Tiny Buddha

Tag: emotions

  • Accepting, Feeling, and Releasing Painful Emotions

    Accepting, Feeling, and Releasing Painful Emotions

    “Eventually you will come to realize that love heals everything, and love is all there is.” ~Gary Zukav

    Last year I developed some unexplained symptoms that could be likened to IBS, Chron’s disease, or even morning sickness (although I wasn’t pregnant, so there was no promise of a baby to make it all worth it).

    I had no idea what caused it, why it was there, or what to do about it.

    This shook me because I’d always had a strong intuitive connection with my body and I had always been healthy, but now when I asked my body a question, there was just silence.

    It was as if a thick fog had parked right between my inner wisdom and me, blocking my channel of intuitive guidance about what to eat, what to avoid, and what was really going on underneath it all. It was so quiet—there weren’t even any crickets!

    With my intuition evading me, I was stuck in the surface level “real” world to manage it. I was dealing with debilitating symptoms every day that were, bit by bit, wearing down my strength and self-control, until one day I crumbled in a heap.

    I had decided to practice what I preach and do something nourishing, despite how terrible I felt. So I got my yoga mat with the intention of pushing through my discomfort to do something that would probably make me feel better. As soon as I felt that mat underneath my feet, I felt safe, I felt nurtured, I felt held.

    I had entered a place where I could go deep and be real. I wasn’t expecting my yoga mat to hold me like the compassionate embrace of a lifelong friend, but that’s exactly what it did, and I surrendered to it.

    Once the flow of tears began, there was no way I could stop it. The pain of the everyday struggle, the expectations I had of myself as a mother, the disappointment I felt from not being capable of living my life to the fullest, and the resentment I had toward “everyone else,” who could eat what they wanted without suffering the way that I was… it all came out.

    And underneath it was frustration, then anger, then self-hatred, then rage, then emptiness, silence, and peace.

    I didn’t have any revelations as to what this was all about or how to fix it, but I simply allowed myself to release everything that had been building up inside of me. And just when I thought the tears were done, more would flow. I screamed, I pounded the mat, and I breathed deeply until only peace remained.

    Here’s what I took away from that experience.

    1. Trust is essential.

    Because my intuition went quiet, I stopped trusting myself. I had forgotten that my body was communicating with me in the only way that it could. I didn’t think to look for the lesson or meaning in it all.

    Once I had released all my tears and pain, my sense of self-trust returned and I was able to bring myself back to a space of gratitude and openness.

    Trusting that there is something to gain from your experience will help you to remain open to it rather than feeling bad about it.

    2. It’s okay to cry.

    Crying is not a sign of weakness but rather a sign of strength, self-respect, and love.

    You need to honor your urges to cry. Not only does it clear and release anything that you’ve been holding in, crying also connects you with the present and allows you to be your most authentic self, even if you’re alone like I was.

    3. Self-compassion is a game-changer.

    Once I let out all of the self-hatred that I had been holding onto, I made space for self-compassion.

    I spoke lovingly to myself, I acknowledged the challenges that I had been facing, and I offered myself the nurturing and love that I had previously been searching for outside of myself.

    Being your own friend is a powerful skill that can keep you strong and grounded in the face of adversity.

    4. There’s no need to fear what’s inside of you.

    It might seem dark and terrifying when you look at what you’re hiding inside of you, but there is not a single part of you that won’t benefit from being loved, accepted, and respected.

    Shed some light onto the darkness; give each part of you a voice to express its needs, its pain, and its story. Once you realize that your inner demons cannot hurt you, you take away the power they once held over you and can start loving yourself unconditionally.

    5. We all need a sacred space to be vulnerable.

    We all need a space where we can explore, accept, heal, and (learn to) love ourselves.

    For me it was the yoga mat, but for you it may be your meditation cushion, your local park or beach, or even in your bed.

    Find or create a loving and unconditional space where you can be raw, honest, and vulnerable. Visit it whenever you get a sense that something within is ready to shift and release.

    Surrender into the strong support of your sacred space, and remember that it’s safe to let your feelings flow. It may even be the best thing for you.

  • Inner Peace Begins

    Inner Peace Begins

    Inner Peace Begins

    Source: Positive Outlooks

  • When Positive Thinking Doesn’t Help

    When Positive Thinking Doesn’t Help

    Sad girl

    “The best way out is always through.” ~Robert Frost

    Earlier this year my partner, our son, and I all moved to Santa Barbara from Oregon. People move all the time, but for us it was a huge step.

    My partner had a new exciting dream job, and we were eager to experience the sunshine of California. But our son was only six months old at the time, and we were leaving both our families and all of our friends. On top of that, I was leaving my successful private practice in Chinese Medicine to become a stay-at-home-mom.

    I knew it was going to be hard, but I was determined to turn the move into a positive new opportunity for myself. It was a chance to renew my commitment to blogging, perhaps work on that book I’ve been talking about writing, maybe start a coaching practice?

    We arrived in January, excited to find sunny skies and mild weather, while our friends and family were complaining about the rain. We both started a cleanse, determined to start the New Year off to a healthy start. We walked more, took our son out for strolls.

    My partner went off to work, and I was determined to dive into re-inventing my business. All I needed was determination, the right attitude, and everything would just come flowing my way, right?

    Friends would call and ask me how I was: “GREAT!” I would answer, determined to keep a smile on my face.But it wasn’t great. Nothing was working. In the few spare minutes I had between chasing a six-month-old, I would try and write. But I was stuck and I couldn’t figure out why.

    I even hired a life coach, thinking all I needed was someone to point me in the right direction. The first thing she said was “You are back at square one, it’s not time to be making plans.” I burst into tears.

    She explained how I had to take the time to grieve my old life. I had to grieve the loss of my career, my identity, friends, family, even the loss of my favorite grocery store if that is what it took.

    No wonder nothing was working! I was so determined to think positively about my new transition I didn’t even take time to feel sad.

    It was like I hadn’t even landed in my new home; I was just walking around about a foot off the ground in a bubble of “everything is fine,” when really, I wasn’t fine; I was sad.

    I took her advice and it made all the difference. Here is what I learned about when positive thinking can actually slow you down:

    Feel your feelings; just don’t attach meaning to them.

    I was so afraid to feel sad because I thought I would be blocking myself from positive experiences. The trick was letting myself feel the sadness without attaching a story to it. Like, “I will never find friends” or “I will never get my practice started.” It was the negative stories that weren’t helpful, not my feelings.

    Feelings are just like the weather; they can’t be controlled and they are always changing. I found that if I just let myself be in the sadness, it passed so much quicker.

    Take the time you need for yourself.

    Shortly after this realization I took some time just for myself. I quit blogging, quit planning, quit putting so much pressure on myself, and just let myself be sad. I cried. I napped when my son napped.

    Planning and being busy were just another way for me to avoid how I was feeling. I needed time to turn inward, not expand outward.

    Even in grief there is room for gratitude.

    This was a hard one because I wanted to blame my unhappiness on our new home. But as hard as I tried, the beauty and charm of our new home won me over.

    As I took time for myself, I made sure to be grateful that we had landed in such a beautiful spot. Having something to be grateful for really helped me keep my head above water.

    The time for dreaming will come again.

    At one point I thought it was never going to shift, but then it did. Little by little, I began being excited by life here. I stopped feeling like I was missing something so much. With that shift came new friendships, new business opportunities, even a renewed sense of fun and adventure in my relationship.

    This was the magic I was looking for; it had to come from a place of true, grounded joy, not hollow optimism that I thought I had to fake.

    There is nothing wrong with trying to keep a positive attitude, but it can’t come at the expense of your true feelings.

    Only by allowing yourself to be present with more difficult emotions can you begin to move through them and create space for a new experience. Real happiness comes only when the positive thoughts in your head are aligned with the true joy in your heart.

    Man under raincloud image via Shutterstock

  • Emotions Are a Strength, Not a Design Flaw

    Emotions Are a Strength, Not a Design Flaw

    Teardrop

    “Eyes that do not cry, do not see.” ~Swedish Proverb

    Just get over it. Don’t be so sensitive. You should toughen up and grow a thicker skin…

    I’ve heard this advice so much over my life, but I’ve never seen it make anyone happy.

    Advised to toughen up with thicker skins so we can protect ourselves, we end up just bottling it up inside and pushing away how we feel, hoping it looks like we’re strong.

    It’s like trying to avoid our own shadow. We believe it’s gone because it’s behind us, but it’s totally visible to anyone else who cares to look.

    Instead of becoming stronger, this denying and rejecting behavior makes us more susceptible to danger, more fearful and wary, resulting in confusion and unhappiness, because we’ve thrown away the information we need to survive and thrive.

    The Rhino’s Lesson

    While I was in South Africa, volunteering for an animal conversation charity, I found myself in close proximity to a wild rhino in the early hours of the morning.

    She was beautiful.

    With only a few feet between us and little shrub to block her path, she did not seek to fight or flee; she just stood there.

    Although rhinos are quite blind, they have other strong senses, including smell, hearing, taste, external touch, and instinctual felt sense (internal and external nervous systems).

    They have thick, layered, armored skin that protects them from sharp, thorny bushes, but they are not insensitive and tough.

    In fact, their survival and ability to thrive is wholly dependent on their sensitivity.

    She didn’t run or charge because she didn’t feel I was a threat.

    Sensitivity Is Power

    Sensitivity means to be connected and aware of all our senses.

    Our bodies are descendants of mammals, so we’re sensory beings.

    This means, like the rhino, we are designed to use sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and felt sense to navigate the world around us and survive.

    This sensory information creates an internal response to everything, including danger and safety, separation and bonding, otherwise known as emotions.

    It’s a fact: We’re all emotional, male and female!

    Unlike our animal cousins, though, we have an evolved conscious awareness to this emotional information, so they become defined as feelings—the language of emotions to which we attach judgment.

    Instead of responding naturally and appropriately to this navigation system, we stress ourselves out, worry, shame, analyze, get embarrassed, get scared, get stuck, don’t act, ignore, or do the total opposite of what our body tells us to do.

    The rhino does not question the sensory information the brain collects; it just acts appropriately either by running away and avoiding the danger or standing still to assess and inquire.

    Or, it might run toward it, threatening with the full force of their size, strength, weight, and their strong, sharp horn. They don’t do this because they are bad tempered but because they must still protect their well-being, even though they are naturally shy, curious, and non-predatory.

    Confusing Safety and Danger

    Our brain continually processes sensory information to inform our responses to a situation or person by encouraging slowing down, moving toward or further away.

    Teaching us to ignore, shame, disregard, and disconnect from this emotional sensory information leaves us unarmed, unprotected, and unsafe. It’s like being in conversation but only talking, never listening, and assuming what the other person thinks and feels.

    The result:

    • We’re unaware of danger, so we don’t know how or when to protect ourselves.
    • We’re unaware or unsure if the people we choose to surround ourselves love, accept, and respect us, or are out to harm, belittle, or control us.
    • We lose the ability to know what is right for our happiness, peace, and love.
    • Our brains rewire to associate fear and danger with safety, and love and kindness with danger and being unsafe, so we seek the wrong thing.

    This would be like the rhino ignoring her survival senses, walking up to a pack of lions, and saying, “Hey, I’m just as big as you, can I come hang out…”

    How A War Zone Becomes Your Norm

    This behavior is most obvious in adults who experienced abusive childhoods or were parented inconsistently by alcoholics, drug addicts, or the mentally unstable, and if they were conditioned to be good girls and boys and shamed for expressing anger, desire, or tears.

    In these environments, a child absorbs the message “Don’t express how you truly feel.”

    If they accepted the sensory information they received, they would have had to accept that their home environment, where they needed to be cared and protected for survival, actually felt unsafe and rejecting to live in.

    It’s unimaginable for a child to acknowledge that the parents who they love might not be safe, even if they come to see a difference in other families.

    They learn not to respond appropriately, as it would result in possible physical danger, punishment, and abandonment. So they disconnect, desensitize, do as they are told, try to please to make it safer, and stop trusting their feelings, because they lie and let them down.

    If they continue this behavior into adulthood, they will keep seeking out the familiar—hurtful, disappointing, painful, unstable, rejecting, or even dangerous relationships and circumstances, to mirror the feelings of childhood.

    Getting Emotionally Reconnected

    I used think women who cried were pathetic. I thought they should just get over it and pull themselves together, as this was how I saw my own emotions.

    Every feeling I had was buried away, unspoken, and unshared, branded as either a sign of weakness (as regards to crying) or unacceptable (if it was anger). I considered every other feeling bad and dangerous.

    My exterior had toughened up until I was cold and as hard as an ice queen.

    I chose abusive lovers, friends, and bosses over and over again, even though when I met them all I had the same uncomfortable, withdrawing feelings. I just ignored them and believed I must be wrong. And I jumped into, at worst, dangerous and, at best, rejecting and unloving environments.

    Part of my self-discovery was learning to get out of my judgmental head and back into my body, and trusting its natural ability to know my boundaries and how to protect myself, so I could begin to make the right choices for my health, well-being, and happiness.

    I sought people who showed me how to demonstrate my emotions openly and gave me permission to feel angry and cry. I came to understand my body’s language, so, if I felt something, I got real and responded appropriately.

    If I felt happy and safe, I smiled.

    If I felt safe and laughed, I opened my mouth wide and laughed wholeheartedly from my belly.

    If someone tried to disrespect me, I called them on it or walked away.

    If I felt desire to touch and be touch, I trusted my intuition.

    No longer confused and distrusting of my sensitivity, I didn’t need to waste my energy fighting and denying how I felt.

    I was now open to love and intimacy, no longer terrified of it as dangerous, or afraid of rejection, because I felt safe in my ability to know and accept the truth.

    I was now listening to the whole conversation and all the information I was receiving, so that like the beautiful rhino I could own our greatest strength of all: our emotional instinct to navigate the wilderness and know who is part of our herd.

    Photo by Francesca Romana Correale

  • Why We Don’t Need to Feel Bad About Feeling Bad

    Why We Don’t Need to Feel Bad About Feeling Bad

    “Feelings are just visitors. Let them come and go.” ~Mooji

    I once thought that the goal of meditation was to reach a state of constant positivity, a natural euphoria in which a person simply does not get angry or depressed.

    I think that a lot of people begin practicing meditation thinking that their teacher has reached this euphoric state of being. I have learned, though, that these negative feelings are never permanently banished from anyone’s mind.

    As someone that has been struggling with anxiety and depression disorders since early childhood, I turned to meditation as a teenager as a means of treatment.

    I assumed that one day I would master meditation and never feel depressed or overly anxious again. I have been practicing on an off for eight years and have completed a meditation teacher certification course, and guess what. I am still human. I still get angry, depressed, and anxious.

    What meditation has taught me is that there is no such thing as a negative feeling. All feelings are natural and necessary, no matter how unpleasant they may be.

    Instead of resisting your feelings and the circumstances leading up to them, accept them. Only after you accept your feelings can you let go and move on. Resisting and stifling your feelings only keeps them with you longer.

    I realized this after reading The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

    I tried to do everything that the book said to do. Making lists of things that I was grateful for was easy, and so was saying “thank you” all of the time. One thing that I could not agree with, though, was the author’s assumption that negative feelings are a result of being ungrateful.

    Even on my worst days, I am grateful for the life that I have. I am grateful for who I am and the people around me. My negative feelings are caused by a chemical imbalance in my brain, and listing things that I am grateful for doesn’t help because I already know that my life is good.

    For some people, depression comes the same way a headache would, and accepting the feeling and letting it go is much more effective than trying to stifle, resist it, or act like it isn’t there.            

    Look at the Earth, for example. Should the Earth try to resist winter, simply because summer is more pleasant? Wouldn’t it serve the Earth better to accept winter, trusting that summer will come again?

    If we weren’t meant to feel anything that is unpleasant, winter would not exist.

    Nature is beautiful; think of blue skies, flowers, beaches, and hot summer days. Nature can also be scary. For example, volcanos, hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, thunder and lightning destroy towns and cities and kill thousands of people.

    There is good and bad in everything and every person on this planet. You, like the Earth, are a Yin Yang. Do not feel bad about being angry or upset. Instead, celebrate the good things about you.

    Accepting your feelings and letting them swallow you whole are two different things, though. That is where meditation comes in.

    You sit there and focus on your breath, the sounds around you, and the present moment. If feelings of sadness arise, notice them, let them be, but do not attach yourself to the feeling.

    Do not think, “I feel sad. I should not feel sad.” Instead, simply let the feeling exist, and before you know it, it will be gone. You are not your thoughts and feelings; they are simply experiences. Just because it is happening in your mind that doesn’t mean that it is a part of you.

    Before I came to realize all of this, I felt bad about myself for not being able to reach this superhuman state of constant positivity that a lot of yoga and meditation teachers seem to purposely project in order to glorify their practice and attract new customers.

    Your teachers get angry and upset sometimes, too; some of them just don’t want you to know it. The standard of constant positivity that I was trying to reach actually hindered my progress and made me feel worse after a meditation session.

    If you are experiencing this, stop trying to be perfectly positive. It’s impossible. There’s no reason to resist your “negative” feelings, or feel bad for having them. You are a Yin Yang, as we all are—and there’s nothing wrong with that.

  • Now is Not Forever: Weathering Uncomfortable Feelings

    Now is Not Forever: Weathering Uncomfortable Feelings

    Weathering the Storm

    “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” ~Alan Watts

    I recently found myself ruminating about a difficult situation at my new workplace. Considering my high-flying, achievement-oriented personality, the recipe for my malcontent was predictable: A supervisor had disagreed with me, and I left work that day feeling melodramatic and like I wanted to quit… that day.

    I thought, “I am so misunderstood. No one ‘gets’ what I am doing. I am not cut out for teamwork. Why do I hate working so much? I thought this job was the one. Will I ever find a job that satisfies my inner longings for connection and creativity?” And so on.

    I wore the little thundercloud around my head all evening, until I remembered the birthday of a good friend and contacted her to wish her well. As we talked, we began to reminisce about her birthday the previous year, and our conversation viscerally triggered a flood of memories.

    In the twelve months between her succeeding birthdays, I had left a toxic work environment, started a business with my husband, self-published a short book, launched a commercial website, and had also been accepted into my first-choice graduate program. Suddenly, my work conflict seemed a bit less dramatic.

    I was left feeling humbled and filled with gratitude. Due to the nature of life itself—change—and with the help of significant work on my part, the current “weather” in my emotional life was only partly cloudy, not a hurricane. However, I had become so accustomed to my newfound peace that I expected perfection rather than stability.

    I have often heard the emotional landscape compared to weather—we cannot control it, but we do have power over our reactions to it.

    Rain is not a disaster if I remember to bring an umbrella… or don’t mind getting wet. Similarly, my conflict with my supervisor was a fluffy rain cloud scuttling across a generally blue sky—passing as quickly as it arrived, but not fast enough for me!

    Being mindful of the transient nature of feelings and events is very important for our emotional health. I can summarize it in one phrase that has helped me tremendously: “Now is not forever.” Addressing this principle in my life has consisted of three primary concepts:

    1. Embrace the evolving, shifting nature of life to help gain perspective instead of making generalizations.

    When I am in the funk of a bad day (or month, or year), it is dangerously easy for me to create “Aha!” moments in which I diagnose the source of my most acute problems and focus all blame on people, places, and things. I can become surprisingly creative!

    For me, perspective means adjusting my lens. Instead of allowing a difficult situation to consume my entire field of vision into eternity, I must gently remind myself that whatever is current will expire.

    Also, because it is my tendency to externalize blame, it is important for me to welcome difficult situations as a part of my life’s journey.

    These teachers, whether they are challenging work environments, personal relationships, or illnesses, are constantly in flux, for all of us. Our problems today will not be our problems next year.

    2. Take mindful action.

    When we take mindful action, we take advantage of opportunities to improve our lives.

    Sometimes I suffer from one of life’s storms because I am unnecessarily subjecting myself to pain, as though I am standing outside in a hurricane and complaining about the wind!

    Sometimes action can be tiny steps that transform your entire outlook. I have deeply developed my resilience through my practices—yoga and intentional self-work. These skills help me to weather tough times.

    However, occasionally a situation calls for more dramatic change. For example, my former job was like a house with a leaky roof—every time it rained, I got hit with the deluge, and no amount of mindfulness or yoga could change that. Changing jobs was a positive way of acknowledging that I was not in control of my work environment, but I could choose to put myself in the best one possible.

    3. Give service.

    Sometimes we need to enlarge our world and our perceptions by putting our time, effort, and talents into improving the lives of others.

    For me, service work both connects me to other people who share similar life wounds and reminds me to practice gratitude. When I move my focus from my own frustrations to helping others, whether it is volunteer work or simply meeting a lonely friend for coffee, I gain an expansiveness that calms my angst.

    It makes my world bigger, but it’s not just about making my problems smaller. It’s about the power of connection.

    Suffering may be part of the human experience, but our problems, flaws, and tragedies pull us closer to other people and to the divine.

    Whether I struggle with the trauma of grief or the garden-variety frustrations of stress, giving to others reminds me that my individual story line intersects with thousands of others in a web of common experience, as well as common transcendence.

    This—whatever this is—is not everything. But it is inevitable. Just as dark storm clouds roll across the horizon, experiences pass in and out of our lives with regularity and seeming unpredictability.

    When we make the decision to embrace change, we give ourselves the gift of truly enjoying the present, because it is essential to remember that the sunny weather comes and goes, as well.

    This year, when my reminiscence was sparked, my circumstances had dramatically improved, and I was reminded to be thankful for the positivity that currently surrounds me. I was able to see a small work conflict for what it was—a temporary cloud that would soon slide away, probably within a day. The sky is blue, warm, and waiting behind that cloud.

    But next year when I call my friend for her birthday, she will be preparing to relocate across the country. I am not looking forward to her eventual absence, but when I accept change as a consistent part of life, I see the next twelve months with a renewed perspective.

    The result is that I am inspired to celebrate the present, rather than cling to it, because, to be frank, what are my other options?

    The story of my life is going to evolve with or without my permission, and I would prefer to be involved and engaged in its processes rather than unexpectedly find myself in an unfamiliar life that somehow changed form while I was looking away.

    I cannot (nor can any other human on the planet) predict which days, months, or years will hold more sunshine than rain, or vice versa. But when we enlarge our perspective, engage in active participation, and give service to others, we allow ourselves to move with grace, wisdom, and resilience in the shifting emotional horizons of our lifetime.

    Photo by eddi van w

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

    The Real Reason Some People Always Seem to Push Your Buttons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    1. Identify who triggers you.

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

    2. Step into this person’s shoes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    6. Bring that young part into the present.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • What Babies Teach Us About Self-Image and Letting Go

    What Babies Teach Us About Self-Image and Letting Go

    Baby

    “The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    The nurse found me slumped behind the soda machine.

    “Honey, are you okay?” she asked, brow crinkled in nervous response to my (apparently louder than I’d realized) sobs.

    I nodded, answering in messy sniffles. The nurse, not entirely convinced, assured me that if I needed anything, she’d be at the desk just around the corner.

    I remained crouched in my not-so-perfect hiding place a while longer, waiting until my breaths no longer shook to trudge back to my mom’s hospital room. The news was not going to be fun to break.

    I was officially a deadbeat.

    For context, I’ve lived most of my life as a success junkie. I was the token overachiever during every year of education, at every job, in every hobby; being impressive was my forte.

    My general mindset was that success is good, so those who succeed are worthy, while failure is bad, so those who fail are unworthy.

    This mindset fueled plenty of remarkable endeavors—some thrilling and fun, some terrifying and painful—all of which were tied to my own self-image.

    I’d just left a dream job in music marketing, which had only developed after years of radio programming and slow, meticulous relationship-building with industry contacts.

    I’d worked my butt off at that position, trading unlimited access to up-and-coming music and a constantly revolving social life of shows, happy hours, festivals, hangouts with bands, and client dinners for adequate sleep/nutrition/self-care. (This workaholic behavior made me worthy.)

    After ultimately deciding that music marketing wasn’t the core around which I wanted to build my life, I’d begun revisiting my previously abandoned plans to live and work abroad.

    I’d applied, applied, and applied for jobs throughout Asia, finally accepting a position in South Korea. (Quitters are unworthy; a next step in place kept me safe and still worthy.)

    I’d somehow worked up the courage to notify my bosses, go public with the decision, and pack up the life I’d built from scratch over the past five years. (This made me crazy, but with a next step firmly in place, I stillremained “worthy.”)

    Then, during my final week in the office, I’d received the news that my mom had cancer. And so I quickly found myself on a plane back to the Midwest, where, thankfully, I was able to support her through the surgery and recovery process.

    Now, however, here I was mere hours after her operation: crumpled behind a soda machine, trying to process the phone call with the Korean Consulate that had just shattered my worthiness in a span of about five minutes.

    “Miss Suellentrop, there is a problem with your paperwork. You’ll have to mail us XYZ additional forms if you want to apply for a work visa. We’ll have them processed by next month.”

    But my start date is in two weeks—I can’t miss it!

    “Then I’m sorry, but you won’t be able to take the job.”

    And that was that. A handful of sentences had taken away my employment, my painstakingly laid plans for the next twelve months—and my fragile self-image right along with them.

    You willingly abandoned your edgy, cool life on the East Coast, I told myself. You are a failure. 

    You quit your secure, impressive job. You are a failure.

    Everyone will know you’re a deadbeat stuck in a suburban town. You are a failure.

    You’re balled up behind a soda machine and haven’t showered since Monday. YOU ARE A FAILURE.

    I shuffled back to the room to share the update with my family, voice choked with embarrassment—both from the fact that I now had no job in place, and from the fact that while I was suffering an identity crisis based on outward appearances, Mom was recovering from major invasive surgery. In the spectrum of tough-to-handle circumstances, cancer tends to trump most other things.

    After a few moments of quiet, my beloved, endlessly wise, still heavily medicated mother said, “Claire, when babies fart, they don’t freak out or worry that they aren’t good babies. They feel it, they let it happen, and then they let it go.”

    They let it go.

    When circumstances beyond our control make life smelly, we don’t need to hold onto them any longer than a baby holds on to its farts.

    Rather than allowing those circumstances to define who we are, all we need to do is acknowledge the thoughts and emotions they trigger, accept that they’re happening, and let them go.

    Stifling the emotions that spring forth won’t ease the situation—when is holding gas in ever the more comfortable option?

    Emotions are nothing more than the results of the thoughts you’re having about the circumstance. Like gas, they’re just noise passing through. Feel them, as fully as you can, and then they’ll be able to fade.

    Pretending the circumstance isn’t happening is equally as fruitless. You can pretend all you want that you didn’t let one rip, but the room will still reek. It’s just an event that occurred—something totally neutral and temporary. It doesn’t mean a thing.

    Why try to label yourself by something ethereal, something brief?

    Feeling bad does not make you a bad person, and receiving embarrassing news or an unexpected result from a long-held plan does not mean you are unworthy.

    You are not the air escaping from your body, you are not the job you no longer have, you are not the possessions you do or do not own. You are just you, and only you. Let the rest of it go.

    If you find yourself reeling from an outside event or rushing to block out an unwanted wave of emotion, pause for a second.

    Identify whether you’re trying to hold something in, pretend it doesn’t exist, or let it define you.

    Once you’ve got that down, revert back to your baby self:

    Feel it. Let it happen. And let it go.

    Photo by didi8

  • 7 Steps to Move Through Sadness (and What We Can Learn from It)

    7 Steps to Move Through Sadness (and What We Can Learn from It)

    Crying Man

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

    He had been ignoring the symptoms for months, possibly even a year. When my husband came home from the doctors, he told me his PSA score was high, and he needed to have a biopsy. That date came and went, and we were waiting for the pathology report.

    The doctor assured us it was nothing.

    The image of standing in the car dealership parking lot, talking with my son and son-in-law will be forever etched in my memory. When the phone rang, I saw that it was he, and expecting it to be good news that I could share with my family, I answered it quickly.

    These were the words that I heard: “It’s not good; I have cancer.”

    Still holding the phone to my ear, I looked at my son. A million thoughts were racing through my mind. Should I tell him? I felt the weight of my husband’s words pressing me into the pavement.

    My son and son-in-law were carrying on their conversation as if the world had not stopped. In my mind, it had. How surreal.

    As I lowered the phone to my side, and I said, “Dad has cancer.” From that moment on, life as I knew it changed. I am well acquainted with the definition of sadness.

    “Sadness is emotional pain associated with, or characterized by feelings of disadvantage, loss, despair, hopelessness, and sorrow. An individual experiencing sadness may become quiet or lethargic, and withdraw themselves from others. Crying is often an indication of sadness.” ~Wikipedia

    Over the past three years I have had to make multiple adjustments to the story I had envisioned for my life.

    I have a beautiful mobile with birds carved out of driftwood. It was as if someone had flicked one of the birds, sending the others (still tethered together) flying in all directions.

    Just as the birds seemed to settle down, they got flicked again, and then again, and then again.

    Did you know grief is an actual physical process that our brain goes through after a significant change? 

    The limbic system in our brain holds an internal image of life as we know it. When a major change takes place, new neuropathways must be built in order to accommodate an updated version of reality.

    Building a new picture literally takes a lot of energy and time depending on the nature of the change.

    If we didn’t understand that grieving is a necessary process in order to move forward, we might become impatient and want to skip this unpleasant period of time.

    Numbness, shock, feeling unsettled, and sadness are among the symptoms of grief.

    Out of the hundreds of emotions we experience, sadness is one of the basics. 

    From a survival perspective, it has been said that sadness was hardwired into us to keep us safe after significant loss. It is associated with a feeling of heaviness, sleepiness, and withdrawal from activity and social connections.

    That makes perfect sense when you consider that grief (or the time your brain is updating) causes impaired short-term memory, decreased concentration and attention span, absent-mindedness, forgetfulness, and distraction.

    After a major loss it would be unsafe to go hunting or gathering.

    Having said that, sadness remains the one emotion people try to avoid the most, and understandably so. To be sad is to be vulnerable, and again, from a primitive perspective, this is a threat to our very survival.

    We need to remind ourselves that our minds have evolved, and though it is unpleasant, we can survive sadness. Not only can we survive sadness, it can be our teacher if we let it.

    It is impossible to think of any benefit of sadness while in the midst of it, but pondering it before the fact can go a long way in lessening the blow when it occurs. Understanding is powerful.

    We can’t make sadness feel good, but we can navigate it better and even learn from it.

    What Can Be Learned from Sadness?

    • Sadness can help clarify our identity by showing us what we value.
    • If we are mindful of the visceral sensations of sadness, we become aware it is an emotion; it’s not who we are.
    • It is a signal that we are processing something we don’t want to let go of. We can explore our attachments from a non-judgmental stance.
    • As we become acquainted with sadness, we are able to have empathy for others, which strengthens our connections.
    • We are better able to appreciate the good times when we have something to contrast it with.
    • When we have the courage to handle sadness, we expand our capacity to handle other hard things.
    • When we honor our sadness, we learn that passing through it is expedited.

    “Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” ~C. S. Lewis

    Navigating Sadness

    1. Identify the source of your sadness.

    Emotions have more power when their triggers are kept secret. Name what is making you sad. It doesn’t have to be one thing.

    2. Determine if it is justified.

    Do yourself a favor and ask if what your sad about is true. If it is not, let it go. Usually if you are sad it is legitimate, even if the reason isn’t what you thought it was to begin with.

    3. Validate your emotion.

    Allow yourself to feel sad. What you are feeling is real.

    4. Practice self-compassion.

    Show yourself some love. Don’t be angry with yourself. In Tara Brach’s words say, “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

    5. Accept. 

    Unconditionally accept your new reality. You don’t have to like it, approve of it, or give life a pass. Acceptance allows you to manage change more effectively.

    6. Create a survivor’s picture. 

    Paint a new picture of your life with you being a courageous survivor. Find the meaning in your suffering. 

    7. Remember that every day deserves a new picture.

    Stay in the here and now, and allow a new picture to unfold each day. When you are flexible enough to allow for small changes regularly, big changes, though shocking, are easier to handle. 

    —

    Navigating rather than running from sadness has deepened my perspective on life. It has helped me savor time with loved ones, be more compassionate with others who might be struggling, and not become unsettled over small things.

    It has taught me that I have little control over what comes to pass in my life, but I have courage to pass through hard times, knowing the sun will shine again, if I allow it.

    Most of all, I have learned that time and being compassionate toward myself are the most reliable healers.

    I can feel vulnerable and still know I will survive.

    Disclaimer: This article is in reference to non-depressive sadness. If you have been excessively sad for an extended period of time for no apparent reason, please seek professional help.

    Photo by Anders Ljungberg

  • How to Know What You’re Really Feeling So You Can Feel Better

    How to Know What You’re Really Feeling So You Can Feel Better

    Thinking Woman

    “The more you hide your feelings, the more they show. The more you deny your feelings, the more they grow.” ~Unknown

    Throughout my life, I thought of myself as someone who felt too much. I was very gregarious and could easily be consumed by moments of joy and celebration. But when I was alone, I could be overtaken by angry, self-destructive voices that would dominate my mind.

    By senior year of high school, I was spending many hours of the day crying, and had taken to pinching and punching myself until I was black and blue.

    I felt I needed to gain more control over my emotional state, be more rational, have more perspective. Those were the kinds of things I was looking for when I first called my therapist, Marc Bregman, who invented a unique method of Archetypal Dreamwork.

    Instead of learning how to manage my feelings, though, Marc taught me something totally different: how to feel them at all.

    Normally, it’s taken for granted that we feel our feelings and know how we feel. We even believe we know how others are feeling. And yet, we can accept that how we actually feel in any given moment is often extremely complex, confusing, and difficult to communicate.

    In fact, I would contend that we are usually in an avoidance reaction to our feelings rather than truly feeling them.

    Why? Namely because feeling our feelings means allowing states of experience that are truly difficult: pain, fear, despair, or vulnerability. So we cling to our assumptions about our feelings and often confuse these ideas with how we truly feel.

    We can spend our whole life cycling on this level of feeling, never letting ourselves be conscious of what is driving our emotional states underneath.

    Yet, just as matter cannot be created or destroyed, the energy carried by these deeper feeling states do not leave our psyche simply because we want to deny they are there.

    Instead, they fuel the myriad of negative behaviors that we are often trying to fix—totally numbing out, projecting our feelings onto others, blaming others for our feelings, or engaging in compulsive and self-destructive behaviors.

    Furthermore, by keeping our deepest pains at bay, we also lose access to the sweetest and most joyful aspects of our hearts. 

    More than where you are from, how much money you have, what your family is like, or what knowledge you’ve gained, I believe that it is what you feel, what stirs you, what you love and what causes you pain that makes you you.

    I believe that every human is connected to an eternal, infinite source, and it is our deepest feelings that connect us to this source. Through seeking the deepest parts of our hearts, we can learn what it means to manifest our true selves into the world.

    To begin the journey of feeling of your feelings, try these steps:

    Be open, be humble, and allow.

    We often rely on our mind to interpret our inner feelings. Understand that our ideas about our feelings aren’t usually the whole story. Be curious and ask, what could be underneath this current emotional state?

    Center your emotional experience in your body.

    At the core, your feeling state is a physical experience happening in your body. Bringing your attention to where in your body you’re experiencing a feeling is a great way to deepen your visceral experience of it.

    Don’t think about it too much.

    It’s easy to get tangled trying to figure out what we feel by weighing various judgments, ideas, and experiences to determine what we should be feeling. What you feel doesn’t need any supporting evidence. It just is. Let it be.

    Pay attention to your dreams.

    Dreams, on a fundamental level, are felt experiences. They can be a tremendous help in mapping out your internal emotional landscape, especially the places we’d rather avoid. Try writing down your dreams and feeling into them rather than interpreting them. You may be surprised by what you uncover.

    —

    When I began following these steps, I had a number of dreams that showed me immersed in guilt for things, like being late to a meeting. By closing my eyes and concentrating on the image in the dream, I was able to attach the word guilt to a sinking, constricting feeling in my stomach.

    This allowed me to become more aware of when I was feeling guilt in waking life. I didn’t realize it, but it was almost all the time. When I brought curiosity to those moments of guilt and understood there was probably a deeper feeling underneath, I began to feel fear, and eventually, desire.

    In the past, being late to meet someone was my worst nightmare. The idea that someone might be agitated by something I did was excruciating.

    I realized that all of this pressure I put on myself to please others was really driven by the deeper fear I had of truly being myself, regardless of what others thought of me. Once I was able to feel this fear, the guilt did not have as strong of a hold. 

    When I let myself feel how scary it would be to not be concerned with what others thought of me, I also began to feel how much I wanted this for myself. I’ve learned that feelings of desire, excitement, and exhilaration are often intertwined with feelings of fear.

    Perhaps it sounds counterintuitive, but it is that same combination of feelings that prompts us to ride life-threatening rollercoasters or write soul-bearing love letters to the ones who have stolen our hearts.

    We fear what we desire because we know how vulnerable we’d be if we actually got it. But until we let ourselves access the fear, we don’t have the opportunity to be courageous.

    Now when I feel guilt come up I don’t get stuck there for hours but am instead able to access my fear much more quickly. I can let the fear run through my body and let it take the time it needs to transform into feelings of excitement or desire.

    Through letting myself feel these things, it’s become much easier for me to decide what I want to do. Instead of making decisions based on what I think others may or may not like, I’m able to choose the things that scare me, and thus exhilarate me.

    This is just a single example of a myriad of surface feelings I have learned to relate to deeper feelings within me. While I am very far from living out these lessons all the time, just knowing what these deeper states feel like has made a tremendous difference in my life.

    I wake up everyday with curiosity as to what aspects of my felt experienced could be revealed next, and gratitude at the amazing journey that is exploring my inner self.

    And it can all start with a simple exploration—what does it truly feel like to be you, in your body, in this place, right now?

    Photo by Clay Junell

  • 4 Steps to Process Your Emotions So They Don’t Zap Your Energy

    4 Steps to Process Your Emotions So They Don’t Zap Your Energy

    Smiling Buddha

    “Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.” ~Elizabeth Gilbert

    I felt zapped. Depleted. Drained. Out of gas. And I wasn’t sure why.

    • Enough sleep? Check.
    • Enough exercise? Check.
    • Enough nutritious food and vitamins? Check.
    • Health check-ups and tests up to date? Check and check.
    • Reasonable schedule? Check.

    I thought I felt this way because I’d recently had surgery to remove a sizeable tumor.

    But that had gone smoothly, and I was fully recovered and back to my regular schedule.

    However, there was one thing that I noticed since the surgery: I was angry and couldn’t seem to shake it. I don’t think I realized the grip it had on me until I started trying to figure out the source of my low energy.

    I began to wonder if my anger and inability to let go of it could be the cause. I also wondered why I was so angry when the surgery and recovery had gone so well. I should have been happy that the tumor was benign.

    I was in it, but not necessarily conscious of it and not realizing what it was doing to me. The best way to describe it would be an automatic emotional reaction coupled with a lack of awareness.

    I had been zapped by my emotions!

    How we manage and deal with our emotions affects our energy big time.

    Here are four steps to process your emotions so they don’t zap your energy.

    1. Be mindful and consciously aware of your emotions.

    Before we can manage anything, we need to be aware of it instead of acting on autopilot. Awareness puts us in the driver’s seat and allows us to not only engage in the experience, but also decide how we want to respond to it. In this case, we need to realize how the energy of our emotions affects us.

    I noticed that I had been low in energy, and by the process of elimination and observing my behavior, I realized I had been stuck in anger. I had been irritable, argumentative, and overreacting to the smallest things. Once I had observed my behavior, I acknowledged that anger was becoming my main emotional state.

    The next time you catch yourself in an emotional experience, try to notice your behavior and identify the feeling behind it. This will give you insight and a new ability to manage it.

    2. Identify what thoughts are triggering the emotions. 

    Once you’ve observed your behavior and identified the emotion that’s zapping your energy, you need to see what thoughts may be triggering it.

    After I identified that I was stuck in anger, I kept thinking about the surgery and the events that led up to it. I had felt pain in my abdomen, so I went to the doctor and told her this.

    She did a regular check-up and said there was nothing wrong. I was relieved to hear this, and went home and didn’t give it another thought—until I started feeling pain again.

    I went back and told her that I felt pain and I was sure there was something wrong. It was a very strong intuitive feeling. This time she did a quick check and said, once again, “There is nothing wrong with you.”

    I questioned her about the pain, but she rolled her eyes and said, “Ignore it. At a certain age everything starts to hurt.”

    I asked if I should get a test or an ultrasound, but she said it wasn’t necessary, so, despite my intuition, I went home.

    A few days later, I was in pain again and began to think it was my imagination, because a doctor that I trusted said, “Don’t worry; nothing is wrong.”

    My intuition kept telling me I needed to get a second opinion. So I went to another doctor who immediately sent me for a test and quickly scheduled me for surgery after having found a tumor.

    Having gone back through the events, I realized that the few days before the surgery I was livid about what had happened. What if it was cancer? I let precious months slip by because I didn’t listen to my intuition.

    After the surgery, I was so focused on recovering that I guess I just put it out of my mind. After I recovered, the anger set in again, but it wasn’t until I started searching for the cause of my low energy that it started to make sense.

    The thoughts running through my mind post-surgery were: Why didn’t she take me seriously?  How dare she blow me off like that? Why didn’t I challenge her and insist on a test? All these thoughts were triggering anger. I was stuck in it, but not aware enough to figure it all out.

    Always try to connect your thoughts to the emotion you’re expressing. In recognizing the thoughts, you’re able to address them to move through the emotion.

    3. Lean into the emotion and learn from it.

    When we suppress our emotions, we send that energy underground, with toxic effects.

    Don’t suppress your emotions, but also don’t get caught in the energy of them. When we let our emotions hijack us, it’s like we’re on a runaway train. We are not in control. We may get addicted to the surge of emotion and get stuck in it.

    This is what happened to me when I was angry after my surgery; my emotion dictated my behavior, which depleted my energy. When I acknowledged what was happening and leaned into the emotion, I was able to identify the problem instead of just suppressing it.

    When we lean into an emotion, we can learn from it.

    4. Respond proactively to the emotion and transition from it.

    When an emotion lingers, we don’t have to get stuck in it.

    Now when I feel a powerful surge of emotion that I think will hijack my energy and time, I take a deep breath. I then visualize a simple picture with the cause, the emotion I’m feeling, and the action I can take to shift out of it and deal with what caused my reaction.

    For example, if something makes me angry, I visualize anger in a red circle with an arrow pointing to what caused it and another arrow pointing to the releasing action.

    The releasing action usually has two parts: The first part deals with the energy shift. For example, if I’m angry about something, I absolutely have to fit in some form of exercise as soon as possible. Even if I don’t have time and it’s just twenty sit-ups or a quick walk. This releases the energy in a healthy way and clears my mind.

    The second part deals with the cause and what action I can take to address it. In this instance, I promised myself I would always be my own advocate and insist on a test if I feel it is necessary.

    Make this process a habit and it will have a great effect on your energy, happiness, and productivity.

    You can only manage your emotions to the extent that you’re aware of them. Creating awareness gives you the chance to maximize and manage your experience. And by doing so, you can avoid getting stuck and depleting your most valuable resource: energy!

    Have you ever felt like your energy was zapped by your emotions? What helped you move past it?

    Photo by AlexanderStein

  • Why Letting Ourselves Feel Bad Is the Key to Feeling Better

    Why Letting Ourselves Feel Bad Is the Key to Feeling Better

    “The more you hide your feelings, the more they show. The more you deny your feelings, the more they grow.” ~Unknown

    For as long as I can remember, I have been on a quest to heal myself. From a very young age I can remember feeling different from my peers. I was always painfully shy and paralyzed with insecurity and fear, which left me in a constant state of self-criticism.

    Hardships in my young life, including the suicide of my father, left me with the belief that life was just hard.

    Unfortunately, I also thought that it wasn’t supposed to be and that something was wrong with me because I had so much pain in my life. My head swirled with shame wondering, “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get over this, or that?”

    My solution to the pain I felt was to basically wage war on myself and conquer all of the difficult feelings I experienced.  

    I truly believed that I just needed to figure out the right formula, accomplishments, and milestones, and then I wouldn’t have these painful feelings and I would finally feel okay in my skin.

    Along the way, I hit all of the targets I had identified: I lost weight, I earned degrees, I made money, I did lots of therapy; I created a life for myself where everything looked the way it was supposed to, but I still struggled with fears and insecurity.

    This mission I was on to fix myself only added insult to injury, because my primary thought process was that something was seriously wrong with me and if I wanted to be happy, like I thought everyone else was, then I needed to stop having what I had deemed “bad” feelings.  

    Rather than giving myself a break, I found the path of greatest resistance.

    I was in a constant battle with myself, where every time I had an uncomfortable feeling I jumped on myself for feeling that way and immediately set out to change that feeling. I couldn’t distinguish the difference of “I’m having a ‘bad’ feeling,” from “I am bad.”

    When we react negatively to our own negative emotions, treating them as enemies to be overcome, eliminated, and defeated, we get into trouble. Our reactions to unhappiness can transform what might just be a brief, passing sadness into a persistent dissatisfaction and overall unhappiness.

    Unfortunately, no matter how hard we try to avoid emotional pain, it follows us everywhere. Difficult emotions, like shame, anger, loneliness, fear, despair, confusion, are a natural part of the human experience. It’s just not possible to avoid feeling bad.

    However, we can learn how to deal with difficult emotions in a new, healthier way, by practicing acceptance of our emotions, embracing them fully as they are, moment to moment. For me, this has meant creating space in my life for all of the parts of experience, the ups and the downs.

    Unfortunately, in Western culture very few of us have been given the tools to tolerate our own difficult feelings, or those of another person. Not only do we want to avoid feeling pain at all costs, we want to prevent the people we care about from feeling their own pain.

    Recently I found myself in a situation where I was confronted with a past loss, and although it has been two years since the loss, I found myself emotionally wrecked, as though it had just happened yesterday.

    In my sadness, I reached out to a few friends for comfort and was surprised at how difficult it was for them to tolerate my difficult emotions.

    In an effort to help, they wanted to battle the sadness and told me things like I was sitting in self-pity and feeling sorry for myself; that I needed to practice more gratitude in that moment.

    Again, they weren’t trying to be hurtful; they were just trying to help me stop feeling sad.

    Thankfully, I’ve done enough work on this path to know that that was not what I needed. In that moment, I simply needed to allow myself to feel sad.  

    I knew the feeling wasn’t going to last forever and I had a choice, I could either drag it out by waging war on myself, or I could recognize that, for whatever reason, in that moment, I just felt sad.

    Again, our reactions to our difficult emotions can transform what may have been just a brief, passing sadness (as was the case for me in this situation) into persistent dissatisfaction and unhappiness (two decades of my life).

    By learning to bear witness to our own pain and responding with kindness and understanding, rather than greeting difficult emotions by fighting hard against them, we open ourselves up to genuine healing and a new experience of living; this is self-compassion.

    If you’re someone who is used to beating yourself up for feeling sad or lonely, if you hide from the world whenever you make a mistake, or if you endlessly obsess over how you could have prevented the mistake in the first place, self-compassion may seem like an impossible concept. But it is imperative that we embrace this idea if we are to truly live freely.

    When we fight against emotional pain, we get trapped in it. Difficult emotions become destructive and break down the mind, body, and spirit. Feelings get stuck, frozen in time, and we get stuck in them.

    The happiness we long for in relationships seems to elude us. Satisfaction at work lies just beyond our reach. We drag ourselves through the day, arguing with our physical aches and pains.

    Usually we have no idea how many of these daily struggles lie rooted in how we relate to the inevitable discomfort of life. The problem is not the sadness itself, but how our minds react to the sadness.

    Change comes naturally when we open ourselves to emotional pain with uncommon kindness. Instead of blaming, criticizing, and trying to fix ourselves when things go wrong or we feel bad, we can start with self-compassion. This simple, although definitely not easy, shift can make a tremendous difference in your life.

    It’s important to remember that embracing your strengths and well-being does not mean ignoring your difficulties. We are measured by our ability to work through our hardships and insecurities, not avoid them.

    We are all fighting some sort of battle, and when we accept this truth for ourselves, and others, it becomes a lot easier to say, “I’m struggling right now and that is okay.”

    Not being okay all the time is perfectly okay.

  • The “If, Then” Trap: How It Keeps You Unhappy and How to Avoid It

    The “If, Then” Trap: How It Keeps You Unhappy and How to Avoid It

    “Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.” ~Chuang Tzu

    Being an empty nester (the kids have grown up and left home), I noticed recently that I have fallen in love with little kids again.

    After going through all the kid stages, and surviving them (most notably the teenage years), I took a long kid moratorium. Skiing, mountain biking, traveling, gardening, and reading—all filled to the brim with a commodity I had forgotten about: time just for me.

    Now, unexpectedly, they’re back! Exhausting, enchanting, and a source of endless inspiration.

    A few doors down to the west I have new neighbors—Parker, her brother, and her parents. Parker hollers my name when I drive by, waves vigorously trying to escape her car seat when her Mom drives by, and marches into my yard like she owns the place.

    Full of “What’s that?” and “Why are you doing this?” questions. Needs to show me—no, demands to show me—whatever she has in her hand. Where she got it, what it does, and why it’s so important!

    I’ll have to admit I was a little annoyed at this mini-interloper at first. But it didn’t take long before I was helplessly enchanted by whatever kid-spell she was weaving.

    Parker is full out in the moment, fun, and crackling with excitement. What I quickly noticed, staring back at me, was how I was not (fun and in the moment).

    Even though I subscribe to the practice of being present, it’s often more of an ideal than a practice. Every day there is the “to-do list.” What I need to get done, to keep everything moving, and (in my mind) to keep everything from falling apart.

    I plan, scheme and, okay, I worry about whatever is coming up next. Finally, when it’s all over and done with, there is a big sigh of relief. Now I can go on to the next thing. Yet, once I’m on to the next thing the cycle starts all over again!

    I’ve recognized that this daily trap can keep me from being truly happy and experiencing the fullness of being in the present moment. It’s what I call the “If, Then Trap.” It’s really a happiness trap.

    The  “If, Then Trap” goes something like this 

    If I can just get this finished, then I can relax…

    If I were home more, then the kids would be happier….

    If I had more money, then we would be happier…

    If I exercised more, then I would be happier with myself…

    If my son would only apply himself in school, then I’d feel okay…

    What’s interesting about the “If, Then Trap” is that it is just a story. It’s a story about what we have decided things mean.

    When I practice yoga, mediate, or just hike in the mountains, and quietly align with the present moment, what I notice is that there are no problems. Everything is perfectly okay! What’s extraordinary about this is that nothing has changed.

    So why is there a deep sense of contentment during these life-stands-still moments when the external circumstances that keep us caught up in drama remain the same?

    Here’s what I think: the mind chatter, the stories we tell ourselves, and what we decide everything means ignites emotions that are perfectly aligned with the story we have been telling ourselves.

    It’s a viscous cycle: interpretation, and an emotional response that feeds right back into the story, the story grows and the resulting emotions make us unhappy.

    Clearly, in the present moment, happiness just happens. Unhappiness is manufactured. Chuang Tzu was right:  Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.

    As I finished writing this Parker appeared in my driveway.

    “What are you doing???” she hollered.

    “Writing about happiness,” I said.

    “Why? Happiness is easy!” she yelled, peddling out of sight.

  • Setting Emotional Boundaries: Stop Taking on Other People’s Feelings

    Setting Emotional Boundaries: Stop Taking on Other People’s Feelings

    “The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others.” ~Sonya Friedman

    The longer I stayed on the phone, the more agitated I became. My mother was on the other end, as usual, dumping her emotions on me. I had moved to Los Angeles for graduate school in part to escape all of this—my mother’s unhappiness, my sense of responsibility, the pressure to be perfect.

    When I hung up the phone, I felt an overwhelming sense of anger. At the time, I could not (correction: would not) allow myself to admit that I was angry with my mother. I couldn’t reconcile having such negative feelings and loving my mother at the same time.

    After all, hadn’t she sacrificed so much for me? Hadn’t I always considered her to be my closest confidante? Didn’t I proudly declare her to be my best friend when I was younger?

    Even the most positive memories between my mother and me have been eclipsed by the shadow of her depression.

    As a young child, I could never understand why my mommy was so sad all the time. I cherished the rare days she was carefree and silly and held these moments close to my heart. When she slipped into a depressive state, sleeping days at a time in her dark room, I willed her to come out.

    Early on, I learned to temper my behavior and my own emotions so as not to instigate or prolong her sadness. In my young mind, I made myself responsible for her and was not able to separate her feelings from mine.  

    I wanted her to be happy and thought that if I was always “good,” she would be. When she wasn’t happy, I blamed myself.

    Unconsciously, my mother fed this belief when she constantly bragged to others that I was the “perfect daughter.” The pressure to live up to my mother’s expectations overwhelmed me. I suppressed many negative feelings and experiences in favor of upholding the ideal she and I had co-created.

    That day, I turned this anger toward a safer target, my co-worker. That day at work, I blew up. I can’t remember what I said, but I distinctly remember the look of confusion on her face. My frustration with my inability to express myself made me even angrier. I excused myself, ran to the bathroom, locked myself in the last stall, and bawled my eyes out.

    Soon after, I took advantage of the free counseling services on campus. Over the next several weeks, my counselor helped me realize that it was okay to feel the way I was feeling. This was a radical idea for me, and one I struggled with at first.

    Because I had suppressed my own feelings for so long, when I finally allowed them to surface, they were explosive.

    Anger, resentment, and disgust came alive and pulsed through my body whenever I spoke with my mother during this time. While she seemed to accept truth and honesty from other people, I tiptoed around certain topics for fear of upsetting her.

    I never felt I could share the difficulties and challenges I experienced in my own life because this contradicted who I was to her. I felt I had no right to be unhappy. When I attempted to open up about these things, she often interrupted me with a story of her own suffering, invalidating the pain I felt.

    She seemed committed to being the ultimate victim, and I resented her for what I perceived as weakness.

    I realized that to get through my graduate program with my sanity intact, I needed to limit the amount of time and energy I gave to her. Instead, I found ways to protect and restore my energy. Writing became therapeutic for me. I found I could say things in writing I was unable to verbalize to my mother.

    This won’t be an easy letter for you to read, and I apologize if it hurts you, but I feel like our relationship is falling apart, and one of the reasons is that I’ve kept a lot of this bottled up for so long. I never thought you could handle honesty from me, and so I lied and pretended everything was okay because I was always afraid I would “set you off” or that you would go into a depressed mood.

    You unconsciously put so much pressure on other people (me especially) to fill your emptiness, but that’s a dangerous and unrealistic expectation, and people can’t and won’t live up to it. And they start to resent you for it. I do want you to be happy, but I’m starting to realize that I can’t be responsible for your happiness and healing; only you can.

    Seeing my truth on paper was the ultimate form of validation for me. I no longer needed to be “perfect.” I gave myself permission to be authentic and honored every feeling that came up.

    When I was ready, I practiced establishing boundaries with my mother. I let her know that I loved and supported her, but it negatively affected me when she used our conversations as her own personal therapy sessions. I released the need to try to “fix” things for her.

    I took care of me.

    Do you have trouble establishing healthy emotional boundaries?

    Take a moment to answer the following questions adapted from Charles Whitfield’s Boundaries and Relationships: Knowing, Protecting and Enjoying the Self.

    Answer with “never,” “seldom,” “occasionally,” “often,” or “usually.”

    • I feel as if my happiness depends on other people.
    • I would rather attend to others than attend to myself.
    • I spend my time and energy helping others so much that I neglect my own wants and needs.
    • I tend to take on the moods of people close to me.
    • I am overly sensitive to criticism.
    • I tend to get “caught up” in other people’s problems.
    • I feel responsible for other people’s feelings.

    If you answered “often” or “usually” to the above statements, this might be an indication that you have trouble establishing healthy emotional boundaries.

    Like me, you’re probably extremely affected by the emotions and energy of the people and spaces around you. At times, it can be incredibly hard to distinguish between your “stuff” and other people’s “stuff.”

    It is incredibly important to establish clear emotional boundaries, or we can become so overwhelmed and overstimulated by what’s going on around us that it’s sometimes hard to function.

    Here are a few ways to begin the process of establishing healthier emotional boundaries.

    1. Protect yourself from other people’s “stuff.”

    I can feel when someone is violating a boundary because my body tenses up. I realize that my breathing is very shallow. I feel trapped, small, helpless.

    The first thing I do is to remind myself to breathe. The act of focusing on my breath centers me and expands the energy around me. In this space, I can think and act more clearly.

    When I feel myself becoming too overwhelmed, I try to immediately remove myself from the situation. Sometimes all it takes is a couple of minutes to walk away and regain my balance. Other times, I have had to make the decision not to spend time with people who consistently drain my energy.

    Having a safe space to retreat, practicing mindfulness and meditation, or visualizing a protective shield around yourself are other methods that can help restore balance when boundaries are invaded.

    Find out what works best for you.

    2. Learn to communicate your boundaries in a clear and consistent way.

    For many, this can be the most difficult part of the process for various reasons. We don’t like to appear confrontational. We’re afraid that if we set clear boundaries for ourselves, the people in our lives will begin to resent us. However, learning to communicate boundaries effectively is necessary for healthy relationships.

    I’m not comfortable with that.

    It doesn’t feel good to…

    I’m not okay with…

    I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t…

    Please don’t…

    If you cringed at the thought of using any of these phrases, you’ll be relieved to know that communicating your boundaries doesn’t always have to be with words. You can also effectively communicate through the use of non-verbal.

    Closing the door, taking a step back, shaking your head, or signaling with your hands can be less threatening ways of letting others know what you will and won’t accept from them.

    3. Be patient with the process.

    When I first realized that I was taking on the negative emotions of my mother, I became extremely resentful and disgusted with her. Instead of taking responsibility for my role in allowing this dynamic to occur, I blamed her for every negative thing that had happened in my life.

    I closed myself off from her and shut her out completely. Our relationship became incredibly strained during this time as we both readjusted to the new boundaries I was setting.

    Eventually, I was able to allow her to have her own emotional experience without making it about me. I could listen and no longer become enmeshed or feel obligated to do something about what she was feeling.

    Whenever you change a pattern, it is natural to feel resistance from inside as well as outside the self. As you practice, your ego may start to act up and make you feel like you are “wrong” in establishing boundaries.

    Others may also become resentful of your newfound assertiveness. They may be used to a certain dynamic in your relationship, and any change has the potential to cause conflict.

    Remember to be kind to yourself through the process and repeat the following affirmation:

    I respect and love myself enough to recognize when something isn’t healthy for me, and I am confident enough to set clear boundaries to protect myself. 

  • Are You Holding Yourself Back with a Story About the Past?

    Are You Holding Yourself Back with a Story About the Past?

    “The distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” ~Albert Einstein 

    One morning I woke up inexplicably sad. I sat on my bed trying to make sense of how I felt and what could be behind it. Intuitively, I grabbed one of the many books lying on my night table and opened it in a random place.

    What I had in my hands was A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle, and the chapter was called “Breaking Free.”

    Tolle explains how we tend to be unconsciously engaged in stories from the past and habitual thoughts about them and how we avoid the feelings associated with them.

    Avoiding uncomfortable feelings instead of allowing them to wound us is not the answer, Tolle warns us; emotion is a response to what is happening in the mind.

    Our ego clings to false stories that create fear, anger, jealousy, and other emotional responses because it feeds on the past and future for its existence.

    The best thing we can do to reduce the impact of these emotions is acknowledge them.

    Uncomfortable emotions bring the precious gift of making us aware that we’re trapped in thoughts, beliefs, stories, and old interpretations of ourselves. By being present with our emotions, we can break our identification with them and release the past.

    Reminded once more that every emotion is a messenger of something else that’s running deeper, I allowed my sadness to just “be.”

    I could see how my past beliefs of being unwanted, undeserving, and punished were dominating the scene. I was living a past story as if it were happening today with an intensity that surprised me.

    I realized then that the stories we tell ourselves are a mixture of “old emotions” and experiences we have come to feel as our identity.

    “The Unwanted Me” is a personal story that has pervaded my life for too long, making me feel terrified about showing what I have to offer and taking pertinent actions.

    From an early age I felt that I was somehow “different.” My environment was one of noisy activities—hanging out, watching TV, or playing video games—while I enjoyed reading, silence, nature, learning, being by myself, and engaging in artistic or volunteering activities.

    I was an extroverted introvert; I loved to talk about things I was passionate about, and others mocked me for this.

    The rejection made me disappear into a very rich but lonely inner world. As I grew up, I developed an inquisitive mind and artistic tendencies, which seemed to aggravate and scare my relatives and acquaintances even more than my “nerdy” style.

    How could I feel so inspired and touched by things that drove others nuts? The battle to correct and bring back on track this lost sheep became so fierce and devastating that it ended with me having to leave home to be able to pursue my dreams.

    Finding my way to who I was included not only being homeless and broke but also feeling enormous amounts of guilt and shame for the disappointment and pain I was causing my loved ones by doing the “wrong things.”

    It took a lot of hard work to get where I am now. Long nights filled with doubts about my abilities and choices made the call for becoming an artist a painful one.

    The pleasure and wonder I felt for the arts became tainted by the belief that there was something inherently wrong with me and I was being punished for challenging traditional points of view.

    What I understand today is that I was struggling not only with the “real” day-to-day challenges but also with this invisible past story silently sabotaging my efforts. This is the reason why I feel so tired and frustrated sometimes.

    I have actually enjoyed the benefit of having good people in my life and even recognition, but because I was unaware of a hidden script running the show, it took me loads of effort to believe people actually appreciated me for my qualities instead of pitying me.

    I felt left alone many times in my life, which was both the result of the old pattern of being unwanted and punished and the fuel that kept the pattern going.

    I know better now than to let the old story run wild instead of building the one I want to live. Whenever I feel this way again, I can ask myself: Who is speaking? Is it the real me, or my old “unhappy,” “unwanted,” “unworthy” (fill the blank) story?

    Knowing what story we are telling ourselves helps us learn, little by little, to trust life and build the sense of self-worth we need to succeed and be fulfilled.

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

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

    Woman and a Suitcase

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    This is the five-step process I discovered:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    5. Practice patience and mindfulness.

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

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

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

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

    Photo by Donnie Nunley

  • A Simple Technique to Solve Problems Before They Get Bigger

    A Simple Technique to Solve Problems Before They Get Bigger

    Thinking Man

    “As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.” ~James Allen

    It was a beautiful day as we drove down the Desert Road two days after Christmas. The Desert Road is a stretch of highway in the North Island of New Zealand.

    On one side of the highway, three magnificent volcanoes provide the only break to the bleak, stark landscape. Otherwise, the ground is covered in dry grasses, rocks, and a straight highway to the horizon.

    During the drive, my husband and I were discussing the New Year and what would be the next adventure.

    As Edith Piaf began to sing “Je ne regret rein” on the mp3, our conversation swung to my mother’s death the past year and how she and I could never see eye to eye.

    My mother was a wonderful woman, but I was never the daughter she wanted and she was not the mother I wanted. As a child I wanted to be a nurse, but she convinced me that I was too smart to be just a nurse and needed to become a doctor.

    I did try hard and when I failed out of medicine, my mother was disappointed.

    She wanted me to marry someone well educated and from a good background. You can imagine her disappointment when I married someone raised in the Gorbals in Scotland who had failed to graduate an Honors BSC in Higher Mathematics.

    And she wanted me to take care of her, be at her beck and call, as we lived two doors away from her. Imagine her total frustration when we moved with our sons half way around the world to New Zealand.

    I pulled over as regret and guilt overwhelmed me. My eyes filled with tears and my head throbbed. I thought her death ended all the recriminations. I thought I was at peace with our differences, but at that moment there definitely was regret and grief.

    And as Peter held me, he reminded me of the way to solve problems and a way to move beyond the immediate pain of guilt and regret.

    Yes, guilt because I had failed to resolve the breach and the disappointment; guilt because I refused to choose my mother’s wishes over my personal desires and my immediate family. That guilt and remorse were thieves stealing my personal power.

    As we drove back onto the highway, we discussed how to use ICE to deal with the feelings of guilt and regret. ICE is an acronym for a technique to solve problems.

    First, you Identify your feeling, the problem, or the situation. 

    This stems from the belief that when you can name something, you then can deal with it. The naming needs to be precise and identify the “issue.” In this case, the “issue” was my feeling of regret and guilt.

    Next, you Control or corral the “issue.” 

    To control or corral an issue, first you have to take the emotion out of it.

    Start by taking several deep breaths to clear your mind. Then talk to someone, even yourself, about how the issue affects you, and if you want it to affect you in that way. Your choice: continued pain or more pleasure.

    Peter and I discussed how my guilt and regret were still holding me back from being what I could be. I needed to make a choice to move on and accept the fact that it was impossible to undo what was done.

    Then, you Execute or eliminate the “issue.”

    By identifying it and corralling it, you can choose how you will move forward. You can choose how you will deal with the “issue” in the present and the future. You can choose how you will act the next time the “issue” arises.

    When I accepted and acknowledged what had happened, I could even laugh at the fact that I no longer had to account to my mother for my present or my future. I could put my mother issues where they belonged, in the “what I learned” box, and move to live in today.

    Using ICE to keep success thieves away is like keeping thieves out of your home. You identify where they can break in. You control the points of entry by using locks or security to keep them out.

    You make it more difficult for the thieves and so eliminate or reduce the possibility that they will steal your treasures.

    As we drove on, we looked for other emotions and situations that steal my ability to function.

    And so my quest began—a quest to identify other reactions that steal my success or cause regret.

    The journey has been exciting and extremely challenging.

    The first step was getting clear that success was made up of hundreds of steps; identifying success and finding my own definitions, not my mother’s father’s or anyone else’s.

    My personal success is just that, personal. I remember when my mother would scold me for failing to meet her standards and expectations. I remember my father shaking his head about the decisions I made, decisions that he was certain would lead to my demise.

    I remember other key figures in my life expecting me to be one thing and their disappointment when I made a different choice than the one they wanted me to make.

    Once Identified, I needed to learn how to corral the emotions and other issues. As I controlled or corralled the “issues,” I removed their power to make me doubt my success. I compartmentalized the issues so that I could decide when to deal with them.

    Now I can eradicate those habits when I choose or decide not deal with the “issues,” but they no longer have any power to stop me from enjoying my success and magnificence.

    Yes, there are still times when my self-doubt and personal recriminations about what I do and how I do it make me curl into a fetal position and pull the covers over my head.

    On the Desert Road that morning, I realized that I could ICE any thief that threatens to steal my success.

    Life is too short for grief, guilt, and regret. Yes, the tears still come when I think of my mother, but I no longer fall apart and pull off life’s highway overcome with the regret.

    What problems or emotions can you overcome by ICE-ing them?

    Photo by Wesley Nitsckie

  • 5 Ways to Deal with Emotional Oversensitivity

    5 Ways to Deal with Emotional Oversensitivity

    “It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.” ~Pema Chodron

    I’ve never been much of a sun worshipper. I’m a pale blend of Irish, Scottish, and English, so my skin goes from alabaster to boiled lobster in about twenty minutes.

    Once when I was a teenager, someone accidentally smacked me on my sunburned back.  I was in tears. She was genuinely sorry and I said I was all right, but secretly I was angry.

    Couldn’t she see how red I was? How slowly I moved? Someone with a sunburn gives very obvious signs, or so I thought. How could she not know I was in pain?

    Now I can see how my signs weren’t obvious at all. Most of us are so busy rushing through our own lives that only the most astute person can see when someone else is hurting.

    So, when someone accidentally aggravates my injury, who is at fault? Them, for not noticing I’m hurt? Or me, for not alerting them to be careful?

    The answer, of course, is that nobody’s at fault. It’s an accident. Any mature person recognizes this and, instead of getting stuck in blame or guilt, takes immediate steps to make amends and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

    This is especially true for emotional pain.

    A friend used to hurt my feelings all the time. Accidentally. His actions were never overtly malicious. Yet he was as oblivious to my signs of emotional pain as that person who smacked my sunburn had been to my physical signs.

    My emotions felt sunburned.

    He knew about a relationship from a few years earlier that had left parts of me very raw. But the “clothing” of my naturally gregarious, optimistic personality concealed how sensitive I still was, just like the lightweight summer blouse had concealed the extent of my sunburn.

    He didn’t realize that his perfectly innocent behavior triggered deep pain in me.

    In my youth, I would’ve blamed him for hurting me. Thankfully, I was mature enough to realize that he wasn’t causing my pain; he was just accidentally irritating a tender spot I already had.

    I’ve always been extremely sensitive, emotionally. I often lack the ability to articulate what I’m feeling, or what I’m sensing from others, but I feel it. Oh, boy, do I feel it.

    Once I accepted that other people usually aren’t aware of my emotional sensitivities and how easily my feelings get hurt, I quickly developed a way to examine the true cause of any pain I felt.

    I use these five questions:

    1. Was it intentional?

    Putting aside my pain for a moment, I look at the situation from the other person’s perspective.

    Did she or he intend to make me feel this way? It’s rare when a good person is deliberately cruel, and it’s obvious when a mean person is bullying. When I trust that others aren’t trying to hurt me, I can take them out of the equation and focus on what I’m feeling.

    2. What am I feeling?

    When we’re in pain, blaming the person who hurt us is a natural defense mechanism. We project our pain outward as anger, rather than turning our attention inward to heal. Are we accusing someone of making us feel worthless? Stupid? Ignored? Embarrassed? Unattractive? Unloved and unlovable?

    Naming the accusation lets us dig beneath it to find the sensitive spot it’s protecting, and see what’s really going on.

    3. What’s really going on?

    Once I identify what I’m feeling, I want to figure out why I’m feeling it. What am I really struggling with? It’s usually a repeating theme centered on my insecurities.

    For example, if someone “made” you feel stupid, maybe you doubt your own abilities and intelligence. If someone “made” you feel worthless, perhaps you don’t accept your own value as a human being.

    I often feel forgotten or ignored, because I’m an overachiever who struggles with feelings of inadequacy.

    It helps to remember that other people can’t “make” us feel anything. They can only trigger feelings and opinions we already have about ourselves.

    4. Where’s the relief?

    Once you find where you’re sensitive, an emotional salve helps ease the sting. Maybe you need to be alone for a while. That’s okay. It’s also okay to ask for help. My favorite relief is spending quality time with friends, but I sometimes have trouble asking for that.

    I used think that asking for help was a sign of weakness in me. When I helped my friends, I never judged them as being weak. They were simply going through a rough time, and I wanted to help make them feel better.

    That’s when I realized that not asking for their help denied them a chance to be my friend. I now feel that asking for help is like giving a gift. I’m giving my friends something they want: a chance to be my friend.

    Maybe I need a distraction, and we just hang out together. Maybe I need to talk through what happened, to figure out how to stop it from happening again. It doesn’t matter.  I tell them what I need, they provide it happily, and we both feel better.

    5. How can I prevent it from happening again?

    Trust your relationships enough to talk with the person who hurt you about what hurts. Chances are, the other person has no idea you’re hurting.

    This is the hardest part for me. I’m always worried they’ll think I’m whining or placing blame. Be clear that you’re not blaming them and don’t want them to feel guilty. You simply want to share the fact that you have a sensitive spot.

    Together, figure out how to avoid irritating that sensitivity, and make a plan for how to deal with it if it happens again.

    We all have our insecurities—our sunburned emotions. Accepting and caring for those oversensitive spots helps protect them until they heal. And they will heal, just like a sunburn does.

    Surround yourself with supportive friends and family. It’s SPF for the soul.

  • Reclaim Your Authentic Self: 4 Steps to Recover from Bullying and Abuse

    Reclaim Your Authentic Self: 4 Steps to Recover from Bullying and Abuse

    Sitting and reflecting

    When I was in fourth grade, a girl from another class bullied me. I was in the bathroom during class when I heard the door creak open and whooshing shut. There was silence for a moment, then the girl’s hands appeared on the top of the stall door, followed by her face.

    “Whaddaya doin’ in there?” she asked.

    I quickly covered myself and replied as nicely as I could, “I’m using the bathroom.”

    “Well, hurry up,” she said. “Because I want to go.” There were three other stalls, so I knew I was in trouble.

    I had no idea who this girl was. I’d seen her on the playground, but I didn’t know her name, and to this day I still have no idea why she wanted to antagonize me.

    I finished my business and thought about just waiting to go out until someone else came in, but she was banging things around, and I didn’t want to be trapped in the stall if she decided to crawl under the door. So I walked out.

    The first thing she did was grab my glasses off my face and throw them against the wall. I ran over to them, afraid they were broken. I knew I’d get in trouble at home if they were.

    I picked them up, and as I turned around, she slapped me hard. I fell back against the wall, not even knowing how to defend myself in a fight, but I was lucky. She turned, and with her nose in the air, flounced out of the bathroom.

    I carried the fear from that experience, and others, for many years. After growing up in a very dysfunctional family, I had no idea how to express all the feelings that tumbled around inside and threatened to engulf me.

    When I was in my thirties, I began reading books like The Drama of the Gifted Child and For Your Own Good, and I finally began letting go of thirty years’ worth of repressed emotions.

    Over the last two decades, I’ve distilled the process of letting go of old emotions into four simple steps.

    Even though it’s simple, the process is not necessarily easy because it can be painful to look at old memories and hurt feelings that have been with us for many years, or even a lifetime.

    But clearing out the “emotional storehouse” opens the mind to more possibilities, restores self-esteem, and leads to a rediscovery of the authentic self, which has been trapped underneath all the repressed feelings.

    Here are the four steps:

    1. Figure out and acknowledge what you’re feeling.

    Is it shame? Sadness? Despair? Anger?

    2. Find a private place, and let yourself express that feeling.

    Cry, punch sofa pillows, shake your fists, throw rocks into a pond—whatever helps.

    Let your body do whatever it wants to do. You can also journal, but the feelings move out faster if they’re physically expressed, because emotions are stored in the musculature of the body when they can’t be expressed.

    3. Tell yourself you can let go of that feeling.

    You don’t have to keep holding it inside. Call up the witness part of you to comfort yourself as you express your emotions, and remind yourself that what you’re feeling is not who you are; it’s only a feeling that will pass.

    If you feel like you can’t let go of the feeling, ask yourself, “Why? What do I need to look at? What is holding me back from letting go?” A past event or experience will often surface if you ask with a feeling of curiosity and let yourself be open to any answer that comes. You may need to go back to Step 2 if this is the case.

    Repeating this step over the course of several days gives your subconscious mind time to bring the issue to the surface, and you may find that it’s easier to let go of it piece by piece instead of all in one fell swoop.

    If you’ve experienced a deep betrayal of yourself at some time in your life, your processing time may be longer than someone who hasn’t had many traumatic experiences. Be sure to be compassionate with yourself as you go through the process.

    4. Help yourself remember that life can be good.

    After you’ve let go of some feelings, call a supportive friend to talk about something else, go to a movie, or join a group that’s going to a fun place. Anything you enjoy doing is fine.

    When someone hurts us, it’s human nature to hold on to the hurt because we think that somehow, if we can figure it out, it won’t be as painful. But you hurt yourself all over again when you hold on to a bad feeling—thinking about past experiences can drag you down and make you miserable over time.

    It feels much better to let them go; just let their energy drift out of your body and mind. Once you do, you can see everything a little more clearly and be a little more in touch with your authentic self.

    Of course, it’s always prudent to seek help if your emotions seem too overwhelming or if you find that they prevent you from functioning in life.

    But if you continue this process over a period of time, eventually the old feelings will become a memory rather than a shadow that lives with you day in and day out, and you’ll be living more from your authentic self than from your past experiences.

    Photo by Frank Kovalchek

  • Don’t Respond to Drama and Drama Won’t Come Back Around

    Don’t Respond to Drama and Drama Won’t Come Back Around

    “When you are not honoring the present moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama.” – Eckhart Tolle

    One day several years ago, I was fraught with anxiety over with how to handle an uncomfortable personnel situation at work. I had an employee that was borderline explosive and insubordinate. I was a wreck over how to best handle the situation because before I was this employee’s manager, I was her friend.

    I found myself wanting to fix the problem by delving deeper into her drama, wanting to know why she felt a certain way, what I had done to contribute to it, and how we could work it out.

    Don’t get me wrong, I am all for conflict resolution and open communication. However, in this case, my employee was demonstrating signs of intense emotions that had the whirlwind energy of a cyclone.

    Her behavior and outbursts were unpredictable and inappropriate for the workplace.

    Her complaints, when listened to with close attention and discernment, were emotionally charged from unresolved personal wounds from the past. The drama— the whirlwind frenzy—was playing itself out in our present time employer/employee relationship, but it had nothing to do with me.

    I knew I needed to step back from this situation to calm my own reaction and fear. I too was becoming overly emotionally charged because of my own insecurities and unmet needs as a new manager.

    I was about to try to resolve her personal pain by bringing in my own whirlwind frenzy of emotions. Not a good idea.

    I needed to practice mindfulness and step into a space of neutrality. A space where my drama and baggage had a zero electrical charge. A space where her pain could not feed off of my pain.

    Was I successful? No.

    However, I did learn a big life lesson that I have been successful with practicing since this encounter: Don’t respond to drama and the drama won’t come back around.

    Drama loves more drama. Pain loves more pain. Negativity loves more negativity.

    With the practice of mindfulness it is possible to not respond to drama. If drama comes into contact with neutrality, it fizzles.

    How is it possible to not respond to drama? The first step is to recognize drama when it is in front of you. It is also critical to recognize if you are bringing the drama.

    Here are three ways to recognize signs of drama:

    You feel passion.

    Passion can be a wonderful experience. It can also fuel dysfunctional behavior and cause you to react without thinking.

    Signs that you are feeling passion include feeling a rush of energy pass through your body, a red face, an increased heart rate, butterflies in your stomach, flared nostrils, or shaky hands.

    Passion can also show up as emotionally charged thoughts and judgments. These include strong feelings of right or wrong, disbelief, blame, sadness, or a vehement desire for justice.

    The words spoken and behavior demonstrated don’t match.

    If someone is saying one thing and doing another, this is a sign of drama. Do not be fooled. What you see is exactly what it is.

    Be the witness of your experience and observe this discrepancy. If someone is telling you they do not mean to be rude, but proceed to offer a berating or condescending comment, trouble is in front of you.

    It feels urgent.

    Very few things in life are really urgent. Urgent qualifies as escaping from a burning building or swerving to miss an oncoming vehicle.

    Many times drama presents itself in the form of pressure that feels urgent. A false sense of urgency can be imprinted on you from another person’s frenzy of charged emotions. Urgency can also emerge from feelings that you are responsible for someone else’s situation.

    If something is not life threatening and you are told it needs to be done right now and you feel a sense of compression or fear, chances are, drama is in front of you.

    Once you practice recognizing drama, you are better equipped to not respond to it which in turn, allows drama to dissolve and stop in its tracks.

    Try these three practices to not respond to drama:

    Observe your body sensations, thoughts, and emotions.

    Mindfulness meditation teaches us to be the witness of our experience. It teaches us that we are not our bodies, not our thoughts, and not our emotions. It teaches us to develop a witness consciousness and be the third party observer of our experience.

    The more you are able to be the witness of your experience instead of identifying with the experience, the more easily you are able to discern the truth and make better choices.

    If you notice your heart rate increasing or your face flushing, let that be your cue to physically step away from the situation. Be present with your sensations and use your breath and mindfulness skills to bring you to a state of physical and emotional homeostasis where your muscles are relaxed and your breath is slow and even.

    Once the body, thoughts, and emotions are back to neutral, re-approach the situation from a grounded and centered place.

    Create a sense of spaciousness.

    Many times being around drama feels like compression, buzzing, or a whirlwind.

    You may notice you holding your breath as lots of people talk at once. You may notice drama feeding off of itself as voice speed, volume, and tone increase.

    Create space in these situations by softening your facial muscles, letting the jaw slightly part, gazing downward, and breathing slowly. Pay attention to the abdomen as your breath in and out to bring space to the body.

    By bringing space to the body, you bring more space to your thoughts and less opportunity to react. Your spaciousness also serves as an orientation point so the drama around you can loosen its grip. By loosening its grip, there is more opportunity for change.

    Sit with the discomfort.

    Not responding to drama is a practice. Not responding to drama means silence. It means not asking questions that take you deeper into the scenario. It means not agreeing or disagreeing, either with words or body language. Not responding means neutrality and not lending energy to the person or situation.

    This is a challenging practice. It feels uncomfortable.

    The most powerful thing you can do to remove drama from your life is sit with the discomfort of not responding.

    What you practice strengthens and gets easier with time.

    If drama comes into contact with neutrality, it fizzles.

    By not lending energy to something you do not want, you immediately create a closer connection to what you do want.

    If you want less drama in your life, drop your drama at the door. If you want more peace, be more peace.

    And remember…don’t respond to drama and drama won’t come back around.

    Peace to everyone and enjoy this practice!