Tiny Buddha

Tag: emotions

  • 4 Tips for Raising Happy, Emotionally Healthy Children

    4 Tips for Raising Happy, Emotionally Healthy Children

    Mother and daughter

    “Emotional intelligence begins to develop in the earliest years. All the small exchanges children have with their parents, teachers, and with each other carry emotional messages.” ~Daniel Goleman

    I consider myself an expert on the emotional needs of children. Mostly because I was one.

    No one goes into parenthood anticipating the ways they will psychologically damage their children. At least I don’t think they do. I hope not. It’s far more likely that most go into parenthood wanting the best for their children, hoping to do more for them than their own parents were able to do.

    So, why is it that so many come out of childhood scathed in some way? My parents fed me and sheltered me. I learned how to take care of myself physically and to manage the tasks of adulthood. I was responsible and productive. Yet, I was far from happy and fulfilled.

    I did not come out of childhood feeling good about myself. I had no idea how to identify how I was feeling, let alone express it in ways that were not destructive in some way. I did not learn what a healthy relationship looked like, with myself or others.

    Technologically and economically speaking, we have made tremendous strides in the last 100 years. It is actually pretty phenomenal if you take a minute to look at history.

    World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars took up resources and energy in the early to mid part of the 20th century, and everyone had to step up and out of their comfort zones to keep things going, within the family and within our country. There was tremendous change on a national level.

    The earlier part of those 100 years were often about survival for families. Putting food on the table and a roof over their heads was a priority. Everyone doing their part in managing household responsibilities was paramount. Disposable income and disposable time were luxuries.

    For the most part, that has all changed.

    Huge technological and economical advancement only left psychological and emotional growth lagging sorely behind.

    Does anyone find it strange that we spend twelve years or more in an education system, which is supposed to prepare us for life, but no one teaches us how to navigate our own emotional world?

    We take classes for everything from learning to draw to playing an instrument to getting a medical degree or becoming an accountant to learning karate and gymnastics or learning to cook, yet we get little to no education on our psychological and emotional health.

    We are completely caught up in and focused on our physical health, unaware that our emotional health or lack thereof plays out in our bodies every minute of every day. Why does mental health have a stigma and physical health does not? They are completely intertwined.

    If we were healthier emotionally, we would be healthier physically.

    I think most of us would agree that the world often looks like it is going crazy. People are dumping their pain all over others, rarely being accountable for themselves or recognizing there is another alternative. I know. I’ve been there. I’ve been dumped on and I’ve been the dumper.

    All you have to do is turn on the television or look at a video game or watch the news—murder, mayhem and politics, addiction, domestic violence, divorce and child abuse, bullying by parents at their children’s sporting events, and adults having sexual relationships with children—to know that adults are still trying to figure out how to navigate their own feelings and emotions.

    How then are we to teach our children how to be emotionally healthy when we live in a world that is so emotionally unhealthy?

    Emotionally healthy people do not need to oppress others. Emotionally healthy people do not hate others for their differences. They are more likely to see their similarities. Emotionally healthy people never think they are better than anyone else, for any reason.

    Emotionally healthy people know how to express themselves in life-giving ways, and are rarely in abusive relationships or having affairs. They aren’t lying, cheating, or abusing drugs or people. They are generally happy people.

    Becoming an emotionally healthy person is an ongoing journey and needs at least as much, if not more, attention as we give to our physical health.

    Reproduction often gets less thought and planning than a vacation. Raising children to be healthy, happy, productive, and loving adults becomes on-the-job-training at its worst, since mistakes can be life altering.

    So how do we help our children become the happy, healthy, productive, and loving adults most parents want them to be?

    First, Stop Denying Your Feelings

    We are born open and perceptive. Kids pick up on all kinds of things that adults seem to miss. Most kids are naturally intuitive and inquisitive. Their environment will either nurture that experience or hinder it.

    What kids need is someone helping them to identify and articulate what they are experiencing. Feelings and emotions have a purpose. They communicate information to us that is necessary for the successful navigation of life. Unfortunately, there is often little tolerance of them, unless they are happy and joyful.

    If we aren’t being truthful about our own feelings and emotions, how can we teach our children to be truthful about theirs? The feelings we have are not the problem, what we do with them might be.

    Parents often erroneously think they have to protect their children from their own emotions and feelings. It goes something like this:

    You, the parent, are feeling sad. Your child says, “Are you sad, Mommy/Daddy?” Mommy/Daddy says, “No, honey, Mommy’s/Daddy’s not sad….”

    Your child is now confused. S/he knew what sad looked like and felt like, but they are now doubting themselves, because of course, they trust you know better. They also take in an unspoken message that says, “We don’t talk about our painful feelings and/or some feelings are not okay to express.”

    Acknowledging when your kids are right will nurture your child’s natural intuitiveness and emotional intelligence. That will go a long way in contributing to their mental health, like exercise for the body contributes to physical health.

    I am not suggesting we dump our feelings on our kids (like we more often do with anger). I am suggesting we be more honest about our feelings. Reassuring them that we can handle our own feelings will relieve them of responsibility for how we feel, as well as communicate that they, too, can have and learn to tolerate their more difficult feelings.

    They will learn from what we do.

    If we blame our children for how we feel (“You make me angry” versus “I feel angry when you…”), we will leave them with a lifetime of taking on responsibility for the feelings of others, while also learning to hold others responsible for how they feel. That has contributed to a large population of narcissistic people blaming everyone else for how they feel, unable to have any accountability.

    When that happens, we give the power we have to make ourselves happy away to those who can’t.

    It’s okay to express our feelings to our children in age appropriate ways. It is also okay to ask them how they handle things when they feel sad or angry or scared.

    It is important to normalize all feelings, without giving free reign for how they are expressed.

    Second, Stop Judging Feelings as Good or Bad

    Have you ever had anyone tell you, “You shouldn’t feel that way”? Or have you ever told yourself that? I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually choose my feelings. They seem to choose me.

    If we accept how we feel, no matter how horrible it might seem, we can begin to learn from and transform those feelings.

    Then, of course, we can stop judging our children’s feelings. This will allow them to bring their own feelings into the light, without shame. Only then can they learn from and transform their own feelings. Only then can those feelings move on.

    What is not expressed and articulated will be acted out.

    We see this in the schools every day. We see this on the news every day.

    We need to stop judging the way our kids feel. All feelings are a part of the human experience.

    Telling them “that isn’t nice” doesn’t resolve the issue. Asking them why they feel that way and allowing them to express their feelings does. They need our guidance and perspective to help them acknowledge and understand their feelings.

    I usually felt like the outsider as a kid. I did not know how to “fit in.” I took in a message that the way I was or who I was, was not acceptable. So I felt bad about myself.

    When I could finally acknowledge how I felt and express it in a safe and open environment, those feelings began to change. Not because the environment changed, but rather because my perspective on it did. My perspective on myself changed within the context of a helping relationship.

    Parents are the first helping relationship.

    We all have feelings and thoughts of which we are ashamed. This is normal. Judging feelings as bad, all the while pushing them down, will give them permission to control us.

    Facing them honestly gives us the control.

    And don’t we all want our children to be able to manage their feelings and express them appropriately? Wouldn’t we all be happier?

    Third, Avoid Telling Your Kids What You Think They Should Think

    If you want to know what is going on in your kids’ heads, you have to ask questions. Get curious—curious about how they view what is going on in their school or in the world or in your home.

    When you don’t push your own views onto your children, but rather listen to them with interest and unconditional acceptance, they will learn to accept themselves and see their own views as valuable.

    You will also be better able to head off crisis and give the guidance you think is needed if you actually know what or how they are thinking. Parents are always the involved guides and coaches that move between being an overseer to taking a more active role, depending on the age and needs of the child.

    Remember, they are not you, nor are they an extension of you. They are their own person, with their own thoughts, feelings, perspectives, and ideas. Be curious about who your kids are. Notice their strengths. Nurture them.

    Be aware of their weaknesses and work with them patiently. We all have them.

    I remember having a conversation with my parents as an adult. I was raised with fear, as the means of keeping us children in line. My parents had no idea I was drinking in high school, let alone how often I drove home in blackouts. I have felt very fortunate I did not kill myself or someone else.

    Kids will not tell you what they are thinking or feeling unless you create an environment in which they feel safe enough to do so. That means being able to tolerate the things that might make you uncomfortable.

    Dropping the gauntlet won’t necessarily stop the unwanted behavior. Understanding why the behavior exists and what is not being expressed just might.

    Fourth, and Most importantly, How Are You Dealing With Your Own Feelings?

    If we have not resolved our own emotional issues or have little understanding of their very existence, then we will be unable to assist our children manage theirs.

    None of us will have things completely resolved, since that is what life seems to be all about. It is the journey.

    But if we are afraid of our own feelings and emotions, then we will avoid those of our children. It’s never easy to watch children suffer. Yet we can’t get through life without it happening. The better prepared we are to deal with our own feelings, the better we will deal with theirs.

    The better we can navigate our own emotional world, the better we will help our child navigate theirs.

    It’s not about being perfect. It’s about showing up and being able to go there.

    It can be helpful to look back on your own childhood to gain understanding into how you learned or did not learn to deal with your feelings and emotions. It will have everything to do with how you raise your own kids.

    What was acceptable and what was not? How did your family of origin process feelings?

    There is no shame in it. It is never too late to go back and heal what we helped to break. Acknowledging our own inadequacies can be freeing. We live in a culture that demands perfection, where perfection does not exist.

    We do not know, what we do not know. There is always room to learn. Haven’t your children been the greatest teacher? Don’t they challenge you beyond what you think you can do?

    Don’t they deserve to grow into the healthy, happy, productive, loving adults you want them to be?

    Of course they do. The hard part is we have to be that first.

  • How We Avoid Our Feelings and How Embracing Them Sets Us Free

    How We Avoid Our Feelings and How Embracing Them Sets Us Free

    Eyes

    “We numb our minds and heart so one need not be broken and the other need not be bothered.” ~Peggy Haymes

    Feelings are important, no doubt about it. They communicate all sorts of information to us. I don’t know about you, but I’ve preferred to ignore some of that information. Raise your hand if you would much rather feel the good feelings and just jump right over the not so good ones.

    Okay, so it’s unanimous. We all prefer the good, happy feelings. I expect we are all experts at finding ways to avoid the uncomfortable ones. But maybe we can share some avoidance techniques and try something new.

    I like to eat. Food has been synonymous with love in my world. It comforts… until it doesn’t, right? Alcohol? Well, thank heaven I was spared addiction, because, but for the grace of God, there go I.

    Running and exercise were at least a healthier alternative to dealing with my feelings, and I did feel a little better about myself, so that was justifiable, I’m sure. Oh, and let’s not forget a good movie, or even a bad one is a great distractor. Binge watching is even better.

    So, let’s add to the list. What do you do to avoid those uncomfortable feelings? Just take a minute to think about it. What are your avoidance techniques? Okay, time is up.

    Do you shop for stuff you do not need?

    Are you constantly on the go?

    Do you peruse social media incessantly, call or text anyone available?

    Do you eat, drink, and be merry?

    Spend more time with Match.com than you do with yourself?

    Do you clean your house, obsessively making sure everything is in its place?

    Lose yourself in a book?

    Surround yourself with so much chaos that you can hardly hear yourself think?

    Or maybe you avoid certain places or people or being alone.

    Do you work long hours?

    Get a front row seat into the life of someone that appears messier than you?

    The list could go on and on. So, pick your favorites and have at it.

    But before you do, I have to tell you that, in hindsight, I was one of the lucky ones.

    I was lucky because I could not keep avoiding those uncomfortable feelings, no matter how hard I tried or what avoidance technique I used. They were like a bad penny that kept showing up.

    If you want to know how that made me lucky, read on. If you prefer to just add some avoidance techniques to what you are already doing, then you can stop reading now.

    So, why was I lucky?

    Because, you see, my feelings ended up being my North Star to the life I wanted.

    First, some education: Feelings, and the emotions that go with them, like absolutely everything else in life, are energy. Energy, by its very nature, has to keep moving. Unfortunately, too many of us learned, at a rather young age, to stuff feelings down deep. Until expressed, those feelings still live on in our bodies.

    We often stuff them so deeply that we don’t necessarily know they exist, unless we are paying attention. Whether you recognize it or not, I assure you those feelings are still having a profound impact on your life. They follow you around in your relationships and in your interactions with yourself and others.

    Your feelings don’t keep you from being all that you can be. They don’t keep you from getting what you want. Your avoidance of them does.

    They show up in the tweak you feel inside when someone says something you don’t like. Or when the voice in your head is saying something different from what is actually coming out of your mouth.

    Maybe they make themselves known when you are driving in traffic or when your child is not obedient.

    How about when your spouse doesn’t help around the house the way you want or when your friends let you down?

    Maybe it shows up in the jealousy or envy you feel for others.

    And let’s not forget the way we tolerate inappropriate behaviors from others.

    The invitation can be subtle. Listen for it. Watch for it. It is always beckoning.

    Feelings left unresolved in our bodies result in dis-ease—mental, physical, and spiritual.

    At some point in my life, despite running, literally and figuratively, the feelings I was trying so desperately to avoid caught up with me.

    I had been running from feelings left over from childhood. I was angry. I was sad. I felt unloved. My self-worth was in the toilet. I tried not to notice.

    Having never learned my value, I unknowingly invited further abuse in my twenties. Running helped me deal with the emotional energy and irritability without my processing the feelings in ways that would permit resolution. In fact, I did not know feelings could be resolved. I thought, “I guess I will always feel this way.” I was wrong. Thank God I was wrong!

    So now, like one of those 5k races, I had run out of steam and I could not outrun my pursuer. So, unable to avoid any longer, I instead began to befriend those difficult feelings. Admittedly, I begrudgingly befriended those feelings, but befriend them I did.

    And I am forever grateful for having done so.

    I learned to be present to my own pain.

    Life is a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Many of us have experienced some degree of childhood abuse, bullying, neglect, or trauma. The truth is, even in the best of circumstances, we have painful experiences and loss.

    As kids we were powerless. We were dependent on the adults in our lives, unable to fend for ourselves. That left us pretty vulnerable to our environment. As kids we were also pretty ingenious, finding phenomenal ways to defend against situations and feelings we could not handle.

    I became an extension of my dad, trying to be as agreeable and as like him as possible. If Dad was happy, I was better off.

    The problem is, I became the agreeable one in my adult relationships, denying the essence of who I was. I was taking care of the people around me better than I was taking care of myself. I hid who I was assuming it was not acceptable, since in childhood, it was not. What worked in helping me survive childhood ceased to serve its purpose in my adult relationships.

    In fact, those survival skills impede us from being whole, accomplishing our dreams, and having the healthy, intimate relationships we actually want. Unresolved feelings can leave us feeling depressed, anxious, physically sick, and any other number of symptoms. I had them all.

    I remember sitting in my family room one day, thinking. I probably don’t have to tell you how dangerous thinking can be! It’s one of the things we are often trying to avoid. I sure was. The next thing I knew, I was wiping down an already clean kitchen counter. As I regained consciousness from my obvious lapse, a light bulb came on.

    I realized that I did not like what I was thinking about, because it made me feel something I had no interest in feeling.

    Without any conscious awareness, I had gotten up and moved to the kitchen. Now, having woken up from my sleepwalking, I said to myself, “I keep moving to avoid my feelings.”

    Bingo!

    That awareness was a turning point for me, as I began to pay closer attention to the ways that I was avoiding myself, my thoughts, and my feelings.

    As a result of my newfound awareness, another light bulb moment happened one day while driving. I was entering the highway from a two-lane ramp, when a huge dump truck decided to cut over in front of me. I, having little choice, hit my brakes; otherwise, I would have hit him. Man, was I ticked!

    This was not a new experience for me. Trucks cutting me off always left me angry. That was the invitation. I had ignored it long enough. This time I was paying attention.

    Having a history of being pushed around by men, I had learned to be very quiet and compliant, in my attempts to avoid their wrath. Their unresolved anger was taken out on me and being smaller and weaker, I had little choice but to endure.

    Those unresolved feelings still festered inside, and every time a vehicle bigger than me “pushed” me into another lane or forced me to relinquish my right, those feelings got triggered.

    Now, I had something to work with. I needed to be angry. I needed to be sad and I needed to cry. I also needed to feel the powerlessness that had been mine.  

    This was just one of many aha moments I had on this journey of self-discovery. Feelings of anger, grief, sadness, and loss showed up in so many ways and for so many reasons. I finally allowed them to express themselves.

    So, yes, I was lucky. I could not avoid my feelings any longer.

    Through this process, I began to get more comfortable with the pain. It ebbed and flowed like the tides. I found the support I needed and could trust. This is not something we can often do alone.

    I chose to take myself to a psychotherapist, and that turned out to be one of the best things that I ever did for myself. “When the student is ready, the teacher will come.”

    I also began to deal with my self-esteem issues. My inner voice was harsh and judgmental. My feelings about myself were pretty hateful. Each feeling led to the next, taking me deeper into my own experience, and like the proverbial onion, I peeled it back.

    I was being invited to heal. And heal I did. Had I not gone through it myself, I would not have believed that my own transformation could take place in the way that it did. I was made new.

    Learning to sit with my feelings freed me from the need to live in avoidance mode day in and day out. I was no longer fearful. I was better able to go with the flow of life.

    As feelings showed up, I processed them by giving them voice and expression. They were leading me somewhere, and although I was not certain of the destination, I began to trust them.

    As the old feelings began to find their rest, I began to feel better. I was less depressed and less anxious, until I was neither. I enjoyed myself more. My relationships began to be easier. I was more comfortable in my own skin.

    Weeding through those difficult feelings was not easy, but neither was the way I had been living my life previous to having them. I had been afraid to speak up. I had been afraid of being ridiculed. I didn’t like myself. I was more uncomfortable than not. My relationships were distant and disconnected. I was living beneath my potential.

    The avoidance of those feelings controlled my life in more ways than I had been aware.

    We all avoid; it is human nature. We are afraid of the unknown. We are afraid we will collapse and never get up again. We are afraid of spiraling out of control. We are afraid of what change means. We are afraid of what others will think. We are afraid of so many things. And so we avoid.

    We tell ourselves, “It was in the past” or “It happened so long ago.” And lets not forget the “shoulds”: “I should be over this.” “I should let this go.”

    People would tell me, “Let it go.” I would think, “Don’t you think I would if I could?”

    People would say, “Get over it.” I would wonder, “How do I do that?”

    I would think of the people who hurt me, “They did the best they could. What’s wrong with me?”

    I realize now that those telling me to “let it go” or “get over it” were not dealing with their own feelings. And telling myself, “They did the best they could” may be true, but it did not eliminate the fact that what they did hurt me. It was just another way for me to avoid the hurt.

    There was nothing wrong with me. My feelings were about me. No one else. It wasn’t about blame. It was about acknowledging myself and listening to my pain.

    Unexpectedly, I began to trust myself. I learned what it meant to take care of myself and to follow my heart. I made myself a priority. I finally understood what it meant to “let go,” and I could. I made peace with my past, began to enjoy the present, and started to look forward to the future. I was excited about the possibilities.

    Don’t let anyone else tell you how it is. Don’t wait for someone else to make it okay for you to do what you need to do. Don’t minimize your own experience.

    I want to invite you to wake up. Dig in. Lean in.

    Know yourself, understand yourself, learn to love yourself. Pay attention. There are buzzwords like meditation, mindfulness, and self-awareness. Pick one and put it into practice.

    It’s okay to be scared and uncertain. It’s okay to find the support you need. Be your own best friend. Let those feelings have their day. Release them from your body. It will change your life in ways you cannot even imagine.

    You deserve to be free. You will be amazed at your own transformation. You deserve to have all that your heart desires. Can you hear it calling you?

  • 3 Things That Cause Unhealthy Food Cravings and How to Stop Them

    3 Things That Cause Unhealthy Food Cravings and How to Stop Them

    desserts

    “Reminder: food is fuel, not therapy.” ~Unknown

    I learned about food cravings at a young age.

    My parents divorced when I was six years old. My older brother and I ended up living in another city with our grandmother. We used to spend long hours alone, and we learned soon enough how food could help us lift our mood and suppress our real feelings.

    That was when I started having unstoppable food cravings.

    Eating would make me feel good and bring me peace and calm. Trying to avoid my favorite foods would make me nervous and unsettled, and would bring my real feelings back.

    I was overweight until my teenage years, and I hated it every single day. Over the years, I became afraid that giving into cravings was making me lose control over my relationship with food, my weight, and my body.

    In high school, I learned all I could about calories and how eating better could help me lose weight. I put this knowledge into practice and finally dropped some pounds.

    And I promised myself that I would never, ever be overweight again.

    I decided to learn as much as possible about nutrition so I could find my own my way to manage my weight. That’s why I became a nutrition specialist.

    Learning to control my cravings naturally has helped me overcome my fears of gaining weight again. But paying attention only to the numbers on the scale is not enough, and only when you are in control of your weight you can say you made it.

    In this article, I’d like to share the knowledge I’ve gained over the years and show you how you can stop food cravings naturally.

    It’s Essential to Understand the “Whys”

    Have you ever felt an unstoppable food craving that was stronger than you?

    You knew you shouldn’t go for it, but you couldn’t resist.

    This lack of control is very annoying, isn’t it?

    As with many other things in life, weight management related issues are much better approached when you understand what’s going on in your body, why, and the actions you need to take.

    In this post, I will explain the causes of those uncontrollable food cravings and the biological processes behind them, and I will give you easy to apply recommendations on how you can stop food cravings naturally.

    Just imagine how it feels to be in control of your food cravings and what it would mean for your weight!

    But before we dive in, a disclaimer:

    This is not a scientific paper on food cravings that aims to cover every single aspect of the topic, but an effort to explain the main reasons for food cravings and how to practically deal with them, in understandable terms without going too deep into science.

    The goal of this post is to give you enough information to understand the “whys” behind the food cravings and enough practical means for you to be able to stop food cravings naturally.

    What Triggers Food Cravings?

    Although food cravings can be caused by hormone imbalance or nutritional deficiencies, I would like to declare those food cravings off topic here.

    The way to deal with such food cravings is pretty straightforward: Either accept them and let them pass (pregnancy or PMS cravings, for example), or see a doctor if you suspect a nutrition deficiency.

    Instead, I’d like to focus this post on the unhealthy food cravings that you deal with every day.

    If you’re craving celery sticks, go for it! But if it’s donuts, chocolate, cheeseburgers, and similar foods that you can’t keep your hands away from, it’s dangerous for your health in the long run and you have to stop them.

    So what triggers these unhealthy food cravings that make you feel so powerless?

    Three things:

    • Your emotions
    • High-processed food as a product of food engineering
    • Sugar imbalance in your body

    Many authors cover the emotional part of food cravings, not considering food engineering and biology, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that you can crave food even without emotions involved.

    In this post, I’d like to fill this gap and put the spotlight on food engineering and sugar imbalance as triggers of food cravings.

    Let’s look at each trigger in detail.

    Trigger 1: Your emotions

    You see an apple pie and instantly think about a pie your mom used to make. Your mom lives far away, but that pie is right there.

    You feel lonely, but there is no one around. There is, however, chocolate ice cream in the fridge.

    Your boss is being unrealistic, and there’s nothing you can do about it. So you jump into a bag of chips, as you do every time you feel stressed.

    Many feelings are hard to deal with, and food is an easy way to help you handle them… and there is a physiological explanation for it.

    There are areas in your brain responsible for memory and sensing pleasure, which also act as reward centers.

    Specific foods can send signals that reach those brain centers and “make you feel good,” which will of course help you deal with those emotional needs, like calming you down and reducing your desire and anxiety, at that particular moment.

    The way it works is that the brain recognizes those feelings and knows that certain food can help alleviate them, so the body produces appropriate hormones (for example, cortisol) and other biochemical substances, like the neurotransmitter serotonin to make you crave for the “right” food.

    You can read more about biochemistry of food and food cravings here.

    Trigger #2: High-processed food as a product of food engineering.

    Have you noticed how you go for groceries to pick up “just bread and milk,” but once you’re in the store, you suddenly start craving all this food from the colorful packages aligned so nicely on the shelves?

    This would be fine if all this high-processed food was healthy for you.

    Except it’s not. It is delicious, though, and this is exactly the problem.

    The food manufacturing industry makes a conscientious effort to get people hooked on foods that are inexpensive, but yet tasty.

    They hire food engineers and gather tons of data taking an engineering approach to processed food.

    Although food engineering has been there for many years, the power it has over the consumers has not really been acknowledged until the most recent research and work of Michael Moss, the author of the best article on this topic you’ll ever read: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food.

    Food engineering is manipulating your taste buds.

    Food engineers work hard on the food’s taste, which is measured by how much craving this particular food will induce.

    With that idea in mind, manufacturers have been adding sugar to many products that didn’t really need it, like tomato sauce, bread, and crackers.

    They look for the exact amount of sugar that will make the product highly attractive and desirable without making you feel overwhelmed by the intense flavor (they call it “the bliss point”).

    Not only will you crave that product again, but you’ll expect it to taste sweet. As a consequence, your taste preferences will change to prefer food that contains more sugar, and you won’t be satisfied with something that has less sugar.

    Food engineering is also turning you into an addict.

    You may be thinking I’m exaggerating, but numerous studies (like this one and this one, for example) indicate that sugar has similar effect on our brain as the drugs of abuse.

    This is why it is so hard to get off sugar and carbs once you are hooked.

    Trigger #3: Sugar imbalance in your body

    You can experience food cravings even if you don’t get emotional or eat high-processed food.

    In this case, your food cravings will be triggered by sugar imbalance in your body that happened because you’ve been eating your sugar and carbs “the wrong way.” (I’ll explain what I mean by this in a minute.)

    Let’s first look at how your body processes sugar and carbs.

    How Your Body Processes Sugar and Carbs

    The first organ that your biology needs to take care of is your brain. If your brain doesn’t work properly, nothing else will.

    The only source of energy that your brain can use is glucose. When your brain can’t find glucose available immediately, it will find a way to get it.

    The fastest, easiest, and most effective way your body can get glucose is by releasing the right hormones to make you crave food that contains a lot of it: simple sugars and carbs that break easily into glucose.

    But high sugar levels in your bloodstream are toxic, so your body needs to lower those levels. For this, it makes the pancreas release insulin to remove glucose.

    This process is called sugar metabolism.

    The higher the glucose levels, the more insulin is released and the faster all the glucose will be processed, leaving no glucose in the system again, which will start the cycle from the beginning.

    What Causes Sugar Imbalance

    As you can see, your sugar metabolism needs equilibrium for you not to get trapped in the vicious cycle of food cravings.

    This equilibrium, however, gets disturbed if you, in simple terms, eat your sugar and carbs “the wrong way.”

    In this case, eating sugar and carbs “the right way” means making sure the quantity, frequency, combination, and quality of your meals are appropriate.

    Quantity: How much sugar and carbs are in your meals?

    When you consume large quantities of simple sugars (glucose) or carbs (more or less complex forms of sugars that are transformed into simple sugars) in the same meal, your sugar metabolism will be activated in the emergency mode, removing all glucose suddenly.

    As a result, no glucose will be left in your bloodstream, and your brain will activate the mechanism to release the hormones that will make you feel hungry and eat more so it gets glucose again.

    Say hi to another food craving!

    Frequency: How often are you consuming sugar and carbs?

    When you are constantly eating food rich on sugars or carbs, not letting enough time pass between meals to let your sugar metabolism rest, it will end up constantly working, creating a circle of constant eating and hunger.

    When you wait enough time between meals (three to four hours), assuming you had a balanced meal, the sugar metabolism gets to rest and does its work properly.

    Combination: What are you mixing your sugar or carbs with?

    When you eat sugars or carbs alone, with no fiber, protein, or fat, the absorption of glucose will be faster.

    You’ll feel hungry sooner, and as a consequence your brain will trigger a food craving.

    Quality: How “good” are the sugars and carbs you’re eating?

    Simple carbs (like white rice, pasta, and bread, for example) and sugars break down into glucose faster, causing it to be absorbed faster as well.

    When you eat complex carbs (like brown rice, whole grain pasta, and whole grain bread, for example), however, glucose is released gradually.

    It means that in case of simple carbs, your blood sugar level will rise faster than if you eat complex carbs.

    To understand how fast a specific food will break into glucose and how much carbs it contains, you should look at its glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) values.

    Eating high GI & GL carbs will generate a fast rise in sugar and therefore a faster metabolic response, which will give you another food craving.

    How to Stop Food Cravings Naturally

    In the beginning of this post I promised you that I’d show you how to stop food cravings naturally by fighting the cause and not the symptoms.

    Now, when you know what triggers food cravings and what keeps them reoccurring (i.e. you understand the cause), it becomes clear that to beat those food cravings, you need to fight the triggers—deal with your emotions and resist the temptation of food manufacturing industry on one side, and keep the equilibrium of your sugar metabolism on the other side.

    Let’s look at it step-by-step and identify the practical solutions for each trigger.

    Cravings Caused by Emotions: Recognize That Food Doesn’t Change Anything

    If you think about it, that pie, ice cream, chips, or anything else you’re craving won’t change the way you feel about things in the long run.

    The food that you crave is the specific one that will make you feel better immediately. But the moment you finish your food, those “feel better” compounds will disappear again and you’ll be exactly where you were before, and you’ll probably even having the same cravings again.

    You need to realize that satisfying those food cravings helps only for a short period of time, and that this vicious cycle needs to be broken.

    Recognizing that food, even the most delicious one, does not change anything is the first step.

    Think about what brings up those emotions in you. Learn about yourself so you can predict them. Do your job and fight against them instead of just reaching for a piece of cake.

    Don’t give up by thinking there is nothing you can do.

    There are many hormones that you can’t really control, like your hormones during pregnancy. But many others are released as a consequence of your emotions. Once you acknowledge that you can do something about it, you’ll be able to handle them much better.

    Here are some practical tips on how to stop food cravings that are triggered by emotions:

    • Find other ways to reduce stress. For example, get a relaxing massage instead of hating your boyfriend, boss, and waistline, instead of eating ice cream.
    • Look for ways to manage your emotions (talk to a friend, get a pet, go for a walk or to the movie theater).
    • Eat healthy. It will help you maintain your hormones under control.
    • Call your mom or visit her if you miss her instead of eating her pie.

    Cravings Caused by Food Engineering: Don’t Let Them Trick You

    The food industry has many tricks to manipulate you into eating food that you’ll end up crave more and more.

    Food manufacturing companies are powerful, they hire the best food experts in the field, and they are always one step ahead predicting new trends and developing new ways to hook you on their food.

    But you need to be smarter! Learn their game. Don’t let them decide what and how you eat.

    Be the one in charge of what food you like by changing your buds’ taste and start craving for healthy food instead.

    Here’s how to stop food cravings caused by engineered food:

    • Most probably food engineering has got to your food buds already, so now you need to change your taste preferences back to healthy food. Do it slowly, one change at a time. Otherwise it will be harder to succeed.
    • Cook your own meals, which is the best way to know for sure what your meal consists of exactly. You’ll be able to avoid most of the added sugar and many other undesirable ingredients you will usually find in highly processed food.
    • Find out where the sugar, fat, and salt bombs you are more susceptible to are hiding so you can avoid them. Here are a couple of popular examples: potato chips, crackers, Japanese snacks, sesame sticks, etc.
    • Recognize that the attractive packages can make you desire unhealthy food.
    • Understand that the commercials are there just to trick you into thinking that eating certain foods will improve how you feel about yourself.
    • Visualize:
      • How food engineers are designing new food to hook you on it.
      • How food marketers play with you by making the food they want you to eat look irresistible.
      • How processed food is hurting your liver and adding fat to your abdomen.

    Cravings Caused by Sugar Imbalance: Eat Your Sugar and Carbs “the Right Way”

    Keeping your blood sugar levels under control and preventing sugar imbalance in your body is an essential way to stop food cravings naturally.

    To do so, you need to:

    • Eat only as much as your body really needs (quantity)
    • Let enough time pass between your meals (frequency)
    • Combine your meals properly (combination)
    • Stick to foods with low glycemic index and glycemic load (quality)

    This is how you can practically achieve it.

    Quantity: What are healthy portion sizes for carbs?

    You should learn and stick to healthy portion sizes of any food, not only carbs, of course. But it is especially important for foods that contain a lot of sugar (remember, carbs are a complex form of sugar).

    You shouldn’t eat more than a healthy portion size for carbs, which is one cup.

    Frequency: How often should you eat?

    Don’t eat too often so you are not making your sugar and carbs metabolism work all the time.

    You should eat four times a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and a morning or an afternoon snack, depending on when you need it. Ideally, these meals should be three to four hours apart.

    For example, if you have an early breakfast and a late lunch, you need a morning snack. Otherwise you’ll be too hungry at lunch and definitely overeat.

    Combination: How to combine your meals properly?

    Fiber, protein, and fat make sugar absorption slower and less efficient, therefore reducing the risk of food cravings.

    In fact, the right combination of meals will make them healthy yet filling, which will help you with two previous aspects: quantity (you will be able to stick to healthy portion sizes) and frequency (you will stay satiated longer).

    Have every single meal with the healthy portion size of protein and fat, and avoid having meals that consist only of sweets or carbs.

    Quantity: How to choose what to eat?

    Stick to foods with low glycemic load and glycemic index.

    Such foods will release glucose slower and help you manage your sugar levels properly so you don’t have food cravings.

    To summarize, this is how you prevent food cravings triggered by sugar imbalance in your body:

    • Maintain your healthy portion sizes for carbs, which is one cup.
    • Have four meals a day making a break of three to four hours between them.
    • Compose your meals properly and always have fat and protein with your carbs.
    • Choose foods with low glycemic load and glycemic index values.

    Over to you!

    Do you believe me when I say you can stop food craving naturally? Do you think it’s doable? What are your personal challenges when it comes to controlling your food cravings? I would love to hear from you!

  • It’s Okay to Cry

    It’s Okay to Cry

    Woman crying

    “We need never be ashamed of our tears.” ~Charles Dickens

    We have all cried, all of us, some more than others.

    But today I am not here to divide us by the liters of tears we have shed.

    Today I want to unite us because we are all the same.

    We all feel sad, stressed, overwhelmed, scared, and frustrated at times.

    Any stay-at-home parent would understand my frustration, my misery, and my overwhelmed days.

    It has eaten me up on the inside. I have been staying at home for the past seven years, looking after my kids, with no face-to-face interaction with adults like you and me.

    All I do is get three boys fed and cleaned (god knows, sometimes I skip the cleaning part). All I do is break up fights. All I do is clear the never-ending mess in the living room. All I do is everything for them, but nothing for me. 

    Some days I ask myself why I have decided to stay at home.

    Some days I ask myself why I have been given such a difficult task.

    Some days I feel that I’m not cut out to be a mother.

    Those are the days when I sit and curl up my knees, with my face in my hands, shoulders heaving, and my two-year-old by my side, wondering what’s wrong with Mama.

    And after the tears have run dry, I know I just have to get up and fight again.

    For I know that if I can’t handle it one more time, I have tears waiting to release me. And that’s okay.

    Today I want to let you know that it is not shameful to be in tears. That you are not a failure just because you couldn’t handle the situation.  That you had been doing so well, too well, that is why you’re now breaking. 

    My dear friend, I just want to let you know that it is okay to cry. Just let it all out, my dear.

    I do it all the time.

    It’s the only place I can go to, shedding those tears.

    It’s the only release I have, shedding those tears.

    It’s the only thing I could do, shedding those tears.

    My message today is that we shouldn’t be afraid to feel our feelings. More importantly, it’s only by feeling our feelings that we’re able to recognize the message they’re sending us and then make positive changes in our lives.

    For me, I discovered that I needed to pay more attention to my own needs, that I needed to find time to pursue my passion, that I needed to find time to mingle with my friends, that I’m not expected to be only a mother.

    I’ve learned that being a good mother doesn’t mean that I have to be around 24/7. Instead, a good mother is one that remembers to take time off for herself. No one is capable of being there for others (even if they are the people you love) without having some time for rejuvenation.

    I’ve learned that the hard way. Neglecting oneself can really make a person lose all sense of purpose, and when that happens, depression comes knocking on your door.

    I’ve learned that being a smart mother doesn’t mean you try to make it on your own. Being a smart mother means I ask for the help I need. Since I am currently residing in a country that is not my own, and neither my husband nor I have immediate family here, that’s meant hiring a babysitter.

    Other than that, we are also enrolling our littlest one into a half-day childcare program in a few days’ time. I can’t wait for the few hours of freedom every day! All of my three children will be in school, and I am determined to use this time to pursue my passion.

    It was only by feeling my feelings that I was able to recognize my needs and make these positive changes.

    Cry if you’re hurting, and realize you don’t have to accept your unfulfilling situation.

    The changes you need to make in your life don’t have to be on a grand scale. Simple changes to your routine may have a much larger impact on your happiness than you can imagine.

    You just have to listen carefully to what you want and need. You have to listen carefully to what’s holding you back. When you can identify these two things, you can make a positive change in your life. I know you can do it!

    Today I want to tell somebody, anybody, that if you see someone crying, please reach out to them.

    If you see someone crying, please don’t judge.

    If you see someone crying, being there could mean the world to them.

    If you’re a man, it is okay to cry too, because only strong people dare to show their feelings.

    You see, tears can come from all sorts of feelings.

    Tears come from stress. Tears come from sorrow. But they make your pain lessen, make you look to tomorrow

    Tears come from pain. Tears come from frustration. But you can get up again. You always have and you always will.

    It’s okay to cry. It’s okay for share your tears with others. And it’s okay to do whatever it is you need to do for you.

  • Why We Need to Stop Judging Our Feelings

    Why We Need to Stop Judging Our Feelings

    Sad woman

    “Your emotions are meant to fluctuate, just like your blood pressure is meant to fluctuate. It’s a system that’s supposed to move back and forth, between happy and unhappy. That’s how the system guides you through the world.” ~Daniel Gilbert

    As a highly sensitive person I experience emotions very deeply, though it’s not usually obvious to others that I’m having such strong internal reactions.

    For those not familiar with this trait, high sensitivity is not a defect or a personality flaw; it simply means that you experience sensory and emotional input more strongly than non-sensitive people.

    Of course, this is not to say that humans are really that bipolar in terms of their emotional and physical experiences; sensitivity is a spectrum, and I’ve found myself leaning to the more sensitive side.

    High sensitivity has wonderful benefits: it facilitates deep insightfulness, fosters a drive for authenticity and creative expression, and enriches the sensory experiences of life. It’s a double-edged sword, however, because just as the positive aspects are magnified, so too are the negative aspects.

    Just like with most aspects of life, this is a delicate balancing act, because it can be difficult not to become overwhelmed by emotion, whether positive or negative.

    Embodying this trait throughout my life has been a challenge: I’m always super aware of my environment (both external and internal), and processing that information on a deep level pretty much all the time.

    This causes me to have a preference for quiet environments (yet I live in New York City!), and also to need lots of alone time to recharge. This is not to say I’m a hermit or that I hate people; quite the contrary: I crave authentic connection and love engaging deeply with others.

    It’s been crucial to learn to accept this trait, to pinpoint my needs without feeling guilty for them, and to have the courage to express those needs to my loved ones.

    One of the most beneficial things I’ve been learning is the importance of non-judgment. For every high there is a low, and the only thing making a low “bad” is that we judge it as so.

    Everyone experiences a full range of emotions, and a highly sensitive person will feel it even more intensely. However, fluctuating emotions are part of life. They’re not something to be avoided at all costs, as I believed I should be able to do in order to achieve an imagined and unattainable level of perfection, which didn’t include messy emotions that only get in the way.

    When I feel “negative” emotions such as anxiety, anger, and sadness, I berate myself for succumbing to such “bad” feelings and feel the need to make them go away as soon as possible. Needless to say, this reaction does little to alleviate the distress caused by these emotions, and usually only exacerbates them.

    What I’ve realized is that it isn’t the emotions themselves causing me to suffer—it’s my judgment of those emotions and my desire to rid myself of them.

    When I am unable to make the feelings go away, it feeds my anxiety and I retreat even deeper into myself instead of allowing the emotional wave to pass and expressing my feelings to others.

    Judgments are thoughts about emotions. Emotions are simply fleeting currents that come and go and provide a compass for us to fully feel and address whatever issues may be under the surface.

    Though thoughts and emotions are related, they’re different things, and we can learn to manage both of those experiences.

    In order to do this, I practice mindfulness exercises in which I simply allow my thoughts to stream and recognize that these thoughts don’t define me unless I give them that power; I’m the one in control of my experiences.

    I also allow myself to fully feel my emotion, without judgment, sometimes naming them as they pop up if that helps.

    Self-understanding and a connection with our intuition are essential for strengthening our emotional intelligence, and this is an instance in which high sensitivity is a major benefit, because it’s highly conducive to deep introspection.

    I continually practice being mindful of my thoughts and how they cause emotions so that I can catch any spirals before they snowball.

    This act alone has had tremendous benefits for my overall well-being, as well as my ability to manage, and most importantly, accept, all the emotions that come with being human.

    A recent experience of unrequited love has demonstrated to me how far I’ve come in terms of riding the emotional waves without added layers of judgment and criticism.

    At my gym, I met a very attractive man with beautiful chin-length blond hair, deep expressive blue eyes, and a sweet disposition.

    I developed a little crush and tried my hardest to be more open, but also to accept that I do get shy and I’m slow to warm up to new people.

    I didn’t judge myself negatively for it, but rather was proud of myself for my efforts to maintain eye contact, smile, and initiate conversation.

    Unfortunately, as I was beginning to think the feeling might be mutual and trying to work up the courage to ask for a date, I saw him with another girl who frequents the same gym. It was obvious they had something going on.

    Although it felt like I had been punched hard in the gut to see them together, in the past a situation like this would have also made me spiral into a deep hole of self-hatred. I would have criticized myself for being too shy, for failing, for missing an opportunity, and for allowing another woman to snatch up my crush.

    These thoughts would then fuel intense regret, anxiety, fear, despair, and anger—which are emotions in response to thoughts, not in response to the actual situation. Then I’d criticize myself for allowing these feelings to get so out of control, and the vicious cycle would progress ad infinitum.

    But that isn’t what happened this time.

    Instead, I allowed myself to completely feel every emotion that came with this experience, not with thoughts about the experience.

    A twinge of sadness, a pang of despair, loneliness, frustration, jealousy, defeat, embarrassment, desire, anxiety, lust, and anger all passed through me in waves every time I saw them together or felt how much I still liked him and wished I could have had a chance with him.

    Without the layer of judgmental thoughts, these feelings became manageable. I’ve also developed a sense of gratitude for all the things I feel, because this is what it means to be human, and vulnerability is a beautiful thing that can connect us directly with our inner selves.

    We hurt because we love, so hurt is a sign that you’ve let love in.

    I’ve used this experience to learn more about myself, and I’m thankful that it can help facilitate my continued emotional intelligence training.

    As I began to praise myself for my efforts rather than only criticizing myself for failing and letting my emotions consume me, I began to cultivate self-love as well. Since love for others stems from love for self, I found that this not only diminished anger toward myself, but naturally flows outward to others.

    Compassion for others begins with compassion for ourselves, and high sensitivity facilitates this process.

    I’ve also learned that how we react to events is far more important than what actually happens to us.

    Unrequited love is usually seen as a negative thing, and it truly does hurt, but it’s also a window to deeper understanding and compassion. For that reason, I’m grateful to have had this experience, even though it’s painful.

    Pain has a purpose. It shines light on the most important issues we must face, as well as our biggest opportunities for growth and learning. True, my crush doesn’t reciprocate my feelings, but I still have a loving family, I still love myself, and I love being alive to have all these experiences.

    When I think about it like this, I’m grateful, and I’ve learned to love myself throughout all the fleeting emotional experiences that ultimately don’t define me anyway.

    We just have to ride the waves and recognize that our thoughts are not always an accurate depiction of reality, our emotions are fleeting, and it’s completely okay to feel the entire spectrum of them.

    We are human, and as the perfectly imperfect beings that we are, feeling the spectrum is what we are here to do.

  • You Are Not Responsible for Anyone Else’s Emotions

    You Are Not Responsible for Anyone Else’s Emotions

    Fix your feelings

    “Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    “I don’t believe you,” I jutted out my chin like a petulant toddler. Collapsing back into the tufted leather loveseat, I conceded, “I want to believe you, but I can’t.”

    My therapist had just explained to me that I am not responsible for regulating other people’s emotions. My mind couldn’t process this truth.

    There were too many decades of owning the moods of those around me.

    In my younger years, if a parent was stressed, I felt it was up to me to calm them down. I prided myself on acting as a mediator between my siblings.

    In high school, I drove my boyfriend crazy trying to cheer him up when he was in pain from frequent sports injuries. Later, I would allow other boyfriends to dictate how I was feeling each day, according to their mood.

    And here my therapist was pointing out that it wasn’t up to me to help other people regulate their emotions. I had been doing it wrong all these years.

    Undoing “Good Daughter” Habits

    If you struggle with this, like me, chances are there was some chaos in your early years. I’m not necessarily talking about major trauma (although that may have occurred), but as a child you found yourself trying to compensate for the emotions of those around you.

    The good news is that you can break free from this habit.

    Trust me. It’s necessary for your mental health and for the well-being of your relationship to let this go.

    As my therapist would say, even within a marriage it’s not my job to regulate the emotions of my spouse. I’m responsible for my own emotions. And it turns out that I’m not very good at helping “fix” my husband when he is stressed.

    Changing the Dynamic

    My first chance to change this pattern came in the form of a Saturday breakfast at a local coffee shop.

    You know that feeling you get when you place your order with a trainee, and you have zero confidence that you are going to get what you ordered? It was one of those situations.

    Thirty minutes later, our order still hadn’t arrived. My husband was getting agitated, and I could feel my blood pressure rising in response. It suddenly occurred to me that this was my big opportunity to approach things differently.

    Step 1: Observe.

    I noticed my husband was grumpy. I watched his scowl and listened to him mutter.

    I noticed my heart race. I noticed that I wanted to say something to make it better.

    I also noticed that I wasn’t upset about our food order. I had my coffee. I was okay to wait.

    It was my husband who was upset, not me.

    Step 2: Own your emotions.

    If I am feeling stressed, I know how to calm myself down: pay attention to my breathing, reframe, and refocus.

    But in this situation, if I were by myself I would have been fine. So there was nothing that I needed to do at that moment to deal with my own emotions.

    I just needed to fight my urge to take on my husband’s frustration.

    Step 3: Give the other person space to regulate themselves.

    “Are you mad?” I timidly asked my husband.

    “Nope,” he said, “just hungry.”

    “Okay. I’m gonna just sip my coffee and read.”

    “Thank you for not trying to fix me. I will be better after I eat,” my husband mumbled as he scrolled on his phone.

    Ouch. I actually got thanked for leaving him alone. Further reinforcement that I would have been making it worse by taking on his frustration.

    Step 4: Relax.

    The world is not going to end if my husband is “hangry.”

    My brain was trying to tell me that I was in danger, but sometimes our brains give us the wrong information.

    My husband is a mild-mannered man. We’ve fought less than five times in fifteen years together—and it was me doing the yelling. I was definitely not in danger.

    I was okay. He was going to be okay.

    I just needed to let go of my fear that something would go horribly wrong if I didn’t intervene.

    And guess what?

    Everything was okay.

    An Exercise in Humility

    It’s hard to let go.

    But the key insight in this process is that, even within a committed relationship, each person is responsible for themselves. We must give each other the opportunity to manage our own emotions.

    If you are with somebody who doesn’t have the skills to regulate themselves, that’s a separate conversation. Do they want to learn those skills? How would they prefer to learn: a therapist, a book, or a trusted coach? Even so, it’s not your job to force them to acquire those skills.

    We can only own our behavior. The world does not rest on our shoulders.

    And the irony is, when we step back and let go of control, the fear starts to go away. We feel freer to relax.

    Practice Makes Perfect

    I encourage you to think of the last time that you tried to compensate for your partner’s frustration or stress. Think about what you could have done differently, now that you are more aware.

    Even if you don’t manage to navigate all four steps smoothly, reflect afterward what went wrong and decide what you will do differently next time.

    You’ve got this.

  • How We Can Use Our Painful Emotions for Good

    How We Can Use Our Painful Emotions for Good

    Sad girl

    “The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.” ~Meryl Streep

    Growing up I spent a lot of time on the Internet browsing websites and looking at images. One image that stuck with me as a child showed an old man lying on a hospital bed, with tubes running into his mouth. In his hand, he held a “no smoking” sign.

    As I stared at that image I began to think what it must be like to face the horrible consequences of failing health. I imagined the pain, the regret, and the desperation for a second chance. He wouldn’t get a second chance, though.

    I lost myself in that moment, becoming the old man. Embodying his pain, regret, and his desire to warn others as a way to ease his pain. I learned through his experience, instead of my own, not to smoke.

    Deconstructing the Lesson

    By seeing the old man on his deathbed, we understand his mistake intellectually. However, through empathy, we can learn much more deeply. Through empathy, we create a painful association in our mind, much like classical conditioning, to a behavior.

    This experience led me to avoid cigarettes because I associate them with pain, regret, and desperation. The old man used his painful emotions for good: He gave others a chance to learn from his mistakes. Now, I want to share my story, so that others can learn from my mistakes.

    Painful Emotions

    In middle school, I dreaded gym class. Not because I hated exercise, but because having the entire class stare at me while I finished the run last was humiliating. Being overweight most my life, this was my reality.

    For me, being overweight made me feel that people didn’t want to be seen with me. For me, running was reserved for other people. Being overweight meant low self-esteem, low confidence, and shame; I hated it.

    Unlike the old man, I still had time to change.

    Each night after dinner, I would grab my mp3 player and go outside for a walk. The mp3 player had songs that stirred up my emotions and gave me motivation.

    Focusing on all the pain that comes with being overweight, I drove myself to change. I vividly imagined myself finishing last, over and over. I decided that would never happen ever again.

    Night after night, I walked and walked. Finally, I started to ride my bike, and slowly, I started to notice I was losing weight.

    Months later, on a walk home, I decided I was going to run back. Running in my free time was not typical for me, as you can imagine, but surprisingly, as I broke into a run, I felt stronger than I had ever before.

    The feeling of the air rushing by me was incredible. For the first time in my life, I associated running with pleasure. It felt like I was flying, so I put my arms out like an airplane and smiled.

    Deconstructing the Lesson

    A lot of people say exercise takes discipline, but I say it takes empathy. In my story I empathized with myself—my future self. I wanted a better quality of life for myself in the future.

    I wanted an escape from all the painful emotions of being overweight. I didn’t even know what it was like to feel the air rush by when running. Being in shape showed me that being overweight feels like you are cemented to the ground by comparison.

    The purpose of my story is to shed light on being overweight. If you are healthy, don’t take your health for granted; don’t go through what I went through.

    I enjoy this quote by Tony Robbins: “Success doesn’t just show up one day. Failure doesn’t just show up one day, it adds up from all the little things. Failure to make the call, failure to check the books, it’s failure to say I’m sorry. It’s failure to push yourself to do something. All those little failures add up and one day something cataclysmic shows up, and you blame that, but it’s because all the little stuff added up.”

    We don’t just run once and say, “Alright, I’m fit for life now!” Each day we make the little decisions that add up to our outcomes. I learned that lesson the hard way, but I used my painful emotions to bring positive change.

    Sharing Your Painful Experiences

    By sharing our stories, we give others a chance to learn from our mistakes instead of letting them learn the same way we did. Viktor Frankl is a great example of this kindness.

    In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl chronicled his experiences as an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate during World War II. He describes how we all have freedom over our minds, and how we can leverage that freedom to decide the meaning of our experiences.

    Viktor decided that he would survive the concentration camp to make sure that something like this would never happen ever again. That decision to give his experience an empowering meaning gave him the willpower he needed to survive.

    Deconstructing the Lesson

    Sharing our painful stories with each other is not being weak; I believe it’s being strong and considerate. I believe that we should not be ashamed to be vulnerable and share our darkest times.

    We can choose to use empathy to learn from others and help them, and we can use our painful emotions to help others learn from our mistakes. Both approaches give painful emotions a new usefulness in our lives.

    For example, if we find ourselves grieving the loss of a loved one, a breakup, or other unfortunate event, we can decide the meaning of our experience, as Victor Frankl did.

    We can change the meaning of losing a loved one from loss, to discovering a new appreciation for all the loved ones we still have. Similarly, we can change the meaning of a break-up from disappointment, to new opportunities and insight.

    Just as I imagined the pain of being overweight to bring positive change, imagine the consequences of prolonged grief. If we don’t change the meaning of these tragedies, our life may begin to suffer.

    If we re-live the breakup over and over, we may decide to never open up again, for fear of another disappointment. Imagining the pain of living life that way can serve as the impetus for change.

    In the same way as I did, we can imagine the emotions our future self may feel if we don’t make a change.

    Through these events, we grow in our ability to control our emotions, and to help others who will inevitably face these same challenges.

    While we wouldn’t desire these emotions, nor seek them out, we can view them as learning experiences for ourselves, and others. In Man’s Search for Meaning, we learn that through our suffering we may discover our purpose in life.

    For Victor Frankl, his purpose is to share his story to ensure that nothing like that ever happened again. For me, I want to share my story to show that our painful emotions can be used for positive change.

  • Don’t Allow Others to Control Your Emotions

    Don’t Allow Others to Control Your Emotions

    Inner peace

  • How Dealing with Our Emotions Can Help us Heal Chronic Pain

    How Dealing with Our Emotions Can Help us Heal Chronic Pain

    “The part can never be well unless the whole is well.” ~Plato

    Our bodies are clever. They constantly send us messages that something isn’t right. It’s our job to tune in, listen, and act on these messages.

    That headache, tight shoulders, and backache are all trying to tell us something. But sometimes the physical symptoms we experience are actually tied up in a deeper emotional pain that needs to be dealt with first.

    How do I know this? It was a message I needed to learn, one that I now teach to others.

    Six years ago my life fell apart. Within an eighteen-month period my marriage broke up, I lost my house in a devastating earthquake, and I had to walk away from my physiotherapy practice that I had poured my soul into for four years.

    At the same time I was also experiencing chronic shoulder pain. I was suffering from regular headaches, sciatica, and insomnia. I sought help from a number of different health practitioners. At times I would get temporary relief, but it never lasted.

    As a physiotherapist I knew I was doing everything right to heal my physical pain, so I could not understand why I wasn’t healing.

    Not only was my physical health a mess during this time, but I was also an emotional wreck!

    I felt like a failure. I was ravaged with guilt. I was scared of what the future held. And my self-esteem was at an all time low. I had stopped eating and sleeping. My weight had plummeted and I looked terrible.

    It wasn’t until I stumbled across Louise Hay’s book, Heal Your Body: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them, that I began to gain a better understanding of the relationship between our emotional and physical health.

    This one book was the catalyst for change and healing. I realized that if I wanted to heal myself from chronic pain, I was going to have to dig deep to get to the core of all the challenges in my life.

    It was the start of a journey that wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pretty. A lot of the time I wanted to bury my head in the sand. I have always been one to brush emotions to the side. “I’m fine” was my tagline.

    But as I did the work, three key themes became clear.

    First, I had no sense of self-worth. I didn’t see myself as important as other people. I would give everything I had to everyone else and nothing to myself. If I did, I would feel guilty.

    I also have a Type A personality, I’m a high achiever, and I’m a perfectionist. I would constantly push myself to the limit, and the pressure I put on myself was immense.

    Lastly, I realized that I constantly compared myself to those I perceived to be living the perfect life, and I always came up short.

    I recognized that the pain I was experiencing was my body’s way of telling me I needed to slow down, take pressure of myself, and start taking care of myself.

    I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to change my ingrained habits and beliefs, but I also knew that if I didn’t my body would start screaming louder until I ended up seriously ill.

    I started by making small changes. I began to gather knowledge from others. I took what worked for me and discarded the rest. I experimented and added in what made me feel well and healthy.

    Sleep was the first thing I made a priority. I had never realized how important sleep was. It’s the time when our bodies repair and rejuvenate. One good night’s sleep doesn’t help us heal; consistently sleeping well does.

    Self-care was the next thing I needed to address. I had previously thought self-care meant hour-long bubble baths, a day at the spa, or a week’s vacation in the sun sipping champagne. But I came to realize it didn’t mean any of those things.

    I realized that the small things I did throughout my day were just as important—like taking five minutes in the morning to meditate before starting my day, making sure I had prepared a nourishing lunch, spending ten minutes cuddling my dogs after work, and reading a chapter of my book before I went to sleep.

    Small things, consistently done over a long period of time, made for big change.

    I also realized that my body had been sending me the message that my life had been out of balance for years. But I had lost the ability to tune in, listen, and connect with what it was saying.

    I started practicing a simple technique that consisted of meditative breathing, scanning my body for discomfort, and then asking what it was trying to tell me.

    Whenever I would feel discomfort in my body, I would ask myself, “If this pain was an emotion, what would it be?” If I answered “sadness,” I would then ask myself, “What is going on in my life right now to make me feel sad?”

    I would then use practices, such as journaling, to help me work through, and release, whatever was causing me to feel sad, lonely, or fearful. With time, my emotional well-being improved, and so too did my physical symptoms.

    So what are the physical signs that your emotional health may need attention? Here are just three examples that you may be able to relate to:

    1. Tight, tired, and painful shoulders.

    When I meet people with this problem, they often have a similar story. They believe that they need to be, and do, everything for everyone. They are literally “carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders.”

    2. A stiff neck.

    People with stiff necks have trouble turning their head to one side. They’re often dealing with someone close to them making a choice that they don’t agree with. This decision has hurt them and they are finding it hard to “turn the other cheek.”

    3. Back pain.

    While disc ruptures are not uncommon, most people present with muscle spasms. Again, there is often a deep-rooted emotion playing out behind the scenes. In this scenario, it often pertains to money and finances. Their finances are restricting them from doing the things they want to do (as is their back spasm!)

    Our minds and body are so closely connected. But in today’s world, where we are so overstimulated, we have become completely disconnected with ourselves.

    Instead of tuning in to our body to find the answers, we tune into Google.

    Big life stuff (as I like to call it) happens. There’s no escaping it. Even everyday life can cause us to feel stressed and overwhelmed.

    If we don’t learn to deal with our emotions in a healthy way, they become boxed up within our body, until they are expressed in physical pain or illness.

    If you are someone who experiences regular physical pain, and you are aware that your emotional well-being may be one of the reasons for this, then I encourage you to start healing by journaling on the following questions:

    Does your life feel stressful at the moment, and what is causing you to feel this way?

    What is one thing you can let go of, even just for now?

    Do you feel overwhelmed, and what do you keep saying yes to that you could begin saying no to?

    Are you taking on the emotional loads of others in your life? So often we want to help or fix those close to us, but it’s important to remember that they are on their own journey.

    Are there any stories from your past that you are holding on to that need releasing?

    Are “you” last on your list of priorities? If so, how can you make a little more time for yourself?

    Learning to tune in and listen to your body’s messages is the first step toward preventing long-term physical damage. I encourage you to start doing this now, before it ‘s too late.

  • Don’t Let It Go, Let It Flow

    Don’t Let It Go, Let It Flow

    Let it flow

  • A Simple Way to Calm Yourself When Feeling Strong Emotions

    A Simple Way to Calm Yourself When Feeling Strong Emotions

    Peaceful Woman

    “This is the root of Self. You are not your thoughts; you are aware of your thoughts. You are not your emotions; you feel your emotions…. You are the conscious being who is aware that you are aware of all these inner and outer things.” ~Michael Singer

    I sat across from my colleague with a growing sense of discomfort. I had accepted an assignment from the boss, but I heard from my colleague an undercurrent of questioning and uncertainty—or so it seemed. It was so subtle that I couldn’t quite tell what was going on.

    Did she not believe I could do it? Nobody else was stepping forward to meet the need. Was she saying it’s better to go with nobody than with me?

    All I knew for sure was that I wasn’t hearing this outright. I decided to let it go, head on home, think about it tomorrow, and be fully present with my family instead. But the next morning as I pulled into my parking spot in front of the office, a subtle agitation rumbled in my stomach.

    I walked into the quiet building and set my things down in the office, distracted by my disquiet and wishing I could focus on my task list. The thoughts prickling at me wouldn’t let go.

    I laid my pen down and asked myself, “Okay, what’s going on?”

    In my top drawer I keep a deck of “grok” cards that I bought from the folks at the Center for Nonviolent Communication. Each one has the name of a need or value—things like “hope,” “trust,” and “balance” show up in this deck. I frequently use these when I can’t quite put a finger on what’s bothering me.

    I flipped through the cards and sorted them as I went. In the “not now” pile went cards like “freedom,” “competence,” and “creativity.” In the next pile, the “Maybe?” pile, went cards like “security,” “meaning/purpose,” and “friendship.”

    I went on sorting between just these two piles until I hit one that resonated: “Acknowledgement.” That went into a new pile: “Yes.”

    A couple of cards after it I found “Appreciation.” That went into the “Yes” pile too, and then I noticed something really interesting happen: I got angry.

    Usually when I sort through these cards, the experience of finding the right word to put on my current needs or values results in feeling more settled, more clear. Frequently my agitation will be replaced by a sense of gratitude, or courage to act in a way that helps me meet my needs.

    Typically, that is the value for me in identifying my needs. It helps me find a more straightforward and effective path toward getting those needs met. But it didn’t happen this time.

    Instead, the voice in my head just became louder and more insistent.

    My coworker should be grateful for my willingness to take on this new project! She wasn’t going to step in and do anything. Why wasn’t she acknowledging that I was making a sacrifice on behalf of the team?

    This narrative swept me up. It threatened to pull me under.

    Slowly, I started to notice another, quieter voice saying, “Why am I getting so upset? That doesn’t usually happen after I go through the GROK cards. What can I do for myself that won’t be so negative?”

    I’m going to admit this was an odd experience for me. I don’t typically have this second, quieter voice. Or, if I’ve had it, I haven’t been able to hear it.

    But I did hear it this time, and it called to mind Michael Singer’s book, The Untethered Soul. I read it just about a month before.

    “You are not the voice of the mind,” he wrote. “You are the one that hears it.”

    He suggests that when we’re bothered by something, we can change what we identify with. Rather than identifying with all of those thoughts and feelings, we can instead identify ourselves as “the observer” or witness of what is being experienced.

    As I felt myself getting swept up in defensiveness against my coworker, I decided to try it. What would happen, I wondered? I started up a new voice in my head that said, “I am not all of these thoughts and feelings. I am the observer who is noticing that Amy is having a powerful experience.”

    It was almost meditation, but not quite the same as my usual practice. Michael Singer might say I was doing it wrong. A psychiatrist might have a lot of questions for me—I don’t know.

    What I do know is what happened inside myself. As I identified myself as “the observer who is noticing that Amy is having a powerful experience,” I relaxed. I let go of the waves of negative thinking.

    I realized that I could talk to myself the way I would talk to a dear friend who is feeling unacknowledged and underappreciated. I realized I could give myself compassion.

    I imagined telling myself, “I’m sorry you haven’t been appreciated. That’s hard. You are still okay.”

    I admit I feel extra vulnerable as I type that out. Part of me doesn’t want to admit that I talk to myself in this way. On the other hand, this was such an amazing experience!

    I was able to walk myself through processing my own needs and emotions in ways I’ve never done before. As soon as it happened, I wanted to shout it out to the rest of the world, “Hey, I’ve found a path that looks like it leads somewhere good! Come check it out!”

    Do you ever feel the emotional undertow of unpleasant, uncomfortable feelings? Have you tried to resist them without success? Perhaps it would help to identify yourself as the observer.

    Accept that the feelings and thoughts are there, but instead of identifying with them, try identifying yourself as the observer or witness who is noticing that this experience is flowing through.

    Perhaps you already know this part of the path. Have you tried a practice like this? What works for you?

  • How to Find Lasting Peace (Even When You’re in an Emotional Tornado)

    How to Find Lasting Peace (Even When You’re in an Emotional Tornado)

    Meditating Man

    “You can find peace amidst the storms that threaten you.” ~Joseph B. Wirthlin

    Does your mind ever feel like a tornado of whirling thoughts?

    And when that happens, do you wish for inner peace?

    Well, not too long ago, after I quit my corporate job, I was stuck in that exact position. I realized that the degrees I earned and the jobs I chose made me miserable.

    My inner chatter became unbearable, and my self-sabotaging, pestering thoughts sparked anxiety attacks, jitters, and nightmares. That forced me to go into therapy.

    But even after a year of professional help, I felt so much despair that I thought I wouldn’t be able to survive it. My whole life lost meaning.

    I was clinically depressed and needed chemicals to cut through the fog. I couldn’t even enjoy the activities I once loved.

    The chemicals gave me jitters, so I tried deep breathing techniques, guided meditation, positive affirmations, and vision boards. Eventually, I found what worked for me.

    The more I practiced what worked, the more comfortable I became with all my worries. No, my problems did not disappear, but I gained inner resolve and tenacity to become comfortable with the discomfort.

    I’m proud of the efforts I made to ease my acute emotional distress. While no easy shortcuts or magic potions exist, I found fantastic fixes and mental techniques along the way. They helped me deal with my sadness, regret, anger, and any horrible memory that bubbled up.

    To maintain my state of mind, I continue to practice the tactics and also stay open to any new ones.

    Of course, nobody can embody an enduring state of peace for 24/7, 365 days a year. But these days, the tactics I continue to practice allow me to choose peace whenever distress bubbles back to the surface.

    If you’re in the midst of an emotional tornado, the suggestions and fixes below should help you on your journey to peace.

     1. Accept that you’re both ordinary and unique.

    You’re an ordinary person walking a unique path. Accepting this can make you feel less alone, be more competitive in a non-destructive way, and eliminate self-pitying thoughts.

    Accept that you’re an ordinary person with only twenty-four hours a day who has to somehow find meaning in the mundaneness of life. Accepting that you’re common will make you feel less alone.

    But also accept that nobody is walking your unique path. You wake up every morning with you, your traits, circumstances, choices, and history. Accepting that you’re unique will make you want to achieve, be creative, and develop in a healthy way. You will aim to learn and grow rather than act from a place of fear, envy, or a pressing need to outperform.

    If you accept that you’re both ordinary and unique, you’ll stop comparing yourself to somebody else’s highlight reel, you’ll aim to become the best version of your ordinary-unique self, and you’ll thereby move through life peacefully.

    2. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

    When you feel anxious, your thoughts jump around like frantic grasshoppers, and no matter how hard you try, you can’t stop overthinking.

    This is an uncomfortable feeling, but if you practice getting comfortable with this feeling, it won’t consume your cognitive space. If you push it away, your discomfort will only continue to grow, as will the anxiety.

    Practice by surrendering to that uncomfortable feeling and feeling it through every inch of yourself.

    If you feel tears come, don’t fight them. Your tears release stress hormones such as cortisol, so cry if you must.

    Avoid getting overwhelmed by placing one hand on your chest and the other on your belly and feeling yourself breathe. Sit up and feel your feet on the ground as you inhale through your nose. Hold for five seconds and exhale through your mouth.

    You’re now fully integrated with that uncomfortable feeling instead of panicking about how to make it go away.

    Repeat the deep breathing exercise as often as you can. Don’t be fooled by how simple and boring it sounds; this is an extremely powerful calming technique.

    3. Practice staying in the now.

    Most emotional distress stems from reliving your past or panicking about the future. It’s either regret or fear. That’s why if you practice staying in the now, you will learn to let go of the past and future, and just bring your awareness to the peaceful present.

    Even if you can do it just for one moment, you will experience one peaceful moment. If you practice bringing your awareness to the present moment, you will realize you have control over your peace. You will recognize the calming effect it has on your state of being, even in the midst of chaos and crisis, and even if it is for a few seconds.

    You might practice staying in the now in the following ways:

    Sit outside, and pick a leaf on a tree. Try keeping your focus on that leaf for a full five minutes. When your attention wanders, gently bring it back to the leaf.

    Pick an object (let’s say your coffee mug), and wonder. Where was it made? Who made it? Was it handmade? Try and figure out the history of that coffee mug (even if you have to make it up).

    Look up at the night sky, and visualize your worries whooshing past you to sit inside a star. Now watch them burn up inside each giant ball of dust and gas. With all your worries gone, bring your awareness back to the present moment — you looking up at the night sky.

    4. Get to know yourself.

    To achieve inner peace, you must get to know yourself on a deep level. Getting to know yourself will help you make choices more aligned with who you are and want to be.

    One way to get to know yourself is through journaling.

    Just fifteen minutes per day of journaling will help you get to know yourself by recording your thoughts, beliefs, and inner conflicts. Better yet, you don’t have to worry about what you’ll write.

    When you write, just keep going with the flow of your tangent thoughts, private thoughts, and inappropriate thoughts unfit for public viewing. Nobody will see these words but you! The point of journaling is to just get stuff out — the story you keep telling yourself, a careworn complaint, a horrible memory.

    When I first started journaling, I wrote everything that popped into my mind. I found myself saying things I didn’t really mean about people who hardly knew me, about wanting to engage in activities I never really thought I would want to engage in, and kept going without judging myself. I was also able to release much of the anger, pain, guilt, shame and embarrassment I stored and in doing so, I freed myself.

    One thing to remember is that writing about it doesn’t make it any more real than it is inside your head. The idea is to clear your mind and become aware of your thoughts you’re thinking and the emotional clutter. Remember to relax, be free, loosen up, feel the raw emotion, release it constructively, and do it daily.

    The best part about journaling is that you don’t have to win anybody’s approval or permission to feel the way you do.

    5. Stop seeking approval.

    If you want to adopt a peaceful mindset, don’t try to make others like you or approve of you. Take actions to meet the ideals you set for yourself, and to meet your goals, but let go of your need to be liked.

    If you live to impress others—to win their love, support, approval—you’ll go down a road filled with anxiety and emotional pain.

    A need for approval triggers self-defeating thoughts of self-doubt and self-blame. Hello, emotional distress.

    I struggled to let go of my need for approval, but when I eventually did, I felt a big wave of peace wash over me. I was able to say goodbye to many disempowering thoughts.

    You Can Give Yourself the Gift of Peace

    There is, of course, no antidote to take it all away, forever.

    I still struggle with my anxiety sometimes, but because I used these techniques and visualizations, when my mind is a tornado, it’s much easier to quell it now. As the famous adage goes, “Practice makes perfect,” so I continue to do just that.

    Your issues might (and probably will) still come back at times, even after months of journaling, looking at leaves, and breathing techniques. You’ll still experience moments of distress from time to time, even if it’s the minor mundane kind at the grocery store when you’re contemplating on whether to buy tomatoes or not.

    However, by practicing these techniques, you’ll build an arsenal of coping tools to find your peace. Your peace itself will be indestructible. No emotional tornado will ever destroy it.

    Your peace will be tornado-proof.

  • How to Release the Painful Memories and Emotions Stored in Your Body

    How to Release the Painful Memories and Emotions Stored in Your Body

    “The cure for the pain is in the pain.” ~Rumi

    Your body keeps a physical memory of all of your experiences.

    You have lots of memories stored in your brain that you can recount at any given moment. You can recall names, faces, where the event took place, what it smelled like. But over time, these memories fade or change as time passes and we mature. However, even when the memory begins to fade from your brain, it lives on in your body in the form of physical sensations and behavior patterns.

    The body doesn’t forget.

    The events of our lives leave physiological imprints in our bodies, especially when we experience trauma or situations of extreme stress that cause the body to fight, flee, or freeze in order to cope.

    In a perfect world, we would be able to release the trauma or soothe the stress response soon after it was triggered. But we don’t live in a perfect world, so we’re all walking around with physical imprints of past experiences (good and bad) stored in our bodies. Most of us don’t know how to release them because we don’t even realize they exist!

    You may feel your body tense up when you have to ask for help or borrow money, or your face may get hot when you’re asked to speak in front of a crowd. The sensation is your body remembering.

    It’s remembering a past experience when you asked for help and it didn’t go well. Maybe someone made you feel ashamed because you “should be able to handle it yourself.” Perhaps you were called to the front of your third grade class and asked a question you didn’t know the answer to, so you felt embarrassed and humiliated.

    The body doesn’t have words to express itself, so it responds with physical sensations.

    You can forget, block, or intellectualize the memories that are stored in our brains, but how do you work through the memories being stored in your body?

    Animals shake when they experience trauma or anxiety. Think of a dog who’s been in a fight with another dog: Once the fight is over, both dogs will shake to calm their nervous systems and quiet the fight, flight, or freeze response. This enables them to move on without the physical memory of the situation.

    Humans, however, don’t naturally do this. Instead we carry our stress, anxiety, and trauma around with us every day and use food and other addictive behaviors to soothe ourselves and quiet the emotional discomfort.

    There’s nothing wrong with turning to food or other means to soothe yourself, but typically habitual behaviors provide a short-term solution, and you’ll continue to feel the discomfort until you release the memory from your body.

    I am a recovering sugar addict. I used to stuff myself with cake, cookies, and ice cream any time I felt sad, angry, or alone. The sugar high helped me cope with difficult emotions and soothed the pain of a childhood marred with stress and abuse.

    It was a behavior that eventually made me sick. Chronic yeast infections, migraines, and fatigue were the norm for ten years before I realized sugar was making me sick. I eliminated it from my diet, but the changes in my physical health were minimal.

    In order to truly heal my body, I had to address the emotional issues that caused me to self-medicate with food. I did this by creating an emotional tool-kit.

    In order to release the emotions and create a more peaceful state of being, it’s important to create an emotional tool-kit to help regulate your nervous system and soothe the discomfort.

    The first tool to put in your emotional tool-kit: non-judgment

    When you feel emotionally triggered and tempted to turn to food or other addictive behaviors for comfort, try not to judge the reaction. Our bodies are programmed to seek pleasure, not discomfort, so it’s natural to try and find something to soothe the pain and make yourself feel better.

    The need to soothe yourself with food or other means doesn’t make you a bad person—it makes you human.

    The second tool in your emotional tool-kit: permission

    Give yourself permission to feel—you have to feel it to heal it.

    Often the reason we feel the need to numb what we’re feeling is because we believe that the emotion we’re feeling isn’t allowed. We think we’re not allowed to be angry or we’re supposed to be strong, so we can’t cry.

    Giving yourself permission to feel allows you to have power over it—you control it instead of allowing it to control you, and in the process you create the space to heal.

    The healing process will bring up lots of different feelings and emotions; many will be uncomfortable. When these uncomfortable emotions come up, allow them to come up without becoming attached to them; notice them for what they are and know that there is a natural ebb and flow to them.

    It may be horribly uncomfortable initially, but allow yourself to witness them without judgment or reaction. This will allow you to respond objectively. Feelings aren’t forever. They come and go, if you let them.

    The third tool in your emotional tool-kit: release

    Now that you’ve allowed yourself to feel, it’s time to release the emotion from your body.

    You can do this by gently shaking. Start with your feet and work your way up, one body part at a time, or you can turn on a song that mirrors the way you’re feeling and sing, dance, or cry until you feel physically and emotionally satisfied. All of these things will help give the emotion a voice and move the emotion out of your body.

    Not quite ready to move your body? Grab a journal and write. No filter, no editing; leave the anger, frustration, sadness, and anything else you’re feeling on the page. Feel free to tear or safely burn the pages when you’re done as a symbolic release.

    There isn’t a one-size-fits-all way to release. There will be times when moving your body helps, and other times singing or writing will feel more effective. Choose the method that feels best to you in the moment.

    The fourth tool in your emotional tool-kit: forgiveness

    This is the most important tool in your tool-kit. In order to truly heal, you have to be able to forgive yourself.

    Beating yourself up for past transgressions isn’t productive, and certainly doesn’t make you feel good about yourself.

    Understand that no matter what situation(s) led you to numb yourself with food, drugs, sex, or your self-soothing mechanism of choice, you did the best you could with the information you had on a physical, mental, and emotional level. You dealt with your emotions in the best way that you knew how.

    Hindsight is 20/20, and it’s easy to get caught up in the “shoulda, coulda, woulda” spiral of shame when looking back on a situation. But when we’re in a state of discomfort, we don’t always have the capacity to think logically or rationally. Your brain and body respond to discomfort based on what feels like the safest option in the moment, and sometimes that means turning to habitual or addictive behaviors.

    Forgive yourself because you did the best you could at the time, and move on knowing that you have the knowledge and tools to think differently next time.

    Finally: time.

    We have a tendency to look for the quick fix, but there’s no six-hour healing elixir that can magically erase the pain and discomfort from old wounds. Healing takes time.

    Give yourself time to fill your emotional tool-kit and understand that healing is a journey—one that lasts a lifetime.

    Of course, practice makes the journey easier, but there is no perfection. There will be times when you fall back on old patterns and behaviors, when that happens reach into your emotional tool-kit and take what you need. You are equipped. You can do this.

  • Never Apologize for Being Sensitive or Emotional

    Never Apologize for Being Sensitive or Emotional

    Never apologize for being sensitive

  • The Key to Inner Peace

    The Key to Inner Peace

    Inner peace

  • How to Feel Your Feelings and What That Will Do for Your Life (Everything!)

    How to Feel Your Feelings and What That Will Do for Your Life (Everything!)

    Colors of Mood

    “You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.” ~JK Rowling

    Sometimes the last thing we want to do is feel our feelings. Because feeling can hurt.

    Feeling can make you cry in the laundromat.

    Feeling can make your face unattractively red in the frozen food aisle.

    Feeling can make you think this whole being human racket is not the best way to spend your time.

    If you’ve been stuffing your feelings back into your rib cage whenever they try to break for the light, this is especially true. I know, because this is exactly what I did with my feelings for thirty-three long years.

    Oh, those crafty feelings would make the occasional jailbreak, and then I’d vibrate with a nameless rage that ended in cell phone destruction when technology met brick wall. Or I’d start screaming and yanking at my clothes—yes, actual rending of garments—because the rush of pain was too intense to contain within my frame.

    My mom is fond of saying that, for the first few years of my life, she thought she was raising a monster. As an empath in a house where emotion was treated like a ticking bomb, I was feeling emotions for the entire family, and all those feelings were processing through my eyeballs and via my vocal cords.

    So I learned to stifle my sensitivity and emotion in a well-meaning but mistaken effort to protect those around me. Many of us do.

    We learn that emotions aren’t safe.

    We learn that crying is not appreciated.

    We learn that life runs more smoothly when we pack our emotions into our spleen and forget about them.

    It wasn’t until my father landed in the hospital thirty years later that my personal emotional apocalypse began.

    Trapped in a hospital bed, unable to move, all the feeling and empathy my father had successfully stifled for seventy years—with work, wine, and science fiction novels—rose up to claim him. He couldn’t bear to be in his body any more, so he stopped eating until he didn’t have to be.

    Pressing play on his favorite John Coltrane track or reading his favorite passages, not sure what he could hear through the morphine haze, the solidity of my emotions began to crack.

    As we waited for my father to die, I roamed the hospital halls and spilled coffee on the pristine floors, feeling like I would jump out of my skin. Since writing was the only means I had of processing emotion at the time, I began to record my experiences on Twitter. Never before had I experienced such a rush of love and support.

    The cracks began to widen.

    After his death, my tenuous yet carefully clutched emotional control completely unraveled.

    As I began to lean into the cleansing rush of feeling, rather than running determinedly in the opposite direction, life began sending me the experiences I needed to learn how to surf the wave of the emotional onslaught.

    I learned how to greet my feelings as friends rather than as a nameless beast out to destroy my life—or at least my morning.

    I learned where emotions would hide in my body, lurking between my ribs or huddled in my belly.

    I learned how to allow the literal physical feeling of my emotions to burn itself out by simply feeling the sensation instead of judging it or making it mean something.

    I learned how crucial it was to feel my way through my emotions so that I could connect with my inner wisdom.

    Devoting myself to processing my feelings, rather than letting them build up until they drained me, began to shift and transform my life.

    Depression became a distant memory. I stopped feeling the need to drink, heavily or at all. Quitting sugar became easy, unless I was in the first throes of grief.

    (Any necessary grieving process buys me a few months of sugar, low energy, and crankiness. When I’m grieving, I won’t have energy or optimism anyway, so I may as well eat red velvet cupcakes.)

    When I try to pin down exactly how I learned to shift and flow with my feelings, rather than strapping them into concrete shoes and tossing them into my stomach, this is what shows up:

    Every feeling has a message.

    Maybe that message is simply to allow yourself to feel the emotion until it dissipates. Maybe the feeling is guiding you toward some action.

    Once, when a boyfriend and I were talking about moving in together, fear and anxiety began flying through my body like cocaine-addled pinballs for no apparent reason. In other words, I started flipping out, which didn’t make any sense, given that this was something I’d been wanting.

    When I began to explore the onslaught, I realized that there were deeper issues we needed to delve into before taking that step.

    If something persists—anger, fear, anxiety—simply ask it what it wants to tell you. Sit quietly and allow the answer to appear. When you feel peaceful, you have your answer, whether or not you like what that answer says.

    Processing your feelings gives you access to your own inner wisdom and innate creativity. 

    If I sit down to write and nothing comes, I hunt down any feelings that I’ve been avoiding. Sometimes I’ll need to abandon work to roam the beach and cry. Sometimes I’ll give the feeling five minutes of attention and get back to work.

    You already have all the answers you will ever need inside of you—and your emotions are a primary vehicle for those answers. Learning the language of your feelings will give you your own personal Sherpa through life.

    All this feeling you’re carrying around may not be yours.  

    Sensitive, empathic people are the proud recipients of a double whammy. You’re not just carrying around your emotions; you’re also carrying the emotions of people you walked past in the grocery store, the homeless woman you spoke with on the corner two years ago, the friend who vented last week.

    Your own emotions may be crowded by the emotions of others that you absorbed unconsciously, sometimes by simply walking past them in the street.

    Learn how to clear the emotions of others from your field. One way to do this is to imagine roots extending from your feet into the center of the earth. Send all the emotion and energy that doesn’t belong to you down those roots and into the earth. Feel it draining out of your field and into a place where it can be transformed. Do it daily.

    Feeling your emotions brightens your life, both internally and externally.  

    You already have every answer you will ever need inside of you; you just need to learn how to access that information. Answers about your relationships, your life direction, how to take care of your health, how to move toward what you want. Translating what your feelings are trying to tell you provides a direct conduit to your own higher wisdom.

    It may take time and sustained attention to clear out what you were in the habit of stuffing down, but the more you lean into whatever is asking to be seen, the more your life will open and expand.

    Brain gremlins won’t have as much sticky emotion to latch onto and they’ll become easier to gently set aside. What once felt heavy and overwhelming will feel light.

    And everything will change.

    Colors of mood image via Shutterstock

  • 6 Healthy Ways to Shed Layers of Emotional Pain

    6 Healthy Ways to Shed Layers of Emotional Pain

    Shedding Layers

    “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anais Nin

    Do you remember a time when you wanted to crawl under the bed and stay forever?

    Perhaps you’d been dealing with chronic pain and anxiety, had recently experienced divorce or the loss of a loved one, maybe even lost a job or two. I had experienced all of these things in just a few short years, and, judging by the loud knocking as I hid, was about to have my car repossessed, too.

    I called my dad and told him I was a bit depressed. “Don’t be,” he counseled.

    “Don’t be?” I repeated. “Oh, okay, I’m fine then.”

    “Yep, like that.”

    This way of dealing with the painful feelings, of ignoring and burying them as we force ourselves ever onward, is often expected of us.

    It’s natural—scary things happen to us in life. We fall down unexpectedly, we fight, we fail, we are betrayed, abandoned, overwhelmed by loss. The subconscious starts enfolding us in protective layers when we need them so that we can move forward with life.

    But what happens when we don’t let go once the need has passed?

    Believe it or not, emotions, especially those that needed to be dealt with long ago, can become toxic little bombs tucked secretly inside our muscles, our organs, running through our blood. According to Caroline Myss, “Our biography becomes our biology.”

    These emotional layers can build up as extra weight, angry outbursts that seem to come from nowhere, aches and pains, unhealthy habits, an itchy feeling that something isn’t right, depression, anxiety, perhaps even disease.

    At first, my layers were mostly hidden from the world. The evidence of a tumultuous childhood showed up only when I was pushed too far by something little but snapped with the resentment of a hundred years, the times when I backed down easily instead of standing my ground, the nights when I had that extra drink to ease social anxiety. Let’s call this the invisible, sneaky layer of plastic wrap.

    Then came the thicker materials: burlap, leather, drywall, the hair shirt, the ironclad ball and chain around the ankle. Leather made me look tougher as I moved to Texas to hide from my parents’ divorce. But moving did not help and neither did the armor.

    My steps through life grew heavier, depressed. My body grew heavier, too. I jokingly called it my “layer of pizza” resulting from a car accident at age twenty-three: chronic back pain and herniated discs with no relief in sight. The chocolate was a great listener; the cheesy bread totally got it.

    When my dad passed away suddenly, just hours after we’d been laughing on the phone together, my anxiety was so high, my wall built up so tall, that I could not leave the house without medication.

    I coped with Netflix marathons, hiding from the world and hoping that life would just gently go away, leave me alone, let me pretend to be a character in someone else’s story.

    To the world, I looked unscathed, but the layer of pain remained ever-present. If I had to add another layer, I felt I would never move again.

    I heard an urgent whisper, “Let go, let go, let go…”

    Desperate, I decided to try “that crazy yoga stuff.” And that’s when I learned how to acknowledge the layers, let the tears melt them away, and send them on their happy way to help those who needed them more.

    A layer or two of “pizza,” the medication, the unexplained and unidentifiable sadness, started disappearing. Lighter, I discovered a little more self, a gleam of joy, a dream or two remembered.

    I will not lie to you—the rainbows and unicorns come after the hard work. First, you must face the emotion that was so terrible, you instead let the layer of scales and fangs grow in. But when that unicorn comes galloping down the rainbow to gently peel the scales away forever, well, that’s worth it, my friend.

    There is no telling how many times we need to go through this process. Once we’ve sorted through and let go of all the “stuff,” life is still happening, constantly changing no matter how tightly we are gripping. We must always re-evaluate: What am I clinging to? What layers are holding me back?

    Practices to Shed Layers of Old Feelings

    1. Journal.

    What emotions or habits might be holding you back? Without the pressure of forcing yourself to give anything up immediately, simply allow yourself to imagine what your life could look like if you did let go of negativity. How does your ideal self look and feel while realizing your wildest goals?

    For me, journaling was really tough at first. Sometimes I would just make lists to get ideas flowing. Some of my entries started, “Today sucked. I feel bad.” Oooh, award winning. But as the words flowed, the emotions would sneak out, begging to be named: “but yesterday, my boss said…and it reminded me of dad and I miss him…” OH. There it is.

    2. Meditate.

    When I first meditated, I set a three-minute timer at my desk at work during my lunch break. Now it has grown into my favorite twenty minutes of the day. The small action of stopping to check in with yourself, even for a moment or two, can be a very powerful key into learning more and letting go.

    3. Find a healing practice for yourself.

    Whether it’s a local yoga class, massages, regular exercise like running, a Reiki treatment, a day at the spa, or even a virtual course on chakras, intuition, or any type of self-healing, setting aside time for self-care melts the layers by adding a little more love and self-respect, leaving less room for the doubt and worry. Combine a few of those in the same week and see how you feel!

    My favorite go-to practice is taking a bath with essential oils, candles, and soothing music when I need to re-charge. If I’m short on time, a simple ten-minute foot soak in the tub, with salts and some lavender, works just as well.

    4. Take a break from the media.

    I know, it’s unthinkable. What if we miss everything? As if the expectations of others weighed with our own grief weren’t enough to navigate, now social media adds a new layer of hurt, comparison, and confusion. Just when you think you’re over it, you can be “blocked” or stalked or publicly assailed. It’s even more in our face, so to speak.

    When I had a hurtful disagreement with a friend, I decided to take a month away from Facebook to heal. It really helped. I also step away when I notice I’m starting to compare my life with the glossy “this is who I want you to see me as” photos of others. And guess what? I still have friends when I return every time, in addition to a fresh perspective and better feelings about myself.

    Real friends will still be there. It can even be as simple as a time limit. You can do it.

    5. Read uplifting books.

    You can choose self-study through gorgeous spiritual books, like Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, or Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman.

    Choose books that lift your spirit and open your mind, especially those that instruct on letting go and being present. This was a game-changer for me; I could feel layers just floating away from the soothing advice of those who’ve been there, too.

    6. Laugh.

    When you laugh until you cry, no doubt a layer is disappearing. Releasing emotions doesn’t always have to be hard work. Play can offer the relief we need, too. So can dancing in your living room to Enrique Iglesias or to your guilty pleasure, flail like no one’s watching jam.

    —

    So why bother with peeling back the layers?

    Our layers have layers, born of layers that were layered over layers. This work is like unwrapping a mummy, and as you go deeper, you learn things you never could have imagined. You may even see some scary stuff you weren’t expecting. Better out than in, though, right?

    And guess what’s hiding underneath? The truest, most lovely version of yourself waiting to blossom and shine.

    Shedding layers image via Shutterstock

  • What’s Really Going on When Someone Seems “Too Sensitive”

    What’s Really Going on When Someone Seems “Too Sensitive”

    Crying Eyes

    “For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” ~Cynthia Occelli

    The whole time I was growing up, I was told, incessantly, that I was “too sensitive.” These words, when I first heard them, came from the mouth of the person I vowed I would never become.

    And yet, as I grew up, these words didn’t stay within the darkness of my childhood home. They began to roll out of the mouths of kids on the playground, boyfriends, classmates, friends.

    “Wow, you’re really touchy.”

    “You’re so emotional.”

    “You’re turning really red. Are you, like, really offended right now? You should take a chill pill.”

    “You can’t take a joke.”

    Often, my reaction was to a joke—an insulting one. I’ve never liked insult humor, and yet it’s followed me throughout my life. It was (and still is) there in my Eastern European origins, and it was there every step of the way when I came to Canada as an immigrant.

    They were right. I just couldn’t take a joke.

    Each time this would happen, I would own it. Yes, I was too sensitive. It was my fault. I had to try to hide it better. I came up with all these tactics to hide my volatile emotions, but they failed.

    Even if I didn’t cry, I’d turn red. Even if I didn’t turn red, my lips would quiver and my body would tense up. Someone would never fail to point it out.

    “Wow, you get really red—like a tomato!”

    “Hey, lighten up. You take things so seriously.”

    I left the toxic environment of my childhood when I was seventeen years old, having counted down the days until I could be free. An old journal of mine from around then says, “I’m so glad I’m over the past.” I thought changing locations was the end of the story.

    I had focused so much on getting free that, when I got to that freedom, I didn’t know what to do. Slowly, I developed serious mental health issues that grew from not healing. I became more than just sensitive. I became what my ex called “crazy.”

    After my first relationship—which quickly turned into mutual emotional abuse—dissolved, something broke inside of me. I became cold, distant, intolerant. I began to make comments about other people being too sensitive when they reacted, because I no longer did.

    And you know something? It felt good. It felt so good to, for once, not be the one that felt ashamed of my emotions. I felt powerful. I felt like everything would be okay.

    I became everything I had fought so long and so hard against: loveless, distant, cynical. I became the bully I once feared. I began my journey to become the abuser I vowed to leave in my childhood memories.

    Thankfully, I had a breakdown. I say thankfully, because those weeks of unbearable pain were nothing compared to a lifetime I could have lived as yet another abuser recreating her past.

    As I allowed myself to feel again, I felt a flood of regret and guilt for the people I’d hurt. I felt terrible about shaming those emotions in others that I’d had shamed in me. I used this feeling to forgive the people who had hurt me, realizing that their actions were by-products of abuse in their pasts as well.

    I had escaped hurting myself and hurting others by healing the pain of the past, which was only possible by feeling the pain of the past. And I realize now that this was what I was trying to do all those times I would overreact—heal. I was trying to heal.

    When we get ignored or put down, it hurts. It leaves a wound. And then, when we’re in a safer situation, that wound tries to heal.

    Each time I reacted emotionally to a situation that didn’t seem appropriate, my wound was trying to heal.

    Each time I would react to a joke with pain, my wounds were trying to heal.

    Each time I’d get this rush of anger or anxiety or self-hatred, triggered by some little thing someone did that reminded me of the abuse of the past, my wounds were trying to heal.

    But what did the world say?

    When I needed someone to hold me while I cried about being insulted and pushed down after being triggered by something little and silly, people would say, “You’re too sensitive.”

    When I needed someone, anyone, to just look at what was happening in my life and listen to me, having no communication skills and able only to start drama, people would say, “You’re doing it for attention.”

    I came so close to killing myself before I had a breakdown. If I had, wouldn’t they have said, “We didn’t see it coming”?

    Abuse has been rampant in my family for generations. In my work, I see every day how rampant emotional abuse is in our society.

    Abuse makes people “sensitive.” I put this in quotation marks because there’s a difference between perceiving a person’s sensitivity as a characteristic and perceiving that person as having gaping wounds, which are sensitive because they’re healing.

    And our cultural tendency to push down the healing process in those who have been abused is the most silent killer of them all.

    As human beings, we need to connect, to love, to belong. We need to feel like we are accepted and respected for who we are. And how many of us had those needs shattered at a young age? If not by our parents, by a group of peers. If not by a group of peers, by a partner.

    As soon as we get hurt, we start to heal. This goes for paper cuts as much as it goes for emotions. We can allow that healing, or we can block it.

    Those who appear outwardly sensitive and touchy are actually doing something incredibly brave. They are choosing to stay with their emotions, which are pathways to healing, instead of shutting down and joining the abuse statistics.

    So next time you hear someone being called too sensitive, know this: there are only so many times a person’s healing process can be repressed before they can’t take it anymore. And the way a person breaks out is either through ending their life or ending their emotional life by becoming abusive themselves.

    This is happening everywhere, and we can all do our part to stop it.

    Jon Briere said, “If we could somehow end child abuse and neglect, the eight hundred pages of DSM […] would be shrunk to a pamphlet in two generations.”

    We can all do our part in this, and the way we can start is by understanding the connection between emotional release and healing, by allowing people to experience emotions in front of us without judging or backing down, and by allowing ourselves to experience those emotions, to heal, and to find people who will allow us to do so.

    Like this, we can build a better world together. But we can’t do it alone. We need you. We need all of us.

    Crying eyes image via Shutterstock

  • The Way You Start Your Day

    The Way You Start Your Day

    The way you start your day

    Source: MesmerizingQuotes.com

  • When Inner Peace Begins

    When Inner Peace Begins

    Inner peace begins

    Source: Simple Reminders