices?

    For many years the outward journey did the trick for me. It had an effect on my soul, although I did not have the understanding to recognize it at the time. However, the outward journey only took me so far.

    I have found that ultimately it’s the inner journey that leads to lasting freedom.

    I still enjoy “getting away” and having adventures. But I have come to recognize that in the confines of the outward journey I can still feel caged. It is only through going inward, specifically through practices of meditation and being present, that I can access long lasting freedom that endures, regardless of my outward circumstances.

    If you are looking to enhance the freedom in your life, take some time to pause from your day and practice being fully present with the moment as it is.

    Ironically, this is likely why travel is such a great way to feel free. When we travel, we’re more present by virtue of the newness around us—the change of culture or scenery. Everything is so new, so we are like babies enthralled by our surroundings and naturally we get out of our head and are deeply connected to the moment. It is, in effect, living a meditation.

    The magic of a meditation practice (and yes, five minutes will do the trick!) is that you can train yourself to strengthen the muscle of presence in your everyday life, so that you can have access to that freedom no matter where you are.

    Although five minutes may sound simple, it can still be challenging, so I recommend committing to a specific time, such as first thing in the morning, to ensure you do it.

    Then, any time that you feel constricted, scared, stifled, or confused, you can tap into the practice of meditation to help you reconnect with yourself, and reconnect with an inner sense of freedom. This won’t change physical circumstances that may feel constricting, but when you free yourself of mental limitations, it’s a lot easier to find solutions to physical ones.

    Meditation is a vehicle to freedom because it often gives us clarity, and allows us to free our mind from our blocks and limitations. Meditation helps us access our intuition, which can guide us to the things that will help us live a more purposeful, freedom-filled life.

    Freedom truly is in the mind. If you feel caged in yours, remember, presence is the key.

    Photo by Kamil Porembiński

  • 5 Steps to Deal with Emotional Baggage So It Doesn’t Define You

    5 Steps to Deal with Emotional Baggage So It Doesn’t Define You

    Woman and a Suitcase

    “Sometimes the past should be abandoned, yes. Life is a journey and you can’t carry everything with you. Only the usable baggage.” ~Ha Jin

    You’ve probably heard of the fear of missing out but what about the fear of letting go?

    My father was volatile and mentally unstable. Criticism was his preferred method of communication. As a child and teenager, I learned to keep my thoughts and feelings locked away and became an expert at deflecting personal questions.

    Without realizing it, I carried this habit into adulthood, avoiding any talk about my feelings or turning them into a joke. When a friend finally called me on it, the shock of self-recognition quickly turned to resistance. This is who I am, I thought. Why should I change?

    I plodded on, working as hard as ever to keep my fortress intact. It wasn’t making me happy yet I wasn’t ready to change.

    As I struggled with my desire to cling to hurtful memories and self-defeating behaviors, it dawned on me that I was afraid to let go because defensiveness was part of my identity.

    The problem wasn’t that I had baggage—everyone has baggage—but that it had come to define me. I didn’t know who I would be without it. At that point it hit me: I had to dig deep, discover the person I wanted to be, and then act on it.

    After I identified that I was holding on to the past because it seemed too important to jettison, I discovered that letting go is harder than it sounds. Relaxing a long-held belief isn’t a one-day, one-week, or even a one-year process. However, it is possible.

    This is the five-step process I discovered:

    1. Write an honest list of the thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that weigh you down.

    Grab a pen and notebook, find a quiet space, and spend thirty to forty minutes thinking and writing. It is important to be honest and write down whatever comes to mind. Don’t judge what comes up, just take note.

    2. Reflect on each item and identify the source of the thought/belief.

    Travel back in time and see where you picked up these items of baggage. Do you fear intimacy because a partner cheated on you? Do you dread holidays because your parents drank too much? Acknowledge the painful memories but don’t wallow in them. Write it down and move on to the next step.

    3. Find at least one positive in each hurtful experience/situation.

    Look for the silver lining in your cloud. For example, my father’s criticism made me aware of the power of words and taught me the importance of speaking with kindness. Looking for the good in the past helps you reclaim your power. You are no longer a victim; you decide what you take from that experience.

    4. Create affirmations to foster change and counteract negative thoughts.

    Take the positives from step four and turn them into affirmations or statements of intent, i.e.: “I will speak with love” or “I will treat people with kindness.” This puts the emphasis on positive future behavior and frees you from the past. Make the affirmations tangible: put a reminder on your phone, write them on post-its, or put a list on the fridge.

    5. Practice patience and mindfulness.

    It takes time to change habits, especially when they are rooted in deep hurts or fears. Check in with yourself regularly using journaling or meditation. If you find yourself shouldering old baggage, be sure to acknowledge it, then gently release it and focus on your affirmations. Replacing negative thoughts with positive actions will help you let go for good.

    There are infinite possibilities for each of us, baggage notwithstanding. Everyone has pain. It’s part of what makes us who we are. What defines us, however, is how we handle it. One of my favorite artists, Bruce Springsteen, has some wise words on the subject:

    “You can find your identity in the damage that’s been done to you. You find your identity in your wounds, in your scars, in the places where you’ve been beat up and you turn them into a medal. We all wear the things we’ve survived with some honor, but the real honor is in also transcending them.”

    By taking the time to identify and understand our baggage and making a conscious decision to let go, we free ourselves to experience life in a richer, deeper, more meaningful way.

    Photo by Donnie Nunley