Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • You Don’t Need to Fix Yourself to Be Healed

    You Don’t Need to Fix Yourself to Be Healed

    Calm Acceptance

    “Growth begins when we begin to accept our weaknesses.” -Jean Vanier

    I used to believe the word “healed” had a very specific meaning. In my mind, it described a state of perfection that always looked very different from the chronic health challenges I endured.

    Being born with VACTERL Association, a birth disorder that causes malformations in six of the body’s systems, meant that I entered the world needing a lot of fixes. There were surgeries, hospitalizations, treatments, and medications aimed at perfecting something inherently imperfect.

    The Search

    I grew up searching. To be like everyone else. For a cure. For Peace. Clarity. Happiness. Always searching for a technique or philosophy that could mold me into the ideal woman I imagined I should be.

    My search was fueled by a very narrow view of “normal,” “beautiful,” and “successful.” Images perpetuated on magazine covers and a myriad of self-help manifestos told me that life was good only if you could figure out how to become flawless, inside and out.

    I read hundreds of books, attended seminars, journaled, meditated, said affirmations, communed with my inner child, prayed, eventually begged, finally groveled. And nothing.

    Well, there was something. I found out that I was going to need a kidney transplant.

    I assumed this prognosis meant that I wasn’t being “spiritual” enough. I needed to try harder. I saw the decline in my kidney function as a manifestation of negativity in my emotions. Maybe the damage was subconscious?

    I saw healers and hypnotherapists. I listened to subliminal message tapes. I reviewed my memories, and looked, and looked, and looked for the cause of my current predicament. And still nothing.

    All that came out of my search was restlessness and desire to search more.

    I was operating under the assumption that if I meditated masterfully, became enlightened, or at least healed old emotional wounds than life would bend toward my will. It followed that since life was not yet how I wanted it, something must be wrong with me. I needed to find the fix.

    As I stewed in my own spiritual turmoil, my kidney function continued to decline. The pressure I had placed on myself to not just find the cure, but to become the cure was making things worse.

    Life is Suffering

    I thought “healed” meant that life became the way you wanted it to be. I could not have been further from the truth. I had missed the most basic of Buddhist principles: life is suffering.

    Becoming spiritual does not mean that we are no longer human. It doesn’t take away the pain, illness, and stress; it only reframes it. Suffering tells us that we are inherently human. Coping with human challenges does not mean that we are less-than or that we are damaged; it only means that we are experiencing things all human beings experience.

    The trick is not to bend life’s will to our personal desires. It is the other way around. We must find the flexibility to bend to Life. That is what I had been missing.

    There Was Nothing to Find

    All of that searching took me to the most basic of places: exactly right where I was. Nothing to fix. Nothing to do. Nothing to become.

    I no longer see “healed” as some form of perfection. It isn’t a certain health status, lab value, or lack of a diagnosis. Healed isn’t remission or cure. It isn’t any specific thing.

    Healed is the willingness to unconditionally accept whatever life is at this exact moment.

    My kidney is now flirting with the edge of kidney failure. Transplant plans are in the works. Sometimes I feel scared or worried. Sometimes I cry. Those are things I accept too. I no longer need to always be positive. I don’t force myself to be anything other than exactly what I am.

    I’m learning to yield. It is a practice. I still have latent urges to “figure this out” or to be the miracle doctors cannot explain, and those tendencies get welcomed into my experience as well.

    That’s the thing about acceptance: it doesn’t require searching. It is always available. Simply knowing that these rough edges are part of being here in a body, on earth, lifted a huge weight off of me.

    I am healed. Even as I face surgery and a lifetime of medication, I am healed. At peace. With clarity. Content. Happy.

    Photo by Cornelia Kopp

  • Transforming Panic Into Peace: 3 Steps to Relieve Anxiety

    Transforming Panic Into Peace: 3 Steps to Relieve Anxiety

    “No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” ~Buddha

    Growing up, I was one of those people much more concerned about what you thought of me than what I thought of me.

    With my focus being on how I was being perceived by those around me, it left me feeling extremely unsettled.

    I was desperate to be liked and accepted.

    “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind” was a nice idea for the fortunate, but certainly not for me.

    I was convinced that Dr. Seuss was living in fantasyland!

    This social anxiety spread to my work life, too. I wondered why I was never truly happy or successful. I wondered why I didn’t enjoy the rich relationships that so many around me seemed to enjoy.

    Then I discovered Zen.

    I read that Zen means awareness, and being with what is, as it is.

    What I loved most about Zen is its utter simplicity in recognizing what is really true. Not what is partially or sometimes true, but what’s always true.

    It didn’t compromise.

    I liked that. I wanted that ability to recognize what was always true. That sounded like real emotional freedom to me.

    Zen kept telling me truth was simple, so simple that it was often overlooked by the mind that loved to judge, condemn, compare, and resist.

    Zen meant to be in alignment with reality as it actually unfolded, not as I wished it would unfold.

    Simple indeed!

    I saw how my mind loved to complicate things. I saw how my mind resisted so much of what was actually happening.

    And I was miserable and stressed out.

    I failed to see the inseparable connection between panic and peace—and how resisting one would never reveal the other.

    However, as I began to incorporate what I was learning, I found that when I met the anxiety symptoms without running from or avoiding them, my experience began to change, too.

    They no longer had control of me.

    I had new life.

    And I wanted more of it.

    Here are the three things that dramatically reduced or eliminated the anxiety and panic I had been experiencing. Consider implementing the following and see if it brings you more peace.

    1. Meet your panic and anxiety head on.

    Zen is essentially about who we’re being in relation to something or someone, and this includes needless anxiety. It also includes this very moment. In fact, especially this very moment, as it shows up, and not as I wish it would show up.

    Inherent in anxiety and panic attacks is the belief that it shouldn’t be happening. But this is never true.

    No amount of wishing a particular moment to be different than it is can ever change that moment. Many actually think it’s a good strategy, but it rarely ever works out.

    Upon closer examination, I saw that whenever I ran from anything, that thing chased me. This included thoughts and feelings.

    I found that whenever I faced and embraced anything, it eventually dissolved and left my experience. I was encouraged because I knew I was onto something significant.

    I walked around with a new mantra: “What I run from must chase me.”

    It served as a great reminder and often snapped me back into being in alignment with what was actually occurring.

    Whatever I met head on lost its power, every time. Resistance would often magically drop away. And it was palpable.

    I learned that I can either live with the laws that govern me (and all of life) or I can resist them and suffer.

    Seeing that I couldn’t escape the consequences of how I met anything, I began to face what was facing me. And that insight, I found, was the difference between living a life of peace versus a living a life of stress.

    I began to consciously choose peace.

    In fact, any challenging situation (or emotion) that arose wanted to be met by my loving attention.

    Stress manifested only if I avoided the negative thoughts and feelings.

    If I shined the light of gentle awareness on what wasn’t at peace within me, it had to come out of hiding and release me—because I met it.

    2. Allow it to be as it is.

    Notice how your mind in its infinite wisdom will tell you that any particular thought, feeling, or experience should or could be different than it presently is.

    Is it ever true? Can it ever be true? As much as the mind will try to use logic and reason, it’s never true.

    Things are often different than they were, but they are never different than they are!

    This may seem counterintuitive, but the reality is we must first accept our present lot if we wish to experience something different in the next moment. We can’t expect to resist our current situation and simultaneously be at peace.

    It won’t happen.

    The essence of Zen is about being with whatever arises without offering any resistance whatsoever. It’s about being neutral emotionally so that we are in a position to respond appropriately.

    Alternatively, resistance is the energy that gives life to what we don’t want.

    If we simply allow our symptoms of anxiety to be as they are, we find that they don’t hang around long enough to torture us.

    By taking the backward step (as they say in Zen) into this present moment, we discover that peace never left us in the first place.

    It just seemed that way.

    Allow your anxiety to be as it is, as you look to overcome it.

    3. Be compassionate with yourself.

    Sure, you’ve heard it before. Be nice to yourself! Get off your back! Stop blaming yourself! The key to effective transformation—turning panic into peace—is to stop beating yourself up and to make yourself the most important person in your life.

    Wouldn’t you treat someone who really needed support with kindness and compassion?

    Why are you any different?

    Perhaps the greatest quality of spirit that the Buddha spoke most about was compassion, not only towards oneself, but to others as well. Compassion is the great neutralizer that has a way of dissolving old wounds, as well as new ones.

    The truth is you’re not to blame for your anxiety, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible for it.

    You aren’t “crazy” or “weak”—and you’re no less worthy a human being for experiencing it, either. Your mind may tell you different, and even sound very convincing, but is it really true?

    No, it isn’t. Not even a little bit.

    Work with yourself, not against yourself, if you truly desire to transform your panic into peace. It’s all in how you relate to your current condition. Self-condemnation only gets you more of what you don’t want.

    The truth is, you are much more than any thought or feeling that arises. Within you is the power to transform your panic into peace.

    As the Buddha said, “Be a light unto yourself.”

    Transcending anything never involves rejection, but it always involves acceptance.

  • When Things Fall Apart: Breakdowns Can Create Breakthroughs

    When Things Fall Apart: Breakdowns Can Create Breakthroughs

    “Breakdowns can create breakthroughs. Things fall apart so things can fall together.” ~Unknown

    “I’m sorry,” the email said, “but our phone call left me feeling uncomfortable, and we’ve decided to work with someone else.”

    I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Even though I saw it coming. Even though I’d brought it on myself.

    It was February 2010, and I didn’t have the money to pay my mortgage. My savings were gone, burned through in a misguided attempt to breathe life back into my ailing business by “throwing money at the problem.”

    As a ketubah artist—a maker of Jewish marriage contracts and other wedding artworks—sales are always seasonal, but ever since the economy had tanked in 2008, even spring and summer “wedding season” was slower than I was used to.

    After two years of lean sales, without the savings normally socked away from fatter months, I was feeling desperate.

    It was that desperation that had made me try to hurry along an imminent sale to an enthusiastic bride and groom by offering a special upgrade—but “only if they bought now.”

    Big mistake.

    It was the worst, most humiliating mistake in my whole business life, in fact.

    The couple had been in correspondence with me for weeks, and was on the verge of buying not just a ketubah, but also a Quaker wedding certificate and matching invitations. The sale was virtually guaranteed, and would bring in more than enough to pay my mortgage.

    But in my fear that they’d delay making a final decision until after my mortgage due date had come and gone, I panicked. I tried to create a sense of urgency to get them to buy today, and lost the sale.

    Then I lost my grip.

    The Liberation of a Breakdown

    When the contents of the bride’s email sunk in, I physically collapsed, my body wracked with sobs. I remember the rational part of my mind watching, as if from someplace on the ceiling, thinking, “Wow, this is what hysteria looks like!”

    I was the definition of a breakdown.

    It was one of the worst moments of my life.

    In a way, it was also one of the best moments of my life, though it sure didn’t feel good at the time!

    With hindsight, though, I can now see that this horrible crisis was exactly what I needed to break out of the miserable rut I was in and break through to something better.

    The truth was I’d been burned out on my business for years. I needed a change, but like a horse with blinders on, I couldn’t see that there might possibly be a different path available to me. So I kept plodding along, while my business fizzled and my zest for life fizzled along with it.

    My breakdown finally ripped the blinders off my eyes. It was as if I emerged from a dark hole into the light and saw the vast possibilities of the world suddenly before me. Maybe I could do something else, even (gasp!) get a job.

    Casting about for other ways to earn money felt surprisingly liberating. I didn’t realize how chained I’d felt to my identity as a ketubah artist. It may sound funny, but it was a revelation that I didn’t have to do the same thing forever!

    Pay Attention to Messages from the Universe

    As I was tenderly making my first baby steps forward on a new, yet-to-be-defined path, just one week after my big breakdown, my boyfriend and life partner announced that he was moving out, taking his contribution to the living expenses with him. No thirty-days notice, no nothing.

    Can you say “double whammy”?

    (Thank goodness for my very supportive parents, who helped me pay my mortgage that month.)

    Now both my work life and my personal life were in tatters. It was as if the universe had sent me a telegram, special delivery, with the message “Time to change your life -(STOP)-”

    No, strike that: It was as if the universe had walloped me upside the head with a two-by-four!

    In fact, the universe had been sending me little notes and whispering in my ear for years. Burnout doesn’t happen overnight, but I simply hadn’t been paying attention.

    And when you don’t pay attention to notes from the universe, it starts to speak louder. Then it starts to poke you. Eventually, if you still don’t pay attention, out comes that two-by-four.

    This time I listened. Everything had fallen apart, and clearly there was no going back. The only way out of the breakdown was through.

    Change Is Painful and Scary, but Also Exhilarating

    Let me tell you, that wallop from the universe hurt. It’s disheartening when everything you’ve worked hard to build tumbles down like a castle made of children’s blocks, and it’s scary to start down a new path.

    Along with the fear, though, was an incredible sense of possibility. It was exhilarating! I didn’t know exactly where I was going, but the fact that I was no longer stuck in a rut brought my zest for life back.

    Sometimes things have to fall apart in order to fall together.

    Change is hard, so unless the pain of not changing is worse than the pain of changing, it’s all too easy to stick with the status quo. My breakdown turned out to be precisely what I needed to finally break through to the life I really wanted.

    Without my humiliating client disaster, who knows how long I might have continued to cling to my ketubah business as my only option? Instead, with my castle-of-blocks leveled by crisis, I was suddenly free to build an entirely new castle.

    No more settling! Within two months I’d started my blog and was on my way toward building the big, bold, creative life I longed for.

    The Key Is In the Letting Go

    Finding my way on this new path hasn’t happened overnight (and of course the path is continually evolving), but getting from breakdown to breakthrough—from hopeless and miserable to hopeful and excited about life again—happened rather quickly once I let go of what had been.

    That’s what breakdowns are good for: They help you let go so you can try something different.

    Clinging to what had worked well or made me happy in the past was only keeping me stuck in my rut. I had to let everything break down in order to build it up again. Only after my life fell apart were things able to fall together for me.

    I keep hoping that I’ll get better at paying attention to those whispers from the universe, so I don’t have to feel the pain of another two-by-four to the head.

    If I do get walloped again, though, hopefully I’ll remember that breakdowns can create breakthroughs, and that things fall apart so they can fall together again.

    Have you had an experience of a breakdown leading to a breakthrough? How did things fall apart for you, and how did they fall together?

  • 5 Ways to Thrive When Life Feels Chaotic and Uncertain

    5 Ways to Thrive When Life Feels Chaotic and Uncertain

    Standing in the Storm

    “All great changes are preceded by chaos.” ~Deepak Chopra

    A personal tempest blew through the doors and windows of my life, and I am forever changed. Think major upheaval in every area of your life. Conjure Dorothy Gale, Robinson Crusoe, Job, yeah them.

    In the process, I’ve learned that the disorienting storms of life are not just about survival but of learning to thrive. It is not in spite of daunting circumstances that we grow but because of them.

    For three years, painful and unexpected events descended all at once. My long-term marriage, often filled with anger, hurt, mistrust, and not surprisingly, a lack of intimacy, was imploding. My teenage son, who had been very ill, was hospitalized.

    In the midst of this, my three children and I moved from our family home of twenty years to a new town. When things seemed to quiet down, my eldest daughter was diagnosed with a chronic and life-altering disease. Oh yes, and I was restarting a career.

    Chaos. The utter confusion left in in its wake caused me to stop and reevaluate many of my assumptions about myself and life.

    What made this period even more difficult to endure was a sense of abandonment by some whom I thought would always be there, yet perhaps through a sense of helplessness or their own fears could not. Maybe they thought I was contagious. I started to wonder about that myself.

    The irony of all of this was, through the lens of the outside world, my life had been seemingly idyllic before. Or had it?

    I began to see that my tendency to avoid chaos at all costs lead me right into the belly of it. As humans, we desire harmony and seek order, in our surroundings, our relationships, and in our daily routines. We all crave certainty.

    I found the paradox is that when you cling to the illusion of safety, you chain your ability to change.

    I also discovered several anchors that kept me grounded in the midst of feeling uprooted. In fact, they never failed me.

    Here is what I’ve learned that “worked’ consistently:

    1. Surrender.

    This is a difficult concept to grasp on an emotional level. This is because we are hard wired, evolutionarily, to fight or to flee when experiencing turmoil. This response served us very well when we were being chased by saber tooth tigers. Unfortunately, it creates more conflict internally.

    It takes courage to allow strong uncomfortable feelings, whether grief, anger, or loneliness, to just be instead of trying to force them away. But acceptance brings relief.

    2. Meditate.

    Someone once told me to meditate as if my life depended on it. I do, because it does. Desperation does wonders. My more formal practice consists of twenty minutes in the morning and twenty minutes in the early evening, sitting quietly and focusing on my breathing. If my mind is especially active on any given day, I use my “mantra” (the word joy) as I breathe.

    Throughout the day, I strive to practice mindfulness, which simply means to bring my full presence to all that I do. Conscious attention to each activity and interaction brings a calm to my mind and heart. It brings me back to myself.

    Another meditation technique I found to be extremely helpful during a sea change of hard times is the meditative practice called tonglen.

    Our pain can feel such a heavy burden at times. Tonglen helps by easing the sometimes intense sense of our own suffering by powerfully connecting us with the struggles of others.

    Instead of primarily focusing on our own set of difficulties, we purposefully visualize and take on the suffering of others on the in-breath and release happiness for them on the out breath.

    It may sound counterintuitive, but I found it relieved me of my own sense of isolation and gave me the gift of perspective. It also helps me to develop greater compassion for myself and others.

    3. Observe nature.

    When a storm is coming, they hunker down. They prepare the best they can. Birds’ nests and beavers’ dams are fortified. Food is foraged. They don’t foolishly (read: egotistically) try to soldier on.

    They wait it out. They trust the process.

    When our own personal storms occur, we simply do what we need to do to protect ourselves. For me, that means to stop rushing around accomplishing “one more thing.” I take safety in the shelter of my own home, having stores of healthy and comfort food on hand, books and magazines for fun and for personal growth to read, and the perennial elixir, bath salts, to recharge.

    I do not have to fully understand in the moment why or how the storm came to be or if there is a lesson to be learned from it. I simply have to get out of harm’s way. We can analyze to no avail now knowledge that will come effortlessly to us in retrospect.

    4. Lean on others.

    We all know that family and friends are often a precious salve during times of crisis, change, or loss. Reach out. Stay connected. And realize that if you can’t immediately find someone to give you the kind of support you need, there are those to help you see the situation with new eyes.

    People came into my life during this period, serendipitously so, who were engaging, loving, and continue to help me expand and grow. The universe opens up a host of unexpected resources when you risk being vulnerable.

    5. Keep the insights.

    Some amazing realizations emerge during these times of struggle. We learn what’s truly important and to let the rest go.

    Cliché as it may sound, my health and well-being and those that I love are paramount, and I treat them as such. It’s very difficult to be happy or effect positive changes in the world if you are in some state of dis-ease.

    I’ve discovered the vitality of finding moments and experiences in life’s everyday activities that lift my spirit and make me smile. My morning cup of coffee, the soft fur on my old dog’s face, the bright pink rose bush against the white picket fence out my study window, all perfect in their simple abundance.

    As I practiced healthy behaviors like meditation, exercising, eating well, and other avenues available on the road of loving self-care, I began to heal and see situations improving.

    I also discovered that in order to cultivate this deeper, more meaningful life, I found I must maintain these practices. When things are going well, I tend to relax my vigilance. Some of the old behaviors of mismanaging stress creep in. Complacency has been a stubborn roadblock on the journey.

    There is where change can be my friend. It doesn’t allow me to be complacent. If change is accepted in this spirit, it can be a catalyst for greatness. Buddhist nun Pema Chodron affirms that “to be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” In fact, it is the only way to learn how to fly.

    Looking back on my life before all the chaos, I realized I was chasing status in my work and even my family life, and choosing security (an illusion at best) over listening to my heart.

    Now I listen without jumping to conclusions or searching for quick fix solutions. I enjoy strong and vibrant relationships with my children, knowing I don’t ultimately control outcomes. I am currently in a partnership where we encourage each other to grow and risk and be vulnerable.

    My work is now more like a calling than a job, providing me with rare and wonderful opportunities to engage with people about their own personal journeys and how they make meaning in their life.

    I am amazed by the profound ways my life has “taken off,” unimagined by me, still in mid-flight.

    Photo by Eddi van W

  • Become Open-Minded: The Benefits of Embracing New People and Ideas

    Become Open-Minded: The Benefits of Embracing New People and Ideas

    Clearheaded

    “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

    Toward the end of last spring I was feeling a little restless in Los Angeles, so I decided to take some time in the summer to live on a yoga retreat in Hawaii. I was set on recharging and finding comfort in like-minded people who valued slowing down and mindfulness.

    Learning was not at the top of my list; I was there to unwind from a tough semester and recharge for the semester ahead of me.

    I was in for a big surprise. 

    When I got there, I was greeted by the expected tanned-skin and white smiles of mostly 20-something-year olds in yoga pants. They shared more than yoga tips; there seemed to be an underlying philosophy they shared that, honestly, made me very uncomfortable at the time.

    You see, even though I am really into yoga, slowing down, and the like, I am also a very political person. And by political, I don’t just mean involvement and interest in what is going on around me in the world; I mean that I feel active in my existence on earth and cherish my ability to create.

    This is why I found myself being annoyed by the constant sayings around the dinner table like, “I can’t wait what tomorrow has in store for me” and this talk about going with the flow and letting go.

    The emphasis placed on receptiveness, passivity, and ease seemed antithetical to what I stood for at the time.

    So I left the retreat early. I thought I would feel better surrounded by people who thought like me, and were interested in outrospection versus constant introspection. I wanted to be around people that were a little less hedonistic and self-indulgent—or so I thought.

    When I got back, I got sick. Just a few months back in Los Angeles, I received six biopsies that confirmed I had Celiac’s disease. This explained the incurable anemia, constant nausea, and incredible exhaustion.

    My friends and family here could hardly relate, and they urged me to get back “on track” as soon as I could, to join in the projects I was a part of with them, at my university and at work.

    The “get over it” attitude made me feel so lonely and objectified, and really started making me think, what am I going to do now?

    The pressure to get myself back on that productive momentum was straining me, and made me reconsider my previous judgment about the power of letting go.

    Although I realized that embracing this philosophy would mean I would be contradicting what I previously asserted for myself, it was a small shift in my mindset that would gradually set up a path for my personal enlightenment.

    After pensive thoughts about who I should start surrounding myself with, I realized I should focus on that less and start putting my energy into the kind of person I wanted to be.

    I asked myself, “Will my values continue to be deep-rooted in constructivism, politics, and action, or will I be like the bohemian girls I met on the retreat?”

    The truth is, neither of these perspectives truly satisfied me. After swinging from one extreme to another, I realized I felt more comfortable picking and choosing my philosophies as opportunities and experiences unraveled themselves over time.

    I shifted my mindset to discard my dreams of finding a one-size-fits all philosophy, and settled for middle ground.

    This new perspective has influenced my own work in the field of political psychology; it has shaped way I approach politics; I now analyze it from a bottom-to-top perspective versus a top-to-bottom paradigm.

    I have decided I feel better when I am nonpartisan, and simply support platforms based on how they fit with my values at the moment.

    I am learning to trust myself, because I am learning that with new experiences, values can shift, and that is okay.

    I am going back to this yoga retreat this summer, and hope to go in with a better attitude and more openness so that I get more out of the experience. The whole approach of going in with my mind made up with “who I am” and “what others should be like” has not worked for me.

    This is not to say that I am giving up on reasoned judgment, but that I will place more emphasis on learning and being receptive to change, since it is inevitable anyway.

    So in retrospect, when I went to this retreat in Hawaii last summer, I didn’t think I would learn valuable skills that would serve me in sickness. That’s the beautiful thing about traveling—trying on different perspectives that make you into a more multilayered, understanding person.

    I realize that we may not all get the opportunities to travel, and it can be easy to get so immersed in our own perspective and way of being that we fail to grow from the contrast that travel can provide.

    As Alexis de Tocquevilleonce said, “Without comparisons, the mind does not know how to proceed.”

    I hold the belief that without regular checkpoints and contrast in life, we may develop tunnel vision, which can influence us to think and behave in ways that limit us. Here is some insight and advice I have gathered to bring some perspective:

    Embrace fear in your life.

    Yes, expanding your mind and challenging what you firmly held onto before can be scary. However, know that embracing the unknown can open you up to new experiences, people, wisdom, and insights.

    Keep your priorities clear.

    This means to remember that if you are trying to gain perspective, to keep your mind open no matter what. Place learning at the top of your list of things to do so that receptiveness, openness, and controlled passivity will naturally follow.

    Don’t forget to share!

    Chances are, if you are traveling or even planning on broadening your perspective at home, others can learn from yours as well. In my experience, there is nothing more profound than sharing perspectives and having both parties walk away with an enriched view of life.

    Photo by ePi.Longo

  • The Time to Act Is Now: Get Out There and Seize the Moment

    The Time to Act Is Now: Get Out There and Seize the Moment

    Leap in the Air

    “Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you won’t do anything with it.” ~M. Scott Peck

    For most of my life, I thought I had no ambition.

    To be fair, I thought it because it was true. Don’t get me wrong. I had ambition to keep living, to shower daily, and to seek out entertainment at the end of my miserable days working in customer service. Still, regardless of how miserable those days were, I wasn’t motivated to change my life path.

    I used to wish for ambition, in that vague sense that was part fervent desire and part dismissal. I wanted it, but thought that it wasn’t part of me. If I didn’t have enough ambition to become ambitious, what was the point?

    Then I got cancer, and I realized that sometimes things come to us in the most strange and horrible ways.

    I was 35 when I was diagnosed. I had an associate’s degree and worked at a dead-end job, answering phones and writing down messages. All of a sudden, I had this…this disease, and what had I done with my life? What did I have to be proud of?

    I was proud of one thing. I had an amazing son, and since the day he was born, I had poured all of my life into him. At 14, he was already fiercely independent, and didn’t need me like I needed him.

    With cancer, my motivation didn’t need to kick in immediately. All of the decisions were made for me. I had an advanced grade of tumor, and although I was Stage One, my oncologist insisted that I needed chemotherapy, followed by radiation.

    I didn’t realize overnight that I had motivation. It was a slow dawning upon me.

    At first it just felt like I was doing what I needed to do to get through every day. Losing my hair filled me with resolve to become an advocate and show others what beauty from within could look like. I very deliberately didn’t wear my wig because I felt that hiding behind it sent a message of its own, one I didn’t want to endorse.

    Cancer woke me up to the possibilities my life still had. The one thing I got out of it was that I wanted to live, and living now meant doing everything I had never realized I really needed to do.

    I began chemo in March 2011, and followed it with 33 radiation treatments. I thought my breast was going to fall off on its own by the end, but I finished in July and hit the ground running.

    I went back to college in August, received my bachelor’s degree in May, and was accepted to graduate school that fall. I began the program in January of this year, and applied for and got a graduate assistant position. I also manage a movie theater for my second job.

    When I went for my enrollment appointment with my advisor, she expressed concern that I was doing too much, that I was pushing myself too hard.

    I couldn’t explain to her what it felt like to sleep through 35 years of life and suddenly feel like you were awake for the first time. I couldn’t explain that there was no such thing as too hard when every day I felt ecstatically, unbelievably alive.

    Today, I have all the motivation I ever thought I wanted and then some. I beat cancer, and if I have a recurrence, I’ll beat it again. I have a lot of time to make up for, and every single day is a gift.

    Do I still have lazy days? You bet I do. But my days are filled with purpose now instead of longing, and for that I am so glad.

    I was talking to a friend recently, and I told him that I was grateful to have had cancer. He couldn’t believe I said that, and frankly, neither could I, but as I said it I knew it was true. Sometimes we get answers to wishes that we didn’t even know we wished for. Sometimes those answers feel more like burdens to bear.

    But cancer was what I needed to survive to realize that life was too short to be miserable. Do I recommend that everyone get cancer to get through life? Of course not, but there are themes that apply to everyone.

    Overcoming obstacles.

    Powering through in the face of adversity.

    Getting up and going when all you want to do is rest.

    My favorite saying is “You have to get there yourself.” You absolutely do. There is no one or nothing that can force you to do that which you do not want to do.

    You might be drifting in your own life, and thinking that you want a change. I can’t tell you how to do that.

    If you’re a fellow drifter, my best advice is to work on giving up your limiting beliefs about what you’re capable of doing.

    No matter who you are, how old you are, what your health is like, you are so much stronger than you realize. I spent 35 years wishing that I was different, and that got me nowhere. The time to act is now.

    Now get out there and seize your moment. And when you’re done with that, seize another.

    Photo by Lauren Manning

  • 5 Steps to Overcome Fear and Meet Your Goals

    5 Steps to Overcome Fear and Meet Your Goals

    Standing on a Bridge

    “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” ~Nelson Mandela

    The world can be a scary place.

    As we go through our daily lives, we face many challenges, and often these challenges can bring about fear. We may fear the loss of something, or perhaps the lack of fulfillment. We may experience fear when going on a job interview or a first date.

    The greatest challenge with fear is that it can hold us back from achieving our goals, but it doesn’t have to.

    Over the past six months I have let one fear hold me back from achieving the one thing I feel I wholly deserve. I’ve had a fear of not meeting my soul mate.

    After being single for nearly six years, I felt a sense of loneliness and a desire to build a relationship with someone.

    I turned to online dating last fall, a method I tried for over eight months. I was able to meet many people and enjoyed dinners and walks with potential mates, but nothing ever developed past two dates with the same individual.

    After many dates that didn’t lead to anything long term, I felt deeper fear, sadness, and a loss of hope.

    I came to realize that my desire to meet the person I would potentially spend my life with had manifested into a fear that drove away any hope of building something real and lasting.

    Dating began to feel like a chore, and it became unenjoyable. For love to happen, I had to overcome my fear and enjoy the time I spent meeting new people.

    I believe in the power of intention. But in setting forth an agenda, we must learn to let go and have faith. Things may not happen when we want them to, but often a delay is the result of greater things at work.

    Wayne W. Dyer wrote in The Power of Intention, “if we focus on what’s ugly, we attract more ugliness into our thoughts, and then into our emotions, and ultimately into our lives.”

    Intention is related to fear because if we can trust our own intentions and allow our minds to focus on the potential positive outcomes, we will face less fear in most situations.

    It’s easy to let fear play a part in our daily lives. I’ve had many opportunities to face my fears lately, but I knew little about overcoming them. Alas, I learned several key facts that have broken down my fears and allowed me to focus on achieving my goals.

    These five techniques will help you overcome fear in your daily life:

    1. Start small.

    Fear comes in many shapes and sizes. Facing it doesn’t have to be a grand gesture.

    My fear of living life alone created immense challenges. “I’m going to grow old alone,” I once said. Deep down, I knew this wasn’t true, but my mind had saturated into a restricting fear around the worst-case scenario.

    I broke down my anxiety into smaller, more manageable pieces. Instead of wondering how I could meet my soul mate, I thought about how I could make new friends instead. By focusing on meeting new people, I have increased my odds of reaching my goal without the anxiety and pressure of finding “the one.”

    Instead of focusing on the end result, I can now focus on more manageable goals.

    No matter how large or small your fears may seem, scaling down to a more manageable size will be beneficial. Slowly step out of your comfort zone and begin moving towards your goal.

    2. Have faith.

    While achieving your goal may not happen on your preferred timetable, it is important to have faith that time will bring success. Trusting that achievement is not only possible, but probable will help soften your fears.

    Think back to an event in your life that may have seemed bad at the time but allowed for certain circumstances to occur that brought about a greater and more wonderful event. That’s proof that the world is not against us but is indeed working with us.

    3. Write it down.

    Making a list of your fears is a great way to work through them.

    Writing in a journal has been very helpful for me to overcome my fear of not meeting my soul mate. I have written about particular dates I went on and how the meetings made me feel.

    I’ve found it useful to write down a fear and then describe on paper why I feel I have it. This task has been essential in helping me chart my progress and list what I have learned in the past.

    Writing has allowed me to accept that things are evolving, even if they don’t seem that way—which brings me to the next important technique for overcoming fear: acceptance.

    4. Accept what develops (or doesn’t).

    When I was using an online dating service, every first date felt like a blind date. Profiles only went so far in explaining other individuals’ personalities. I had to accept the fact that the first date might not lead to a second and that he might not be “the one.”

    I had to accept that I couldn’t force a relationship, nor could I force the timing of true love.

    The Dalai Lama said, “If you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether there is anything you can do about it. If you can, there is no need to worry about it; if you cannot do anything, then there is also no need to worry.”

    5. Let go.

    Letting go can be one of the greatest challenges to overcoming fear. At times, we hold on to something because we feel it empowers us; however, holding on only weakens us.

    Once we have accepted what may or may not develop, we need to detach ourselves from the outcome. Letting go of our fears allows us to focus more on the present moment and less on the fear itself.

    —

    After following these techniques, I no longer have a fear of spending my life alone, because I know and trust that there are great things ahead. Now I can enjoy meeting new people and going on dates without fear.

    Photo by Geraint Rowland

  • 5 Steps to Learn from Anger

    5 Steps to Learn from Anger

    Anger

    “Don’t wait for your feelings to change to take the action. Take the action and your feelings will change.” ~Barbara Baron

    How do you feel about anger? Growing up, I always felt that anger was “bad.” In school and at home I learned that anger made people do “bad” things, and anger was a source of “evil” in the world.

    I didn’t want any part of that! So, when things happened that made me angry (for example, getting bullied at school), I’d ignore the feelings of anger until they “went away.” I’d go home and cry, feeling these emotions build up inside of my body.

    It felt like I would explode. And I’d sit there, trying to breathe, praying for the wave of anger to pass. Eventually my headache would go away, and I’d be able to breathe easily, but the feelings never quite left my body.

    What I didn’t know then was that those feelings would later transform into deeper feelings of anger and resentment.

    Later, as a young professional, I found that those feelings of resentment turned into paralyzing beliefs and actions that held me back from my deeper calling. I would take the bus or the subway and find myself getting angry if the person next to me was breathing too heavily, or glanced at me.

    I interpreted constructive criticism on the job as personal insults, and I would leave interactions with co-workers feeling angry, frustrated, and hurt.

    When I finally had an emotional breakdown and accessed that anger, I was afraid that it would consume me. What actually happened: I used those feelings of anger as a teacher and means of transforming my life.

    I use these steps to process anger whenever I feel it come up in my body, and I repeat as often as necessary.

    1. Acknowledge it.

    I think about my feelings of anger as being a child who is acting out. That child could be hurt, sad, frustrated. or lonely, but right now anger is the only way it knows how to express those deeper emotions.

    If not acknowledged, short term frustration could lead to long term resentment, with physical effects like tight muscles, insomnia, headaches, and bloating. (I experienced all of these!)

    If something recent has happened, allow yourself to be angry for a set amount of time (15 minutes is usually enough). Yell, punch a pillow, call a trusted friend and vent, or listen to some music that may help you access that emotion.

    2. Understand it.

    If you let it, anger can be one of your greatest teachers. That pure emotion can be a connection to our soul’s deepest desires, and understanding the anger can be the key to moving past it and creating meaningful change in your life.

    Get silent for a few minutes, and have a conversation with that anger. It could be as simple as “What are you here to show me?” or “What am I truly upset about—what is my deeper desire?” The process of questioning the feelings (without judging them) creates space for deeper emotions to come forth.

    3. Move through it.

    It’s important to take action on anger in ways that promote your growth.

    For example, if a stranger was rude to you, you can acknowledge that the stranger’s actions were based on whatever they were dealing with, and had little to do with you. If a family member, co-worker, or friend is constantly irritating you, is there a boundary that you can set? Can you limit your interactions with that person?

    Creating action steps around anger is essential because it puts you back in control of your emotions. We cannot always control what happens to us, but we can always control how we react.

    4. Monitor it.

    Take a step back for a moment. How often do you get angry? Is your anger directed at a specific person, or are there specific situations that get you angry? If so, it may be time to set a boundary.

    It is normal and healthy to have some non-negotiables in your life—things that you will not tolerate. If you don’t like people touching your hair without asking, let them know. If there are events (for example, family gatherings) that are a source of your anger, limit them.

    You have the option to decline those events. People will treat you the way you teach them to treat you; make sure you set clear guidelines around what you will and will not accept.

    5. Be grateful for it.

    You can never truly let go of something unless you do so with love. Love in this sense doesn’t necessarily mean wanting to be best friends with someone who caused you pain, but it does mean accepting the experience, focusing on the positive, and leaving the rest behind.

    One of the easiest ways to connect with love is to express gratitude. When it comes to anger, expressing gratitude can be one of the fastest ways to push the anger out of your system while honoring it.

    If you have a difficult co-worker, or parents that may not fully support your dreams, take some time and be thankful for what they represent in your life. It could be that these challenging individuals have helped you to develop the strength, confidence, and determination to continue on your path.

    As I incorporated these steps into my life and started teaching them to my patients, I started to have a much deeper appreciation for anger.

    All of our emotions—like fear, anger, sadness, and joy—can be valuable teachers along our path, showing us what we truly desire and illuminating our path to further personal development.

    Photo by RenaudPhoto

  • Your Loving Presence Is Enough: Helping Someone Who’s Hurting

    Your Loving Presence Is Enough: Helping Someone Who’s Hurting

    Hugging

    “Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.” ~Robert Gary Lee

    As the only child of a single parent, my family of two was small and our relationship could be intense.

    My southern belle mom, with her stories and easy laugh, her quick wit, and her love of all things literary was the mom who all my high school friends adored and loved—the one who my teenage friends could talk to when they were too angry or irritated with their own mother.

    I loved her too, but I also worried about her. A lot. Because I knew a secret about her that no one else did: she was an alcoholic. Not a big, scary, yelling, hitting alcoholic, but a quiet, light dimming, slow fade alcoholic. 

    My mom loved me, she provided for me, but her own grief and story about her past could take over her brain and take her far away, down into her beer bottle, along with her ever present cigarettes.

    When she told me during my senior year of college that she was entering outpatient chemical dependency treatment, that heavy weight of worry felt lifted from my shoulders. I hoped that this would give her a chance at a happier life.

    As my mom healed, I did too, and got more of my own life in action. I went to graduate school and moved across the country and back. I started a relationship with the man who would become my husband. I got my first real professional job.

    So when the pain in her leg was diagnosed as cancer—terminal stage 4 Lung Cancer, spread to her bone, with a prognosis of six months to live—it was a huge blow.

    Through six months of treatments that left her tired and nauseated, she persevered. But then another blow, though not the one I anticipated: leaving a doctor’s appointment, she had a stroke and fell down unconscious in the parking lot.

    The drive from my house to the hospital where she was taken was one of the longest four hours of my life, not knowing what awaited me at the end.

    After three hard weeks of physical therapy, my mom returned home. But she wasn’t the same. The parts of my mom that I and others most valued and relied upon—her humor, empathy, and listening ear—were gone, stripped away by the stroke like a cheap veneer, never to return. 

    And while she wasn’t drinking or smoking any more, my worry returned, not knowing when the proverbial other shoe would drop. Was she really able to live alone in a two-story house? Was I being a bad daughter by not moving back to my hometown to care for her?

    On top of the worry, the impact of the stroke was a bitter pill to swallow. While others marveled at her longevity with such an advanced cancer diagnosis, I felt guilty and angry: the whole situation felt like a rip-off. My mom was still alive, but it was hardly much of a life, in my opinion.

    I wondered why she was still alive, when she was barely able to enjoy the life she was leading. 

    Before her stroke, I’d clung to some romantic notion that her illness might give her opportunity to finally make sense of the hardships she’d endured through much of her life.

    I cared for her the best I could from afar, knowing that it was less than ideal, and I continued to craft my own independent life, as well. Over the next eight years, I married my boyfriend, got promoted at work, and got pregnant with my first child.

    Throughout my pregnancy, my mom had more troubles—a heart attack and increased breathing problems. The day we brought our newborn son home from the hospital, my mom called saying she was in the hospital with shortness of breath.

    Instead of relishing the first sweet days of my son’s life, my first days of parenthood were flooded with the same familiar worry, guilt, and anxiety.

    My mom spent the next three weeks bouncing between home, hospital, and residential hospice.

    She clearly was in denial about what was happening to her: as the survivor she was, she saw it as just another difficulty to overcome, anticipating another victory in her long triumph over cancer. She struggled and resisted what was happening to her.

    This time, she couldn’t outrun it: I held and stroked her sweet hand as she took her last breaths, and nursed my baby five minutes later.

    In the ten years since my mom’s death, I’ve realized the person who needed to learn and transform from her illness and death wasn’t her: it was me.

    My worry, judgment, guilt, fear, and anxiety couldn’t fix the past, cure her cancer, or protect us from the future. Those emotional states and feelings only could inflict more pain, distance, and suffering.

    Throughout my mom’s life, including illness and death, all I could do was be with her and love her, as best I could, from moment to moment. Our loving presence with each other was often the most useful medicine for either of us during the hardest times.

    Because no matter how much we might wish otherwise, there will always be some difficult times in life. It’s pretty much a guaranteed part of the deal with being a human.

    So when you or someone you love is hurting or suffering, rather than trying to outrun any difficult feelings, such guilt, worry, judgment, fear, or anxiety, see if you can stop and find a grounding place within yourself, such as the regular rhythm of your breath.

    See if you can even briefly be present to the hurt or suffering, as unpleasant as it may be, without needing to change it.

    In first witnessing and just simply being present to our own or others’ difficulties, rather than automatically trying to change or fix the situation, we are of great service and can create deep healing in ourselves and others.

    Through being with the situation, as it is, we can also better discern what our next best actions should be.

    Instead of getting caught up and carried away by intense emotions, disappointments, grief, anxiety, or any other difficulty, being with the experience as it is and doing as best we can in that moment is often the quickest and least painful way through challenging times.

    Regardless of what difficulty your loved ones face, trust that your loving presence is all that is required. And know it is completely enough.

    Photo by David Goehring

  • Don’t Wait for a Major Wake Up Call to Start Loving Your Life

    Don’t Wait for a Major Wake Up Call to Start Loving Your Life

    Screen shot 2013-08-09 at 8.06.21 PM

    “Sometimes in tragedy we find our life’s purpose. The eye sheds a tear to find its focus.” ~Robert Brault

    “Lay still. We think both your arms are broken.”

    I obeyed the police officer and stopped struggling to rise from the hard, cold pavement.

    An ambulance soon had me in emergency, where I discovered that my problem was a lot worse than broken arms.

    My right arm had to be amputated. My left arm was paralyzed. I had no more use of my arms.

    I laughed my way through my long hospital stay.

    No one could understand how a man who had lost his arms could laugh so happily.

    I couldn’t explain it to anyone, but I was feeling a vast sense of relief. My old way of life had been stripped away in an instant.

    My family had always worked as loggers or fishermen, and before the accident, I felt stuck emotionally and unable to leave my blue collar social group. What they saw as disaster, I saw as liberating. I knew I would never have to use a chainsaw to cut trees again.

    At thirty years of age, I had been given a whole new life.

    I was free. Free to create the life I really wanted to live.

    Maybe you can gain your freedom without waiting for disaster to strike.

    Take a good look at your life. Are you really doing exactly what you want to do in your heart of hearts? If you’re not, you may get a wakeup call like I did.

    Finding Purpose

    There was a lot of time in the hospital to think about what I really wanted to do. More than anything else, I wanted to write.

    My California state rehabilitation counselor didn’t agree. He didn’t think I could make a living writing. So I agreed to a business program at state university.

    Once enrolled, I took all the business classes to keep him happily supporting me while I also took all the writing courses to keep me happy.

    Writing all those papers meant a lot of pecking away at a keyboard with a chopstick gripped firmly between my teeth, but I knew what I wanted.

    Once you know what you want, you’ll also discover the fortitude to make your dream come true.

    Money Sidetracks Me

    After university, I discovered that my counselor had been right. Nobody wanted to hire a disabled person to write or do anything else.

    With a wife and two small children, I had to find a way to get money quick.

    A radical old dude from Canada took me under his wing. We wound up in Tokyo, where he showed me how to busk. All I had to do was make a show on a busy street corner, and people passing by dropped money into my tin cup.

    A lot of money. Hundreds of dollars an hour.

    You see, in Asia, begging is a traditional occupation for the disabled. My highly visible disability gave me a license to beg in any of Asia’s newly rich mega cities.

    The money poured in.

    I soon had a house in the city, a farm in the country, and a new car for my wife to drive our kids to private schools in.

    But happiness was gone.

    My wife didn’t like being married to a crippled beggar. She welcomed the money, but she tried to hide me away from her friends and family. Divorce wasn’t long coming.

    I also suffered terribly from severe chronic pain in both arms.

    Powerful tranquilizers were the only treatment modern medicine could offer me. I could feel how slow and stupid my once brilliant mind had become under the cloud of drugs.

    I wasn’t writing, and I felt like I was losing the ability to ever write again.

    Money had sidetracked me.

    Don’t get sidetracked.

    Doors Open

    Then, fourteen years after my accident, I met Remedia.

    She saw from across a crowded room how much pain I was in. Saying nothing, she simply began massaging the pain out of my shoulders and arms.

    It felt like she had magic coming out of her fingers—magic that dissolved away all my pain.

    Remedia had been born with the ability to heal, but had never studied it formally. She just used her gift whenever she saw a person in need.

    I was fascinated.

    We started traveling all over Asia to learn more about healing energy. Soon, we knew enough to start giving healing sessions. It wasn’t long before we were teaching too.

    Joy and purpose returned to my life.

    I was writing our course materials. I was keeping a journal. Most importantly of all, I was actively helping other people.

    I wasn’t a crippled beggar anymore, able only to give people a humble “Thank you.”

    Now, I could give something back to all those who had helped me for so many years.

    Then, something even more momentous happened.

    We met Krishna Kantha, Thailand’s living Saint. He kindly invited us to stay at his retreat center for a month.

    Krishna has magic coming out of his hands too. Only Krishna’s magic opens and heals minds. Krishna opened the world of meditation for us by giving us instant access to the deepest states of meditation.

    During repeated visits, he taught us how to open minds like he does. Then he said, “Go to India. You need to be in India.”

    Years later, we’re still in India. We’re still growing spiritually, and we’re both radically joyful.

    Remedia is living her life purpose of healing and helping all whom she meets.

    I’m living my life purpose of teaching meditation and writing about it. I’ve pecked out four books published on Amazon, and I keep two websites going—all with my trusty chopstick.

    My Advice for You?

    When life slaps you upside the head, get serious about laughing, having some fun, and figuring out exactly what it is that you feel passionate about doing.

    Then start doing it.

    Your radical dude from Canada, a Remedia, or a Krishna will appear and open doors for you. But you have to be actively helping yourself first.

    When help comes, don’t miss it because what has come is different than your vision of what you want.

    I almost missed the radical dude because he was dressed in old, dirty clothes.

    I almost missed Remedia because she has no education and speaks broken English.

    And try some meditation. It really helps.

    Photo by Luz Adriana Villa

  • 8 Lessons About Living Fully from a Journey of 500 Miles

    8 Lessons About Living Fully from a Journey of 500 Miles

    Walking

    “The journey is the reward.” ~Proverb

    I should start by clarifying that even though there’s a lot of walking involved in this story, I’m not a walker, or particularly sporty. So what was I thinking going on a 500-mile pilgrimage you may (rightly) ask? I wasn’t. I was feeling it. In my gut.

    You know those butterflies that wreck havoc in your tummy when you have an exciting idea? Well, I had about a thousand of those. Butterflies, not ideas. I only had one idea, and I didn’t even think that one through.

    El Camino de Santiago. St James Way. A long walk, an ancient pilgrimage. Alone. Five weeks and 550 miles from France across Spain to the end of the world. A whole lotta walking! Yeah, why not? Piece of cake, right? Wrong.

    On August 6, 2012 I took my first step into the unknown, armed with nothing but a light backpack, three pairs of socks, a couple of T-shirts, a sleeping bag, and an arsenal of Band-Aids. I walked away from the world and left my old self behind.

    “Yeah, but why?” is the most common reaction I get from people, often accompanied by a confused and suspicious look.

    Well, truth is, I needed to get away.

    “But couldn’t you have gone to Fiji and lie on the beach for five weeks or something?”

    I have to admit, that one always gets me thinking.

    But even knowing how painful, exhausting, and scary walking 30 kilometers every day for over a month with 10 kilograms on my back can be, I wouldn’t change it for the world—or the beaches of Fiji.

    The journey changed my life, both inside and out. I walked it off! I walked it all off. As I got further away form the “real” world—penetrating forests, walking through sleepy villages, hiking up mountains and down deserted valleys—I got closer to my internal world.

    As I detached myself from possessions, got rid of masks, demolished walls, dissolved judgments, and released resentments, I became more open, honest, free, loving, balanced, and, of course, happy.

    I connected with people at an authentic level that I had never experienced before, making lasting friendships in mere hours.

    I started following my instinct and inner voice, not only the yellow arrows pointing west.

    I started being open, believing in myself, listening to my body, and ultimately I realized that all I needed to be happy was right there, inside of me.

    Yep, I was a walking cliché and I loved every painful minute of it.

    This realization came to me the moment I arrived at Santiago de Compostela and stood in front of the cathedral that, a month earlier, had seemed impossible to reach. I had made it!

    And contrary to popular belief, I didn’t want to yell about my accomplishment to the top of my lungs. I didn’t care if anyone knew; I had done it for me. 

    As I sat on the stony square looking up at this magnificent milestone in my life, I was struck by silence, tears rolling down my smiling face, and I let go—of the burden of the past and expectations of the future.

    A year has now passed since I returned, forever changed, and not one day goes by without me having thought about that journey.

    Every day I try to remember the lessons learned. But it isn’t easy, and that is why this article is as much for you as it is for me.

    Let us remember to:

    1. Be present every step of the way.

    The past is over and the future will come, whether you worry about it or not. Make a conscious effort to live in your present. I find meditation of great help. Walking was meditation for me, as it was being in contact with nature, taking in the colors, smells, and textures.

    2. Trust yourself.

    Listen to your gut. Mine told me to walk, that I could do it despite all evidence to the contrary. Yoga and fostering my creativity have been very helpful to block out the outside noises that drown my inner voice.

    3. Be grateful.

    Practice appreciation everyday. At the end of a long day’s walk, that shower would be the best shower I’d ever had. Make sure you appreciate that shower at the end of a long day’s work by thinking of nothing but the touch of the warm, relaxing water. Writing down three happy moments every day also helps!

    4. Open your mind.

    Possibilities are everywhere, but you’ll only see them if you’re open to them. Remember: “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re probably right.” Henry Ford. I found the true meaning of synchronicity during the walk, where the “way” or “universe” provided exactly what everyone needed at the exact right time. It’s all around us, if we pay attention.

    5. Let go.

    Of fear, negative thoughts, resentment, the past, limitations. Anything that holds you back, let it go. Dance around like crazy to loud music, have a good cry once in a while, speak your truth, let it out and let it go! While walking, I sang, laughed, cried, laughed until I cried, danced, skipped, limped, ran, fell, got back up, carried someone, and let someone carry me. Sometimes all in one day. That’s living.

    6. Slow down.

    There’s something about walking, about slowing down from 70 miles to hour to 3 miles per hour, that made me realize there’s so much we miss in our daily lives because we’re always in a rush to arrive at our destination or tick the next thing off our to-do list.

    At any given moment of the day, stopping to look (really look) at a flower, or the shape of a cloud, or the way a ray of sunshine hits the trees can make me smile and bring me back to the present. One small minute, stop and take a deep breath, observe the world moving around you while you stand still. It can change your perspective.

    7. Detach from the result.

    Be passionate about the journey, not only about the destination. Do things you enjoy for the sake of them, not only to get something in return. When you’re passionate about what you do regardless of your gain, chances are, you’ll gain a lot more than you expected.

    8. Accept and love yourself.

    You don’t need anyone else’s acceptance but your own. Whatever other people think of you is their problem. What you think of yourself is yours.

    Try this:

    Sit, eyes closed, and open your arms as wide as they can go, as if trying to hug the universe. Hold it for a minute, feeling the freedom, thinking of receiving love with open arms and giving out the best of you. Say that you love and accept yourself. Close your arms tight and give yourself a big, loving hug for a minute.

    Smile! I dare you not to.

    Photo by Moyan Brenn

  • Are You Stressed, Rushed, and Aggravated?

    Are You Stressed, Rushed, and Aggravated?

    Walking Through Airport

    “Meaning is not what you start with but what you end up with.” ~Peter Elbow

    As a boy, I had a romantic notion about having a job where I traveled for business. It sounded so important and stylish. I liked the idea of dashing through airports to my next big meeting.

    I thought it meant that mine would be a wider world. And so it was.

    Be Careful What You Wish For

    As often happens, what you think about comes into being. I found myself on my very first “business trip.” I was going to the exotic location of Moline, Illinois.

    In my fantasies I was thinking more along the lines of NYC or London, but hey, it involved an airplane. Actually, it wasn’t even a jet; it was this very loud, somewhat cramped prop plane.

    So a couple hours later, after flying at a surprisingly low altitude and slow rate of speed, I had traveled from a semi-rural location with corn and cows to…another semi-rural location with corn and cows. It seems my dreams of importance and style were still in my future.

    Dashing Didn’t Turn Out To Be So Dashing

    My life and work continued down this same path, so occasionally schedules were tight. Once, I remember literally running through an airport so as not to miss a flight.

    It looks good in the television commercials but let me tell you, running in a suit and tie, toting a briefcase and an overnight bag isn’t so sexy. It’s more sweaty and disheveling. I must confess, I felt less than debonair.

    The Illusion of the “Good Seat”

    Every flight (and there were many), I vied for a good seat with the rest of my fellow business travelers. I gloated over my exit row seat or my aisle seat. I glared enviously at the first class passengers, already seated with their complimentary mimosas.

    When it came time to disembark, I leaped to my feet the moment the “Remain Seated” sign went out. I mean, you’re supposed to. At least you must be, because that’s what everyone else was doing.

    I told myself it was important that I leave the plane immediately. After all, I had pressing business. That’s why I’m flying.

    And Then I Woke Up

    This dream of being a business traveler turned out to be not so dreamy after all. Traveling is a hassle with the hotels and cabs and parking garages and strange cities and expense reports. Airplane seats are tight and fellow travelers are sometimes surly.

    This isn’t what I signed up for. I started to wonder about the ground rules I had assumed regarding flying for a living.

    Questioning the Unstated

    What is a good seat? I’ll tell you. There’s only one on the plane: it’s the one the pilot sits in.

    The rest of us, no matter where we sit, are getting basically the same experience. Once I accepted that, I have never had a bad seat.

    What’s the rush to get off the plane? When I wait until everyone else has cleared out around me, it is far easier to collect my things. I don’t hack anyone else off by getting in their way to rush off the plane either.

    I generally go for the window seat now, not because I prefer it particularly. It just means I am not in any hurried person’s way when it comes time to deplane.

    This leisurely attitude means I spend perhaps 10 more minutes aboard if I am seated near the front. If I am seated near the back, it costs me virtually no time at all. And I still get to the baggage claim area before my bags.

    I get to airports early. I check in and kick back. Did you know they put bars in airports? I find this highly convenient for this back kicking.

    I pack light. I generally travel to places that sell just about anything I regularly use. I have found that even developing countries have food and toiletries for sale.

    Sharing My New Found Travel Ease

    Once I found myself on an overbooked flight. Five people were in front of me in line trying to get boarding passes. As each one of them in turn berated the gate agent, all she could do was apologize and say she couldn’t give them a boarding pass at this time.

    When it was my turn, I saw her steel herself for the next verbal assault. But I figured something out as I stood in line: berating the poor lass wasn’t resulting in a boarding pass for anyone.

    So I just said, “Tough day, huh? Listen, if you can get me on this flight I would really appreciate it. Just do the best you can.”

    Five minutes before they closed the jet way doors, she called one name to give out a single boarding pass—mine.

    I wanted to throw a fit as much as the next guy as I stood in line. But what would be the point of ranting at the last person who could help me who, incidentally, was not responsible for causing my problem?

    I didn’t see one glimmer of recognition out there amongst those envious faces of the grounded either. They all had the same chance as me and they had it first. We make our own reality. Own it, or don’t.

    The Traveler, Well Seasoned

    The bottom line is this: air travel, or anything else, is what you make it. I got to live my illusions until I decided they no longer served me.

    I have a far different experience now, even though the external details remain basically the same. I have no stress and I get where I want to go when and if I have a notion to go anywhere at all.

    I am a fan of destinations, but the journey happens too. While I may not have always taken the road less traveled, these days I always choose the travel encounter less experienced.

    Photo by plantronicsgermany

  • The Power of Poise: How to Stop Losing Your Cool

    The Power of Poise: How to Stop Losing Your Cool

    Poised

    “Poise is an unseen power, and this unseen power is always ready to come to the aid of the outer action.” ~Sri Chinmoy

    Poise is the seeker’s goal because poise is our highest state of consciousness. Poised, we are in a state of balance, composure, and equanimity, all of our powers at our disposal.

    When I am able to achieve poise, I am present, connected, grateful, creative, and light-hearted. Poised, my love flows.

    Like most of us, I have been poised much of the time, especially when life was easy, absent any major challenge. But I have also lost my poise too many times to remember.

    Every time I lost my poise, I was upset, angry, impatient, resentful, critical, and—a couple of times—even violent.

    A History of Lost Poise

    To figure out how to sustain my poise, no matter what challenges life presented to me, I spent several months recapitulating every time I had became unglued in my life.

    I wrote down every incident of lost poise I could remember, starting with the most recent and working back to childhood.

    Meditating about each uncomfortable memory, I wrote down the details of what had happened when I lost my poise—what my state of mind was, how I explained my craziness to myself at that time, how I had affected others, and what common themes surfaced that might give me some insight into how I could sustain my poise in the future.

    By the time I finished, I had enough pages for a book—a book that might have been entitled, Swinging Back and Forth Between Consciousness and Unconsciousness.

    Some examples of lost poise from my recapitulation:

    I was impatient with my wife, Mary, and said something critical.

    There were so many of these with Mary and other people in my life that I cut off my work trying to remember them all: the pattern was obvious.

    My self-importance was pricked by someone who didn’t show me proper respect. 

    Pages and pages of these. Once, in my early days as a high school teacher, I slapped a student who gave me the finger and was lucky not to lose my job.  

    Decades ago, as a teenager recently married, my young bride and I stood on a street curb watching saddle horses go by in a parade. 

    Suddenly one of the horses bolted and charged straight at us on the curb. I darted back, leaving my wife to fend for herself. I hadn’t been poised enough to protect her.

    The Deep Elements of a Poised Consciousness

    Much later, I became CEO of a large non-profit organization, a leadership position that required that I sustain my poise every day. We want our leaders to be poised, and even with the large challenges I faced, I was able to sustain my poise most of the time.

    One of the biggest challenges I encountered involved employees who lost their poise, reducing their effectiveness, lowering morale of their units, and sometimes diminishing the reputation and performance of our organization.

    Even top executives who reported to me, men and women with a great deal of self-awareness, lost their poise at times, reducing their credibility with me, with their reports, and with organizational partners.

    When employees lost their poise, they:

    • Were unable to stay present, looking inappropriately into the past or future
    • Lost their connection to others and to their own life purposes
    • Could not maintain their gratitude
    • Abandoned their normal creativity
    • Became heavy, losing their usual light-heartedness and becoming overly earnest

    The Universal Cause of Lost Poise

    Later, as a coach to other leaders, including Presidential appointees and other top executives, I finally saw clearly the universal cause of lost poise: self-pity.

    I saw that we all lose our poise every time we feel sorry for ourselves.

    Self-pity is often our response when something happens that we don’t like. We say “no” to something, as if it shouldn’t be in our life. Then we create a victim story to explain why we feel bad.

    The story always blames someone else. Someone is doing something to me. I am a victim. I tell sympathetic people my victim story, and they oblige by saying the equivalent of  ”Oh, you poor thing.” 

    Then we obsess and hope that divine justice or our own acts of revenge will bring our tyrants down.

    As long as we are capable of feeling sorry for ourselves, we will lose our poise.  Our potential will be blocked, and our lives will remain trapped in an eddy as we go round and round, feeling as if we’re on the move, but actually going nowhere.

    Living a Life of Sustained Poise

    The student’s goal is poise, because when poised, we are able to embrace everything life brings to us. Poised, we can see how to use challenges to our advantage. Everything becomes grist for the mill of learning.

    Poised, I say yes to life.

    When I finally understood that my self-pity was the culprit, the bad explanation I created around certain situations, and the cause of my lost poise, I set out to erase it. This turned out to be very difficult work.

    Self-pity is part of the warp and woof of our current stage of evolution, and only a small percentage of our human community is free of it. 

    At this point in my learning, I only lost my poise in subtle, hard-to-detect ways, so I had to go looking for my self-pity and victimhood in each case, even though my lost poise might not have been visible to others.

    It was painful to locate the self-pity lurking inside my rationalizations every single time. But I learned to recognize self-pity when it arose in the moment, cut it off, laugh, and say yes to whatever was happening.

    I learned how to sustain my poise.

    A Poise Checklist 

    I used my poise checklist to find my way back to poise when I was upset in any way:

    • Am I in the present right now?
    • Am I connected to others in love, and am I connected with my values, my mission, and myself?
    • Am I grateful right now?
    • Do I have access to my creativity, improvising, refusing to be trapped?
    • Is my heart light, unburdened by my own heaviness and self-absorption?

    I still lose my poise once in a while, but I know what to do—get back into the present, reconnect, give thanks, improvise, and laugh at myself.

    No matter what is happening, poise is the ultimate cool.

    Photo by h.koppdelaney

  • Happiness is Not a Destination: How to Enjoy the Journey

    Happiness is Not a Destination: How to Enjoy the Journey

    Enjoy the Journey

    “Happiness is a direction, not a place.” ~Sydney J Harris

    Being happy is for most of us one of the key aims in life. But where we often go wrong is in figuring out which path to take to achieve that happiness.

    My own path has been a somewhat unconventional one. In my last year at college, most of my peers were busy applying for full-time jobs with large companies, but I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do. 

    I wanted to see the world, which (long before gap years became so common) was met with disapproval by many. But excited, and somewhat scared, I set off alone on my travels.

    I didn’t return for good until over seven years later, traveling around the world twice over, working as an English teacher in Istanbul and Barcelona, as a fruit picker on a kibbutz in Israel, in a ski resort, on a campsite in France, and in a fairground in Australia.

    I drove across the US, rode the Trans-Siberian railway across Asia, and took precarious bus journeys through the Himalayas and the Andes.

    It was a fantastically exciting time and left me with some amazing memories that will last forever. I knew that by doing this I’d probably be sacrificing any chance of reaching the upper echelons of the corporate tree, but that didn’t hold any appeal to me anyway.

    Of more concern was the pressure I felt from family, friends, and society to settle down and find a “proper” job. But I’m really glad that I resisted that pressure and didn’t stop traveling and working abroad until I’d seen and experienced all that I wanted to.

    I felt that there was plenty of time to have a conventional job after my traveling days were over, and this has proved correct.

    The traveling taught me so much about myself, and life, and made me think about what I wanted from this short time on earth. I realized that I wanted to acquire experiences rather than money, and in my subsequent career that is what I have done.

    I’ve done a variety of jobs: I’ve been a musician, graphic designer, novelist, and journalist. Much of the time, these have been precarious freelance jobs and not well paid, but they’ve all been fantastically interesting and given me a wealth of life experience.

    I always wanted to have no regrets with the way I spent my life, and so far I haven’t. I know that if I’d spent my whole life trying to climb the corporate ladder I wouldn’t have been happy and would now have been lamenting what I hadn’t done in my life.

    I’ve always found it really important to enjoy each step of the journey that I’ve been on and not just hoping to be happier at some point later in my life.

    The path I’ve chosen may not be for everyone, but it is an example of the importance of choosing your own path in life, and ignoring the pressure from family, friends, and society. 

    I’ve seen how some people are pressured into certain jobs, often because they are considered prestigious, but hate the path they have chosen. Others may be pushed to get further up the career ladder, but then find out they hate the managerial responsibility that this generally brings.

    People also often think that when they have more material goods or money they will be happier. But while it may be hard to be happy in the western world with no money (although some people achieve it) making lots of money and buying lots of things may not necessarily make you content.

    Buying a new car or yacht is often only a short-term happiness boost and it seems that after a while, each upgrade to the car, house, or yacht gives less and less extra happiness.

    Surveys have shown again and again that once people reach a certain wage—around the average wage in western countries—happiness levels do not increase much.

    With relationships, it’s also important to find the right path for ourselves, and to be as sure as we can that we have chosen the right partner. And when we’ve hopefully found them, it’s so important to enjoy each moment of that relationship, not always be looking to the future.

    We might think that having children will make us happy, but then when we have them we realize all the responsibilities and difficulties that brings, and may look back on our days without children with fondness. Or if we have young children we might wish they were older, but then they become teenagers!

    The common pattern in all this is choosing the right road for the type of person we are and finding happiness at as many places along that route as we can.

    So it’s important to look at all the good things in our lives and to enjoy them to the full right now. That is much more likely to bring happiness than waiting for it to appear around the corner.

    Photo by woodleywonderworks

  • The Rabbit Hole of Stuff: Why We Can’t Buy Our Way to Happiness

    The Rabbit Hole of Stuff: Why We Can’t Buy Our Way to Happiness

    “Happiness can only be found if you free yourself from all other distractions.” ~Saul Bellow 

    When I was twenty I bought my first serious piece of furniture.

    It was a sofa covered in a nubby sort of fabric, a creamy shade of white with tan and light brown threads woven through that made the modern style seem warm and welcoming.

    It was beautiful. And on the day my sofa arrived, I celebrated. I celebrated not only a beautiful addition to my little apartment but also a step into adulthood.

    After all, I bought it on credit, and I was thrilled that a social authority as important as a fancy furniture store should give me and my waitress job a nod of approval.

    But my joy was tempered by a sobering thought that felt like a weight on my shoulders: I can’t fit this sofa in my backpack.

    I’d been traveling, working, writing, and figuring out life for a few years already, but I still wasn’t where I wanted to be. And I didn’t have the words to express the feeling that I was only vaguely aware of. But I was feeling something. And I ignored it.

    Over the next ten years or so—and almost as many living situations—my sofa and I took in a bedroom and a kitchen set along with an entire house full of furniture.

    A husband, too. I had just (finally) finished grad school, and my goal was to write full-time as a freelancer instead of part-time as I had been. I wanted to write more poetry. Teach writing. Play my guitar. Travel. Live my life as I’d dreamed of living it.

    The sparkle of shiny new toys pulled me in directions that made my goals almost impossible.

    But two incomes suddenly made lots of other stuff possible: a lavish wedding, a big house, complete remodeling, and a new patio. Redecorating, buying just the right outdoor furniture, planting flowers, trees, and bushes… I even built a koi pond with a waterfall.

    I taught for a few years, but I was hardly writing, and I was losing my focus. I was getting confused with too many choices, no planning, and too little experience. I struggled with time management, and I usually failed.

    I became a wine expert, and I drank it far more often than I wrote about it.

    I fell into the rabbit hole called stuff.

    I’d never had much, but now, closets were stuffed with games and skis and skates and snorkeling gear.

    Expertly organized closets promised to restore order, but they sagged with the weight of suitcases and carry-ons, cameras and camcorders, and clothes for every situation. Tools stuffed a garage and a shed, while the finest wine glasses, china, and gadgets took over the kitchen.

    An enormous 100-year-old piano rolled into place in the mélange.

    The house was bulging and sinking at the same time.

    I wasn’t writing. I was falling apart, and I couldn’t work. I saw doctor after doctor for muscle pain, chest pain, and insomnia. Nightmares, even.

    The hot tub was supposed to help with the stress, but it was just more stuff. There were other problems in my marriage, too, serious problems, and I finally gave up trying to get things back on course.

    And I got rid of the last of the stuff just a few days ago.

    I have other, more important things to do than take care of stuff.

    I’m a bit older now, a bit wiser, and I’m listening to that inner voice I ignored so long ago. I’m catching up on what I should have been doing—writing, improving my writing, and teaching it—what I wanted to be doing but couldn’t because I wasn’t focused.

    It’s time to strap on my backpack again—it was never meant to carry a sofa, but my laptop fits just fine.

    I’m glad I recognized the crazy path I was on while I’m still relatively young.

    My lessons were painful, and I wish someone would have given me a good, swift kick and made me look in a mirror. Why didn’t anyone shout, “Why aren’t you writing? What happened to your goals? Focus!” Maybe I had to learn my own lessons, but I’m not afraid to shout them out now, nice and loud.

    1. The stuff you can buy is a distraction that won’t help you reach your goals.

    It’s like an addiction or a temporary fix. And no matter what you see online, in magazines, or on TV shows that promote home and garden ideas or lifestyles—even simple or minimalist lifestyles—remember, it’s a business trying to sell you products that promise happiness. Don’t fall for it.

    2. Stuff creates a false sense of self.

    I’m creative, and I love beauty. But somehow, unconsciously, by creating a beautiful home—with lots of stuff—I was also fashioning myself into someone I thought I wanted to be, something others wanted me to be.

    But I was already myself, and the path with the least resistance, the path that offered the most immediate reward didn’t leave time for the hard stuff: my goals and my writing.

    3. Stuff can blind you.

    The friends I made back then are long gone. I was naïve, and if I hadn’t been seduced by stuff—expensive dinners, flowers for every occasion, a huge diamond engagement ring that really wasn’t me—I might have seen that my relationship could never work.

    I was the poet in black trying to fit into someone else’s upscale suburban lifestyle, and there wasn’t room for anything else much less me.

    4. Material stuff keeps you busy with…material stuff.

    My life plan didn’t include all the stuff money can buy. But the money spent wasn’t the problem; the problem was that I worshipped at the altar of materialism, and I sacrificed myself and my goals.

    What’s the point of spending time and effort on stuff when it leaves little or no time for your real goals?

    5. Stuff distracts us from ourselves.

    A solid relationship is created with empathy, love, and communication, not stuff. But we nurtured our marriage with Home and Garden TV or the Food Network, furniture showrooms, and glossy magazines with products that promised the good life. And underneath it all, I just wanted the space to work on my own goals, not another set of china, a new TV, or a new iPod.

    Some stuff is important, and there’s nothing wrong with buying what you need.

    But it’s about priorities and the price you might pay for stuff that doesn’t support your goals and dreams. Think about it.

    Are you working toward your goals and the things that truly matter to you?

    Or are you down the rabbit hole?

    Stressed woman shopping image via Shutterstock

  • Dealing with Dark Days: Help for When You Don’t Feel Your Best

    Dealing with Dark Days: Help for When You Don’t Feel Your Best

    “The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.” ~Theodore I. Rubin

    I live in a rainy city. For most of the winter it’s endless grey, weeks in which you’re lucky to get a glimpse of the sun at all.

    It might be drizzling, it might be pouring, or it might be merely fog. It is certainly wet.

    For me and a lot of the people who live here, it’s almost a deal breaker. When I first arrived, I spent a lot of time complaining that it was raining again. When the sun came out, I summarily dismissed it with “yeah, but for how long?”

    Sometimes I still fantasize of moving somewhere nice and hot. Maybe I’ll melt all summer long, but at least there’s sun, right?

    The bottom line is that I like living here. For a thousand reasons, it’s my home. I’m not going anywhere.

    So my choice is this: embrace my decision with a full heart, rain and all, or live in bitterness, fearing the next cloud.

    I can’t change the weather.

    I also live in a rainy mind. Like everyone I’ve met, I have anxieties, fears, and a thousand other difficult moods that arise in me on days when I’ve counted on sunny, focused productivity.

    For the last couple of years, it’s been panic attacks.

    Everything is going so well until something derails and my world becomes scary, my breath comes with difficulty, and I’m falling down the rabbit hole again.

    The hardest part to let go is my plans for the day. I was going to write a blog post, clean the kitchen, or go out with friends, but now I’m crouched in the corner expending all my energy to keep air pumping into and out of my lungs.

    Not fun.

    But recently I realized, I can’t change the weather.

    Sure, I can do things to take care of myself so panic attacks are less likely, but if it’s not one thing it’s another:

    I couldn’t sleep last night, and now I’m tired. My project isn’t coming along like I’d hoped, and now I’m cranky. The other people involved in my plans got sick, and now the plans are canceled.

    Life isn’t always sunny. Life gets rainy.

    And no, that’s not fun. Rain on a day you were hoping for sun is frustrating and sad. It can seem like everyone in the world expects constant sunny positivity from you, and when you can’t manage it, there’s shame and guilt.

    But it’s kind of magical when you decide to look at it like it’s largely outside of your control. What if today’s mini disaster blew in on the wind with the clouds? What if that same wind will blow it out again?

    Maybe today you’ll finally buy some rain boots so you can go for a walk without getting wet. Maybe today you’ll learn that the beach is different in the rain, but still kind of cool. Or you could spend today curled in a ball, cursing the grey.

    Either way, it’s still raining. Either way, you’re still lovable. You don’t have to like the weather, but it’s an option.

    And the funny thing that happens, once you stop fighting your internal weather, is it becomes calmer. It turns out that so much of the problem was the expectation that would things be different than they are, that everything would go smoothly.

    Now when it rains, I tell myself I know that I will see the sun again. It might be two weeks, but it’ll happen. Probably sooner than I think.

    When I feel anxiety creeping up, I remind myself that we all have emotions that are difficult for us. That I will feel calm and happy again, probably pretty soon.

    And then I have the space to make the best of the day I was given, not the one I ordered.

    Some thoughts that help (think of them as affirmations if you like):

    1. This is the weather right now. I can’t change the weather, but I can take it into account to make myself more comfortable.

    2. The sun always comes back. There are always days when things go right. This discomfort is temporary.

    3. Everyone has hard days, even if not everyone talks about them. I’m still normal and lovable when my weather is rainy.

    4. I’m allowed to feel disappointed that things aren’t going the way I wanted. I don’t have to be ready to make the best of it right away.

    5. What if today were supposed to be rainy? What if this were exactly the right thing?

    What helps you on days when things aren’t going according to plan?

  • How Anger Leads to Anxiety and What to Do About It

    How Anger Leads to Anxiety and What to Do About It

    Calm

    “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.” ~Buddha

    I have a confession: I’m mildly obsessed with anger.

    Not the negative feelings, the volatile outbursts, or the fly-off-the-handle reactions, but rather how humans express anger.

    I’ve largely made my living by dealing with various states of anger. More on that in a bit…

    Years ago I was shopping at a bookstore with my friend Alex. We were first time parents with toddlers at home.

    The idea was to find resources on how to raise emotionally healthy children and how to avoid the parenting mishaps we witnessed too often at work.

    As school social workers, we provided family counseling to young children and wayward teens in the inner city.

    As Alex obsessively scoured the aisles for the latest research-based writings on emotional intelligence, my eyes gravitated toward an entirely different topic.

    The black, matte-textured book with the blood red title practically screamed at me: Hatred: The Psychological Descent into Violence.

    I devoured it that night.

    It’s not that I didn’t want my kid to learn to soothe himself when upset, to resist peer pressure, or to misread social cues. But in that moment I felt a stronger pull.

    Part of the fascination stems from my ancestry; I’m half-Italian and half-Irish. A DNA hotbed, if you will.

    Meals were eventful. When I would lose my cool at the dinner table, my dad would wildly gesticulate in my mom’s direction. She, in turn, would shrug and reply “It’s The Fighting Irish in her, I suppose.”

    Additionally, I’m a psychotherapist who specializes in anxiety issues—generalized, panic, and social anxiety disorders.

    Do you want to know the quickest way to get a handle on your anxiety? Get ahold of your anger.

    I realize this may sound counter-intuitive. After all, we don’t normally associate anxious people with bad tempers and loud voices.

    The anger management connection is not exactly linear.

    It takes courage to express anger—to stand up for yourself and your values, which sometimes includes taking an unpopular stance.

    Bravery is valiant, strong, and admirable, while anxiety is cowardly, weak, and anything but enviable.

    Because many anxious people have a problem asserting themselves, feelings of helplessness, avoidance, and frustration take residence.

    Compounding the issue is the fear that if you express anger, you might lose control.

    And since many anxious individuals are people-pleasers and caretakers, these feelings are especially unwanted.

    But feelings go somewhere.

    And typically, when you take on too much responsibility, you inevitably feel exhausted, taken advantage of, and angry.

    If you don’t have a firm grasp on your anger responses, you’re going to hold it in until it explodes, or you’re going to yell, scream, stomp your feet, and possibly say and do things you regret.

    Then comes the guilt. And next, the overwhelming urge to fix the situation. And before you know it, the cycle repeats itself again.

    All the while, you’re wasting precious emotional energy that could be better used on enjoyable tasks.

    The good news is there’s strategies you can do today to help you feel more calm.

    I included five common ways I help us go from anxiety to zen below:

    1. List the places in your body where you feel anger.

    Is it in your chest? What happens to your heart rate? How does your stomach feel?

    It’s important to recognize the physical cues of anger in order to alert youself that it’s time to calm down.

    2. Visualize different behavioral responses. How do you react when you feel angry?

    Do you scream, tantrum, throw things, bottle it inside, or pretend that everything is fine?

    Write down three different reactions you will do instead, such as:

    Calmly assert your needs, deep breathing, count to ten, walk away rather than stick around for a fight, and close your eyes to reduce visual stimulation, etc.

    3. Make friends with the word “no.”

    Many nice people have a hard time with this one. The association with conflict makes us feel mean, insensitive, or too direct.

    Know that “no” means you respect yourself, your time, and your values. Practice saying it in the mirror until it sounds deliberate and natural.

    4. Ask yourself if you value expressing anger over getting along with others.

    It’s a fact that some people enjoy the adrenaline rush of letting go and projecting their uncomfortable feelings onto others.

    Recognize that the short-term feelings of power are no match for the sleeplessness, headaches, and despair, which endure long after the “anger high” wears off.

    5. Think about the last time you got angry. How did you go from anger to a calmer place?

    You’re probably really good at getting angry already, so let’s focus on the other side. Be specific. What behaviors did you call upon to get to zen?

    This will reinforce your coping strategies, and it will serve as a reminder to focus on solutions rather than stewing in anger.

    The more you practice reacting in positive ways, waiting until the anger subsides, and considering your options, the more skilled you will become at managing anger.

    It’s possible that your body is wired to be more anxiety-sensitive, and you’ll have to work harder than others to calm yourself. And that’s okay.

    These are temporary solutions, and you’ll still need to control the anxiety itself. But they’ll get you started in learning to respond with more awareness, and less emotion.

    You’re the expert on your life. And you get to choose how much anger to allow in your heart, mind, and body every day.

    With intentional focus on doing things differently, you can feel more calm, confident, and in control.

    Photo by skyseeker

  • Why It’s Not Selfish to Ask Someone You Love for Help

    Why It’s Not Selfish to Ask Someone You Love for Help

    Two People

    “Learn to appreciate what you have before time makes you appreciate what you had.” ~Unknown

    I’m a woman in midlife who thought she was set after a long successful career and the promise of financial security. I supported my own way through most of my life, fending for myself and then my two children, even during a 15-year marriage that ended badly and another that never really began.

    For a number of reasons my plans for an early and secure retirement ended a few years ago. The long story is for another time; the short story is health, burnout, spiritual growth, reorganization…life.

    A few months later, my oldest daughter announced she was engaged. I wanted to do for her what I always had been able to—give her what she wants—but I was no longer able to. 

    Now the wedding is only weeks away and the final plans and payments are being secured. More than we expected of course, despite her diligent attention to adhering to a modest budget.

    “You don’t have to, but I was just wondering…if you can…can you send more money? If you can’t, it’s okay. We will spend our own money,” she requested by e-mail reluctantly.

    On the one hand, I wanted to just say, “Yes, of course,” no questions asked; on the other, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to draw boundaries and to not do more than I was able.

    But on the hand that holds my heart, she was my little girl about to get married, and I didn’t know how to say no. 

    But how could I say yes, with mounting medical bills, another year of tuition for my other daughter, and having found myself unemployed and unable to work for more than two years? 

    I had never done this before, but in a quizzical moment that felt something like an inspiration, I decided to call my parents.

    My parents struggled financially for most of their life, but in their senior years they found themselves able to live fairly comfortably on their fixed incomes, with some money in the bank.

    I had never asked them for help before, and at 54 years old—having taken care of my own needs without help my whole life—it felt like some sort of failure on my part to make this choice.

    But for the sake of my daughter, I had to.

    My Dad picked up the phone, as I had hoped he would, and my Mom was out, as I hoped she would be. Daddy’s little girl and all. A much easier appeal.

    At first I felt so bad having to ask my Dad for money. I didn’t ask for much, but for a man who never was able to give much, not much is a lot.  

    I cried, and he tried to soothe me, hardly able to stand his little girl crying. Only now his “little girl” is 54 and he’s 80.

    He’s starting to break down. Little things, I can tell. But still, we are father and daughter, you know?

    He didn’t hesitate. He said he wished he could have done more. He said, “You are my flesh and blood.”

    Then soon after, I stopped feeling bad. I think I actually started to believe I made him feel good. He got to be a hero today.  

    It’s still such a small gesture, but such a large one.

    After I got off the phone I saw it all differently. There was indeed some goodness that came from my shame of not working and not making my own money right now—a chance to let him shine, to help. In a small way but a big way at the same time.

    Suddenly, I felt glad that I’d asked, and that I hadn’t let my ego need to show up as strong and infallible outweigh my daughter’s need, my need, and my Dad’s (and Mom’s) willingness and ability to become a hero for our family.

    I’m glad he got to do it. I’m thinking he needed to, in a way. Something for him to leave of himself before he goes.

    This whole experience made me realize something else, which was even more profound. I’ve had my parents around for so long that I’ve been lulled into believing they always will be.

    I’m lucky and grateful to be this age and to still have my parents—both of them to call on, and even more so for them to be there for me.

    I have not given much thought to what it would be like to no longer have them, but this exchange gave me the opportunity to realize that I’m really going to miss them when they do pass on.

    It will be strange and empty and weird when there physical presence is no more. In their own way, they have always been there, no matter what.

    I think my Dad got to be a hero today. And my daughter gets to have the wedding she wants.  And in some indirect way, I got to give each of these to both of them.

    Give someone you love this chance if it comes up. Don’t view it as weak or vulnerable to allow someone to step into their light and glory, and to give of themselves in a way that makes them feel good.

    Photo by Thejas

  • Wabi Sabi: Find Peace by Embracing Flaws and Releasing Judgment

    Wabi Sabi: Find Peace by Embracing Flaws and Releasing Judgment

    Meditating

    “Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama

    Several years ago, a colleague and I were invited to give a presentation on mindfulness at our State Mental Health Conference. I was a novice and flattered to be asked.

    Singing bowls, which are metal and look like a mortar and pestle, are useful tools in mindfulness practice. The bowl is placed on a cushion and, when struck, makes a beautiful sound like a bell.

    The tone and pitch are determined by the size of the bowl and thickness of the metal. They’re used for various purposes, but always signal the beginning and ending of a mindfulness meditation.

    At the time I owned a tiny brass bowl that made a beautiful high-pitched tone. It was a lovely bowl, but the sound only traveled to a small area.

    Needing the sound to travel to a larger audience, I took a shopping trip to our local New Age Emporium. It was a large store with every thing you could want: art, bamboo plants, books, Buddha statues, hemp clothing, incense—and singing bowls.

    I made my way to the meditation section and was quickly drawn to a Tibetan bowl with metalwork that looked old and well used. I picked it up and felt how it nestled in my hands like a warm cup of tea.

    To quote Goldilocks, the words “just right” came to my mind. I fell in love with it, and though the bowl was a little pricey, the comfort it gave me when I held it was priceless. The singing bowl was going home with me.

    Next I needed to find a cushion. I wanted it to be deep red, green, or maybe even royal blue, but where were the cushions? I was expecting a large stack to match the number of bowls, but alas, there was only one. 

    It was magenta: not my favorite color to say the least. Magenta! Absolutely not! I am not a magenta person, and it looks so garish next to my earthy singing bowl. But if that wasn’t enough, there was something even more disturbing than the color magenta.

    The embroidered circle on the top of the cushion was off center. It wasn’t a little off. It was a lot off.

    Are you kidding, I thought. How could anyone expect to sell this thing? No wonder it’s the last one. It’s the leftover; who would want it? I can’t imagine using a “misfit” cushion for my presentation.

    It would be humiliating—almost like I left my zipper down or had toilet paper hanging under my skirt.

    I felt a physical sense of resistance when I looked at it, as if my heart had hands that were pushing it away. My stomach began to twist, and I felt a golf ball forming at the base of my throat.

    After recovering from my horror, I laid the cushion down and decided to scavenge the store. I was banking on the chance that there was an abandoned cushion misplaced. Surely in a store this big, there was one more cushion.

    I investigated as though I were a detective looking for clues. Trust me, if I had been looking for a needle in a haystack, I would have found it—but I didn’t. There wasn’t another cushion.

    I sulked back to the scene of the crime, aka “the misfit cushion,” and glared at it. Once again, the resistance began to bubble up, but this time something miraculous happened.

    The whisperings of wakefulness called my name, and gently I returned to the here and now.

    Stop I thought. If you’re going to give a presentation on mindfulness, practice what you preach. You can’t be mindful if you have fallen into the trance of being judgmental. You are being mindless.

    Observe the resistance. What does it feel like viscerally? How does it feel in your hands? Close your eyes. Hmmm, it feels like a cushion. Set the bowl on it and strike it. Oh, it sounds beautiful—what a mellow tone. The cushion is perfectly functional.

    Look closely at it…

    The solid color is magenta. It’s shiny and soft. The embroidered circle is on the bottom left hand corner, and it’s about 3 inches in diameter. Hmmm. The sides have a band of embroidery circling it. Hmmm.

    Then the insight began to pour in. Who said the circle has to be in the middle? Why is the middle correct, and off center not? Perfection and imperfection imply right and wrong, but is that true? Who said symmetry is beautiful and asymmetry is not?

    As I questioned everything I had mindlessly assumed, I realized the cushion was perfect in its imperfection and utility.

    Understanding, along with my new eyes for finding beauty in unexpected places caused me to meet my teacher, in the form of a singing bowl cushion. I held it close to my heart and welcomed it home.

    My epiphany was an example of the Japanese term Wabi Sabi, which is a hidden treasure available to us all that offers peace, balance, and freedom. 

    Wabi means simplicity, quietude, harmony, peace, and poverty as in being stripped down to the basics.

    Sabi means things that come with age or time, and taking pleasure in that which is old or well used; “the bloom of time” as someone once said.

    Put those two words together and you have a feeling similar to faith—hard to explain, but a way of knowing that represents the peaceful acceptance of things as they are, including imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness.

    Wabi Sabi doesn’t only help with changing how we see physical objects. We can practice Wabi Sabi in our relationships, in our professional lives, and in any situation where we may be causing ourselves stress with expectations and judgments.

    When navigating these life experiences, it’s important to remember:

    1. Flaws are the leveling field of humanity.

    We all have them, rich and poor alike. It is our blemishes that connect us with our humanness.

    2. Wabi Sabi doesn’t imply giving up striving for excellence, but it does ask us to accept what is true.

    It asks us to slow down and look at things deeply, discovering beauty that might ordinarily be passed over in unexpected places.

    3. Resisting judgment allows us to see the whole picture, not just the fragment that too often is allowed to run the show.

    In doing so, we make room for peace that comes with acceptance. Peace brings relief, wisdom and connection.

    4. By calling a truce with imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness, a paradox happens, and we discover harmony and balance.

    My magenta, off centered cushion; my sensei, takes its place at the top of my gratitude list and continues to teach all who meet it.

    Photo by Wabi Sabi

  • 5 Tips to Stop Making Comparisons and Feeling Bad About Yourself

    5 Tips to Stop Making Comparisons and Feeling Bad About Yourself

    “The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” ~Steve Furtick

    I remember one day when I was around six years old, my older brother came home from school with one of those star-shaped highlighters that had a different color on each point. I laid my eyes on it and in that moment I wanted nothing more than I wanted that highlighter.

    It didn’t matter that as a six year old, I had less use for it than paper shoes in rainy weather; I just simply had to have it.

    Being the loudmouth child that I was, with a scream my mum only describes as “hell-breaking loose,” I fought (cried) tooth and nail for that highlighter until my father made my brother give it to me.

    I scribbled an obscure masterpiece of color for a solid five minutes—until my pupils dilated at the new pencil case my brother had pulled out of his school-bag. It’s safe to say my brother sure didn’t like my company for a while. Anything he had, I wanted.

    This wasn’t just an innocent childish trait. It seemed to follow me as I grew a little older too. I found myself wanting many things other people had.

    It didn’t have to be tangible. In fact, most of the time it was a character trait, a skill, or even academic ability. I always wanted something somebody else had.

    The problem was that it was no longer a case of just wanting the highlighter; I was putting myself down and getting frustrated at why I wasn’t given one, or why I wasn’t capable enough to get my own.

    The self-doubt questions start seeping in: Am I good enough? Why can’t I do this or have that? Am I ever going to achieve the things others seem to so easily? Why is it so hard for me to be happy and easy for everybody else?

    The thing with comparing ourselves to others is that it’s something every one of us does, or at least has done in the past.

    Remember coming home with a 95% on an exam? One of the first things our parents would ask is (second to “what happened to the other 5%?”): “How did everybody else in your class do on the test?”

    It seemed like it didn’t matter that we had gotten an A+, not if everybody else did too.

    It is always a comparison. In fact, education boards compare schools, teachers compare students, and employers compare interviewees. It’s just how the world works. It’s inevitable that we will learn to compare.

    At an individual level, we might attend parties or ten-year high school reunions and analyze in fine detail what successes everybody has achieved in their lives, and our drive home consists of brooding, trying to pinpoint where it all went wrong for us.

    If that wasn’t bad enough, enter: Facebook. Correction, social media as a whole has taken the lead in creating an online universal medium for comparisons all day every day!

    Now we know instantly when our friends are lying on a sandy white beach while we’re slaving away at a nine to five, which we have probably loathed for eight years.

    We see our friends getting married, and we can’t help but think about why we haven’t settled down yet. Our Facebook News Feed is filled with photos of couples with their first new-born, and we ask ourselves if we’ve missed our chance at having a family.

    We need to remember that on the outside, things may seem a certain way, but it’s almost always inaccurate. And that leaves our comparisons with very little basis.

    We’ve heard the phrase “Everyone’s fighting their own battle.” I had a friend once tell me that, on the outside, I looked like I lived a princess lifestyle. Princess!

    Apparently, I always had a smile on my face. I joked around, and seemed as though I hadn’t a single worry in the world. After she got to know more about me, she said she would never have guessed I had the problems I was actually dealing with at the time.

    Personally, I don’t recall having a particular incident happen to me that prompted a change. Perhaps it was just my gradual disinterest in other people’s lives and a heightened interest to focus on my own.

    But I realized there was zero benefit from comparing myself to others. Emotionally, it would only bring me down, and mentally, it immobilized me. No progression occurs at a standstill like that.

    Whether it’s something innate that we develop as kids, or something we’ve learned from the nature of our society today, we compare. And although logically we know comparisons are no good for us, we still can’t help doing it.

    So how do we actually stop?

    1. Appreciate what you do have.

    I realized it had never crossed my mind that perhaps someone out there could be looking at me, wishing for something that I had. When you’re lost in a world of comparisons, your focus is always outward, analyzing others. You forget that you already have a million and one things to be forever grateful for.

    2. It’s not a fair game.

    As our man Einstein says, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

    We’re all different, we see things differently, we’ve all had different experiences and come from different backgrounds. So comparing ourselves to others is synonymous to comparing a fish to a monkey.

    3. Things aren’t always what they seem.

    For some odd reason, we tend to make up our own judgments on people just on the way they look on the outside. You may look at two people working at the same firm, judge them both, and wish to have their position, but what you don’t know is while one may have got the job through his father’s connections, the other had worked twenty years at the bottom of the gutter to get where he is now.

    4. If you must compare, compare to yourself.

    Some people use comparisons and convert it into motivation. And for those who can do that, go for it. It’s definitely a positive spin; perhaps seeing someone’s success drives you to do the same.

    I often use this one, but I also believe that the best person to compare yourself to is you. Compare the present you to the past you. It’s a much fairer scale and a sure way to progression and peace of mind.

    5. Accept what you can’t change and change what you can’t accept.

    Leading on from the last tip, change the things you want to and when you have, compare back to yourself and see how much you changed for the better. And with the things you can’t change, accept that it was how you are supposed to be—own it, live it, love it.

    If you want to take one thing from this post, take my favorite: The only person you should be comparing yourself to is the person you were yesterday.