Tiny Buddha

Tag: Compassion

  • Maybe I Don’t Need to Make a Big Change in the World

    Maybe I Don’t Need to Make a Big Change in the World

    “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

    As a teen, I was passionately idealistic about justice, love, and compassion. Reading the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and other icons of justice inspired a desire to make a big change in the world.

    Older people would attempt to temper my enthusiasm with a dose of jaded reality, saying things like, “That’s just the way the world is,” and “You can’t change people.”

    I vowed to never be like that. I didn’t want to give into the status quo and turn a blind eye to others being mistreated.

    I literally went out into the world and off to college clutching King’s book, Strength to Love, under my arm. I wanted to live my life advocating for justice and fighting for human rights.

    The world swiftly punched me in the gut…

    Fueled by my passion to change the world, I wrote a fierce letter to the editor on a racial topic affecting my college campus. In response, a group of giggling girls called me late at night, to mock-thank me for being the “white savior” of the campus.

    It was a painful lesson that hurt deeply and confused and embarrassed me. My gusto to change the world had missed the mark.

    I learned many important lessons from that “smack down” experience. I learned to listen more and understand my place within groups. I learned to forgive myself for my mistakes and continue to grow. I learned to slow down and be more deliberate in my actions.

    After healing from my initial wound, I reached out to a mentor. This man had worked in the area of social justice for decades. I wanted to be like him and understand life from his knowing-heart.

    He tolerated my persistent idealism of great change and my occasional self-centeredness, and encouraged me to grow and learn.

    He encouraged me to accept myself for who I was and to focus on listening to others’ stories.

    With hopes of making great change, I started working with those struggling with mental health issues, addiction, poverty, and homelessness. I heard the stories of people who had no voice.

    Stories of disparity, discrimination, and injustice fueled my frustration with society’s sleepy acceptance of the horrors of racism, sexism, and classism. The complexity of these issues belied my passion for change.

    Decades passed and I grew into the person I always wanted to be. I gained experience and understanding. But, the lack of progress in changing society and changing/helping individuals carried a high-level of burn out.

    My soul felt tarnished by anger and exhaustion. I carried so many stories close to my heart…

    The young girls who climbed in the bathtub at night to stay safe from stray bullets of warring gang members. The fifteen-year-old, with the wicked sense of humor, who was killed by his friends. The young man, struggling with schizophrenia, drifting homeless, and then sentenced to a lengthy prison term. The frail, elderly man living in poverty in a remote area with no one to check on him.

    I felt as if my efforts had been completely futile. What type of change had I ever accomplished? I did a quick appraisal and felt full-blown compassion fatigue.

    During this time, I met a man who was addicted to drugs, struggled with severe mental illness, and cycled through homelessness and incarceration. He struck me as one of the most vulnerable individuals I had ever met.

    Because of his childlike trusting, it was easy for his peers to steal his money or con him out of any item. Because of his small size, he was set up and raped. He was incomprehensibly underrepresented and misunderstood within society and within the criminal justice system.

    Whenever I would see him, I would reach out with a gentle voice and word of encouragement. He didn’t seem to respond or notice my efforts. He became symbolic of my compassion fatigue. I couldn’t affect any significant change for this man.

    I took a break and went on a vacation. During my time off, I journaled my list of jaded grievances—aspects of the world I wanted to change.

    People in the world should be more educated, more compassionate, more honest, less judgmental, more accepting, more generous, less self-absorbed… As I scribbled and grumbled, I felt myself thinking, “That’s just the way the world is. You can’t change people.”

    Over my vacation, I continued to reflect on my purpose in the world. An idea that I had been tossing around began to take shape in my mind:

    What if I didn’t have to change the world or even change a single person? What if I simply had to be what I wanted in the world?

    By accepting the fact that I could not change the world, I allowed open space for hope and potential. I felt a burden lift, as I realized satisfying, attainable goals.

    I made a list of personal, complementary goals for each grievance:

    I will educate others by sharing the stories of injustice.

    I will be compassionate, kind, genuine, and open.

    I will be generous and trustworthy.

    I will listen without judgment and strive to understand another’s viewpoint.

    I will keep my ego in check and act from humility.

    At the bottom of my list, I wrote, “All I have control over is myself. It is enough to focus on changing myself into the person that I want to see in the world. Any outcomes are up to the universe.”

    I thought of my vulnerable friend, so taken advantage of by others. My efforts to change his world had failed. My efforts to effect healthy behaviors had failed. Yet, I had been the person to him that I needed to see in the world. I had accomplished this important goal.

    Instead of being the symbol of my futility to effect change, my relationship with him became a symbol of the simplicity of “being” with another, of showing compassion to another.

    After my retreat, I went back to work with a more centered approach of just being present. It felt really good.

    As I walked up to the homeless shelter, I visited with a group of men outside. I saw my vulnerable friend approaching and was surprised he was looking directly at me.

    He pointed at me, smiled, and said to one of the men, “That’s Amy.” He then went to the next man and said the same thing, moving around the circle. When he got to me, he gave me a big hug and said, “I missed you.” I hugged him back, and said, “I missed you, too.”

    I was astonished. Within that hug was my balm. He had given me a great gift of healing, stemming from the realization that we’d both helped each other in that moment. The gift was minute, but mighty. It wasn’t about changing or improving anything, but rather accepting and supporting each other. Allowing that moment to be enough.

    We can focus on change, for ourselves and others, as an ideal or a goal. Working on ideals of change has a place in life. However, the balm, for me, was to elevate “just being” to the same level of importance as “changing or fixing,” and shifting my role from savior to friend.

    This shift is affirming for everyone, including myself and especially those who consistently are looked upon as needing to be changed. That space of being and of acceptance is where healing can take place.

  • How to Heal a Broken Heart Using Mindful Self-Compassion

    How to Heal a Broken Heart Using Mindful Self-Compassion

    “It’s not your job to like me—it’s mine.” Byron Katie

    Why are breakups so painful? Whether we are the dumper or the dumpee, the range of emotions we feel is universal: devastation, sadness, and anger. Oh, and there’s the acute pain, as if your heart had been gouged from your chest, stabbed a dozen times with a butter knife, and booted to the curb.

    Am I right?

    Of course I am. I’ve been there. We all have. I intimately experienced a broken heart and its rippling effects when my partner and I ended our seven-year relationship. I admit that I was the architect of the break-up. I was mostly shut off, insecure, and jealous during the tenure of the relationship. Our breakup was sticky. It was messy. It was ugly…downright.

    As if the pain isn’t enough, we can’t sleep, we lose our appetite or eat like a cow, we stop bathing, we look homeless, and we watch YouTube playlists of How to Get Your Ex Back in Thirty days. Sad days.

    You see, a breakup is a loss. It’s a death of a relationship. It’s a death of an identity that was entangled with our ex partner. The stages of a breakup are similar to grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It’s no wonder we’re a mess when we split from an ex.

    The good news is that there is an antidote to our hot-messed-up heart: mindful self-compassion.

    What is Mindfulness?

    When I first came across the practice of mindfulness, I had a difficult time grasping it: to be aware on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment. Huh?

    What I found helpful was to understand its opposite: mindlessness.

    In the past I often turned to food to make myself feel better. During the breakup I gorged mindlessly, frequently finishing pints of ice cream and large bags of chips and popcorn without ever being present to the eating.

    For example, one particular day I was listening to music and a song came up that reminded me of my ex. Instantly, I became sad. This prompted me to grab a bag of popcorn and start eating. Next thing I knew the bag was almost empty. Then I muttered to myself, “I’m such a fat cow.”

    When our brain is on autopilot, we are not present in our experience of life. In the case of the popcorn, I had been mentally checked out, lost in my thoughts of my ex, as I nearly finished the bag. Then I chastised myself for it.

    Studies have shown that when our minds wander, we’re unhappy. When I look at my own life, I see that being mindless, not mindful has led to a lot of suffering in the forms of anger, shame, anxiety, and depression.

    The practice of mindfulness, then, is to pay attention, on purpose, to what we’re thinking, what we’re feeling (emotions and bodily sensations), and what is happening in our environment, without judging it.

    In other words, we are an engaged and impartial observer to what we’re experiencing in the present moment. We don’t use labels or preconceptions, and we don’t believe our thoughts or take them personally.

    How Can Mindfulness Mend a Broken Heart?

    A stressful event, such as a breakup, can cause our minds to explode. Often, we’re spinning on our thoughts and we don’t know how to stop it. There may be thoughts and feelings of rejection, regret, shame, and unworthiness, and a host of destructive beliefs.

    After my ex and I split, I had a lot of regret, and my thoughts involved punishing myself for how my actions had led to the undoing of the relationship. I replayed past events over and over in my head. I kept wishing that I could have done things differently.

    I thought I could have been more open, trusting, and loving. And I wished I hadn’t been so scared to share my vulnerability and fears, because if I had, perhaps that would have strengthened the relationship instead of weakened it.

    The breakup was excruciatingly painful, yet I felt it necessary to hurl more insults at myself.

    Fortunately, there are many forms of mindfulness that can help us get over a breakup and our ex. This is what I did to heal myself.

    Mindful Self-Compassion

    Self-criticism is very common. And in the context of a breakup, when we’re in pain, we tend to open the floodgates of self-berating thoughts. We are ruthless, and very good at it.

    We might think:

    • “I’m such a loser.”
    • “I’m fat and ugly.”
    • “I’m such an idiot for screwing things up.”
    • “I’ll never find someone as good as my ex.”
    • “My ex is dating and happy, and I’ll always be alone and miserable.
    • “I deserve to hurt.”

    When we believe these harsh thoughts it exacerbates our suffering.

    According to Kristen Neff, author of Self-Compassion – The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, self-criticism has a strong association with depression and dissatisfaction with life. And underneath our self-attacks are deep insecurities about our own personal worth and value.

    This was true for me. I had often discounted my talents and abilities because I had a core belief that I wasn’t good enough. And my breakup only further triggered my negative self-perception.

    Fortunately, mindful self-compassion can snap us out of our mindless self-judgment, and provide us comfort when we need it most.

    Being compassionate means recognizing that there is suffering, being moved by the suffering, leading us to alleviate it, and understanding that suffering is part of our shared human experience.

    The practice of mindful self-compassion is being aware of the self-critical thoughts that cause us pain, offering kindness and love to ourselves to allay it, and recognizing that we’re not alone—what we’re going through is part of life, and we all have imperfections.

    There are many self-compassion exercises, but this is one of my favorites:

    Self-Compassion Exercise: A Letter to Yourself

    1. Grab your journal or a piece of paper and pen, and write about the thoughts and feelings of inadequacy and insecurity you may have as a result of the breakup. Write about any emotions that arise—shame, regret, anger, or sadness.

    2. Think about a real or imaginary friend who is kind, gentle, compassionate, and unconditionally loving. This friend knows you intimately—what you’re going through, your life history, your strengths, your weaknesses, your thoughts of inadequacies and insecurities.

    3. From the viewpoint of your compassionate friend, write a letter to yourself. Using deep compassion and loving kindness, what would s/he say about your thoughts of inadequacy? How would s/he address the suffering that you’re experiencing as a result of your self-attack? How would s/he point out that you are only human and that we all have strengths and weaknesses?

    4. Once you finish writing the letter, put it down. Do something else like go for a walk or make a cup of tea.

    5. Pick up the letter and read it. Let the words of kindness and compassion penetrate your being. Receive the love, the tenderness, and the acceptance.

    The “aha” moment for me when I first did this exercise, in the context of my breakup, was that I was shocked at how harsh I had been toward myself. How had I allowed the self-attack when I would have considered the same behavior, if inflicted on others, unconscionable?

    As a result of the exercise, I recognized that I was hurting and I gave myself permission to receive kindness and love from myself instead of rebuke.

    The practice of self-compassion allowed me to hold space around my thoughts and feelings, and it created an expanded awareness of who I am—that, even if I’d made mistakes in my relationship, I am lovable, I have wonderful qualities, I am capable of a lot of things, I am resilient, and most importantly, I am enough. Further, it helped me realize that we are all connected through similar experiences, whether good or bad. We are never alone.

    Benefits of Mindful Self-Compassion

    Some of you may be thinking, why bother with this self-compassion thing, when I can just go to my best friend or mom and have a good cry with them and they’ll make me feel better? This is fine as well. It’s important to have a good support system.

    The thing is, when we learn how to be self-compassionate, we become our own source of love and happiness. We stop relying on the external to feel good about ourselves.

    To boot, there is evidence that the practice of self-compassion can make us more resilient, more joyful, more productive, and less depressed. I can attest to this, having come out of my rut happier, stronger, and more at peace. I also learned ways to offer myself love and kindness, which I can apply whenever I feel the slightest of discomfort.

    Some of the ways I give myself care are:

    When we experience a devastating event, we have a choice in how to respond. Some choose to get out of dodge mentally and deny their feelings through unhealthy coping mechanisms. Others take the route of self-punishment for their flaws and inadequacies.

    There is an alternative: mindful self-compassion. If you want to get over a broken heart, this practice should be at the top of your healing arsenal.

  • What If You Were Suddenly Forgiven?

    What If You Were Suddenly Forgiven?

    “Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.” ~Marianne Williamson

    Twenty-seven years ago I made a terrible mistake that led to losing the friendship of someone important to me. I was twelve and I very vividly remember that I was at her front door, asking for her forgiveness and she was telling me she couldn’t do this.

    Friendship is one of those areas of my life that I have always felt I need to work on. I used to believe I had to do work in this area because I was uprooted every six months to three years in my childhood. I believed that my trust in friendships was shaky because my history suggested to me that eventually one of us would leave.

    And then the unimaginable happened.

    I was faced with the truth, my unforgivable moment. The girl, who is now a woman, showed up at an impromptu reunion and I sat across from the mistake I had made twenty-seven years ago.

    She and I were best friends. We spent the night at each other’s houses and shaved our legs for the first time together. She taught me all the big vocabulary words, I taught her all the swear words. We were inseparable.

    And then her mom got sick. Shortly thereafter, she died.

    I grew up in an unconventional family where my parents were married at nineteen and had kids by twenty-one. They were boundless young adults with children and stalwart opinions, lacking in education. My dad’s dad had also died when he was young, and instead of creating empathy and compassion in him, my dad was left with the notion that when you die, you’re just dead—get over it.

    My friend’s mom was the first person most of us kids actually knew to have died. I felt the tears and remember the sadness, but like any twelve-year-old, I was ready for our friendship to resume as normal seconds after her mom passed away. Naturally, that was not the case. Thus occurred the twelve-year-old “fight” over the conditions of our friendship.

    My parents told me she was just using her mom’s death as a reason to be difficult and that she just needed to get over it. I remember my mom hissing those heartless words at my best friend. And I remember echoing a similar sentiment myself, without conviction or the wisdom of experience, thus destroying our friendship forever.

    Over the years after that, I would try to regain access to her, to our friendship, with apologies and attempts at conversation. All efforts were met with a firm “No,” or “I’m not ready.” The words not only marred and destroyed our friendship but rippled through all of our mutual friends, ending many other friendships for me. I was devastated, alone, and unforgiven. I was twelve.

    Now imagine you are forgiven twenty-seven years later.

    As I was meditating this morning, I was brought to tears thinking of my daughter and how careful I have been to express and teach empathy to her, how I have given her the pieces that I was lacking.

    And as I meditated, I realized this is where my fear in friendship lives. This is where it all stemmed from. The moving and uprooting didn’t help my trust levels. But imagine you were never forgiven for a mistake you didn’t understand, for words that weren’t yours, in a time of grief you didn’t understand. Imagine you were left behind by all you had loved and trusted because you regurgitated your parents’ problematic view of grief and death to your friend.

    Never in a million years would I ever do anything to intentionally hurt anyone, let alone my best friend. And knowing what I know today, I cannot even fathom how badly she hurt from the loss of her mother. Her mom! The one person who is meant to care for us and help us with our periods, talk to us about dating, and hold us when we cry. Her mom died. And I said the unthinkable. The unforgivable.

    Last week I woke up thinking, “What if the unforgivable thing that has played a role in all of my relationships was forgiven? What if I was forgiven? How does that fit in? How does it transform itself in my life, in my body?”

    I would breathe in a room of strangers, trust a little deeper in the friendships I currently host. I would be able to unwrap and unbutton my tightly wound guard that has protected me all these years. I could stop worrying about whether or not people would like me if they knew who I really was, and instead trust that I am worthy of love and simply good enough… finally.

    We all have an un-forgiveness story buried deep inside. We don’t have to wait years for the relief of receiving someone else’s forgiveness, if it ever comes at all. We can choose to forgive ourselves now, whether they do or not, and free ourselves from the weight of our shame and self-judgment. Take these three steps to do just that:

    1. Think about the day your un-forgiveness was born. Relax and allow yourself to repeat it one last time.

    Close and eyes and remember: What was the context in which the story happened? Who was with you? What have you done? What happened after that?

    2. Now imagine if you forgave yourself, and if there is another person(s) in the party, feel their forgiveness as well.

    How would that feel in your body? How would that transform the beliefs you formed about friendships, partnerships, business, and life? What would you do differently if you knew you were forgiven and released the shame of your experience?

    3. Give yourself and the others involved forgiveness, as we all do our best with the information and understanding we have based on our upbringing and out time in the world.

    And as Maya Angelou wrote, once we know better, we can do better. We always have the opportunity to get wiser. Forgiveness is compassion and wisdom.

    Forgiveness in ourselves and others is one of life’s great lessons. We are often held hostage by our inability to forgive and therefore so is our potential to achieve our life’s purpose.

    A big powerful thank you to my friend who forgave me after twenty-seven years. I am honored and working to spread the love you showed me.

  • Everyone’s Doing The Best That They Can

    Everyone’s Doing The Best That They Can

    “All I know is that my life is better when I assume that people are doing their best. It keeps me out of judgment and lets me focus on what is, and not what should or could be.” ~Brené Brown

    My favorite principle is this simple truth: Everyone is doing the best that they can with the resources they have. Adopting this belief has radically changed my relationship to myself and to others.

    This idea has been explored by a constellation of religious, spiritual, and wellness practitioners. As Deepak Chopra said, “People are doing the best that they can from their own level of consciousness.”

    At first, it’s a hard concept for us to swallow. In a culture that constantly urges us to do more, to be better, and to excel,  “I’m doing the best that I can” sounds like complacency—like an excuse. But what if we took a step back from our culture’s infinite growth paradigm and considered, “What if, right now, there is a limit to what I can achieve? Can I be okay with that?”

    I first stumbled across this principle a few weeks after I quit drinking in 2016. It was a challenging time for me. In the absence of alcohol, I watched my anxiety soar.

    I stayed away from bars and clubs to avoid temptation, but then felt guilty and “boring” for spending Saturday nights at home. When I met up with friends who’d previously been drinking buddies, our interactions felt stilted. I knew sobriety was the healthiest choice for me, but I couldn’t accept the way it impacted my ability to be social. I felt like I wasn’t trying hard enough.

    I spent weeks in a frustrated mind space until I stumbled across that precious idea: “I’m doing the best I can with the resources at my disposal.”

    At first, I recoiled. The high achiever in me—the climber, the pusher—scoffed at the suggestion that I was doing my best. “But other people have healthy relationships with alcohol. Other people maintain active, thriving social lives.”

    But in that moment, I realized that my negative self-talk was an exercise in futility. It never boosted my inspiration or activated me toward progress. It just sparked a shame spiral that sunk me deeper into inaction and guilt.

    So over time, I began to internalize this idea as my own. And as I did, I felt like a blanket of comfort had been draped over me. For the first time in weeks, I could sit back on my couch and watch Vampire Diaries without hating myself. It enabled me to find peace in the present moment and accept—not even accept, but celebrate—that I was doing the absolute best that I could.

    I’ve found that this principle has been easiest for me to internalize when I’ve been going through deep stuff.

    After a painful breakup last August, it took all of my energy to drag myself from bed in the morning. My intense emotions were riding shotgun, which sometimes meant canceling plans last minute, postponing work calls, or calling a friend to cry it out.

    Because I was so obviously using all of my inner resources to get through each day, it was easy for me to accept that I was doing the best that I could. Throughout those months, I gave myself total permission not to do more, not to be “better.” For that very reason, those painful months were also some of the most peaceful months of my life.

    Here’s the thing, though: We don’t have to hit rock bottom in order to show ourselves compassion.

    We don’t need to be heartbroken, shattered, or at wit’s end. Maybe we’re just having a rough day. Maybe we’re feeling anxious. See, our abilities in any given moment depend entirely on our inner resources, and our inner resources are constantly in a state of flux depending on our emotions (pain, stress, anxiety, fear), our physicality (sickness, ailments, how much sleep we got), our histories (the habits we’ve adopted, the trauma we’ve experienced, the socialization we’ve internalized), and so much more.

    When we consider everything that affects our capacity to show up as we’d like to be, we realize how narrow-minded our negative self-talk is. We also begin to understand that everyone comes from a wildly complex, diverse array of experiences, and that comparisons among us are useless.

    Consider how this idea can be applied in some more challenging situations:

    The Friend Who Is Stuck In A Cycle of Stagnancy

    This goes for anyone who complains about a monotonous cycle in their life but can’t seem to break it: the friend who hates their job but doesn’t leave it, or the friend who complains about their partner but won’t end their relationship.

    Those of us on the receiving end of our friend’s complaints may get tired of hearing the same story every day. But our advice to “just leave your job” or “just break up” will fall on deaf ears because it’s not that simple. They are doing the best that they can in that moment because their current need for familiarity and security outweighs their desire for exploration.

    They are experiencing a tension within their desires, but don’t yet have the ability to act on that tension. The limitations of their emotional (or sometimes, financial) resources make it difficult for them to move on.

    By accepting that we’re doing the best we can, we give ourselves the gift of self-acceptance and self-love. Only from this place can positive, sustainable changes to actions or behaviors be made

    The Parents Who Hurt Us When We Were Kids

    It can be especially challenging to apply this principle to those who have wounded us most deeply. But oftentimes, those are the folks most deserving of our compassion.

    Parents have a responsibility to their children, and parents who hurt, neglect, shame, or otherwise harm their children are not doing their job as parents. But sometimes, our parents can’t do their jobs well because they don’t have the resources at their disposal. And even then, they are doing the best that they can.

    More than likely, our parents didn’t learn the necessary parenting skills from their own parents. Maybe they never got therapy to heal old wounds or never developed the coping skills necessary to handle intense emotions. This principle can be very challenging, yet very healing, when applied to parents and other family members.

    The Binge Eater (Or Other Addict)

    This used to be me, and it took me years to accept that even when I was in the thick of my eating disorders, I was doing the best that I could.

    From the outside, the solution seems simple: “Put down the cake.” “Don’t have a third serving.” But for folks with addiction issues—food, alcohol, sex, drugs, you name it—the anxiety or emptiness of not engaging with the addiction can be insurmountable.

    Resisting the impulse to fill an inner void requires extensive resources, including self-love, self-empowerment, and oftentimes, a web of support from friends and family. Folks in the throes of addiction are caught in a painful cycle of indulgence, shame, and self-judgment, which makes it all the more difficult to develop the emotional resources necessary to resist the tug of the addiction.

    But by accepting that they’re doing the best they can, they give themselves the gift of self-acceptance and self-love. Only from this place can we make positive, sustainable changes to our actions or behaviors.

    It’s worth noting: Our actions have consequences, and when we harm others, we should be held accountable. But simultaneously, we can acknowledge that we are doing the best that we can, even when we “fall short” in others’ eyes. Forgiving ourselves (and others) is an emotional experience that transcends logic or justice. We can make the conscious choice not to hold ourselves to a constant standard of absolute perfection.

    Believing that we are all doing the best that we can opens our hearts to kindness and compassion. It allows us to see one another as humans, flaws and all. Next time you feel frustrated with yourself, stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, you’re doing the best that you can.

    Sit down with a piece of paper and divide it in half. On one side, write down the voices of your inner gremlins. What exactly are they saying? Are they calling you lazy, selfish, mean? On the second side, consider what inner and external factors affected your actions or decisions. Consider the emotional, physical, historical, and financial obstacles you face.

    As you review your list of obstacles in contrast with your negative self-talk, summon compassion and kindness for your inner self. If she is struggling, you can ease her burden by quieting the self-judgment and replacing those negative messages with an honest truth: That you’re doing the best you can with the resources at your disposal.

  • This Weekend I Fell Apart, and That’s Okay

    This Weekend I Fell Apart, and That’s Okay

    “Look for something positive each day, even if some days you have to look a little harder.” ~Unknown

    This weekend I hurt more than I have in a very long time.

    It all started on Friday, when my boyfriend and I headed out to spend the weekend with friends—two couples, both with babies in tow.

    I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, to get pregnant since the start of the year, yet I didn’t anticipate that it would be emotionally taxing for me to be around two little families. I was just excited to see our friends, who live in the Bay Area, hours away from our home near LA.

    A little backstory: I’m less than three weeks away from my thirty-ninth birthday, which means I’m now in the category of “high-risk pregnancy,” if I’m even able to get pregnant at all.

    My boyfriend and I first discussed having a baby five years ago, but we kept pushing it off because our families live on opposite coasts, and neither of us was able to agree to live on the other’s coast full-time for the long term.

    We finally decided, at the beginning of this year, that I would be the one to visit my family—as often as I feel I need to, with our kid(s), for the foreseeable future—and we’d commit to staying in LA, which makes sense since we’re working toward a career in film.

    But biology doesn’t just fall in line because you finally get over your fears and decide to make a compromise. We’re both open to the idea of adoption, but there are other personal issues—that my fiercely private boyfriend would not want disclosed—that have complicated matters.

    So there I was on Friday with our friends and their adorable babies—one actually a toddler, since he recently turned two.

    We toasted our get-together around 5:00 with our first glass of wine, and the wine continued flowing throughout dinner. After, we all moved to the deck to partake in an at-home wine tasting.

    The ladies and I discussed my road to pregnancy, and though I was discouraged, for the most part I was fine—until I wasn’t.

    Having lost track of the amount of wine I was drinking, I eventually hit that emotional place I remember from my younger years, when alcohol eventually led to histrionics and tears. It is literally a depressant, after all, and generally not great to imbibe when you’re already feeling fragile.

    I don’t remember all the details of that night, but I know I cried about my fears about not being able to have a family (which, as I mentioned, is an issue complicated by many factors).

    I woke up at 4:00 in the morning and picked a fight with my boyfriend about our relationship. Then I woke at 8:00 with two things: a hangover and a shame-over. I was absolutely mortified.

    I’d gotten drunk, turned a fun night with friends into something heavy and emotional, and had caused my boyfriend a lot of pain and embarrassment. It gave me a little comfort to realize everyone had drunk too much. But I still felt deeply ashamed of having lost control.

    Ironically, I received an email that morning that I’d been waiting on for almost a month. My film mentor had just read the second draft of my first feature screenplay, and she said she was blown away by the massive improvement from the first draft.

    I had never in my life simultaneously felt immense pride and deep shame, but I did right then.

    Fortunately, the friend I cried to was extremely kind and empathetic. And no one judged me or put me down, as good friends never do.

    But that day was pretty rough for me, physically and emotionally. And the next day, it got worse.

    That night I noticed that a few people had commented on a meme I’d shared on Friday, using clipart with a hyper-sexualized female silhouette. They mentioned that it was demeaning to women to use what essentially appeared to be Barbie to represent the female form. One person called it “offensive.”

    Though there were only a few critical comments, juxtaposed against 12,000 shares, I immediately realized I agreed with them. As someone who once struggled with an eating disorder, I’d like to represent women as more than a busty, high-ponytailed caricature.

    This didn’t fully or accurately represent my values or the message I’d like to convey. And I didn’t like the idea of young girls seeing it and concluding, as I may have as an adolescent, that this was what a woman is supposed to look like, even if some women actually look like this. So I decided to take it down.

    With a mind still foggy I decided to write something on Facebook, as I wanted the community to know I felt I’d made an error in judgment. I didn’t want to just delete it. I want to make it clear I don’t agree with a society that puts pressure on women to be femme bots and suggests that our sexuality is our most valuable contribution.

    I mentioned in my post that some people had pointed out that the image was offensive, and I agreed that it was triggering—and the backlash was swift and harsh.

    In retrospect, I don’t think I accurately communicated why I decided to remove this image, since I didn’t address the cultural issue of how women are portrayed in the media and the fact that I’d like to be part of the solution, not the problem. But I’m not sure it would have mattered if I did, since I’d used the word “offensive.”

    I forgot that people often get offended by other people getting offended.

    Over the next day, hundreds of comments came in, many attacking me on a personal level.

    People called me spineless for catering to “snowflakes.” People said they lost respect for me and questioned my aptitude for even doing the work I do, since I clearly have no sense of conviction or belief in my own decisions. Even more alarming, many people mocked the idea of being “triggered,” and essentially belittled anyone with emotional or mental health issues.

    I felt misunderstood, judged, and condescended.

    I hid or deleted many of the worst comments and resisted the urge to defend myself, deciding instead to leave one clarifying comment a couple hours in. But I’m not going to lie; this affected me deeply.

    While on the one hand, I reminded myself that my power was in my response, and publicly, I only responded in one calm, clear comment, I also obsessively monitored the feed.

    By this time my boyfriend and I were at his parents’ house in Nevada, where we planned to stay for a few days, and I wasn’t even close to present. I didn’t want to delete this new post, since I believed I’d done the right thing, but it pained me to see so much vitriol in a space that I hold sacred.

    Then came another blow: I’d noticed a while back that since the start of the year, someone had been sharing every single challenge from my book Tiny Buddha’s 365 Tiny Love Challenges on Facebook. Though this person tagged my page, none of the posts included the book’s title or a link—and some people actually assumed she was writing these posts or getting them from my Facebook page.

    I’d emailed my publisher a few weeks back to ask their thoughts on this, and they told me they could send an email asking her to stop. At the time, this seemed warranted.

    Her Facebook friends didn’t see it that way. After she posted the letter from my publisher’s legal department, tagging my page, once again, the comments turned nasty.

    F— you, Tiny Buddha.

    You suck, Tiny Buddha.

    More like “Greedy Buddha.”

    Unbelievable! She should thank you for the free marketing!

    For a while, I felt completely numb. And I knew I was doing the “wrong” things by obsessively monitoring my phone and letting these comments get to me.

    I knew it wasn’t serving me to dwell in my self-righteousness and how wrong I believed it was for this woman, who enjoyed my work enough to share it, to like comments that attacked me on a personal level. But I did it anyways.

    I was angry with the people who were angry. I was triggered by the people who were triggered.

    And then something occurred to me: This whole weekend was an opportunity. It was a chance to practice some of the lessons that are much easier to practice when everything is going well.

    This weekend was a chance to remember that:

    I need compassion most when I think I deserve it the least.

    Initially, I beat myself up over several things this weekend: drinking to excess, exploding emotionally, hurting my boyfriend, choosing clipart that I wished I hadn’t chosen, letting my publisher speak for me instead of reaching out to the woman personally, and obsessing over the various challenges I was facing instead of being present.

    I told myself I shouldn’t have made any of those mistakes. I should have been beyond this. I was a fraud.

    Then I realized something: I was being as mean to myself as the people online. And not a single blow of self-flagellation was helping me move on. In fact, each self-judgmental thought cemented me further into the hole. Because telling myself I was sucking at life made it awfully hard to find the strength to do better.

    Every time I criticized myself, I weakened myself, and a weakened person is far less equipped to reframe difficult circumstances and respond wisely.

    The only way out was to cut myself some slack. I needed to stop fighting with myself and let go, as if melting into a hug from someone who had finally forgiven me. I needed my own love and compassion.

    So I drank too much and cried. I was hurting. It’s been a long journey toward starting a family, and it’s been hard. It’s okay to hurt.

    So I made mistakes in my work—who hasn’t? I owned them and publicly admitted them. What matters isn’t the fact that I messed up but that I acknowledged it and committed to doing better.

    I don’t have to be perfect. Sometimes I will make mistakes, some public, and sometimes I’ll make many that compound. The only way to stop the cycle is to stop obsessing about having done things wrong. The only way to move into the future is to fully accept the past. Once I did this, I felt freer and better able to be present.

    The approval that matters most is my own.

    It bothered me that people believed I removed the image because I needed approval from the “complainers,” as opposed to having made a decision based on my own beliefs and values.

    But ironically, once the flood of negative comments came in, I did start feeling a need for approval. I wanted people to understand and honor my positive intentions.

    It took me a day, but I was finally able to accept that some people were simply committed to judging me, and this wasn’t something to change; it was something to accept.

    It didn’t matter if some people derided me or questioned me if I felt in my heart I’d done the right thing.

    I eventually deleted the second post because I wanted to put an end to the negativity. There’s far too much of that on Facebook already. But I’m proud I waited and resisted the urge to remove all criticism immediately. For a recovering approval addict, allowing a public character assassination requires immense strength. And I give myself a lot of credit for that.

    It’s rarely personal.

    Intellectually, I knew this when people were insulting me in both places on Facebook.

    I knew that the people who were angry with me for catering to “snowflakes” were really projecting their feelings about what they perceive to be an oversensitive culture. It wasn’t just about this one image. It was about every time someone’s ever said they were offended and their complex feelings about what that means to them.

    I also knew that the people defending the woman who’d been sharing my book online were acting from a place of allegiance to their friend. They were more pro-her than anti-me. Many didn’t even have all the information—they didn’t realize she’d been sharing from a book. So really, I couldn’t take that personally either.

    This wasn’t immediately comforting to me because the attacks were so public, but when I was able to fully absorb this, it did give me some peace.

    Not everyone will see my side, and that’s okay.

    I believe one of our deepest desires is to feel understood—to know that other people get where we’re coming from and that they may even have done the same thing if they were in our shoes.

    I didn’t feel that way when people judged me personally based on the letter from my publisher’s legal department.

    I left a few comments on that post, trying my best to respond from a place of calm, but I know there are some people who will forever think I am greedy and soulless because I didn’t want my book’s content republished online.

    I’ve decided that this is okay. Not everyone has to get me, understand me, support me, be considerate of me, or treat me kindly—so long as I do those things for myself.

    Pain can be useful if you share it to help someone else.

    I decided to share this post for two reasons:

    First, I thought it would be cathartic for me. I felt ashamed for a lot of this weekend, and I wanted to be able to reframe this experience in a way that felt empowering. As I said when I first launched this site, when we recycle our pain into something useful for others, we’re able to turn shame into pride.

    And that brings me to the second reason: I thought it might be helpful for someone else to realize that even someone who runs a site like Tiny Buddha can fall into so many self-destructive traps.

    If you’ve ever drank too much and fallen apart emotionally, know that you’re not alone.

    If you’ve ever obsessed over comments online and allowed something as trivial as a Facebook feud to get the better of you, know that you’re not alone.

    If you’ve ever failed to apply what you know and regressed to the least evolved version of yourself, know that you’re not alone.

    And know that all of these things are okay. They don’t mean anything about you as a person. They don’t define you. And they certainly don’t have to dictate the future.

    This is what I needed to hear this weekend when I was despondent and numb, so today it’s my gift to you. I hope someone benefits from something in my experience, but I suppose no matter what, someone has—me.

  • There Are a Gazillion Little Ways to Be Kind (and It Benefits You Too)

    There Are a Gazillion Little Ways to Be Kind (and It Benefits You Too)

    “The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands.” ~Robert M. Pirsig

    One day while grocery shopping I was reaching for a head of lettuce when I heard a shrill, high-pitched wail from a few aisles over. It sent shivers up my spine. It was one of those sounds that grabs your breath and pulls it to your heart.

    It brought me back to a time I had long forgotten—a memory engrained in my brain from about twenty-two years ago when my children were toddlers. I remember those days of being exhausted and trying to wrap up the weekly shopping trip before the tantrum.

    Most people in the store tried to ignore it, but the shrieks came like contractions about every six minutes. People started rolling their eyes. One lady commented that children shouldn’t be allowed in stores. I felt really bad for this parent. I mean, we were all children once, right? It’s pretty rude to fault the parent for something that occurs naturally as a part of being human.

    Eventually, as I filled my cart, I ended up in the same aisle as the mom and child. Mom was spent. There was a Ziploc bag of Cheerios tucked next to the child and a stuffed animal that had probably been picked up off the floor of the aisle about fifty times.

    It is during times like these when we, as humans, need to pause and show some compassion. As a woman, I wanted to support a fellow sister. As a parent, I wanted to support a fellow parent. As a human, I wanted to let her know that stuff like this happens and it’s okay, and in a few years she’ll laugh telling stories like these.

    What I wanted to convey is that this was simply a very human moment.

    I think we’ve conditioned ourselves to overlook many things in life—to shrug it off, roll our eyes, and simply walk away. We evade interaction on a very basic level. We miss so many opportunities to extend our human kindness to each other.

    We live in a fast-paced world; we’re always on the go. We’re too worried about getting from Point A to Point B. Our brains are filled with thoughts and worries. We’re trying to stay two steps ahead of ourselves. Often this results in the failure to stop and do something nice for someone else.

    I think what’s happened in the world today is that we see poverty, abuse, disease, war, hunger, bullying, and violence so often that it is overwhelming. We feel dispirited. What we must remember, no matter how distressing the news is, that we have the power to make a change. It starts with us understanding that because we are human we have been bestowed with the power to change the world with kindness.

    What we need to remember is that when we offer kindness to strangers, we not only brighten their day, we brighten our own. When we express kindness to each other we establish or strengthen connections with each other. Sometimes it’s just a fabulous reminder of our humanness.

    The beautiful thing about kindness is that it lives in your heart. It’s always there waiting to come out and make an appearance. You always know it’s a true kindness when you don’t expect anything in return, like gratitude or reciprocation; you simply want to make someone feel better.

    Also, kindness is good for your health. Being kind regulates our heart rate; we get a warm, cozy feeling. Our brain releases dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins, all of which make us happy. And oxytocin also reduces inflammation in the heart, so kindness is literally good for your heart!

    Committing regular acts of kindness or simply showing kindness to others on a regular basis lowers blood pressure and reduces your chances of dying early.

    Regular practice of kindness also decreases pain and anxiety while giving your energy a boost.

    What are the human benefits of kindness?

    * Kindness builds empathy. It can help us to put ourselves in another’s shoes. It encourages us to do nice things for others because we would like others to do nice things for us.

    * Kindness builds gratitude. We look at the situations others are experiencing and we become grateful for what we have. Even when it’s not a lot, we can find the gratitude easier when we are kind to others.

    * Kindness creates a ripple effect of kindness. One simple act of kindness can put a smile on someone’s face for the rest of the day. It can make someone feel good. In their energy of feeling better that they, chances are they are going to say something nice or do something good for another person, and that baton of good feelings will get handed to another as the days go on.

    * Kindness gives a boost to our own self-worth as well as to the self-worth of the person we are giving the kindness.

    * Kindness is calming. It gives a new perspective for us to step away from a woe and allow that warm, cozy feeling to run through our veins.

    * When we are kind, we become a better human. Everything about us changes. Our demeanor, outlook, and our way of thinking. We become a conduit of hope.

    As for me in the grocery store? I played peak-a-boo for two aisles. I managed to get a smile and the baby’s tears dried up. She even offered me a Cheerio, which I pretended to eat.

    Something as simple as a childhood game relieved a bit of stress for another parent. It was a very simple act of kindness that didn’t cost a thing. To the mom, it was an unsaid acknowledgement of “You’re not alone and I understand what you’re going through.” It really is that simple.

    What did I walk away with? Well… I had pulled up some memories from a quarter century ago that made me smile. That evening when I got home I actually pulled out the kids old photo albums and started to recall my own adventures with them. I felt good knowing that I didn’t add to someone else’s stress by being rude or uncaring, and I made a child smile. I think that’s a pretty good day.

    You don’t have to wait until you see a screaming child in the grocery store; there are a gazillion little ways to spread kindness:

    Hold the door for someone (even if you are running late).

    Smile at people.

    Give up your seat on the bus or train.

    When you see a homeless person, look them in the eye and offer them a meal.

    Stop at an accident to see if anyone needs help.

    Help a parent get their baby stroller up the stairs.

    Volunteer somewhere.

    Let someone ahead of you in traffic without complaining.

    Help someone reach something off the high shelf.

    Visit an elderly neighbor.

    Buy lemonade from a child’s stand.

    Tell someone you love their outfit or hair.

    Tell someone they are a good parent.

    Leave a generous tip.

    Offer someone a tissue if they are crying.

    Do you have anything to add to the list?

  • The Most Compassionate Words and How They Heal

    The Most Compassionate Words and How They Heal

    “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” ~Dalai Lama.

    It wasn’t until my mother died that I was able to feel her love and have that mother-daughter relationship that I’d been craving all my life. It was not until she died that I was able to learn, and truly feel, compassion—for her and for me.

    I’ve always known that compassion for others is a nice thing. We all know that. But it wasn’t until I truly felt it that I was able to create a deep sense of healing.

    My mum and I always had a strange relationship. Abused as a child and never able to reclaim her power, she was a tormented soul, and she was unable to be the mother she wanted to be. I was empathetic with this; I took it on and was unable to be the daughter I could be. It was like there was a wall between us, and we were unable to connect as a regular mother and daughter.

    I remembered all the times when her promises fell through. I remembered all the times when she yelled at me as a kid. I remembered all the times when she’d manipulate me in a big custody battle. I remembered some good times too, of course, but they were fleeting, and they passed all too quickly.

    I remembered when she told me she only had six months to live; she’d been struggling with self-inflicted cancers from having drank and smoked all her life in order to cope with the heavy weight on her shoulders.

    I remembered visiting her in palliative care and her seeming hopeful that she would be out of there soon, reunited with her dog.

    I remembered seeing her two weeks later, on her final night, and wondering what she was thinking, wondering what she was feeling with that final breath, knowing that relief was finally coming her way.

    The waves of grief hit me harder and harder, until, over a year later, I found myself crying for almost forty-eight hours straight.

    I felt for her never being able to live the life she could have lived. I felt for her trauma. There wasn’t much sadness of my own. I didn’t miss having a mother who was never present. All my feelings were for her.

    There were no words. The sadness I felt for her and what sadness I felt for myself had merged into a convoluted mess. My body was unable to process it all.

    One day, as I was remembering a difficult time, I decided to tune into myself as a child. All I really wanted was to be understood and acknowledged. So, addressing the child version of me, at that point in time, I said to her: I see you. I hear you. I feel you.

    And oh, the relief I felt!

    I repeated that phrase to myself as a child over and over until I felt my body soften.

    I see you. I hear you. I feel you.

    I felt okay. I was safe. I was seen. I was heard. I was understood. I could finally let go and breathe.

    But I realized, at that point in time, my mum also need to be seen, heard, and understood.

    So I gave to her what I gave to myself.

    I said to her: I see you. I hear you. I feel you.

    I repeated it over and over and over again until I felt her soften, let go, and finally be able to breathe. We both felt lighter and freer than we’d ever felt before. The sadness, the heaviness, the darkness—it simply melted away.

    I knew I was onto a good thing here, so I revisited various points in time, including my mum’s childhood when she was scared and traumatized, and including during her final days when she knew she was dying. I said to myself, and I said to my mum, this chant of compassion, which I found myself extending to the following:

    I see you.
    I hear you.
    I feel you.
    I honor you.
    I love you.
    Thank you.

    As I said each phrase, I meant each word with every cell of my body. I truly felt it.

    It was important to me to give love and to thank her and myself in those various points in time for the opportunity to expand my capacity for love and compassion.

    I found that when I am in a state of ever-expanding love and compassion, I am able to truly feel free. And for that, I am truly thankful.

    Extending our capacity for love and compassion toward ourselves, and those who have hurt us, also expands our capacity for love and compassion toward everyone and everything. I truly believe that if everyone were to proactively expand their capacity for love and compassion, the world would not only be a better place, but it would be the perfect place.

    I have found uses for this beyond grief, beyond our own healing, and beyond healing for other people. I have even found using this chant of compassion helpful in dealing with guilt from anything and everything—for people suffering road rage, for the cruelly treated caged animals in this world, for the injustices of our governments, even for the murderers, rapists, and terrorists, for they too are suffering deep within.

    I am now of the belief that the purpose of all hurt is to teach us love and compassion. For if we cannot grow from this, then there was no purpose for it. And if we can all grow from it, then humanity as a whole grows from it.

    I know I am particularly fortunate in my white middle class upbringing, and I know it may seem very easy for me to say that compassion makes the world go round, but I’ve also known great mental torment and grief. I have felt it with every cell of my body. And I know that this one simple practice has helped me to soften, and to free myself from the dissonance between my heart and my mind.

    If you are feeling loss, grief, hurt, or heartache, I encourage you to try this chant of compassion for yourself. Mean every word of it. Feel every word as you say it. Repeat it over and over, as often as you need, until you feel your body soften:

    I see you.
    I hear you.
    I feel you.
    I honor you.
    I love you.
    Thank you.

    Say it to yourself as you are feeling now. Say it to yourself in the past. Say it to people who are hurting you. Say it to people who have hurt you in the past.

    Feel yourself soften. Feel them soften. Allow yourself to expand your capacity for love and compassion. Give yourself this gift to set yourself free.

  • The 10 Most Important Things We Can Do for the People We Love

    The 10 Most Important Things We Can Do for the People We Love

    People. Life is all about people.

    We don’t have to have a ton of relationships, but we all need people in our lives who get us. Who’ve seen our freak flag countless times and love when it comes out.

    People who tag us on memes that capture our spirit, or Tasty videos they know we’d drool over. People who text us with random pictures of bumper stickers or book covers or bath mats or beard accessories with a note that reads “Saw this and thought of you.”

    We all need these kind of close connections to feel a sense of security and belonging in the world.

    We need people who think of us, look out for us, accept us, bring out the best in us, and challenge us to be the best us we can possibly be. And we need to be that person for them.

    It could be the family you were born into, the one that you chose, or the one that chose you after plowing down the big wall you erected to keep yourself safe.

    Whoever makes up your tribe, and regardless of its size, these are the kinds of relationships that make everything else seem manageable.

    Whether you’re having a hard day or a hard month or a hard year, a call or a hug from the right person can remind you that life really is worth living. And when things are going well, it’s all the more enjoyable for having people you love to share it with.

    Most of us would agree that our relationships are the most important thing. That a layoff or lost opportunity can be tolerated so long as the people we love are healthy and safe.

    And yet it’s all too easy to lose sight of the big picture when we’re knee-deep in the struggles of our daily lives. It’s easy to deprioritize the little things that keep relationships strong when we’re worried about our debt and our deadlines.

    It’s human nature—our negativity bias: we’re more sensitive to what’s going wrong than what’s going right. It’s how we’re wired, a means to keep ourselves safe.

    But life is about more than just being safe. Or at least I want it to be. I want to focus more on what I love than what I fear. I want to be proactive, not just reactive. I want to wake up every day and be the good that happens to someone else instead of just playing defense to prevent bad from happening to me.

    So this year, instead of focusing mostly on everything I want to gain or achieve, I plan to live each day with the following intentions in mind.

    I intend to…

    1. Be present.

    I will put down my phone and focus fully on the person in front of me. My texts and emails will be there later. The person in front of me won’t.

    2. Listen deeply.

    Instead of plotting what I’m going to say next, or collecting mental buckets of sage advice I can’t wait to dole out, I will listen completely, with the primary goals of understanding and being there.

    3. Speak truthfully.

    Even when it feels awkward and uncomfortable, I will share what’s true for me. I won’t exclude the messy parts, no matter how tempting it may be to try to appear perfect. The jig is up—I’m not. Not even close! And neither are you. Let’s be beautiful messes together.

    4. Accept fully.

    I will see your quirks and edges and shortcomings and peccadillos and will accept them all as crucial parts of the complete package that is you.

    5. Interpret compassionately.

    Instead of assuming the worst, I will give you the benefit of the doubt, as I would want to receive it. I’ll assume you didn’t mean to be rude or to hurt my feelings. That it came out wrong, or you were triggered and reacting from a place of hurt, or you were simply having a bad day. And then I’ll stop assuming and ask to verify, “Is everything okay?”

    6. Forgive often.

    I will take every perceived slight or offense and put it through my mental shredder before I go to sleep each night. And if I can’t let it go, perhaps because it’s too big to simply discard, I’ll tell you how I feel and what I need so we can work through it together.

    7. Appreciate vocally.

    I will let you know that I admire how you always stick up for the little guy and love how you make everyone laugh. I will compliment you on your passions, your parenting, and how you exude peace, because you’re awesome and you should know it.

    8. Give freely.

    I will give my love, support, understanding, and well wishes; I’ll give things new and old that I think will be helpful. If there’s something you need that I no longer do, I’ll send it with a note that reads, “I thought you could put this to good use. And if not, sorry for sending you clutter!”

    9. Remain unbiased.

    I will put aside everything I think I know about you based on who you appear to be, and will be open-minded when you tell me or show me what you believe and what you stand for.

    10. Love anyway.

    Even if you’re stubborn or moody or judgmental, I will love you anyway. And when I’m stubborn, moody, and judgmental I’ll try to do the same for myself. I’ll try to rise above petty thoughts and sweeping generalizations and keep sight of who you and I really are: good people who are doing our best to navigate a sometimes-painful world.

    Because we all stress and strain and struggle sometimes. We all get fed up, ticked off, and let down, and at times we all lash out.

    In these moments when we feel lost and down on ourselves, it helps to see ourselves through the eyes of someone who believes in us. And it helps to remember we’re not alone, and that someone else really cares.

    Someone who’ll stand by us at our worst and inspire us to be our best.

    Someone who’ll sit on a roof with us and and talk about everything big or nothing important for a while. Someone who might not always know which one we need, but who’s willing to ask and find out.

    This is the kind of friend I want to have, and the kind of friend I want to be. Because life is all about people. And all people need a little love.

  • How to Prevent Blame and Criticism from Destroying Your Relationship

    How to Prevent Blame and Criticism from Destroying Your Relationship

    “Who is it that’s unhappy? The one who finds fault.” ~Anonymous

    If you are anything like me, you yearn to know in your bones that you are showing up in your primary relationship as your best self. You want to be loving, kind, and supportive (and to reap the gifts those qualities sow in your love life). But certain habits of interaction get in the way, making you feel inept and ashamed.

    Like many of us, I grew up in a family that was steeped in criticism and blame. Though I rebelled against this behavior intellectually, it found its way deep into me.

    When the first blush of love-bliss wore off in my more serious relationships, blame and criticism would rear their ugly heads, leaving me guilt ridden and very disappointed in myself. It always created distance in my relationships.

    This habit is the top reason relationships fall apart. Not only does it feel terrible to the one being criticized, it also destroys the perpetrator’s own sense of confidence in their worthiness and integrity, further shutting down the free flow of love.

    Looking back at my first marriage, I see that this ingrained and destructive habit was at the root of our love’s erosion. Because I tended to use a subtle form of blame and criticism that were harder to label as such (I mostly thought I was asking for things, when actually I was belittling and condemning), it became pervasive. Over time, like weeds left to grow rampant, it overtook our joy entirely.

    Criticism and blame can be blatant or subtle. The obvious expressions are often in the actual words we choose. But, as I learned the hard way, it’s the subtler forms of blame and criticism that can do the most damage because they are harder to spot.

    Since much of our communication is non-verbal (up to 93%!), it makes sense to take a good look at if and how we are imparting blame and criticism without words.

    Some of these subtle ways include:

    ~Tone of voice (“Can you please stop…” said with a tone that drips blame or implies stupidity.)

    ~Sounds (“Ugh!” meaning, “There you go again.”)

    ~Body language (rolling your eyes, giving them cold looks… I once stuck out my tongue at my partner in a heated moment.)

    ~Asking someone to “do better” can be an insidious form of criticism, if not done well. This was my main way of using it.

    In my current partnership I vowed to do things very differently. I let him be him, no complaints. We enjoyed years of authentic, kind, tolerant, and loving ways of relating to each other. I felt proud and happy to have seemingly overcome that bad habit.

    And then we hit a rough patch. Over the course of one stressful year we had a baby, with all the lack of sleep and physical and emotional adjustments that brings, as well as built a house (a huge and challenging job…as the saying goes: “build a house, lose a spouse”), while also raising my older boys and maintaining the rest of our lives.

    The strain of this time put a lot of pressure on me, and I found my old bad habit of blaming and criticizing really hard to suppress, as if it had a life of its own.

    I started subtly putting him down, sometimes saying things like, “You never listen!” or once, “You are such a teenager!” because he stayed out later than he said he would. But mostly it showed up in my tone of voice, judgmental and intolerant. This would set him off and send us downhill fast.

    This went on for a few months. I felt terrible about it, yet didn’t know how to stop. The effect was that he became more on guard, not as open and warm as usual. And I started berating myself for my behavior, which cut me off from being able to feel and express my warmth and love.

    It also made me afraid I might destroy this incredibly good thing we had—one of the most cherished things in my life.

    It was time to regroup. So I rested up and rebalanced a bit. It was from this more centered place that I had the capacity to take a really hard look at where I was going wrong.

    The powerful insights I discovered have all but completely eliminated that harmful way of relating. Here they are for you, with tips on how to live them so that you can keep, revive, and grow that beautiful thing that is the love in your life.

    1. Build an inner eco-system of self-compassion. 

    Don’t make the mistake of re-directing any blame back at yourself. Instead, try kindness and curiosity.

    Start by understanding that blame and criticism are misguided attempts at protecting yourself and, ironically, at creating a better relationship. At the heart of it is a longing to feel good. Although the goal is virtuous, the method is not. Just understanding this invokes a sense of self-compassion.

    Then, consciously cultivate an attitude of kindness toward yourself.

    The next time you are experiencing the fallout emotions of having blamed or criticized your partner, simply feel what you feel. Be there with yourself the way you would with a child who is having a temper tantrum—compassionately.

    Put your hand on your own heart (or cheek or arm) and say to yourself “be safe, be well, be at ease, my dear.” I like to call myself “my love, or my sweet” when I do this.

    Experiment and see what feels most resonant for you. As feel-good hormones are released through this simple action, you start to feel more safe and at ease inside yourself. This raises your ability to be your authentically loving self in your relationship.

    2. Own it.  

    Taking responsibility for your unskillful ways is essential for wholeheartedly ending them.

    Whether in the heat of the moment or later, you must be able to say: “Oops, my bad—again!” Admitting your blunder to yourself (compassionately) and to your significant other is part of taking responsibility for your actions.

    Doing so will help soften your partner’s barbed defenses and start to ease any tension. An authentic “I’m sorry” can work wonders, as a starting point.

    Own that when you are complaining or blaming you usually want something but are simply sharing that ineffectively. Instead, figure out what you want. Then be brave enough to ask for it—when you are ready to use a calm kind tone.

    3. Notice that fear is the underbelly of blame and criticism. 

    Below every angry expression of blame or criticism is fear. Fear of discomfort, pain, or otherwise feeling bad. Fear hijacks our brain and makes even our allies look like enemies, leaving behind the rational, kind, and loving parts of our nature.

    A small example would be if I were whining to my man about how he never sticks to his agreements about our division of house chores. Underneath that blaming expression is the fear of feeling stressed out and exhausted by having to squeeze more chores into my already full schedule.

    The key here is being deeply and bravely honest with yourself. When you find yourself about to criticize or blame someone, or having just done so, ask yourself, “What am I afraid of here?”

    Then ask, “What’s underneath that?” You might find that sadness lives there. Or even shame. Either way, this will help shift you out of anger and into curiosity, compassion, and a sense of integrity as you draw closer to your genuine truth. If you can uncover that truth just once, it will unravel the grip of the habit and make it easier to stop the next time it tries to grab you.

    4. Enlist your body.

    When the mood of blame and criticism hovers close, smothering you from the inside out, move your body. Shift your position, go for a walk or, my favorite, dance.

    Instead of closing in on yourself, as fear and anger cause us to do, allow movement to physically open your posture, shake out the irritation, express the frustration, and soften your muscles.

    Or maybe your need is to rest, shifting the body into a softer easeful state. This will melt your fear brain, connect you to your essence and get you back to acting from your natural kind goodness.

    5. Redirect to appreciation. 

    Ask yourself a really good positivity-boosting question to direct your attention toward appreciation. As a self-protective measure, our brains are wired to look for the negative. To counteract this bias in our relationships, we must consciously look for what is positive.

    So ask yourself, “What is wonderful to me about him/her?” If at first answers come slowly, stick with it and the floodgates will open.

    When I do this I start to see many things that I adore about my man, and it fills me with love, replacing anger or fear. Nothing is too little: his cheekbones, the way he plays with our sons, the unique sound of his breathing as he shifts into sleep…

    Sharing these appreciations with your partner through words or gestures encourages a flourishing of warmth and affection.

    —

    Now that I am through those few months of stress when I was once again ensnared by the temptation to criticize and blame, I am grateful for that time because it motivated me to dig out the roots of that harmful habit.

    I am now deeply confident in my ability to show up as my best, most loving self in my partnership (which helps my man do the same).

    These days, if my love life were a garden, it would be the most lush, colorful, and medicinal place, with an occasional root leftover from that giant old criticism tree that I pulled up not so long ago.

    When those roots occasionally grow a shoot, I notice it and gently but firmly pull it up using the techniques I discovered. Then I turn back to adoring my magical garden, allowing it to nourish my whole life. And you can do this too.

    Couple painting here

  • How Feeling Shame Freed Me from Suffering

    How Feeling Shame Freed Me from Suffering

    “Be gentle first with yourself if you wish to be gentle with others.” ~Lama Yeshe

    It was October, 2012. The U.S. Presidential Election was around the corner. I was paying an unaccustomed amount of attention to political news on TV and to political discussion sites online. At one site in particular, I was eager to become part of the community, to make a good impression, to build a reputation.

    To put it mildly, that didn’t work out well.

    One evening I was watching an interview with a politician whose name I recognized, but I didn’t know much about him. I thought he was making some cogent points about the topic at hand. I went to the online discussion site to see whether anyone had mentioned this interview yet, and when I found no one had, I hastily composed a post praising the politician and suggesting that others should watch the interview.

    The reaction was fast and fierce. How could I have anything nice to say about this nincompoop, who was renowned far and wide as a hypocrite? Where was my sense? Where were my ideals? Where was my head? What did I think I was doing there in the first place?

    I was mortified. I, who had always prided myself on intellectual acumen, had totally failed to do my homework. I hadn’t done even the most cursory research to learn anything about the politician’s history.

    I felt I’d made an ass of myself. I was so ashamed that I didn’t even visit the site for weeks. I was genuinely in pain.

    Now I’m going to have to briefly flash back in time so the next part of the story will make sense.

    At that time, in 2012, it had been almost ten years since a beloved spiritual teacher had died. I had shut down my spiritual life to a great extent after his death. You might say it was a long freeze. Or maybe “fallow period” would be a better description. Later events would make that seem like a good way to look at it.

    While I was ashamed and hurting in the aftermath of my online blunder, I recalled something I’d heard my teacher say more than once, something like this: “When you see a tack on your chair, sit on it.”

    That may sound enigmatic, but I think the metaphor is straightforward. What it meant to me, anyway, was that we should not flee from fully allowing an experience that might impart an important point. We should sit on the point, not avoid it.

    I made a vow then. I promised myself I wouldn’t avoid my intense sense of shame. I wouldn’t brush it under the rug. I wouldn’t cover it or deflect it with distractions, entertainments, excuses, or rationalizations. I would experience it fully, let it do its work, and see what happened.

    I’m not pretending that I had any specific practice beyond that. I’ve since learned some that I’ll mention a little later. But at the time, I simply stuck to my vow. Whenever the feeling of shame came to visit, I didn’t shoo it away or distract myself. I allowed myself to experience it.

    It’s not even that I was inclined to turn toward TV or eating or any other concrete distraction. What I mean by “distract myself” is subtler. It’s a small mental move of avoidance, of turning the attention away from something uncomfortable. Its opposite is mindful awareness, facing experience head-on come what may.

    Everything began to change within a few weeks. There was no one moment when the painful sense of shame evaporated, leaving nothing but clarity and peace. No, it happened gradually over a period of weeks. Each time I welcomed shame as a visitor, it lost some of its sting.

    What finally became of it? All I can say is it was transmuted. It dissolved, and in its place arose a sense of peace and a new, calm engagement with the truth of being.

    I recognized that whatever arises in experience is always already present by the time we can react. Whether it’s comfort or discomfort, joy or distress, calm or chaos, it can be witnessed with equanimity.

    I began to notice old friends posting on Facebook about spiritual teachers and teachings they liked. I looked into some of them and found I liked them too. The long freeze had given way to a thaw. The fallow period was coming to an end. I felt a sense of regeneration, of reawakening.

    How does this work? If it seems counterintuitive to you that diving into pain is a good idea, that amplifying discomfort can be helpful, consider this simple question: What are we doing when we feel that we’re suffering? In other words, what mental activity are we engaging?

    It seems to me that above all else, the answer is we’re actively refusing ourselves compassion. When faced with discomfort or pain, we try to resist it or deny it. We’re judging ourselves, chastising ourselves for the feelings that arise spontaneously. Most of us wouldn’t do it to another, certainly not to a loved one, yet we do it to ourselves. That’s the suffering right there.

    In this instance, the active mechanism was a kind of a thought loop. It went something like this:

    • That was really stupid, what I did.
    • How could I be so dumb? I’m smart, not dumb!
    • I humiliated myself in public.
    • I can never show my face there again.
    • (Repeat forever.)

    Each of those thoughts reinforces a sense of emotional pain, of suffering. They whirl around and seem to amplify each other. It feels as if there’s no way out. I kept beating myself up.

    That’s exactly what it was. I was beating myself up. I was pummeling myself with those ideas. I was treating myself entirely without compassion and empathy, as if I hated myself, and I didn’t seem to know how to stop.

    Notice that by this point the nature of the original mistake didn’t matter. It could have been as trivial as cursing out loud or as serious as committing a felony. The thought loop of suffering was running obsessively on its own momentum. It was no longer about the original offense. It was self-sustaining.

    It reminds me of an experience years ago. When I was a teenager, I was admitted to the hospital for an appendectomy. In the recovery room, as I slowly emerged from the anesthetic fog, the room seemed filled with loud screams. I barely had time to wonder what they were about when I noticed that I was the one who was screaming! I stopped immediately. There was pain, yes, but no need to make it worse by screaming.

    It’s an imperfect analogy, but I see a significant parallel: I had to notice the self-defeating action before I could stop it. In the instance of my shame it happened that by keeping my promise, by sitting on the tack, by diving into the pain, somehow I created a space where I had an opportunity to notice what I was doing and to stop it, gradually. I began to see an opportunity to embrace myself with kindness and compassion, and I took it.

    Practices

    As I mentioned, I’ve learned some specific practices to take advantage of the opportunity, to enhance and deepen the process.

    Metta (lovingkindess) meditation

    I find that this traditional meditation opens the heart and helps to cultivate compassion towards oneself and others. My version begins with visualizing the warmth and love I feel when seeing or meeting a loved one. It could be a spouse, child, parent, dear friend, or even a beloved pet. Then I say to myself:

    • May they be safe from harm.
    • May they be truly happy.
    • May they be free from suffering.
    • May they be loved.

    Then I picture myself at my most open and vulnerable, when I’m hurting and in need of that same love and compassion. And I say to myself:

    • May I be safe from harm.
    • May I be truly happy.
    • May I be free from suffering.
    • May I be loved.

    I can then extend that to my circle of friends, to the planet, and to all sentient beings everywhere. Practicing this regularly deeply affects the feeling nature.

    Ho’oponopono

    Based on a traditional Hawaiian practice for community healing, the modernized version I use resembles a variation I heard from Scott Kiloby. Here’s how I engage it:

    • When I notice a feeling that seems distressful, first I simply sit quietly with it, acknowledging it and allowing myself to feel it.
    • I ask for the stories surrounding the feeling to reveal themselves, and I allow hearing the stories to intensify the feeling. The thought loop I mentioned is a perfect example of those stories.
    • I dive into the feeling with naive curiosity, looking to sense all its aspects. I’m not trying to soften it or push it away, but at this stage it may begin to soften.
    • I say to the feeling: “I love you. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.” The important thing is that I have to mean it. I have to be prepared to live with it indefinitely, to welcome it indefinitely. After all, it’s part of me. It is me.

    In retrospect, what I did by sitting on the tack of shame was closest to practicing Ho’oponopono.

    For me, the whole experience emphasizes how important it is to include the heart in our practice, in our lives. When we find ourselves relying on mental analysis, it’s often judgmental and hurtful, especially to ourselves.

    Both aspects can be useful, but the heart never judges, never condemns, never excludes. It knows how to heal us and make us whole.

  • Dealing with Bullies: How to Cope When People Are Cruel

    Dealing with Bullies: How to Cope When People Are Cruel

    “How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.” ~Dr. Wayne Dyer

    I was the quintessential late bloomer, not hitting my growth spurt until my junior year of high school. I’m six feet tall now, but for all of middle school and the first half of high school, I was one of the shortest kids in the entire school.

    Additionally, some thought I had a slight lisp. I was extremely self-conscious about it after a few people unkindly pointed it out to me. During my senior year I wore Invisalign braces, which corrected my teeth and improved my speech mannerisms, but for many years I was embarrassed about my pronunciation of certain words.

    I was frequently bullied for how short I was and the way I spoke. Since I had low self-esteem already, I felt like I was fundamentally flawed and unworthy as a person. It’s safe to say high school was an extremely difficult time.

    When I went to a small liberal arts school called McDaniel College down in Westminster, Maryland, I was ready to start over. I was especially looking forward to meeting new people and leaving the days of being bullied behind. That’s when I met Tom (name changed to protect his privacy).

    The Worst Bully I Ever Had to Face

    Tom was on my college baseball team. He was the meanest, nastiest, cruelest bully I’ve ever had to face in my life.

    Tom hated my guts, and to this day I don’t know why. I’m an analytical and observant person, so here’s my educated guess: One of my values is kindness, so when I meet people, I’m friendly. Perhaps Tom didn’t think I was one of the cool kids because I was “too nice.”

    Tom hung around fellow bullies, people who enjoyed making fun of people. There’s nothing Tom enjoyed more than disrespecting others and making them feel unworthy, it seemed, perhaps because it made him feel better about himself.

    Tom didn’t bully me for my height or for the way I spoke; he bullied me because of my general lack of confidence. I was afraid of him, and he knew it.

    At one party, he told me to go hide in the closet. At another party, he made me feel so unwelcome and embarrassed that I left the party. At the gym once, he purposely bumped into me in an aggressive way and then walked away.

    Why did I do nothing while he treated me like this?

    Two main reasons: One, no one ever taught me how to properly stand up for myself. I did not have the skills, tools, or know-how to assert myself. Two, during my senior year of high school, I came incredibly close to committing suicide. There was still a part of me wondering if I belonged on this planet.

    I had acne that wouldn’t go away, and because I didn’t like myself, I subconsciously thought maybe I deserved to be treated like garbage. Ridiculous, I know, but my self-esteem was low at that point in my life. Bullies like Tom prey on people with low self-esteem, and I was his prime target.

    I stopped going to any baseball parties or social functions. I sat in my room by myself on Friday and Saturday nights. While my teammates were partying, I was letting my social anxiety get the best of me.

    My anxiety ran sky-high when the thought of Tom crossed my mind. I was letting this one person dominate my life. I became depressed because I never would have expected bullying to continue into college. I wondered if things would ever get better.

    The Silver Lining

    After some dark and isolated nights—made easier thanks to phone calls with my awesome younger sister, Annemarie—I realized I had to stop letting Tom ruin my college experience. I started to introduce myself to other people on the campus. I joined other groups and made all sorts of new friends.

    I only saw Tom and the rest of my baseball teammates during a practice, game, or mandatory team function. Many of the other players on the team looked up to Tom as the leader of the pack, the tough guy they admired, so they weren’t people I felt comfortable being around.

    While I chose McDaniel College to continue my baseball career, I decided to stop spending time with people who didn’t think highly of me whenever I could. I made many great friends at my college, and very few of them were on the baseball team.

    I ended up having a great college experience because of this. If not for my experience with Tom, I may not have extended my social circle that far.

    So I have two words for Tom: thank you. Thank you for redirecting me toward kinder, more loving people. Thank you for giving me the motivation to introduce myself to new people instead of limiting myself to some silly clique.

    Eventually, some of the other players on the team noticed how many people I knew at the school. A few of them even said I was popular. I realized something profound then: When you are rejected by a person or group of people, life has given you an opportunity to expand your horizons, meet new people, and make new friends.

    My senior year of college, with my confidence finally starting to rise, I had the guts to go tailgate with my baseball teammates during a school football game. Tom punched me square in the face and then immediately left before I had a chance to say or do anything.

    A week later, I saw him at the library. Rather than retaliate or seek revenge, I asked to have a discussion with him, and he agreed.

    He told me he’d punched me because I was drinking his friend’s beer—the beer that was supposedly for all the players on the baseball team, except for me, that is. I was the only one on the team harassed for this.

    Tom went on to say that during freshman year he didn’t think I was one of the cool kids. He explained that he didn’t hate me as a person, but he didn’t agree with a lot of the things I did.

    “Everyone has their own opinions,” he said. I had no idea what he meant, as in my freshman year of college I was always kind and respectful to others, but rather than inquire further into his inner world, I kept the discussion brief. More than anything else, I was glad the feud was likely coming to an end.

    I don’t know what made Tom become kinder than usual in this final conversation of ours, but as we made eye contact, he could see the big black eye he gave me. He didn’t outright apologize to me, but he clearly felt sorry for what he did. His words and actions were conciliatory.

    Perhaps he respected that I had just spent two semesters abroad, studying at McDaniel’s satellite campus in Budapest, Hungary, as he did mention my travels in our discussion. He probably realized I’d made the most of my opportunities and had an enriching college experience, despite his continual and incessant disrespect.

    To my surprise, he ended the conversation by shaking my hand. We then peacefully went our separate ways. By that point he had quit the baseball team, and I no longer had to see him every day. He never bothered me again.

    How to Move Beyond Bullying

    Dealing with bullying is never easy or pleasant, but it comes with the territory of being human. Bullying happens not only on sports teams and in schools but also in the workplace and other organizations. I hope these tips will help you deal with the cruel people in your life and come out on top.

    Have Compassion

    It can be difficult to have compassion for your bullies, but it helps to remember that hurt people hurt people.

    Bullies want to make you think there is something wrong with you. The truth is there is nothing wrong with you, and they’re the ones with the problem. Deep down inside they feel scared and unworthy, and they believe the only way to build themselves up is to tear someone else down.

    Truly, feel bad for people like this. As I recently learned from my friend Evan Carmichael during a YouTube live discussion with him, this does not mean you must say out loud that you have compassion for them. It’s something you can do within your mind, heart, and soul. Practicing compassion makes it easier to not take things personally and to not react emotionally.

    Don’t Let Their Opinion Define Your Reality

    Tom thought I wasn’t worth hanging out with, but the truth is I have a lot to offer people. Despite Tom’s opinion of me, I ended up making plenty of friends.

    In what parts of your life are you letting cruel naysayers limit you? You are not defined by what other people think; you are defined by your actions and what you think of yourself.

    Don’t let a bully change the way you view yourself. The next time a bully says something to you that isn’t true, pause. Then calmly say, Oh, really? Shrug your shoulders and move on with your day. The bully will most likely be neutralized.

    They are looking to get a reaction out of you and feed off your defensiveness. When you show them that their opinion means little to you, they tend to leave you alone.

    Meet New People

    A bully is one person. There are lots of great people out there in the world for you to meet. Don’t let one bad egg, or a few bad eggs, spoil the bunch.

    If you are in school, join other groups that interest you. If you are in the workplace, attend networking events and other kinds of social outings outside of work each month. The person who will change your life in a positive way is one step beyond your biggest doubt. Don’t be afraid to get outside your comfort zone because it will show you that the world is filled with awesome people.

    Talk to a Close Friend or Family Member

    When I was all alone on a Saturday night in my dorm room, isolated from my teammates, and before I met new people at my college, talking to my sister on the phone helped to remind me of all that was good about me and my life.

    You are only alone if you choose to be alone. Reach out to a trusted friend or family member you feel comfortable with and vent your innermost thoughts and feelings to them. It feels good to have a listening ear, someone who reminds us of our value. Sometimes, we get so caught up in our problems that we forget about the wonderful person we are.

    Don’t Cross the Line Just Because They Do

    My sophomore year of college, while I was drunk, without thinking I went to Tom’s dorm room with a friend, knocked on the door, and went in. It was confrontational, but more than anything else it was an insecure “let’s be friends” kind of thing.

    My incoherence, coupled with the fact that he really didn’t like me, made this a really bad and immature idea. By doing this, I opened up old wounds. His inexcusable actions were definitely on him, but it was not the right time, and I was not in the right state to talk to him. We didn’t get into a fight that night, and he was actually pretty calm in the moment, but it gave him more incentive to bully me in the future, since I’d invaded his private space.

    Remember that just because someone else crosses the line, that doesn’t mean you have to cross it as well. You’re not responsible for what someone else does to you, but you are responsible for how you respond to it.

    Assert Yourself Without Overreacting

    When dealing with a bully who won’t leave you alone, sometimes you need to assert yourself without overreacting. To respond in an even-keeled way, focus on asserting how you feel. Use “I” statements rather than “you” statements as much as you can.

    When you accuse the bully, it will egg them on to keep going. But when you focus on how you feel, it will point out to the bully that they’ve crossed the line. Here are some examples. Try to do this during one-on-one conversations, but say it in the moment if necessary:

    • I don’t like the disrespect. Please stop.
    • I feel frustrated that I’m not getting my space. I’m not getting any respect.
    • I don’t like how our conversations are always one-sided. I need to share my thoughts too.
    • I don’t deserve this. I deserve better.
    • I’m not happy with this. The negativity is pointless. Stop it, or we’re done.

    These tactics did not work with Tom for many years, but they might work with a less extreme bully.

    Send Them Love and Forgiveness

    The late, great Susan Jeffers created an exercise I absolutely love. When you are alone, imagine the bully you are dealing with as a child. Surround them with light and love, and repeat in your mind, I send them love, I send them love, I send them love.

    I was so afraid of Tom that he became a monster in my mind, dictating my actions around my college campus for a while. The truth is, he is a person like the rest of us, and something went seriously wrong in his upbringing. You don’t know what the bully has been through; they’ve become this way because they are hurting on the inside. Send them love and forgiveness.

    Go to the Authorities When Needed

    Be the bigger person, but only do so up to your limits. After Tom physically attacked me with a strong punch that left me with a bruised eye, I was at my limit. In one last attempt to end it, I peacefully confronted him face-to-face, and it worked.

    I don’t believe in retaliation or violence, so I stuck to my values even after he physically hurt me. With that said, if he attacked or threatened me even one more time, I would have gone to my coach and the campus authorities.

    When a bully turns into a criminal, please do not ever be afraid to take action. The bully wants you to live in a prison of fear, but when they see you will not tolerate their actions, they will stop. The last resort before turning it over to the authorities is to tell them directly, “If this doesn’t stop, I’m going to [person in position of authority].”

    They may try to make you feel like less of a person for doing this, but remember that their opinion doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you do what you need to do to find a solution.

    Putting It All Together

    Bullying is an international epidemic, and it needs to stop. But before the world comes to its senses, we’re going to have to learn how to deal with nasty, difficult people.

    The truth is we can’t control how other people act, but we can control how we respond to those other people. By sending our bullies compassion, asserting ourselves, and choosing not to be defined by their opinions, we can create a happy ending for ourselves.

    The experience itself may be a nightmare, but you can peacefully move on with your life knowing you are a person of integrity and values.

    You can move beyond the bullying you are experiencing, or have already experienced. You can find the silver lining and come out on top.

  • How Reframing Your Self-Critical Thoughts Can Help Ease Anxiety

    How Reframing Your Self-Critical Thoughts Can Help Ease Anxiety

    “Don’t let the sadness of your past and the fear of your future ruin the happiness of your present.” ~Unknown

    I know what it feels like to be scared.

    I know what it feels like to question your sanity, your worth, your place in this world.

    Sometimes, all I can do is repeat the words it’s okay over and over and over again in my head, until I kind of, somewhat, maybe start to believe it’s true.

    Anxiety sucks. Depression does too. They’re not my favorites of the emotions we humans get to experience. But, truthfully, they have a purpose.

    I’ve been having panic attacks for a little over six months now. They’re still new to me, and every one is so different.

    The physical symptoms change, I’m still learning what my “triggers” are, and the ups and downs between my moods vary in time and extremity. But there’s one thing that has been consistent since the beginning, which is that every time I start to feel anxiety or depression creep in, I instantly hate myself.

    I sense the pit of worry in my stomach, and I hate myself. I wake up feeling sad, and I hate myself. I have to transfer money from my savings account, and I hate myself. I mess up at work, and I hate myself. I feel the uncertainty of my future, and I hate myself.

    As soon as I begin to enter that state, it’s the start of the freaking pity party of the century. Pretty soon all of my thoughts sound something along the lines of…

    I’m so messed up.

    No one else feels this way.

    I’m broken beyond repair.

    I shouldn’t feel this way.

    Why can’t I just be happy?

    I’m not good enough to be happy.

    There’s no way I’m going to get through this.

    I thought I had come so far.

    There’s just no point.

    I can’t remember the last time I felt happy, or excited, or tired, or bored, and thought anything close to these dark, nasty thoughts. So why do I instantly start abusing myself with such hateful thinking when these specific emotions of anxiety and depression appear?

    But wait! There’s good news here. This isn’t just a pity party, after all.

    I realized that there’s a way to pull myself out of the cyclical trap of feel sad or anxious, then hating myself for feeling sad or anxious, and then hating myself for hating myself for feeling sad or anxious.

    It’s a vicious cycle, but there is a simple solution: compassion, self-love, and reframing.

    For example, today I had a series of mini breakdowns, which included locking myself in my car so I could cry in (semi) privacy, throwing up in the bathroom at work because my stomach was so full of acidic worry it made me sick, leaving work early because of how I felt, and sobbing in my shower for about twenty minutes while wasting precious hot water. (#BestDayEver)

    So what did I do to turn it around?

    I treated myself with compassion and self-love, and reframed my negative thoughts.

    I showered, put on comfy clothes, made a cup of tea, and lit my favorite candle. I turned on Girls in the background because Hannah always makes me feel better. I read a few pages from one of my favorite books. I did some deep breathing. I told myself “I’m going to be okay” at least one hundred thousand times (slight exaggeration, maybe).

    Then, I started to pay attention to my thoughts as an outside observer. I was able to look at some of the terrible things I say to myself like “I’m so messed up” and “I shouldn’t feel this way,” and was able to crack them open for analysis.

    I was able to look at it from an objective point of view and question: Are these thoughts really true? And if not, can I replace these thoughts with ones that are actually true?

    Some examples…

    I’m so messed up became I’m going through a tough time right now, like everyone else in the world has, but it doesn’t reflect my worthiness or importance as an individual.

    I shouldn’t feel this way became It’s okay to feel down or nervous sometimes, because it’s temporary and it doesn’t define who I am.

    I’m broken beyond repair became I’m just figuring the craziness of this life out, as we all are, and I’ll feel better soon.

    There’s just no point became I have an infinite number of resources and people in my life who love and support me, and I’m worthy of that love and support.

    The stories that we tell ourselves are just that: stories. What we say to ourselves in our heads can hugely impact the way we perceive our lives and our self-worth.

    As the Buddha said, “We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”

    By becoming more mindful of the stories running through your mind, you’re able to take an objective view on how those stories makes you feel, and then decide if they’re worth keeping around or not. If they’re not, choose to let them go.

    Reframing, self-love, and compassion are the three tools I use to help guide me through anxiety and depression. It’s all a learning process, but I can confidently say that this has helped me so much more than self-medicating or trying to ignore the problem.

    By observing our thoughts and the way we speak to ourselves in times of struggle, we can get a picture of how much we actually love ourselves, and then ramp up the love and positivity until we can’t help but feel better

    If you’re going through anxiety, depression, or any other tough time, I encourage you to:

    • Slow down; hit pause
    • Remember that you’re worthy of love and happiness
    • Take a few deep breaths, and tune into that inner dialogue you have going on
    • See if there are any negative thoughts or stories running through your mind that you can challenge
    • Replace them with positive, love-based truths

    Try to remember that we’re all just living, breathing, crazy little human beings, floating around on this planet through a limitless universe for a microscopic moment of time. None of us really know what the heck is going on here.

    We’re all just trying to get by, and have a little fun while doing it. Remember that you’re worthy of love from others, but most importantly, from yourself. And try to ease up on yourself. It’s okay to feel bad. It’s also okay to feel good. They’re two sides of the same coin, and that’s what this life is all about… our depth of human experiences and our connection to something more.

    I’m thankful for anxiety and depression because those emotions present me with an opportunity. It’s a chance for me to fall victim to my fear-based, negative stories, or for me to choose to see things from a place of love instead. The next time you feel those emotions creeping in, I challenge you to ask yourself, what do you choose?

  • Why We Shouldn’t Force Advice on People & What Actually Helps

    Why We Shouldn’t Force Advice on People & What Actually Helps

    What helps

    “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” ~Stephen R. Covey

    This is a post about listening.

    I know it’s really unsexy. It’s a topic that’s like the sun; nobody looks directly at it. But you want to create deep and lasting connections with others, and real changes for your loved ones, right?

    Right. Stick with me.

    Think about your typical day. How often do you listen in a conversation with others without being fully present?

    Go on, be honest.

    You find that you float in and out of awareness. Certain aspects grab your attention, and then you key in. Other times you drift off and start mulling on what you’ll be having for lunch in an hours’ time.

    At times you only catch the intonation at the end of the sentence, snap to the present moment, and suddenly panic-notice the other’s face. Okay. Her eyebrows suggest shock, and she’s looking at me expectantly, so this is a good bet: “Oh my! No way did that happen!” and then you shrink back and cross your fingers that it was the right response.

    This is how we are. It’s the easy stuff, but we’re already on the back foot.

    How about when someone you care for is going through something really difficult? As in, the kinds of life-changing dilemmas that keep them up at night—affairs, stormy or failed relationships, career changes, betrayal, death, those inexplicable inner demons that manifest into all their life choices.

    When it comes to these kinds of important and deep-diving discussions, you may listen more intently, but maybe you have already made the decision about which course the conversation will take before it has had a chance to open out in front of you.

    You find yourself formulating the end of the other’s thought before they have even completed it themselves, so halfway through their sentence, your answer is ready to ship: “You don’t want to do that,” you say, perhaps interrupting, “I tried it for months last year. It doesn’t work,” shaking your head in disapproval.

    Or, “What are you waiting for? Call him back! He’s obviously interested!” And so on and so on.

    It’s understandable. We navigate the world based on our learned experiences and personalized schema of how the world works.

    We’ve made it this far; something must be working. So we are attentive for those things that fit in with our views and subconsciously dismissive of those things that do not—and we advise those we care about accordingly.

    We do deeply want our loved ones to feel better, but we also want to justify the validity of our own experiences and our own decisions in life. We end up corralling, convincing with logic, until perhaps, finally, they reluctantly concede and we get that satisfying but short-lived dopamine hit from them: “I see your point.” Glorious!

    Then why is it that we walk away feeling an emptiness in our gut? Did that conversation have any lasting impact at all?

    In doing this, we may have the best intentions to help, but we’ve missed the subtleties.

    We’ve leapt for the obvious answer but failed to notice it was a red herring, a distraction from what is really going on beneath the surface, or really just a mirror of what we had hoped to hear.

    We’ve overlooked the cry for help that lay in the mundanities of speech, in that word that repeats, in that quick diversion from the sore spot, the dismissal of boredom that is actually, in the end, hitting on the truth.

    There is a better way to approach conversations, particularly emotional ones, that is unlike this traditional way of interacting.

    It will test your patience, your listening skills, and your ability to put yourself and your biases aside and care enough to pay real attention. It touches that part of us that understands:

    “I don’t have the answers for you, my love, you’re going to have to venture within and find it yourself.”

    It is a process of questioning called “guided discovery.”

    Guided discovery has no set start, and the end is unclear. There is no direction and no specific outcome sought. It’s a process that allows the answers to lie hidden in the questions, where they can then slowly unfold by virtue of both people being fully present in the conversation.

    Three years ago I entered therapy due to my extreme level of skittishness when it came to romantic relationships. On one hand I craved relationships and intimacy, but on the other hand it would fill me with a disproportionate level of terror.

    I originally hoped my therapist would bestow me with a formula for changing my outlook and behavior and erase all my demons. (Not much to ask!) Instead, she grounded our discussion and connection in guided discovery. Over time I found a means to create my own personalized tools so that I could move forward in my own best and personal way.

    You can engage this process anywhere, at any time, but it’s particularly effective in one-to-one conversations where there is a particular problem at hand, even if the other is unable to articulate or pinpoint their issue.

    A particular tone will exude from a conversation that is grounded in guided discovery. You create it, and you will feel its qualities weave gently through the conversation:

    • A full and loving presence in the conversation
    • A listening ear that has a deep level of empathy
    • The development of a trusting relationship and secure environment, which facilitates personal strength and courage to find a way through the problem

    With this tone held throughout, here’s how the structure of guided discovery works:

    1. Ask questions to bring into awareness information that is known and concrete.

    Start your questions based on factual information, or observed and clarified from facial expressions, the tone of voice, and body tension. For example, “You sound disappointed. Are you disappointed?” This is to ensure you make it known that you are concerned and you care.

    2. Listen.

    Step into their shoes. Listen for reactions. Notice words or phrases that repeat. Seek clarity and unpackage the thought. “I notice you keep saying how ridiculous you are to think this way. I wonder, has something led you to believe this way of thinking is ridiculous?”

    You do not need to lead, but you may need to help the other explore a thought in more depth. Be open to the unexpected, even if you anticipate a specific answer.

    You should be regularly surprised if you are truly being open and allowing the other to explore their own thoughts.

    3. Summarize.

    Sometimes it feels awkward to repeat back what you’ve just heard, but it shows the other that you are deeply hearing and understanding them. It also gives you a chance to make sure you’re both in agreement as to the progress and content of the interaction, and to see the conversation as a whole.

    “You think being in a relationship will make you happier, but you are equally terrified to turn around one day and find yourself trapped in a loveless relationship you cannot escape. Have I heard you correctly?”

    4. Synthesize.

    Finally, you need to synthesize all the information you’ve uncovered into a question or (series of questions) that allows them use the insights they’ve gained to find meaning in the original problem.

    For example, my synthesis in therapy went more or less like this:

    Therapist: “What would you do differently in your relationships if you felt less disappointed in yourself and you believed in the importance of love?”

    Me: I’d probably be more courageous on dates and relationships, and not let the fear of being less than perfect stop me from being who I am.

    Therapist: Are these things you could do now?

    Me: I guess I could, even though it’s quite scary. I worry about being rejected. But yes, I suppose I could do it.

    Therapist: Do you think it might make you feel good, to try to be yourself?

    Me: It would certainly be less stressful and tiring than all this being on edge and running away. I don’t know if it would work, though.

    Therapist: How could you find out?

    Me: I suppose I could try to be fully myself on the next date. It won’t kill me, even though I panic! I might even learn something new, relax, maybe even enjoy myself!

    Not knowing the answer herself, my therapist allowed me to tie my answers and discoveries together in a meaningful way.

    The guided discovery process brought my coping mechanisms into plain view. It also provided me with an opportunity to test my beliefs and use my insights to think creatively about moving beyond my skittish behavior into a place of calm and love.

    Four months ago my partner Mike got down on one knee and proposed to me on Primrose Hill in London, the place of our first date.

    I was scared at first, but then time slowed down. I could feel the qualities of the guided discovery connection I had made, and the deep wounds I had uncovered and began to heal in the process. It gave me the courage I needed in the moment to say yes and step forward into his arms.

    Slowly but surely, guided discovery enabled me to turn around my whole outlook on romantic love. Because I have experienced the effectiveness of this technique first-hand, I use it with others as much as I can, and there are multiple times in the week where opportunities present themselves.

    Each time, it creates an inner sense of empathy, compassion, patience, and love that exudes not only outward to those I am conversing with, but inward.

    It re-enforces the lessons I’ve learned and helps me appreciate the magnitude of the hurdles I’ve overcome and continue to contend with in life. In this way, guided discovery helps you connect and facilitate change for others, but you might also learn a thing or two about yourself on the journey.

    As much as you wish to compel deep and lasting change upon our loved ones, it cannot be forced. Guided discovery allows the other’s story to be vocalized and heard from all the most important and relevant angles, and provides an opportunity for them to think creatively about different approaches to their problems.

    Through this gentle process, change will then happen in its own time, facilitated through connection, exploration, trust, and openness to the unexpected.

  • 10 Powerful Tips for Building a Deep, Lasting Love

    10 Powerful Tips for Building a Deep, Lasting Love

    Couple in a forest

    “We are a work in progress with a lifetime contract.” ~Phyllis Koss

    The priest at our wedding advised us, “It’s not enough to say, ‘I want to marry you’ just today. You’ve got to be able to say that every day.”

    Problems and challenges in life can be like the wind, which blows unpredictably. You can’t control the wind, but you can learn to set your sails and to make repairs.

    We’ve now been married for thirty years. Life, with all its ups and downs, has taught us a few lessons about building a lasting romance.

    Here are ten tips that seem to help. They’re probably relevant whether you’re just starting out or have been together for decades.

    1. Keep developing yourself.

    I used to be keen on improving my partner. Then I decided to try and develop myself. That helped.

    The more I cultivated the skills of living in the present moment and calming myself when distressed, the more our connection flourished. The more reliable and conscientious I grew, the more romantic our connection became.

    Nobody’s perfect, but we can all grow steadily beyond our unhelpful habits. If your partner sees you trying to learn and grow, it encourages them to do the same. It also infuses your relationship with hope, whatever the problems and challenges.

    Seeing yourself as a work in progress makes you more confident about acknowledging mistakes and apologizing. Apologies carry healing power.

    None of us is set in stone. Scientific research shows that what we choose to do regularly can change even our brains. Developing yourself may be one of the best ways of nurturing romance.

    2. Cultivate compassionate love.

    It may be tempting to snap at your partner when you feel annoyed. However, you can communicate your feelings without being rude.

    Compassionate love is the opposite of impatience, rudeness, and anger. You’ll enjoy more intimacy and get more worthwhile stuff done if you recognize that your partner has a mind, desires, and struggles of their own. Even if they can meet a request, they might take longer than you’d like.

    When I’m on the verge of erupting, I like to visualize a bridge over troubled water. That helps me to be more patient.

    Every relationship is like a perpetually young sapling that requires constant protection. Treating your relationship as sacred can boost your motivation to grow in patience and kindness.

    3. Be responsive.

    Being generally supportive is helpful. However, the most powerful form of support is providing what your partner requires in a particular situation.

    For example, when my partner was panicking while racing to meet a deadline for a Master’s thesis, I tried to assemble scattered manuscript pages and was generally helpful and encouraging. Those little, responsive acts brought us closer together.

    It’s an attitude of “What do you need from me in order to flourish?” That nurtures romance.

    Likewise, ask for what you need. That’s better than expressing irritation. Your partner deserves a chance to try, even if they can’t always meet your requests.

    4. Learn to tolerate unpleasant feelings.

    Practice observing your own unpleasant feelings, whenever they occur, without letting them throw you off balance. Try focusing on your breath, instead of your unhelpful thoughts, until you feel calmer.

    Unpleasant feelings are often produced by chemicals, which come and go. If you learn to recognize and tolerate the temporary chemical spurts, you’ll keep your balance better. Once you’re calmer, you can more easily look beyond your immediate, unhelpful thoughts.

    It also helps to remember that our partners aren’t wholly responsible for our unpleasant feelings. It might seem like their actions are the sole cause, but sometimes their actions merely trigger some greater pain from our past.

    Calming yourself when you’re distressed is one of the best gifts you can bring to your romance.

    5. Adjust your expectations.

    I was once approached, out of the blue, with an amazing job offer in another country. However, it was a bad time to uproot the kids. After we discussed the pros and cons, I declined the offer.

    Life can throw up many areas of disagreement: handling finances, philosophy of life, cherished values, major one-off decisions, household chores, leisure, careers, friends, and more. The more flexible each partner can be, the better the chances of agreement.

    Forging a consensus is more helpful than holding grudges. It’s also okay to agree to disagree on less-than-crucial points, if that helps you get on with the rest of life.

    6. Focus on what makes you feel lucky.

    Don’t seize every opportunity to criticize or blame your partner, lest you drive them to extreme defensiveness. Share how a particular intolerable problem makes you feel and what behavior you hope for instead. But ask without becoming too shrill or raising the temperature unnecessarily.

    If you find yourself feeling frequently annoyed by little things, it may be a sign that you need to address underlying issues in your relationship. The sooner you discuss this, the better.

    Treat your partner’s mistakes as you would treat the errors of a good tennis player who’s just played a bad shot. Don’t rush to damn the whole person. Be quick to apologize for your own errors and even quicker to forgive an apologizing partner.

    In our relationship, we now tend to overlook shortcomings that might be apparent to others. We focus more on what makes us feel lucky about having the other. For example, I love how adventurous my partner is, how resilient, encouraging, optimistic, and forgiving. Express appreciation at every opportunity.

    A forgiving and appreciative mindset helps nurture romance.

    7. Look after your health.

    Our minds and bodies are closely intertwined. Our bodies help us express romantic love. You deserve as healthy a version of yourself as possible, as does your partner.

    Eating nourishing meals instead of grazing on sugary or packaged snacks, taking frequent stand-up breaks during prolonged sitting, and exercising regularly can all help transform your health. When you’re good to your body and brain, your well-being becomes a gift to your relationship.

    Of course, age eventually erodes health. Romance can, and often does, survive the challenges of ill health. But a few simple practices can keep you healthier for longer.

    8. Reassure yourself.

    Reassure yourself so that you become more secure in yourself. This helps to foster mutual respect. Reassure yourself with kindness and forgiveness for mistakes.

    Becoming secure in yourself also helps you to see your partner with new eyes, with less critical glasses, as appreciative outsiders might see them. When you learn to soothe yourself, you’ll probably like yourself despite life’s unavoidable ups and downs. Then the electricity of romance will more easily flow between you.

    The kinder and more forgiving you are toward yourself, the more readily love and positivity will overflow into your relationship.

    9. Feed each other intellectually.

    Exchange ideas, discuss and debate interesting things, do an occasional joint project, share stuff that makes you laugh. Give your partner the heartwarming gift of your undivided attention from time to time.

    There are times when we’re talking and gazing attentively into each other’s eyes when I become acutely aware of how lucky I am. It’s like souls touching.

    10. Make time to play together, often.

    Date nights needn’t be major productions. Just a little time together, temporarily shielded from troubles and challenges, can help. We have pleasant, relaxing mealtimes several times a week.

    Here again, the ability to calm yourself is invaluable. Then you can show up as a playful individual, fully present in the moment, eager to express affection and passion.

    When we were newly married students, we used our meager savings for a trip to Brazil. The adventure created priceless memories. We still love to travel together or to go hiking nearby.

    Shared adventures bring surprises and excitement, helping to boost romance. You don’t have to go to Brazil. You can set aside a little time throughout the year to explore nature and activities near you.

    —

    Your relationship might be far from a fairy tale. That’s normal. We’re all just human beings, trying to make life sparkle despite all our flaws and shortcomings.

    Think of your relationship as a boat on the sea of life. Storms will happen; winds will blow where they will. Do your bit to learn and grow, treat yourself with kindness, ask for what you need, be responsive, be playful, forgive, make repairs whenever necessary, and stay hopeful.

    The tips here have helped us nurture a thriving romance, through thick and thin, for thirty years.

    Lasting romance is one of life’s most fulfilling experiences. It’s possible, and it’s totally worth reaching for.

  • What to Do When the World Doesn’t Get You

    What to Do When the World Doesn’t Get You

    Drunk or High at a Nightclub

    “Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” ~Pema Chödrön

    For as long as I can remember, I have always been a little different, defiantly so.

    I was that child who never liked cartoons. I was nicknamed “the little old lady” for the things I said at the age of five.

    I was that girl from northern Vietnam who refused to change her accent and use of language while schooling in the south, despite being made a subject of ridicule for that.

    I was the only pupil that felt indignant about having analyses of literature imposed on us at school—why did everyone have to think and feel the same way about a poem?

    The feeling of being out of place plagued my childhood and early adolescence.

    My disposition as an outsider deepened during my time studying in Singapore. It was bad enough that I found nothing in common with the locals, but I did not feel an affinity with other Vietnamese students either. Joined by origins and circumstances, we were supposed to feel a bond, but I only felt my difference in interests and values.

    When I left Vietnam and subsequently Singapore, I did not know how I would fund my future studies beyond the scholarships I was given. But in my mind, the pain of feeling an outsider justified the risks. I left in search of a place to belong.

    My sense of isolation became acute after university. I was probably more out of place in the investment bank I worked for than I had ever been in my life.

    Although I was very open to my colleagues, I did not develop the kind of relationships that surpassed our time working together. At the same time, I became more distinctly different from my friends. They all wanted to get their first car, buy their first home, and start a family, none of which was a priority of mine.

    Over the years I learned to make peace with the notion that the world did not get me. I was relatively comfortable with my difference but deep down, I never gave up on a hunt for “my tribe.”

    When I eventually found my calling and immersed in the world of entrepreneurs who cared about doing good things in the world, I thought my search was finally over. Yet as the months went by, I once again became acutely aware of how different I was from them all.

    It was then that I decided to look at the matter more closely.

    It became apparent to me that my unreserved self-expression actually did not help people understand me; I seemed to have a different mode of communication from everyone else! As a result, I was almost always “misinterpreted” in early encounters.

    With this realization, it was tempting to conform to social norms and expectations, just to be more understood. Yet I could not bring myself to do it. The idea of adopting “inorganic” behaviors for no good reason did not sit well with me. After all, I never offended or harmed anyone with my way of being.

    This conflict of wanting to be more understood while being fiercely protective of my authenticity came up in a deep conversation I had with someone. For the first time, I was hit by the thought that rather than the world refusing to connect, it may have been me all along.

    Could it be that at some point during my childhood I assumed that my difference would never be welcomed, so I built a self-defense mechanism that kept me from engaging and risking rejection?

    That could not be right. I was always unreservedly open about myself. I had a genuine interest in people and an ability to empathize. How could these not have come from an open heart?

    Yet my heart knew that it was more open to let out than to let in.

    I used to feel that amongst the few, I bore the curse of being different, and in order to not get hurt, I would only let in the special ones who “got” me. From the lofty height of my proud difference, I filtered people as those who I could potentially connect with and those who would be unlikely to get me.

    I had little patience for people who did not seem to be on the same wavelength. While I would still be genuinely interested in their stories, my intention to connect would be taken out of the conversation.

    This filtering process continued throughout every relationship of mine. I remember being disappointed with good friends for remarks that felt off, and a part of me would be forever shut to them from that moment on.

    I was doing to others what I felt the world was doing to me. I judged! The more new people I met on a regular basis, the faster my filtering process became and the more despondent I grew about making new friends.

    I felt a twinge in my heart at this realization.

    And then something hit me.

    More compassion. Yes, I needed more compassion.

    If I could listen with compassion to those I did not instantly like, I wouldn’t dismiss them so quickly. Then who knows, maybe I would find a connection with them on some level.

    If I did not write off everyone who made an unwelcomed remark to me, I would spend more time trying to understand their perspective. Then who knows, maybe I would find that I had simply misunderstood them.

    If I could have more compassion for this world, which works on bases so different from my own, maybe I would not see my difference as such a hindrance for connection.

    If I had more compassion for myself, maybe I could start to believe that I, too, would be loved and understood for who I am by the majority of people out there.

    If I believed that there was always a place for my individuality, maybe I could feel a sense of belonging anywhere in the world. If I believed that I did not need similarity for connection, maybe I could stop the search for “my tribe.”

    I have finally realized that we are all different in our own ways, and what I struggle with, many others do too.

    Making myself special and playing the victim role did protect me, for decades, from becoming someone else. But it also took away my faith in the abundance of compassion out there.

    Whoever you are and whatever your difference may be, there is enough love, respect, and understanding for all of us. Will you choose to believe?

  • Never Define Yourself by These Things

    Never Define Yourself by These Things

    Never define yourself

  • Learn to Reduce Stress: Mindfulness eCourse by Thich Nhat Hanh

    Learn to Reduce Stress: Mindfulness eCourse by Thich Nhat Hanh

    Meditating

    Stress can be overwhelming, and sometimes crippling.

    Not only does stress suck the joy out of our days and keep us awake at night, it can also take a toll on our bodies.

    Headaches, chest pain, digestive problems, hair loss—they’re all potential consequences of stress, not to mention serious conditions like heart disease and diabetes.

    Then, of course, there are mental consequences. We feel anxious, restless, and irritable, and often scared and discouraged. Like there’s too much to do and we don’t have enough time or skills to do it.

    Everything feels urgent, like life is a series of catastrophes to sidestep and fires to put out. It’s an exhausting way to live.

    At least, it was for me.

    And I knew I was creating a lot of problems for myself—that my stress stemmed not from my circumstances but rather how I chose to respond to them. Life felt like a ticking time bomb, but I was both the bomb squad and the madman holding the detonator.

    To cope with this chronic tension, we often turn to quick fixes that actually create more problems than solutions. We shove it down with food, or spew it out with angry outbursts, or numb it with drugs and alcohol.

    But it’s still there, bubbling below the surface, just waiting to erupt.

    Life is always going to involve situations that we find stressful. We’ll lose jobs, loved ones, and eventually, our health. People will cross our boundaries, push our buttons, and leave us high and dry when we need them.

    There will never be a time when life feels simple or easy.

    We can choose to live in constant fight-or-flight mode, as if life is a string of crises; we can turn to Band-Aid behaviors to temporarily dull the pain; or we can take responsibility for learning a better way.

    What is that better way? Mindfulness.

    Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and our surrounding environment.

    When we’re practicing mindfulness, we’re rooted in the present moment—not dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.

    As a result, we’re able to reduce our own suffering and bring more joy and compassion to both ourselves and others.

    To say that mindfulness has changed my life would be a massive understatement.

    There was a time when I felt powerless to my overactive mind, and worse, I had no idea I was causing myself pain. I thought my response to adversity was the only possible one. I thought I had to be outraged, depressed, and anxious.

    I still feel those feelings at times, but I now know how to observe them, learn from them, and release them so that they don’t consume me.

    You can do the same, and I know just the course to get you started.

    A while back, I connected with someone at Udemy, a site that currently serves over 11 million students through more than 40,000 online courses.

    They introduced me to a number of courses that might interest Tiny Buddha readers, including one entitled Mindfulness Practice for Joy & Compassion by Thich Nhat Hanh

    This master Buddhist monk teaches students how to release suffering and heal the body through mindfulness techniques like walking meditation and breathing meditation.

    Thích Nhất Hạnh is a Zen master, scholar, poet, and peace activist. He’s written over sixty books and was nominated for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Hahn’s course will help you learn to:

    • Embrace suffering and move through it
    • Ease anxiety and relieve tension about the future
    • Use suffering to generate love and compassion
    • Avoid sickness with mindful consumption

    You will walk away from this course knowing how to meditate, reflect, transform, and make a positive impact on your environment.

    As you may have gathered through reading the site, I am highly selective with what I choose to promote here. I pride myself on only sharing products, books, and courses I would personally recommend, and this program certainly fits that criteria.

    All you need for this course is a computer or mobile device with an Internet connection. You don’t need any prior knowledge of Buddhism or meditation.

    And as a bonus, Udemy has offered a 30% discount for Tiny Buddha readers, bringing the cost from $50 down to $35 (from now until July 1st).

    If you’re tired of feeling mentally exhausted, Thich Nhat Hanh’s course may be just what you need to find peace. You can learn more about Mindfulness Practice for Joy & Compassion by Thich Nhat Hanh here.

    —

    Continue your quest for knowledge with Udemy. Udemy offers thousands of courses on all kinds of topics, from business to writing to software engineering. 

    Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I earn a percentage of all sales. Posts like these help support the site and keep it going.

  • Two Kind Words That Can Change or Save a Life

    Two Kind Words That Can Change or Save a Life

    “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” ~Leo Buscaglia

    My fiancé and I escaped to the northern wilderness. We wanted to build our home and our life off grid, off the beaten path, far from civilization.

    It didn’t matter that I was a city girl who couldn’t handle a chainsaw, fix a pickup, or read the warnings of wind and sky. My fiancé was a mountain man, skilled in survival. That was all we needed for a life in the middle of nowhere. Alone, but together, and we loved it.

    We were independent and resourceful. Nothing fazed us. My fiancé had a solution for everything: broken generators, shortage of water, staying safe on hikes through the hills that we shared with wolves, coyotes, and bears.

    Never once did we doubt our ability to survive.

    And never once did we think that our biggest challenge would come from anything other than the wilderness itself.

    Our days were consumed by nature. We were always one step ahead. One step ahead of hungry bears, deadly windstorms, drought, wildfire, and maintaining the only road that connected us to far-flung humanity. We were always one step ahead.

    Until we weren’t.

    All of a sudden, my fiancé lost his appetite, his skin turned a pea soup green, and his jeans hung off him, a size too big.

    The wilderness was no place to get sick: lack of cell-phone access, few doctors, often-impassable roads, and a five-hour drive to the nearest hospital. Suddenly the idea of “challenge” took on a whole new meaning.

    Finally, after many delays, tests, comings and goings, a diagnosis was confirmed: cancer. My fiancé was stoic. But the news hit me with hurricane force.

    Our world flipped upside down.

    Suddenly we were thrown into the scary unknown, a place far more challenging than the wilderness of the bush.

    Surgery was booked. My once strong, ever-so-independent mountain man was forced to let go, to place his trust in the skill of a surgeon and the goodwill of the universe. I was terrified, but in my role of “pillar of support,” I acted brave by swallowing my fear.

    In the faraway town where the operation would take place, I would sleep at the Easter Seal House. It was close to the hospital and affordable. But it was also a dorm.

    The idea of sharing accommodation added to my stress. I was an introvert; I’d been living in the bush. The last thing I wanted was to socialize with strangers when my mind was consumed with worries for my man.

    But there was no choice.

    The following day, the operation, they said it would last a few hours. It took much longer. Then finally some news. “All is well, ” the surgeon said. And the relief of it almost felled me.

    I thanked the surgeon; thanked the universe for throwing a lifeline. There would be a tomorrow, after all. And a tomorrow after that.

    Two days later, results showed a spread of the disease.

    We were not in the clear after all.

    That night, I stayed as late as possible at the hospital with my fiancé. I wanted to curl up in his narrow bed, but he was hooked up to so many tubes and wires, and the eighteen-inch wound running down his belly was tender and sore.

    When I reluctantly left to walk back to the “dorm,” the night was late and frigidly cold. My mood was as black and as slippery as the ice underfoot. All I wanted to do was to curl up and cry. The thought of facing a group of strangers sunk me further.

    At the front door of the Easter Seal House, a small group of old men huddled under the outdoor light, sucking on cigarettes and stamping their feet to stay warm. They looked as miserable as I felt.

    Inside, a new guest had arrived to share my room. She was setting up an oxygen machine that would keep her lungs safe through the night. The room was too cramped to make use of my offer to help, so I retreated to the lounge.

    The TV in the lounge blasted a comedy. I slipped into the only spare spot, at the edge of the threadbare couch. A plump woman with bleached blond, coifed hair and rose-polished nails giggled wildly at the antics of the TV characters.

    My mood was too dark to laugh; instead, I was flooded with gnarly judgments about the stupidity of TV, of sitcoms, of sharing accommodation with strangers.

    I told myself I don’t belong with this group, with this coifed blond giggler and her rose-polished nails. As the judgments in my mind exploded, my mood turned surly.

    At the break for an ad, the volume on the TV spiked. The blond reached for the remote, decreased the sound. One small mercy. A few minutes later, volume up again. Part of me wanted to seize the remote and hurl it out the window.

    The sitcom resumed. Some inane stunt threw the giggler into hysterics.

    Suddenly, she turned in my direction, clearly wanting to share the joke that I so obviously didn’t get.

    Quickly she scanned me, and whatever it was that she saw prompted her to switch the TV right off, right in the middle of her show. She turned back to me again, this time swiveling her entire body right around to face me.

    “Tell me,” she said.

    And then I saw. Past the pristine rose nails and frilly sweater, past the coifed bleached hair and perfect makeup, I now saw a pair of soft, welcoming eyes. “Tell me,” she repeated in a gentle invitation.

    And I did. And something inside me broke. All the feelings of tension and sorrow melted as I accepted her invitation.

    I told her about my fiancé’s surgery, the cancer, its spread, and the hope for future treatments. I told her about my fears for our isolated life in the wilderness. How would I manage? And she listened. She listened with gentle eyes. She listened with her whole body, nodding, as if to say, “I hear you, I understand.”

    And it amazed me, this gentle space that she had created through the depth of her presence. It amazed me how her kindness helped me peel open months of fear and anguish. Her invitation to tell my story was an invitation I didn’t even know I needed, yet desperately did.

    One by one, the old smokers lumbered back in from the frigid night. They and others joined us. A semi-circle formed around the woman and myself. Haggard, jaundiced faces, bandaged arms; it struck me how all of us were wounded in one way or another, fellow travellers on a shared and complicated journey.

    By the time I finished my story, a soft gratitude had filled my heart and eased my worries. My burden shared was a burden halved.

    In the wee hours before dawn, sleep came gently in a way that it hadn’t for a very long time.

    I never saw that woman again. But her generosity, in switching off a sitcom that she so clearly enjoyed to welcome instead my story, was a gift.

    It allowed me to move past a sense of disconnection from others, to share my vulnerability, to be heard and understood. And it gave me solace and a feeling of connection when I needed it most.

    Above all, that woman and her gift of compassion showed me that no matter how small, an act of kindness truly does have the power transform a life.

    It transformed mine. By lightening my load, it created space for the challenges that lay ahead.

    So many of us walk around carrying heavy burdens, desperate for a sense of relief. It may seem so simple, but two little words can dramatically ease our pain and our suffering. Such simple little words: Tell me.

  • An Open Letter To My Bullies: Thank You For Making Me Strong

    An Open Letter To My Bullies: Thank You For Making Me Strong

    “The heart is like a garden: it can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?” ~Jack Kornfield

    Dear Bullies,

    To be honest, I didn’t think I would ever write you a letter. As far as I was concerned, the amount of suffering I went through during my school years was enough to make me bitter.

    I didn’t forgive you, and I most certainly wasn’t about to forget.

    I remember those years like it was yesterday—the cruel name calling; the scrutinizing of how I looked, what I said, and what I did; the public humiliation and cornering on the bus rides home.

    Wrong face. Wrong size. Wrong skin color. Wrong personality.

    No matter how hard I tried to understand it all, it felt like the world was telling me that I didn’t belong, and I never would.

    I remember the hours spent locked in my room crying after school, while my mother paced around the house anxiously. Back then I didn’t know how to communicate to her how I was feeling, and she felt at a loss how to help. I felt paralyzed and confused.

    In the schoolyard I was the good girl who never spoke badly of anyone, the quiet student who worked hard and who hated getting into trouble.

    I remember the laughter, my cheeks burning as I walked from class to class, wishing that the earth would just swallow me up.

    Dear bullies, I really remember that laughter.

    I remember the times you refused to sit next to me, “that thing” in the class photos, deeming me too ugly to sit next to, unworthy of sharing your personal space.

    I felt crushed that day.

    Or the times you used pens and sharp objects to write cruel nicknames over all of my school books and stationery while I was home sick.

    And yet every time my family moved to a new city to follow my father’s job, I always held hope that somehow this next new school would be different, I would be different.

    I would be finally accepted.

    But that day never seemed to come, and it wasn’t long before flip top cell phones without color, instant messenger, and social media websites arrived, sending messages that made my insides squirm.

    You were my so called “friends.” You were strangers who found an easy target in a girl who was too afraid to use her voice.

    I remember it all.

    When I finally escaped school in my teenage years, I thought I was free. Instead, a suffocating depression and crippling anxiety knocked heavily on my door, as I withdrew from the world, convinced that “you” would be everywhere.

    I hastily took your critical voices and directed it inward. You became my internal radio station, one that I couldn’t quite figure out how to change or even switch off.

    But this is not where my story ends.

    By being forced to go within, I began to slowly gather puzzle pieces out of a dark and challenging place.

    I explored every nook and corner, searching for long lost parts of me, parts that hadn’t been seen in quite some time.

    I learned how to face myself without fear, but rather with a growing sense of maturity that helped me to look beyond my pain and start to become aware of yours.

    You see, we humans are merely a reflection of one another.

    For you to project words so broken and so laced with anger, you had to have been battling your very own storms within.

    Genuinely happy people don’t pull others down, and for that, you have taught me the art of compassion.

    You have taught me how to connect fully with others from all walks of life; I look around me, and I see beyond the superficial, the carefully put up walls, and I see something else:

    I see that behind every face, behind every pair of eyes filled with experiences, there is a story to be told, if we just took more time to stop and listen.

    And even though some of your stories are now forever linked with mine, they’re now the gritty, rough drafts that add to the chapters rather than take away from it.

    Because, you see, despite the hurt, you truly did contribute to the biggest gift of all:

    The gift of learning to genuinely love and accept the child that I was and the woman I am becoming.

    And for that, I only have a few words for you:

    Thank you for making me strong.

    Kind regards,

    Rachel

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

    Happiness Hacks: 10 Ways to Infuse Your Life with Joy

    Happy

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

    Life seems complicated these days.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    2. Self-care: Respect yourself.

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

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

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

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

    3. Mindfulness: Live in the now.

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

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

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

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

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

    4. Resilience: Learn from experiences.

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

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

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

    5. Appreciation: Be grateful.

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

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

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

    6. Simplicity: Let go.

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

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

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

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

    7. Self-empowerment: Look within.

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

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

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

    8. Compassion: Reach outside yourself.

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

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

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

    9. Enjoyment: Do things you love.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    —

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

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

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

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