Tiny Buddha

Tag: comfort zone

  • How Avoiding Painful Emotions Can Lead to a Smaller Life

    How Avoiding Painful Emotions Can Lead to a Smaller Life

    “Being cut off from our own natural self-compassion is one of the greatest impairments we can suffer.” ~Gabor Mate

    Most of us avoid experiences not necessarily because we don’t like them or want them, but because we don’t want to feel how we will feel when we go through that experience.

    Our lives become altered by the emotions we don’t want to feel because we don’t want to move toward the thing that could bring strong emotions like fear, shame, sadness, or disappointment.

    We don’t want to go to that party because we’ll probably feel awkward and embarrassed.

    We don’t want to chase that work opportunity in case we feel disappointed if it doesn’t work out.

    We don’t want to take that trip because it might feel scary.

    We don’t want to slow down our busy lives because it feels too terrifying to contemplate emptiness and quiet.

    And then we get this idea about ourselves that this is just who we are. We are just:

    • People who don’t like parties
    • People who don’t travel
    • People who are fearful
    • People who are procrastinators
    • People who are just busy but intensely stressed

    We have this idea that this is just who we are, and therefore, this is how we should live. Perhaps we feel an anger or an anguish at being “this type of person.” Or maybe it just feels so unconscious, so embedded in our personality, that we don’t do certain things, that we accept it as just the way we are. 

    For most of my life I thought I was a nervous, cautious, fearful person. That was just how I was born. I thought I couldn’t change it, just like I couldn’t change my hair color or my deep love for mashed potatoes. It felt biological. Some people were brave and courageous; I was fearful and afraid of almost everything.

    I carried this with me, this idea about who I was, until I learned that emotions like fear and terror, anger and rage, and despair or sadness are just emotions that we need to learn how to be with. And if we don’t learn how to be with them, they can create an outsized influence on our lives—creating this idea about who we are and what kind of personality we have and causing us to avoid things that trigger these feelings.

    But what we are actually avoiding is not the experience, people, or things but the feelings we feel when we think about that thing or try to do it. The feelings around meeting new people, starting a new work project, being in the thick of the uncertainty of traveling, etc.

    It’s the feelings that are so difficult for us, not the experiences. So we start to make choices on what we are prepared to do and what we are not. We mold our lives around the things that generate emotions we don’t know how to be with. And we don’t head toward things we don’t like because of how we will feel and what we think will happen when we walk toward that feeling.

    Because our body isn’t used to really being with the emotion we are avoiding, or it has proved problematic in the past.

    This is because a lot of our emotions activate our survival network. And when our survival network has been activated, things feel urgent, maybe even dangerous, unsafe.

    Maybe we have sweaty palms, a feeling of doom in our bodies, a racing heart, a desire to escape quickly, panic, or even an abundance of uncontrollable rage.

    So our brain starts to associate this emotion with survival being activated. It’s like it labels “new work opportunity” or “traveling” as an undesirable or unsafe experience because of the emotions that generate around that experience.

    We just don’t know what to do with these emotions.

    Our brains say, “Don’t go near that! It’s dangerous!”

    So we become like a player in a video game, running around avoiding falling boulders, jumping over pits of snakes, maneuvering out of the way of giant fireballs.

    But what our brain perceives as threats are not actually threats but emotions it doesn’t know what to do with.

    The pits of snakes aren’t snakes but fear around traveling. Or the boulders are the fear of disappointment or despair. Avoiding the fireballs is trying to avoid shame.

    The harsh thing, though, is that even though we are trying to sensibly avoid these emotions, these survival reactions, we don’t get to avoid them completely.

    The shame, the fear, the rage, the terror—they are there in our body and popping up in other places. We can’t avoid them completely, and by trying to avoid them, we simply make our lives smaller and smaller and smaller.

    Are we doomed to spend our lives in avoidance mode?

    Do we just have to accept that some things are just  “too hard,” “too stressful,” “not for people like us”?

    No. Way.

    That is the really exciting thing about our brains. We have learned to be this way because of how we learned to deal with emotions. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn a new way. That we can’t ‘rewire’ the responses we have learned.

    By working with my own fear, by learning how to be with it, I stopped feeling so scared about everything in my life. I totally changed how I saw myself.  I no longer believe myself to be a fearful, overly cautious person.

    I gave myself time to learn to be with the energy of the fear in a way that was so gentle and slow that it helped me to feel safe around the emotion in a way I never had before.

    I realized that the problem is not that we are avoiding our emotions on purpose; it’s that we don’t understand them.

    This is what is so hard about how so many of us learn to live our lives.

    We aren’t given the tools to work with our emotions (most of us aren’t anyway), and then we are cast out into the world to just ‘make a life.’

    Have good relationships!

    Be successful! Get a good job!

    Cope with work colleagues / clients / stressed-out bosses.

    Deal with grief, aging, health problems, loved ones dying!

    Be a good parent, even if your parents were a little shoddy, absent, authoritarian, unloving.

    How are we supposed to navigate the world when it generates so much emotion for us and we never learned how to deal with emotion? When we feel constantly pushed hither and thither either by our emotional reactions or other people’s?

    Awakening the act of self-compassion and empathy for the emotions we struggle with is one of the most powerful steps we can take when we start this journey.

    Deciding: Wow, I wasn’t given the tools to navigate the whole myriad of emotions that I encounter every day! And that is tough!

    Giving ourselves a little grace, a little tenderness, a little understanding around this is such a powerful step away from how we normally respond to emotional activation.

    Can we offer ourselves some kindness and understanding instead of blame and judgment? It makes sense I feel like this—I haven’t learned how to deal with emotions like shame, fear, grief, etc.

    Offering compassion in the face of strong emotional reactions is a powerful step because normally we are in the habit of trying to dismiss/justify/vent our feelings: I shouldn’t feel like this! It’s all their fault! I am such a terrible person! Everything is so terrifying! They made me angry!

    Instead, can we decide to start walking toward being on our own side? Can we accept the challenges we have faced with emotions? And instead of blaming and shaming ourselves, can we decide instead to move toward kindness, understanding, empathy, and compassion?

    When we allow our emotions to exist and meet them with empathy, creating a sense of internal safety around them, it’s much easier to support ourselves through experiences that might activate them.

  • How to Reinvigorate Your Relationship with New Experiences

    How to Reinvigorate Your Relationship with New Experiences

    “After a while, every couple will get bored. That’s why trying new things together is key.” ~Unknown

    When life gets busy with work, kids, and the steady hum of daily responsibilities, it’s easy for relationships to fall into a familiar rhythm. Routines are comforting, but they can also lead to a kind of autopilot in love—a state where everything feels predictable and, eventually, a bit uninspired.

    My partner and I have a strong bond, but we’d both noticed that something felt… different. It wasn’t bad, but we missed that spark of excitement that had defined our early days together. So we decided to shake things up with some new, shared experiences.

    We didn’t make grand plans or book an extravagant vacation. Instead, we chose to weave newness into our relationship in small ways.

    We started trying little things that felt unfamiliar, even a bit challenging, to see if we could rekindle the thrill of discovery we’d had in the beginning. And what I discovered was that novelty—no matter how small—has a way of bringing you closer, helping you see each other in a new light and reminding you of why you fell in love in the first place.

    Here’s what I learned as we explored together and how these simple shifts helped us reconnect.

    1. Reigniting Passion Through Novelty

    One of the first things we did was something simple but unexpectedly refreshing: We talked about what made us attracted to each other. I don’t mean the usual compliments but a real conversation about the things we loved, admired, and found endearing about one another.

    It felt strange at first—like a conversation we might have had in the early days of dating rather than years into marriage. But as we each shared what made us feel drawn to one another, it brought a sense of excitement back into our connection.

    Hearing my partner describe the little quirks and qualities they loved about me was like seeing myself through fresh eyes. It reminded me that attraction isn’t just about the initial spark but about the ways we keep noticing each other.

    Psychologists say that novelty can trigger the release of dopamine, the same brain chemical that floods our brains during those early, intense stages of love. For me, this little exercise felt like a reminder of why we fell for each other in the first place.

    Since that conversation, we’ve made it a habit to try new things together—whether it’s a different recipe, a walk in a new part of town, or even a conversation about something we’ve never discussed before. These little moments of novelty keep things exciting, reminding me that sometimes, all it takes is a fresh perspective to bring back the thrill.

    2. Seeing Each Other in a New Light

    One evening, we decided to make a simple dessert together, but we turned it into something a bit more intentional. We dimmed the lights, put on some music, and treated the experience like a date night. At first, it seemed like an ordinary thing to do, but the way we slowed down, paid attention, and enjoyed the process made it feel special. Without our usual distractions, I found myself noticing things about my partner I hadn’t appreciated in a while—their laugh, their patience, the way they enjoyed small details.

    It’s funny how easily routine can make us forget the qualities that first made us fall in love. That evening, I felt like I was seeing my partner with fresh eyes. It reminded me that relationships are not only about supporting each other through life’s responsibilities but about genuinely enjoying each other’s company. After that night, I found myself feeling more connected, holding onto those little things I had seen in them that night, like a renewed spark in our relationship.

    3. Building Connection Through Silent Presence

    One of the most surprising experiences was the time we spent just sitting in silence, holding hands, and focusing on our breathing. We’d decided to try it as a way to calm down after a busy week, but it turned out to be a much deeper experience than I expected. In that quiet moment, without any words or expectations, I felt a connection with my partner that I hadn’t felt in a long time.

    At first, it felt strange—like I was supposed to be doing something, saying something. But as I settled into the silence, I realized that sometimes, just being present together is enough.

    This kind of non-verbal connection has become a powerful part of our relationship. It showed me that we don’t always need to communicate through words or actions; sometimes, just being fully present can say more than anything. This experience taught us to find peace together, even when the world outside feels busy and overwhelming.

    4. Rediscovering Vulnerability Through Playfulness

    One of the most fun moments came when we decided to share some of our most embarrassing stories with each other—things we hadn’t talked about in years. We laughed so hard that night, feeling a kind of lightheartedness that was rare amidst our usual routine. It was like peeling back layers and remembering the silly, imperfect parts of ourselves we don’t usually show.

    Sharing these vulnerable, sometimes awkward moments brought us closer. Studies show that vulnerability can strengthen trust in relationships, and that night, I realized that it’s not only deep conversations that build intimacy but shared laughter, too.

    That lightheartedness brought a fresh sense of joy into our relationship, reminding me of how much fun we have together when we let go of the serious sides of ourselves.

    5. Finding Calm Together in Nature

    One of the most grounding experiences we’ve tried together has been spending time outdoors without any real agenda. We decided to take a walk in nature one day, moving slowly, letting ourselves relax, and just talking (or not talking) as we went along. It was peaceful, freeing, and a perfect escape from our busy lives.

    Being outside, away from everything, reminded me of the simple joy of just being in each other’s presence. Studies show that spending time in nature lowers stress and increases well-being, and sharing that time with someone you love amplifies the effect. After that walk, I felt calmer and more connected. I realized how powerful it is to break away from our usual environment and share a quiet experience in a place where the world feels a little slower.

    Final Thoughts: Rediscovering Each Other Through New Experiences

    These experiences taught me that novelty doesn’t have to mean grand gestures or expensive trips. Often, it’s the small, intentional changes that bring the biggest rewards. By stepping out of our comfort zone in little ways, we found ourselves rediscovering each other and reconnecting in ways I didn’t think possible.

    Trying new things together isn’t just about keeping boredom at bay; it’s about creating shared memories, strengthening your bond, and reminding each other of the excitement that brought you together.

    So, if you’re feeling a little too comfortable in your relationship, take a small step outside the usual. Try something different, have a conversation you’ve never had, and see what it does. Sometimes, all it takes to reconnect is a willingness to explore each other from a fresh perspective.

  • The Dangers of Safety and How to Live Fully

    The Dangers of Safety and How to Live Fully

    “A ship in a harbor is safe, but that’s not what a ship is built for.” ~John Augustus Shedd

    Growing up in the Midwest in a traditional family steeped in Catholic values, safety was paramount. We adhered to conventional roles: father, mother, brother, and sister, with me as the baby sister.

    My parents were loving, but my mom parented through a lens of fear, constantly worrying about potential dangers. This fierce protection was a testament to her love, yet it ingrained in me the belief that taking the safe route was the only way to navigate life.

    One day, when I didn’t get off the bus because I went to a track meet after school, I was met with a sobbing woman when I got home an hour late. Now, as a mother, I can fully understand this. It was long before cell phones, but she taught me early on that safety was my priority, and I never wanted her to be scared for me again.

    In the Midwest, the traditional path is clear: go to school, come home, play outside with friends, graduate from high school, stay close for college, meet a partner, get married, and have kids. This is the safe plan. The thought of deviating from this path—being thirty, unmarried, or childless—was paralyzing.

    What if I didn’t follow the script? What if I dared to be brave and bold and leave the familiar zip code? What if I yearned for non-traditional roles and longed to explore the world? Who could I have become if I had let my heart lead instead of my fears?

    Safety is a universal desire. We plan for financial security, choose safe neighborhoods, and follow predictable paths. As a coach, I see this pattern repeatedly. Clients stay in marriages longer than they should out of fear of the unknown. They stick with toxic friends or jobs, fearing how their lives might change if they let go.

    This fear surfaces when people want to leave their industry or start their own business, worrying they are too old or lack the skills to succeed independently. Consequently, they live quiet, safe lives, confined by a small glass box that keeps them stuck.

    What if we were taught and supported early on to stretch beyond our comfort zones? To make brave decisions? To put ourselves out there, even at the risk of failing? We could maintain the safety net of “you’re always welcome at home, and home is safe” while also encouraging bold steps—go play, go away to school, travel the world. I often wonder who I would be if I had learned this lesson earlier.

    I followed the traditional plan to a T. I did what was expected and what was safe. I attended a nearby college, graduated, got a job, met a man, got married, and had two children—a boy and a girl. I thrived in business, got promoted, bought a house, and built another. I followed the rules and fit right in. I made friends and, by all accounts, was successful, checking all the boxes.

    But I was in an unhappy marriage, and things on the inside did not reflect the outside. Divorce wasn’t part of the plan. There wasn’t a checkbox for it, so I stayed. It wasn’t until my husband said, “You won’t divorce me, hotshot,” that I decided to let go of the checkbox and let myself take the reins of my life.

    I vividly remember sitting there with a racing heart, feeling like it would beat out of my chest. Did he call me “hotshot?” about our lives?

    The thing is, he was trying to call my bluff. I told him I was unhappy that the years of pain had finally caught up with us, but he knew, or at least he thought, that I would never leave. Because I followed the rules, he felt that we could continue the same abusive path that we had been on for a decade because I would not veer from the good girl path.

    This time, I boldly made the change. I called the lawyer and started the process of filing for divorce. This started my seven-year journey of trying to come back to who I am at my core. What do I want in my life, and am I living for my heart or out of fear?

    Only when I allowed myself to step outside the lines did I truly start living. I feared what others would think, but how could I continue living based on others’ expectations and not on what I wanted for myself? I took the brave step to file for divorce.

    This fear of judgment resurfaced when I wanted to leave my high-income corporate sales job to start my own business.

    I had just started with a company a few months earlier, went through training, and knew this wasn’t going to be a long-term fit. I hated corporate culture and the made-up rules that went along with it. We were governed by rules created out of fear. I knew I wasn’t going to survive in this role. But quitting after I just started was scary, and I agonized over what others would think.

    I knew I wanted to do something so much more, with deeper meaning, with the possibility of helping others. But this, again, was not something that was on the checklist. Start a business? Become a coach? What the heck is a coach anyway? Will people make fun of me behind my back? That thought made me want to play small.

    I explored every possible way to succeed without sharing my plans with those who knew me. Again, there wasn’t a checkbox for this. But I did it anyway.

    Looking back, I realize that staying small in my life has hurt me. I got married before I was ready, remained in a marriage longer than I should have, and worked corporate jobs with chauvinistic men who I wouldn’t say I liked because that is what I was supposed to do.

    My house was pretty, my Facebook pictures looked happy, and my salary grew. By all external accounts, I was a success. But these come at their own costs. Playing safe has confined me, limited my potential, and stifled my dreams.

    I have learned that safety, while comforting, can be dangerous. It can keep us from truly living, experiencing the fullness of life, and discovering who we are meant to be.

    So, I urge you to leap. Be brave. Step out of your comfort zone. Embrace the unknown.

    We are all given one chance here on this earth, and we spend it playing safe. What a shame not to allow your beautiful visions to become a reality. Safety may protect us, but it can also hold us back.

    Let go of the fear and let your heart lead the way. You might stumble, you might fall, but you will also soar. And in the end, you will find that the dangers of safety are far greater than the risks of living boldly.

  • How I Started Enjoying Solo Adventures and How You Can Make a Big Life Change

    How I Started Enjoying Solo Adventures and How You Can Make a Big Life Change

    “We need solitude, because when we’re alone, we’re free from obligations, we don’t need to put on a show, and we can hear our own thoughts.” ~Tamim Ansary

    I walk along a country path feeling peaceful and free. I wander at my own pace, sometimes briskly and other times pausing to take in the view. There are no conversations to take me out of the moment or distract me from free-flowing thoughts. I set my own course and distance, being accountable to no one except myself.

    Spending some leisure time alone brings me a sense of freedom, confidence, and time to reflect. Yet it wasn’t always like this for me. The prospect of enjoying activities alone seemed terrifying, selfish, and somewhat wrong. I’d think I ‘should’ be afraid or I ‘should’ involve others in my plans.

    It seems surreal looking back, but there was a time when I couldn’t even sit in a cafe by myself. I’d worry people would judge me as a loner or think I was weird. I look at those times now as someone who’s done a lot of things without others. I’ve hiked mountains, explored new footpaths, eaten in restaurants, and traveled to other countries alone.

    I’m no longer bound by other people’s schedules or preferences and can pursue the things I enjoy. I still value those close to me and relish time with them. However, I get different needs met from the adventures I have alone versus those I partake in with others. Neither is better than the other; they just fulfill different aspects of my life.

    I need a lot of “me time.” I’m what some people would describe as an introvert. I love people, but I also need time alone to recharge. I know not everyone would enjoy solo trips or activities. However, I’m also aware there are those out there, like the past me, who want to do things alone but are held back from doing so.

    Do you crave alone time? Feel restricted by others’ preferences and timetables? Feel anxious about pursuing activities by yourself? If so, I wrote this piece with you in mind, as I was once sitting where you are today.

    Change Can Be Hard Work

    I want to be upfront and admit that making such a big change in my life wasn’t easy. I was frequently outside of my comfort zone. It took determination and persistence to face my doubts and fears.

    However, whenever I pushed myself to do something new by myself, I never regretted it. I would experience a sense of achievement and a belief that I could do this. The worst-case scenarios in my head never materialized, and I began to feel more confident. Now, I don’t think twice about relaxing by myself in a cafe or going off on a solo adventure.

    What Spurred Me to Change

    The real turning point for me was being diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of twenty-nine. I wasn’t even aware that people of that age could get it, so I was lucky it was caught early.

    Receiving such a diagnosis, as you can imagine, shook my world, and I was thrown into a period of medical tests and treatments. It was a traumatic experience, but it also taught me what’s important to me and what I want from life.

    The first change I made was to leave my job in IT. I wanted a career that would feel more purposeful and fulfilling. After taking some time out, I decided to retrain to be a counselor. This was a significant career change that seemed daunting. Yet cancer taught me that I had to follow my heart and not let fear stop me.

    During my therapy training, I began to practice mindfulness and got counseling for myself. Cancer gave me a drive to change my life and a tentative courage to do so. Mindfulness taught me to tolerate difficult emotions so they wouldn’t hold me back. Counseling increased my self-awareness and belief in myself.

    I became interested in articles, social media posts, and books about people overcoming adversity or going on incredible adventures. They inspired me to work toward being more independent when it came to engaging in my interests or going places.

    A Step at a Time

    When I was in local cafes with friends, I started to notice people who were sat on their own. They looked relaxed and content, and I admired them for this.

    At secondary school, there’d been the unspoken message that sitting alone made you a misfit. It’s an age where there are pressures to conform and not stand out from the crowd. To appear different would have felt shameful and left me open to rejection and ridicule.

    It started to sink in that being in a cafe is completely different than being a teenager in a school canteen. People in a cafe on their own weren’t going to judge me. People in groups were probably too engrossed in conversation to even be aware I was there.

    So I decided to visit a coffee shop alone. It was a cafe I was familiar with and one where I’d previously noticed others sitting by themselves. I gave myself a good pep talk and managed to make it into the cafe. I felt so self-conscious that I drank my coffee at record speed. To the point, my mouth felt slightly burned.

    That visit was a big step and a turning point for me. I’d done it, and other than a sore mouth, nothing bad had happened. No one had laughed at me or stared at me. No one seemed to have noticed or cared that I was there.

    This gave me the confidence to try again. It was easier this time. Visiting this cafe became a regular occurrence for me. I no longer felt self-conscious, and I began to enjoy having a leisurely drink there.

    At this point, I decided to step it up a notch and branched out to new cafes by myself. Then progressed to restaurants.

    The Big One

    The most challenging solo adventure was going on holiday to Malta. I’d only ever been on a plane twice in my life. Not only was I having to face the discomfort of flying alone, but also navigating a different country, using public transport, and eating out by myself.

    I booked the holiday not even knowing if I would be able to get on the flight. My partner dropped me off at the airport and came as far as security with me. At this point, I was so scared I had a panic attack. I recognized what was happening to me, rode it out, and made it through security. I was determined to get on the plane.

    When the call for boarding was made, I had another panic attack, but I knew I was so close to making it now. The next thing I knew I was on the plane, so there was no going back. I was desperately hoping I’d done the right thing.

    I cannot describe the elation I felt once I was on the bus to the hotel. I’d done it, and even if I stayed in the resort all week, it still felt like a huge success.

    I woke up early the next morning feeling refreshed and more confident. I’d made the flight and I’d managed to get to the hotel, so I could surely manage to go exploring. In my newfound confidence and excitement, I managed to take buses and a return ferry to visit the island of Gozo.

    I loved my time in Malta. I walked for miles along the scenic coastal paths and visited various historical sites. I went where I wanted, when I wanted. It was an incredible experience.

    This trip made me realize I’d overcome my fear of going places alone. I returned home feeling replenished and invigorated. I had more energy and focus to give to others. Spending time alone no longer seemed selfish but like an act of kindness to myself and others.

    I’d also lost the thought that doing things alone was weird or odd. I was just a person pursuing the things they enjoy.

    Tips for Making Changes

    Whether you want to travel alone, like I did, or do something different that’s personally meaningful to you…

    • Be clear about what you want to achieve. Journal, speak to others, meditate, or read inspirational stories.
    • Break down what you want to achieve into small, manageable steps. Don’t try to rush things. It takes time to build confidence. Take it one step at a time. Trying to do too much too soon may feel overwhelming and off-putting.
    • Enlist the support and encouragement of friends, family, or a therapist.
    • If you have a setback, be kind to yourself. Change is rarely a linear process. You might want to take a break to reflect on what happened to see if there is anything you can put in place that would help. It’s okay to change your plan. It may mean going back to an earlier step or making the current step smaller.
    • Recognize your successes and don’t downplay what you achieve. If you’ve done something different that is outside of your comfort zone, that is a huge achievement and something worth celebrating.

    Final Thoughts

    Realizing what’s important to me was a defining moment in my life. I’d become stuck living in a way that had felt overwhelming and dissatisfying. Plodding on with things, as there seemed safety in the familiar. But the cost of playing it safe meant I was missing out on having a sense of purpose, adventure and space to breathe.

    It took a major life event to spur me into making the changes I needed. I no longer wanted to waste opportunities and miss out on the prospect of a more satisfying life because I felt afraid.

    I had to dig deep to face my fears to get to where I am now. It was a slow process of one step at a time. Despite working toward spending time by myself, I didn’t feel alone. I had the backing and support of those close to me. They were a sounding board. They believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself and celebrated with me in my successes.

    I’m grateful for the circumstances that prompted me to review my life. I’ve experienced a lot of things that wouldn’t have been possible if I’d had to rely on others. I look forward with excitement as I plan my next adventures.

  • 4 Things to Try When You Want Change but Don’t Know What to Do

    4 Things to Try When You Want Change but Don’t Know What to Do

    “If you get stuck, draw with a different pen. Change your tools; it may free your thinking.” ~Paul Arden

    For a year and a half, I could feel a career shift coming. I had worked hard to cultivate a career I loved, but I began feeling disconnected from my work. The meaning I had originally felt from it was no longer there. Each time I started a new project, I felt tired and unmotivated.

    At first, I thought it might be burnout. So I took a few weeks off to see if I could reset myself into feeling excited about my work again. But when I returned, I felt the same. The things that I had built my career around, that previously gave me energy and meaning, no longer resonated.

    I thought about the type of work I did daily and couldn’t imagine myself still doing it ten years from now. But what could I imagine myself doing? I had no idea.

    I struggled and strived to figure out what a career shift might look like. I read several books, including Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life by James Hollis (Ph. D.), but while I resonated with the ideas in several of them, I still felt no closer to an answer.

    I became very intentional about noticing when things gave me energy. At one point, I went to a dinner party where someone brought tarot cards and gave me a reading. It was so energizing! I went home and immediately ordered the same set of tarot cards. I began learning about them and started doing readings with friends and at parties.

    “What does this mean? Should I become a tarot card reader?” I thought. But that didn’t resonate for a variety of reasons.

    By this point, I was telling everyone who would listen that I was “directionless.” It was a new label I used often. When someone asked what I did for work, I would say, “Meh, I’m directionless.”

    Well-meaning friends and acquaintances started offering their opinions of what I should be doing next. I even googled, “How to make a career change.” I felt like I was walking around in a black fog where I could barely make out what was ahead of me. Sometimes I could see a slight shape—a glimmer of something that gave me energy. But what did it mean? And how could I use that information for what was next?

    I went through a cross-country move to a location where I had no friends. Because of this, I had more time to myself than usual. I spent each day going inward and connecting to my body through meditation, simple somatic practices, like stimulating my vagus nerve, and parts work.

    Finally, I realized that the answer was never in my head. It was in my body—wisdom that had been blocked by all the thoughts and old beliefs that had formed, and parts of me that wanted to protect me and keep me safe.

    I found that a part of me didn’t want a career change because it was too scary and unstable. Instead, it wanted to stay with what was known, dependable, and safe. I befriended this part and worked through the fears. As I spent more and more time going inward, the answer appeared clearer and clearer. It had been there all along, and finally, I was able to access it.

    If you’re feeling stuck, here are a few things to try.

    1. Identify parts that may be trying to tell you something.

    If you are feeling stuck, there may be a “part” of you that is keeping you there to protect you. These parts are often created during childhood when we might not have had as many resources as we do now.

    For example, maybe you learned during childhood that being seen by others can be unpredictable and dangerous. So a “part” of you could have been created that helped you make decisions based on that information. Now, as an adult, you likely have more resources, but that information never got to the “part” that was created.

    So, let’s say that you want to write a book and you just can’t seem to move forward. No matter what you do, you’re staying stuck. Why? One reason might be because this “part” knows that if you write a book, you will be seen by others, and based on experience, that can be unpredictable and dangerous. So it prevents you from stepping out and taking risks where you might be seen. You may not even be aware of this part consciously. Yet it could be there, working day and night to protect you.

    2. Meditate.

    Being stuck can sometimes prompt negative thoughts, such as “What if I’m stuck forever?” or “I’m not good enough.” These thoughts can then lead to negative emotions, which can then make us feel even more stuck and overwhelmed. It’s a vicious cycle. Meditation can help you break out of this cycle and receive clarity, which can help you find direction and move forward.

    Set a time each day to meditate. It doesn’t need to be that long—even just ten minutes is enough. If you have trouble sitting silently, you could search for a guided meditation on YouTube.

    Make it part of your routine and do it at the same time each day to keep momentum going. Doing it at the same time each day will help it become part of a habit and make it easier to remember.

    If you start thinking while you’re sitting silently, that’s okay! Just come back to your breath. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to cultivate some stillness and silence. This practice helps you drop out of your mind and into your body, where so much wisdom lives.

    3. Stimulate your vagus nerve.

    Your vagus nerve regulates your entire nervous system. When your vagus nerve is activated, it helps calm your nervous system, which helps shift you into a more creative, open state of being. It is from this state that you can more easily access wisdom within yourself.

    There are a variety of ways to stimulate your vagus nerve. Because the vagus nerve is connected to your vocal cords, humming or singing is one way to achieve this:

    1. Focus on your breath and notice anything you feel in your body. Maybe you feel pressure on your chest, a pain in your neck, a burning in your throat, etc.
    2. Breathe in deeply.
    3. As you exhale, say “Voo” out loud for the entire length of the exhale.
    4. Sit and notice how your body is feeling now. Is there any difference?
    5. Continue steps two through four until you feel a shift.

    4. Change your environment.

    Have you ever taken a trip to a new place or gone on a great hike and felt a sense of renewed inspiration, clarity, or presence? The reason for this is because we grow when we’re out of our comfort zone.

    Being in a new environment, meeting new people, and having new experiences takes us out of our comfort zone, opens our minds, and provides us with the opportunity to grow and learn more about ourselves. It shakes things up from our normal day-to-day experiences.

    Get out into nature or go on an overnight getaway. It doesn’t need to be something fancy—anything that will get you out of your current space can help shift the stuckness.

    Is there an area of your life where you feel stuck or don’t know what to do? Which of these actions most resonates with you? Or, do you have an action you typically take that works best?

  • 5 Ways to Explore the World and Feel Excited About Life

    5 Ways to Explore the World and Feel Excited About Life

    “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”  ~Mark Twain

    In 2022, I wanted to quit my job and didn’t know why. I was about to embark on a six-week trip to a country I’d always wanted to visit—New Zealand—to work in sports TV production. I loved the people I worked with, the company I worked for, and the buzz I got from live TV. Still, it wasn’t enough. I needed to explore these feelings further.

    That word “exploration” was the key. It took me back to 2004, when I was in a hostel in Laguna Beach, an eighteen-year-old girl travelling alone. When I was growing up, I didn’t want to follow the traditional route of going to university just to find a corporate job, climb the career ladder, and retire with a good pension. The perfect path for many was not an option that excited me.

    I was travelling around the U.S. West Coast, hoping to find adventure and opportunities, but I knew I’d need to start seriously thinking about my future and next steps when I returned to London.

    I sat on Huntington Beach and spent some time thinking about what I wanted my life to look like. I wanted to work for a reputable company that could offer me travel opportunities. I couldn’t identify what I wanted to do with any precision, but I knew that was a good starting place.

    A few days later, on July 7, I was awakened in the early morning by a fellow Brit who informed me that terrorists had just attacked London. For the rest of the day, I was glued to the BBC, watching the tragedy unfold. In between the journalism, adverts depicted BBC correspondents working all over the world, and that’s when I thought the BBC might be the company for me.

    Several months later, I returned to London and applied to be a production team assistant for a BBC sister company. To my astonishment, I got the job. I was so excited! A new job, new people, and new opportunities.

    During my first week, I overheard my boss speaking on the phone with a friend in the BBC Sport division. She was preparing to travel to Germany to spend six weeks working on the FIFA World Cup. My mind exploded. That was the job I yearned for. I wanted to work in sports and travel to the most spectacular events on earth.

    I asked my boss if she could find out whom I could contact to get a foot in the door in that department. It wasn’t straightforward, but after several attempts and emails to their senior production manager, I was asked to come in for a coffee and informal chat.

    Fast forward eighteen years. I’ve travelled the globe to work on the biggest sporting events, from World Cups in South Africa and Brazil to the London Olympics, Euros in Poland and Ukraine, umpteen Formula 1 and Formula E races on five continents, sailing regattas off the coasts of Australia and the US, cricket in the Caribbean and New Zealand. And that’s just a partial list.

    Travel has shaped my life in so many ways. It has impacted my outlook on life, perspectives, relationships, and goals. It has taken me out of my comfort zone time and time again and allowed me to be inspired by new things.

    I have loved my job and still do, mostly, to this day. So it was a surprise to me when I felt the urge to hand in my notice.

    Truth be told, throughout my career, I’ve always been restless. I have consistently sought out new opportunities within the framework of my role. I’ve moved between companies, permanent contracts, temporary contracts, and freelancing. I’ve trained to become a teacher, left TV to work on sports documentaries, returned to TV, become a tutor as a side job, and set up my own business.

    It wasn’t that I was unhappy in TV production. I just love exploring and presenting myself with new learning environments. That eighteen-year-old in me who never wanted to follow the common path society can push us down still lives within me. And I wouldn’t change her for the world. If I’d never explored different paths, I never would have had the courage to create a lifestyle around my passions, purpose, and skills.

    Exploration is one of the greatest purposes of humankind. Everything we know about the world comes from those who explored before us. Discoveries in medicine, science, technology, religion, geography, space, and philosophy have changed the world for the better. They have led to greater equality of race and gender, alleviation of poverty, advances in health and education, tolerance and peace, and preservation of the environment.

    The world is constantly changing and developing because of our need to explore and continue learning, growing, creating, building, making, connecting, debating, and trying new things.

    So, if you’re feeling stuck and want more fulfilment in your day-to-day, it might be helpful to remember there’s a whole world out there to discover. Our time on Earth is finite. Life should be lived, explored, and enjoyed. Through exploration, you might just stumble across that sweet spot that lights you up and creates a new path for your future.

    Here are three reasons why I believe exploring and discovering new opportunities could be the recipe for a more fulfilled life:

    1. Exploration is a natural requirement for humanity.

    It is as necessary as warmth, love, food, and shelter. Exploration has been the driving force behind humankind since the dawn of time because it is at the centre of everything we do. We explore everything we do from the moment we are born through play, travel, work, speaking, writing, experimenting, singing, and interacting with each other. Let alone the preciousness of exploring the world through the eyes of our children.

    From religion to literature, politics to science, and design to philosophy, we are constantly asking questions and searching for new ways to develop our minds and abilities. There is no end to exploration. It is the driving force behind our survival as a race.

    2. Exploration creates more self-awareness, which I believe is a critical aspect of meaningful living.

    It allows people to understand their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for growth. By becoming more self-aware, you can gain a deeper understanding of your passions, values, and goals, and can make more intentional choices about how you live your life.

    3. Exploration inspires us and gives us hope for a better future.

    There is a vast world outside waiting to be explored. It offers adventures to be experienced, endless possibilities, stories to be created, and dreams waiting to come true.

    Having a curious and hungry mind allows you to discover goals and options that will bring you more fulfilment and happiness. You can chase your dreams with the comfort of knowing that it’s possible to understand almost anything. By constantly learning, you see what’s possible for yourself and others and alter your perspective of the world.

    Exploration doesn’t have to involve big steps such as quitting your job, moving countries, or travelling the world seeking adventure. Instead, we can seek exploration in our every day, and the good news is there are plenty of opportunities to explore and seek purpose wherever you are in life.

    Here are five ways you can implement exploration into your everyday lifestyle immediately.

    1. Look at your passions and interests and find a way to get more involved in them.

    Whatever interests you—art, animals, baking, singing, decorating, driving, teaching, embroidery, music, or sports to name a few—find a way to go and explore how to implement this into your daily or weekly routine.

    This could be interning, volunteering your time, picking up a book, subscribing to a podcast, emailing someone who is successful in that field, or taking a class. Getting involved in this area will open up your creative channels. The key is to allow yourself permission and time to experiment.

    2. Be spontaneous and get out of the humdrum routine and predictability of your daily life.

    Play a different radio station on your way to work, choose a brand new restaurant or cuisine on the weekend, walk a different route around your park, order something completely different off the menu, or choose a different vegetable to cook with each week. There are always surprises and fascinations in store for us if we are open to exploring new ways; we never know what we will discover.

    3. Connect with new like-minded people.

    You never know what conversation might spark a new thought or perspective. You can find inspiration from one word, a smile, or an interaction that can change your outlook on a situation. For example, buying from a local business instead of a corporate chain allows you to get to know the owner and the story behind their product. Their story might just inspire your exploration journey.

    4. Even if you can’t pack a suitcase and fly to far-off destinations, that doesn’t mean you can’t transport your mind to them.

    Movies, documentaries, TV shows, and books can all transport you into new worlds and cultures. Next time you settle down with a good book or in front of the TV, why not choose a new genre and be open to learning new things?

    5. Your clothes are one way to show the world what you stand for and who you are.

    Fashion has a huge impact on your mindset, mood, and confidence. Experiment with different clothing, mix and match what you already have, and play around with what makes you feel most confident so you’ll want to get out in the world and explore.

    —

    We can open the door to exploration in everyday life. After all, the reason for your exploration is not to discover your life’s purpose. The purpose of your life is to live it!

    Exploration is a continuous journey toward self-improvement and personal growth that allows you to live a life that is fulfilling and meaningful to you. Don’t give up on exploring what you want and pursuing your dreams. Your life is what you make it, and it’s worth trying to make it what you want it to be. So go! Explore and discover. Embrace the journey and enjoy the ride!

  • Why I Didn’t Trust Myself to Make Decisions (and What If It’s All Okay?)

    Why I Didn’t Trust Myself to Make Decisions (and What If It’s All Okay?)

    “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” ~Mary Oliver

    Lately, I’ve been taking time to think about what I actually want. Not what I “should” want or what other people want for me.

    One thing I have learned is that mistakes happen when you choose not to follow your inner guidance system. The problem is that, for many years, I chose not to listen to mine.

    Whenever it screamed and pulled at me, desperate to get my attention (“Don’t purchase a car from that shady car dealership! Don’t go out with that person who makes you feel very uneasy! Don’t spend thousands of dollars on a degree that doesn’t make you happy!”), I would simply override it. I would tune out everything my gut was telling me, and instead, justify in my head why doing xyz would be a perfectly fine idea.

    After enough of these experiences piled up, rather than arriving at the realization that I willfully chose to ignore my intuition and that’s what got me into trouble… I arrived at a somewhat different conclusion. I decided that I simply wasn’t good at making decisions.

    So I stopped trusting myself. Before making an important decision about anything, I’d always have another person “validate” it. You know, just in case. My justification was, if I end up making a totally messed up decision, well, I don’t need to feel too badly about it since it was backed by another human being. Evading personal responsibility at its best.

    Now, short term, this sort of worked.

    The people offering guidance and helping me with my decisions were sound-of-mind individuals who cared about me. In fact, some of their guidance was largely beneficial to me, and I’m glad I listened.

    The thing is, while listening to others can be very helpful, it should not be used as a crutch. If someone gently encourages you to make a decision that you know, deep down, is good for you, that is perfectly fine. However, if you are relying solely on input from others because you’re afraid to make the “wrong decision,” that needs to be examined.

    Three problems started to slowly arise for me.

    One, I started to lose my own voice. I started to forget my own taste and what I liked, disliked, agreed with, or disagreed with. I convinced myself that I honestly didn’t know. But oh, I knew. I just was terrified of admitting it to others, much less myself.

    Two, there were occasionally moments where someone’s advice did not resonate with what I wanted. Wait, disagreeing with someone?! Feeling like I might have a separate, completely valid opinion that is different than another human’s?? TOO MUCH TO HANDLE.

    And three, chaos ensued when multiple people had multiple opinions about how I should live my life. And every single person expected me to honor their advice and guidance. And oh my god, what do I even do now?

    After years of dealing with the anxiety caused by trying to do everything everyone wanted, as well as the deep depression that arose as I realized I had become a former shell of who I was, unsure of who I was or what I wanted, I knew that something needed to change. I was lost and slipping away.

    I started making small decisions. It felt terrifying.

    I would like to buy this shirt. I would like to eat sushi for lunch. I would like to stay in this evening, rather than go out.

    Little wins for self-advocacy!

    Then I started making bigger decisions.

    I would like a new job. I would like to stop “hustling” during my non-work hours and just do things that make me happy. I’d like to take more abstract, nature photos than cookie-cutter family photos.

    With each little decision I made, I also made sure to pay close attention to how I was feeling.

    If I felt a tightness in my chest and a feeling of uneasiness, I would pay attention to that. I’d think to myself, “You know what, brain… I know you might object to this for various reasons, but the heart is telling me to steer clear of this decision.”

    I slowly started becoming much more aware of everything my body was feeling at any given moment.

    I also started to realize something else. Maybe there truly are no “shoulds.”

    No matter what decision you make, there will be someone who is all for it and someone who disagrees completely. There are thousands of choices that a person can make in a day. It’s impossible to guarantee that everyone will like or approve of all of these little choices. From the decision to order a cinnamon dulce latte at Starbucks (yes, I see all you Dunkin’ Donuts diehards out there cringing), to the decision to dye your hair purple.

    What about the even bigger decisions? Such as the choice to work a certain job, have a family or not have a family, follow a certain political party, etc.

    What if the whole point is to simply live in accordance with our values, and honor other peoples’ desire to do the same?

    What if it is literally all okay?

    To plant down roots. To fly with wings.

    To be financially abundant and have more than you could need. To have just enough to live happily and comfortably.

    To be tall, short, skinny, fat, lean, muscular, and everything in between.

    To live on your own or to live with others. To be in a relationship or to be single. To work sixty hours a week or five hours a week. To have a job you adore or a job that pays the bills.

    To be a work in progress. To be sure. To be unsure.

    To still be learning. To still be searching. To be saved. To not believe. To be straight, gay, bi, or none of the above. To love men. To love women. To love animals. To simply love.

    What if it is okay to have hard ambition and dreams that are larger than life?

    What if it is okay to have soft ambition and dreams that are just right, which make us happy and honor our capacity?

    What if it is okay to not have any “ambitions,” per se, and to simply focus on cultivating habits rather than reaching goals?

    To experience satisfaction on our own terms without needing to prove anything to anyone, ever.

    What if being enough isn’t about trying to be everything to everyone? Rather, it is about being who you want to be, unstoppably, and nothing more?

  • A Simple Plan to Overcome Self-Doubt and Do What You Want to Do

    A Simple Plan to Overcome Self-Doubt and Do What You Want to Do

    “Don’t let others tell you what you can’t do. Don’t let the limitations of others limit your vision. If you can remove your self-doubt and believe in yourself, you can achieve what you never thought possible.” ~Roy T. Bennett

    Ahh yes, self-doubt. Something that affects every single one of us at different times and at different magnitudes—even those that seem supremely confident.

    Why do so many of us experience self-doubt, and how can we overcome it?

    On a personal note, I can tell you my self-doubt comes any time I am trying something new. I’ve learned over the years where this stems from, and it may be similar for you. It comes from my parents.

    Although my parents were always encouraging, they’d also say things like, “Are you sure this is the right move?”, “Are you sure you want to do this?”, and “Be careful.” In fact, every time I left the house, that’s what my dad would say: “Be careful.” “Drive safe.” Not, “Have fun,” “Have a fantastic time,” or something along these lines.

    In my twenties I realized that it had been ingrained in me to always be cautious, which then led to me doubting myself in certain scenarios, though I’ve never been someone who shies away from challenges or holds myself back. Over the years, I learned to identify what contributes to my self-doubt and then push through it.

    Now, this isn’t the case for everyone. Other things that contribute to self-doubt are comparing ourselves to others; feeling a lack of means, intelligence, or other things we think we need to succeed; past experiences; possibly being criticized; and the natural fear that we feel when attempting something new.

    When we doubt our ability, we are allowing fear to settle in and hold us back from forging forward and taking a leap. Without trying, we are feeding the self-doubt, which means it will likely compound the feeling the next time we are faced with or offered a similar opportunity.

    So how can we detach from self-doubt and make sure we are not missing out on what could be an amazing opportunity or journey for ourselves?

    First, we need CLARITY.

    We need to first get clear on where this self-doubt is coming from.

    What is striking this feeling within you that makes you think you shouldn’t try it or you can’t make something happen? Is it the fear of the unknown, or is it the feeling of not having the ability, or something else you think you need to succeed? Are you comparing yourself to someone else in the process? Or do you think you couldn’t handle it if you failed?

    Second, we need to recognize the FACTS.

    What do you know to be true? For example, what do you know about yourself that can help prove that you can attempt or accomplish this? Have you had any similar experiences that prove you can do this?

    If you’re comparing yourself to someone else, what are the facts in this? Meaning, are you comparing yourself to someone who has already succeeded? Or are you comparing yourself to someone who is at the same stage you are? Nobody gets from A to B without experience, practice, and even failure. So, try not to compare yourself to others, as you may not know the complete story to their success.

    There was a time when I was contemplating which direction to take my business degree. I’d majored in marketing because it’s a creative field that allows for variety, which aligns with my values. But as I was working in my first couple of “corporate” jobs, I was enticed by sales.

    My father wanted to steer me away from sales. He said that it’s a hard career, it’s mostly male-driven, and it’s extremely stressful and unpredictable. But what I saw was the fun interaction sales teams had with their clients and prospects. How they were able to basically chat on the phone 80% of the time and attend fun events.

    It was a fact that sales is stressful, unpredictable, and male-dominated, but I knew myself. I knew I was different than my father. I knew I was up for a challenge and taking risks, whereas he was risk adverse. I knew if it didn’t work out, I always had marketing to step into or maybe other options, whereas my father was opposed to change.

    I had to recognize that he was from a different generation. That although what he expressed was true, there were other factors to consider. If I compared myself to the majority of people occupying these roles I likely wouldn’t have attempted it and enjoyed a fifteen-year-plus career in sales and business development.

    Finally, GO FOR IT!

    The best way to conquer self-doubt is to put yourself out there, take action, and see what happens. No success comes without failure. If it works out, you’ll be glad you did it, and if it fails you’ll learn and can progress.

    Without acting on it you will never know. At least if you push through the doubt and try you will understand yourself and your ability a lot more.

    There was a time when I was considering making a big move that I had dreamt of for so long. I loved my friends and family, but I didn’t love where I was living or the lifestyle I was caught up in. When the timing was right I decided to take the leap and move to the other side of the county alone, without a job.

    I heard things like: “Do you really want to go?” “It’s so expensive out there. How will you afford it?” And “It rains so much there, and people get depressed.”.

    If I had listened to others’ fear and angst about the move I would’ve likely lived in a miserable cycle. Instead, seventeen years later, I still feel this was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself, for my life, for my soul.

    The move brought me an even greater awareness of how resilient we are when faced with change.

    And if it hadn’t worked out, I would have had an adventure, and who knows where it may have taken me? Maybe it would have led me to something else I didn’t even know I wanted until I opened myself up to new possibilities. New possibilities I would never have known about had I limited myself based on other people’s fears.

    —

    Don’t let others’ doubt or success deter you from going after what you want or trying something new. Recognize that you can either let your doubt leave you with regret or feel the satisfaction of taking action. Who knows, your action might actually inspire others to ditch their doubt and take a leap into a life they’ll love.

  • How to Release the Fear That Holds You Back and Keeps You Small

    How to Release the Fear That Holds You Back and Keeps You Small

    “The purpose of fear is to raise your awareness, not to stop your progress.” ~Steve Maraboli

    I used to hate my fear because it scared me. It terrified me that when fear arose, it often felt like it was driving me at full speed toward the edge of a cliff.

    And if I were driven off a cliff, I would lose all control, all function, perhaps I would collapse, perhaps I would shatter into a million pieces. I was never totally clear on the details of what would happen if I let the fear get out of control. That’s because I spent most of my life trying to control it.

    It’s why, when things don’t go according to plan, when I am running late or things change at the last minute, I can get snappy and sound angry. I feel rage when people come along and do things that seem to amplify my fear—like my husband using the bathroom three minutes before the train is leaving, or not locking the front door at night with all its three locks.

    Oh, I had so much judgment around this fear. I hated it, but I hated even more that I seemed to be an overly fearful person. I felt disgusted and full of shame for not wanting to do things that other people seemed to find easy, like flying, or for freaking out when I was sick, thinking I was dying.

    I carried the shame of fear around with me, hoping I didn’t have to reveal it, and if I did, if I had to show people how terrified life made me, I would be horribly self-deprecating.

    Because I had this sense that I shouldn’t be like this. It wasn’t normal. So I blamed it on myself as a character default.

    That’s why I wouldn’t want to walk toward scary things. That’s why I avoided things that brought up the fear because if I didn’t, it would have driven me off the cliff so freaking quickly, and I’d think, how stupid could I have been to allow it?

    I see now that my fear lived at such a low-level frequency in my body that I didn’t notice it was there. It was on a low buzz all the time, like a refrigerator noise—not really in my awareness but controlling how I made decisions.

    I know this because, when I was really paying attention, I realized I was always trying to pick the least scary option. But when I kept choosing the least scary option, the least challenging to me, my life got smaller and smaller.

    I was not even really aware that I was doing this. It just felt like I was being sensible.

    But sometimes I would get this glimmer of another world where I did the most interesting and exciting things, like exploring alone somewhere new or taking a belly dancing class. Where I lived unleashed and unbounded by fear. I said what I meant, I did what I wanted, and I didn’t worry all the time about terrible things happening to my loved ones.

    Living a life immersed in fear felt like being bound with invisible rope that no one could see. And because people couldn’t see this rope, they would ask me to do things that I couldn’t possibly say yes to.

    Things started to change when I didn’t just ask how I could get the fear to stop, but I started to learn why there was so much fear in my body, where it came from, and how it was affecting how I experience life. So much of my fear came from a lack of emotional safety, and sometimes physical safety, as a child and young woman.

    When I learned to start being curious about the fear that confined me and not judge it as a character defect, I started unraveling it. This, along with some powerful emotional processing and nervous system regulation, transformed how I now experienced fear in my life.

    Here’s the thing: We don’t intentionally create bodies that can’t handle emotions like fear. We don’t intentionally create nervous systems that are jumpy and hyper-vigilant. We don’t create sensations of immense doom for pleasure.

    How we were taught to be with emotions, how we were taught to allow or not allow them, how we were cared for when we were in the midst of emotions—this all informs how we now deal with fear.

    It makes sense that fear feels too much for our bodies to handle when we have lived with too much fear; when we haven’t had enough emotional support of someone helping us hold that fear; when we’ve had experiences that have terrified us down to our very bones, that have stayed trapped in our bodies; when our lives have been rocked by tragedy; when sudden life-changing events shake any sense of stability from us; when fear has just been too much for too long.

    We need to learn how to provide deep emotional support, a sense of safety, love, empathy, and validation, to our bodies that have held so much pain and discomfort. We need to learn how to tend to and meet our needs.

    Emotions need to be seen, felt, and heard. When we haven’t learned how to do that, how to hold emotions and really be with them, we get pushed into a part of our brains where things feel deeply overwhelming and urgent—our survival reactions.

    It’s a part of our brain that uses primal methods for dealing with emotion—meant to be utilized in emergencies and when our survival is under threat, but too commonly used to discharge uncomfortable emotions. And none of these survival reactions feel good.

    When we are in our survival reactivity, we can feel doomed and trapped; we can feel like there are no options; we can feel the red mists of rage or a deep-freezing panic. We can go into overdrive doing too much, or sometimes we just slow down and shut off. Everything feels like too much.

    That’s why we feel we could go over the edge. That’s why we don’t feel safe. That’s why we desperately try to stay in control. Because we have this sense of an unknown, dark, and terrifying force in our bodies that feels like something beyond what we can handle.

    We don’t know how to deal with this part of our brain, these survival reactions, so we spend our lives attempting to control our fear, hoping that it won’t rear up and push us over the cliff edge.

    But there is another way. And it’s not by feeling the fear and doing it anyway. I couldn’t dislike that piece of advice more because of how wildly misunderstood it is. You can only feel the fear and do it anyway if you have a comfortable relationship with fear and it doesn’t push your nervous system into overwhelm and survival reactivity—where you feel like you are actually fearing for your life.

    If you are in survival mode, you don’t want to be pushing through anything.

    In fact, quite the opposite.

    You want to be doing everything to reassure yourself that you are physically safe, that there is no emergency, that all is well.

    And that is step number one. That’s the first place I go to when I feel the escalating sensations of fear.

    It’s learning to look after yourself and meet your needs in ways that maybe you have never done before. You learn to build your own safety, and to repair all the damage that has been done to that solid feeling of protection that others seem to have but you sense you deeply lack.

    There are several things you can do for this..

    1. Stop the overwhelm.

    My first suggestion is an exercise you can do when you feel you have entered that survival mode of things feeling like way too much—when you are overwhelmed, feeling doomed or trapped. This is an exercise called regulating breath. The aim is to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which is where you are “resting and digesting.”

    It’s super simple—short, quick inhale, long exhale. Then repeat this until you are moving away from that deep overwhelm. It’s a signal to the brain that you aren’t unsafe; this isn’t an emergency; you are safe to move out of survival mode and back into your body. I use this breath daily to keep my nervous system regulated and feel a sense of physical safety.

    2. Be curious about why the fear is here.

    The fear didn’t just show up unannounced today. If the fear feels like too much, there is definitely a history that you can trace back. And when you know your history, it can help you drop a lot of the judgment that you feel about it.

    Ask your fear: Where have you been showing up in my life, and how far does this go back?

    3. Ask your fear what it needs.

    Uncomfortable emotions like fear are expressions of needs that have been unmet perhaps for all of your life. Needs like clarity, structure, peace, or consistency. When you can learn to really connect with your emotions and hear what they have to tell you, you can then start meeting those needs.

    I love to talk to my fear. I ask it questions on a regular basis. I ask my fear: What do you need? Why are you here? What are you trying to tell me?

    When I am able to really sit with the fear and hold it in my body, it will tell me things like: I’m just trying to keep you safe. I just want you to be protected. I don’t want you to do unsafe things!

    When I know that the fear just wants to keep me safe, I can then reassure it, and myself, that I can provide the safety that I need. That I know how to make good choices; I know, as an adult, how to look after myself.

    4. Offer empathy and validation.

    Give yourself the deeply nourishing support of validation and empathy. Fear is a normal emotion that manifests as physical reactions in the body because of how we’ve learned to be with emotion, or due to the limited support we have received around big, challenging experiences.

    When you recognize this, you can start to not judge your reactions. You can say to yourself: It makes sense that you feel like this. It’s okay, I’ll stay with you. I will support you through this. 

    You can give yourself the tender validation and empathy you would offer to someone you deeply love—your child, a friend, your partner. You can treat yourself as someone deserving of being wrapped in beautiful, loving empathy.

    When you do things like double-check the locks at night or keep checking your phone to see if your teenager has messaged, when you are asked to take a trip to a place you haven’t been to before, instead of getting lost in the fear or loading yourself down with shame about it, offer empathy and validation instead.

    “You know what? This is bringing up a lot of fear. And it’s understandable that I have fear around this; it’s completely okay. So I am going to support myself through this feeling. I am going to tend to my needs around this feeling. And I am only going to do what feels best for me. What feels right for my body right now.”

    By meeting the needs your emotions are expressing we start to change our relationship with the emotions we find most uncomfortable. When we try to white-knuckle through, we often end up more rattled, more exhausted, more overwhelmed, and sometimes with more trauma than if we had actually taken tender, gentle care of ourselves.

    And by taking loving care of ourselves, by showing up and giving our feelings—and our sense of overwhelm—attention, we can end up naturally starting to want to do those things that maybe we were too scared to do before.

    By giving ourselves the empathy that our emotions so yearn for, we create a much deeper, more loving and trusting connection with ourselves. When we know how to emotionally support ourselves then we can learn how to emotionally support other people.

    My relationship with fear is a work in progress. Sometimes it slips out of my grasp and escalates before I have the chance to process it. But I know now that I can always bring myself back from that edge. I can always bring my nervous system back into regulation, even when it feels a bit messy.

    When we know that we can handle any emotion that comes our way, we have so much more freedom in our lives to make the choices we want to make instead of just choosing the least scary thing.

    Fear is a normal part of life. It’s there to help us stay safe and protected and make good choices. But sometimes, when we have had experiences that have intensified our fear, we can end up keeping ourselves small. Changing how we take care of ourselves to support ourselves in these big emotions is a great first step to living a more exciting, fulfilling life. I hope these tips have been helpful.

  • The One Thing You Need to Make the Best Decisions for You

    The One Thing You Need to Make the Best Decisions for You

    “If you are not living your truth, you are living a lie.” ~Joseph Curiale

    Her sobs break my heart. We have all been there. When the relationship starts feeling like a war-torn city as opposed to home.

    I close in for a hug. “You can’t go on like this,” I whisper.

    “Well, I don’t know what to do. Please don’t tell me to break up,” she looks up pleadingly. “I can’t do it. I won’t be able to bear it. I am not as strong as you.”

    A familiar musical refrain from Tina Turner comes to mind albeit with a slight word twist…

    “What’s strength got to do, got to do with it?

    The Oxford Dictionary defines strength as “the emotional and mental qualities necessary in dealing with difficult or distressing situations.” It almost seems as if these set of qualities are innate—something you are born with, like blue eyes or curly hair.

    Those in possession of strength flit about larger than life, surmounting all obstacles without a strand of bother, achieving Herculean glory. They can do just about anything, bear just about anything. Nothing stands in their way.

    That was my assumption as well until I realized some people actually considered me part of this mythical group. My response to that? Utter incredulity.

    I am scared of literally everything. I am scared of public speaking. I am scared of the dark. I am scared of ants. I am scared of meeting new people (I have been known to hide behind bookshelves at loud parties). Most of the time before I start something new or need to do something confrontational, I spend hours under my duvet or eating an entire chocolate fudge cake from Sainsbury’s to soothe my nerves.

    If anything, fear has been my faithful partner since Day One. Yet, despite this, I have made what can be considered difficult decisions; taken risks, explored the paths less traveled, moved myself out of comfort zones, acted contrary to advice from friends and family, etc. And that’s not because I am strong. But it is because I choose courage.

    And courage, my friend, is not strength.

    Courage is Simply Your Truth

    According to American author and professor Brené Brown, an early definition of courage is “To speak one’s mind by telling all, one’s heart.”

    The root word of courage offers a telling clue. “Cor” in Latin or “coeur” in French means—the heart. So being courageous is nothing more than being true to your heart, or in other words, telling your truth.

    But speaking your truth is tough since most of the time, we often aren’t on good terms with our own truths. We get caught up with keeping up appearances, where or who we ought to be, what others expect of us, what is socially acceptable, what is convenient, etc. Our truths wander lost amongst this crowded landscape.

    A long, long time ago, when I was still in the corporate world, my then-boss asked me where I saw myself in a year’s time. I knew he was keen to promote me. And I was convinced I wanted to be promoted as well. After all, I was due one, and well, who says no to a promotion? All I had to do was give the ‘right’ answer—something about wanting to grow further, taking on more responsibilities, I was ready, etc.

    Yet that afternoon sitting across from him, an unanticipated response sprung to my mind instead—“Anywhere but here.”

    That floored me. Until that point, it never had dawned on me that I was that dissatisfied at work. I mean, was I deliriously fulfilled? No, but I wasn’t never expecting fulfillment.

    I was comfortable, I loved my colleagues; the money was good and enough to support a lifestyle that I loved. I thought that I had struck a sweet spot; a happy compromise I was willing to put up with for the rest of my life. But my heart apparently seemed to disagree. This sweet compromise started to feel like a huge mistake—as if I was on the wrong train.

    Sometimes when faced with an inconvenient truth, our first reaction is to will it away. And that’s exactly the strategy I adopted. I pleaded with this feeling; tried to cajole it into disappearing. But it never did. It stood, simple and unwavering in the deep cave of my being.

    And that’s what you will realize about The Truth. It comes from the reservoir of wisdom, and like everything from those parts, it never shouts or screams. Your fears do. Your ego will screech. Panic attacks will roll like devastating hurricanes through you. But your truth is like a meditating monk, sitting quietly, waiting for you to catch up with it. A steadfast signal for your life.

    Courage is a Navigation System

    Courage is not a set of qualities. You don’t pursue courage. Courage beckons you. It is your life sat nav or true north (to use a Martha Beck term). A lighthouse that guides you through the sea that is your life.

    It is true what they say, you cannot serve two masters. When you orient your decision-making around what is true to you, fear stops factoring in. It doesn’t disappear from the landscape completely, but it gets more muted in the distinct light of your truth. You will stop moving to whirlwinds of opinions and projected futures. Your life will instead be propelled by your unique, sacred truths.

    I hate having my writing read by other people. It feels like someone has peeled off all the skin on my body, and I stand facing the world with nothing to protect me. Yet I continue to write despite my fear of the cauldron pot of criticism, judgments, and embarrassment because that’s what my heart wants. Writing is what I have do to fully inhabit myself. It is more necessity than a want. Everything else such as my fear and shame fades in significance.

    The Path of Courage

    The path of courage is usually not one of grand feats; it is woefully undramatic. It will never demand you break up today, or else. Instead, it will guide you to go and sleep, sign up for a retreat, dance to Kate Bush, sit quietly to watch the clouds, or even watch a particular YouTube video.

    The path is gentle because your heart is all about love, and gentleness is the language of love. Unsurprisingly, walking the path of courage will also soften you and make you gentler.

    The path of courage is also utterly simplifying. When I centered my life around my heart, I stopped hankering after certain things I had previously assumed I liked or would make me happy like learning a new language, doing tango, traveling, going out with friends, etc.

    It became easier to admit that these activities never actually fed me, and I wasn’t really enjoying them that much. With clarity, no became an easier word to articulate. So did my needs.

    There is no guarantee that the path of courage will lead you to a happily-ever-after. Oftentimes, it will lead you to situations where you will struggle to find meaning. It will drag you through the mud, tempt you to promising roads, and then fling you against a dead-end. But I promise, even when you wander with no map in sight, you will never feel led astray. Or that you are on the wrong train.

    What is courage calling on you to do right now?

  • No One Starts Off at Their Best – Why We Need to Keep Going Anyway

    No One Starts Off at Their Best – Why We Need to Keep Going Anyway

    “Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.” ~Pablo Picasso

    This article is about the day I realized Picasso wasn’t born Picasso.

    If you’re already opening Google to find what his name was at birth, I’ll save you the typing and tell you here…

    He was born Pablo Ruiz Picasso. (His baptized name is wayyyy longer, but you get the point.)

    Okay, so he was always a Picasso.

    But he wasn’t always the Picasso.

    Let me explain by rewinding a few years back…

    I was in Spain for one of my best friend’s weddings, and I decided to spend an extra couple of weeks exploring the country.

    Of course, exploring the narrow winding streets and cultural history of Barcelona was high on my priority list (as well as eating endless tapas and indulging in delicious goblets of the most refreshing gin drinks to ever hit my lips haha).

    So many of the Great Creatives originated from Spain or left their mark in this beautifully complex country in one way or another.

    Put simply, I was in Heaven.

    I still remember the day I stepped foot in the Picasso Museum. With much anticipation I made my way up the stairs, one step at a time, until I was finally beginning my stroll down Picasso Memory Lane.

    Let me tell you… It was NOT what I was expecting.

    Confusion hit me first.

    “Wait, what? THIS is Picasso? Am I in the wrong place? Am I supposed to think these are incredible works of art?”

    Along with confusion, I was questioning my previous knowledge and what I thought I knew of this famous artist.

    I’m no art buff, but I’d like to think I know a thing or two about a thing or two.

    I weaved in and out of many more rooms, continuing to feel confused, kind of let down, and like there might be something wrong with me and my memory.

    I walked into the next room, almost feeling bored but trying to put on a super interested face by slightly tilting my head and nodding slowly as I took everything in.

    Then BOOM.

    There it was.

    The classic Picasso style we all know. The famous cube-like strokes and surrealistic images he was known for.

    I remember standing there in complete awe. It was a jaw-dropping moment for me, but it wasn’t because of the famous art I was staring at.

    It was because of all the not-so-famous art I had wandered past to get here.

    That’s when it hit me.

    PICASSO wasn’t born Picasso.

    He didn’t come out of the womb a world-famous painter, forging the way into a new era of art. He worked for it. Every. Single. Day.

    He was dedicated to his art.

    He was dedicated to the process, to the doing, to the journey of becoming the artist we all know today.

    In that instant, my perspective on the previous rooms and walls of art suddenly changed. I now saw those previous works of art as badges of honor. Of hours upon hours of self-exploration… Learning new techniques, putting images to thoughts, feelings, experiences, and words.

    Those paintings were a testament to his will and dedication not only to his art, but to himself.

    He didn’t give up just because he wasn’t acknowledged or celebrated right away.

    In fact, there were almost as many years of his work not being put on a pedestal as there were of his glory years.

    As a self-proclaimed perfectionist who has been afraid of “getting it wrong” or not being “good enough,” I’m letting go of the need to get it right.

    Yup, I’m doing it right now as I type. Eeks!

    This is a pivotal moment for me.

    I’ve realized I’ll never have the opportunity to “get it right” if I’m not willing to be okay with “getting it wrong.”

    And let’s be honest, the whole concept of “getting it right” is something that we all need to throw out the door ASAP.

    Let the “getting it wrong” begin and cheers to all of the ugly badges of honor I’ll create along the way.

    I’m realizing more than ever that like art, the exploration of self and quite simply, just living our lives, should be focused on what fuels our souls, what makes our heart sing, what makes us feel good, what makes us glow from the inside out—not how we’ll be received.

    Focusing on what feels good and true for us should be our number one priority.

    Of course, life comes with challenges, and there will always be tough times we need to wade through, but just imagine how much easier it would be to move through these times if we stayed committed to doing what brings us joy while we figure out the rest?

    This is what I think Picasso did.

    No matter what he was experiencing, he took paint to brush and brush to paper. It was his exploration, his self-expression, his therapy.

    He was the painter of his life, and he never stopped painting.

    I’m moving forward with a re-ignited, deepened knowing that while I may not be a painter, I am still the painter or rather, the creator, of my life.

    I get to paint the next picture, and there’s something very liberating and exciting about this.

    So, my question to you is simple….

    What’s the next picture you want to paint? And what would you try if you stopped worrying about doing your best work and simply followed your heart

  • Your Comfort Zone Is Not a Good Benchmark

    Your Comfort Zone Is Not a Good Benchmark

  • How I Recognized My Fear of Failure and How I’m Mindfully Overcoming It

    How I Recognized My Fear of Failure and How I’m Mindfully Overcoming It

    “The only way to ease our fear and be truly happy is to acknowledge our fear and look deeply at its source. Instead of trying to escape from our fear, we can invite it up to our awareness and look at it clearly and deeply.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    My daughter began taking tumbling classes a week before her eighth birthday. She had been dancing since the age of three, and those classes included instructions for cartwheels and roundoffs. The harder stuff, like the back walkover, required tumbling or gymnastics classes, and she wanted the chance to be able to show off those moves during the annual dance recital.

    My wife wasn’t interested in watching our daughter repeatedly and blindly dive backward in a bendy arch, each time hoping her hands met the ground firmly enough to slow down the momentum of her trailing head and torso. But I was interested.

    Her dancing wasn’t exciting to me at that point because the skills involved weren’t physically challenging yet. That would come later. But each back walkover was a potential catastrophe, and that made them fun to watch.

    Tumbling classes aren’t cheap, and it was apparent to me that a single class a week was a slow way to acquire a skill. So we came to an agreement that we would try to spend at least a little time each day practicing things she was learning in class. This would be like quality father-daughter coaching time except I had no background in tumbling, coaching athletics, or not being an overbearing control freak. I would be the one doing most of the learning.

    A YouTube Tumbling Coach

    Obviously, there’s no technical challenge too complex that it cannot be mastered by watching two or three related YouTube videos by experts whose credentials you have not bothered to verify and are not qualified to assess.

    That’s where my training began—with good intentions and numerous short videos of young girls in leotards plunging backward into smooth backbends while their lead legs fluttered up and over their bodies and their trailing legs followed seamlessly after in a graceful full-body hinge.

    The cheaply produced clips became a source of embarrassment when my YouTube account synched with my work laptop. I remember stammering through an explanation to my students for the video recommendations that followed a TED Talk I had shown them on a classroom projector. They collectively grimaced.

    Not being aware of any of the finer points of the movements only fueled my coaching confidence and my daughter was soon mastering bridge kickovers, then backbend kickovers, and then, a short time later, the back walkover. She would appear at her weekly class suddenly able to easily perform a skill that was out of reach the week before. I loved that.

    Within months, I had assembled a trampoline in the yard without consulting my wife or daughter first.

    The basement’s piles of assorted clutter were repositioned to make room for a large gymnastics tumbling mat. A smaller one was added later as some of the clutter was donated to area charities. A third would eventually stretch the combined mats the length of the room diagonally with the last section rising vertically against the far wall as a protective barrier against my daughter’s growing gymnastics awesomeness.

    With the basement a de facto shrine to her hobby, I was emboldened to live vicariously through my only child’s growing list of technical accomplishments. Which I’m to understand is always completely healthy and never a problem…except when it is.

    Mindful of Being Way Too Much

    Relatively early in our collaboration, I treated my daughter to the sort of pep talk that makes eight-year-olds cry and not want to learn anything from you. It would not be the last.

    She kept working with me though. Even if I occasionally barked at her about her attitude like a stereotypical high school football coach, she still wanted to practice and improve. That willingness to endure my nonsense quickly became important.

    The back handspring was not conquered as easily as the previous dozen or so skills, and that was frustrating for the both of us. We tread water for months, her arms refusing to support the weight of her backward springing body, and she seemed to enjoy our practice time less than before. That was true for me as well.

    It was great being a successful inexperienced, unqualified tumbling coach. The less successful version just felt painfully aware that he wasn’t experienced or qualified to know how to address a repetitive breakdown in form. Do I yell at her arms? Can you motivate an appendage like a drill sergeant? It was a mystery.

    I cannot recall how many YouTube clips, message board recommendations, poorly described alignment changes, and conditioning drills I subjected her to over that time. It was too many and our shared frustration made me harder to be around. But I was confronting the reality of my coaching limitations one failed experiment after the other.

    With hindsight, this was the most important period for our collaboration and my growth as her coach. Nothing was working, progress was invisible, and the only thing I could do was to behave in a way that encouraged her to continue.

    Thankfully, my mindfulness practice was helping me develop my own skills. And those mindfulness skills would help me recognize the detrimental role fear was playing in my coaching.

    Noticing the Fear of Failure Is a Win

    Our time in the basement became a laboratory for my own mindfulness practice. Barely six months after beginning our collaboration, my daughter had lost faith in herself and the process. Just bringing my full presence to her in that atmosphere was a challenging spiritual exercise—especially when I assisted her with repetition after repetition of back handsprings and every part of me wanted to shout at her bending elbows for failing us both.

    The first move for this practice was to go into the basement with the intention to practice mindfulness.

    Yes, if you are a mindfulness maximalist like me you are usually trying to practice bringing a deeper level of attention to whatever you are doing. But more challenging situations can benefit from clearer intentions.

    My next move was to deconstruct the reactions I was experiencing.

    Those reactions consisted of mental images, mental talk, and emotional body sensations. Noticing the sensations that arise when I am frustrated gives me a handhold for dealing with the reaction skillfully.

    The third move was to bring my attention to prominent sensations.

    In those practices, thinking is a sensation, and I would try to get a clear sense of my inner chatter and visuals. Fixing a reactive sensation in attention while supporting your daughter’s lower back as she leaps backward is a bad idea, so I would consciously pause between repetitions.

    The frustrated thoughts and emotions expressed by the body could be embarrassingly dramatic. I was occasionally angry at reality for not honoring my efforts. Did reality not understand how much time I had spent on YouTube?

    Importantly, I didn’t dismiss or dispute the content of my thoughts. I practiced acceptance and non-engagement. The assumption here is that resisting your emotional resistance only creates more resistance, like trying to smother a brush fire with dried leaves.

    That was my fourth move: to have equanimity with what I was feeling.

    Except when I couldn’t. Then I tried to have equanimity with my inability to have equanimity with what I was feeling. Failing that, I tried to have equanimity with my failure to have equanimity with my lack of equanimity. It was equanimity all the way down.

    My fifth and final move was to recognize insight.

    It is easy to dismiss some insights as common sense or something you should have already known about yourself. But that might lead to a missed opportunity to learn and grow, especially if you are already experiencing emotionally immature reactions in response to reality being mean to you.

    The insight that emerged from my mindfulness practice during that period of stagnation was that I was afraid of failure.

    I was afraid that I would fail as a coach and my daughter would fail as a gymnast. And there was nothing I could yell at her elbows to change that.

    I was maybe most afraid that I was teaching an eight-year-old hard work doesn’t always pay off, your best isn’t always good enough, and it isn’t always worth the time and effort to learn how to do hard things.

    Those lessons aren’t entirely wrong, they’re just beside the point. My greatest fear should have been for her to no longer enjoy doing something she wants to do…because of me.

    I knew from the season I ineptly YouTube coached her soccer team a couple years earlier that young children have an incredible ability to still enjoy the things well-meaning adults are accidentally making less fun. But this was different.

    My fears weren’t just making me less effective as a coach; they were sending the message that our time together could only be enjoyable if she was making clear progress. I didn’t believe that and didn’t want her to believe it either. I committed to change my approach.  

    By the time the back handspring became another easy skill, coaching had become a deliberate practice of being present with my daughter. I would encourage her to explore her boundaries and to celebrate her efforts even when they did not represent visible progress.

    Several years later, I still offer myself the same encouragement when my own practice of being present falls short of my expectations, as it often does. To be fully present for the other, even for a moment, we cannot habitually neglect to offer the same openness to our own difficult features. And fear can make those features particularly hard to view with compassion.

    Each time we descend the stairs to the basement, we do so as different versions of ourselves. It is wise to be generous and assume the well-meaning tumbling coaches in all of us are trying their best. There is nothing broken in us that patience, consistency, and the right YouTube video cannot fix.

  • Making Big Decisions: How to Discern the Whispers of Your Soul

    Making Big Decisions: How to Discern the Whispers of Your Soul

    “Intuition is the whisper of the soul.” ~Jiddu Krishnamurti

    “I can’t believe they are taking her side over mine. I gave this job so many years, and she decides to walk in and mess it all up for me,” I said to my husband.

    A few years back, when I was working full time at my corporate job, I got into a disagreement with a team member. It spiraled out of control to the point where my boss then had to have a sit-down with us. I was so humiliated and angry that he could not see my side.

    They will realize when they lose you, whispered my ego.

    That was when I decided to leave. I started to look for new jobs and got offers.

    Now here is the thing—I did have a great job, I had a great team, no long hours, and I liked what I did. But at that moment, due to that disagreement, I made a decision to leave it all from a place of anger.

    Tony Robbins often says It is in your moments of decisions that your destiny is shaped. I wish I knew this back then. I took the new job, but the moment I accepted the offer, I realized the colossal mistake I had made. I remember going to my farewell party and feeling like I might throw up. I remember trying to hide my tears.

    Your intuition often speaks to you through your body, and my body was clearly saying no. Unfortunately, the voice of my ego was stronger. It was too late to turn back. That wrong decision cost me two years of my life that I could have used toward my personal goals and business.

    Instead, I was stuck at the wrong job, working long hours, in misery, and hating every minute of it.

    There are many times when we feel the need to react, and the need to feel validated. The untrained mind often reacts the way I did, from fear and from anger. This is where the process of discernment comes in—discernment between whether you are making a decision to sate your ego or to truly evolve and expand yourself.

    The primitive, reactionary mind is not the best for making decisions because we are in a downward spiral and are tackling multiple negative thoughts in our heads. Nothing good can come out of this space—we are neither neutral nor can we listen to our intuition.

    In the grand scheme of things, when we ignore our intuition, we introduce complexities to our path. The reality is that in order to get to the next level, we must get out of victim mode and learn to take
    responsibility for our actions. There is always a choice in any decision that you make. That choice is between fear and love, between blame-shifting and personal responsibility.

    The easiest way to listen to your intuition is to ask yourself if you are making the decision out of fear or out of love. While this experience was unfortunate, it also taught me a very important life lesson. I rarely make big decisions in my life without “consulting” with my inner guidance or when I am not in the right headspace.

    The tool that I use for this is meditation. Over years, I have learned to use the art of meditation to hear the whispers of my soul. Anytime I get into a conflict or my life spirals out of control, I turn to my
    meditation pillow.

    Before I get into the meditation, I ask myself: Why is this happening to me? What is the lesson that I need to learn from this? Help me see the way. I am willing to do what it takes to feel and do better.

    And then I go into silence and complete surrender, without expectations that any insights or solutions will come through. The answer usually comes quite unexpectedly when the world around me is reduced to a silent hum. It is usually not the answer I was hoping for, but the answer I need at that moment.

    I often get asked what to do if the answer does not come. This just means that you are not detached enough and that you are still expecting an answer to come. This is fear itself.

    “Why is the answer not coming?”

    “Am I not doing this right?”

    “Maybe my intuition is broken?”

    Intuition comes when you are in a place of faith rather than fear.

    If this happens, try working out or watching or movie, anything that helps you not think about your problem. Then go back into meditation again with zero expectations, and you will be surprised at how soon the answer comes to you.

    It will be a quiet whisper, an inner knowing. It will happen in complete silence or when you are thinking about something completely different.

    It is akin to that little whisper that tells you that it may be a good idea to take the umbrella before you leave the house. But then you choose to ignore that whisper, and you later wish you hadn’t because it
    rained so much.

    One of the biggest benefits of meditation aside from intuition is that it helps you silence your mind. This helps you take bigger and bolder actions because there is no silent critic in your head judging and second-guessing your every move. Meditation helps you become more mindful and present. What others say or do does not affect your as much.

    Over time, you start experiencing the “observer effect,” where you feel as if you are directly experiencing life as a series of moments rather than evaluating and analyzing it.

    If you cannot meditate, journaling can help with this process too. Put on trance music in the background and free write. The trick to journaling is to let your pen flow without thinking.  You will notice that twenty to thirty minutes into it, your handwriting will start changing and your words will start looking different. The message will become more loving and compassionate. This is when you know that you are tapping into your intuition.

    Intuition is a powerful gift, but one that you can experience and learn how to recognize only in silence.

  • How I Find the Courage to Keep Jumping (Even Though the Net Never Catches Me)

    How I Find the Courage to Keep Jumping (Even Though the Net Never Catches Me)

    “The future never comes. Life is always now.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    “Jump, and the net will catch you.” “Leap, and the net will appear.”

    This piece of writing is to make a case for the following argument: there is NO net.

    Before I put forward my reasoning, please bear with me for a moment while my ego rattles off the times I have jumped (but the net never appeared).

    1. I quit my well-paid marketing role and traveled across the world to pursue a humanitarian dream job. I failed at the job interview and was jobless and in despair in a foreign land.
    2. I invested some of my savings into launching an online e-commerce site selling organic products but was diagnosed with blood cancer shortly after launch and had to give it up.
    3. I threw myself into the wellness industry in an attempt to heal my cancer. Nothing worked, and I ended up on the medication I was desperately trying to avoid.
    4. I poured my heart and soul into a memoir but have, so far, only received nice rejections from the publishing industry.

    Okay, I’m glad that is off my chest.

    Point number 4, my current life situation, has got me thinking about “the net.”

    The writing of my memoir felt different to points 1, 2 and 3. The writing process was one in which there was no outcome attached to it. I simply sat down to write the longings and yearnings and realizations that came from within. Four years of writing from that place flowed, quite naturally, into a book. There was no thought of a net. I just had to write.

    The net came later.

    The net came when I had finished my memoir, and people told me to publish it.

    The net came when I started researching the publishing industry and the how-tos and what-not-to-dos.

    My research began to form a perception. That perception started to develop a belief. A belief that said: to be signed by a literary agent and traditional publisher means you “have made it.” You are literary success. That belief grew stronger with every industry blog I read and podcast I listened to. The ropes of belief grew thicker and intertwined and formed what I perceived to be a net. A net in the form of a book deal from one of the top five publishers.

    My mind whirled and looped with the following thought: If I’m brave enough to share my story, if I jump, the net will catch me, I will get a book deal.

    I believed that thought. And I was brave. I put myself out there. I jumped.

    But, as I write, I have yet to be caught by any net.

    My ego looks back up at points 1 to 4 and screams, “FAILURE! The net never catches me. Stay small!”

    It is easy to get stuck in that stream of thought. That place is familiar. The is an almost comfort there. The ego blankets me with perceived safety—safety in the form of remaining small and quiet.

    But then I remember there is another aspect of myself. A place beyond the ego and beyond even thought. It is my core. My essence. The truest, most authentic part of me. When I carve out time for silence, I remember that place. I bring awareness into the present (without hanging on the past or projecting into the future) and get still. When I do that, the thought of a net dissipates.

    From this place, I see that the net was only a future concept. It was no more than a thought about something great that would happen in some distant time. The net was always only a thought about what success should look like: saving the world, a thriving business, healing from an incurable disease, and now a bestselling book.

    But freedom was found beyond the thoughts about how life should be. And every day, I come home to that place, home to myself. I get pulled into ego. I come back. I get pulled into thought. I remember.

    When my true nature aligns with the present moment, there is clarity in knowing what to do.

    Some moments my children want to play. And sometimes, I feel called to send a pitch off to a literary agent. There is a sense of surrendering to whatever is in front of me. When I’m flowing with life, there is no net. Or more, the net is no longer a result but rather a deep trust that everything will happen as it should.

    I have no idea how my book will be published. All I know is that if I keep coming back to the present moment, those seemingly minuscule steps pave the way for my soul to live out its true purpose: to bring awareness into the present and live life from that place.

    There is no net. There are only small awakened steps. Some steps are ordinary. Some ask us to be excruciatingly vulnerable. It is the latter that can feel like a leap of faith into the ether. But I no longer see those moments as a leap.

    Looking back, it was only ever one step, a simple stride on the path home to myself. Inch by vulnerable inch, moment by conscious moment, that is how I have come to feel whole. It is all perfect, even with a rejection letter to boot.

  • Why the Right Choice for You Isn’t Always an Immediate “Hell Yes”

    Why the Right Choice for You Isn’t Always an Immediate “Hell Yes”

    “If our hearts and minds are so unreliable, maybe we should be questioning our own intentions and motivations more. If we’re all wrong, all the time, then isn’t self-skepticism and the rigorous challenging of our own beliefs and assumptions the only logical route to progress?” ~Mark Manson

    I often hear people encourage others with the following advice: “If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.”

    Don’t get me wrong: I see where they’re coming from when they say it. Far too often we are dissuaded from listening to our gut feelings. Often, we follow the tyranny of shoulds. We compromise on our true needs and desires. We talk the inner voice away in favor of what’s expected of us.

    And yet I also see how this well-intended nugget of wisdom eliminates grey area. The more black-and-white view of the world that it inadvertently espouses may not be entirely helpful to everyone, especially those who struggle with depression or anxiety.

    Sometimes a maybe or an underwhelmed response means I don’t really want to do this. Other times it can mean I’m having complicated feelings that are worth unpacking and investigating.

    We often feel ambivalent about taking part in experiences that are outside of our comfort zones, even if those experiences may help us to grow. Our moods or current struggles can affect our commitment to activities we might ordinarily enjoy.

    Back in college when I was in the throes of a serious depression, for instance, I felt no pull to do anything—not even hobbies that I used to love. I said no to jogging and running. No to preparing nutritious meals. No to any experience that might bring me outside of my safe cocoon.

    The only activities I said hell yes to were invitations to go out and get wasted at house parties with friends—which, needless to say, made my depression even worse and perpetuated a vicious cycle.

    I wasn’t hell yes about healthy things. Drinking and escaping my pain were the only activities that elicited anything close to a passionate response from me.

    If I had misapplied the above advice, I might still be drinking in problematic ways and eschewing more mindful activities that align with my values, simply because I don’t always feel hell yes about doing them.

    Another example: a friend of mine told me there are weeks when she reads an hour before bed, and that the experience is lovely. When she becomes embroiled in a Netflix show, though, that habit dissolves. The thought of reading loses its appeal. Does this mean she doesn’t like reading? Is it a sign that she inherently prefers TV?

    I don’t think it is. What I do think it means is that activities involving passive consumption often have addictive properties.

    As David Foster Wallace wrote: “Television’s biggest minute by minute appeal is that it engages without demanding. One can rest while undergoing stimulation. Receive without giving.”

    Other examples: I’m drawn to sugar. Consuming it “feels right.” Picking up a celery stick feels more difficult. It doesn’t come as naturally.

    At certain points back in 2012 (before I moved to Uruguay), I wavered in my decision to teach abroad in South America.

    In 2019, when I considered the work and planning involved (as well as the money it would require), I even felt hesitant to take a vacation to Mexico City. Doubts and conflicting feelings dampened my “hell yes” into a “I don’t know, maybe….” shortly after my friend invited me.

    Did I still go, though? Yes! Did I have an amazing time? Also yes. Do I wish I could go back? One hundred percent.

    My point is this: don’t let ambivalence or a lack of “hell yes” convince you that you must just not really want to do something.

    It’s important to develop trust in our inner knowing; however, it’s also important to remember that our not always benevolent impulses sometimes masquerade as wise intuition.

    Even though we might pick up on a bad feeling, we never know what that bad feeling means. It could mean so many things. Instincts never come with clear instructions.

    That’s why it’s so hard to “just listen to them.” Listen to what? What action do we take in response to “this feels bad”?

    As for the hell yeses: especially for those of us with mental health struggles, immediate impulses and strong instantaneous reactions at times warrant further unpacking before being acted upon or blindly obeyed. It’s just not always true that they unequivocally have our best long-term interests in mind.

    A lack of an instant “hell yes” doesn’t necessarily signify that something isn’t right for us. It’s important that we allow room in our lives for the grey area, so as to ultimately act in alignment with our highest selves.

  • One Question I Ask Myself Monthly Since Coming to Terms with Death

    One Question I Ask Myself Monthly Since Coming to Terms with Death

    “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live.” ~Norman Cousins

    On September 23, 2015, Loukas Angelo was walking to his after-school strength and conditioning class just a few hundred yards from Archbishop Mitty High School.

    He was approaching the outdoor basketball courts when he ran out into the street and was struck by a car traveling around thirty miles per hour. The impact sent Loukas flying down the street, and he was immediately transported to the closest hospital where he remained in critical condition.

    I remember sitting on the couch later that afternoon when my phone started blowing up. Feeling curious, I shoved aside my history homework and decided to see what was going on.

    Multiple people had sent some variation of the same text, “Yo. This is so sad. Did you hear about what happened with Loukas…?”

    Confused and a little bit scared, I turned to Twitter and started looking through my feed. I was absolutely floored by the tweets that were being sent out by my friends and our high school’s Twitter page.

    Similar to tragedies like the Boston Marathon, or 9/11, it was one of those moments in life where you’re always going to remember exactly where you were when you found out the news.

    It was almost inconceivable to think about the fact that I had walked across the same exact crosswalk where Loukas was hit just fifteen minutes prior.

    All throughout the night, support poured in from social media sites. The hashtag #PrayForLoukas was trending #1 on Twitter in my local area for several hours. I’m not a particularly religious person, but for the first time in years I said a prayer for Loukas before going to bed.

    The next day at school was one of the most eerie, heart-breaking days of my life. I arrived at Archbishop Mitty High school that day to a campus that was completely silent. Although there were plenty of people walking through the campus, no one said a word to each other

    As I walked toward my homeroom class, I remember seeing one kid carrying a ridiculously oversized backpack. It looked like he was at the airport preparing to leave for a month, and I let out a slight chuckle imagining what it was like to carry that thing around all day.

    However, my smile was wiped off my face completely when I stepped through the door of the classroom.

    Every one of my classmates was sitting there emotionless. Stone-faced. Not saying a word to each other. I sat down and did the same, as we were all preparing for an assembly in the gymnasium that was set to take place in about fifteen minutes.

    The 1400 students funneled into the gymnasium and took their seats. You could hear a pin drop.

    Our principal got up and gave a very powerful speech, which concluded with him leading the entire school in a prayer for Loukas. After a few others got up and spoke, the assembly concluded with a one-minute-long moment of silence.

    The day after the assembly, the news broke that Loukas had passed away after being in critical condition for around forty-eight hours.

    On September 25, 2015, Loukas Angelo lost his life at the age of fourteen years old

    Coming To Terms with Your Mortality

    As we go about our day-to-day lives, we are inundated with thousands of thoughts, most of them the same thoughts that ran through our head the day before.

    But very few of these thoughts, if any, are about our own mortality.

    It’s a little scary to think about the fact that you and everyone you know will perish from this world.

    No one knows when, but one day you will draw your last breath on this earth. Some people have the luxury of preparing for it, while others like Loukas have no idea that it’s coming.

    But at some point, death comes for each and every one of us.

    We all know this deep down, but it seems like so many of us live like we have unlimited time on this earth.

    We put off spending time with family even though they can be taken from us at any given moment.

    We refuse opportunities to get out of our comfort zone even though we have no idea how many of those opportunities we’re going to be given.

    In other words, most of us go through life without coming to grips with our own mortality.

    When Loukas passed, I obviously felt sorrow for his friends and family, who have to carry that burden around for the rest of their life.

    But mainly, I thought about Loukas.

    Given the nature of his death, he didn’t have any time to reflect back on his life. And given how young he was, if he did have that opportunity there wouldn’t be much to think about compared to someone on their deathbed at seventy or eighty years old.

    Yet, I couldn’t help but imagine what he would be thinking about in his final moments had he been given that opportunity. What regrets would he have? What moments would he replay in his head over and over again?

    Eventually, I started asking myself those same questions. It was a pretty cruel exercise that I was putting myself through, but it felt like a way to extract some meaning out of a terrible tragedy.

    As I imagined what it would be like to contemplate my existence at the end of my life, I didn’t feel happiness or satisfaction. I felt regret and shame.

    One common theme that permeated my consciousness was fear. I was only seventeen at the time, but I realized that essentially all of the regrets I’d have on my deathbed were a direct result of being afraid.

    Fear of rejection. Fear of failure. Fear of judgement.

    It was a brutal wake-up call. For the majority of my life, I had missed out on opportunities and experiences due to fear.

    I was here alive and breathing, but I wasn’t truly living. Merely existing, acting as if the end was never coming.

    How to Let Fear & Death Guide Your Actions

    I’m twenty-two now, and since then my approach to life has been simple.

    Twelve times per year, I do a monthly check-in with myself and ask myself one simple question:

    At this very moment, what am I avoiding in life because I’m afraid?

    The answers to this question inform me of exactly what changes that I should be making in my day-to-day life.

    Most people run from fear, but my suggestion is to lean into it. It’s actually an incredibly accurate predictor of the changes that you should be prioritizing in your life.

    It’s different for everyone.

    Some of you may be afraid of changing careers and pursuing something that you love because of the uncertainty that comes with changing professions.

    Some of you may be afraid of improving your social skills because that involves battling with the fear of rejection.

    Some of you may be afraid of moving to a different city because you’ll have to leave friends and family that you care about.

    If you have the courage to actually ask and answer the question, your fears will tell you exactly where your focus should be. It’s almost as if they’re calling out to you, saying:

    “Don’t forget about me. If you don’t take action, I’m going to torture your thoughts when you get to the end of your life.”

    Facing your fears is hard. Staying somewhere you don’t belong is even harder. But nothing compares to the pain of getting to the end of your life and knowing that you let fear stop you from doing the things you truly wanted to do.

    Just like Jim Rohn said, “We all must suffer one of two pains. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is that discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.”

    So I highly encourage you to ask yourself the question above each month and write down whatever comes to mind.

    Pick one of the things that you write down and make it the biggest priority in your life. You can’t fix everything about your life at once, as focusing on everything is the same thing as focusing on nothing.

    But once you’ve narrowed your focus, you can start taking small steps every day to overcome that fear.

    If you’re afraid of social interactions and have been for years, start saying hello to people as they walk by each day.

    If you’re afraid of starting a workout routine, start by walking for two minutes each day.

    These initial bursts of momentum that don’t seem like they make any difference are ultimately the foundation upon which your biggest changes take place.

    Do the things that you think you cannot do. Let the pain of not facing your fears override the pain of letting them fester for years and decades.

    Your future self will smile down at you.

    #LiveLikeLoukas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    —

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

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

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

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

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

  • The Wind That Shakes Us: Why We Need Hard Times

    The Wind That Shakes Us: Why We Need Hard Times

    “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” ~William Arthur Ward

    I live in the windiest city in the world—Wellington, New Zealand. Perched between the North and South Island, this colorful little city gets hammered by wind. The winds from the south bring cold, and the winds from the northwest seem to blow forever. My body is regularly under assault. But amid all that blustering lies the answer to one of life’s great questions: How do we feel at home in the wind? Or better phrased, how do we live with the hard things that blow our way?

    This research can shed some light.

    The Biosphere 2 was a scientific experiment in the Arizona desert conducted in the eighties and nineties. A vast (and I mean massive) glass dome housed flora and fauna in a perfectly controlled environment. It held all of nature: trees, wetlands, deserts, rainforests. Animals, plants and people co-existed in what scientists thought was the perfect, optimal environment for life—purified air, purified water, healthy soil, filtered light.

    Everything thrived for a while.

    But after some time, the trees began to topple over. When the trees reached a certain height, they fell to the ground.

    This baffled the scientists at first. That is until they realized that their perfect environment had no wind, no stormy torrential weather. The trees had no resistance. The trees had no adversity.

    The scientists concluded that wind was needed to strengthen the trees’ roots, which in turn supported growth. The wind was the missing element—an essential component in the creation of tall, solid, and mighty trees.

    What can this science experiment teach us about real life?

    Everything.

    A life without storms is like the Biosphere 2. Sure, it sounds idyllic. But that’s just a perception. And I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

    I thought a perfect life would make me happy. And it did, for a while. Good job, great husband, lovely home. But I knew deep down that something was missing. I always had a sense that life was incomplete. I longed for something; I just didn’t know what. It baffled me, just like it baffled the scientists.

    Without knowing it, I, too, had placed a biosphere around my heart. If any pain, any resistance, blew my way, my biosphere stopped it from penetrating. That is until I was diagnosed with blood cancer, and things began to crack. 

    Sitting in the office of a psychotherapist a few months after my diagnosis, nervously hunched and with hands under my thighs, I simply said, “I am really scared about my cancer.”

    That moment that I assumed was weakness turned out to be the exact moment my biosphere, my armor, began to crack.

    My diagnosis, my adversity, was nothing more than an opportunity to step outside of comfort and tell someone I’m scared. It jolted me enough to put me on an unexpected path of inner enquiry.

    Was it scary to open up? Hell yes! I wanted to stay in the biosphere. I really did. I kept searching for comfort within it, but I was unsatiated, and the wind crept in anyway and just grew stronger: I lost someone I loved to cancer, a close friend backstabbed me, my postpartum body broke, more wind, more pain, all while dripping in very small children. Just like those felled trees, I, too, toppled to the ground.

    When I could no longer withhold the wind, when I had to step out of the comfort of my biosphere and talk about my fears and look at my darkness, only then did I grow tall enough to find what I was looking for: I was longing to know the fullness of myself.

    I knew my old habits of perfecting and controlling life to avoid pain, numbing pain, or distracting myself from pain no longer worked. Those strategies did not lead me to the thing I wanted most: completeness. I had to go through the pain. Sit in it. Let it wash over and into me. I had to feel what it’s like to have cancer, be lonely, get hurt, lose someone I love, have a broken body. Only by going through it did I realize I could transcend it.

    Liberation was on the other side of pain. It existed outside of my biosphere. One therapy session at a time, one book at a time, one podcast at a time, one meditation at a time, one hard conversation at a time, slowly, things began to crack. Inch by vulnerable inch, eventually (like, years later), my biosphere crumbled to the ground.

    Brené Brown calls life outside the biosphere “living in the arena.” She said, “When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable.”

    She also said, “I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.”

    The courage to be vulnerable is the springboard out of the biosphere.

    If you’re in adversity right now—in lockdown, or the doctor’s office, or separated from a loved one— perhaps your biosphere, too, can no longer protect you from pain. COVID-19 has cracked open our collective armor and shown us how little control we have. It’s hard. It’s painful. But it is also an opportunity. When the outside world is crumbling, the only way is inward.

    When I look back, I see that pain or resistance only ever asked one thing of me—to look at it. It was a nudge (or a shove in my case) to look inward, get vulnerable, talk about my feelings, unpack my darkness, cry, unearth, read, listen, meditate, move forward in my awareness, expand my consciousness.

    And with time, I grew beyond the safety of the biosphere to a height that was inconceivable while I was in it. Without the wind, I would never have seen the height I could reach.   

    This process of unearthing all my fears and darkness eventually lead to a place of power. Now I have the awareness and power to choose when to act from fear and when to ignore it. The wind no longer rules me. I am at home in it—figuratively and literally.

    Living in the middle of Middle Earth has proven one thing: the wind is constant. We can’t avoid hardship any more than we can avoid day turning into night. The hard things in our life will keep on coming—more lockdowns, more sickness, more hurt—and the only way to be at home in the wind is not to fight it, to learn to live with it.

    We have a saying here in Wellington: You can’t beat Wellington on a good day. It’s true. When the sun is shining, Wellington is the most glorious city on earth. The wind has blown away the cobwebs, and majesty remains. The craggy coastlines glitter and the city’s heartbeat thumps and vibrates and enters the hearts of all who live here. On these days, the thrashing wind is forgiven, and we fall in love with our city again. And again. And again.

    Without the wind, there’d be nothing to forgive. There’d be no falling in love process. Life would exist on a flatline. Yes, there would be no gale. But we’d also miss out on awe. Life is both wind and sun, pain and beauty. By staying in the biosphere, we risk missing the magic that sits outside of it.

    I’m so glad I took that first vulnerable leap of faith all those years ago. Life outside the biosphere isn’t scary like I imagined. I didn’t remain on the ground like a rotting felled tree. I grew.

    I grew to a place where the air is clearer. I can breathe. Frustration or hurt or pain isn’t held onto for any sustained length of time. The waves of emotions come in, then go out. I observe it all without a sense of lasting entanglement. Fear is in the backseat. Pain is softened. Beauty is heightened. Love is everywhere, even in the wind.

    Deepak Chopra said, “The best way to get rid of the pain is to feel the pain. And when you feel the pain and go beyond it, you’ll see there’s a very intense love that is wanting to awaken itself.”

    That’s what is waiting for you outside the biosphere.

  • How We Can Overcome Our Obstacles When We Don’t Believe It’s Possible

    How We Can Overcome Our Obstacles When We Don’t Believe It’s Possible

    “If we can see past perceived limitations, then the possibilities are endless.” ~Amy Purdy

    Nature inspires me. There are hidden messages consistently on display. On my daily walks, I find myself interpreting these messages in relation to my life.

    One day, near the end of my walk, I was paying attention to the trees. A giant one caught my eye. Its magnificence was portrayed as morning sunlight peeked through the branches and bright green leaves.

    I noticed the enormity of its trunk, and then I saw the crooked fence.

    The giant tree trunk had grown so big that it pushed a section of the fence up off the ground. The fence barely had any balance left and looked as if it could topple over at any moment.

    As I watched all of this, I remembered another tree I had seen on one of my walks. The tree’s branches had grown so long and so thick, they struck through the slats on a metal fence. Big brown wooden knobs stuck out, encapsulating the thin wires. I was in such awe, I reached out and touched the chunky parts of the tree, thinking I could unwrap it from the fence. Not a chance. The fence had become a part of the tree.

    In seeing this tree, I thought, “Trees just do what they do. They continue to grow despite any objects that happen to be next to them.”

    These objects could appear as obstacles, but that does not stop the tree from growing. The tree adapts to its surroundings and keeps on keeping on. Depending on the barrier, the tree either continues to grow around it, or the tree ends up wiping out whatever is in its way.

    How is this symbolic in the life of a human?

    The nature of our true essence is to grow. Life seems to contain many events that are beyond our control. We find ourselves in situations where it seems we are being tested. Obstacles show up on our path, and we are faced with the question, “What do I do now?”

    But it really isn’t the obstacle that is in our way. It’s our beliefs about the obstacle that can stop us in our tracks. The tree doesn’t come up against the fence and stop growing. It just keeps doing what it’s supposed to do.

    Here is how this relates to an experience I went through in my early twenties. It was a true test of following my inner guidance instead of listening to the doubts of others around me, as well as my own uncertainties.

    At the age of twenty-two, I found myself pregnant, single, and living back at home with my mother. I was working an office job forty hours a week, making ten dollars an hour. Luckily, I had good health insurance, but what I didn’t have was a lot of self-confidence. I carried around shame.

    This was in the year 2001. Times had changed, right? Why was I so ashamed of being a young, pregnant, unwed girl?

    Because even in current times, that stigma was carried around deep in the trenches of society. And my own mother and older sisters had been through it, too. You could say the feeling of shame was passed down in many generations.

    After my son was born, I knew I had to do something different with my life. I received government help for food and baby formula, and my son was on government health insurance. Again, this only added to my shame because of the looks I would get at the checkout counter in the stores.

    But I knew I wanted to provide a better life for my son, and I knew there was something inside of me that wanted to grow beyond what I thought my potential was.

    I felt an inner calling to go into the medical field. So I decided to go back to college. Many obstacles showed up on my path once I decided to go for it.

    I hadn’t even enrolled in college yet, but when I began speaking aloud about my plan, fear set in, and people’s opinions fueled that fear.

    How would I attend college full-time with a four-month-old baby, work to provide for us, and find childcare in the meantime? Could I do it?

    Some people didn’t think so. They told me it would be too hard. They told me my son was too little, that I should wait until he was older.

    Attending college and raising my son would be too stressful. How did I plan to pay for tuition? Could I even get accepted into the highly competitive program, especially since I was already on academic probation?

    Right out of high school, I proved to lack ambition, and along with poor grades, I ended up dropping out of college after just two years of study. Now, how in the world was I going to get the university to accept me back, especially as a newly single parent?

    The obstacles kept appearing, left and right. A university advisor even told me that the program I wanted into was extremely challenging. He asked me, “Do you have family who can help you with your son? Because this program is rigorous and requires a lot of time.”

    Imagine, all of these stumbling blocks could have made me believe that I was not capable of pulling it off. I could have chosen to believe what I was hearing.

    I could have formed beliefs telling me my plan wouldn’t work. I had the choice to follow my inner guidance, my true essence, which pushed me ahead to grow, or I could believe my thoughts about it all being too hard. I could buy into the shame and the collective idea that I had no future.

    But there was something deep inside of me that knew I was meant to do this. I was meant to challenge all of the belief systems put in place that could hold me back.

    Back then, I did not know the power of positive thinking. I had never heard of manifestation. There were no tools in my toolbox to help push through any doubts. All I had was my inner guidance system and the strong desire to grow and show myself that I could do something really challenging.

    Four years later, after a lot of hard work, I graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in respiratory therapy and was already employed at a local trauma hospital. I was living out on my own with my son and supporting us with my single income. I had found my passion for life, too. I was helping people who were sick.

    Our lives are a reflection of what we believe is true and possible. The belief systems we have in place guide our thoughts, desires, and the actions we take or do not take to make things happen.

    Instead of letting your beliefs hold you back, use this process to grow around them.

    How To See Through Your Belief System

    1. Choose a specific goal you would like to meet or choose a current situation you would like to change.

    2. Write down every belief you have about that goal or situation, specifically, any beliefs you sense are holding you back.

    These beliefs include:

    “I don’t have enough time.”

    “I’m not smart enough.”

    “I’m too old.”

    “I don’t have enough experience yet.”

    “My family would never approve.”

    3. Take some quiet time to engage with these beliefs. Sometimes I find it helpful to think about these during walks, while driving, or while I’m out in nature.

    4. Question where these beliefs came from. Usually, you will see the restrictive beliefs come from somewhere outside of you. They are ingrained from childhood, simply adopted from your parents and caregivers. You will even see a lot of beliefs come from society on a collective level.

    5. Once you can see where the beliefs come from, you have a choice whether to keep believing in them. What worked for me was not to try to change my beliefs into the opposite but to keep identifying that the belief was outside myself. The belief was not a part of my inner guidance. And then I would choose to move past it, not allowing it to hold me back.

    Forward Movement

    Seeing through your belief system is not an overnight process. More than likely, the systems have been with you for a long time. It can take discipline and effort to recognize them when they arise.

    Recognition of your inner guidance during this process is vital. It will not fail you.

    Keep listening to your inner guidance, your true essence. It will take you beyond your wildest dreams. It will be the tree that grows through fences.