Tag: dissatisfaction

Why You’re Not Happy (Even If Life Looks Fine)

Do you sometimes see people running around enjoying life and wonder what you’re missing? Sometimes I used to think I must be a horrible person. I had so many things going for me, and I still couldn’t be happy. I would ask myself, is there something wrong with me? Am I a narcissist?

Then sometimes I would decide I was just going to be happy. I would fake it until I made it and just accept that’s who I was. But it wouldn’t take long for me to feel overwhelmingly depressed.

I had a little dark hole that would constantly pull at me, and I didn’t have the energy to keep ignoring it. My attempts to do so just made it scream louder, and then I really was in a mess. This, of course, made me feel worse because it would remind me that I must be crazy.

As I worked through my healing journey, I discovered there are three key reasons why we can’t just muscle up and be happy. We need to work through these three obstacles to move from just surviving and having moments of happiness to thriving and living a life full of joy and inspiration. To living a life where we love who we are and what we are doing and have hope for the future.

Life is never perfect, but it sure is a lot more enjoyable and fun when we love, enjoy, and fully experience the present moments we are in.

So what are these obstacles? And what strategies can you use to work through them?

1. Validate Past Experiences

When you don’t fully validate and process painful past experiences, the energy of those experiences gets trapped and contained within your body.

It takes consistent and continual emotional energy to keep the walls around those experiences high and the energy within contained. The energy and emotion inside are deep and strong, and to keep these feelings away from our consciousness. we can’t allow ourselves to experience any deep or strong feelings, even the good ones.

Allowing yourself to pull down these walls and grieve all the deep and strong feelings inside will free your emotional energy to feel deep and strong happy feelings too.

For me, this meant feeling and processing the sexual abuse I endured as a child.

For years I convinced myself that I was fine and that it happens to almost everyone. I tried to minimize my experience and leave it in the past. The walls I had built to keep all the grief and pain of those experiences out of my conscious daily awareness drained me and prevented me from feeling life in real time. I was guarded, with very shallow access to my feelings.

No one wants to go back and work through the pain of the past, but I discovered that doing grief work with my therapist allowed me to truly let go of the pain and thrive in the present.

2. Let Go of the Need for Control

When you’ve been hurt in the past, it is normal to want to curate a life where you can’t get hurt again. We create a sense of safety by ensuring our life is as predictable as possible. Any time someone in our circle acts in a way that is outside our control, we ensure they “get back in line” so we feel safe.

For example, if your partner doesn’t immediately return your text, you might get upset and lash out about how disrespectful he is being. If your kids don’t seem to be as concerned about their grades as you think they should be, you might panic and shame them, saying they will be stuck working in fast food restaurants for the rest of their lives. We want everyone to act as we think they “should,” so our world feels nice and safe and predictable.

Zoom out and look at this scenario… Could it be any more boring? No wonder it’s impossible to feel true joy and happiness. Joy and happiness come from the ability to be spontaneous, light, free, and unpredictable.

I think a lot of people mistake feeling safe for feeling happy. Being in a constant search for safety keeps us in survival mode. Knowing you are safe with yourself no matter what allows you to move out of survival and into a higher consciousness that brings joy, pleasure… and happiness.

It is true that many of us have very real pain from the past, and it is perfectly normal to want to protect ourselves from feeling that pain again by attempting to curate a life we can fully control. This is an unconscious decision we make out of self-protection.

Choose to make the conscious decision to let go of control. Trust that you now have all the resources within yourself to feel safe, no matter what happens. Releasing the need to control will bring you the ability to feel joy, pleasure, and fun again.

This one was difficult for me and took a long time to integrate. Because of my abusive childhood experiences, I overcompensated for my feelings of worthlessness and lack of safety with a drive for success and perfectionism to try to control how others perceived me.

If my co-worker wasn’t pulling her weight, I would stay late and work weekends to ensure the work was done, and done well. If my husband wouldn’t spend time with me or plan dates, I would plan dates and put all the reservations in his name so it looked like he was investing in me and our relationship. If my kids were not interested in wearing outfits that I thought would make our family look perfect, I would bribe them with candy so we could look good and put together as a family.

I thought that making myself and my family look like we had it together meant that we did, and we would therefore be happy. Man, this couldn’t be further from the truth, and it actually drove not just myself but everyone in the family system in the opposite direction.

No one likes to be manipulated, and even if we can’t exactly identify that’s what is happening, we feel it. Honestly, I had a bit of an identity crisis as I let go of how I wanted life to look and embraced living and feeling life in real time. What I can say is that since I’ve let go of control, life has been full of more peace and joy than I knew possible.

3. Look for Happiness

What we look for, we will find. There is a reason we constantly hear people talk about gratitude. When we look for things we’re grateful for, things we enjoy or love, we create more of those things in our lives. We begin to see how much joy and happiness we already have.

We so often completely overlook the goodness that’s all around us because we are preconditioned to see and experience all the things that are going wrong.

This third step is caused by not working through the first two. When we haven’t validated our past painful experiences, we look for validation in all our current painful experiences.

It’s like those experiences keep haunting us until we take the time to turn around and look at them. They cloud our ability to see the happiness we already have all around us. We can’t experience the innocence and joy in our children. Nor can we accept the love and connection our friends want to offer us or appreciate all the amazing things we are doing well at work.

When we are stuck in the need for control, we look for all future outcomes that will help us to stay safe instead of looking for all the joy and pleasure that is already in our life. We don’t have enough bandwidth to do both, at least not all at once; so, for example, if we spend all our time subconsciously looking for ways someone else might hurt or abandon us, then we don’t have the energy left to look for joy and pleasure in our relationships.

One day I had to make a choice. I decided I had had enough of being tired, frustrated, and miserable. I knew it would take a while for my circumstances to change, but that didn’t mean I had to stay stuck and feel isolated, frustrated, and lonely.

I made the hard choice to look for happiness. At first, I would journal things I found happiness in, and over time it became more subconscious than conscious. It also helped to talk about it with a good friend, as we both challenged each other in looking for happiness.

Sometimes I still struggle. If I haven’t been taking care of myself, this one is the first to slip. I start to slide back into an old pattern of looking for how life is screwing me over. I know that I’m better able to keep my mindset in happiness when I engage in self-care as often as possible.

If enough is enough and you are ready to move on from feeling like you are just surviving life, implement the following three strategies to overcome the obstacles to joy.

First, start journaling or processing your feelings about past experiences. It could be a good idea to do this step with a professional, depending on what you have been through.

Next, start identifying how much control you have over your life and the people around you and see where you can loosen up the reins a little.

I can almost hear you saying back to me, “But everything will fall apart if I let go!” Let it fall apart. You don’t want a partner and kids who live only to make you satisfied and “happy.” Let life get a little messy. They (and you) will be so much happier if they just get to be themselves, make mistakes, and develop connections out of genuine love and respect… not out of fear of failure or mistakes.

This last one is pretty simple: start looking for joy. Get curious when you find it hard or upsetting to look for joy. Often, turning things around is simply a choice. Change your subconscious conditioning from looking for what is going wrong to looking for what is going right.

These three steps will help you attract the people and experiences that will bring you everything you are looking for.

Before you know it, your past pain will be a distant memory that doesn’t impact your day-to-day life. Instead, you will feel a sense of freedom and joy because you’ll be able to live life in the moment rather than in your head trying to predict outcomes, and because you’ll have reset your pre-conditioning to look for the good in life everywhere you go.

This is what it takes to be one of “those people” who just seem happy and full of life. Which strategy will you try first?

May 12, 2025
The Best Way to Deal with Dissatisfaction (It’s Not What You Think)

“Trying to change ourselves does not work in the long run because we are resisting our own energy. Self-improvement can have temporary results, but lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion.” ~Pema Chodron, The Places That Scare You

In my late thirties, I was a yoga teacher and an avid practitioner. I lived by myself in a small but beautiful studio apartment in Tel Aviv, Israel, right next to the beach.

Every morning I woke up in my large bed with a majestic white canopy and said a morning prayer. I meditated for an hour and practiced pranayama and yoga asana for another hour and a half.

When I was done, I prepared myself a healthy breakfast and sat at the rectangular wooden dining table, facing a huge window and the row of ficus trees that kept me hidden from the world. I ate slowly and mindfully.

Since then, my life has shifted. I found love, got married, had a child, started a new business, and moved to live in the US. I stopped having the luxury of a two-and-a-half-hour morning sadhana. But my morning prayer stayed with me all this time:

I am grateful for everything that I have and for everything that I don’t have.

I am grateful for the opportunity to live.

I love myself the way I am.

I love my life the way it is.

I love all sentient beings the way they are.

May all sentient beings be happy and peaceful, may they all be safe and protected, may everyone be healthy and strong, and know a deep sense of wellbeing.

I created this prayer because I wanted to be grateful for life, but I was not. I wanted to love myself, but I did not. It was sort of “fake it till you make it.”

I borrowed this principle from the metta bhavana practice. In this practice you send love and good wishes to yourself, then to someone you love, then to someone neutral and eventually to someone you have issues with.

When you send love to someone you hate, you connect with your hatred and resentment. You can witness how hard it is for you to want this person to be happy and well. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes. The hatred dissolves and you become more authentic with your wishes.

Similarly, I assumed that if I kept telling myself that I was grateful, I would eventually become grateful. If I told myself that I loved myself, I would eventually love myself.

Today, I can say that I do love myself and I do love my life, a lot more than I used to when I created my morning prayer. But the more I am happy with what I have, the harder it is to say that I am happy for everything I don’t have.

Right now, for example, I am dissatisfied with my business income.

I could reason myself out of my dissatisfaction.

I could tell myself that I only started my business three years ago, just before COVID. I am still not making enough money, but I am making money and my situation keeps improving.

My husband makes enough money for both of us, so my life is pretty good as it is. I know I am fulfilling my purpose, and it gives me great satisfaction to serve and inspire others. I get many affirmations that I am on the right path.

I could also count my blessings.

I have an honest and deep, loving relationship. I have an out-of-this-world connection with my son. I have a charming old house in a city that, for me, is heaven on earth. I have great friends and a strong community of likeminded people.

I could compare myself to many other people who do not have any of these gifts.

This is what most of us do when we feel discontent or dissatisfied with our lives. We sweep our lack of satisfaction under the rug. We remind ourselves of all the reasons we should be content. We convince ourselves to stop complaining and be happy.

But when we fake our gratitude, when we reason ourselves to be happy, or focus on our gifts rather than our sorrows, we do not increase our happiness, we get further away from it!

Let me explain.

Behind our dissatisfaction there is pain.

There might be childhood wounds, there might be weaknesses. When we ignore our frustration, we miss a valuable opportunity to work with these themes.

When I delved into my discontent, I realized a lot of it was rooted in my childhood. My father was a banker, and my mother was an artist. My mother loved art and different cultures. She wanted to travel to many places. She worked hard at raising three children, but she did not get to travel because my father thought traveling was a waste of time and money. My mother had no say, since she was not the one who made the money in our house.

Because of this, as a child I promised myself that I would never be financially dependent on anyone. This decision motivated me to study accounting and economics, and to have a successful financial career. My work did not fulfill my purpose, but it brought me financial security.

For me, not having a sustainable income equaled being weak, like my mother was.

When I understood that, I could work with it. I could remind myself that I was not my mother. That I was a good businesswoman. That I’d made some good investments. That I was strong.

We are afraid to experience dissatisfaction and pain because we fear they will bring us down. But in truth, depression comes from not dealing with the pain! You can only suppress your discontent for so long. At a certain point, everything you swept under the rug comes out, and you discover that in its dark hiding place it grew bigger and bigger.

After my mother died, when I was eighteen, I decided to live life to the fullest. I was very grateful for being alive, and I thought my gratitude should be expressed with constant happiness. For few years, I forced myself to be happy, and pushed all the pain, hurt, and loneliness away.

I lived like I was on top of the world, until one day I crashed to the ground. I got so depressed I could not get out of bed or stop crying for months.

At first, I did not even understand why I was depressed while my life was so “perfect.” It took me years to open my eyes and see all the things I refused to acknowledge before.

Since then, I’ve come a long way. I stopped running away from my pain. I turned around, looked it in the eyes, and said, “let’s be friends.”

Even though I have so many reasons to be grateful, I am still allowed to be dissatisfied. I am not going to judge myself for that. I am not going to tell myself to stop whining and snap out of it. I am not going to deny this pain or try to modify it and shape it into gratitude.

Befriending your pain and dissatisfaction is not an easy process.

Our natural tendency is to fear these feelings, to avoid them, to deny them. It requires us to go against our instincts.

On the first slope I ever skied, my instincts told me to lean back to prevent falling. But leaning back is exactly what makes you fall. You need to lean forward, into the downhill, in order to slow yourself down and ride the slope well.

Leaning into your dissatisfaction works exactly the same. When you accept your dissatisfaction and allow yourself to be dissatisfied, you work with the situation. You make it your teacher. You appreciate the wisdom of it. Only then, transformation occurs, and you become content.

So why do I keep saying the same morning prayer?

In his book Infinite Life, Robert Thurman quotes Ram Dass, who once asked his guru “’What about the horrors in Bengal?’ His guru smiled to him and said, ‘Don’t you see, it’s all perfect!’ Ram Dass then said, ‘Yeah! It’s perfect—but it stinks!’”

According to Thurman, there are two perceptions of reality that we must hold together. There is the enlightened perception in which everything is perfect, and the samsaric perception, in which we experience pain and dissatisfaction, which must be acknowledged and worked with.

In my morning prayer I hold the enlightened perception. But when I start my day, I remember to lean into my true deep feelings, especially when I feel pain, frustration, and dissatisfactions. It makes me so much happier.

November 23, 2022
Why Many of Us Chase Big Dreams and End Up Feeling Dissatisfied
“A dream written down with a date becomes a GOAL. A goal broken down into steps becomes a PLAN. A plan backed by ACTION makes your dreams come true.” ~Greg Reid

We all have dreams, some of them really big. And if we are serious about achieving these dreams, the next logical step is to set a goal, make a plan, and start taking action.

But we are missing out on one very important step in the dream-creating journey.

This step is one that has taken me, personally, two decades to come to realize. And my first clue came from my kids’ bedtime story book, of all places!

Down in the depths of the ocean lived a sad and lonely whale who spent his days searching and searching for the next shiny object, never feeling complete or fulfilled in his quest for more. Then one day, stumbling upon a beautiful reef, a clever little crab stops him and asks:

“You are the whale that always wants more. But what are you really wanting it for?”

We seem to spend our whole lives setting goals and planning out our dreams, but we rarely stop to ask ourselves what we want these things for. What do we want the new car, job, promotion or house for?

If we stopped to think, and if we were really honest with ourselves, we would all have a similar answer. Because our goals and dreams often boil down to the same underlying human need for significance: to feel good enough, valued, validated, accepted, loved, or worthy.

Most of our goals are essentially attached to our need to feel good enough in the eyes of others and ourselves.

The Missing Step of Having an Unattached Goal

Having an unattached goal is the missing step in our dream-living process. It is such an important step for two simple reasons. When we have goals that are conjoined to the need to be good enough, we can only end up with one of two finish-line photos:
- You on the podium with the winning medal around your neck, but looking around at the next shiny medal to chase, not fulfilled by your achievement.
- You not crossing the finishing line, with an “I’m a failure” sign around your neck, left with an even bigger hunger for validation and self-worth.
Cease the Endless Quest for More

Just like in the children’s book The Whale Who Wanted More, a typical pattern is to chase goal after goal, finding that we are never satisfied for long and continually hatching plans for the next shiny object to chase.

It makes complete sense when you realize that these goals are forged together with the need for significance, acceptance, or validation. Because if we don’t fill those needs first and instead use our goals to meet them, there is no car, house, promotion, or partner that will. And we will always be looking for that next thing to meet those needs.

Cease the Self-Sabotage

Self-sabotage was my MO for many years. Just like an ironsmith beating his flame-red metal into shape, I had beat and bent my purpose so that it would fulfill what I lacked in self-worth and what I secretly craved in acceptance and validation. I would be enough only when I achieved my purpose-related goal.

And here’s the kicker—I not only needed to live my purpose in order to fulfill my need for significance, I also had to swim against the undercurrent of feeling like I wasn’t capable of actually doing it.

The fear of failure was so real, because if I failed at this I wouldn’t get the validation and worth that I needed. So any time I felt like failure was in sight, I would give up and hatch a new plan to reach my purposeful goal, and in doing so, sabotage my own path to it. My way of seeing the world had become: better to keep the dream of a possibility alive than have the reality of failure come true.

The Question That Opened My Eyes to My Attached Goals

I lived for twenty years under the guise of a pure purpose, a burning flame to help others. And though that was very much part of my drive and work over the years, it was subtly intertwined with the need for recognition and “becoming someone.” And it had slowly and silently transformed into a shackle for self-worth and significance.

About a month or two after reading that bedtime book to my children, I heard a question that split my tug-of-war rope in half; a question that left my goal on one side and my self-worth safely on the other. It gave me the separation, distance, and freedom I needed to be me and to go after my goals with no emotional agendas, just pure passion and purpose.

And the magic question was:

If you don’t get what you want, what would that mean about you?

When I first heard that question, my answer came so quickly:

I’d be a failure.

It seemed like a simple mathematical truth to me: don’t achieve my life-long goal equals failure. What other answer could there possible be?

As it happens, there is only one right answer to this question. And it wasn’t the one I gave. The right answer sounded simple. There was nothing complicated about it, but it just didn’t sit, settle, or disperse in any way. It just kind of hung there in front of me, just waiting for something to happen.

And something did happen, about a week later.

I was running through my typical pattern: the way I would always approach my purpose-related goals and how, after seeing and concluding that nothing would ever come from my efforts, just give up.

But that day, I suddenly remembered the question, if you don’t get what you want, what would that mean about you?

And more importantly, I remembered the right answer:

Nothing.

Yes, you read that right. The right answer is nothing. Not getting what you want changes nothing about who you are. You are still you.

You are still worthy. You are worthy, whether or not you achieve your goal. When we tie so much meaning and worth to what we are trying to achieve it becomes a huge block. And we end up chasing that goal or that dream for all the wrong reasons: so that we don’t feel like a failure; so that we feel loved, accepted, and recognized.

Your goals do not complete you. You are complete whether you achieve them or not.

When you truly feel that not getting what you want means absolutely nothing about you, you know that you have an unattached goal. And when you have an unattached goal, you are free to go after it without those typical self-sabotaging patterns and to enjoy achieving your goal when you reach it.

A dream written down with a date becomes a GOAL. A goal broken down into steps becomes a PLAN. A plan backed by ACTION makes your dreams come true.

But a dream unattached to your self-worth is the real dream come true.
July 4, 2022
Are You Sick of Waiting, Wanting, and Wishing for a Better Life?

“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.” ~Walter Elliott

I often find myself impatient with the pace of my progress. Waiting for my life to move forward can sometimes feel like I’m watching paint dry.

There are so many moments when we feel like our life is at a standstill. This is generally where I double down with my intensity. I hit it with everything I can. The crash comes soon after from the inevitable violent collision of my mind, body, and spirit as they’re pushed beyond their limits.

The idea of having to wait for anything is a first-world problem. The thought that your cat’s costume might not arrive in time for Halloween is enough to bring some people to tears. Just thinking of Mr. Whiskers having to go out as a plain ol’ cat is a bloody crime.

And that’s waiting for a cat costume.

What about that book you wish would just write itself?

What about that scale that still shows you being forty pounds heavier than you want to be?

What about that bank account that still isn’t bigger than your credit card bill?

These are not things we want to wait for. We want the juice without the squeeze.

We’ve grown so impatient with the idea of waiting for results that we act like moving slowly is a poison to progress. We default to believing the antidote is a shot of intensity straight to the veins. But all that gives us is further frustration, anger, guilt that we’re not doing enough, and the feeling that we need to push harder.

It’s such a horrible way to approach life. Especially since the only finish line comes when you take your final breath. And I don’t know about you, but I’m in no rush to get there early.

It’s exhausting even thinking about that period of my life when I wanted to write a book, lose forty pounds, and stop feeling broke. Not a day would pass when I wouldn’t be consumed by feelings of doubt and hopelessness. I should have been pushing out diamonds with the amount of pressure I was putting on myself.

That struggle led to a life-changing aha moment for me. I realized that there are two ways to approach making progress. You can hit it hard with intensity. Or you can set a long-term aim with consistency.

Which of these do you think is sustainable for making progress?

Think back to the children’s story of the tortoise versus the hare. These are lessons worth revisiting for their simple and profound principles on approaching life.

We all overestimate what we can accomplish in a day, but we underestimate what we can accomplish in a year with steady momentum.

How do you write a book? By establishing a daily writing habit.

How do you lose forty pounds? By moving your body every day and eating less than you burn.

How do you get out of debt? By making a daily choice to spend less than you earn (and invest the difference).

You’re not going to write a book in a day, but there’s a damn good chance you’ll have one in a year.

You’re not going to lose forty pounds in a day, but you could in a year.

You won’t get out of debt in a day, but you’ll set a trajectory for wealth creation that lasts the rest of your life.

How different could your life be a year from now if you committed to something that’s important to you?

Sit with that idea for a moment. Soak it in.

What would it feel like to hold that book in your hands?

What would it feel like to look at that scale and see the number you want to see?

What would it feel like to be debt-free and investing in your future?

I’m serious. Feel it. Wait till you get goosebumps.

That is peace of mind, relief, and a sense of fulfillment tied up in a bow on Christmas morning. That is the realization that you can have almost anything you want in your life if you stay disciplined with your priorities. That is the power of consistent daily habits.

There’s a saying about hope not being a strategy for change. I do believe hope is a beautiful emotion. But I’ve seen myself get stuck for years waiting, wanting, and wishing for a better life. Hope didn’t give me a way out because it left me at the mercy of my current circumstances.

Writer Lu Xun said, “Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.”

This is the power of action and putting one foot in front of the other.

Every action you take is a vote toward the person you want to be. The more we align the things we do on a daily basis with the person we want to become, the more fulfillment we feel in the little things that get us there.

What do you wish you could change if only it didn’t feel so hard? And what could it mean for your life if every day you prioritized this change and did one small thing to work toward it?

Make the decision to commit to a simple daily habit that reflects the person you want to be and the life you want to live. When you do this, you’re deciding to take back control of your life. You’re deciding to give yourself a better future. You’re deciding that you matter.

November 15, 2021
Why It No Longer Matters to Me If My Job Impresses People

“Do not let the roles you play in life make you forget who you are.” ~Roy T. Bennett

Wherever I go and meet new people, they ask me, “What do you do?”

I love talking about what I do because I love what I do, but It’s not what I’ve always done, and it certainly isn’t all of who I am. It’s part of who I am, but there is so much more.

When we’re young, we’re asked to decide on a career. You know, the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The problem is, does anyone in high school truly know what they want to do for the rest of their lives? I’d venture to say that many high school kids don’t even know who they really are yet.

When I was growing up, I was a straight-A student, a star athlete, a perfectionist, and an overachiever. I learned at a young age that performing well was my ticket to feeling good about myself. My accomplishments garnered the praise and admiration of many and gave me what I needed to feel good.

Validation.

As a senior in high school, it was natural that I chose to go to college for aerospace engineering. I was interested in aviation, but more importantly, when I told other people what I had decided on, they nodded their heads in approval. A smart girl should choose a “smart career,” right?

Validation and approval drove me forward.

When I got out of college with a BS in aerospace engineering from the University of Minnesota, I went to work for The Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington. I didn’t love it. Part of it may have been homesickness, or the dreary Seattle weather, but a huge part of it was that the corporate cubicle life was not for me.

I thought there was something wrong with me. After all, I had worked so hard to reach this point in my life. I should love it, right? Hadn’t I finally arrived?

I struggled with it so much because on one hand, I dreaded going to work. On the other hand, when I told people what I did for a living, they leaned in and listened a little harder. Even my own father was proud to talk about my engineering career and the fact that I worked for one of the top aerospace companies in the world, but I’ve since moved to less impressive pursuits, he has never once asked me about those endeavors.

My career looked awesome and interesting and impressive on paper, but I was quietly dying inside.

My husband and I ended up moving all the way across the country to Savannah, Georgia, where I worked for another top aerospace company—Gulfstream Aerospace. I didn’t really feel any different about my position there, until I transferred into a group called Sales Engineering.

In this area, I was able to interact and collaborate with sales and marketing to create the technical data they would use to pitch Gulfstream’s fleet to potential customers. I enjoyed the challenge, but I really enjoyed the collaboration with other people that weren’t buried in their computers all day. It was here that I first got a glimpse that I loved connecting with other people.

When my first child was born, I left the aerospace industry. We had just moved cross-country again to Los Angeles, and it made more sense for me to be a full-time mom since I wasn’t the family breadwinner, and we didn’t absolutely need a second income. Plus, I wasn’t enamored with the whole engineering gig either, so in a sense, it was a way out.

Quitting the career that I didn’t love was, on one hand, so freeing. But on the other hand, without that thick layer of validation that kept getting piled on every time someone asked me “What do you do for a living?”, I felt naked. I felt inferior. I felt like I was a failure who couldn’t hack it in the real world.

My identity was wrapped up in my career that looked so good on paper but didn’t feel good in my soul.

My ex-husband is an attorney, and we’d attend events with lots of other attorneys and highly educated people. At these events, I dreaded the question “So, Kortney, what do you do?”

My response was always a little timid, almost apologetic.

“I stay at home with our son.”

There was typically a slow nod, with a bit of feigned interest, as if they weren’t really sure what more to say about the occupation stay-at-home mom.

Because I also had a side-gig photography business, I’d quickly add, “and I’m also a photographer.”

That tended to garner a bit more interest.

“But I used to be an aerospace engineer,” I’d tack on, in a final effort to gain the nod of approval I so desperately sought.

Bingo. Alarm bells sounded. The crowd cheered. People were reeled back into something more exciting.

That good, old familiar friend, validation was back.

I struggled for a long time to find my identity without all the “stuff” on the outside. It wasn’t until I got divorced and had to figure out how I would financially support myself after my spousal support ran out that I even scratched the surface of “Who am I, really?”

Who am I without my career, the accomplishments, the external validation?

All those years, I lived with one foot in the world of wanting to love myself for who I am rather than what I did and one foot in the world of doing more, doing better, doing it ALL.

I lived in between the worlds of self-validation and external validation.

I knew I wanted the former, yet I craved the latter.

In doing the work of figuring out who I really am, learning to love myself fully, and being able to validate myself without any help from the outside, I realized that I was asking myself the wrong questions all along.

As a society, we ask the wrong questions.

Instead of asking our kids, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, I think we should be asking them, “Who do you want to be?”

I asked my eleven-year-old daughter this, and she looked at me in her quizzical mom-why-are-you-asking-me-such-a-weird-question way and said, “Umm, I just want to be me?”

Yes!

Shouldn’t we all just want to be who we are?

Instead of pursuing goals that are impressive because they bring us accolades and attention, what if we were to pursue our goals because they lit us up and we were truly passionate about them?

What if we started asking our kids questions about what lights them up? How do they want to feel? What things do they like to do that make them feel that way?

Even as adults, we can ask ourselves these questions.

If you’re in a job that doesn’t feel right, you can ask yourself, “How do I want to feel?”

What’s authentic to you? How do you want to show up in the world? What jobs or careers would allow you to show up that way?

This is the work I did after my divorce. I’m in a completely different career now, and believe me, as much as I fought going back to a job in the engineering industry, I had to do a lot of work on my thinking about not having a “smart job” like being an engineer. The validation I craved and was so used to was like a drug.

Through this work, I learned how I want to feel in my life and that guides everything.

I discovered that I want to feel freedom, ease, joy, and meaning in my life.

Going to a cubicle every day didn’t allow me to create those feelings. I want to show up in the world authentically—I want to be able to be a human being who makes mistakes and can share myself with other people. Corporate life didn’t allow me to be that authentic person that I now so deeply love.

Some of you reading this may have corporate jobs and love them. You may be able to create the feelings you want to feel and show up authentically with that type of career. That’s awesome!

The goal is to be able to feel the way you want to feel. The goal is to be able to show up in the world in a way that is true to who you are.

Because how you show up to do the things you do in the world is what really matters.

May 25, 2021
The Simple Path to Change When You’re Not Satisfied with Your Life
“Making a big life change is scary, but you know what’s even scarier? Regret.” ~Zig Ziglar

Fifteen years ago, I made one of the biggest changes in my life. It was something I had wanted to do for so long but had never found the right time, right plan, or courage to do.

You see, ever since I was in my teens, I had always felt I was meant to be somewhere else.

The town where I grew up was pretty perfect for raising young kids, but it just wasn’t for me as I entered adulthood. I always envisioned myself somewhere else doing something different than those that stayed and replaced the generations before them.

When I came back from school in my twenties, I was eager to get my career going and was not in a rush to settle down and have kids like most of my circle. I wasn’t even sure I really wanted to raise a family. I was more interested in exploring this world and not being tied to one way of life.

At twenty-five I thought, WOW, I finally feel like I’ve got it all figured out.

I had lived away from home, finished school, had relationships both good and bad, and had a strong work ethic that was instilled in me from a young age. So here I was, ready to take on the world. Build my career, travel, and maybe eventually settle down and start a family… then BANG! Just like that my world started to crumble.

Within a span of one year, I was dealt some devastating news. My mother and sister were both diagnosed with different devastating diseases.

My world was crushed. I can still remember the impact I felt on the day I received the news.

I was in my office when I got the call about my sister, who had lost her speech and ability to move one of her arms and possibly needed emergency brain surgery.

I was in shock. I had no idea how I felt, what I was supposed to do, or where I was supposed to be. I just sat there with a blank stare for what felt like an eternity but really was likely just five minutes.

After weeks of testing, it was discovered my sister had MS (Multiple Sclerosis). A life-long debilitating disease, or so I understood at the time.

Fast forward six-plus months later, my sister was on track with rehabilitation and signs of a full recovery in speech and limb mobility. Then WHAM! My mother received a stage 3 cancer diagnosis.

I was absolutely devastated and completely torn apart. My mother is everything to me, the woman who inspires me to stand tall and strong no matter what life throws my way. A woman of pure integrity and authenticity, loved by so many.

After emergency surgery and intense chemo, I am glad to say that both my mum and sister survived their devastating ordeals and have been living life to the fullest since that awful time. But during that time my world was upside down and I was an emotional wreck.

I had no idea how to unravel all the emotions I was feeling then. I kept myself busy, though, with work, too much partying, and hitting the gym hard. You see, I kept myself looking good on the outside, but I was a complete mess on the inside. I was no longer thriving; I was just surviving.

I began taking inventory of my life and realized I was not living the life I’d envisioned for myself. I was scared to make a change and also to not make a change.

Seeing what my family had endured made me realize how precious life is and that I didn’t want to waste mine living a life that didn’t fulfill me in fear I was next for a diagnosis. So, I decided to seek out professional help to gain control and clarity, to heal, and to push through the emotions I was suffering from. Only then would I be able to truly move forward with my life in a positive and productive way.

Once I had done the “work” on sorting out my emotions, I was able to start creating real change from a healthy, sound perspective.

I started creating the life that resonated with me one step at a time. You see, change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to build. It is a process, and anyone who has made significant change in their lives will tell you that. Their change likely started way before anyone was really aware.

I wasn’t living the life I wanted, so I thought long and hard about what needed to change and finally took the leap.

I moved across the country on my own, away from my most significant support, with no job, to start building a life that resonates with me. It wasn’t without challenge or bumps in the road, and it certainly wasn’t perfect. But it’s been absolutely amazing, and I’ve never looked back.

Besides the emotional trauma, there were so many things holding me back at first—family, friends, familiarity, and fear. But what I’ve come to realize is when you start making positive change in your life, for you, things fall into place over time and you look back and realize the change was worth it.

People speak from their own feelings, experiences, and fears, don’t let that hold you back from what feels right to you.

I now live in a place that felt like home from the first time I landed here. I live by the ocean and mountains, which inspire me every day.

My sister now lives in the same city (in fact, we live the same complex). My brother and his family moved a one-hour flight away now as opposed to across the country. My mother still resides back in the town where I grew up so, I feel I get the best of both worlds. Living in a place that inspires me while having the chance to revisit a vibrant city and old friends to reminisce with whenever I choose to.

So, what are the top things people say they regret as they get older? I wish I’d….
- Saved more money or made better investments
- Worked in a job or career I was more passionate about
- Treated my body better and had better self-care
- Spent more time with loved ones
- Traveled more
And the list goes on…

Why do so many people rush through life without taking the time to recalibrate and ensure they are focused on the right things that mean something to them or will enrich their lives? It’s an intricate topic yet simple. Life. Life gets in the way, responsibilities get in the way, others’ opinions, and our own doubts and fears get in the way.

We’ve all been there, navigating life as it unravels each day, and as things happen, we go with the flow. But have you ever stopped to consider, what’s my “flow”?

How do I want this day, month, year to go? Why do I keep getting dragged in other directions or the same direction only to live each day with no change? Why does it seem like others are thriving while I am on repeat or treading without progressing?

You will never know for sure until you take the time to explore what is going on in your life and create awareness around what might be holding you back. With the right support and guidance, you can create change both big and small. In fact, making little changes frequently will add up to making a big change overall.

Not sure where to start? Here are five proven tips to begin creating change in your life today.

1. Break the routine.

Think about what you can give up or take out of your day to switch up your daily routine and do this for a two-week period. This could mean not scrolling mindlessly through social media on your lunch break or not watching TV at night, then seeing what else you could do instead. Which brings me to my next point…

2. Bring back doing something you love and make it a deal breaker in your week.

No excuses, make it happen, even you only have a fifteen-minute window for this activity. Same as above, do this for a two-week period, and this next one, as well.

3. Discover something new.

What have you always considered trying out or have an interest in that you’ve never explored? Give it a try now.

4. Journal.

Keep notes on how you are feeling through the two weeks. Then do it all for another two weeks.

5. Build intention.

Each week set the intention that there is time, this is worth it, and you are worth it!

—

The purpose of this process is to help you see how even small shifts can change how you feel and add to your life and well-being. This sets the foundation for believing that change gives more than it takes, which helps you find the motivation to seek out new opportunities so you can make larger life changes. Move if you don’t feel thrilled with where you live, sign up for a course to help you change careers, or finally leave the job you hate to do something you love.

It takes focus, consistency, and perseverance to make change, but everyone has the ability to do it, especially if they start small and take it one day at a time.

Surround yourself with those that will respect you and the changes you are making. I bet you’ll be surprised to see how many people are inspired and/or motivated to begin making their own changes after watching you. So don’t wait—start today and open up to change so you can live the life you want to live!
May 11, 2021
Envy Can Teach You Why You’re Dissatisfied with Yourself

“To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is: a dissatisfaction with self.” ~Joan Didion

For a few years in the late 90s, I had a date with the green-eyed monster every other Monday at 6:00 PM on the dot.

That was when my women artists support group met in my friend Anne’s studio.

For those three hours, like clockwork, the envy monster took over my body, mind, and spirit.

Oh, how I wanted a studio like Anne’s! Wide open space for her to paint, high ceilings, natural light through clerestory windows, a small office for her computer off the main room.

My own “studio” was a tiny bedroom, so small it was a miracle my drafting table even fit inside. Where Anne had spacious shelves and flat files to store her supplies, a sofa for visitors, and still had plenty of space left over to spread out and paint, I barely had space to turn around.

It wasn’t just her studio that I envied, either. Unlike me, Anne seemed to have a happy, functioning marriage. And her house was gorgeous, an old bungalow in pristine condition, with the kinds of details you just don’t find in newer construction: old hardwood floors, a fireplace with hand-made tiles, built-in glass cabinets in the living and dining rooms.

In expensive Silicon Valley, houses like this—even tiny ones—don’t come cheap, and I seethed with envy, wishing I could afford a place like Anne’s.

It takes a two-income family to afford such a home in my town, though, and with my marriage falling apart, I was soon to enter the ranks of the single-income—and a limited income, at that.

Face it, with her well-paying design work, her (also well-paid) husband, her beautiful house, and her to-die-for studio, Anne represented everything I wanted and did not have.

Hence that bi-monthly date with the green-eyed monster.

I should note that I didn’t begrudge Anne all of her riches. I was glad for her. (more…)

January 29, 2013