Tag: Happiness

How to Sustain Happiness

“If you let go a little, you will have a little happiness. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of happiness. And if you let go completely, you will be completely happy.” ~Ajahn Chah

After accomplishing three lists of tasks from three different buckets—professional, personal, and entrepreneurial—I felt accomplished and content.

And then I felt bored. And then a little irritated. So, I decided to explore and check in with myself:

I practice gratitude throughout my day. I acknowledge the abundance in my life. I am surrounded by genuine love and relationships.

I have every reason to not wander away from happiness so easily, but I do. Why?

Perhaps you have experienced something similar: a moment of complete happiness, bliss, peace, and then it dissipates without notice.

I began by writing a series of questions in my journal to explore what was going on inside:

Is it because I can’t focus that I experience a deflation in my mood? Do I become bored too easily? Or maybe I have lack of patience that often leads to dissatisfaction?

Several pages later, I arrived at:

I can focus; but I am impatient, so I involve myself in multiple projects and events to even out the pace. When one project or event ends, I fully dive into the next to prevent boredom. During this gap of engagement, my mood shifts.

Further, I found comfort in moving around, connecting, accomplishing, engaging, clinging.

Clinging

This last word, clinging, reached out from the journal page and grabbed my attention.

After pages of self-inquiry and hours spent peeling back layers, I realized: my mood dip, this occasional creeping feeling of dissatisfaction did not result from anything I mentioned above.

Instead—this perceived lack of focus, the boredom, the impatience—were byproducts of my constant clinging. I was clinging to accomplishment, the next stimulating thing, the next anything in the future.I suspect that many of us, at some point in our day, can find ourselves clinging: (more…)

July 31, 2011
4 Simple Mantras to Help You Stay Positive and Happy

“The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.” ~Swedish Proverb

Mantra, according to the dictionary:

Any sacred word or syllable used as an object of concentration and embodying some aspect of spiritual power.

Mantra, according to Sirena:

Things I say to myself to help me deal.

There are times we all go through that just straight up suck.

During these times, it can be hard to think about anything other than what’s going on. We can become so consumed in our own misery that we often overshadow any glimmer of hope.

And although these times can seem endless while we’re in them, it’s through these crappy times that we learn the most about ourselves and receive some of life’s greatest rewards.

I can only say this after going through some of my own crappy times. You know, experiencing little things like breaking up from an engagement, being unemployed, questioning my sexuality, severing several friendships, wiping through my entire savings, and accumulating way too much debt.

All within the same year.

Yikes.

Through my own experiences of hopelessness, confusion, and doubt, I’ve learned to establish a few simple, but very effective phrases to help me stay positive and to keep things in perspective.

So now, whenever things cross my path that may initially seem unbearable, or if I begin to doubt myself, I just remember and repeat some of the following mantras: (more…)

July 27, 2011
5 Questions to Ask Yourself When You Aren’t Sure What You Want in Life

“The quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably deal with.” ~Tony Robbins

There are times in life when we just don’t know what we want. These are the awkward in-between places where we feel uncertain and unsure, and perhaps even question our purpose.

There was a pivotal time in my life, after I got my Counseling Psychology Masters degree and had a private practice, when I knew I did not want to be a therapist.

I left counseling to help my husband start his fashion business, even though this was not an interest of mine. My true desire was to write and publish books, but at the time I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about.

A year later, while riding my bike on a beautiful sunny day, I tried to pop a wheelie over a curb and fell, hitting the back of my head on a car bumper and then the road.

The neurologist told me I had a moderate concussion and I needed to lie low for three months. I got migraines from simply walking around the block, so I had to stop completely.

While I was sitting at the kitchen table one afternoon, I got the idea for my now published book and card deck set. It hit me harder than the fall off my bike. After helping my husband with his business for a year, without knowing what was next for me, I was ready to hit the ground running.

These places where we are asked to be still and experience the unknown are as important to our journey as the times when we feel certain. An empty blank canvas permits the unanticipated and unexpected to appear.

Like a trapeze artist letting go of one bar we suspend in a gap before the next bar comes swinging towards us. This space is the catalyst that creatively births us into new ways of being.

Here are five key questions to experience relaxation, stillness, and peace while resting in the uncertainty of the unknown: (more…)

July 21, 2011
Leaving a Secure Job When the Risk Feels Scary

“It’s not who you are that holds you back. It’s who you think you’re not.” ~Unknown

Over the past four years, I followed a career path that felt soulless.

As I moved from city to city, climbing the corporate ladder, I noticed that, ironically, the bigger my paycheck, the emptier I felt. Something about advertising felt lifeless, cold, and desperate to me.

But I ignored this feeling and worked over it, drank over it, binged, exercised, and ate over it.

I pressed forward like a steel freight train on a mission to find my happiness. When I got to that new level, the thing I thought would make me happy was still just a few more achievements off, just a couple more dollars away. I was always looking “out there” to find my peace.

I had convinced myself that this was the best way to live my life. It became normal to cry in the bathroom at work. It wasn’t until I got laid off one year ago, from my big marketing job in Chicago that I recognized miracles do exist.

I picked up my depression and moved to the West Coast. I bought my dream car, adopted a dog, and landed a perfect boyfriend—and then I took another job in marketing.

It was only a few weeks until the fear-ridden depression started to nudge up against me. The cry festivals picked up again, and I walked around like a shell of a human being.

I would arrive to work lifeless, cold, and afraid to listen to my inner voice. I would say to myself, “I went to graduate school for a marketing degree, so I better stick to this.” But it just wasn’t what I wanted.

I was pretending to be the corporate climber. The more achievements, awards, cities, clients, and money I could get, the more I could say I was worthy. It was all a big circus, as I quietly hid myself behind the illusion of success and fulfillment.

I secretly longed for freedom. Every day I would sit under the fluorescent lights and cry inside.

I felt like a caged animal that wanted nothing more then to break free. But fear, and fear alone, was holding me back. Then one day I arrived to work, and the cage doors propped open. (more…)

July 18, 2011
4 Reasons to Let Go of Envy and Celebrate Your Greatness

“Why compare yourself with others? No one in the entire world can do a better job of being you than you.” ~Unknown

When I arrived home after a brief stint living in another state, I was anxious to reconnect with places from my childhood and the friends I’d left behind.

But while I was healing from a heart-wrenching breakup, suffering through sleepless nights on my parents rock-hard couch, and mulling over where all my freelance writing work had gone, my friends seemed to be successful, happy, and right on track.

Realizing that I had hit rock-bottom and that it crippled my self-esteem, my friends gathered around me, taking shifts to ensure that I wouldn’t drown in my own overwhelming grief.

Yet, while their love and support was what got me through, seeing each of their lives so clearly flourishing added another emotion to my already full load: envy.

Envy is a sneaky bugger—a pot-stirrer who likes to aid the ego in pointing out flaws you’d rather just sweep under the rug. It serves as a reminder of all the success you don’t have, the experiences you haven’t had, the relationships you’d like to have—basically everything that makes you feel “less than.”

I spent the next few months wallowing in comparisons—staring longingly at couples clutching hands as they walked down the street, watching people hustle to their well-paying jobs, and picturing myself in the beautiful homes that others had the ability to purchase.

Unfortunately, while I knew with every cell in my body that I wanted to be somewhere different doing something different, envy kept me rooted firmly in place—a place plagued by lack and thoughts of “if only.”

Once I realized that the circumstances wouldn’t change until I did, I noticed that entertaining this toxic emotion was getting me nowhere but deeper in my hole of self pity. That was when envy and I parted ways, leading me to some very powerful realizations. (more…)

July 17, 2011
Overcoming the Power of Suggestion: Make Your Own Choices

“People who urge you to be realistic generally want you to accept their version of reality.” ~Unknown

I’m often open to suggestion. I like to gather opinions and feedback about my writing so that I can use it to improve the impact and make it a better read.

The thing I’ve learned about listening to other people’s thoughts on my writing is that sometimes what seems like good advice is little more than personal preference; changing an image or an entire scene to suit one person isn’t always the right path, especially if my gut is saying, “You know you don’t want to do that.”

Now that I am working on a novel, I realize how easy it’s been to sway me, not just in my decisions but also in my thoughts.

Have you ever taken a different route to a party or family event because the person in the passenger seat told you to? How about putting those comfy, though slightly old trainers in the bottom of the closet because your partner thinks they look shabby?

It’s a given that we’ve all spent money on something we don’t need because we’ve been lured by the suggestion of T.V. and big companies that appeal to our desire to happy. I bet some people have even given up on dreams because someone else has said they’d be better off aiming a bit lower.

There’s a difference between valid advice and suggestions based on self-interest.

There are times when my view of reality gets distorted, when I’m stressed or upset. Once I’ve calmed down, I often acknowledge that my perception was overblown, although a grain of truth often remains.

It’s frustrating when someone else negates my experiences—essentially saying there is no grain of truth. (more…)

July 13, 2011
How to Be Fully Awake Instead of Living on Autopilot

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” ~Pema Chodron

It’s tempting. Staying in the nest means life feels safe and we are protected. If we get thrown out of the nest we either stretch our new wings and fly or plummet to the ground.

Flight poses new challenges. How do we embrace spaciousness when we desire solidity? How do we stay aloft and open?

A friend of mine recently showed me a nest of robin’s eggs. Beautiful, blue like the sky, and full of bright possibility, we admired the eggs. Sadly, none of the chicks survived.

Life can be harsh and unpredictable for little chicks and humans. How do we recover when we are thrown out of the nest? How do we awaken?

In her book, When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron talks about there being no safety net, only spaciousness. At first this concept frightened me. I didn’t understand what she was talking about.

Spaciousness is the wide blue sky with no clouds. Spaciousness is a trip to a far away galaxy. In order to fly we must embrace the openness without clinging to the nest.

Spaciousness in common vernacular can mean “going with the flow.” If we don’t cling or attach to results but stay in the moment we can experience spaciousness. Life will feel less constricted and less anxious.

The world appears to be concrete, but it’s not solid. As many people around the world know from tragic circumstances, your home can disappear in a split second. Your life can change in an instant.

I can have my day timer filled with appointments and meetings, but what if I get a flat tire or get sick? It’s a scramble to reschedule. These are only minor events that can cause stress.

There are so many distractions in our daily lives, as well—phone calls, emails, TV, kids fighting. It’s a challenge to stay calm. No wonder we’d prefer to just stay in our warm beds in the morning!

If I take time to breathe, to become aware, to experience spaciousness or flow, then disruptions in my life do not feel so overwhelming. Once I understood that spaciousness could give me a sense of freedom, I was no longer frightened. I was relieved.

Waking up in the morning and taking off in a flurry of activity after a cup of coffee is not equivalent to being completely awake. It takes practice to calm down, slow down, and become more aware. I’ve been taught that success comes through small actions repeated many times.

As creatures of habit, we all tend to move through the day on automatic, sticking to a schedule and a plan. Have you ever arrived at work without quite knowing how you got there? Have you eaten your lunch at your desk and not even tasted it? (more…)

July 12, 2011
How to Reduce Stress by Doing Less and Doing It Slowly

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” ~Socrates

In April, NPR ran a story titled, “The Slow Internet Movement.” It reported that hipster cities, like Portland, Oregon, are sprouting Internet cafés that only offer dial-up access to the web.

These cafés give customers, “Slow pours and slow Internet. Here, you can order your coffee and spend four hours checking your email, all for $.99 an hour.”

“Wow,” I thought.” That’s just my speed!” (No pun intended.) But the story didn’t just run in April. It ran on April 1^st and was NPR’s little April Fools joke at the expense of gullible people like me.

It got me thinking, though. Life would be much less stressful if I embraced the spirit of the Slow Internet Movement. So, here are four tips for slowing down:

1. Double the time you think it will take to complete a task.

How often do you clock in at or under the time you’ve allotted for a task? I rarely do. Take my raised ivy geranium bed. Periodically, the geraniums spill over onto the walkway and I need to cut them back.

Every time I assess the task, I estimate it will take twenty minutes at most. But it always takes at least twice that long. By the time I’m done, due to chronic illness, I’ve used up my energy stores for the day. I’m “trashed” as we call it my household.

Inspired by The Slow Internet Movement, when I tackled the task a few weeks ago, I doubled my twenty-minute time estimate. Forty minutes is more than I can handle at one time, so I cut back half the geraniums on Saturday and the other half on Sunday.

Sure, the box looked odd for twenty-four hours—like half of a buzz cut—but no one seemed to notice. Not only did I spare myself burnout, but I truly enjoyed the activity both times. (more…)

July 11, 2011
6 Questions That Will Make You Feel Peaceful and Complete

“The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.” ~Swedish Proverb

When I was in my mid-twenties an unhealthy relationship with an unhealthy guy sent me packing off to the corner of New Mexico to find myself. In a new age, self-discovery kind of world—a hubbub of a town filled with people in transition—I was graced to meet many powerful healers, gurus, shamans, and teachers.

I became a workshop junkie. I went on Shamanic power journeys to spiritual centers around the world, chanted with Indian gurus, and became a certified yoga instructor and Reiki master.

I got rolfed, (and got more intense body-work by thick-boned Maoris) and rebirthed with conscious breath work. I studied parapsychology and quantum dynamics, did past-life regressions, memorized mantras, unraveled koans, and collected crystals and tarot cards.

I went on vision quests in the desert, called leading psychics, mapped my astrological chart, figured out my Enneagram number, dreamed lucidly for nights in an upright chair, and drew down the moon in Wiccan circles.

I had psychic surgeries, soft-tissue chiropractic work, drank herbal tinctures and elixirs, bought every kind of healing essential oil, collected a library of self-help books, and did inner-child work, gestalt dialogues, and did loads of homework with several life coaches.

I know. It’s crazy, huh?

I was a perpetual seeker. Because of an innate sense that there was something wrong with me and a belief I picked up as a child that I was “bad,” I constantly looked outside of myself to find respite, feel loved, and to know my worth.

Even though my unhealthy relationship was dysfunctional, that man gave me a gift that I wouldn’t discover for years. There was something he always said to me that would have saved me from grasping to know myself for so many years, if only I could have really heard it and made it my own.

Whether he meant it or not, he would say: What’s not to love about you?

If I could only for one minute stop and realize this truth, I could have found my peace, and not from a man or spiritual teacher or seminar. I would have been freed from a need to find something outside of me. I would have come to know my own heart. (more…)

July 10, 2011
The Secret to Instant Self-Confidence

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” ~Dalai Lama

Self-confidence is an interesting concept.

You see, we all have ways of feeling good, bad, low, light, and peaceful. We all have triggers that tell us when to experience these states.

The really interesting part is that you can challenge how you respond to those triggers and change the strategies you use.

There have been countless times in my life where I haven’t felt absolutely confident.

For example, I used to be very shy around people. I just didn’t believe I had anything to say, so I used to freeze. I was afraid of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong people.

It felt safer to be quiet, but after awhile it got really boring—and when someone is really bored, they’re often in fear because they’ve put so many restrictions on themselves.

What helped me work through the fear and start being me was tapping into a feeling of confidence, or sometimes just another positive feeling.

It could be as simple as thinking of something that made me feel good, or even thinking about the fact that we are all human, and we are all made of the same earth.

It’s not going to happen overnight, but once you become aware of the triggers in your life, you can exponentially increase the amount of bliss you experience.

You can try to resist feeling happy all you want, but sooner or later you will start experiencing that bubbly joyous feeling inside of you, because that is who you really are deep down inside.

That is who we all are. (more…)

July 6, 2011
51 Things That Will Make You Smile

Some days, it’s easy to smile. You wake up to the sounds of birds chirping, with the warm glow of the morning sun cradling your face. You take several deep, cleansing breaths standing beneath a perfectly cascading shower, just before drawing a smiley face on the steamed-up glass with your index finger.

Your roommate or significant other makes your coffee, just the way you like it. You hit every traffic light. You sing to your favorite tunes. And you arrive at work refreshed, excited, and anxious to create and collaborate.

But not every day starts this way. Sometimes you wake up to chaos, in your head or in the world around you. You hit snags, and bumps, and roadblocks at every turn. You try too hard, or don’t try enough, and things fall apart, or things fall short.

You struggle, you fight yourself and other people, and you find yourself wishing you could stop the world so you could get off for a while.

But there is an alternative. When things go wrong, you can fall down or look up. You can shut down or wake up, all over again, starting from right where you stand. You can accept that the days won’t always look bright, but commit to finding something worth smiling about. Not sure what that might be? No worries, friends! I have a few ideas…. (more…)

July 6, 2011
5 Immediate and Easy Ways to Silence Your Inner Critic

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” ~William Shakespeare

I love to paint. I’m not a professional artist. I have no technique, and I am not trained. But I love how the brush feels as it dips into color and moves across a white page.

Painting allows me to be free, to have fun and play. It also does something else: It shows me how I judge myself and how I can get in my own way. It reveals what I believe about myself that stops me from creating whatever I want.

Even as I take joy in the process of painting I still hear the inner-critic in my head:

“This flower is not pretty enough. It should be purple, not red.”

“Make this face look good so others can recognize what a good painter you are.”

“You can’t paint just for the sheer joy of it—you need to be doing more productive things with your time.”

“It’s ugly, and when people see it, they’re going to think you’re weird.”

The judge inside me likes to tell me how bad I am. He mocks me, teases me, and pushes me around. He’s mean, insensitive, and determined to hold me back.

When we engage in a project, whether it is the beginning, the middle, or the end, the judge loves to get involved. Although the judge is very unoriginal and speaks to each of us very much the same, his judgments take on hundreds of forms.

The judge is most definitely a thief, robbing us of our innate goodness, worth, talent, values, and ability. He makes us believe in illusions, wreaks havoc on our spirit, and causes chaos in our mind.

He likes to break our ego and tell us we are not enough and bad. He likes to tell us we are not loved and not cared about—that we don’t matter.

He even likes to stroke our ego and puff us up, telling us how good we are, how special and how unique. “Look how beautiful that purple flower is. Look how very talented you are. When people see this, they’re going to find you very special.”

He loves to break us and stroke us. He loves to seduce us and tempt us. He loves to make us doubt ourselves.

So how do we silence this inner critic and put him in his place? (more…)

July 4, 2011
The Relief and Power of Accepting Your Struggles (and Finding Hidden Gifts)

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

I love acceptance. Acts of surrender create forward momentum.

If we all pause for a moment and observe what we are fighting, right here and right now—maybe depression, anxiety, weight gain, low self-image, or financial stress—we’ll have an opportunity to accept then.

But that’s just the start.

Recently I accepted something I never thought I would. Reframing the way I thought about it changed my life.

I have moderate to severe OCD. Having OCD is basically like believing everything that goes through your mind. Scary, right?

Obsessive-compulsive people have intrusive and extremely terrifying thoughts—for example, that he or she may have been contaminated by something, which might lead him or her to spend hours washing. I have a base underlying all of my obsessions: that I will hurt people. It was and can be my greatest fear.

For example, I used to worry that I left the oven or iron on and that, in doing so, I may have burned the house down, which would ruin my husband’s life and also kill our cat. So I’d return home multiple times per day to check these appliances and also send my husband home to check. I also had massive rituals around shutting appliances off.

OCD is a time-sucker. Obsessive compulsives create rituals to lower the anxiety. I’d check to make sure I didn’t leave the iron on, do everything evenly on both sides of my body so I felt “balanced,” retrace events that happened in my life to make absolutely certain I hadn’t harmed anyone accidentally, and search the internet excessively for answers.

These rituals literally took up hours my day.

I discovered that I had OCD one afternoon when I was trying to figure out how you know something for certain.

Try googling that.

The first thing that popped up for my search query was about obsessive-compulsive disorder. I felt immediate relief. (more…)

July 3, 2011
8 Tips to Help Create a Positive Mental Attitude

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

For years I lived an uneventful existence. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t unhappy either. I was just sort of stuck.

I had a good career, earned lots of money, and I had great friends and a loving family. You would think that this doesn’t sound too bad, but I felt unfulfilled and unmotivated. I repeatedly lived each day like the one before.

I looked around me and saw that everybody within my own circle of friends, relatives, and immediate family were no different. They too seemed stuck. They seemed unmotivated—like they were living their lives on automatic pilot.

I began to question why this was. Why do so many people just accept this pattern as normal, as if this is the way it is supposed to be?

I read hundreds of books on philosophy, psychology, and spirituality. I continued with this for a couple of years until I gradually I began to see things with greater clarity. I began to wake up. Then one day, out of the blue it just hit me, like a ton of bricks.

The key to unlocking my prison door was not contained in any books I read (although they did help me somewhat). It was in my ability to accept what “is” in this moment. So I now I make that choice.

Here are eight tips to help you make that choice:

1. Remember that you are powerful.

Most of the time we have no idea what we are supposed to be doing, or who we are supposed to be imitating. I say “imitating” because this is what we do: We conform to the external environment. (more…)

June 29, 2011
Simple Happiness: Choose, Practice, Repeat

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.” ~Denis Waitley

I just spent the past 17 months of my life trying to find, travel to, or somehow earn happiness.

I had just given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy. I had a loving husband, a home, good friends, and a supportive family. I was supposed to be happy. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t explain why, even to myself.

This led to more anxiety and major guilt. I felt like I had tripped into a deep, dark, cavernous hole. My family and friends threw me many ropes in various attempts to pull me out. Four months after my son’s birth, I sought help.

The diagnosis was post-partum depression and anxiety. For the next year, I tried both therapy and medication, though I was hesitant to ingest anything more than the lowest dosage available. Neither of them seemed to be consistently effective for me.

Then last April I had a falling out with my boss and a co-worker on the same day. As a perfectionist and people-pleaser, this devastated me. I hit my rock-bottom of sadness. It finally dawned on me that I had spent the past year and a half isolating myself from all that I used to love. Even my husband and closest family members felt disconnected from me.

My head was so crowded with feelings of how the hell am I going to get through this day thatthere was no room to enjoy my life. The next morning I awoke with an epiphany—an “aha!” moment, if you will.

I was reading a magazine article about a frazzled new mother, trying to balance a coffee, a stroller, a grumpy toddler, and a cell phone—all with a glazed-over, vacant look in her eyes.

“Oh my God, that’s me,” I thought.

My one-and-only messy, beautiful life was happening, and I was missing it. I needed to wake up. (more…)

June 28, 2011
Beat Procrastination: How to Want to Tackle Your To-Do List

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

Ten years ago, I stopped procrastinating. Lots of procrastination, then zero—overnight. Cold turkey worked for me. Now I hardly ever procrastinate.

Why the sudden change? How did I do it?

Lists and Procrastination

Like many people, I make lists, including to-do lists, reminders, shopping lists, wish lists, and my what-to-do-when-bored list. I completely rely on my lists to keep my life moving along.

My Dad purposefully decided not to make lists. He believed he could maintain his memory better if he didn’t rely on them. Could be true, because he always had a good memory.

Not me, however. I do seem to need lists to remind me about important to-do things. When I write something on a to-do list, I can get it off my mind for now, knowing I’ll have that reminder. So why not just do that important thing now instead of writing it down? Well, sometimes that’s not practical or possible.

But sometimes it is. Sometimes writing a to-do item on a list can actually be an act of procrastination.

Apparently lists and procrastination go hand in hand for some of us. My reason for making lists is to ensure that things get done, yet writing something on a list can also make it easier for me to procrastinate doing it. Once the to-do item is on a list, it’s off my mind—so it might never get done.

There’s something wrong with that picture. Making lists to remember to do things, and then avoiding those lists because of a procrastination problem? A deadly combo in terms of productivity! (more…)

June 27, 2011
Lose Control to Find Closeness in Your Relationships

“Always be mindful of the kindness and not the faults of others” ~Buddha

In these hectic and often chaotic times, for most people (controllers included), the need for intimate, close bonds with friends and family is more important than ever for their overall well-being.

Yet, most controllers are unaware of how much their controlling actions prevent intimacy.

Losing Intimacy with My Son

Twenty years ago I was a massive, obsessive controller. I firmly believed that the best way to satisfy my needs and achieve what I wanted in life was by controlling everything and everyone. At home, Father truly knew best! I knew what was best for my children—and didn’t hesitate to let them know.

When my son Brandon was a child, I constantly offered my two cents on almost everything he did, thinking it would help him better traverse life’s many challenges. When he was young, he had no choice but to put up with my intrusions.

In his teens, however, he became very dismissive of me—he didn’t want to hear anymore from me, and he strongly let me know it.

Our bond remained strained until I was literally brought to my knees by a rapid-fire series of traumatic events (concluding with 5 major cancer surgeries). At that point, I no longer had the desire or energy to continue intruding upon his life.

Because I no longer offered him my opinions or advice, Brandon began seeking my input on important challenges he faced as a young adult.

Hence, the very thing I had sought—intimacy—came to me only after I stopped trying to seek it! (more…)

June 23, 2011
This Moment Does Not Define You

“Things and conditions can give you pleasure but they cannot give you joy—joy arises from within.” ~Eckhart Tolle

I struggled with anorexia for four years before I went to rehab. Rehab saved my life, and although I am not “completely recovered,” I am in recovery. I am coping. I am living again.

One of the biggest sources of fuel for my eating disorder was my hyper-focus on the physical and transitory aspects of life.

In my mind, I over-emphasized the importance of my body. I put the appearance of my body, and how I felt about my body, above my true, underlying nature.

I would treat fleeting thoughts, feelings, and emotions as crucial, life-and-death matters.

I did not realize or appreciate my crucial and enduring self, which (I now understand) transcends the fleeting states of the corporal realm.

During this time, surface feelings took on a villainous and critical role. I know this sounds melodramatic and unrealistic (because it is), but “feeling bloated” literally felt like the death of me. I could not separate my true self from my passing thoughts and feelings.

A huge part of my recovery and self-discovery has been my ability to separate my identity and the surface mental sewage that blocks my view of reality.

I realized that I am not my body – kind of weird, but cool and life-changing. I am much more than just my physical form.

I’m not saying that I’m really some waif-like spirit, floating on the whimsical current of an indefinable world (that would be cool though).

What I’m saying is that my physical self—my body, my fleeting feelings and thoughts—do not define me.

I am not just me sitting here typing this blog post. I am not me who ate apples with a whole lot of peanut butter for breakfast. I am not me who will take a sip of black iced coffee in about three seconds.

I am a conglomeration, a whole melting pot of things and thoughts and feelings and actions and ideas and emotions. I am now and then and I am more to come. (more…)

June 22, 2011
Be Stress-Free: Eliminate 5 Common, Unnecessary Stressors

“Some people think it’s holding that makes one strong – sometimes it’s letting go.” ~Unknown

The human mind loves to find things to stress about.

There seems to constantly be something in our lives that causes us to worry. And when the thing that caused the worry disappears, we feel happy, but only for a short period of time until we find something else to stress about.

I’ve witnessed this pattern many times in my own life. As soon as I was able to solve one of my problems, my mind found me a new one.

Compared to other guys, my body is very skinny. It has been that way since I was a little kid. My friends used to tease me because of it. I laughed at their jokes, but inside I always felt horrible.

I felt like there was something wrong with me because I was different.

As I got older I started going to the gym so I could gain weight. Progress was slow since my body naturally leans towards the skinnier side. But slowly I began seeing results in the size of my muscles.

This is, however, where the results ended. I didn’t really get happier with my body at all, which was the main purpose of the training anyways.

I still felt skinny and there was always something in my body that wasn’t quite right yet.

At that point I realized that I was participating in a game that I couldn’t win. My body wasn’t the problem. The problem was what my mind was telling me about my body.

In essence, as long as you are identified and run by your mind, it will come up with “problems” for you to focus on.

Every single time a dilemma is solved, you can be sure of a new one arising that feels equally stressing as the previous one.

The good news is that there is a way to break free from this endless loop of stress. It starts by realizing how pointless and harmful this useless worry actually is.

Once you become aware of the negativity that these thought patterns create, it will be much easier to let go of your “problems” once and for all. (more…)

June 21, 2011
Renovate Your Life: 5 Key Truths About Creating Change

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” ~Pema Chodron

We are currently in the midst of home improvement—what we thought would be a small “touch-up.” Nothing seemed too threatening on the surface, just a scratch here, a nick there. It would be a simple fix.

But when we began the project and uncovered the areas we were going to address, we saw there was much more than met the eye, as often happens in life. We could no longer ignore what we had sealed over and painted, covered with lovely flowers, and ignored for many years.

Isn’t it funny how often plumbing is a perfect analogy for life? Opening what seemed to be a simple clog revealed 45-year-old crumbling pipes, made from materials long obsolete. All of the unseen clogging and rusting seemed symbolic of the hidden parts deep inside myself.

When I acknowledged a simple issue—my fear of change—it revealed old beliefs that no longer serve me. Beliefs that were behaving just like our pipes by creating major blocks. Beliefs that I had covered so well with personal landscaping that no one (including me) saw them.

The most amazing thing was sharing this with a plumber who really got it and shared my insights.

Who knew—enlightenment through our sewer drains!

So as the project moves on, I want to share five of the truths about home and self improvement that I have discovered thus far: (more…)

June 21, 2011