Tag: Happiness

6 Steps on the Path to Passion and Fulfillment
“I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” ~Joseph Campbell

There are seemingly small events in life that, in retrospect, turn out to be the catalyst for cataclysmic transformation. Such was the case for me when my oldest child left home to pursue her passion as a ballet dancer.

Little did I know at the time that this event would lead me to a brand new passion, a new business, and a new life.

My Life Passion Story

Prior to my daughter leaving home, I’d spent the previous three years supporting her as she pursued her passion, driving her two sixty-mile round trips daily to train at her ballet studio. I often spent three hours a day in the car. I was also tending to my two younger children and attempting to maintain a public relations consultancy.

A child leaving home isn’t really a small event, but in my case, it wasn’t as dramatic as it is for most parents. My daughter was away from home most of the day anyway between school and dance. And she spent six weeks away every summer at ballet programs. So her moving to another city did not feel so dramatic or unsettling in itself.

But what it triggered in me was a tsunami of internal upheaval.

As my daughter’s passion for ballet blossomed, I was happy to help her pursue her dream, and I accepted the sacrifices involved. Prior to this intense training period for her, I had an active public relations business in which I promoted my clients (actors, artists, designers, and business professionals) as they pursued their passions. But as my daughter’s training intensified, I had to cut back on my PR work.

When she left home, and I no longer had to spend hours a day in my car, I suddenly had a huge chunk of time on my hands.

You’d think regaining this time would have filled me with elation. But I remember standing in the middle of the house in despair, wondering who I was and what I was supposed to do.

Between my PR career and supporting my daughter, I had spent years helping others come alive with their own passions. Suddenly, I realized I didn’t have one of my own. I felt directionless, uninspired, and totally lost.

I tried to resurrect my PR business, but I had no joy in it. I so wanted to feel the enthusiasm and intensity that my daughter and my clients felt about their passionate pursuits. I wanted to feel alive again. At the time, I was in my late forties with a twenty-plus-year PR career under my belt but no other marketable skills (or so I thought).

I had no idea what to do, but I knew I had two choices:
- I could accept a boring, unsatisfying life
- I could figure a way out of this internal upheaval and find something to ignite my passion
I chose the latter. (more…)
October 15, 2012
The True Meaning of Patience: Let Go and Take Your Time

“Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength.” ~Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Patience sucks!

Well that is what I used to think.

I was taught growing up that it was a virtue, but I was never taught why.

In my experience, patience had meant I would miss out on something I desired. So I became the hare in the race and would fast track myself through career choices and opportunities and even relationships for fear that I would be forgotten and miss out again.

But in the story, it is tortoise that wins the race, because he is constant and sure-footed.

With all my “hurry up” and haring around I may have seemed to the outside world to be go-getting and achieving great things that seem so valuable in our materialistic world, but because I was so busy rushing to the next big thing, I was actually missing out on my life.

I’m 36, and I was brought up in an era that has been all about get it, have it, and then throw it away. For a long time, this left me feeling empty.

What I hadn’t learned was the true meaning and purpose of patience.

So I took up the piano.

After many years of wanting to play, and making endless excuses because I was scared of the hard work and the commitment it would involve, a time came when I was ready to face up to my fears.

I told my piano teacher that if it took me until I was 70, that would be fine, as I believed it was a skill I would like later in life.

All good words; however, not how I behaved…

As soon as I sat down on the stool and started to learn my first notes, I felt a building impatience.

I would get so frustrated with my fingers and hands for not working independently. Every time I took a small step forward and improved, I would barely savor the achievement and would once again get upset at anything I saw as failure. (more…)

October 15, 2012
5 Tips to Recognize and Honor Your Needs in Relationships

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

In what feels like a previous life, I was a serial dater.

I looked for attention, validation, and identification in relationships. Each guy, however wrong for me, seemed like the perfect fit for my empty hand.

Maybe I hated being around his smoking, but I brushed it off and tried to breathe the other way.

Maybe our conversations were dull, but I thought it’d get better. Maybe I cringed at being dragged to another party, but I went because he wanted to see his friends.

This pattern continued for years.

I stayed in relationships that were clearly wrong for me and dated people I didn’t understand, who didn’t understand me, just to be in one.

It wasn’t until an insightful Zen class that I even became aware of the pattern.

As I cozied up in the gently lit room, hot tea in hand, surrounded by kindred spirits, the Zen master began the day’s lesson: needs.

Huh. I sipped the sweet jasmine tea and listened intently, totally blown away by what he was saying. Needs? What are those? Seriously, they weren’t even on my radar.

But they should’ve been. Needs are personal prerequisites to happiness.

We don’t learn to pay much attention to our needs, beyond the basics of food, water, and shelter. Television advertisements, popular culture, and the desires of others dictate our “needs.”

But I’ll bet that, on a soul level, you don’t need a cooler car, a bigger ring, whiter teeth, or more parties.

What do you need then? Answering this question can be one of the most powerful transformations of your life.

It was for me. After that class I started paying attention to my needs, and very slowly, I began attending to them.

I needed to embrace my introverted nature instead of ignoring it or boozing it out at parties every weekend. I needed alone time—space to dream, think, and be. I needed peace and quiet. Deep conversation. The freedom to spend a Friday night in without guilt.

At first, recognizing these needs was rough. I hated myself for having them; why couldn’t I be like the other twenty-one-year-olds? Why did bars overwhelm me? Why couldn’t I socialize with his rowdy friends?

It drove me nuts. So for a while, I continued to ignore my needs. I thought I’d just override them with more wrong relationships and parties I hated.

But eventually, I couldn’t ignore them anymore. I came to terms with them. Being aware of my needs was making room for me to actually start taking care of them.

It took years, but I’m finally at the point where I’m comfortable with my needs—and making them known. (more…)

October 14, 2012
The World Needs You to Come Alive

“Don’t ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~Howard Thurman

Three years ago, I found myself in the biggest predicament of my life.

I had finally found what made me happy. I knew that travel ignited a part of me that otherwise lay dormant. The foreign sights, sounds, flavors, and language of a new country are what make my heart pound, my blood pump, and my soul bloom.

I love everything about traveling, and how it impacts my life: the Greek words I add to my vocabulary, the delicious cuisine of Morocco, the relaxed evenings in Italy. These are experiences that I want in my life.

Traveling makes me a better, more well-rounded person, and it makes me exquisitely happy—in a word, alive.

Travel was my dream—a massive, untouchable dream. A dream that didn’t involve multiple phone lines ringing, my cell phone buzzing, and my inbox flooding as a 40-hour workweek merged into 60 hours.

I compromised my dream because I was working—for a promotion, for validation, for the almighty dollar. Blindly contented in this role, I kept settling, assuring myself that the day would come when I could fulfill my desire to travel.

One day the Tiny Buddha weekly email arrived and “10 Questions to Ask Yourself before Giving Up on Your Dream,” by Lori Deschene, loomed out at me.

I read the questions and tried to defend my current life choices, but I wasn’t able to satisfy my own inquiring. I knew travel made me happy, and I couldn’t justify giving up on that.

The rest of the day I fought a battle between my head and heart. I knew the right choice, no matter how terrifying, was to follow my dreams.

Within a week, I bought a one-way ticket to Greece and started writing my 60-day notice for the office.

Naturally, I was scared. That crippling, nagging feeling came to sit with me—doubt. I doubted myself, my plan, and the decision to leave a great job in a bad economy.

When I put in my resignation, the General Manager did his best to discourage me, saying, “You’ll never get another chance like this… You think careers are just handed out? You’re making a mistake.” (more…)

October 10, 2012
Go Ahead and Care—It Won’t Break You

“What you do have control over is how you react to what happens in your life.” ~Oprah

How vulnerable it is to care deeply.

Because, oh God—the white-hot shame of caring, and having your caring exposed when it doesn’t happen despite your best efforts?

Humbling.

The thing I wanted most since I was a little girl was to be a published writer. Published, as in bound book in hand, “by Kate Swoboda” on the cover.

As a child, I spent hours writing books—real books, from beginning to end, sometimes illustrating them with pictures.

I majored in English with a writing concentration in college. I went to graduate school for writing. I continued to write full-length books.

Finally, when I was 24 years old, I thought I had my chance.

I had entered my novel to a fiction contest and received an honorable mention. At the awards dinner, the judge told me that I had almost won the first-place award.

The best-selling author who financially backed the contest said, “I want to read your manuscript.” Another writer at the dinner—a legit writer who has had her books turned into movies—said, “I’ll put you in touch with my agent.”

I don’t think I drove home. I think I flew home, light as air, high on the possibilities.

The writer gave me the information, and I overnighted my manuscript, a complete novel, to that agent. Then I spent the next month—every day—thinking about this agent calling, and how this was it, the big break.

Three months later, I finally got a polite rejection email. I was crushed.

“I Don’t Care”

I often wonder if there’s some mechanism that modern-day society is missing when it comes to disappointment.

Were generations prior better equipped to handle disappointment because they lived in a time when they didn’t get constant, recurring instant gratification? Is that what it takes to learn how to deal with disappointment better?

(more…)

October 10, 2012
Learn to Forgive Yourself Even When You’ve Hurt Someone Else

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

Think back to the last time somebody apologized to you about something. Did you forgive them? There is a very good chance that you did.

Now think back to the last time you harmed someone else. Have you forgiven yourself? Probably not.

We all make mistakes. Oftentimes, through our actions, somebody gets hurt.

During this past year, I served as a liaison between my fraternity and a seventeen-year-old cancer patient in a local hospital through the Adopt-a-Family program. This patient, Josh Goldstein, passed away around the beginning of March.

My responsibility as liaison was to have a regular communication with Josh. I failed in this responsibility.

In the month after Josh died, I was overcome by shame. My belief that I was a fundamentally good person was shattered. How could I be so neglectful? Why did I not spend more time with him?

This feeling climaxed during “Family Hour” of Rutgers University Dance Marathon (a thirty-two-hour, student-run event that raised over $442,000 for families that have children with cancer and blood disorders). I was standing in the rafters, listening to a speech by the mother of one of the families that we had helped.

I couldn’t bear to hear her thank us for all the wonderful things she said we had done when I felt, deep down, that I was a bad person!

I literally could not touch my friends who had been standing next to me because I might have contaminated them with the disease that was my poor character.

This terrible feeling continued, and tears began to stream down my face. Flashing before my eyes, I saw all the opportunities I had to visit Josh in the hospital but had chosen not to.

Then my memory came to our fraternity meeting where Josh’s death had been announced. His last wish had been that we would not forget him after he passed. I pictured Josh saying this over and over again.

And then a strange thing happened: I realized that not only was I not going to forget Josh, but that I would never make the same mistake again.

In an instant, I had forgiven myself, letting go of the pain and accepting that I could still be a good person even if I made a serious mistake. (more…)

October 9, 2012
Taking Small Steps to Do the Thing That Scares You
“Take that first step. Bravely overcoming one small fear gives you the courage to take on the next.” ~Daisaku Ikeda

When I was younger I loved to climb trees, but I was always too scared to get myself down. Somehow, when standing at the base of a massive Oak, I’d forget how terrified I’d feel at the top.

So I’d climb away, trying to prove to the neighborhood boys that I was fearless, and then stay up there, clutching the bark and crying, until someone helped me get safely to the ground.

I knew who I wanted to be—a daredevil Tomboy who was adventurous and tough—but I was deathly afraid of feeling out of control and getting hurt.

You can probably imagine how terrified I felt when I went skydiving several years ago. I would have sooner put hot pokers into my ocular cavities then let go and free fall from 10,000 feet in the sky.

It was a lot higher than the tree branches—making the rise to the top a lot more terrifying.

Still, I wanted to do it. I had a whole list of reasons:
- I wanted to prove I could.
- I wanted to feel alive.
- I wanted to face a fear.
- I wanted to impress and inspire myself.
- I wanted to impress my boyfriend, who’d invited me for our second date.
It would have been easy to psych myself out of going. It was the scariest thing I’d ever done. I was overwhelmed with emotion, and even slightly paralyzed. It didn’t help matters that someone tweeted me a link to skydiving fatalities an hour before my boyfriend showed up.

In that moment, it seemed far more reasonable to back out. I knew it was unlikely I’d plummet to my death, but even the slightest risk seemed too big to take.

As I read through the various stories of things that had gone wrong for others, wrestling with my fear of facing a similar fate, I reminded myself that the part of me that wanted to do it was greater than the part of me that was afraid.

I realized the only way I’d follow through was to stop thinking and focus on doing. I had to start moving toward it, one inch at a time. (more…)
October 8, 2012
Respond Instead of Reacting: Speak Your Truth, Not Your Fears

“Speak when you are angry and you’ll make the best speech you’ll ever regret.” ~Laurence J. Peter

Finances, relationships, responsibilities, and life in general can certainly create a great deal of noise in our heads. However, if we truly want to feel inner peace, we must take the time to learn to be mindful instead of mind full. This, and only this, will allow us to respond to life instead of reacting to it.

I have tons of happy memories from my childhood and a few harsh ones too. Unfortunately, the harsh memories are those that we replay over and over again, until we heal them. A difficult memory that stuck with me for a very long time was my mother’s pattern of despair.

She would appear agitated or frustrated about something and soon after she would yell, “One of these days, you’ll come home and you’re not going to find me!” (There’s still a part of me that shudders a bit when I hear those words.)

As a child, this was a clear sign that my mom was angry about something and if I didn’t hurry up and make it better, she just might leave.

All I knew in my youth was that I didn’t want my mom to be mad and I surely didn’t want her to leave. As an adult, I have a very different view.

I am the youngest of four girls in my family, and I was born eleven years after my next eldest sister. My mom was in her late thirties when she gave birth to me, and she had been a mother from the age of seventeen.

When I think back to my own life at the age of seventeen, I certainly did not have the worries or concerns that my mother did.

I wasn’t worried about finances, a marriage, or taking care of a young child. Instead, I was worried about what to wear to school the next day and when I was getting my braces off! One memory that sticks in my brain that happened when I was seventeen, was the day my mom stopped saying she was leaving.

I remember sitting at our kitchen table when my mom asked me to pull a turkey out of the oven for her because she had recently hurt her back and needed some assistance with this simple task. I was busy writing in my journal so I responded, “Sure mom, in a minute.” (more…)

October 3, 2012
Owning Our Actions and Avoiding Regret

“Your actions are your only true belongings.” ~Allan Lokos

I’d bet I’m not the only one who browses through the quotes section of Tiny Buddha when its time for a pick-me-up or a little bit of a calming down.

As I’m writing this, the quote above is particularly pertinent. I found out an hour ago that someone has hit my car for the second time this year—in the same parking lot as the last accident.

I’m pretty upset, and between waiting to file the police report and being on hold with the insurance, a little bit of comfort reading made sense.

I know this quote. Really, really know it. It’s part of the liturgy from my old sangha, from before I moved to a small town where there isn’t such a thing.

My actions are my only true belongings. In the liturgy it’s followed by the logical next step: I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.

And the final line always made me want to shout out loud, to proclaim it from the rooftops: My actions are the ground on which I stand.

This is where I make my stand. On the ground of my actions.

Whatever my thoughts are, however my mind drifts, that’s okay. I don’t have to worry about being perfect at meditation, about having a clear, peaceful mind.

I’m a terrible mediator. Thoughts flow in and out of my mind. It doesn’t take but a minute of silence before I’m thinking about tonight’s dinner and wondering what I need to get from the store.

I’m not particularly skilled in the other paths. Right speech is an ongoing challenge.

There’s something liberating in not having to worry about always being in control of my slippery, wandering mind. Thought is hard to corral, hard to train.

Action is a bit different.

That’s something you can get a handle on. You don’t have to worry too much about shades of grey with actions. You did it, or you didn’t.

It’s not about intention, or thoughts, or feelings. It’s about actions. What you actually do.

I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.

We’ve all learned about consequences from the time we were five. Somewhere along the way we stole a cookie or lied about breaking something or made up some random fib and were grounded. Consequences are something we may not like, but we understand.

My actions, and the consequences of my actions, are my only true belongings.

Even if I’m angry, what actions do I want to own at the end of today? I could yell and scream about this. I could go off on a rant at the guy who hit my car, if we can find him. (more…)

October 3, 2012
50 Cheap, Creative Ways to Have Fun

“Never let lack of money interfere with having fun.” ~Unknown

Back when we were young we may have asked our parents for money to do things, but more often than not we found creative ways to have fun without spending a dime.

At least I know I did.

My cousins and I turned their bulkhead cellar doors into a slide—and the main attraction of our DIY amusement park.

We turned cardboard paper towel rolls and rice-filled soda bottles into instruments, and entertained ourselves for hours on end. Okay, maybe not hours, but you get the point.

We didn’t wait for overtime or vacation weeks to have fun. It didn’t really matter what we did. All that mattered is that we were together, and we were fully committed to enjoying ourselves.

I highly doubt I’d spend one of my adult Saturdays banging on a homemade coffee can drum, but there’s something to be said for getting a little creative with your downtime—especially since a lot of us spend a great deal of time immersed in routines and technology.

If you’re looking for some cheap, creative ways to enjoy the weekend—or perhaps an upcoming weekday you’ve chosen to liberate—I recommend:

Have Fun Outside

1. Take a “flip the penny” hike in the woods. Assign each side as right or left, and then when you come to a fork in the road, flip to see which way you go. (Just make sure you keep track of where you’re going so you don’t get lost.)

2. Host a modern scavenger hunt, using technology.

3. Have a picnic in the park and ask everyone to make something from scratch.

4. Make your own kite, then head to the beach to fly it.

5. Take up urban foraging—the act of picking free fruits, vegetables, and edible plant life around your city, where sanctioned.

6. Start a nature collection—collect interesting shaped rocks or shells—and spend the day getting it started.

7. Start a garden on the cheap using some clever ideas from TheStreet.com.

8. Download a bike map app for your iPhone and explore a new area.

9. Have a nostalgia hunt at a flea market. Look for GI Joes, My Little Ponies, Cabbage Patch Kids, or anything else you loved as a kid.

10. Go geocaching—a “high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers.”

Have Fun with Food

11. Swap family recipes with a friend and make each other’s to enjoy together.

12. Make ingredients gifts for upcoming birthdays and events—get a jar, decorate it, and then layer cookie ingredients inside.

13. Have a cookie swap party. Everyone makes a dozen and goes home with a dozen of all different types of cookies.

14. Take turns hosting dinners with friends. It’s much less expensive than going out to eat, and it gives everyone a turn to host.

15. Host pot luck dinners based on food themes. Everyone brings something Italian, and the next time Thai, and the next time Chinese.

16. Have a food art party—everyone needs to bring something that’s both edible and creative.

17. Have a budget food contest. Everyone has to cook a dish spending no more than $5 or $10. Eat and vote on the best budget dish!

18. Start your own Julie and Julia project—grab a cookbook, start working your way through it, and blog about it as you go.

19. Make a recipe book of all your favorite dishes to give to someone you love.

20. Have an ugly cake contest. Have all of your friends make a desert, and then before you enjoy them together, vote on which is the ugliest!

Have Fun with Entertainment

21. Have a karaoke night using the YouTube karaoke channel.

22. Look on Craigslist for your area to see if there are any free concerts going on in nearby parks.

23. Have a movie marathon with one or two friends where everyone brings their favorite DVD.

24. Have an independent-film marathon, watching free indie videos online.

25. Spend a day looking for free street performances in the nearest big city. In the summer particularly, there’s a ton!

26. Host your own open mic night and invite all your most talented musician, comedian, and poet friends.

27. Have a culture day—visit a museum on a free day, listen to classical music on the way, and watch a classic movie in the evening.

28. Call your local theater to see if they take volunteer ushers. Many theaters give free tickets to volunteers who either seat guests or clean up post-performance.

29. If you have children, host a family barbecue where the adults catch up while the kids come up with a little show to perform later in the evening. (My favorite childhood memories all involve a show with the cousins!)

30. Use Facebook to get a group together for a flash mob. You’ll need a lot of people—and undoubtedly, this requires work—but it can be a ton of fun to prepare and carry out! Here are 15 flash mob videos to get the creative juices flowing.

Have Fun by Trading

31. Host a clothes swap day where everyone brings clothing and accessories they no longer want, and everyone goes home with something new. (This may be more for the ladies.)

32. Exchange homes for a night. When you’re staying at your friend’s high-rise condo and she’s decompressing in your claw-foot tub, a relaxing night in will have a whole new sense of excitement.

33. Trade gear—let your friend use your bike while you learn to rollerblade.

34. Trade books with a friend and then get together to discuss the most insightful, helpful, or entertaining parts.

35. Have a board game night where everyone brings their favorite game. (Okay, so this is more sharing than trading).

36. Trade your services for someone else’s. Offer to help your painter friend set up a website in exchange for painting your bedroom. It will be a fun, free, productive afternoon!

37. Have a no-money garage sale on a sunny afternoon. List on Craigslist everything that you have that you’d like to get rid of, and include a list of everything you want in exchange.

38. Trade ideas. Ask your friend to share his or her favorite way to spend a day off, then you share yours. You can either do them separately and report back to each other, or do them together on two respective off days.

39. Trade videos with a loved one who lives far away. Each of you plan a day of fun, without telling each other what it will entail. Then go through the day with the intention of creating a joy-filled video to send the other one later that evening.

40. Trade blogs. You host your friend’s blog for a day and let him or her host yours. If you both write about different niches, this is an incentive to try something new so that you can write about it.

Have Fun by Giving Back

41. Create a digital product about something you enjoy and donate the proceeds to charity.

42. Host a free webinar sharing something that you’re passionate about.

43. Sign up to be a volunteer dog walker through the SPCA. (You can also help organize fundraising events, provide general animal care, and assist with grooming, among other things.)

44. Call your local children’s hospital and see if you can host a sing-a-long or come dressed up as a clown to spread cheer. (Contributor Harriet Cabelly did something similar through Patch Adams international clowning trips.)

45. Volunteer to help with events at your local zoo. Some zoos require an extensive time commitment, but others take short-term volunteers for specific events.

46. Be an unofficial park volunteer for a day. In between relaxing and reading books on the grass, pick up litter to keep the area clean.

47. Use Charity Navigator to find a local charity that you can trust, and then get involved starting today.

48. Help an elderly neighbor with her garden, or with another chore that you generally enjoy doing.

49. Lead or participate in a midnight run to help the homeless.

50. Have a bake sale with friends in your neighborhood, then donate the proceeds to your favorite charity.

Have anything to add to the list?

October 3, 2012
6 Tips to Keep Becoming Who You’re Meant to Be

“Life is a process of becoming. A combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” ~Anais Nin

Last October, in a whiplash-fast, three-hour labor, two and half weeks before my due date, I gave birth to my first baby, a boy, named Jackson.

While pregnancy hadn’t been a breeze—I was hospitalized twice with complications, and, you know, no sushi for nine months—the first few weeks of Jackson’s life left me feeling, at times, like a shattered shell of my former self.

His was an ear-piercing scream that seemed endless in those early days, leaving me both physically and mentally exhausted; and save for a few smiles, the hint of who he’d become was so teeny—like a faint, faraway twinkle in the night sky—that I wondered how I’d ever form the bond with my child I so deeply craved.

Around the time Jackson turned five months old, things began to shift. While his ear-piercing screams still made an occasional guest appearance, an infectious laugh had begun filling some of the spaces between them.

And the sleepless nights that so recently left me dragging through each day, dreaming of Egyptian Cotton sheets and a strong sedative, had been replaced with eight-, nine-, sometimes even 12-hour blocks of sleep.

Jackson was becoming a funny, inquisitive, playful little person with a growing personality and a whole host of new tricks: rolling, sitting up, babbling, crawling, clapping. He reacted and responded to me now in a way that felt like communication, using a language of giggles, grunts, and physical cues.

All these changes, as well as the growing bond between us, reminded me of why I’d been so excited to have a child in the first place: It’s super cool to raise and watch a person rapidly evolve through the formative stages of becoming who he’s meant to be.

I am also reminded that those stages—those opportunities for growth—may slow in adulthood, but they’re always there for those interested in pursuing them. One of the best ways to find them is to engage in the world like a baby does, by following these six tips: (more…)

October 2, 2012
3 Ways to Trust Your Body and Trust Yourself

“Your body is precious. It is our vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.” ~Buddha

I trust that the body knows everything. It does. Absolutely.

Did you ever just get a feeling—maybe something in your body that tells you something is wrong or just not right? Or maybe it gives you hints of unfailing happiness, joy, and earth shattering love?

If we would stop giving so much power to the mind, the ego, and just sat still and tapped into our body’s wisdom, we’d experience a healing power so great that it could prevent or reverse illness, disease, hate, self-loathing, and perfectionism.

I’ve learned to listen closely to my lovely friend, my body. In the past I judged her, forced away any pain she tried to show me, and even shunned self-love. I used to beat her up with negativity, judgment, and ridicule.

I wish I could take back all that abuse. My body didn’t deserve all the mean words, hurtful thoughts, and even constant manipulation with unhealthy diets and exercise.

You see, I had an eating disorder.

It’s hard to talk about, but I’ve learned that it is just a part of me—it’s in my cells, and my body remembers.

I respect this and am able to let go and speak of my experience. This has taken a long time, however, but each time I bring up the truth, my body gives me a gentle squeeze and trust is deepened.

I’m not sure how my issues with food started, but I would bet it happened sometime in childhood.

When I was eight years old, someone I loved dearly told me that I was fat. I remember I was wearing my yellow cowgirl dance outfit (as I had a recital that day) when it happened. I was crushed.

I stopped eating.

I can remember writing down each item of food in a journal. I only allowed five things a day, such as one piece of toast or one stick of bubblegum.

Of course I was growing and I was constantly starving, therefore, I’d inevitably take a trip to McDonalds at the end of the day. I would feel defeated, then resentful of my body, telling her to listen and not eat so much. This went on for years. (more…)

October 1, 2012
Your Thoughts Create Your World: Patrol Your Mind

“Since you alone are responsible for your thoughts, only you can change them.” ~Paramahansa Yogananda

In my second year of residency, I went through my internal medicine rotation. I had just been assigned to a particular patient and was responsible for his care during that part of his stay. His medical chart stated he had multiple systemic issues, including more than one terminal condition.

He had been admitted to the hospital numerous times, but this was our first encounter. As I entered his room, I wasn’t sure what to expect. After all, this was a man with a limited amount of time left.

In the past, I’d had a few patients turn their anger toward me simply because I came into their space. Others were indifferent. Who could blame them? They were facing difficult circumstances—some of them potentially fatal. I just assumed this gentleman would fall into one of the two categories.

I was wrong.

When I walked in, I was met with a heartwarming smile and genuine welcome. This soft-spoken gentleman greeted me in the way one would a friend. I immediately felt a warmth and connection to him, and over the next few days he became the highlight of my day.

Looking back, I had to wonder what made this man face his situation in a completely different manner than others. He was able to keep the most pleasant disposition despite the fact that his body was slowly shutting down under the strain of his multiple ailments.

I understand now that he simply made a choice.

He could have easily chosen to think that life was unfair. He could have chosen to think he had a right to have a nasty attitude. He could have chosen to die bitter and broken.

He didn’t. He chose to think differently of circumstances most of us would consider dire. He chose not to dwell on the negative but instead made an effort to create positivity around him. If he had the power to choose a higher thought about his situation, it stands to reason that we all do. (more…)

September 30, 2012
4 Ways To Take The Ego Out of Money Decisions

“Prosperity depends more on wanting what you have than having what you want.” ~Geoffrey Abert

Nothing has the power to mess up my finances more than my own brain—or, more precisely, my ego.

According to Eckhart Tolle, the ego entails the habitual and compulsive thought processes that go through everybody’s mind continuously. Left unchecked, this constant ego monologue prevents us from focusing on the present moment. Instead, we get caught up in worrying about what happens next. Or, in my case, what I want to buy next.

My Ego Challenges

As a financial planner, you would think that I would have mastered money challenges! But the reality is, I have struggled as much as the next person because I allowed my ego to drive my decisions for almost five years.

When you’re a new financial planner, it’s easy to get caught up in creating the image of a successful planner—in fact, my first manager told me it was okay to go into debt to get a “successful” wardrobe!

And it doesn’t stop there; I bought the “right” car, the “right” house in the “right” neighborhood; and before long, I was exhausted from maintaining appearances. I may have looked like the perfect planner, but I sure didn’t feel like one.

I never enjoyed my successes, because I was too obsessed with getting the next thing on the list.

I finally realized that no amount of money would ever be enough to feel happy, regardless of what my ego told me. And so much money was going to maintaining appearances that I never felt truly prosperous, even though I was making more money than I ever had before.

That was the point at which I sold a successful practice and struck out on my own.

I decided that if I wasn’t happy with what I had, I needed to reboot. I don’t think everyone needs to take such drastic action; most people can simply bring more awareness to their decisions and start to course-correct as they go.

The reason I changed everything so dramatically—sold my business and my home and moved to a completely new city—was that I not only needed to get clear, I needed to recuperate. Letting my ego drive my life choices and burying my true self had made me physically sick, with hypothyroidism and adrenal burnout. (more…)

September 30, 2012
Creating Calm and Releasing Anxiety: Go Deeper, Not Faster

“It’s not the load that breaks you down; it’s the way you carry it.” ~Lena Horne

Friends, relatives, and the waitress who served me breakfast said I was the most relaxed bride they’d ever seen. “Most brides are ordering the bloody Mary’s right now, not the green tea,” the server remarked.

This was July 9, 2011, and I was about to marry my husband, best friend, and favorite comedian. Our wedding washed over me like a peace I had long forgotten.

Aside from finding the person I always knew I was looking for, the grace I felt that day resulted from a wedding process infused with tranquility.

Because of a hypothyroid diagnosis the year before, I had slowed down my life considerably to try and heal naturally. Graduate school completion got delayed. My health coaching business, an all-consuming love for the prior four years, was now prioritized alongside my personal life.

For the nine months leading up to our wedding, I had a social life again. I exercised consistently. I had space to breathe.

Slowing down wasn’t a winning lottery ticket. It involved examining the deep distrust of life felt in my core after being diagnosed with cancer as a teenager.

While chemotherapy and radiation cured me by the time I was 14, healing turns out to be a lifetime process.

Because I knew slowing down was temporary—“I’ll never get this chance again,” I reminded myself when old habits flared—it became easier. Rest became a foundational healing element in my life and within seven months my thyroid returned to normal. My business got incredible results for clients and I continued to easily pay my mortgage.

Life felt safe and beautiful because I was in control. The deep cancer wound I had carried around for 19 years appeared scabbed over completely. I wasn’t just the calmest bride but the calmest me I’d ever remembered.

August 22, 2011, I watched my husband leave in a taxi. He had been accepted into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and was en route to a fiction writer’s dream. I knew since he got the acceptance phone call back in March that we’d be spending the next two academic years long-distance. (more…)

September 27, 2012
Waking Up and Forgetting a Bad Day

“Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.” ~Denis Waitley

Yesterday was a bad day.

My husband and I got really close to buying a car before we walked away—again. This time it was because it was above our budget (with taxes), because the current owners didn’t have the title (their bank did), and because our own car broke down on the way to trying to buy the new car (didn’t see that one coming).

I was fine about the ordeal yesterday, seeing the whole thing as one big adventure toward the right car in the end. But this morning I woke up angry and fearful. Angry about the time we’ve invested so far without results and fearful that another almost there deal might fall through again.

After three days negotiating on the last fall-through deal, it felt like the failure of failures and just wanted to stay in bed so I could avoid more of them.

Of course I knew rationally that my feelings didn’t reflect reality, that yesterday’s annoyances are small change in the scheme of things, and that I’m fortunate to be even looking for a (second) car let alone have so many choices for which one to buy.

The real problem was that my feelings weren’t staying within the boundaries of the car-shopping situation. They were infecting how I felt about everything from my business to my past choices, to my body image, to my mental health image.

I was flooded within minutes of being awake, and I didn’t know how I was going to coax my mental strength back from cowering in the corner.

So I did what every procrastinating person does these days: I went on Facebook. And after seeing a bunch of uninteresting stuff, my eye caught on the most courageous thing I’ve seen in a long time: a picture of my five-year-old nephew Caleb leaving home for his very first day of school. (more…)

September 26, 2012
11 Lessons for a Life Filled with Peace, Love, and Happiness

“A man is not old until regrets take the place of his dreams.” ~Proverb

When Lori wrote her list of thirty-three lessons she’d learned in life (one for each of her years) to celebrate her recent birthday, she gave us some amazing insights (thirty-three to be exact) for someone so young.

It got me thinking of what wisdom I could possibly add to the list from the extra years of life I’ve led, eleven extra years to be exact. (Did I just admit that!)

As someone still so young (well, sort of), I’m still learning too, and hope to keep learning up until the day I die (preferably as someone very old, but still young at heart). In the meantime, I offer the lessons I’ve learned to go with the wrinkles.

So following on from Lori’s astute final observation that “what we do matters,” here is my list of extras:

1. What we think matters.

We can let our thoughts control our lives, or we can choose not to attach to them and listen to our gut instead. Our thoughts will keep us small; our inner wisdom is rather large!

2. Pain is mostly in our heads.

Of course we can suffer terrible physical pain and losses that seem unbearable. Without discounting this suffering, it’s the stuff we manufacture for ourselves in our minds that is often most painful— guilt, resentment, bitterness. We relive pain over and over in our heads. Pretty silly. Enough.

3. There really is no black and white.

The yin yang symbol may be black and white, but each segment of the circle is constantly merging into the other. We perceive dark because of the absence of light; night becomes day—they are complements, not opposites. Without one we could not appreciate the other. And then there is hot, warm, cool, cold, tepid, freezing etc. Look for the degrees in life (the shades of grey if you like). (more…)

September 26, 2012
More Peace and Connection: Recreating a Simpler Time

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” ~Robert Brault

Yesterday, as my boyfriend and I were driving home from a quick trip to Vegas, we saw a sign for a ghost town and decided to do some exploring.

I’ve always loved the idea of a ghost town—a place left untouched for years, still reflecting the people who once inhabited it, as if they’d just picked up and left mere moments ago.

Though aged with cobwebs, marred by neglect, and long since deprived of life and laughter, it would seem like time had stood still. I imagined it would feel a lot like Thoreau’s cabin in the woods: minimal, modest, and quaint.

In our high-tech, fast-paced world, very little feels simple. And while I love my home and environment in Los Angeles, I often long to find places that feel charming and uncomplicated.

We quickly found it wasn’t a village left untouched for exploring, though much of it looked how it once did; it was a small slice of the land commercialized with little tiny shops, as is the American way.

Still, I enjoyed roaming through the surrounding mountains and seeing nostalgic pieces within and outside the cottages—a few wooden carriages, an oil burning stove, and a deep claw foot tub.

While walking around, I asked my boyfriend if he’d ever fantasized about living in a small village, with a self-contained community of people who all knew and supported each other.

It’s something I’ve always romanticized. Instead of living in the hustle and bustle of our modern world, always consuming and pushing for the next big thing, we’d create with our hands and spend more time enjoying life’s simple pleasures together.

We’d have access to everything we need within close proximity, and the vast world made seemingly larger through the web would shrink in feel and yet expand in possibilities.

Not possibilities for earning money and succeeding professionally; possibilities for childlike joy and meaningful connection—the human wealth our tribal ancestors once enjoyed, before everything got bigger, faster, and automated. (more…)

September 25, 2012
Strength in Times of Doubt: 11 Tips for Tough Times

“We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.” ~Unknown

There is no question that we are living in a time of doubt, fear, uncertainty, and economic frustration. Only recently have I experienced this doubt on a gut level, the kind that can punch hard and make you sick.

I am writing because I want this to change, but also because I know other people are dealing with this same thing.

After spending nine years in school, four degrees later, I found myself unemployed and overqualified. My passion for social work and education loomed far in the distance as employment prospects appeared to be minimal.

At times, it felt like the news reports were telling me that there was no future for me.

That is an extreme perception, but at the time I believed it.

During interviews, I was either under-qualified or overqualified. Time after time, when people and family asked me what I was doing, I would respond, “Looking for a job,” only to have them look at me with pity and say, “Good luck; it’s so hard out there.”

Every time, it hurt more than the first.

In addition to this lovely transition, my grandmother died rather suddenly.

She was the rock of my youth and a source of timeless happiness. For her to go and not ever see me as something more than a permanent student, living from one retail job to another, ate away at me and ultimately led to a depressed state.

She loved me greatly and thought the world of me, but I feared that this label of being “unemployed” took over and disqualified any belief or hope she ever had in me. (more…)

September 25, 2012
Live the Beach Lifestyle Everyday

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” ~Sydney J. Harris

I live on a beach, and I don’t mean in a box under the boardwalk. Rather, my home is just about 60 seconds away. People tell me I’m lucky when they find out that the beach is basically my backyard.

This implies that we all randomly end up living in places strictly by chance, and that my being here is purely accidental. I obviously chose to live here. But beyond that, the beach life can be a choice, even if you don’t live near one.

I was walking on the boardwalk the other day and realized that I felt as if I were on vacation. Not because I was at the beach, but because of the attitude behind my thoughts. Even though I have lived here for five years, there are always new people to meet and new things to do, so every day can be a vacation.

When was the last time you explored the town you live in or a neighboring town? That could be a fun journey and an escape from the everyday grind, couldn’t it?

“My life is like a stroll on the beach…as near to the edge as I can go.” ~Thoreau

Perspective Buster

Why is it that we can wait in line at Disney World for an up to an hour for a ride that will last (maybe) three minutes without complaining, but we cannot endure waiting five minutes at the bank or post office? What’s the difference?

Is it our first time in one of these waiting stations? Did we really expect to go right in and out of the bank? Or the doctor?

That’s unrealistic isn’t it? So why the impatience? It’s our attitude that makes the difference.

Yes, there were times when we have quickly gone in and out of the post office or bank, but that is not the norm. Instead it’s a pleasant surprise.

My thinking is this: If you don’t have enough time allotted to go on your errands or you can’t stand to wait for a few minutes, then don’t go.

Save yourself (and others) the aggravation. Now, it’s likely that you will eventually have to go, and there will be times you will have to wait, so it may be best to change your attitude and your thoughts. Let your dreams take you away. (more…)

September 24, 2012