Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • How Expressing Myself Helped Me Release Chronic Pain

    How Expressing Myself Helped Me Release Chronic Pain

    “Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor.” ~ Rumi

    It can be frightening to experience physical or mental pain. It’s not something anyone wants to deal with; nobody wants to race against the clock hoping that some future experience will take away their pain. Nobody wants to question the purpose of anything, like seeing a friend or even traveling, just because they feel their pain will ruin it.

    During my freshman year at college, I woke up one day with horrific nerve pain in my legs and in my pelvic area. What was this? My instinct told me this would go away in a few days, and when it didn’t, I took to Google to diagnose myself. According to Google, I had hundreds of different diseases and infections. That only kicked up my anxiety.

    I started seeing doctors—neurologists, urologists, and pain management specialists as the time went by. Over the course of few months, the pain not only spread but also got more difficult to deal with. The doctors were stumped. I was stumped. No MRIs or nerve conductive tests had any conclusive results. A spinal tap came out clear. I didn’t have any type of autoimmune disease.

    During the course of all this, I was extremely depressed. It was difficult to leave my bed, go out with friends, and enjoy the simplest things. I loved learning and I was in the midst of very exciting classes, but I identified with my pain—I believed I was pain and I was hopeless—so I cut out anything that interested me or could bring me happiness or joy.

    I was eighteen, young, and adventurous, but my pain caused me to fear the future. What was going to happen in next six months? I was convinced I would never get better. 

    It seemed the only thing I could do to escape the pain was release anger and tears and do different drugs. Though I had this new pain and was now a different person, I could not accept that and let go of the person I’d been before it happened.

    I finally had a breaking point when I was studying in Greece but couldn’t enjoy myself because of all the negative, terrifying thoughts my mind could produce. I kept fantasizing about life in the future, in situations that didn’t exist and situations that could “save me”:

    • I’m going to move to New York one day and then I will be fine, and I will be so happy.
    • This pain won’t stop me from meeting someone and gaining a beautiful partner, and I’ll be saved.
    • One day my writing will be published, I’ll be famous, and I will be so good!

    What I now know is that I was just feeding my ego. None of those scenarios were going to stop my pain or save me.

    The following year I decided not to go back to school. I had to ‘fix’ my broken self. It started off with many psychological TED talks. Many books on Eastern Religion, then meditation books, books on medicine and illness. It wasn’t always easy to find the motivation to research and read, but some part of me knew that it was the only way to free myself.

    After so much reading and many different books, I had to jump to action.

    I started meditating because I’d heard that it could help you tune in and listen to your body. This opened up a new world to me, and after some time, I realized my pain could have purpose and could be managed with meditation and other meaningful activities, including: 

    • Journaling
    • Creative expression

    Creativity has always been a passion of mine, and I had fiddled with meditation in the past, but not in a serious manner. All of these activities not only helped me deal with physical pain, but also helped me discover more about myself and my interests.

    I realized when there isn’t a cure for your chronic pain and the medications prescribed only make you feel worse, you have to take responsibility for yourself. And that’s what I decided to do.

    Journaling freely with no restraints took the focus off the pain and put me in the present moment. It helped me realize I could create my own reality, my own narrative.

    Through journaling, I was able to see how much I had to be grateful for. I was able to develop my intuition, let go of the day’s anxieties, and keep track of how my choices affect my mood.

    I recognized that I kept writing “I am pain,” and “I am depressed and scared” in my journal. It brought me the awareness that I am not pain, nor am I my depression. I was aware that I was in pain and I had feelings of depression, but I would no longer identify with those feelings.

    Journaling unlocked a new world. I physically felt the anger around my heart. I felt the pain in my legs. I felt my migraine. So, I wrote about it. I started writing directly to the areas of my body that hurt. “Dear Legs…” I asked my pain specific questions. I was ready to learn from the pain. It had to have a purpose, and I had to become present with it in order to recognize it.

    Journaling allowed me to see the repetitive patterns in my life. The things I was writing about were the same things I was worrying about two years ago. The same issues that I never took the time to actually acknowledge. Could it be that these issues needed attention so badly that they had to manifest physically within my body? The more I journaled, the more I started to believe that was true.

    I wrote, and hours went by, and eventually, I was writing about my childhood. I was writing about book ideas, TV ideas, I was creating characters. I was writing about how much I love to learn.

    And I didn’t put any pressure on this creative expression. I didn’t tell myself, “This has to be a bestseller!” and “This has to be the next Hamilton!” I just began creating. It made the time fly by, it was productive, and it took the energy away from my pain.

    While writing, my pain and mind transformed. It was as if each word written took a little bit of pain with it and transported it onto the paper. My writings became deeper and more creative, and my pain became less villainous and distracting. The more I journaled about the pain, the more I discovered about myself.

    Meditation was another form of journaling for me. I was able to watch my thoughts, and on days when I experienced heavy pain, I could see how they could change quickly and violently.

    On days where my pain was mild, my thoughts were filled with hope and excitement. I wanted to get out of bed and go out and see the world. However, if five minutes later aches came, my thoughts completely changed. I would glue myself to the television, waste my day, and fantasize about those “one day” experiences I would have: New York, a partner, fame.

    When I noticed this pattern, I stepped back and laughed. It was insane to witness how fast thoughts can change. How much easier it was to identify with a depressed mindset rather than a happy, hopeful one.

    I realized I had a choice: I could feed into the negative thoughts or choose to view the world optimistically. I decided I was not going to follow the negative, depressive narrative my mind provided for me. I was going to choose to identify with a more positive, open, and loving mindset.

    Meditation revealed that I am more than my pain. I was aware that I was in pain; I was seeing my thoughts. How could I be those thoughts if I was aware of them? And more importantly, if I wasn’t my thoughts, I couldn’t be my pain either!

    All of this, in time, helped show me that I didn’t need to be fixed, because I was already perfect. Sure, I was still messed up and my body didn’t feel right, but I was more than my physical body.

    Regardless of what would happen in the future, I had the tools my pain had brought me. I had the awareness to start creating my own reality. I knew I was bigger than whatever pain I would face.

    For a long time, I thought I had to achieve the maximum level of consciousness possible in order to free myself of pain completely. I had to be perfect.

    However, I soon realized that that my pain may never fully be gone, and I may never have complete Buddha nature. But that didn’t and doesn’t matter.

    An extraordinary life is not a pain-free life. An extraordinary life resides in the in the ordinary of the everyday. There is no need for perfection.

    I came to realize that I always was and always will be whole and complete. Regardless of where I live, regardless of my relationship status, regardless of my health.

    Nothing—good or bad—could define my life anymore. The only thing I could be from here was authentic and mindful to what I needed.

    I believe my pain needed expression; my inner child, the neglected being I had shut off for so long needed a way out, so it manifested in pain. All the times I listened to music I wasn’t into to impress others, all the times I spent hiding my sexuality from others and myself, the times spent stuffing my feelings down because of a large ego, I was neglecting my inner child.

    Not getting the right amount of sleep, going on ten mile runs and having a bag of Doritos for dinner, never drinking water but constantly drinking Gatorade and other sugary drinks—I hadn’t even provided the basic necessities for a child to thrive, let alone given that child love and expression.

    So that’s where I had to start. I had to start giving my inner child proper hydration and sleep, and much, much love. As I did with my pain, I had to sit down and talk to my inner child. I also started to spend time with my present self. Taking myself out on a date to a movie I wanted to see, going out to dinner with a nice book, taking long walks without a phone and other distractions. I had to show my inner child and myself unconditional love.

    I realized that previously, I was scared to be unique. I was afraid of expressing myself. What would people think? It was much easier to neglect, suppress, and resist feelings rather than be wrong or be judged.

    Gratefully, I was able to curb my pain and take it down many levels. It seems the more I discover about myself, the more I express my authentic self, the more I free myself.

    Now I make sure I do something every day to connect with my true self. Writing. Meditation. Sitting in nature. Having a cup of hot tea, focusing deeply on the present moment. In the present moment, you are truly saved.

    It’s still hard to wake up in pain and believe the Universe is rigged in my favor, but the experiences my pain gave me, the people I met through it, the maturation I developed from it, confirms that it is the truth.

    Meditation, journaling, and expressing myself awakened me from my pain. It provided more insight and compassion to those around me because we are all in some type of pain. Pain cannot be compared, because pain is a lesson constructed for each of us. The best thing we can do is make friends with our pain so we can understand what it’s trying to teach us. To meditate on the normal anger that arises with pain and sympathize with it.

    Ask your pain questions. Give yourself a hug. When it’s one of those days, be there for yourself. In the end, all you can do is surrender to the Universe and choose to graciously learn from it.

    It’s not always easy, especially when the pain takes control. It’s hard to step back and look at everything through a lens of positivity, but it is possible. All you can do is keep breathing, keep encouraging yourself to focus on the moment—the breath—and like everything in life, the pain will pass.

    Illustration by Kaitlin Roth

  • How I Overcame Childhood Emotional Neglect and Learned to Meet My Needs

    How I Overcame Childhood Emotional Neglect and Learned to Meet My Needs

    “In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.” ~Mitch Albom

    “Your feelings are valid,” said my life coach during one of our sessions, as we were working on an issue I had with my parents.

    I had to do a double take. My feelings are valid? She actually accepts them as they are?

    Eventually it started to dawn on me: My parents never validated my feelings. This sudden revelation earlier this year threw me into a dark period of my life.

    When I was growing up, my parents criticized me for being “overly emotional” and “too sensitive,” and I never felt they truly accepted me.

    My whole family shied away from expressing emotions, so I learned not to express or talk about my emotions either. I felt deeply disconnected in romantic relationships and often didn’t want to depend on others for help. Something felt completely off in my life, but I just couldn’t put my finger on what.

    It wasn’t until I did more research and came across the term “childhood emotional neglect,” coined by Dr. Jonice Webb, that I started to fully understand my situation.

    Childhood emotional neglect, or CEN, refers to a parent’s failure to respond to their child’s emotional needs.

    Dr. Jonice explains that CEN is an act of omission—or something that is silent, missing, and not visible—that goes on in the background of a child’s upbringing. In fact, most parents have good intentions and often provide for their child’s material needs but are emotionally unavailable because they were neglected themselves—thus, resulting in a cycle of not being able to express emotions or respond to their child’s feelings.

    So how do you know if you’ve experienced CEN? In Dr. Jonice’s CEN questionnaire, she asks questions like:

    • Do you sometimes feel like you don’t belong with your family and friends?
    • Do you have trouble knowing what you’re feeling?
    • Do you have trouble identifying your strengths and weaknesses?
    • Do you at times feel empty inside?
    • Do you have friends or family members who complain that you are aloof or distant?

    The more questions you answer “yes” to, the more likely you have been affected by CEN in those areas of your life.

    After taking the CEN questionnaire and reading more about it, I realized that it described my situation perfectly.

    Although I come from an Asian background that is generally known for not being expressive, I don’t want to live my life feeling wholly disconnected from myself and my emotions. But for a long time I wasn’t able to change this. It took me spiraling headfirst into anxiety and depression to find the courage to dig myself out of that proverbial black hole and fight back.

    I started going for counseling and received more validation that my feelings and emotions should be unconditionally accepted, and that it was okay to express them to others. I learned, through role-playing exercises, how to communicate my feelings properly, without feeling ashamed for having them.

    This continued to reinforce a new belief in me: that my feelings are valid and important, and so am I.

    As I went through this inner discovery, I learned a few other things that have helped me recover from the effects of CEN.

    1. I deserve self-forgiveness and self-compassion.

    Because children and adults affected by CEN are often shamed for their feelings, it is important for them to learn how to self-soothe and develop compassion for themselves.

    While I was going through my depression, I recognized that I was perpetuating the same behavior by shaming and guilting myself for my thoughts about my parents. I also blamed myself for causing my own pain all this time.

    It took much awareness to notice these negative thought patterns and consciously replace them with more positive ones. Now, I choose to be kind to myself when I’m struggling. I validate my own feelings in the way I wish my parents once did.

    2. My needs are important.

    In addition to accepting my emotional needs, I realized that all of my needs—physical, mental, and spiritual—are important. To ensure I could better honor them, I made a list of my varied needs and now use this as a guide on how to live my life consciously.

    I also learned how to communicate effectively when I need to stand up for myself instead of hiding from or running away from difficult situations. I learned that emotions are neither good nor bad; they’re just messages to inform me as I go about my daily life.

    For example, I don’t need to feel guilty about feeling angry. Anger is just a sign there’s something I need to address, like a boundary violation or perhaps a miscommunication.

    3. It’s okay to put my needs first.

    If your parents neglected your needs when you were younger, you may think that they are not a top priority. In my case, it took a lot of relearning, and I often had to stop and ask myself, in relationships or work situations, am I not putting myself first?

    I had to be careful to not martyr myself by agreeing to obligations, as this would lead to resentment and often, passive-aggressive behavior. I had to seriously consider whether I was actually saying yes to something because I wanted to or just agreeing because I wanted to please others.

    4. I need to regularly tune into my emotions.

    I use a simple body scan exercise every day that helps me recognize what I’m feeling. I listen to my body, and if any emotions or tension come up, I write this down, investigate what this really means, and see if I can find a way to meet my own emotional needs.

    For example, if I’m sad or angry, I ask myself: How can I tend to those emotions myself? What do I need to accept, change, or address? It’s like do-it-yourself parenting in a way.

    —

    Slowly but surely, through the exercises above and counseling, I’ve become more conscious of my needs and emotions. I’ve started feeling more connected to myself, and I’ve opened up to other people. I now feel much freer and better able to accept myself and my emotions, and I find it easier to relate to others.

    Often, the biggest challenge for those who’ve been affected by childhood emotional neglect is recognizing they’ve been subjected to it, since many people don’t even recognize how their childhood affected them.

    When you have more awareness of your own situation, you can easily implement the above tips and get help from a professional to learn how to re-parent yourself, and also ensure you don’t perpetuate this unhealthy cycle with your own kids.

  • Let’s Get Real: Why I’m Done Pretending to Have It All Together

    Let’s Get Real: Why I’m Done Pretending to Have It All Together

    “If you’re not really happy, don’t fake a smile on my behalf. I’d rather you spill your guts with tears every day until your smile is real. Because I don’t care about the show, the disguise, the politically correctness. If you’re in my life, I want you to be in your own skin.” ~Stephanie Bennet-Henry

    This is the story of my inner child, the insecure part of myself that I am ready to respect and recognize.

    My thoughts and views are as follows: I’m not a superior mom, probably just an average psychologist, and am way too sensitive about everything. I have this view of myself, when challenged by others, as that insecure little girl who believed she didn’t measure up. I shrivel up and want to cry.

    As I age, I think I am less likely to accommodate to please others, but I also have been more in touch with my vulnerability. It stirs things up in me when someone challenges a decision I made or when I am faced with uncertainty.

    I want this to be known, and don’t want to pretend that I’ve got it all together, because I don’t.

    I know that there are moments when I am victorious, such as when I was able to resign from a job where I didn’t feel respected or treated as valuable after fifteen years. That decision felt good, but it also left me with feelings of uncertainty and fear that haven’t quite resolved.

    The victorious spirit, that Norma Rae moment, didn’t last. I wondered afterward if I’d made the wrong choice. Will I ever be able to make a living like I did in my previous job? What if I fail? How will those around me see me? Will I be good enough? Am I good enough right now?

    Yes, I am a psychologist. I’m an educational psychologist. I specialize in helping children feel a sense of competence and mastery over their lives and find their voice.

    Why did I want to do this? Well, I wanted to fill a role for others that I wish someone did for me when I was younger. I wanted to be a presence for a young person and let him/her know that “everything would be okay.”

    Learning how to self-soothe is an important skill, and I spent about thirty years trying to figure out how to do that. Over the years, I have learned some tools, such as having a sense of humor—usually self-deprecating—doing many years of therapy myself, learning self-compassion, and finding one or two really good friends I could trust with my stories. Yet, deep down, there is still this tug, this pull, and anxious stir that reminds me that I may not be all that.

    I have learned not to seek reassurance from others as I used to do during my teen years and early twenties, through alcohol, sex, and unstable relationships. As I got older I found a stable partner. I was married for eighteen years, and many of these years were very happy and fulfilling.

    I have an amazing son who works hard in school, is a good person, and most of all seems to be happy, confident, and self-assured. People tell me that he is a result of my parenting and I love to think that, but somehow this idea feels foreign to me. I think that he is his own creation and magically developed without my influence. This is a crazy idea considering how much I know about child development and my education and training. I discount my importance.

    So, where does this leave me? I think that I am like many people, but I just admit to the dark side maybe a little more freely.

    I get tired sometimes of being told to just focus on the positive and not to let in any negative thoughts. Sometimes I need to go through it. I need to go through it so I can get to the other side.

    I appreciate when someone shares their struggles and acknowledges that there isn’t always a resolution at the end, it’s just about continuing, experiencing, and being authentic. At least that’s how it is for me.

    I don’t want any pity or sympathy or anger. It’s funny how this can ignite anger in some people. Sometimes I think it reminds others of a part of themselves that they might deny. What do I want? I want to tell my story and I want to be fully present, aware, and I guess just accepted for where I am right now. I want to believe that is good enough.

    I suspect we’d all be a lot happier if we would just allow ourselves to be authentic. It’s painful to hide our true selves and our feelings, and it keeps us disconnected from other people.

    The only way to really connect with others on a meaningful level is to let them see who we are and to share what we’re going through and what makes us tick. Not everyone will like it, and that’s okay. We gain self-worth not by being what others want us to be, but by being true to ourselves.

    If there’s one lesson I’d like to share from my experience, it’s this: You don’t need to have it together all the time, and you don’t need to be fixed, as you are beautifully flawed. We all are. Emotions are not good or bad, and most people actually appreciate and admire when we share them. Some of the most tender moments I can remember in my life were when people told me how beautiful I was, not in spite of my feelings but because of them.

  • 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Trying to Lose Weight

    5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Trying to Lose Weight

    “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

    I struggled to maintain a healthy weight for a large part of my life.

    Had I known these five things before my weight-loss journey, I would have had a much easier time shedding the pounds and would have realized that weight loss isn’t a magic fix-all solution to my issues.

    If you’re trying to lose weight, perhaps some of my lessons will be helpful to you.

    Here we go…

    1. This has to be for you, not someone else.

    Growing up as a closeted gay child, I was taught that homosexuality is a sin and anyone who likes members of the same sex is unworthy of love and affection.

    This caused me to develop an internalized belief that I was not good enough, which led me to seek external validation from others as the source my self-esteem.

    Being gay was a very heavy secret I carried, and as a result I became very heavy myself.

    Afraid to be seen, I used weight gain to hide myself from the rest of the world.

    After coming out, I thought if I had the hottest boyfriend then I would finally feel good about myself.

    I lost thirty pounds, transformed my body, and achieved my goal of dating a hot guy. My self-esteem was through the roof… until he broke up with me and I never saw him again (whomp, whomp). I had failed to achieve my goal, and I felt terrible about myself.

    Now I see the issue started when I attached my fitness goal and my self-esteem to something outside myself that I could not control—a guy wanting to date me.

    The reality is, a new body or a new boyfriend was never going to solve my problems. I had to ‘work out’ my inner self before I could feel good about my outer self.

    It’s like having an old, scratched-up cell phone that is super slow, so you put a brand new case on it and suddenly it’s nice and shiny again! However, the original issues are still there, and the phone is still damaged below the surface.

    Like the phone with the new case, I was still that same little boy inside desperately seeking validation from others.

    What I needed was to accept myself and to stop looking to others to validate my self-worth.

    Through meditation and coaching I’ve come to see that feelings of worthiness come from within. I choose to lead a healthy lifestyle for the sake of my own health and well-being, and I recognize that I have inherent value on my own, regardless of my appearance or what other people think.

    Nowadays I set goals that are within the realm of my own power and are not dependant on validation from others like: “I want to lose weight to be healthy and live a long life” instead of “I want to lose weight to have a guy ask me out.”

    Remember: You’re a whole, complete, capable person regardless of how you look. Just because you want to improve for tomorrow doesn’t mean you can’t feel good about yourself today.

    No one has the ability to make you feel a certain way about yourself; only you have that power! When you set goals within the limits of your own power, you will be unstoppable.

    2. You may lose friends, and that’s awesome!

    Let me explain: When I first set out to transform my body, most of my friends were very supportive… until they weren’t.

    A lot of my friends weren’t into health and fitness. As I got closer to my goals, they would say things like, “Who do you think you are? Acting all better than us with your salad and healthy lifestyle!”

    Sometimes it’s the people who know you best who hold you back from changing the most. They met you when you were a certain way, and they want you to stay that way.

    If you surround yourself with people who aren’t used to success, they may become fearful and threatened because you are reflecting back to them something that intimidates them. Not everyone is going to be happy for you.

    In letting go, you create space for other likeminded people who can support you on your path. Having help from people who have been in my shoes helps keep me motivated and allows me to learn from the experience of others. This saves a lot of time and effort and makes the journey more enjoyable.

    You can find supportive people by making friends with people at the gym, joining a running group from meetup.com, or joining a meditation studio. You can even consider working with a trainer or coach if you need a little extra help.

    3. Our self-talk can make or break our progress.

    I used to look in the mirror and focus all of my energy on my flaws. I would tell myself, “I want to lose weight so I’m not gross and disgusting.”

    Every time I thought about my goal I reinforced the identity of someone who is “gross and disgusting.” This negative self-talk was not helpful for my self-confidence, and it often led to binge eating. Not something you want to do when trying to lose weight!

    In order to create lasting change, I had to cut out the negative self-talk by connecting with a positive intention for my goal. So I shifted my intention toward living a healthy life and aging gracefully.

    I stopped putting my attention on the things I disliked about myself, which depressed me, and instead focused on the positive goals I was working toward, which energized me.

    After I changed my view of myself I was finally able to lose the weight—and enjoy the process.

    4. Patience is everything.

    Patience is more than just waiting, it’s the ability to put in the work required to achieve your goals and keep a positive attitude throughout the process.

    After I set out to lose weight, for the first three weeks I felt like nothing was happening and I was wasting my time. The funny thing is, this is when all the work started to pay off. By week four, I could finally see noticeable changes on the scale and I was moving in the right direction.

    It’s the small, seemingly insignificant choices we make every day that add up to something extraordinary. If you don’t have the patience to wait for these things to happen, you won’t make progress on your goals.

    Remember, a journey of a thousand miles is nothing but a series of single steps. Take things one step at a time, and you’ll go far!

    5. To reach any goal, you need to define success, create an action plan, and fall in love with the process.

    I’ve often felt overwhelmed by all the conflicting health and fitness information available. I didn’t know which plan was right for me, so I would try a new one every week and never see any changes.

    The truth is, the best plan for me is the one I stick to and have fun with.

    It’s important to fall in love with the process. Fitness is a lifelong journey, and if you don’t enjoy the process you’ll give up.

    If you’re feeling confused about which plan is best for you, try picking one that sounds fun and stick with it for eight weeks. If you haven’t seen any progress, try something new.

    Also, be sure to define what success looks like for you—whether that means hitting a certain number on the scale or being able to hike a specific number of miles—so you have a clear direction of where you are headed.

    When I set out to lose thirty pounds I had a defined goal in mind. This allowed me to focus my energy and weed out distractions. It also gave me motivation, purpose, and a clear vision for my future.

    Lastly, track your progress as you go, since this will keep you focused and motivated. I resisted doing this for a long time, but it’s made a world of difference. It’s like using a road map. When you see how far you’ve come, it’s a lot easier to stay committed to reaching your destination. Apps like MyFitness pal are great for tracking fitness goals.

    —

    Ultimately, every fitness journey is about more than losing weight and changing your physical appearance. The most successful transformations are those that begin with self-love and require ‘working out’ your inner being as well as your physical being.

    Losing weight was merely a side effect of my bigger goal to lead a healthy lifestyle, and my fitness goals have grown to focus more on the health of my mind, body, and spirit, rather than solely my physical appearance.

    Because I find it hard to prioritize my own needs, I created a daily self-care routine and I devote a minimum of one hour every morning to my health and well-being. Self-care is the secret to my weight loss success because weight naturally falls off when you make healthy lifestyle choices and take care of your body.

    And finally, remember the power of intention! It’s not what you do but why you do it that will enable you to succeed.

    I wish you the best of luck on your journey, and am sending you all my love!

  • Why I’ve Decided to Accept Myself Instead of Trying to ‘Fix’ Myself

    Why I’ve Decided to Accept Myself Instead of Trying to ‘Fix’ Myself

    “No amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance.” ~Robert Holden

    In our culture, we are constantly bombarded with the newest and best things to improve ourselves and/or our quality of life. Unfortunately, this leads to the belief that we need to obtain some sort of thing before we could accept ourselves as we are.

    When I was a child, I constantly battled with my weight. By the age of fourteen, I was 225 pounds (mind you, I am 5’2,” on a good day).

    Fortunately for me, a doctor pointed out the concern of childhood obesity. She kindly let me know that I was at the perfect time to lose weight before it began to have significant health complications. I was able to quickly learn how to eat better and engage in physical activity. I dropped about eighty pounds within a year, and the attention I received was overwhelming.

    I quickly developed a conditioned response of self-improvement, attention, and ultimately, love—meaning I began to see that altering myself would gain me recognition. But come on, who doesn’t want to be loved and accepted by others? Well, this attention introduced a whole different concept.

    I realized I was not receiving that positive attention before, as people usually chose to pick me apart for my weight. Therefore, as I grew older, I became addicted to this notion of self-improvement because it brought upon the positive attention and affirmation I had lacked. Furthermore, I had a hard time just being me without trying to change something about myself.

    For me, self-acceptance is hard to conceptualize on a good day. On a bad day, it can be in shards of glass on the floor. Through my trials and errors, I have learned that self-acceptance is a skill we can practice. It is not an innate trait that we either have or don’t. It is something that can be nourished and nurtured.

    With practice, I began feeling at peace with who I am—with all my strengths and my weaknesses. However, this didn’t just happen overnight.

    I had struggled with a lack of self-acceptance for many years. I felt like I needed to be a certain way or look a certain way to be accepted. Immediate access to media and social media fed right into this concept. I fell into the comparison trap, and I fixated on what I didn’t have by putting my attention on what everyone else seemed to have.

    I’d think, “Well, she looks a lot better than me,” “Man, their family seems perfect,” or “My career doesn’t seem to be that successful.” These thoughts would consume me, and have a negative impact on my mood and self-esteem.

    Let me be clear, I have to be mindful of this trap every single day, multiple times a day, as self-acceptance, love, and compassion issues are deeply ingrained.

    When I was a little girl, I consistently received the message that I needed to change parts of who I was to fit the mold of society. Peers would consistently comment on my weight and appearance. Teachers would constantly criticize my work. Coaches would often compare to the “better, more capable” players. I am sure some of these messages came with good intention, but they had a destructive impact on my self-worth and value.

    As I have gotten older, I have learned that having a good relationship with myself is one of the most important things I will achieve in my life. However, because I didn’t want others to see my bad stuff, I tended to project an outward image of having it together, or striving to get it together.

    I was not as open about my consistent struggle with depression, anxiety, and body image. I would deny some of those internal battles, and in doing so was never being who I truly was. More so, I struggled in knowing who I was and I developed a conditional relationship with myself.

    For a long time, I also struggled with self-forgiveness, which was a huge barrier to self-acceptance. I struggled because I was ashamed of my choices and wished I had done things differently. By twenty-six years old, I had a failed marriage, filed for bankruptcy, and was facing some legal consequences due to my irresponsible behaviors.

    I began trying to perfect myself in any way possible. I was constantly looking for a new health fad to follow. I purchased several self-help books, always looking for what was wrong with me and finding a way to fix it. Clearly, I had no concept of self-acceptance. I just believed who I was at my core was bad and I needed to change it. I was never comfortable with just being with me; I needed to be improving something.

    Soon I began to see that true self-acceptance has absolutely nothing to do with self-improvement. I was always trying to achieve things, which may have helped temporarily, but it was a poor substitute for true intimacy with myself, which is what I needed.

    When I set out to improve myself, I attempted to fix something about myself. I couldn’t possibly feel secure or good enough if my worth depended on constantly bettering myself.

    I struggled with what I like to call the “destination happiness” illness. It implies “I’ll be okay when…” or “as soon as I accomplish this one thing, I’ll be happy…” With that mindset, I was never happy because I was always looking forward to the future, missing the present. I was also just checking off the boxes in life, never fully embracing the moment.

    A turning point in my life was when a friend of mine said, “I feel you are always looking for something wrong with you. What would it take to just accept yourself for who you are?” This was a true epiphany for me. I was always finding fault in myself. So, I began to reflect on this statement and started to make some active changes toward self-acceptance.

    I began to celebrate my many strengths.

    I started to make time to honor what I brought to the table.

    I worked hard to take in praise from others without doubting their statements.

    I cultivated a positive support system. I knew I naturally become similar to the people I chose to be around. So, I built a support system that is inspiring and fulfilling, not discouraging and depleting.

    I made a commitment to stop comparing myself to others. I could acknowledge others’ strengths without disregarding or belittling my own.

    I began to understand and quiet the inner-critic. I didn’t shut this voice out completely, but I worked on it being constructive as opposed to hurtful.

    I made a conscious effort to forgive myself. I let go of the regret and began to learn from my past.

    Finally, I began to practice self-compassion and kindness. If I wouldn’t say it to someone I love, I didn’t say it to myself.

    With all of these steps, I began to understand who I am and know what I want, while being comfortable in my own skin. I value myself and have gained respect from others. I am able to face challenges in my life head-on. I embrace all parts of who I am, not just the good stuff. I recognize my limitations and weaknesses.

    I must say, though, that it is possible to accept and love ourselves and still be committed to personal growth. Accepting ourselves as we are does not mean we won’t have the motivation to change or improve. It implies that self-acceptance is not correlated with alterations of who we are at our core.

    Nathaniel Branden stated, “Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with myself.” Many of us live our lives resisting ourselves—comparing ourselves to others, pushing ourselves to be perfect, and trying to fit a certain mold of who we think we are supposed to be. I hope that by shedding some light on the notion of acceptance, I have helped you find courage to let that all go.

    We will never know who we are unless we discard who we pretend to be. And it would be a shame not to find out, because we are beautiful and worth knowing, just as we are.

  • How Going Offline for 10 Days Healed My Anxiety

    How Going Offline for 10 Days Healed My Anxiety

    “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a while, including you.” ~Anne Lamott

    I wake up anxious a little past 4am. My heart is beating faster than usual, and I’m aware of an unsettled feeling, like life-crushing doom is imminent. For a moment, I wonder if I just felt the first waves of a massive earthquake. Or perhaps those were gunshots I just heard in the distance.

    But no, it’s just another night in my bedroom in the Bay Area, and everything is utterly fine. But somehow, my central nervous system isn’t so sure.

    The problem is the thick swirl of news media, social media, and talk among friends I carry with me every day. It’s a toxic milkshake of speculation, fear, and anger that I consume, and it has me deeply rattled. I absorb this stuff like crazy.

    I suspect I’m not alone.

    I know for a fact that my anxiety isn’t just some vague menopause symptom, but the result of my deep immersion in the current zeitgeist. I know this because recently I left the whole thing behind for ten glorious days. I went to Belize, and left my phone and my laptop sitting on my bureau at home.

    For most of that time, my wife and I lived on a small island thirty miles out to sea with only a bit of generator electricity. We avoided the extremely spotty Wifi like the plague. Instead, we woke with the sunrise, and sat on the deck outside our grass hut, watching manta rays swim in the shallow water below us and pelicans perch nearby. The biggest thing that happened every morning was the osprey that left its nest and circled above us.

    It was life in slow-mo all the way. And it was transformative.

    For ten entire days I didn’t think about politics or how America is devolving into an angry, wild place where public figures regularly get death threats, and social media has become the equivalent of High Noon with guns drawn.

    The toxic interplay of who is right or wrong, or the future of our democracy ceased to exist as we sailed toward that island on our big, well-worn catamaran. In fact, by the time we reached our refuge, those tapes had disappeared altogether.

    Instead, we swam and we rested. We snorkeled. We read. We had some adventures involving caves and kayaks, and we hung out with the other guests. The two Belizian women who cooked for us observed us Americans with our expensive toys, and they took it all with a grain of salt. In their presence, I could suddenly see how silly and overwrought all this intensity has become.

    Ironically, when given the opportunity to present a gift to a school in one of Belize’s small seaside towns, I brought along a laptop and an iPad I no longer used. An elementary school teacher received the gifts with gratitude. Yet, as I gave them to her, I noticed I felt wary.

    I could swear she seemed wary as well.

    What new layer of complexity was I bringing onto these shores? And was it even necessary for life to go on happily and productively?

    When we returned to the so-called civilized world, here’s what I immediately noticed:

    1. I was now leery of all my previously trusted news sources.

    Suddenly I could clearly see the anguished bias all around me, going in all sorts of directions left and right. The newsfeeds I’d previously consumed with abandon now seemed more biased than I’d realized. I was left with one option—either drop out and start reading the classics for entertainment, or proceed with caution.

    2. I had more time to sit alone with nothing in particular to do.

    Before my media fast, that was a bad idea. Hey, I had social media to check and emails to catch up on. The day’s events were going by in a high-speed blur, and I had to keep up. But now life had slowed to the pace of my emotions. I could breathe again. And so, for a while at least, I enjoyed spacing out.

    3. My anxiety disappeared. For a while.

    So did my knockdown ambition, and my desire to overwork. Everything had just … chilled. Enormously. For a while I slept easily. I no longer drove myself to do the impossible, and my to-do list now seemed balanced and reasonable. In turn, I no longer woke up with my heart pounding, nor did I have qualms overcome me during the day. Instead, I got ideas. Inspiration landed on me, and I was energized enough to pursue it.

    4. Life became lighter and more fun.

    Now I found my day-to-day routine to be far more delightful. It simply was, and for no particular reason. I laughed more. I found myself singing while I did chores around the house. Since I wasn’t consuming the same fire hose of media, I now had time to have more fun.

    5. I complained less.

    Now that I was unplugged, I found that I didn’t have to share my opinion on every last political matter happening around me. Nor did I need to engage in fights on social media. In turn, I didn’t lie awake as much, gnashing my teeth.

    6. I thought about things I’d long forgotten.

    Like my childhood. I tapped into long buried feelings sitting in that glorious deck chair of mine, like how it felt to be a vulnerable kid at school, and what joy I found in standing in the water, letting the waves rush my legs. I rediscovered the great internal monologue I have going all the time. It had long been forgotten.

    7. I had more time just to hang with people.

    This was, perhaps, the greatest gift of all. To quietly sit at a table, chatting over empty coffee cups with relative strangers, or perhaps my wife. There we all were, on our island for days on end. So we might as well talk, right? I found people to be fascinating once again.

    In fact, I was discovering JOMO—the Joy of Missing Out. Turns out this is a thing. Those exact words were projected on the screen behind Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, at a recent developer’s conference. Apparently even the tech people want to turn off their screens.

    So one must ask the question: did all of this good stuff last?

    In a word, no.

    It’s been several months since this experiment ended, and I am, of course, back online. The pull is simply too great to ignore and avoid. Since I actually make my living online, disappearing off the grid is not even an option. And yet, I’ve learned a lot.

    I no longer subscribe to certain reactionary newsfeeds. While I may be more out of touch, this is alarming material, guaranteed to not make me feel better. So no, I no longer read these emails. And I cherry pick what I read in my newsfeeds with care.

    I no longer reach for my phone as soon as I open my eyes every morning. I also try not to check my email on my phone at all, something I often did while waiting in the Bay Area’s many lines. In fact, I’ve learned to leave my phone at home when I go out.

    Instead, I chat with other people while waiting in the line, or I just look around. Or I zone out and enjoy what brain scientists call the “default mode,” the fertile, random, and enjoyable hopscotch the brain does while at rest. I realized now that I’d been missing that hopscotch. Instead, I enjoy the fertile luxury of a good daydream.

    My late daughter Teal would have understood my need to drop out perfectly. Even at age twenty-two, she refused to have a smart phone. She embraced the world, eyes forward and heart engaged, making friends wherever she went. And she did so until her sudden death from a medically unexplainable cardiac arrest in 2012.

    “Life is now,” she liked to say. Usually she reminded me of this as she headed out the door with her travel guitar and her backpack, on a spontaneous decision to busk her way across the other side of the world.

    At the time, I couldn’t begin to fathom what she was talking about. “Too simplistic” I thought, dismissively, as I wrote it off to my daughter’s relentless free spirit. But as it turns out, Teal was right. So now I am left with this very big lesson.

    Not only is life now, life is rich, random and filled with delight. The trick is to unplug long enough to actually experience it.

    Illustration by Kaitlin Roth

  • We Have to Own Our Part to Heal Our Broken Heart and Find a Deeper Love

    We Have to Own Our Part to Heal Our Broken Heart and Find a Deeper Love

    “True love does not only encompass the things that make you feel good, it also holds you to a standard of accountability.” ~Monica Johnson

    I remember the confusion I felt as it slowly began to register to me that he had indeed read all of my messages and was indeed ignoring me. Even though my eyes were telling me this, it still didn’t make any sense.

    Just the day before, he’d initiated contact, called me beautiful, and wanted to know the details of my day. We’d talked all day that day, as we normally did. But this was a new day. And he ghosted me. He discarded me.

    It hurt like hell. My heart felt like it had literally been ripped out of my chest by the Hulk. It was forceful and it was intense.

    This absolutely could not be happening. So I ashamedly sent a few more messages, but he still ignored me.

    My tears flowed like a steady spring rain. My head hurt. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to sleep. I didn’t want to do anything but see a notification from him, proving me wrong. Proving to me that he did not ghost me, that this was a terrible dream.

    But that solace never came.

    For the first few days after this, I craved him like my favorite dish.

    But then I started to realize that this man who’d shared so much intimacy with me had just left me with no explanation. No goodbye.

    So I became angry.

    I was slowly going through the grieving process. Denial. Sadness. Now anger. I was about to enter my next phase, which was acceptance. I reached this phase through accountability. I realized that even though the way he exited our relationship wasn’t mature, I wasn’t innocent.

    I’d been needy, desperate, and clingy, and I’d hung my self-esteem on his “hey beautiful” texts like a person gasping for air. He was my air. His validation is where my self-worth started and began.

    I began to realize that I had pushed and pressured him. I had made him the source of my joy. I had put a heavy burden on him. I was taking love from him and not giving him love in the way he needed it.

    It would have been easy to play the victim, to say “woe is me” and hate him. It would have been easy to be resentful, bitter, and full of venom.

    But instead, I chose the road of accountability.

    I extended him grace and realized that as humans, we are always doing what we feel is best for us at each moment. I extended him forgiveness and I forgave myself.

    I looked back over the last months and realized that I had abandoned myself. I had abandoned the self that was secure and had outsourced my self-esteem to him. It wasn’t fair to him. He hadn’t signed up for that.

    Yes, he could have handled it better. He could have had a conversation with me. He could have done all kinds of things. But at the end of the day, that’s his cross to bear. My cross is that I had to begin to heal from this experience, I had to grow from this experience, and I had to evolve into a woman who was ready for true, genuine, reciprocal love.

    I knew, deep in my heart, that he was the catalyst. So I thanked him. I released the hurt, anger, and confusion. It turned out that ghosting experience was the best thing that could have happened to me because it put me on the journey to true love.

    Through this experience I learned:

    -The importance of knowing your worth in a relationship

    -To recognize and understand my boundaries

    -That it’s okay to be selfish and put your needs first in dating

    -What it really means to love and accept myself

    The day I thanked him in my heart and released the pain from that experience I learned so much. That day mostly taught me how living as a victor will attract the deepest love you have ever felt. I’m so happy I didn’t listen to my ego and stay in victimhood. I conquered. I took accountability.

    If you choose to see what you gain from breakups, even the ones that break your heart into a million pieces, you will be much closer to experiencing a love so strong it will knock you off your feet.

    If you want a deeper love, you need to be whole. Wholeness requires healing.

    So many people are walking around as empty zombies, full of resentment and bitterness. Usually this happens when we’re unable to take responsibility for our part in a hurtful situation.

    I understand you may have been cheated on, lied to, left in the cold, used, or, like me, you were ghosted. But do you see how in some ways you might have ignored red flags, or you were not firm in your boundaries, or how you sought validation outside of yourself, or were clingy, or pressured the other person into a relationship?

    I am not blaming you. I am not making you wrong. I am asking you to take accountability for how this situation can teach you where you are wounded, and use it as your catalyst. After you’ve come out the other side you will be so much closer to transformative love.

    The purpose of accountability is not to negate what the other person did or to make you feel regret, shame, or guilt. Those emotions do not serve you; they only keep you stuck in a downward spiral.

    No, accountability is about realizing you have more power than you think. In many cases we get our hearts broken because we give our power away. We make others responsible for our happiness, joy, and worth. It’s not fair to them.

    When we put people in this position, they may feel cornered. They may feel they have no other option but to run. That doesn’t condone immaturity or insensitivity. But odds are, they don’t mean to hurt us; they just don’t know what to do. It happens. If we dry our eyes and ease our anger we will see that this situation provides an opportunity to take a deep look at ourselves and recognize just how much love we are giving ourselves.

    In order to get love from anyone else, we have to love and heal ourselves. We then are able to attract whole and healthy people who are ready to love us like we truly deserve.

    Guess what?

    The next man I met became the love of my life. And six years later, he has never ghosted me.

  • 3 Healing Practices to Connect with Yourself and Release Your Pain

    3 Healing Practices to Connect with Yourself and Release Your Pain

    “Our practice rather than being about killing the ego is about simply discovering our true nature.” ~Sharon Salzberg

    One of the symptoms of living in today’s fast-paced world is the underlying feeling of loneliness, overwhelm, and disconnection. Chronically stressed and under financial and familial pressures, we often feel alone in the world, out of touch with others, overwhelmed by our emotions, and disconnected from our own bodies and ourselves.

    Our world is ego-driven. We constantly compare ourselves to others, judge our performance (usually harshly), define our worth by our financial and career achievements, and criticize ourselves for failure.

    This ego-based drive for success and happiness is of course ineffective. We keep wanting more, never feeling quite satisfied. And that’s because our definition of happiness as something that can be obtained externally is fundamentally misguided.

    It’s a good thing to achieve external success and take pride in what we’ve accomplished through hard work. However, happiness comes when we feel fulfilled, and in order to feel fulfilled we need more than material possessions and accolades—we need to feel loved and that we belong.

    This feeling was always fleeting for me growing up. A difficult childhood and my highly sensitive personality meant I grew up believing that there was something wrong with me. Feeling deeply insecure, and without an anchor at home, I had a hard time making friends and felt mostly misunderstood, hurt, and alone.

    Eventually, chaos at home and bullies at school led me to disconnect, both from my body and myself. I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere, so I made myself small, almost disappearing behind a veil of hurt, fear, and shame.

    I associated my body with pain, and love with getting hurt. Living in my head was safe, and so I put up big walls around my heart and decided to make the best of what I was given.

    I compensated for internal pain and emptiness with external validation: straight A’s, degrees, a career in high tech, people pleasing, perfecting, performing, putting on a mask to make myself look better than I felt. Eventually, I found love and friends, but the internal angst was still there, unexamined.

    Unbeknownst to me, my ego was in control and the driving force behind my constant search for approval and validation. This perpetual state of searching for contentment kept me feeling empty, unhappy, and alone.

    Running from yourself can only work for so long. Eventually, the walls I built became my prison.

    I had to face my pain, confront my fears, and unleash the chains I’d built around my heart so that I could go on living, not just functioning.

    If I wanted a fulfilled life, I had to look inside and find love there first. I had to undo years of disconnect and pain, and reconnect with my body and my heart. I had to recalibrate my life toward inner peace and joy, and away from self-focus, fear, and my perceived brokenness and separateness.

    Over the years I spent healing and getting back to myself, I discovered that some practices can help us drop the swelled up ego just enough so that we can embrace our life with love. Those practices include…

    Reconnecting with Our Body

    At some point in our lives, most of us went through a traumatic experience that left us feeling disconnected from our body. Childhood abuse, sexual trauma, a car accident—all those experiences can lead to disembodiment.

    Even if we were lucky enough to avoid trauma, we live in a world of chronic stress and overwhelm, which puts a lot of strain on our bodies. We often operate in “survival mode” and experience chronic muscle tension, fatigue, and pain.

    When our body has been the source of pain, we might want to disconnect and numb out in order to protect ourselves from the hurt. We end up living in our head, often completely unaware of what is going on in our body.

    Getting back in touch with our body is the first step in healing our soul, opening our heart, and dropping our ego. And yoga is a perfect tool here.

    Yoga is a gentle practice that can help us reconnect with our body. Yoga means unity, between the body and mind. With breath as an anchor, flowing through poses while holding ourselves gently, we center and reconnect with ourselves in the present moment.

    We get out of our head (and our ego-based identity), and back to our body and our true self. We quiet the mind, softening its grip as we turn to movement, being fully present and aware.

    As we tune into each pose, we begin to feel every part of our body. We start cultivating a close relationship with ourselves, exploring our own feelings, thoughts, and relationships to the poses. Yoga becomes an intimate practice for self-exploration and self-acceptance. And it slowly dissolves the ego as your heart takes center stage.

    Certain poses are particularly good for grounding and centering , like child’s pose, tree pose, and warrior poses. There are also many heart-opening poses—like camel, bow, or bridge poses—most of which focus on rotating our shoulders, opening our ribs, and doing backbends, which release muscle tension and unlock sensation in the heart center (also great for anxiety relief).

    Kundalini yoga is another practice for awakening and healing our energy body and releasing trauma/blocks, whether in our heart center, root center, or elsewhere.

    The important thing is to focus less on the “exercise” component of it and more on the mind-body-heart connection that happens when you slow down and become really present in your practice.

    Befriending and Taming our Mind

    Once we’ve reconnected with our bodies, we need to befriend our mind, which can easily be overwhelmed by fears, worries, doubts, self-criticism, and obsessive thoughts. We can do that through meditation.

    Mindfulness meditation specifically helps us cultivate a sense of awareness and teaches us to look inward, observe our experience, and learn to let go. It brings to our attention the impermanence of life—as our thoughts and sensations change constantly, so does our experience. This means we can let go of our grip and take life as is, moment by moment.

    With the breath anchoring us in the present moment, we gain a sense of freedom from our past troubles and future worries. Our fears fall away and freedom sets in—freedom to choose how we experience life that’s in front of us.

    With practice, we learn to notice feelings, and emotions underneath those feeling, and the thoughts underneath those. There’s a freedom in that too—freedom to choose to not buy into those thoughts, to let go of them and choose differently. We learn to respond wisely to what’s in front of us, choosing love instead of reacting from our unconscious programming and out of learned fear.

    By observing our thoughts and sensations we learn to recognize when we are afraid, hurt, angry, or ashamed, and that awareness is what allows our ego to fall away.

    We begin to understand the meaning behind our experience and surround ourselves with compassion for our pain, holding ourselves with tenderness and care. We learn to drop our fears and our beliefs about ourselves and the world, and begin to live from our heart, our authentic self.

    When we meditate, we start to gain a better understanding of ourselves, and our way of being starts to shift. We come into wholeness, the realization that our lives are both joyful and painful, and no, we are not damaged, we’re simply human. And the best thing we can do is to love ourselves in this moment, to offer ourselves the care and compassion we need in order to feel soothed and safe. And then we can extend that love and care to others as well. We all suffer and have moments of struggle; this simple acknowledgement can open our heart and connect us all.

    In moments of chaos or anxiety, when our mind is restless or overwhelmed, we can do simple practices that will calm our mind and tame our inner dialogue. A particularly nourishing practice is Tara Brach’s RAIN of self-compassion meditation. By observing our thoughts and feelings without judgment—the core of mindfulness meditation—we can shift from pain to compassion in a gentle way.

    Another practice to try is loving-kindness meditation popularized by Sharon Salzberg.

    And if sitting meditation is too hard for us, we can tap into a meditative state through movement. Rhythmic exercises such as walking, swimming, or dancing can help integrate our body-mind and reset the nervous system through the rhythmic flow of movements that will relax and soothe our mind. These will ground us in the present moment so that we can be there for ourselves, and others.

    Accepting and Rewriting our Story

    If we’ve been running from our pain for a long time, as I once did, this pain becomes our story; our ego is entangled in it. It’s time to untangle and release it so that we can make a new ending. It’s time to rewrite our story.

    I’ve found journaling to be particularly helpful because it allows me to explore my thoughts and feelings without worrying about being judged, criticized, or rejected for who I really am.

    Through journaling, we can uncover our inner pain and suffering and bring to the conscious our fears of feeling not good enough, unlovable, and ultimately alone.

    As we explore our deepest thoughts and try to make sense of our experience, we begin to discern our true feelings from adaptations and programming that we’ve accumulated over our lifetime—messages we received from our family, peers, and society as a whole. We tap into our inner wisdom and intuition, and gain a new perspective on ourselves and the events in our lives.

    Writing is like having a deep conversation with ourselves. Faced with our shame, grief, and the sheer depth of our pain, we learn to offer ourselves the compassion and care we’ve been searching for outside of ourselves. Tending to the wounds we’ve been avoiding, we develop empathy for ourselves as a vulnerable and wounded person.

    Journaling is the ultimate release; we can drop our masks and explore our hang-ups and limitations head on. We slowly unpack our deep-seated beliefs, bringing them to light. This deepens our inner knowing, helping us examine and change our beliefs about ourselves and the world. As we release the pain we’ve been holding onto our whole life, our hearts begin to soften, our armor drops, and our story changes.

    There are two main ways you can journal to heal: expressive writing and prompt-based writing.

    To begin expressive writing, relax your body and close your eyes. Look inward and wait for thoughts to arrive. Begin writing them down without censoring yourself. Spill it all out onto paper, letting your unconscious step forward, giving it a voice. Bring up your real feelings about yourself and the world—and not just what you’ve been conditioned to believe.

    Prompt-based writing can help you think about how your family history, your cultural background, and your religion have all played roles in why you are the way you are.

    For example:

    • How did your family of origin show (or withhold) love?
    • What are you most ashamed about regarding your family?
    • What did you not get as a child that you are now seeking as an adult?
    • How was anger expressed or repressed in your family growing up?

    By examining your past and what shaped you, you can shed a light on your unconscious patterns and the beliefs that you accepted as truths. This is the first step in changing them and rewriting your story.

    —

    These three practices—yoga, mindfulness, and journaling—helped me heal, reconnect with myself, and learn to love myself, and self-love is a prerequisite to feeling the love and belonging that leads to happiness.

    Whether you’ve experienced some sort of trauma or you’ve disconnected from yourself as a consequence of living in our stressed out, achievement-focused world, these practices can help you too.

    By making a little time to reconnect with your body, befriend your mind, and rewrite old stories that no longer serve you, you’ll soon stop being a slave to your ego and start living a freer, happier, more authentic life.

  • Experience the Benefits of Mindfulness: Join eM Life’s Free One Percent Challenge

    Experience the Benefits of Mindfulness: Join eM Life’s Free One Percent Challenge

    Whether you’re a regular reader here or you just found your way to Tiny Buddha recently, odds are you’re familiar with the practice of mindfulness, but you may not be aware of the many benefits.

    A regular mindfulness practice can not only boost your mood, reduce your stress level, and help you be less reactive, it can also enhance your creativity, improve your sleep, and increase your resilience so you’re better able to handle life’s varied disappointments and challenges.

    And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Studies have shown that a regular mindfulness practice can also give you a higher pain threshold, lower your blood pressure, and even slow down neurogenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia.

    On a basic level mindfulness is being present and aware of what’s going on within and around you, without judgment. In theory, it sounds simple—it’s simply being where you are. But our minds can be loud and busy, and finding freedom from our thoughts isn’t easy, which is why we need to make mindfulness a regular practice.

    Just fourteen minutes of daily practice—one percent of your day—can help you experience the healing, calming benefits of mindfulness in your everyday life. And eM Life’s One Percent Challenge can help you make this a habit.

    eM Life’s One Percent Challenge

    Each day of this online challenge, you’ll be able to access interactive sessions to help you deepen your mindfulness practice. You can participate live or on demand and immediately exercise the skills you’ve learned with clear strategies for how to integrate them into your daily life.

    By participating in this challenge, you’ll learn to quiet your mind by devoting attention to your breath and body, and to practice awareness so you’re less apt to get swept up worries, fears, and unnecessary drama.

    The One Percent Challenge is a free, simple way to dramatically transform your life. With just fourteen minutes a day, you’ll cultivate a sense of insight and peace and will be better able to mindfully pause, reflect, and make the choices that best support your health and well-being.

    You might even find that after committing fourteen minutes and beginning to experience a positive shift, you feel inspired to practice for longer, which will deepen the benefits.

    Give Back While Giving Yourself Peace

    By participating in eM Life’s One Percent Challenge, you’re facilitating charitable donations to a number of worthy causes. The more people who practice, and the more minutes they complete, the greater eM Life’s donations to the following organizations:

    Mental Health America

    The country’s leading nonprofit dedicated to helping break the stigma around mental health

    ShatterProof

    An organization with a mission to change the conversation about addiction through advocating for research, resources, and change

    The Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation

    An organization that provides children with opportunities to participate in safe and impactful fitness, nutrition, and enrichment programs

    Earn Rewards

    After completing ten, twenty, and thirty days of mindfulness sessions, you’ll unlock wellness-focused rewards, like a 1:1 mindfulness session with one of eM Life’s world-class instructors, a Garmin vivomove® HR Smartwatch, a Mindful Daily Practice Guide to keep your mindfulness journey going, and much more.

    Make this the year you cultivate mindfulness for a more present, peaceful life, and you’ll not only reap the many rewards, you’ll also make a positive difference for countless people in need.

    You can register for eM Life’s One Percent Challenge here. I hope it’s helpful to you!

  • How to Help Without Hurting Yourself and Avoid Healer Burnout

    How to Help Without Hurting Yourself and Avoid Healer Burnout

    “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals.” ~Pema Chodron

    The technical term is Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. This is when one stumbles upon a new, unfamiliar, or unusual piece of information, and soon encounters that same subject again, within a short time, sometimes repeatedly.

    So, for example, you decided to take the plunge for that hipster, purple hair streak that you thought was so punk rock, but now you see it on everyone.

    You have recently been car shopping, narrowing it down to a couple of choices, and now Honda Fits are having babies everywhere you look.

    Or you just stumbled on the amazing word “phantasmagorical.” See, I passed it along and now I bet you are going to see this word everywhere.

    The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon has been showing up for me within the context of healing, helping, and service. They seem to be popping out of the woodwork: people who are searching, no longing, to have their occupation better reflect their desire to help others. And it is a gorgeous, hopeful thing.

    Whether it is a natural paradigm swing related to politics, racial injustices, our climate crisis, or just a general craving to hold the warm pulse of our shared humanity, people are wanting to do more. We know the planet does not need more stockbrokers. But we feel an urgent need for more peacemakers, storytellers, teachers, healers, dreamers, activists, and lovers of all kinds.

    I have been swimming in this world of service for the last fifteen years, tending to people’s hearts, minds, and bodies through my work as an acupuncturist and herbalist.

    I came to this work with a very open heart, deeply wanting to bring a balm of medicine to the suffering of those around me. Even now I can feel the give-the-shirt-off-my-backness that I possessed in the beginning. It was very beautiful, but not very sustainable.

    It continues to be a very fulfilling journey, but there are a few things I wish I had known from the beginning. Because only a few short years into my practice, I began to feel the effects of going “all in” without knowing how to hold healthy boundaries for myself and others.

    My slow lowering into the fiery pit of burnout began in subtle ways, like taking more naps. Which turned into not being able to make it through a single day without figuring out when I could get horizontal.

    I would often spend the weekend afternoons with my friend the couch, not wanting to leave my perch of pillows. A lifelong exerciser, I no longer had the energy for even a stroll with my dogs around the block. And getting in regular snacks and meals became a new part-time job for fear of blood sugar crashes, with shakes and nausea. My physical form was in full revolt, and I was crispy fried exhausted.

    I wish I could say that I have only experienced one bout of adrenal fatigue over the last many years, but the truth is, there have been several. And there are a few words of advice that I wished someone had given me a long time ago, that I pass along to you now.

    1. Take time every morning to set up your boundaries.

    The topic of energy boundaries is vast, but in the simplest of terms, we need to have practices in place so that we don’t absorb the energy, emotions, or vibrations of those around us.

    I don’t care if you are a doctor, a firefighter, a teacher, a health coach, a social worker, a massage therapist, or a hospice nurse, when you work with other people, you will sometimes pick up their stuff. We all experience this in our everyday lives.

    For example, you are driving home from work, feeling tired but settled, when your best friend calls you. Without warning she launches into her most horrific day, her delayed work project, her demeaning boss and her backstabbing coworkers. At the end of the conversation she apologies for “dumping on you” and hangs up. And how do you feel? Completely slimmed.

    Depending on the exact work you do, the intensity level, the number of interpersonal interactions you have daily, and your own health and sensitivity level, you may need more practices than others. But here is a simple one to start off with.

    Every morning before you start your day, take ten minutes to set up your “container.” Your container is really a mirror into your attitude toward yourself. You can see it as a bubble, an egg, or the semi-permeable membrane of a cell. It is not an armoring, but a reflection of your own internal fullness. And most importantly you are arranging your container so that it only contains your vibration or higher, that everything else will shed away.

    The more time you allow your imagination to create with this, the stronger your container will feel.

    2. Take time every evening to clear and let go of anything that is not yours.

    Will your container function perfectly all day long? Not usually. It’s natural that when we get tired, overwhelmed, or overworked, your container starts to get some little holes in it. That’s why it’s important to clear all of the energetic debris from your day.

    Take ten min before falling asleep to let go of anything you’ve been carrying, or anyone else’s energy that is not yours to hold.

    You can do this by welcoming in the elements—letting the water of a shower wash you clean, imagining wind blowing you clear, or seeing your entire old container compost into the earth, like a skin that you are shedding. And then in your mind, make the simple internal request to call your own energy back, any power that you lost over the course of the day while you were in giving mode.

    3. Recognize what self-care really is.

    Self-care is not some kind of entertainment that allows you to zone out from the challenges of your life. It can’t be bought by shopping therapy. It can’t be applied to the body in the form of more manis and pedis. It is not something that you search for in your external world that you hope will make you feel full and rich inside.

    Real self-care is something that fills up your internal well. It’s something that breathes vitality and life force into your container. It adds energy to your system instead of glossing over the surface or giving out more.

    Some examples of worthwhile self-care include Qi Gong, Tai Qi, many forms of yoga, chanting, meditation, prayer, and, my favorite of all, being in nature. There is a reason that naturalist, John Muir, so many years ago, figured out that, “into the forest I go to lose my mind and find my soul.”

    4. Know that you don’t need to save the world.

    Whatever you are doing, it is enough. However small it seems at this time, it’s plenty. When we are really driven by a desire to help others it can often feel like there is always more to do. Or anything we actually do is just a drop in some endless ocean.

    Even the word service can be misused and misunderstood. Merriam-Webster defines service as the “occupation of serving,” like you are someone’s servant, or even subservient, which means “below, compliant, obedient.”

    Zen Buddhist teacher, Joan Halifax, describes how “it’s sometimes challenging to keep altruism healthy; as we stand at this cliff’s edge, we can be vulnerable to falling into harm.” This is when are we are so excessively focused on helping others that we ignore our own needs. And the truth is that most altruists are really good at giving and really terrible at receiving.

    Dr. Barbara Oakley created the term pathological altruism, which she describes as “behavior in which attempts to promote the welfare of another, or others, results instead in harm that an external observer would conclude was reasonably foreseeable.”

    This is the teacher that eats a five-minute lunch everyday in order to be ready for her next class and all of her extra responsibilities. This is the nurse that holds her bladder for ten hours, purposely not drinking water, because her rounds are so slammed. This is the activist who “sleeps” on her desk for days and days during a busy voting season.

    When the original heart of our giving fades into a kind of exhausted fog, we begin to find our service being dangerously driven by fear, compulsion, and cynicism. When we expect ourselves to save the world, we will inevitably be met with a sense that our work is ultimately of no benefit to anyone, including ourselves.

    5. No more wounded healers allowed.

    It is time to ask now: What is my original motivation of being in service? How does my own need to feel of value, and ultimately my ego, stand in the way of more authentically doing my work?

    Continue to do the deep, personal work of healing and transforming your own wounds, traumas, and dramas so that the lens that you see and heal through is no longer about you.

    Continue to strengthen your own rooted sense of confidence and inherent worth so that you don’t need to find it through “helping” other people.

    As painter, Georgia O’Keeffe, once said, “I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.” Because it is an extremely shaky way to live when your sense of self is entirely tied up in your perceived outcome of helping others.

    We live in a very results-driven, outcome-oriented society. But the truth is that we have no control over how and what another person does with our help. Allow it to be an offering with no accolades attached. Every treatment, every session, every day teaching, or every kindness extended. That once it is given, it is gone, and it is no longer about us.

    I once tried to explain this idea to a friend who was just starting off teaching meditation. She was having a hard time understanding how you could let go of the outcome of your work.

    “Isn’t the entire point to provide value and service? Isn’t your ultimate goal to want to help” she asked?

    “Well yes,” I said, “of course your intention is to help. But you don’t have any control over the outcome. So stop ruminating and obsessing over ‘giving people their money’s worth or providing results.’ ”

    We had a laugh together a few weeks later when she confessed that while still resisting this idea, she had a session with a new client. During the session, she felt really inspired, like she was making a big impact on this woman, like she said all of the right things. When the session was finished the client felt great, but only because she had fallen asleep and not heard a single word my friend had said.

    This story still plays out in my head occasionally when I catch my intentions shifting off course. And then I remember to reorient my work from a place of offering, a candle contained in a little floating basket, gently rocking and drifting out into the sea of life.

    I wish this for you too. May you always believe in your unconditional value so that your insecurities or doubts never cloud your highest work. May you continue to feel your own humanness as you more fully connect with the humanness of others. May you enjoy many, long years meeting others with empathy, respect, and integrity.

  • How to Take Back Control from the Negative Script in Your Head

    How to Take Back Control from the Negative Script in Your Head

    “You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you.” ~Dan Millman

    I’d love to say I had an “Eat, Pray, Love” moment where sitting sobbing in the bathroom I received divine guidance to leave my husband and go traveling the world eating amazing food. But sadly, it wasn’t quite that profound.

    It was more a long series of nights sobbing in the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror, and concluding “You’re broken.”

    I wasn’t depressed and hadn’t been for a long time. My anxiety, a lifelong companion, was under control. So what was wrong?

    A general feeling of discontent, a lack of energy and enthusiasm to do more, a loss of my spark, a quietening and turning inward, and these overwhelming onslaughts of negativity and tears whenever I felt criticized or something went wrong, which was often. A sense of resentment and frustration that I’m sure ensured those around me felt less inclined toward being loving and giving me the care that I needed.

    So all those nights in the bathroom crying didn’t lead me to any insight, but thankfully the universe did send me guidance in other ways.

    Someone posted a video to a Facebook group I was part of by a guy named Richard Wilkins. It was called “My F*ck It Jeans.”

    Richard is well in his sixties, yet here he was making a Facebook video about how he doesn’t let his age dictate how he feels, acts, dresses, or his enjoyment of life. He doesn’t worry about others’ opinions or society’s views of how someone his age should be, but instead lives true to himself, and has never been happier. And here I was in my early thirties, feeling wiped out and like my spark for life had been put out before I’d even realized I had one!

    Over the next year I followed Richard on Facebook, and was drawn to drive one fateful Saturday morning to Northampton, to his Recharge Day.

    Richard always says, “The reason you are there is never the reason you are there.” This certainly proved true for me. I thought I was there to find out if the course would help my husband, but after I cried myself through the first half of the morning, I quickly realized I needed to be there for me.

    “You are not broken.” Richard’s words cut into my thoughts.

    Did I hear him right? Did he say I’m not broken? Did I dare to believe that? And how did he know that’s how I felt? There were over 200 people in the room. Was it possible that some of them also felt broken? If so, was it likely that I was the only one who really was?

    It was this question that led me to turn up on Richard’s front door step a few months later to attend a five-day Broadband Consciousness (BC) course with him and his partner, Liz, and seven other strangers, who have now become friends.

    For the next five days I shared things I’d not shared with anyone before. Then I shared more.

    I listened and didn’t jump in with advice. I made no plan for what I must do when I got back from the course. I didn’t look at my phone.

    I struggled, then I had a breakthrough, then I struggled harder. I spoke up when I did and found others had the same struggles. I supported others and they supported me in return.

    I woke up easily and full of energy. I laughed. I cried. I ate lots of biscuits and didn’t care. I felt like a very heavy weight had been lifted from my back. I felt like life didn’t have to be so damn hard anymore.

    I learned a way of separating that negative voice in my head (which BC calls “the script”) from the real me.

    I learned that the script is anything that doesn’t serve me and I would not choose.

    I learned to recognize the real me.

    I learned that the script is just thoughts based on incorrect beliefs, and that they are not true.

    I learned that if I’m not choosing my experiences, my actions, and my feelings, the script will choose for me.

    I learned that it’s not necessary to listen to, analyze, or try to change the script. All I need to do is recognize when it is the script talking and not me. And not believe it. And not act on it.

    And I learned this not from talking about myself but from witnessing other people and the script in their heads. Because guess what? The script told them they were broken too. And useless. And they always get it wrong. And they are fat and ugly. And they are not good enough. And they are not loved. And on and on… We were literally all reading from the same script!

    Since returning from the course, the impact has stayed with me and grown. After over thirty years of listening to the script, for every month I spend not believing it I get to know the real me more and ignore the script more easily.

    So how can we all take steps to turn away from the script and tune into our true selves?

    First off, you have to recognize the script and be open to the possibility that what it’s saying isn’t true.

    In fact, make it your job to discredit the script, to prove what it’s saying to be fake news.

    Remember that time it said you were dying because you were having a panic attack? Not true!

    What about the time it said you couldn’t do that thing, but then you did it? Yup, it was lying!

    Oh, this is a good one—how about that time it said you were worthless and no one would hire you? Ho ho ho!

    Once you recognize the script you will be surprised by how many times it pops up!

    Secondly, remember that you are not the script.

    Think of the script as a physical book. It has many chapters documenting every mistake we’ve ever made, all the bad things that could or have happened, detailing how we ‘should’ behave, think, and feel about every situation under the sun.

    The script also has an audio version, which is what we can hear in our heads each day. But it is not us. It is just the script being read to us.

    If the script says you are useless, this is not true, nor relevant. It is just the script’s opinion.

    Mentally put down the script and accept that, although we can’t change what’s in it or get rid of it, we don’t need to read it all day long, and we certainly don’t need to act upon what it says.

    Lastly, choose! Don’t let the script sit in the driver’s seat.

    The script lives in our reptilian brain and is much faster at responding than our conscious brain. If we don’t consciously choose thoughts, feelings, and actions, the script will jump in and choose for us.

    Start with small things: What would I choose to eat? What activities do I love? Be mindful of what you say. Cut off the script and choose to think of something else. Get out of bed at the time you planned to. Choose not to engage in arguments. Choose to take a bath or read a book.

    Every small choice moves us away from the script and strengthens our choosing muscles.

    Here are my top tips for doing so:

    1. Laugh or smile.

    I recently went to a laughter yoga class for the first time and learned that your body and mind don’t understand the difference between forced laughter and natural laughter.

    When you smile or make a laughter sound it makes you feel better. It strengthens your relationship with your true self and draws you away from the script. So as well as remembering to smile and laugh for no reason, building opportunities to laugh into your life can also be a real help.

    2. Focus on what the script doesn’t see.

    When you’re walking down the street, the script is on high alert for potential threats. It’s trained to look out for all the negatives and potential problems. If you (your higher self) are not alert, you will listen to all the bad things the script has spotted, not just in the street but in your job, your relationship, the activity you’re doing, your children’s behaviour, your body… and on and on.

    One way to practice disconnecting from the script and tuning into the real you is to focus in on all the good stuff the script filters out (in BC we call these “pearls”). Pearls don’t have to be anything huge. It could be a text from a friend, a hug for your child, a chance to grab a cup of tea in silence, or a warm bed at the end of a long day.

    3. Be mindful of your language.

    The more we look for something, the more it will show up in our life. This is true not just in terms of what we see in the world but also the stories we tell ourselves.

    The reptilian brain (where the script lives) doesn’t take time to fact-check what it tells us, yet because it’s coming from inside our own head we tend to believe it. It’s like taking in a headline but not reading or researching the article, then accepting that headline as fact and maybe even repeating it to others.

    So, if someone asks you how you are and you immediately jump in with “tired” or “stressed,” this is what you will believe and therefore how you will feel. If you moan about your partner or say critical things to them, you are repeatedly telling yourself that your partner isn’t good enough. How do you think this affects how you feel and act toward them? And the response you get in return?

    4. Choose.

    Start choosing instead of allowing the script to choose for you.

    Choose food you know will make you feel good. Arrange activities that bring you joy. Say no to that event you don’t really want to go to. Choose to go for a walk at lunchtime. Choose to give your opinion or choose to forget the ironing and take a bath.

    Do whatever you feel called to do when you really tune into your feelings rather than letting autopilot or society’s demands take over.

    5. Let it pass.

    A food craving lasts three minutes, so if you can ignore it for that long it will be gone. I’ve found it’s the same with the script.

    When something triggers the script and you suddenly feel angry, sad, or inundated with critical thoughts, it will generally abate after a few minutes. No need to act on the script either by saying something or doing something. Let it pass, then, when you’re no longer in the script, decide if you need to act.

    Also, remember that whatever triggered the script is not responsible for your subsequent feelings, it is the script making you feel bad, not your colleague, partner, or the guy who cut in front of you in the line.

    6. Share. Learn. Explore.

    The world of self-development can be overwhelming. The script will always tell you that you need to learn more, fix this problem, work on yourself just a bit more. Be conscious of this and instead stick to readings and learnings that align with the simple practices I have mentioned above.

    Focus on sharing as you learn rather than feeling drawn to learn more and more and more. This will reinforce the messages and in turn, you will learn through the telling.

    Be aware of your learning style. If you learn from sharing, then talk to people about what you have learned here. If you learn from writing, write about your experiences or doodle your own version of how to explain the script to a stranger.

    When we share what we have learned and help others, we move away from ourselves and our own problems, and this prevents us from dwelling and drawing more problems to us.

    7. Exercise.

    Everyone says this, but it’s for good reason. Exercising for twenty minutes a day is as effective in boosting your mood as some antidepressants. So whether you’re depressed or not, that has got to be good for you! It gets you out of your head, where the script is, and into your body.

    By getting into your body, you can tune into your conscious mind, and you’ll likely find that ideas, inspiration, and solutions to your problems present themselves.

    8. Listen to music that uplifts you.

    Similarly, use music to get yourself out of your head and into a chosen state. Choose music that reminds you of happy times, or music that gets you energized and ready for inspired action.

    9. Get competitive but not angry.

    Try to avoid getting angry with the script, since it’s only trying to help, although ineffectively. Instead, develop a healthy competition with it.

    If the script thinks you are too lazy to go for a walk, do it.

    If the script thinks you are too scared to do something you’d love to do, do it anyway.

    If the script thinks you should say no to an amazing opportunity, ignore it.

    If the script wants you to lose it with your partner, choose not to.

    Thank the script for its input, but remind it that your real self has the resources, experiences, and skills to deal with life without its help.

    10. Keep asking, “Is this true? Would I choose this?”

    Odds are, once you tune into your higher self, you’re realize the answer is no. And you’ll be able to choose for yourself instead of letting the script run the show.

  • The Mountain of Should by Brady Gill

    Many people are living inauthentic lives because of all the “shoulds” they are listening to. Some “shoulds” are from their friends and family, some are from the world around them, and many are the voice inside their own head.

    The Mountain of Should reminds us that “shoulds” are a universal experience. It inspires us to imagine what it might take to let go of those “shoulds” and what is possible when we do.

  • We Get to Define Our Experiences and Decide What We Take from Them

    We Get to Define Our Experiences and Decide What We Take from Them

    “When something bad happens you have three choices. You can let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” ~Unknown

    It’s massively important how we define our world and the experiences we have in it. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to learn that early in my life.

    When I was twelve, my stepfather was a homicidal-leaning, violent alcoholic. I believe my mother must have suffered a Stockholm Syndrome kind of relationship with him. They were together for thirteen years even though they separated several times.

    He tried to kill us all on more than one occasion. Car … double-barreled shotgun … with his bare hands.

    Bill died of suicide some years after their divorce. “I’ll show you!” he said to his wife just before he jumped out in front of a speeding car on the highway. I felt sorry for the woman driving the car.

    I learned a specific lesson about defining an experience one fall day. We lived in Florida. It was drizzling rain on this particular Sunday. We were traveling from where we lived near the Atlantic coast in Cocoa, to visit Bill’s mother in Orlando.

    Bill had been drinking as he usually did on weekends. And, of course, when he drank, he often got belligerent and argumentative.

    We had to drive through a long stretch of swampy land, then we came out on open ranch land where Brahman cattle grazed.

    Bill and Mother argued. The four of us children sat quietly, afraid to move or say anything with the tension building in the car. Things could get ugly if he turned his attention to one of us.

    All of a sudden, the car swerved. It started to spin sideways in one direction, then all the way around in the opposite direction. It spun completely around three times, continuing down the highway, before it finally came to a stop.

    But when it stopped, we could feel the car teetering, rocking back and forth. We were precariously balanced on a culvert on the side of the road over a small creek.

    If the balance tipped forward it would flip the car over, putting us upside down in two feet of water.

    I sat there with my heart beating like a hummingbird’s for several seconds. A conglomeration of emotions exploded through my being. I couldn’t keep up with them. Each one was more intense than any feeling I’d ever experienced up until then.

    I knew that I dared not move. None of us could, or it could put us all in grave danger, maybe even drown us.

    Everybody in the car fell silent. All you could hear was the water trickling in the creek.

    The car continued to teeter.

    The emotions welling up inside me built to a crescendo. It was going to be impossible for me to contain them anymore. Something was going to express.

    But I was afraid. If Bill had a hysterical kid screaming behind him, in his present state, he just might literally beat me to death.

    Reason seemed to peel away the hysteria a little here and there until it all came down to two fundamental choices. I had to express something even if it meant flipping into the water.

    My choices were to let it fly and scream out—crying uncontrollably—or to burst out laughing.

    In that moment, I had an epiphany about life in general. I did have a choice. The emotions didn’t dictate my experience of life. I could make my choice deliberately. It had 100% to do with how I defined the experience. The experience itself was neither good nor bad. It just was. What was important was how I defined it. 

    And so, I made my decision. I relinquished all control and burst out laughing! I consciously chose to identify it as an exciting thrill that we’d all survived, rather than identifying it as the sheer horror I could have called it.

    My mom turned around, eyes wide in fear, not sure of how Bill would react. Apparently, I was the only one in the car who identified it as anything but terror.

    Bill turned around and stared for a second, then set about determining how we could all get out safely.

    That afternoon was sixty years ago, but I remember every detail of it. I’ve referred to it many times in my life.

    We have a choice in how we define our experiences. That decision changed the way I saw the rest of my life. I get to choose how I define the events in my life. We all do.

    Years later that experience led me to see other parts of my life from a healthier perspective.

    Growing up, I resented Bill for what he put us through. No kid should have to endure that kind of psychological and physical abuse. It ate at my heart.

    When adult friends discovered some of the things I experienced as a kid, they expressed indignation too. That reinforced my sense of misfortune.

    But I remember telling my wife about the spin-out experience one day and I had another insight. I listened to myself saying that I had a choice of how I defined my experiences. My perspective on my entire childhood changed in that moment. I had been defining it in a way that didn’t serve me. But I could change that, just by changing how I identified it. 

    Had it been scary staring down the wrong end of a double-barreled shotgun at age six?  You bet it was! Had it been hard grabbing my pillow, a change of socks and underwear and sneaking out the window to meet my mother and siblings at the car—on several different occasions—growing up? Only to wake up the next morning four states away where I knew no one? Sure.

    Most people would say I had a terrible childhood. But they don’t get to define it for me. I do.

    I learned how to be flexible, because I had to be. My life changed unpredictably. But I chose not to let that make me bitter and resentful.

    I learned how to keep my thoughts to myself when I need to. It came from a survival need and developed into a skill of diplomacy.

    I learned how to make friends easily, because I never knew when I would have to leave old friends and establish new friendships. So, I just became a friendly person with everybody around me.

    I learned how to adapt and learn new things. It was more productive than trying in vain to hold onto things that may not be possible to keep with me. I learned how to let go. I learned how to embrace new things in life.

    I learned how to appreciate people when they offer me help and appreciate my ability to help other people when I can.

    I learned how to love people and allow them to love me.

    I learned that negatives in life aren’t necessarily negatives.  How we choose to identify them makes things negative or positive.

    I learned that everybody has challenges that are hard for them. We can endure a lot if we choose.

    We get to decide what all that means. Life is simply what it is. We determine what we want it to mean.

    So, I urge you, the next time you’re scared or angry or worried, the next time life seems to be dishing out unpleasantries; the next time you feel like life has treated you unfairly; ask yourself, is there another way I can define this? A way that works better for me? A way that can serve me better in the future?

    It’s always your choice.

  • How to Push Through Phases of Uncertainty

    How to Push Through Phases of Uncertainty

    “I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

    I once trekked on my own along the Salkantay Trail in Peru between the town of Mollepata and the magnificent Machu Picchu. The journey in total was fifty miles, and it took me four days. I had never backpacked before, let alone on my own, let alone in a foreign country, but the opportunity was appealing.

    Along the way, I learned four important lessons that have helped me accept and make sense of phases of uncertainty. But before I share those, a little backstory:

    The year prior, I experienced many internal challenges. In a short time, I transitioned from having clear direction in my life and knowing what was important to me to having no grasp of what I wanted and feeling lost. The feeling was unfamiliar to me. I had spent much of my life plowing forward, knowing exactly what I wanted, why, and how to get there.

    Almost two years before my trip to Peru, I had just finished working breathlessly on a local political campaign for the 2016 election. The candidate lost, and the outcome of the presidential election left me feeling even more defeated.

    Shortly after, I traveled to Thailand for three weeks with a friend. When I returned to the states, I was unsure of where I wanted to place my next step. I was still feeling politically fired up, and with that energy, I decided to start a nonprofit organization in my state to encourage women to run for office.

    I worked day in and day out putting together statistics, a website, a business plan, and coffee dates with important people in the community. It didn’t take long for the organization to gain momentum because it attracted the support of people who were also intensely moved by the election.

    Meanwhile, I entered into a tumultuous and emotionally exhausting relationship, I moved to a different town after living in my parents’ basement, and I was seeking full-time work to pay bills that I barely had the money to cover. I felt split between two worlds: one of chaos and one of professionalism. In my naive mind, I believed those two worlds existed separately, and I couldn’t find my place in either one.

    When I jumped on the opportunity to start an organization in my community, I wasn’t fully aware of how demanding it would be. Just as it started to gain momentum, I secretly knew I didn’t want to be part of it long-term.

    I knew I was capable of building the organization, but I was also young and inexperienced, insecure, and distracted by the ambiguity of being a fresh college graduate. I chased after a shiny object that I, as I got closer, discovered wasn’t something I was as interested in as I initially thought.

    A year after the organization started, I resigned from the Board of Directors. We then decided to dissolve the organization altogether, and I breathed a major sigh of relief.

    Around the same time, my boyfriend and I split for the second or third time. I was left in a state of confusion and felt defeated again, but it was a different type of defeat. It was a feeling of intense vulnerability. I felt exposed and lost—two feelings I’ve always been good at avoiding.

    When I decided to trek fifty miles through the Andes Mountains, it was an attempt to find clarity. I hoped that hiking by myself in nature would bring sudden insight into what I had just experienced and what I needed to do next.

    I instead learned that clarity doesn’t arrive just because we demand it. Rather, clarity comes in its own time, typically after one has endured the uncomfortable but often necessary road of uncertainty.

    If you’re currently facing uncertainty in your career, relationships, or any other area of your life, perhaps some of my other lessons will be helpful to you.

    1. It will be painful—keep going anyway.

    On the third day of my hike, I grew nasty blisters on the heels and toes of my feet. I also felt a throbbing pain on the inside of my calves. Halfway through the day, simply putting weight on my foot became the most painful task.

    I was walking by myself on a dirt road, and I had no idea how much further I had to walk before reaching my campsite. I wasn’t even confident I was headed in the right direction.

    Okay, just walk to that point, I’d tell myself, looking about 100 meters ahead where the road curved or changed in some way. Maybe the view will change once you get there, I thought.

    A different view meant that I might suddenly see my campsite in the near distance. Not knowing kept me going because there was always the possibility that I was meters away from resting.

    Breaking the hike down into smaller chunks also helped me to stay motivated. If I imagined the total distance I had left to go, it was overwhelming.

    A journey of uncertainty guarantees pain. It’s uncomfortable. It’s vulnerable. It’s frustrating. Sometimes we want to lie down in the middle of the road and give up. It feels easier to stay in the same place than to walk toward something that’s unknown.

    But with uncertainty, there is no way out but through. Try to break it down into more manageable parts—can you make it through the day? The week? The next month?

    With uncertainty, you never know when you might turn the corner and suddenly see answers in sight. Tomorrow might offer insight, so why stop now?

    2. Distractions don’t solve uncertainty.

    The beauties of traveling alone are many, but they always come with a degree of loneliness. In Peru, it was difficult to wake up cold and alone in a tent, knowing I only had myself to talk with. I would’ve much rather reached my arm across to pull a warm body close.

    I was jealous of the couples I had encountered on the same trail who were hiking together. I was frustrated with my loneliness and annoyed with myself for being alone.

    Really, what I wanted was love to distract me from the uncertainty I was facing in my life. But I knew that if I wallowed in what I wanted instead of what I had to do, which was to pack my tent and all my other belongings into my backpack and move forward, I would stay stuck in the same place and wouldn’t get any closer to my destination.

    When we’re caught in a phase of uncertainty, it’s tempting to attach to distractions that’ll keep us from focusing on the discomfort we feel. The most appealing distraction when confused about life is to chase after opportunities that aren’t necessarily best for us. The panic we feel when we lack direction is so strong that we would rather seek mediocre, senseless options than stay in the uneasiness as we wait for clearer direction.

    Ultimately, waiting for direction leads us to our greater purpose. But we can’t follow the direction if we’ve already made a decision based on fear.

    3. Trust that there will be guides.

    The first time I went the wrong way along the trail was on day one. I had just walked through some sort of political event. Interested citizens sat along a ledge while they listened to a well-dressed man speak in a confident tone.

    After I passed, I took a left turn at a crossroads. I heard a voice behind me and turned around. It was one of the men from the group, pointing in the opposite direction. He had followed me a few steps up the trail, making an effort to redirect me. “Salkantay?” I said. He nodded.

    On the third day, I arrived at a small village where a family of three lived. After hiking a steep hill, I sat on a wooden stump by their home to rest. I bought and devoured two passion fruits from their garden.

    On my way out, I turned right on a dirt road. A boy about two years old saw me and pointed left. “Salkantay?” I said. He cocked his head. “La Playa?” I said the town where I was headed. He nodded and pointed left again. I turned around and continued to hike along the dirt road.

    On the last day, I passed a turn I needed to take. My senses stopped me. I had just passed a few hikers, and they weren’t behind me any longer. I pulled out a book of directions (which I’m never good at understanding), walked back, and found the small path that led me into the mountains.

    Without unfamiliar faces along the way to guide me, I would’ve easily wound up lost in the Andes Mountains. Maps and written directions aren’t always helpful when standing in a specific place.

    Sometimes, finding the way requires trust. If you haven’t found a sign to help guide you on your path of uncertainty, have faith that it’ll arrive in the right moment. The only way to find the signs is to keep walking—keep taking action and trying new things. The signs and guides are waiting for you to arrive.

    4. Take good care of yourself.

    Near the end of the trek, when my feet were blistered and my legs swollen, it was important that I had enough time to rest before the next day. I knew that in order to push forward, I had to take care of my body.

    I spent the evenings stretching, massaging my muscles, and wrapping tape around my blisters. Though the pain would still be there the next morning, it was a little more manageable than the night before. The pain had subdued just enough that I knew I could continue hiking.

    Since we’re never sure when a phase of uncertainty will end, it’s critical that we take care of ourselves throughout it. Creating time to rest and take care of ourselves—which for me is getting enough sleep, exercising, and journaling—ensures that we will have enough energy to push through the discomfort we feel.

    It’s when we lose our energy that we cling to distractions, miss important signs along the way, or give up. Trust that no matter how difficult a single day is, there is always space to pause and take a deep breath. Sometimes that’s all you might have energy for, and that’s okay. Without rest, there is no journey.

    —

    On my flight out of Peru, I peered out the window at the many trails that marked the earth’s skin like scars. I thought about the trek I had just experienced. I wondered, what did the trail look like from the sky?

    I imagine a life’s journey looks similar. It curves and zigzags through different terrain, some parts uphill, some downhill. It’s never a straight line.

    Uncertainty is a natural and guaranteed part of life. A journey isn’t intended to be seen from a bird’s-eye view. It’s rather meant to be lived in the moment through our own experiences. We don’t need to know what lies beyond what’s right in front of us. We’ll reach it eventually, in the right time.

    There are moments when we reach a lookout point and can make sense of the larger picture of our lives. From that perspective, we can look back at the journey we just accomplished. We can understand the connection between the series of events that have created our lives up to that point.

    But more often than not, we don’t have the ability to see our journeys from the lookout point. We instead see what it looks like right in front of us: a steep hill, thick trees blocking the view, and no signs in sight. We have doubts about what lies ahead.

    When we trust that there’s a grander view of the trail we see directly in front of us, we can muster the energy we need to carry us to a day when, finally, we reach a lookout point. From that view, everything makes sense. Trust that, regardless of what it looks like now, the lookout points are waiting for you along your path.

  • How to Break Free from the Past and Start Feeling Good Enough

    How to Break Free from the Past and Start Feeling Good Enough

    “My biggest fear is that I’m not good enough. I have this voice in my head that I’ve been battling for years that says, ‘You’re not really talented enough. You don’t really deserve this.’ ” ~Rachel Platten

    When we’re continually surrounded by unrealistic beauty standards in the media and highlight reels of others’ success on social media, it’s no surprise that many of us feel like we don’t measure up or fit the ideals of perfection.

    At some point in our lives maybe we were rejected for the color of our skin, the shape of our bodies, or for the way we looked, and we decided that we were somehow separate from the world.

    These events can be detrimental to the beliefs we hold about ourselves and turn into thought patterns that continually chip away at our self-esteem.

    For me, the feeling of not being good enough started in my early childhood. My older sister looked like she’d stepped off the catwalk, and she was extremely academic. I, on the other hand, consistently got low grades at school and was rarely complimented for my chubby appearance.

    My feelings of low self-worth continued when I started high school. I was the only Indian girl at my school and was constantly bullied for my skin color, my religion, and being ‘different.’ Kids would throw things at me on the bus and push me around in the hallway. I started to hate who I was and the color of my skin and felt even less attractive than I did to begin with.

    As I reached my teens, I would jump from one relationship to the next, hoping that validation from a boyfriend would somehow make me feel better about myself, but it didn’t. The highs were short-lived, and those relationships soon spiralled into a cycle of rejection, which made me feel even more unworthy.

    Like me, maybe you too experienced a string of events while growing up that made you feel like you weren’t good enough. Whatever the experience was, no matter how trivial, when we have low self-worth, our internal dialogue keeps it alive, like an echo that continually reverts to unresolved traumas long after they have passed.

    Most of us don’t enjoy digging to the root of our beliefs and delving into why we think, feel, and act the way we do; instead, we’re wired to sweep things under the carpet and use alcohol, food, drugs, or sex as crutches to help us to mask our emotions and maintain our sanity.

    It can feel unnerving to unearth years of buried emotions and take a trip down memory lane to explore painful events, but to break free from low self-worth it’s vital for us to understand what parts of us require healing. Otherwise, it’s like going to a doctor with a pain in our tummy and asking them not to take a scan to determine its cause.

    The way we feel about ourselves on the inside directly influences what we will create for ourselves on the outside. If we don’t feel good enough when we’re in the privacy of our own thoughts, it often impacts the quality of our relationships, the level of our financial success, and the amount of love, health, and joy we allow ourselves to experience in our day-to-day lives.

    Many of us trap ourselves by looking at our lives through a lens of low self-esteem and telling ourselves stories based on outdated perceptions of past events.

    For a long time, I clung to the story of how I’d been a victim. I believed I had no control over what had happened to me—the abuse, the bullying, the heartbreaks, and the rejection. I would pity myself for having to endure all the events that had played out in my life.

    Instead of believing I had the power to take responsibility, I allowed past events to define who I was and how I saw myself, because I didn’t have the knowledge, awareness, or tools to know any differently.

    I was taught the importance of focusing on my education, finding someone to marry, and how to build a home, but I wasn’t taught resilience, I wasn’t taught about unconditional love or self-acceptance, and I wasn’t taught how to deal with life’s challenges.

    I wanted more from my life, but the story I told myself made me believe I wasn’t worthy of having it and that it just wasn’t going to be my fate. I would replay events in my mind and continuously felt like things were happening to me. I couldn’t see that the events were happening for me.

    If I hadn’t been bullied, I wouldn’t have built resilience. If I hadn’t been abused, I wouldn’t have developed compassion and empathy. If I hadn’t have been abandoned, I wouldn’t have the drive and ambition to be independent.

    When I recognized all I’d gained from my past, I was able to shift my perception and start seeing myself not as a victim but as someone who was strong and empowered. I began to re-frame my experiences.

    Knowing I’d been through hardship helped me to recognize that I had an inner strength to overcome challenges, and my strong sense of compassion and empathy toward others allowed me to recognize my ability to be emotionally intelligent. Seeing the gifts in my challenges allowed me to view myself in a more empowered way, and as a result, I started showing up in the world differently.

    It’s easy for me to see this now that I’ve moved through my story, but when I was in a war with myself I found it difficult to embrace the lessons.

    It’s hard to appreciate the painful events that have plagued your life and destroyed any ounce of self-esteem you had. It’s easier to blame the world than accept that although you may not have deserved what happened to you, it happened, and that the only choice you now have is to pick up the pieces and move beyond it.

    Most of us struggle to move beyond our stories and continue replaying them repeatedly in our minds, which only reinforces our beliefs into our reality. The more we replay our negative story in our minds, the more we continue to manifest the same events—until eventually we get fed up of living life on a loop and are desperate to break free.

    We may believe we don’t have the power to reshape our stories because they are so deeply ingrained into who we are and how we respond to situations, but we do. And when we rewrite our stories, we break free from our past and transform our lives.

    If you would like to release your feelings of low self-worth and shift the energy you put into the world, this powerful exercise can help.

    Story Time

    Take a journal and write down the story of your life.

    How do you define yourself?

    Is your story full of your greatest achievements and happiest moments? Or are you listing down all the bad things that have happened to you and how unhappy you are?

    When you pen down your thoughts you’ll instantly get insights into how you currently view yourself.

    Are you able to spot any common patterns? Is there a recurring theme of rejection, shame, or resentment? Are you blaming specific people or events for how your life has panned out?

    You’ll soon get valuable clues on what beliefs or experiences are dictating your story, and how you choose to view your life.

    Now, journal your answers to the following questions:

    • What did those experiences help you to learn?
    • What skills have you gained because of those experiences?
    • How can you apply those lessons and skills to your current life?
    • If you could go back in time, what would you change about those events? Or do differently?
    • Are you ready to let those experiences go? And if not, how does it serve you to hold onto those experiences or feelings?

    With this newfound awareness, I’d like you to re-write your past story, and see if the language you are using to describe your past has shifted.

    Often, when we look back on our past with a newfound perspective, we’re able to re-frame our negative experiences into positive lessons that have shaped the person we are today. Without our experiences, we wouldn’t be blessed with the wisdom we’ve gained because of them.

    When we allow ourselves to move into a space of gratitude for all that we’ve learned, we automatically shift away from feeling like a victim and reclaim our power.

    Remember, you, as much as anybody in this universe, have the power to change the direction of your future. You just need to be willing to let go of what no longer serves you.

  • The Healing Power of Nature: How Walking in the Rain Saved My Life

    The Healing Power of Nature: How Walking in the Rain Saved My Life

    “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” ~Nietzsche

    A recent study by the National Academy of Sciences found that a ninety-minute walk in nature slows our worried, troublesome thoughts about ourselves and our lives. Even better, it reduces the neural activity in parts of the brain linked to mental illness.

    On the other hand, if you spend your time walking down city sidewalks, don’t expect much. The science says you’ll have no change whatsoever in your neural activity. Or even in your thoughts about yourself.

    This means that if you’re inclined to be anxious, depressed, grieving, or harried, go find the nearest nature trail.

    But I could have told you that.

    I road tested this concept at the very worst moment in my life, in the year following the sudden death of my daughter. At the time my life had fallen apart completely. Not only had my daughter just dropped dead from a medically unexplainable cardiac arrest, but a few months earlier I lost my relationship and the home that came with it.

    I’d also recently closed a successful business that had pushed me to the point of burnout. So not only did I need to grieve, I needed everything to grind to a halt. Then I needed to do a radical reboot of my entire life.

    Unable to fathom how to even begin, I found my way north to the country. Once there, I moved in with a friend.

    A nearby park with rambling blackberry lined paths beckoned to me—even in the rain soaked northern California winter. Unable to even keep two thoughts in my head at the time, the only thing I could do was to walk.

    Every day, I would pull on my rain gear and my big rubber rain boots and walk along the park’s muddy trails for hours. It was a rough and tumble place, but it was beautiful, as well. More importantly, I was alone out there as I slowly memorized every dormant blackberry bush, every rain puddle rut, and every sweeping field of grizzled grape vines.

    Sometimes I sobbed as I walked. Sometimes I smiled at the pileup of bittersweet memories that poured through my body. Sometimes unexpected ideas would pop up for things I wanted to write, or places I wanted to go. Sometimes I’d remember lost wisps of memory from my childhood, things once said to me or stories I’d been told.

    These walks became nothing less than a time of reckoning.

    Most of the time, I just needed the active motion of my legs pumping and my feet moving through the mud. I needed to feel my feet on the ground in order to somehow get a grip—and to be reminded, perhaps, that everything would eventually be okay.

    By the time summer came, I knew every path, every rock, and every tree. Gradually, my grief began to lift as my walks in nature gradually worked their magic.

    I felt held out there by something bigger than myself. More importantly, I reveled in the sheer predictability of my surroundings. It was important that I walked in this park, at this time, down these paths every day. In the absence of a job, walking these trails and letting my thoughts and feelings pour through me became my work.

    Turns out there is science behind my random decision to hike in the rain.

    Stanford University researchers have found that walking of any kind—outdoors or on a treadmill—increases our ability to hatch creative ideas. Yet, they’ve also found walking in nature actually produces the most high-quality, unique ideas. Not only that, the effect lasts when you sit down to do your work afterwards.

    I happened to have proof for this as well. Because as I walked, ideas would descend on me. I’d stew over things that bothered me. But then I found myself plumbing those experiences for some sort of meaning or lesson learned. As I uncovered these insights, I realized I needed to share them. So I began to unravel the mystery of what was to come next.

    Each day as I came back to our house, renewed and rain-soaked, I would I sit down at my computer. Then I’d write through what I’d discovered. By the following fall, I was working again in earnest. The ideas that had drifted into my consciousness as I walked now fomented into something real and tangible. So, slowly, I began again.

    These days I live in a city, though I still walk several times a week. But researchers say that’s okay, too.

    Just a stroll in a nearby park will help to clear your head. Yet, if you can’t get to the park, views of green space can also help. Simply gazing out a window at nature has been proven to yield better memory,

    This could be why the first thing I did every morning during that bleak period was to spend several moments just looking at the meadow behind my friend’s house. In the winter, a natural pond would pop up, becoming home to all manner of visiting birds.

    The scene was simple and serene, and it was so beautiful to see a white snow goose come flying in and land to take a drink. Little did I know my neurons were appreciating this as well.

    The NAS study suggests that having access to nature may become increasingly critical to our mental health as the years go on. All I know is that I now rely on a regular walk to carry me through my day. And not just any walk.

    I walk where there is natural beauty, even if it’s the small lake in the middle of my city. I’ve found it to be nothing short of a healing miracle. This truly is one that anyone can enjoy.

  • How to Set Better Boundaries: 9 Tips for People-Pleasers

    How to Set Better Boundaries: 9 Tips for People-Pleasers

    “Boundaries are a part of self-care. They are healthy, normal, and necessary.” ~Doreen Virtue

    I still have the journal entry that sparked my journey into boundary setting. It says, in striking black pen, “I wish I could speak my truth. If I can learn to speak my truth before I die, I will die a happy woman.”

    Dramatic? Maybe. But I was tired of being a pushover, a people-pleaser.

    I’d written it the day after I’d been the recipient of unwanted advances at a bar. For thirty minutes, a stranger had engaged me in aggressive conversation, peppered in flirtation, and slipped his bony hand around my waist. I’d tolerated his behavior with a fake smile before escaping to the bathroom.

    As often used to happen, I couldn’t speak up for myself. I’d waited in silence, hoping the man would mind-read my discomfort and give me space. The next morning, I took my pen and articulated what I saw as my Great Frontier in life: setting boundaries, communicating authentically, and heeding the needs of my inner self.

    This challenge presented in all areas of my life. My tendency to people-please led to a sense of imbalance in relationships with friends, lovers, and colleagues. Sometimes, it manifested as mildly as staying too long in a conversation that bored me, or offering to help a friend when I didn’t have the time. Sometimes it was as extreme as sleeping with someone I didn’t want to sleep with because I didn’t want to “hurt his feelings.”

    I was constantly betraying myself, constantly designing my life around others’ desires. The result was a life that felt mediocre, underwhelming, and not quite my own.

    From an early age, women are taught to be people-pleasing, accommodating, and self-sacrificial. Over time, we can lose our connection to our authentic, empowered selves beneath the weight of our commitments, our imbalanced relationships, and our carefully constructed personas.

    Everything changed when I went through a challenging breakup and awoke to the reality that I’d always been the sole person responsible for my own happiness.

    I realized that this was my chance to develop a nurturing, supportive relationship with my inner self: the woman beneath the performing and the people-pleasing. For the first time, I made a commitment to become my own first priority, set firm boundaries, and communicate authentically with others. The rest is history.

    If you leave conflicts wishing you’d spoken up for yourself; if you feel drained in social situations because you feel like you’re performing; if you over-commit to obligations and under-commit to activities that bring you joy; if you agree to be intimate with people, but later regret your decision; if you feel like you give much more than you receive in your relationships: this can be the year you break the pattern and begin speaking—and living—your truth.

    Here are nine tips that break down the boundary-setting journey into simple, actionable habits.

    1. Name your feelings in interactions with others.

    Challenging emotions like overwhelm, anger, and frustration can be helpful guideposts as you uncover when, where, and with whom to set boundaries. These emotions signal that others might be impinging on your personal time or space. Developing literacy with your own emotions enables you to set impactful boundaries in the future.

    Instead of pushing the feelings away, ask yourself, “What am I feeling? Why am I feeling this way? What would need to change for me to feel safer?”

    2. Prepare your well-being disclaimer.

    Preface conversations about boundaries with a disclaimer to set the stage for a compassionate, permissive discussion. (This can be a particularly useful tool if you’re concerned about rocking the boat by changing entrenched patterns in existing long-term relationships with family or lovers).

    Break the ice by sharing your resolution to set boundaries. Explain why it’s important to you and how you believe it will benefit you. Centering your own well-being sparks a meaningful exchange around an indisputable value: your own wellness and health.

    3. Express gratitude when others set boundaries.

    Folks who have trouble setting boundaries usually have trouble responding to boundaries set by others.

    Before I began setting my own boundaries, I often felt dismissed, angry, or rejected when friends or lovers put limits on our interactions. As I began to understand that people set boundaries to protect their own well-being, I intentionally cultivated an attitude of gratitude by responding to others with “I value your honesty” or “I appreciate you sharing that with me”—even if the boundary was hard to hear.

    These friends and lovers became my role models and helped me envision what a healthily boundaried life could look like.

    4. Practice saying “no thanks” without giving a reason.

    It’s common to feel like you need to explain your boundaries to others. But you don’t—and sometimes the simplest, most honest response is “No, thanks.” (Giving an excuse or falsifying your reasoning can ultimately leave you feeling guilty or out of alignment with your inner self.)

    Practice saying “No, thanks” and nothing more. Start small; say “No, thanks” when your housemate asks if you want to watch a TV show, or “No, thanks” to the person who wants to buy you a drink at the bar.

    5. Craft a VIP-Only list.

    Without a clear sense of your own boundaries, you may regularly overshare personal information. Though truth-telling is a powerful exercise, sharing too much too quickly can make others feel uneasy, and may leave you feeling uncomfortably overexposed.

    If you have a history of TMI, create a VIP-Only list: a list of sensitive topics that you will only discuss with trusted people who make you feel safe and seen. Using this list as a guideline will help you develop a sense of self-trust as you maintain your privacy and build a community of dependable confidants.

    6. Take a break from a toxic friendship.

    Perhaps you have a friend who constantly uses you as a sounding board for his or her dilemmas, or asks for favors but never gives in return. Perhaps you have a friend whose personal struggles impose on your own sense of well-being.

    One of the most difficult, yet most rewarding forms of boundary setting is to take a break from the relationships that no longer serve you.

    If you have a one-sided friendship that leaves you feeling unseen, unheard, or disrespected, resolve to take a break from that relationship. And remember: It is not selfish or cruel to put your own well-being first. Healthy friendships are reciprocal and mutually nourishing, not one-sided and depleting.

    7. Create a post-boundary-setting mantra.

    If you have a history of people-pleasing, setting boundaries will be a major adjustment to old patterns, complete with the requisite growing pains. As such, it’s totally normal to feel guilty, selfish, or embarrassed after setting a (completely valid) boundary.

    Be gentle with yourself and acknowledge that your boundary-setting muscle takes time to develop. In the meantime, prepare a mantra to refer to after setting difficult boundaries with others. It can be as simple as: “I set boundaries to feel safe,” or “Setting boundaries is an act of self-love.”

    Your mantra can be your anchor, a permanent reminder that this journey, though difficult, has your best interests at heart.

    8. Designate a cheerleader.

    Throughout my boundary-setting process, I benefitted immensely by sharing my successes with a best friend who cheered me on at every turn. She bore witness to my journey and helped me acknowledge my progress when I was feeling self-critical.

    Set yourself up for success by designating a cherished friend, family member, or partner to be your boundary cheerleader. Explain your intention to set better boundaries and your desire for a supportive buddy throughout the process. When you set a new boundary, let your cheerleader know, and carve out the space—in person, over the phone, or with a high-five emoji—for the two of you to celebrate your success.

    9. Imagine how your life will be different.

    Instead of focusing on oversharing and people-pleasing less, imagine the many ways you will benefit from setting boundaries. Gently allow yourself to imagine how your life will be different when you begin to speak your truth. How will you change? How will your daily life become richer? How might you feel more authentic in your relationships? Keep your vision at the forefront as you make the decisions that are best for you, day by day.

    —

    Boundaries are tools that enable us to feel safe, strong, and empowered in our relationships. As your journey progresses, you’ll begin to feel more empowered by the truth that it’s not only your right, but your duty, to make the choices that are best for you.

  • What Expecting to Die Young Taught Me About Living a Happy Life

    What Expecting to Die Young Taught Me About Living a Happy Life

    “I’ve come to trust not that events will always unfold exactly as I want, but that I will be fine either way. The challenges we face in life are always lessons that serve our soul’s growth.” ~ Marianne Williamson

    At the age of nine, I was sitting in a doctor’s office at Baylor University with both of my parents when we were all told I wouldn’t live to see twenty-three. The doctor casually told us my dad would probably never get to walk me down the aisle and I’d likely never make my mom a grandmother, but there was great chicken pot pie in the cafeteria on the first floor.

    Enjoy the rest of your day.

    Eight months later, on my tenth birthday, the possibility of my dad walking me down the aisle was permanently taken away when he died suddenly of an aortic and thoracic aneurysm. He had the same genetic abnormality I have, which caused the aneurysm, so by my logic, confirmed by the doctors, my demise was not far behind.

    I had no idea the day I turned ten, the day I lost my dad, my misguided and broken heart gifted me a license to be entitled and reckless until the day I died. Which, according to the medical community, wasn’t that far away.

    Let me back the medical drama bus up back to the day in Texas at the hospital just for a quick, minor detail to note.

    That day my dad and I were simultaneously diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Marfan Syndrome.

    In a very tiny nutshell, it’s a connective tissue disorder found on the fibrillin one gene. It essentially weakens all connective tissue in the body. The result is a body whose heart, lungs, eyes, and spine are severely impacted. A prominent and common feature with this condition is “abnormal” height. People affected are relatively tall (I’m 6’2”, my dad was 6’9”).

    For precautionary purposes, we both stopped participating in any activities that raise the heartbeat, to decrease the risk of having an aneurysm or potentially causing damage to the face due to dislocation of the lens in the eye.

    No contact sports, no exercising, no gym at school. I was basically told I could walk, bowl, or golf. I hated sports anyway, so I was excited to not have to dress for gym.

    This consequently led to a lifetime of comments like “You don’t play basketball or volleyball?! That’s a shame!” or “Omg, you’re so tall!” As if I wasn’t already painfully aware, but I digress…

    Point being, I was told from a very young age on a fairly regular basis, “You can’t.” So I learned to habitually answer, “I can’t” every time someone asked me to do pretty much anything.

    What possible negative effects could this have?

    I couldn’t see it at the time, but this led to a lifetime of constantly assessing every situation based on whether it was going to speed up my untimely death or not.

    I didn’t learn how to question whether or not I liked things but whether or not it was something that was going to kill me sooner or later. In turn, I missed a million opportunities to get to know who I was as a young woman.

    All I knew and all I was told were all the things I couldn’t do all the time.

    This short-term life span turned my life into a short-term life plan. Soon enough the emotional pains of being a teenager and the new kid in high school, along with unresolved daddy issues, kicked into high gear, and I had no idea how to deal with any of it.

    So, I drank. A lot.

    The rest of high school and most of college was a blur. I got married at twenty-three because, well, time was running out for me. And then, when I was twenty-four, doctors told me my life expectancy had suddenly increased to forty.

    (If there’s one emoji to express how I felt it would be the face with the wide eyes and red cheeks that looks like he would say “Oh sh*t!” if he could talk.)

    I panicked and started trying to speed up the clock. Living wasn’t for me. I wasn’t raised to live; I was raised to die. Live all the places, have a baby, buy the stuff, laugh all the laughs, and then die.

    This is where my excessive drinking turned into full-blown alcoholism and prescription drug addiction.

    I was either going to OD or make my heart explode, but I wasn’t going to stick around. I must note that none of this was planned, intentional, or a suicide mission. In my mind at the time, I literally didn’t know what else to do, not even how to ask for help.

    So, someone asked for help for me. Rehab is a whole other blog.

    I’m thirty-nine now, well past my expiration date, and still learning how to live life today. In my drinking days, life revolved around morbid reflection. In early sobriety, life revolved around morbid projection. Today life revolves around just this day. This hour. This moment.

    When one of my coaches asks me to journal about how I want my life to look in five years or where I want my business to be long term, I still don’t know how to answer that.

    I don’t understand long term. And for the longest time, I always thought that to be a nightmarish curse. Until now. 

    My inability to see life long-term seems to be all the rage these days. There’s Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, and Deepak Chopra all preaching about being present, being here now, and being there with the spirit of love, and I’m over here wondering how long the two-week wait to hear if this gets published is going to feel or if I’ll be around to see it go live.

    When you think about it, we’re all terminal. No one gets out of here alive. Yet we all run around like we’re going to cheat death.

    We run out of joy staying married to jobs, people, and places we are no longer passionate about. We’ve forgotten how to be happy because we’ve made it so elusive.

    It only feels elusive because we’ve spent our time wrong. We’ve spent our time focusing on how we can create a living for ourselves instead of how to create a life for our hearts, and the only way to do that is to get to know yourself first.

    In designing my life by listening to my heart, I discovered a few things along the way.

    I learned that we habitually state we are human beings, but we spend too much time doing. We get stuck in the how and what next instead of being right where our feet are in that moment. I learned to create space and presence for life to happen organically instead of allowing my mind to race with perceived fears.

    Living in each moment used to mean living as recklessly as possible and constantly challenging the odds just to see if I would make it. Today, living in each moment means being driven by what my heart is calling me to do.

    I’ve learned to take the time to figure out what the voice of my heart sounds like instead of the blazing of doubt in my mind. This finally allowed me to see what felt light and right in my life and allowed everything that feels heavy to fall to the way side.

    Heart driven. Soul led.

    This journey was started by a seed that was planted three decades ago. The seed called “I can’t” grew into a self-fulfilling prophecy filled with destruction, heartbreak, sorrow, and the urge to run from everything.

    When I stopped running (drinking, using, blaming, complaining) and learned to be still with myself and all that had encompassed my life, an entirely new life was born.

    In designing my life and healing my soul, I have found that happiness can be found in big moments like reuniting with my soulmate, winning a competition, or leaping into a new career. It can also be found in the smaller moments like watching my child choose a book instead of watching television, receiving flowers just because, or just being grateful for the sunshine.

    But I have found I am the happiest and most content when I am meditating, creating a safe space for others, and playing. Playing like a child on a daily basis is where it’s at. Whether I’m writing, coaching, baking, or gluing rhinestones on anything I can get my hands on, that’s where I’m at complete peace.

    And that (happiness) seems to be the individual goal of most people I meet, but it doesn’t seem to translate into the collective thinking. That’s where I’ve found the hiccup. The getting tied up in what we see everyone else doing, where everyone else is succeeding, and then wondering why we don’t have that perfect slice of peace pie that everyone else seems to have.

    The hardest thing I’ve learned is there is no special sauce, no magical happiness-to-sadness ratio, and no one-size-fits-all solution. We each have to define happiness for ourselves.

    For me, this means doing the work. It looks like me getting brutally honest with my past, mending my mistakes, giving love to every person I meet, and telling those who are close to me what’s really going on every day.

    This connects me to you and you to me, and this is ultimately the biggest lesson I learned.

    We all want to be seen. We all want to be heard. We all want permission to be ourselves. I’ve experienced what that feels like, and now I’m living a life that I was told would never happen. I stopped believing other people’s opinions of me, my life, and where they think it should be when I realized those opinions and thoughts are about what’s missing from their life, not mine.

    There is no slice of peace pie waiting for you or for me. We each have our own pie to flavor, bake, and share. I guess that would be called Purpose Pie. I sit in gratitude every day I have found my pie and am able to share with all who are hungry.

    All of this because they told me I was going to die and the hospital chicken pot pie was nice.

  • It’s Not Either/Or: The Power of Opening Your Mind and Seeing Both Sides

    It’s Not Either/Or: The Power of Opening Your Mind and Seeing Both Sides

    “Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    In late 2017 my husband and I were both getting ready for work one morning when I casually said, “Hey, I think I’m going to start teaching yoga in the jail.”

    Without missing a beat my husband said, “Well, that’s a terrible idea. Why would you do that?”

    He gave this comment as a statement, flat and decisive. I had suspected I would get this type of response, so I tried to play it cool, like it didn’t bother me. But it still stung a bit, since I had hoped for his support.

    As a long-time yoga teacher, I was excited about the opportunity to serve those who could potentially receive the practice’s mind-body benefits and who also might not have access to or have experienced yoga before.

    I knew I wasn’t going to fix them with a single yoga class, but I hoped by connecting with someone who saw them as whole and unbroken, they’d know they don’t have to be defined by their current situation.  

    My husband, on the other hand, saw it through the eyes of a police detective who specializes in crimes against children. He has seen the worst in human behavior on levels you and I can’t even begin to imagine. Additionally, he had worked in the very jail I was going to. He knew much better than I, with my dialed-up altruism, what could go wrong.

    He is an outstanding human being, as is almost every single police officer I’ve met. His misgivings were based in a reality I had never experienced but one he had the first-hand experience of.

    I understood his concerns, but my pride and ego were still hurt because he didn’t support the work I wanted to do.

    I went ahead and pursued teaching with the support of the Prison Yoga Project and ended up teaching the female inmates at the county jail.

    In the early weeks, my husband and I continued our unofficial cold war and didn’t talk much about what I did. But that didn’t affect my enthusiasm.

    I love my work at the jail. My students are as diverse as an exclusive studio’s clientele. I’ve had pregnant women, a mother-daughter duo, young, old, and a few who’ve gotten out only to come back a few weeks later.

    I never ask what they’re in for, but their tattoos tell more about their lives than I could read in their record—the deep grief for all they’ve lost engraved in black and smeared faded colors on their skin.

    The most common tattoos are in memory of people who’ve died. I wonder if there is something temporarily soothing to literally feel the pain of grief being etched into their skin and buried under the surface. I only have to look at the tattoo on my own wrist in memory of my son to know the answer.

    In the months that followed that initial conversation, my husband and both began to soften our stance. I found him to be a good resource for some questions I had about legal procedures or other things that came up, and he was curious about the women and their yoga experience.

    Then one day a few months back he came home and shared that a long, emotionally difficult case he’d been working on had wrapped up. The woman was sentenced to one year in the jail where I was working.

    He admitted he felt a moment anger that she would be able to take yoga classes after what she’d done. But then, he took a breath, sighed, and said that he would rather see her have the chance to come out better than to hurt any other children. We both softened.

    Within a week I too had a moment of questioning my decision to work with inmates. In an altercation with a man who was strung out on drugs and unhinged with violence, one of my husband’s co-workers was injured so badly he needed to be hospitalized. The perpetrator was arrested and taken to the jail where I teach.

    It was my turn to be angry and imagine that this man (or someone like him) could’ve hurt or killed my husband. Did I really want to support someone who could threaten one of the most valuable things in my life?

    I felt so deeply conflicted. Then I wondered if my husband felt betrayed by me because I was teaching at the jail. Did he feel I was either with him or against him? And did I expect him to be with me in my altruism or else he was against me?

    Either/Or and Both/And Mindsets

    Life is too often defined as either this or that. And, it seems, when we choose our side we must also choose all the things that are aligned with that side. For example, if I’m a woo-woo yoga teacher then I must be against the police. Our culture increasingly demands that we stake our claim, unwaveringly.

    When we fall into the trap of an either/or mindset we shut ourselves off from opportunities, connections, and relationships that could alleviate suffering for people on both sides of the issue.

    Either/or thinking is divisive at best. It places us firmly in our own silos, cloistering us in an imaginary us versus them utopia, whereas “both/and” thinking creates community and connection. It allows us to begin to build webs of supports that extend beyond our own ability to impact change.

    Perhaps you’ve found yourself in the either/or conflict when you discover that your favorite co-worker supports the opposite political party. You feel your stomach tighten and then extrapolate what else they must believe that you find offensive. These mental games likely result in feeling that you’re at war with this person, resulting in your work relationship suffering.

    A great place to start to transition to both/and thinking is to use the Zen Buddhist tenant of “not knowing.” When we open to the fact we don’t know everything about the situation it softens us.

    In the example of your coworker, perhaps they’ve been influenced by different life experiences that have shaped their beliefs and opinions about what’s best for our country and the people in it. And perhaps you even share similar values but hold different perspectives about the best approach to honoring them.

    When you consider that people who seem against you may also have good intentions, it’s easier to find common ground and work together instead of against each other.

    When my husband and I began to see our situation as both/and not either/or it was much easier to see how each of us could positively impact the individual systems we work in and, even in a small way, create healing for those involved.

    Recently in my Buddhist Chaplain studies, we looked at systems using Donella Meadows’ model. In her book, Thinking in Systems, she says, “You think that because you understand ‘one’ that you must, therefore, understand ‘two’ because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand ‘and.’”

    Seeing that my husband’s work is necessary and my work is necessary, even within the same situation, is a powerful force that creates change.

    It would be easy to put me in my woo-woo yogi silo and my husband in the cop silo. Instead, we agreed to focus on both our work and how the overlap can be an opportunity to dissolve the hard lines of either/or thinking and look for the places where “and” exists. Then we lean deeply into those places, because these are the tender places of real change.

    We need to learn to make our silos more permeable.

    One of the other things I’ve learned in my Buddhist Chaplain program is that when we consider the best way to positively impact how a system is functioning, we can start by focusing close in, then zooming out.

    If I am standing in the middle of a river I can feel the power of the flowing water, but when I stand on a mountaintop and look down at the same river it can look calm and peaceful. Both of those perceptions of the river are correct, but I’ve changed my vantage point.

    When we feel ourselves being asked to take an either/or position we can take a moment to zoom out and in to find balance in our perspective taking. We need to do both, get wet and get distance!

    Another negative outcome of the either/or mindset is that it forces us to find blame. When I assume the either/or mindset in a situation, then by default the person who is opposing me must be incorrect and therefore is also to blame when things go wrong. When we are looking for someone to blame it takes us out of accountability for our own actions and it removes us from being empathetic to another person.

    Without empathy, it is very hard to come from a place of compassion. And without compassion, we de-humanize the other person. The result of dehumanization is believing that the other person is less than us and therefore deserving of whatever bad things come their way.

    In the case of my husband and the woman he sent to jail, rather than dehumanize her with an either/or mindset, he saw her as both human and deserving of something good, while she took responsibility for her action.

    Each time we choose a both/and mindset over an either/or mindset we release ourselves from having to find someone to blame and we stay connected to our human experience without dehumanizing another person.

    A both/and mindset doesn’t mean we have to let go of being change-makers in the world. The world needs change-makers now more than ever. But there will never be peace and compassion in the world if we can’t do both—get in the river to feel the power and climb the mountain to see the calm. As one of my teachers at the Upaya Institute said, “A nudge of calm can shift a storm.” Be the nudge, not the storm.

  • Adapting to Feeling Unseen: How I’m Navigating a World That Overlooks the Aging

    Adapting to Feeling Unseen: How I’m Navigating a World That Overlooks the Aging

    Older
    Beautiful inside and out—
    Invisible

    I gave a little start when those words flashed onto the screen during a presentation by the poet Elizabeth Bradfield. Liz was in the process of describing six-word memoirs, modeled on Hemingway’s heartbreaking story For sale: Baby shoes. Never used.

    The photograph showed a wall from the 6 Words Minneapolis project, in which city residents were asked to briefly describe themselves. This entry spoke directly to an experience I’d been having of late but hadn’t quite been able to name.

    Consider: I smile at a young couple who are walking with their baby out of the grocery store as I enter. Their eyes flit briefly over my face and body without expression.

    Waiting in a loose group of people for service at a food truck—there doesn’t seem to be a line—the fellow taking orders looks straight at me and then asks the guy in back of me what he’d like.

    In a park a young couple finishes a photo shoot for their engagement pictures and walk toward me on a narrow gravel path. I smile and say, “Beautiful day.” They squint and pass by as if they’ve heard a noise but can’t place what it might be.

    Every time this happens, it shocks me. I’m not that old! A little wrinkled, yes, but not even close to elderly.

    True, I can’t know exactly what was going on in each of these instances. Maybe the couple with the baby were in the middle of an argument. Maybe the man behind me at the food truck had somehow gotten there first. The couple in the park—that one’s hard to explain away. I was right in front of them. But maybe they didn’t hear me.

    Still, this kind of thing happens to me a lot now, and I’ve got to think it’s because, as a somewhat older woman, people routinely overlook me.

    I guess I have no right to be surprised, because at a younger age I behaved exactly the same way. Working for newspapers in my twenties, I counted myself among the young reporters who were (we flattered ourselves) the only ones doing cutting-edge journalism.

    We paid scant attention to articles by our colleagues older than forty—who, I realize now, had a great deal they could have taught us. The same was true in my thirties and even forties when I was a freelance writer. Like many of my contemporaries, I wished the old fogeys would get out of the way and give us youngsters room to forge new ground.

    I should have seen this coming.

    Still, my new membership in society’s invisible masses comes as a shock. While I don’t have any studies to back this up, I suspect that older women are overlooked more frequently than older men. No surprise there. But am I overreacting?

    On a subway one day Jeff, my guy, nudges me and nods toward two gray-haired women who stand hanging onto a pole, deep in conversation. There’s something about them—their stances, their passion as they talk—that exudes strength.

    “Are they invisible?” he asks. He’s been skeptical of my complaints and insistent that lots of women older than me are anything but unseen. I have to admit: he’s got a point with these two. I can’t hear their conversation, but I’d bet they’re talking about something important, maybe a social issue that they feel passionately about. I wonder how I can get some of what they’ve got. Whatever it is, I want it.

    Or maybe I already have it. While aging has made me a little less sure of myself in some ways, I trust my instincts more, and I’m much more grounded in my beliefs. I’m more aware of what’s going on around me. I wouldn’t make the same dumb mistakes I might have made at the height of my sex appeal—say, walking into a dark alley with a man I didn’t know well because I was too polite to object.

    I can take solace in the fact that older women have a more vibrant role in society than ever before. Look at the number of women in Congress who are over seventy. Many writers, artists, and actresses continue to work into their seventies and eighties, even their nineties. I don’t have to quietly fade away unless I choose to. And something tells me I won’t.

    I wish I could meet the woman who penned that six-word story. There’s a lot more to it than the word “invisible,” and I find myself nodding my head each time I reread it.

    Yes, I’m beautiful now inside and out, in a way I’ve never been before. I’m calmer and more forgiving of those around me, and of myself. I’m better at not getting dragged into the drama of others’ lives. I often say I wouldn’t trade this body for my twenty-year-old self unless I could retain all the lessons life has taught me. Beauty without wisdom holds no appeal.

    In recent years I’ve tried to move a bit more humbly through the world, letting others go before me. Watching and loving, rather than taking control.

    I think back to the times in junior high and high school when I did everything possible to blend in, mostly from an insecurity I no longer feel. There’s a freedom to being unremarkable, I suppose. It just never occurred to me that as I aged, this role would be handed to me, rather than chosen by me.

    Even if society’s default mode is to relegate me to the background, I still have plenty of options. I can find ways to push myself forward—like I did last week at a seminar, when a well-known horticulturist dismissed me after I’d said hello to him. He smiled at me and turned to greet the older man beside me.

    “I have a question,” I announced firmly, which brought the horticulturist up short and his attention graciously back to me.

    Or, depending on my mood, I can settle for the contentment that I’ve earned. I’ve fought on the front lines in plenty of battles. I’ll probably insert myself into a few more before my days here are through.

    To my surprise, though, most of the time now I find that I’m happy for someone else to steer this starship. This goes hand-in-glove with one of the lessons that keeps getting thrown at me: Acceptance of what life presents me with—and forgiveness of those who overlook me—is a lot easier than fighting things I have no chance of changing.

    Back here I can quietly take stock of each new situation. I more readily notice people like me and other overlooked folks. What can they teach me? Calmer, quieter, and no longer constantly seeking the spotlight, I find I have nothing to prove. I can simply be. Isn’t this peacefulness what I longed for in my earlier years? How can I use it now to do the kinds of things I couldn’t accomplish with energy and verve in my younger life?

    This is my heart’s new work—part of it, anyway. The rest is encompassed in my own six-word story:

    Forgiveness begets peace. Infuriating, but true.