Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • 5 Things to Remember When You Feel Disgusted by How You Look

    5 Things to Remember When You Feel Disgusted by How You Look

    “Your face will change. Your body will change. The only kind of beauty that endures is the kind that lives in your heart.” ~Lori Deschene

    How many times have you hidden away from the world when you felt ashamed by your appearance?

    How many invitations have you turned down because you felt disgusted by the way you look?

    And how many times have you gazed into the bathroom mirror and thought, “Why, in my brief existence on this planet, does it have to be me?”

    Seeing your reflection in the mirror is like a physical pain. It’s not just one part of your life. It’s obsessive. It consumes your every waking moment.

    Then you start feeling envy toward beautiful people. Wrath at whatever higher being there is for not making you one of them. Pride in your strengths whenever you see someone who looks worse than you. Self-loathing and blaming your treacherous genes for giving you an odd face, an imperfect shape, a visible health condition.

    For me, it was my skin.

    I was cursed by a chronic illness that regularly causes rashes all over my body, and sometimes even on my face.

    I can’t count how many times I cried over it. Sometimes from the pain. Sometimes from the itch. Too many times from people’s looks of revulsion or their unkind words.

    The borderline shallowness of many people who never bothered to open a book whose cover they didn’t like was painful and grating.

    My insecurity was like an open wound and my self-esteem was at rock bottom. I felt like a target, a second-class citizen with few rights to have dreams, hopes, or success.

    I perfected the art of avoiding mirrors and cameras, bought extra clothes to cover my skin, and learned how to keep my head down to avoid eye contact. I was terrified of social situations and worried that people would look at me in disgust.

    Every single comment could shatter my fragile confidence.

    The hopelessness and soul-crushing feeling of not looking pretty enough made me want to roll the duvet over my head in the mornings and not come out.

    Thinking that you’ll never be happy because of your looks is the most gut-wrenching thing. It’s isolating. It’s maddening. It’s frustrating and a thousand other things.

    We’re living in an appearance-saturated society that tells us that our likeability is dependent on being attractive. The diet culture, beauty industry, media—they all convey that beauty equals perfection.

    In today’s digital age, it’s easy to create a façade with carefully chosen photos and posts that lie through omission.

    But deep down, you know the truth.

    You can’t ignore it.

    The world doesn’t let you.

    Advertisements and magazine covers all remind you of how imperfect you are. Beauticians love to point out your flaws to sell you more products.

    It’s not until you decide to wear your imperfect look as a form of armor that you become comfortable in your own skin. People’s looks no longer intimidate you. Hurtful words don’t steal your sleep. You fall in love with yourself.

    It’s a journey toward acceptance. And the journey is liberating.

    We all face challenges in accepting who we are and how we look. But the truth is that, cliché as it may sound, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

    It’s not what’s on the surface. It’s what’s inside you.

    Here are some of the things that helped me on my journey toward self-acceptance.

    1. You can make peace with the parts of you that you hate.

    Accepting that you don’t like everything about your body is the first step toward having a more positive frame of mind. It’s about acknowledging that you may feel “meh” about some parts of your body, but not letting that stop you from doing things you want to do.

    You’re probably thinking, “Yeah, right, but what about my stomach pooch?”

    Well, what about it? It’s there. You’re not perfect, and that’s okay.

    Often we forgo pleasure because we feel we don’t deserve it. Somehow simple parts of living become unobtainable “rewards.” Maybe you won’t let yourself hit the beach unless you get into a certain shape, or you can’t get married unless you drop the weight, or maybe you can’t buy new clothes until you’re a few pounds lighter.

    It sounds crazy when you say it out loud, but that’s how a lot of us think.

    So be kind to yourself. Be gentle and remind yourself of all the other things that you love about yourself.

    Give yourself permission to accept that some parts of your body may not be your favorite thing. You won’t always love every part of your body. However, you can still love your life even on the days you can’t love your belly.

    You’re certainly not alone in your struggle toward body acceptance. I could give you a laundry list of things I don’t like about my body.

    However, this is the body you were given. It’s the only body you were given. So it might be time to make peace with it.

    2. Everyone feels unattractive at times.

    We all have moments of weakness when we view everything through a negative filter, and the voice in our head becomes critical and unloving. Times when we feel ugly and unattractive. All of us. You. Me. Your best friend.

    Days when you look at yourself in the mirror and don’t see anything positive. You don’t see the loving spouse, the caring mother, the wonderful son, the understanding friend. You don’t see the wisdom in old age wrinkles, the power in stretch marks, and the beauty in your body curves.

    Instead, you just see . . . blah. Gross. Unlovable. Disgusting.

    In those moments of self-doubt, pause and ask yourself these questions: Is my mood affecting the way I’m feeling about my looks? Have I been getting enough sleep and fresh air? Have I been eating well and moving my body frequently? Self-care is so important because your mirror image is simply a manifestation of your positive energy.

    3. Media-defined ideals of beauty aren’t real.

    For years, the world of media has been trying to construct a sparkling image of what an ideal man and an ideal woman should look like. From television shows to commercials to magazine advertisements to celebrity culture, mainstream media has been reinforcing the notion that you only look beautiful if you have a toned body, perfect hair, and flawless skin.

    But the reality is that you just don’t.

    Why? Because the image of perfection doesn’t exist. It’s superficial. It’s unattainable. Even models themselves don’t look like their photoshopped, heavily edited images. No wonder you come up short whenever you compare yourself to celebrities and models on magazine covers.

    The pressure of looking perfect weighs you down. You begin to think that you aren’t beautiful enough, are too fat, too small, too whatever. All that to say that you’re not good enough.

    That’s, at least, what the beauty industry wants you to believe. If you feel inadequate about your looks, you’re more likely to buy whatever fix the ads are selling. Making you uncomfortable with your body sells – whether it’s a weight loss plan, fashion, or a beauty product.

    Are you going to change society’s definition of beauty? No. However, you can change your own. Don’t focus on the beauty you see in ads; focus on the beauty you see in the real-life people you admire.

    4. Your reflection doesn’t define you.

    The sum of who you are—your thoughts, beliefs, hopes, dreams, feelings—is much greater than what meets the eye of an observer who doesn’t know you. All those things about you are the force that draws others to you.

    You might have heard the saying that an ugly personality destroys the face. Well, I happen to agree with that 100%.

    Sometimes you hear somebody speak with kindness and compassion, and you perceive them as beautiful. However, it’s not their outer appearance you’re drawn to. It’s their inner depth, a kind of beauty that can’t be inherited, photoshopped, or surgically attained.

    I know many people who aren’t the most attractive, but their energy, joy, and positivity is so contagious that it’s hard not to have them around.

    So think about what brings you joy. Do things you like. Make your self-esteem contingent on inner, not outer, qualities. After all, a positive attitude brings more friendships than looks do.

    5. Your perception becomes your reality.

    If you feel beautiful, it will transcend your physical attributes.

    Think about the story you’re living right now. Did you consciously decide to create it, or was it shaped by your parents, your friends, or perhaps even the media?

    From the time you were born, you’ve received both positive and negative messages from your surroundings. All those messages create your belief system. You act on those messages as if they’re true until you believe them to be true. They become your reality. They give you your identity.

    Every time you say “I am,” you are telling a story about yourself. When your story takes on a life of its own, you become it. But who wrote that story? And why is there so much criticism and low self-esteem in there?

    Rewrite it. Take control of the pen and write the story you want.

    Let Yourself Be You

    Next time you notice that inner critic of yours attacking your appearance, catch it.

    Take a deep breath and ask yourself if you can release it.

    I’m not talking about making it spit out positive, self-loving affirmations that don’t feel authentic and real to you. I’m talking about the soft, embracing energy of acceptance.

    I’ve learned to cultivate self-worth apart from my appearance. I take pride in my talents, skills, intelligence, and caring heart. When my perfectionist self wants to critique not only my appearance, but also everything I do, I remind myself of those qualities.

    When you open up to all parts of yourself, you will feel lighter. As you rewrite your story and let yourself be you, the many facets of your beautiful self will shine.

    It’s a practice of making peace with what is. And you can make it happen within yourself.

    It’s an ongoing journey that feels liberating.

  • Having Doubts Doesn’t Mean Your Relationship Is Doomed

    Having Doubts Doesn’t Mean Your Relationship Is Doomed

    “When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary.” ~Fred Rogers

    There aren’t many clichés I resent more than this old chestnut about finding true love: “When you know, you know.”

    As a late bloomer and skeptic who took her sweet time to get into a relationship, after decades of singleness and observation, nothing made me feel more like an outsider than the idea that love is an unexplainable phenomenon reserved for people who “know.”

    In my early years of singledom, I believed I “knew” things. I had unwavering faith in a myriad of beliefs, and when doubts cropped up in my mind, I dismissed them or stuffed them back down into my subconscious.

    The most liberating day of my life was the day I embraced doubt as a friend. Confronted with an idea that conflicted with one of my beliefs, I said to myself, “I do not know the answer, and I will not pretend to.”

    Everything changed then, but life didn’t become scarier without “knowing” the answers. On the contrary, a world of possibilities opened up, along with the appearance of many fellow voyagers who were on the same path as me. I hadn’t noticed them before because my “knowing” had scared them off.

    Years later, I’ve turned my gaze to the phenomenon of love and the myth of “knowing” as it relates to relationships.

    This message is everywhere. Pop culture makes doubts synonymous with warning signs, red flags. “If you have cold feet on your wedding day, then it’s probably because you shouldn’t be getting married in the first place.”

    That’s not to say that doubts are never red flags. Of course they can be and often are. If you chose someone you’re not compatible with to avoid being alone, or you’ve had to compromise yourself, your morals, or your needs, then your doubts likely are red flags.

    But it’s important to set a distinction between a gut feeling that says, “This is not the right person” and one that says, “I didn’t fall in love at first sight, so I must be wrong.”

    In movies, doubts are presented as indicators that our partners are irretrievably flawed and do not deserve our love. Rarely do we see a tale where doubt is an invitation to look more closely at our complex feelings, or a natural consequence of comparing our relationship to someone else’s.

    If our doubts make us cut and run, then the message remains that we must “know” and not doubt. If a question arises, you must leave, so therefore you must not question.

    This breeds a vicious cycle of ignoring our feelings and pretending not to feel them. “If other people don’t have doubts, then there must be something wrong with me. I can’t let them see that!”

    The cycle begets a lonely existence. And it’s unnecessarily lonely. Everyone has doubts and fears, and the most meaningful connections we can make with each other come from being brave enough to share them.

    I can still feel the way my heart starts to race before saying something out loud that I’ve only thought silently in my head. It could be something as simple as, “You know, I’m not really sure that everything happens for a reason,” which, in some circles could be considered a scandalous belief.

    You say the words, heart and tongue racing, fear of judgment impending, and then that trusted friend reassures you. “Oh my goodness, I thought it was just me! I feel the same way!”

    This is where the gold is. We find people we feel brave enough to be real with, and when we open up, they embrace us. They don’t judge us, and we discover that we aren’t alone.

    An unexamined, untested life does not interest me. The same is true of love.

    When my relationship began, neither one of us knew what we were doing. Beginners that we were, we shared our thoughts with each other in a way that was unmarred by years of dating and learning how to “play the game.”

    We did not “know” the moment we first saw each other that we would be anything more than coworkers or friends. We did not experience love at first sight, and even as our relationship began, we weren’t sure what to call our feelings for each other.

    And we did not pretend to “know” or understand those feelings. We said, “I’m not sure what this is, but we’ll figure it out.” And it took some time, but we did just that, with honesty and grace helping us along the way.

    Together, we learned that true love isn’t an instant or constant feeling. It may sound romantic, but real love is something you build and have to work at.

    When my nieces ask me on my wedding day how I knew that I wanted to marry my fiancé, I will see it as an opportunity. I won’t say, “Oh, I just knew. Someday you will too.” I will tell them that he is good and kind, and that together we have grown and overcome, and that we make each other feel safe, loved, and supported.

    That’s the message I want them to take to heart as their own concept of love takes shape. “Just knowing” might sound pretty, but it’s dangerous. The myth encourages us to chase a feeling rather than seeing ourselves, our partners, and our relationships in a clear light.

    People may feel inexplicably warm feelings for someone who treats them terribly or is physically abusive, and that feeling might seem like “just knowing.” Having been told so many times that that is what love is, who could question that feeling or choose to leave it behind?

    The people (especially the children) around us see and hear the way we define love, and it shapes their own definitions. We are all a patchwork quilt of the various influences around us, and I try to take that role seriously. If I can set an example that helps the next generation seek out love that helps them grow safely, doubts, fears, warts and all, then I will have done my small part.

  • It Could Always Be Worse: The Power of Gratitude and Perspective

    It Could Always Be Worse: The Power of Gratitude and Perspective

    “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” ~Marcus Aurelius

    So, yesterday wasn’t the best day. I backed up into my husband’s car in the dark, on my way to a meeting. I didn’t see it in the mirrors. It was dark. (Did I mention that?) Well, it left a healthy size dent in the front, and needless to say, the tension began.

    I felt bad. I honestly didn’t see it. Whenever I put my car into reverse, the mirrors automatically adjust and seem to point down, which makes it difficult to see out of them. Then, I have to look on this little screen when I back up, and in the dark, it’s hard to distinguish obstacles in the way. I just can’t get used to it.

    So I tried. I put the car in reverse, slowly backed up, and then… crunch. I heard it. Ouch.

    Afraid of the destruction I had caused, I reluctantly opened the door, looked back, and assessed the damage. Instantly, I knew he wouldn’t be happy.

    I imagined steam pouring out of his ears after I gently broke the news to him.

    Throughout the rest of the evening, a giant rift began forming between us. Worries about finding money for the deductible, battling higher insurance rates, and paying for repairs spiraled into distress. We went to bed without speaking, which sent me into a fit of self-pity accompanied by tears of guilt and sorrow.

    How much worse can things get? First the septic problems, then the furnace, then the electric problem, now the car. Wow, when it rains, it pours. Why can’t things just be easy for us for once? Is that too much to ask?

    Our thoughts are powerful things. They can instantly set off a chain reaction of overflowing, overwhelming emotions.

    And then this morning, I learned of a friend—a dear woman, wife, and mother in our community—whose young adult child had just passed away in a car accident.

    Rapidly, all my worries about denting the car seemed ridiculous.

    Perspective came rushing back to me in a moment’s notice, bringing me back to reality.

    I had been there. I had been that mom whose child died. I had made that dreaded phone call, as I lay helpless in our mangled and demolished car.

    It has been eight years now since she was flown from the accident scene to the trauma center, and I, transported in an ambulance, was rushed to a local hospital. The last day we had hugged, talked, and touched each other. Sometimes, it seems just like yesterday.

    My eyes welled up with tears, as I knew exactly how this newly bereaved mother was feeling. I swallowed that forming lump in my throat as memories of the accident with my children came surging back, bringing me back to that life-altering day.

    After a few moments, I caught myself holding my breath as I abruptly stopped in my tracks to say a prayer for her and her family.

    To be told your beloved child has died is the worst pain. It’s a paralyzing and debilitating state that leaves you feeling like you are suffocating, making you scream in terror and disbelief.

    And this can last for months, even years, as you desperately try to wake up from such a horrifying dream.

    My heart is heavy. It’s not fair, this arduous, frightening journey that was forced upon this mother this snowy winter morning.

    Today it was her child, tomorrow it will be someone else’s father, mother, brother, sister, son, or daughter.

    It knows no discrimination. No one is exempt. Loss. Grief. They will find us at some point in our lives when we least expect it, pulling us into an abyss of heartbreak and despair. And then what?

    My point: Among the daily stress, tension, and challenges of life, stop and search for gratitude. What a gift it is to even be alive.

    For that car that is broken, give thanks that you have a car to fix.

    For that necessary and expensive home repair, give thanks and realize what a gift it is to even have a home.

    For that taxing job, give thanks that it pays the bills.

    For that exhausting child, give thanks for their strong personality and recall how wonderful it was the day they were born.

    Find perspective. Embrace it. Look with eyes of wonder and hope for tomorrow.

    Take time to enjoy the rainbow of colors in that sunset; appreciate being able to hear those birds singing or see the wildlife out your window. Smile with joy when you’re able to build that snowman with your child.

    Unfortunately, many of us are clouded in our judgment until we experience a rock bottom tragedy. Our daily challenges can be upsetting, but we’re fortunate to not be standing where someone else is standing right now. Someone who is grieving, for they have lost a part of themselves and are struggling with a gaping hole deep in their soul. An unforgettable void that can never be filled, nor replaced.

    So try it with me.

    Stop what you’re doing. Take a step back and try to imagine walking in someone else’s shoes. Someone you may know who has suffered the loss of a loved one. While you may not understand, acknowledge their loss and the road of profound sorrow they must now travel. It’s not easy.

    Inhale deeply, absorb some sunshine, and remember, there are many others who would be incredibly thankful to be where you are today. Despite it all, you are blessed.

    Let us all find perspective when facing struggles that are minuscule in the grand scheme of things and recognize the gifts we have been given. Let’s not take this beautiful life for granted.

  • 7 Simple Ways to Give Back to the World When You Have Little Time or Money

    7 Simple Ways to Give Back to the World When You Have Little Time or Money

    “I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catchers mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back.” ~Maya Angelou

    Being charitable is often seen as a zero sum game, giving away our time or money for the benefit of others. As uplifting as it may be to give to a cause you care about, most of us feel we lack the authority to truly make things happen.

    I discovered the transformative power of helping others when I was eight years old. My friends and I had imaginations like other children, but in the summer of 1989 our ideas became action—we organized an event to raise money for a local leukemia charity.

    Every day, on a patch of grass by the river, in the shadow of a 10th century abbey, my friends and I would play soccer. As it was the summer holiday and we had never stayed up all night, we conceived of a marvelous plan to organize a sponsored, all-night soccer match.

    What we lacked in official charity affiliation, we made up for in enthusiasm. We walked for miles, knocking on every single door to obtain sponsors for our unconventional soccer match. We asked anyone that sponsored us how many goals we’d score during the night. The person who came closest would win a signed ball from the local professional soccer club.

    Within two days we managed to collect over 100 pounds in sponsor funds. More importantly, we had planted a seed in ourselves, a raison d’etre.

    People arrived to show their support, cheering with each goal that we scored well into the balmy summer evening. As the sun set, only we kids were left, with my dad as the sole spectator. Our motivation never waned as we played into the early hours of Sunday morning.

    The pride and sense of achievement we gained from helping that leukemia charity led me to a profound realization: Positively impacting others is far more meaningful than the satisfaction of a personal goal that wears off after a day.

    Time after time I hear people say that either a lack of time or money prevents them from volunteering or donating to a cause. It isn’t that they don’t care; it’s just that they don’t feel empowered to actually do anything. After hearing this collective frustration from so many people who wished they could do more, I decided to compile this list.

    What if there were various ways you could help others without sacrificing your already-tight budget or precious free time? Below are six small changes you can make in your daily life that have a stunning social impact over time.

    1. Amazon Smile

    As the light of the laptop glows upon my face and the dopamine rush of retail therapy hits, my late night Amazon shopping spree is an unexpected source of social good. With their low prices and free two-day Prime shipping, Amazon is my go-to source when shopping online.

    Over 250 million people use Amazon, but only a fraction use Amazon Smile, a simple and automatic way to support your favorite charity. When you shop through smile.amazon.com, you’ll find the same selection and low prices with an added bonus: Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your purchases to your favorite charity. The donation is automatic after checkout.

    Over the past twelve months I have spent an embarrassing $2,800 at Amazon, and often, when buying impulsively, I would forget to visit smile.amazon.com. But since installing a Google Chrome extension, I am automatically redirected to smile.amazon.com when I click on any Amazon link or navigate to amazon.com in my browser.

    Annual Impact: $2,800 x 0.05 = $14

    2. Charity Miles

    Most of us walk, some of us run, while others prefer to cycle. What if we could not only improve our health from daily exercise, but also do social good as we sweat? Over the past few years I have been on a quest to run a marathon on every continent to help raise awareness and funds for refugees, and the Charity Miles app has helped to multiply my fundraising efforts.

    Charity Miles sends money to a charity of your choosing for each mile that you walk, hike, run, or cycle. Simply download the app for your Android or iOS device, select a charity, and then perform your exercise as you normally would.

    The charity that you select earns money for every mile completed. Walkers, hikers, and runners earn $.25 per mile; bikers earn $.10 per mile. The app even has an indoor mode if you prefer to use the treadmill.

    Total Effect = 1,200 miles of running = $300
    600 miles of walking = $155
    600 miles of cycling = $60

    Annual Impact: $515

    3. GoodSearch.com

    The most common online activity besides browsing social media is searching. We use search engines to help us at work, with our personal lives, when shopping, and in just about every scenario imaginable. Search engines are how we find information.

    GoodSearch is touted as a philanthropic search engine. Instead of instinctively heading to Google, start using GoodSearch instead and contribute to the millions of dollars already raised for charity. To remember to do this, just replace Google as your browser’s default homepage. In addition, shopping through GoodShop allows you to donate to charity just like Amazon Smile does.

    Annual Impact= 5 searches a day x 365 = $18.25

    4. FreeRice.com

    Brain-training games have become a big business over the past few years with companies such as Lumosity and Elevate dominating the niche. But rather than paying money to exercise your brain, flex your neurons and help a charity at the same time with FreeRice.com.

    For each question you answer correctly, Freerice.com donates ten grains of rice to the World Food Programme. The game is surprisingly therapeutic. It helps me to decompress after a long day, and it allows me to multitask: learning new information while effortlessly donating to charity. After just five minutes of game-time I earned 750 grains of rice for the World Food Programme.

    Annual Impact: 750 x 365 = 273,750 grains of rice or 9.4lbs

    5. The Hunger Site

    The Hunger Site allows users to donate food by simply clicking a button! No actual donation is required. Simply click the yellow button on the main page and repeat daily. After clicking you can see the results for that day – including how many people clicked and how much food was donated in kilograms, tons, and pounds.

    Annual Impact: 0.14 lb x 365 =51lbs of Food

    6. Satorio.org

    The growing body of evidence supporting meditation has already been widely publicized by mainstream media outlets. Not only can meditation reduce stress, anxiety, and blood pressure, but it can also boost creativity, focus, and the immune system.

    Using Satorio.org, you can obtain these benefits while simultaneously helping to end world hunger—no effort or money is required.

    When you start hitting the gym, you observe small improvements and gradual changes along the way. The same is true with meditation. It is a workout for your mind that can have ripple effects on your life and the people around you. The idea behind Satorio is to show, in a more tangible way, the beneficial impact that your meditation can have on others.

    By meditating for twenty minutes a day, you give 73,000 grains of rice to Oxfam annually:

    Annual Impact: 20 x 10 x 365 = 73,000 grains of rice or 2.5lbs

    7. Forest

    As you are reading TinyBuddha, you no doubt appreciate the art of being mindful with your time. Forest, an app I started using recently, not only helps me be more mindful, but also increases my productivity massively.

    Forest encourages you to resist the temptation of leaving the app to check Facebook, text, or to play a game, by making your virtual tree wither away when you do. The Tamagotchi sense of achievement I get from nurturing my forest, motivates me to stay away from the distracting element of my phone when I am supposed to be working.

    I would gladly pay the $1.99 for the app’s productivity boost alone; however, the added social benefit are the real trees that are planted after achieving certain milestones.

    Total Effect:

    2 x 25 minutes sessions per day = 2 trees planted a year

    —

    Over the course of a year, using these websites can provide $547 and over sixty pounds of food. Imagine how many millions of people would be fed and helped if even 1% of the world did this.

    So if you’ve been stuck in a defeatist mindset, assuming there is nothing you can do, think again. These incredibly simple efforts can fuel positive change and support programs that save lives around the world.

  • Being Happy Doesn’t Mean That Everything Is Perfect

    Being Happy Doesn’t Mean That Everything Is Perfect

    “Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” ~Unknown

    We are all on a mission to be the best we can be, to be happy, to have the perfect house, family, partner, and job. To complete our to-do list, to complete out bucket list, to make our parents proud, to get promoted, earn more money, and be successful.

    Life can often feel like a never-ending treadmill, going quickly in the wrong direction. As we run faster to try to progress down this path, the goal becomes more elusive.

    Are we setting ourselves up to fail in this quest for the perfect life? And will it even result in our one main aim: happiness?

    I’m beginning to think that our quest for success and happiness is, in fact, the main reason we are unhappy.

    We place such high expectations on ourselves—to progress at work and be successful, to meet the same pressure to be perfect at home—and we feel we have to conform to the media ideals we see every day in terms of our health, our looks, our weight.

    As if that’s not hard enough, we then look at everyone around us feeling like they’ve got it mastered and we’re falling short.

    We often don’t realize that what we see in others and the media is only the best side. It’s not a full picture, so it’s unrealistic to expect ourselves to achieve this. We’re setting ourselves up to fail.

    I spent years doing all of the above, climbing the corporate ladder, trying to conform in a bid to please people, and it made me unhappy and unfulfilled. The perfect life always seemed just out of reach, and yet my life on the outside might have looked ideal to everyone else.

    I thought there must be another way, so one day I gave it all up and set on a journey to rebuild my life around my passions and restore my happiness.

    I learned a lot about myself and learned, from others, how people become happy and how we can live an authentic, perfectly imperfect life. I’ve learned that:

    • Things won’t always go according to your plan
    • The to-do list will never be complete
    • You’re doing the best you can with what you’ve got, and that is as perfect as it can be
    • No one has a perfect life (despite what it may look like on Facebook or in a magazine)
    • Happiness is not a point you arrive at in the distant future when you resolve all your problems and achieve perfection.

    So often it’s our quest for perfection that stops us from being happy.

    We plan our weekend and then get upset when it rains, disrupting our plans. This prevents us from enjoying the fact that it’s the weekend, and we get to spend time with those we love, doing what we enjoy (even if it rains).

    We want our to-do list to be complete, and of course it never will be, because as fast as we cross things off, more stuff will appear on it. We never quite have the right amount of money saved, so we work harder to get there, that perfect point in the future, with enough money to be comfortable, which of course never exists because we always want more.

    We look for a partner with no faults, when being human means we’re always going to have some.

    We expect for things to turn out the way we’d like them to, but life isn’t like that. It’s full of ups and downs. Even for the happiest of people, the storms will always come.

    We search for the perfect job, one we will enjoy every day. Yet every job will have its highs and lows. Even the rich and famous, who get to play sports or music and make a living from their passion, complain about the travel, the schedule, the media, and the pressures of fame. Every silver lining has a cloud, and the reverse is also true, because true perfection is always imperfect.

    It’s because of our desire to achieve perfection that we worry about making the wrong choice. We come to a fork in the road and we want to make sure we go in the right direction, but how can we know, since we can never see the end of the path at the beginning?

    I regretted not having the courage to leave my corporate job when I was offered the chance of redundancy money. Instead, I hung on for another year in a job I didn’t enjoy and delayed my dreams.

    It took me a while to realize that there are no wrong choices; every choice has ups and downs, and there is no such thing as a perfect outcome.

    When we chase an unrealistic expectation of perfection for our life and expect happiness to follow, we’re missing the point. Happiness is available all along in those imperfect moments scattered throughout our everyday life.

    A recent party I threw springs to mind. It was supposed to be a barbecue, but the weather didn’t cooperate; my outfit got torn just before the guests arrived, so I had to change; and the recipes I’d planned were seeming harder to pull together than I thought. Then there was the fact that I’d woken up that morning with the start of a cold.

    As we sat inside drinking wine and laughing together with the few dishes I had managed to prepare, I realized that while it was far from the perfect evening I’d planned, it was still lovely. We were surrounded by friends, everyone was having fun, and it was perfectly imperfect.

    It’s all too easy in today’s society to get caught up in the cycle of always wanting more. Our house, car, and partner were once new, and we thought they were perfect, everything we wanted. Then the novelty wore off and it became apparent that this was not the case, so we began searching again, back on a quest for perfection.

    When I’d ticked off the things I thought I wanted, when I had it all—my corporate career and all the things I’d bought with it—I sat on the deck of my dream beach house and felt empty inside. I knew this wasn’t the recipe for happiness; after all, I had everything I’d ever wanted yet felt unfulfilled. I’d clearly been missing the point along the way.

    Happiness is about loving what we have rather than chasing down the things we think we want. If we can focus on what’s good in every imperfect moment, we’ll all feel a lot more fulfilled.

  • When Life Feels Hard and Unfair: 4 Lessons That Helped Me Cope

    When Life Feels Hard and Unfair: 4 Lessons That Helped Me Cope

    “Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.” ~William James

    Two years ago, I gave birth to my second daughter via a planned C-section at thirty-seven weeks.

    My first daughter had been born via emergency C-section after seventeen hours of unmedicated labor. I had very much wanted a natural, intervention-free birth. Due to a number of issues, the surgery was so complicated that I was told it would be dangerous to ever go into labor, much less have a natural birth ever again.

    Of course, this was devastating for me.

    Still, I went into surgery on the morning of my daughter’s birth with hope and excitement. My second pregnancy had been extremely difficult and I was glad for it to be over. I was still heartbroken that I would never get the chance for a natural delivery, but at the same time there was a piece of me that was a bit relieved the decision had been taken away from me.

    My second C-section proved to be even more complicated than my first. The surgery went at a snail’s pace as the doctors tried to navigate the extensive scar tissue created by my first C-section. The spinal anesthesia made me unable to feel myself breathing even though I was breathing just fine, and I panicked and repeatedly questioned whether I was suffocating and going to die.

    Still, pictures of me and my daughter in the recovery room right after the birth show me smiling in a highly medicated but contented glow.

    It was a few minutes after those pictures were taken that the nurse noticed there was something wrong with my newborn’s breathing. It was labored and staggered. The medical team decided that they would take her to the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) to make sure everything was okay.

    In my post-surgical stupor, I didn’t think much of it. I figured they would observe her for a few hours, and she would be back in my arms by the time I made it out of recovery.

    I was wrong.

    My daughter spent the next ten days in the NICU with a diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension secondary to transient tachypnea. She was kept alive by various tubes and machines, and I got a crash course in C-PAPs, oxygen monitor readings, and feeding tubes.

    I wasn’t allowed to hold her for the first five days because her situation was so precarious and unstable.

    I knew it was extremely serious when her NICU roommate, a baby born three months early, was wheeled to another room because my daughter was going into crisis every time someone turned on a light or spoke too closely to her.

    It killed me to watch her covered in tubes and machines, unable to hold her, much less breastfeed her. I stood by, helplessly pumping milk every three hours and putting her life in the hands of the NICU nurses, who were clearly angels sent directly from heaven.

    I struggled with massive guilt that my body had failed me in my first childbirth experience, leading to the mandatory early C-section and all of its complications for my second daughter. I also felt guilty every time I left the NICU to spend time with my older daughter and every time I left my older daughter to go to the NICU.

    I was angry. Angry that this happened. Angry with myself for not appreciating how much worse it could have been when I was surrounded by parents and babies who would be spending months, not days, within the NICU’s walls.

    Despite the severity of her condition, my daughter’s story was one of mighty strength and resilience, and she left the NICU with no lasting complications—a major blessing for any NICU baby.

    My story was one of lessons learned: how to forgive myself, how to let go of what I want to be and embrace what is, how to truly live in the moment, and how to practice unconditional gratitude. Most of all, I discovered new depths to the meaning of the word love.

    Though it took me spending ten days with my daughter in the NICU to learn these lessons, they are universal and certainly don’t require a crisis to integrate them into even the most mundane aspects of our lives.

    I share them with you in the hopes that if you’re dealing with pain in your life, you will bring to it the knowledge that while the pain may be unavoidable, the suffering is always optional.

    Here’s what ten days in the NICU taught me:

    Focus on the present.

    For several days, my daughter’s condition seemed to get progressively worse before it got better.

    This made it very easy for me to get lost in a never-ending maze of what ifs, each more terrifying than the next.

    And yet, when I forced myself to focus on the moment, somehow things were always manageable.

    Yes, she was hooked up to a lot of scary and unpleasant machines, but she was surrounded by a nest of soft blankets, and for all she knew, she was still in the womb.

    Yes, she turned blue when she cried, but the nurses and doctors always got things stable quickly, and with no drama. They knew what they were doing, and I knew I could trust them.

    I learned quickly that the future was a place where the worst loomed both possible and probable. The present was a place where my daughter was safe, loved, and receiving some of the best care the world had to offer.

    If you find yourself in the middle of a crisis, you probably feel like you’re trapped in a whirlwind that’s pulling you in so many different directions, you’re having a hard time figuring out which way is up.

    Instead of picturing yourself as powerless against the chaos of the situation, try thinking of yourself as the eye of a storm. While chaos may reign around you, the present moment is always manageable.

    Remember that while the future seems scary with all its unknowns and possibilities, the future also doesn’t exist yet. All we have is this moment. And in this moment, there can be peace.

    Gratitude is always an option.

    When you’re in a place like the NICU, it’s not difficult to embrace gratitude. Everywhere I looked were babies and their families in situations far more dire than ours. I met parents who would be in the NICU for months, who had years or possibly lifetimes of lasting effects of premature birth and other complications to deal with.

    And then there were the parents whose baby would never get home, whose entire life would take place within the NICU walls.

    Gratitude helped me process my guilt and anger. It’s impossible to be angry and grateful at the same time, and so I would spend hours sitting next to my daughter, writing lists of all the things to be grateful for in this situation and imagining that my positive energy was surrounding her and helping her heal.

    When you feel like you’re drowning in guilt and anger, take your sense of internal power back by sitting down somewhere quiet and making a list of every positive aspect and every reason to be grateful for the situation that you can find.

    You may find that it’s hard to get started, but once you do, I guarantee you’ll find a sense of peace that no one and no situation can take away.

    Wanting life to be fair is a major block to peace.

    I have never suffered from the delusion that life is fair, but even as an adult, I have occasionally suffered from the delusion that it should be.

    My daughter’s time in the NICU freed me of that childish fantasy.

    I quickly realized that as long as I believe the universe is doing something unfair to me, I am giving away my power. And when I give away my power, it’s not the universe that’s being unfair to me, it’s me that’s being unfair to myself.

    I couldn’t change the fact that I was a mom with a baby in the NICU. What I could change was the kind of mom I was going to be for my daughter when she needed my presence and my peace, and not my indignation and my anger at the world.

    Was I going to be a mom who fell apart when something happened that I felt was unfair? Or was I going to be a mom who felt her feelings but didn’t allow them to determine her ability to be her best self in any given moment?

    The choice was always mine.

    As easy as it would be to feel powerless and therefore become powerless, I knew that this time the stakes were too high to do that. My daughter needed me, and I needed me to be the best version of myself.

    Fairness is a fluid thing, and I came to realize that I had the power to stack the “fairness” greatly in my daughter’s favor by letting go of “unfair” and empowering myself with thoughts of love and gratitude.

    If you feel that something unfair has happened to you, ask yourself these questions: Do I want to use my limited energy resisting reality, causing myself pain in the process? How could I use that energy in a more constructive way?

    You may be surprised at what you come up with.

    We can’t always see the whole picture.

    As painful as it was to watch my daughter struggle physically and not be able to hold her or comfort her in any real way, I had to admit to myself that I couldn’t say for sure this experience wasn’t intentional from the perspective of her soul.

    Who was I to say that her soul didn’t pick a body that needed intensive care for the first ten days of its life on purpose because it had a larger plan that I had no capacity to understand?

    The truth, I realized, was that I couldn’t possibly understand how the universe works and why seemingly bad things happen to innocent people. I could say for sure that all of the difficult, challenging, and painful experiences in my life—this one included—had ultimately made me a stronger, wiser, and more peaceful person.

    So how could I see my daughter’s experience as all bad?

    If you’re struggling, consider the possibility that you don’t have all the information needed to make an accurate judgment of the situation. Realize that there might be more to it than meets the eye. This doesn’t require you to hold the same spiritual beliefs I hold; it just means considering that sometimes life’s hardest struggles end up being blessings in disguise.

    If you’re like me, doing this will help you to look at the situation with less interpretation and indignation, and less inflamed thinking and aversion. In other words, it will give you more peace, and with peace comes your ability to be present with the ones you love.

    Sometimes you have to let go of what you wanted so you can focus on doing what’s needed—and so the pain can let go of you.

    I wanted to love my newborn my way: by holding her in my arms, cuddling and kissing her, and feeding her from my breast.

    These were not the ways that she was able to receive love in her first days of life, and so I needed to let go of my desires and focus on the ways I could love her given the present circumstances: by pumping milk for her to receive through a feeding tube, touching her arm with my finger, praying for her, and giving her unconditional loving energy.

    Loving my daughter without boundaries, without my own preconceived notions of what that love should look like, required keeping my heart open at the exact moment I wanted to close it. I wanted to prepare for the worst, to problem-solve and plan. I wanted to control the situation in any way I possibly could.

    But I also realized that doing this would cause me to dissolve in a puddle of fear; to close myself off to the opportunities that existed right in front of me, in that moment, to love my daughter.

    And so, for her sake, I learned to surrender in order to keep my heart open and keep her surrounded by the presence of love.

    If you find yourself clinging to how you wanted things to be, ask yourself if this is limiting your ability to do what’s needed. Your current situation might not be what you wanted, but it’s more likely to improve if you accept what is, show up fully, and do what you need to do to be your best self regardless.

    —

    As I write this today, my daughter’s second birthday, I share with you the lessons I believe she came into this world knowing: that love, truth, peace, and inner happiness are always available to us no matter what happens in our lives.

    What have the painful or traumatic events in your life taught you?

  • When You’re Hooked On an Abusive Partner and Scared to Walk Away

    When You’re Hooked On an Abusive Partner and Scared to Walk Away

    “We set the standard for how we want to be treated. Our relationships are a reflection of the relationship we have with ourselves.” ~Iyanla Vanzant

    I’ll be honest. I knew my ex was a screwed-up guy. My head told me that not long after we met. The alarm bells were screeching. Could I hear them? Of course! Did I listen to them? No. My heart told my head to sod off and I agreed.

    Here was a charismatic, gorgeous man focusing all his attention on me. I was the only one in his universe. Fireworks that would rival Sydney’s New Year’s Eve were going off. The sexual chemistry was intense. He was the best drug ever.

    The high of being with him was intoxicating. Nervous butterflies were on a rampage in my stomach, which did a bit of a flip every time I saw him. And that’s how I knew he was the one. Yeah, right.

    Like most narcissists, it took a while for his darker side to kick in. But when it did I was already way too hooked on him; I needed more. So, I ignored all the warning signs. The ones that were there in front of my face, with bells on.

    When Mr. or Mrs. Charisma has hooked you in, they have you. Then their dark side starts to come out. They start to become a bit moody. To pick a fight, usually over something “you’ve done.” So, you start to change your behavior in anticipation.

    If his anger was over something you wore, you change your wardrobe to clothes less “slutty.” If she doesn’t like your friends, you stop seeing them. But no matter what you try, nothing works. The goal posts just get moved. They find another reason to blame you for their anger.

    Abusive people have all the answers as to why they treat you poorly. Past girlfriends or boyfriends have betrayed them. They’ve had a difficult childhood; bad luck has let them down. So, you believe them and keep ignoring the warning signs.

    To you, this is still that gorgeous person who swept you off your feet. You can still see the good beneath the dark side. You think: all they need is someone like you to take care of them, to bring that charming side back to the fore. And that makes you feel needed, secure.  

    But then the abuse gets worse. When they go into a rage now, they may storm out and disappear for days. They may even show the first signs of physical abuse. A push or a shove. Something that shocks you, as it comes out of the blue. (Something they’ll later dismiss as not being violence).

    But the thought of breaking up and never seeing them again terrifies you even more than how they’re treating you. Hooked in as you were by the drug of when they basked you in their sunshine, you can’t or don’t want to see the real person they are. You ignored the early warning signs, now you deny the reality. It’s true what they say. Love can be blind.

    When their rage has calmed down and they reappear, you’re relieved to see them again. It helps that the remorse they now show is equal to the severity of their latest abuse. They say how sorry they are. They sob in your arms. They’re “ashamed” of what they’ve done. They’ll “never do it again.” Blah, blah, blah.

    They admit that they need you more than ever to help them change. And of course, this is music to your ears. But this honeymoon period never lasts. The verbal and / or physical abuse, followed by remorse, repeats itself. Over and over, in a cycle.

    This cycle of violence (emotional and/or physical) is a toxic turning of unpredictable highs and lows. With each spin, it breaks you down. Any shred of self-esteem you have starts to erode.    

    You feel worthless and almost deserving of their anger. You start to believe it when they say you’re to blame for it. But you somehow rationalize it all by thinking that all they need is you to fix them to make the abuse go away. All you need to do is to love them more.

    You don’t realize it, but loving them has become an addiction for you. You’re addicted to an unavailable person—someone who is not there for you and who doesn’t care for you. They may even be more focused on their own addiction, to alcohol and/or drugs.

    Your head might be screaming at you to leave. But you just can’t. In your heart, you feel you love you them. “They need me,” you rationalize. You might even feel guilty if you abandon them.

    You are just like an addict. If you admit that your life has become out of control and walk away, you’ll lose the very thing you are addicted to. That high you get from their charismatic, remorseful, attentive side. What you need to make you feel good again. After each dreadful low, you are desperate for a fix, that high, again.

    But at some point, you will reach rock bottom—the abuse will become extreme. If they’re physically abusive, they may have even tried to kill you. My ex did, by strangling me. He wrapped his hands around my throat when I was seven months pregnant and with a demonic look in his eyes he screamed, “Die, you c***! Die.”

    Like many women, even after that, I still loved him! My heart kept screaming at me not to leave him. Yes, even after he almost killed me.

    If you’re lucky your head will start to outweigh your heart. You’ll stop denying that this person is no good for you. Finally, you’ll dig deep and find the courage to walk away. I did. But not before going back to him many, many times.  The drug-like pull back toward him was so great. The high, after we first reunited again, was better than the pain I felt when I was without him, alone.

    When you leave an abusive person, the withdrawal feels as agonizing as, I imagine it might be, weaning off heroin. It did for me, at least. You’ve been numb for so long that a gamut of emotions pour out at once. Shame, anger, loneliness, guilt—you name it, you feel it. It hurts.

    I have never sobbed like that before in my life. I was so overwhelmed by the rawness of them. But you need to feel these emotions, as painful as they are. You need to thaw out. To go cold turkey in order to recover.

    Unless you look hard at why you were addicted to an unavailable person in the first place, you risk going back to them. Or replacing them with a different drug, in the form of another abusive person. Either way, like any addict, you risk losing your life.  

    You need to ask yourself the same questions I did:

    Why is it I still love someone who abuses me? Why is it I need to numb myself with someone who is like a drug to me? Someone you know is no good for you, but is the only thing that will make you feel good again. Hopefully, like me, you’ll realize your addiction started way before you ever met this person.

    I’m sure you know already that it has something to do with low self-esteem. If we don’t love ourselves, we’re attracted to those who treat us as though we are unlovable. But it’s not enough to just tell someone they need to “love themselves more.” “You need to work on your self-esteem!” That’s easier said than done. Believe me, I know.

    First, you need to understand why it is that you feel you are unlovable, or not good enough. How you came to be so low in self-esteem that you let a person abuse you. Only then can you break the cycle of addiction to them and recover.

    You may be like me, having grown up in a comfortable, happy home. Never having experienced verbal or physical abuse before in your life. Or you may have suffered it in your family and be repeating the negative patterns of your past. Either way, the root of low self-esteem is if, in some way, your emotional needs were not met as a child.

    It might be, for example, that one of your parents had an addiction say, to work or to alcohol. The other parent was then so focused on rescuing them that neither could meet your emotional needs.

    It may be as simple as having a parent who was controlling. You weren’t allowed an opinion or any feelings of your own. And if you voiced them, they shut you down, so you learned to mistrust your gut instincts over time. Or it might have been they were such perfectionists, the only way to gain approval was to be perfect in every way.

    Our experiences are unique to us, so only you will know. But try to work it out.

    If our emotional needs aren’t met as a child, we grow up to have that fear we’re “not good enough.” We also fear abandonment, as we know how painful that is already.

    Our parents may have been there when we were kids, but couldn’t deal with us on an emotional level. So, we choose a partner whose baggage matches ours. Someone whose needs weren’t met as a child either and who is as insecure as we are. Even better if they have problems that we can rescue them from—an addiction or a traumatic past.  For if they need us, if they depend on us, then in our subconscious minds, they’re less likely to abandon us. To do what we fear most.

    Besides, if we can be their rescuer, then we can focus all our attention onto them. By doing so we can deny, ignore, we can even numb our own feelings of insecurity and fears inside. It’s them that has the problem, not us! And it’s such an effective drug, we might not even be aware those feelings exist at all. I wasn’t.

    The trouble is, this is a dysfunctional dance. The steps feel familiar, of course, as you’re recreating scenes from childhood to master them. But two people who are insecure are incapable of fulfilling each other’s needs.

    To feel secure, both have the pathological need to feel in control. While I was ‘rescuing’ my ex, I felt in control and confident he wouldn’t leave me. But that left him feeling vulnerable, afraid I would see his flaws and walk away. So, he would need to push me away to regain his power.

    Now I was the vulnerable one. Terrified he would abandon me, I would forgive him anything to get him back again. If I couldn’t, it would reinforce those painful childhood feelings I had of being unlovable. It would reveal the depth of my insecurity and fears.

    And so, I tried to please him, to prove I was worthy of his love and my weakness gave him strength again. The love he then showered onto me was just the drug I needed to numb those fears away and gave me security to start rescuing him again. And so, the cycle begins.

    But is this love? I had to ask myself the same. He was a man who treated me as worthless, I knew that. Yet I couldn’t leave him. I still “loved him.” Or so I thought. Until I understood that this is not love, but an addiction. An addiction to someone who could never love me, who could never meet my emotional needs.

    He said he loved me all the time. But he never showed me I was lovable. I told myself, too, that I loved him. But in fact, I just wanted to rescue him, to turn him into something I had projected him to be, not who he was. A pity project, perhaps, that could distract me from how f***ed up I was.

    When I finally left, I had to treat my addiction to this unavailable man the way any addict does. Go cold turkey. Thaw out. I had to feel all those painful feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. Those hideous emotions that poured out.  But that was the only way to heal.

    I had to go back to the root cause of my lack of self-esteem, where it was seeded in my childhood. Not to judge my parents. Like me, they were doing the best they could at the time. But to understand how I’d come to be this way.   

    As painful and as hard as this is, once you get it and face those fears down, your insecurity will start to melt away.  And little by little you begin to love yourself.  I started by doing one nice thing for myself each day. Eventually, I found that self-esteem that everyone had been going on about.

    You only attract someone equal to what you think you are worth.  Abusive people, who previously saw a chink in your armor, will now see you and run a mile. They’ll see that you get they’re not good enough for you.

    Those people who are self-confident and don’t need you to rescue them, will no longer terrify you.  And among them will be the one, like I have since found. The person who treats you with kindness and respect. The person who meets your emotional needs and brings out the best in you.  The person who allows you to be vulnerable, but safe. They’ll never use that vulnerability as a weapon against you.

    Sure, they could walk away any day. But you’ll no longer fear that. For if they do, you’ll just figure it’s not meant to be. You’ll still be there. And you’ll be enough to meet all your own emotional needs, with or without a partner.

  • Conscious Breathing: A Simple Way to Heal Your Pain and Be Present

    Conscious Breathing: A Simple Way to Heal Your Pain and Be Present

    “Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    I never gave much thought to my breath unless I was submerged under water for long periods without any.

    Today I rely on it for more than the obvious function of keeping me alive.

    Breathing has become my biggest tool and best friend.

    It has become a foundation for living with conscious presence and awareness.

    Breathing consciously has helped me overcome anxiety and has provided a gateway into peace.

    The breath has helped me move through long-buried emotions and trauma.

    When I try to exert control over outside conditions, my mind speeds up, I feel anxious and fearful, and I create false scenarios of doom and destruction.

    My biggest savior in this downward spiral has been breathing. Lying down, putting on some music, and beginning to breathe. Breathing in and out of my mouth. Taking in as much oxygen as possible, with no gaps between the inhalation and the exhalation.

    In the past, I have resorted to other means of dealing with this anxiety of my mind. Alcohol, drugs, and excessive exercising were some of my favorites.

    Today I have given all these other methods up, as they didn’t really work.

    What are some of the methods you use to quiet the mind? Do they serve you? Do they actually help or make things worse?

    In the past I was running away from feelings, trying to avoid the internal chaos.

    Breathing helps me move through the feelings and chaos.

    It sounds so simple, and it is.

    Through breathwork, my life has transformed.

    I used to be ready to defend myself at any moment. Really.

    Inside my body, I felt surges of adrenaline, as if an attacker was about to kill me. I was always on high alert, ready to pounce into action.

    The excessive exercise kept this adrenaline rolling at high levels all the time. I was addicted to it and almost felt like I needed it to survive.

    Eighteen months ago I began conscious connected breathwork. From my very first session, I was hooked. This was better than drugs.

    As a result of my breathing, all of my unconscious, buried cellular emotion started to surface. Unpleasant blacked-out memories from childhood, traumatic experiences—they all came rushing back.

    It became very clear then what I had been running from. I didn’t want to face those painful feelings.

    I made a commitment to myself, however, that I would continue to show up. I dropped the story. I dropped any goal of “fixing” myself and just let go.

    I decided I would be willing to lie down for an hour and breathe. Whatever happened from there was what needed to happen. I dropped the “poor me” drama that this horrible trauma had happened to me, and instead, I felt it.

    The terror, the anger, and the pain became my companions. Welcoming them in with open arms, I breathed through them—and they passed.

    I stopped, turned around, looked straight at these feelings, and took my power back.

    Today, I am not on the run anymore. My body doesn’t shake like it used to, and my legs aren’t constantly twitching up and down.

    I can sit still.

    I know now that when my mind starts to create drama, I can lie down and breathe.

    The clarity comes, the peace comes, and the feelings pass. I allow them, without trying to make them be any different.

    Is there something you are on the run from? Childhood abuse? A traumatic incident? Relationship heartbreak? What would happen if you faced it?

    What if the resistance to facing and feeling what you are avoiding is actually worse than going through it?

    What if under the mental obsession is fear, and under the fear is freedom?

    The obsessions of the mind are not real.

    They are fantasies created to take up mental space. Like watching a soap opera on TV, it takes us out of reality. It is a distraction.

    What if you decided to turn off the TV in your mind that is creating false dramas to keep it entertained and distracted?

    What would be in the space without the constant stream of mental soap operas?

    What I have found in this space is presence, peace, and grace. The feeling that everything is okay right here and now.

    Right here and now is all there is.

    I live in Bali and have an early morning 4:00am routine that consists of making a cup of coffee, writing, breathing, meditating, and praying. I honor the ancestors, then I drive on my motorbike to yoga and practice being present in the moment as I drive.

    Breathing with awareness helps me to be here now. It snaps me back into the moment.

    I notice and watch the sunrise.

    The early morning Balinese action is all happening on my way to yoga. The women making their offerings on the street, the children on their way to school, the dogs and chickens in the road, the men on their way to work in the rice paddies, and the local market buzzing with action—I take all this in as I drive.

    These moments matter. This is what I love about my life here in Bali. The everyday moments of life as they unfold.

    When in the present, gratitude erupts. Smiling inside, I feel whole and complete, and nothing else really matters.

    Breathing on my scooter, on a bus, while waiting in a line, I take five conscious breaths. Sometimes I count to five on the inhalation and count to five on the exhalation.

    This breathing practice comes with me everywhere I go.

    We all have the gift of breath. Use it. Become conscious of it.

    Turn off the mental TV and see what is truly there: A stunning sunset. Colorful flowers. Birds soaring. A happy child smiling.

    These moments are like snapshots that will never again be repeated. Missing these moments is missing life.

    Today we have a conscious choice to wake up out of the fog, wipe off the lenses, and see through the haze.

    The breath is our anchor. Use it to connect, to breathe through feelings without having to change them.

    Breathe into the emotions that scare you and allow them to come. Welcome them with open arms, and they will pass.

    The only way out is through, opening the doorway to presence and freedom.

    Breathing is our ticket into the present, our passage through the buried trauma of the past, and our vehicle to process difficult emotions.

    Conscious breathing is a life changer, accessible to all, and you can begin right now.

  • The Key to Your Happiness

    The Key to Your Happiness

  • 3 Causes of Self-Doubt and How to Conquer It for Good

    3 Causes of Self-Doubt and How to Conquer It for Good

    “Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.” ~Unknown

    Self-doubt and I are old friends. We go way back, to early childhood.

    Now, if you ask me, I will honestly tell you that I had quite an idyllic childhood in a loving home.

    My parents raised us—my brother and me—to trust in our abilities and aim for the stars. They held me when I failed or fell flat on my face, which I did quite often, encouraging me to stand up and keep walking again. And yes, self-doubt still made its way into the fabric of my being and cleverly made itself boss, calling the shots at school and among my peers, seeping into my professional life as I grew up and chased my dreams.

    Sure, I chased my dreams. But you know how these things work. A thing like self-doubt has the ability to make you overcompensate. Since it tells you that you are not good enough or it gives you the nagging feeling of “wait-till-they-find-out-I’m-not-good-enough” when you succeed, your psyche is pushed to compensate for the lack in every possible way. The most common way, of course, is to over-achieve.

    I did exactly that. No matter what area of life I was focusing on, I had to be the best. The best student, the best wife, the best mother, the best doctor. And I never stopped to consider what “best” really means. For instance, whose best? How is it defined? It’s taken me years to realize that the prison of self-doubt had always been unlocked. I merely needed to walk out of it.

    In order to overcome any limitation, we have to turn around and face it, study it, and watch it like we would observe exotic animals in a zoo. From my experience, self-doubt is associated with three main processes—comparison, becoming fixated on specific outcomes, and feeling like an imposter.

    Comparing Yourself with Others

    Self-doubt is defined as the lack of confidence in one’s own abilities. When plagued with self-doubt, we believe that we can’t do something, and if we dig a bit deeper, we will invariably find that this belief arises from comparison. We believe we can’t do it the way someone else does it.

    We gauge success and failure by the norm, which is always set by others. Think about this. If you never had the ability to compare yourself with others, would you be plagued either by self-doubt or its opposite, over-confidence?

    Fixation on a Particular Outcome

    Obviously, comparison is not the only fuel source for self-doubt. One of the biggest things that holds us back from forging forward is the fear of failing. When we become fixated on a particular outcome, not only do we become paralyzed by the possibility of failure but we also close ourselves off to all other possibilities.

    For instance, if you’re a writer, you may find yourself reluctant to explore your creativity in your art if you have a particular goal of getting a certain number of readers, accolades, or other outcomes. The joy of writing becomes masked by anxiety if you are not open to failure, however you define it.

    Feeling Like an Imposter

    You’ve probably heard of Imposter Syndrome, which seems to affect women more than men. If you feel like you don’t deserve any of your accomplishments or that you got to where you are by pure fluke, you may be suffering from this condition.

    Here, obviously we are not talking about people that do end up with some successes by sheer luck but about those who underestimate their own achievements. It’s where we might feel like a fraud for being successful.

    And then there are the issues of not wanting to appear aggressive, ambitious, or assertive that make us take a step back from our full potential.

    What Doesn’t Help

    Just from my own familiarity with self-doubt, I can attest to what doesn’t help with alleviating it.

    Things like positive self-talk, affirmations, visualizations, and go-getting strategies don’t get us too far because they don’t get to the root of the issue—the belief that we are lacking. These techniques remain at the surface level of the mind, never touching the energetic power of the belief that becomes intermingled with our very identity.

    How to Face and Conquer Self-Doubt

    Whenever we are plagued by beliefs that limit our ability to live happy and fulfilled lives, it’s an indication to look into them. All of our suffering arises from believing our thoughts about ourselves or the world.

    1. Meditate

    These days we hear so much about meditation that we can often lose perspective about what it can and cannot do.

    Depending on the technique, meditation can certainly help calm our minds and lower stress and blood pressure—very favorable outcomes.

    What it will not do is solve our fundamental problems that arise from limiting beliefs. Instead, meditation creates the space in which we can do the real work of looking within. Most importantly, it helps us cultivate inner silence and the ability to step back from our minds and evaluate our internal processes in a non-judgmental way. If we cannot step back from our beliefs, we cannot work on them!

    2. Journal

    Writing is a powerful tool for cultivating self-awareness. It forces us to pin down our internal process.

    Write without censoring and consider the following questions:

    • What is stopping you from acknowledging your ability to succeed or your past successes?
    • Do you believe that you don’t deserve it? Why not?
    • Do you believe that you should not be aiming higher? Why?
    • What does success look like to you? Where did this definition come from?
    • What would happen if you plunged into your passion and the outcome was different from what you had envisioned?
    • What would happen if you fail?

    Make a list of all your limiting beliefs. Hint: beliefs are thoughts that start with a “should” or “should not,” such as, “I should not appear ambitious.”

    3. Question

    Now that you’ve identified your limiting beliefs, try this. Find fifteen to twenty minutes when you will not be disturbed. Keep your journal close. Sit comfortably and take some deep breaths, giving yourself permission to attend to tasks later. Relax any tense areas of the body.

    Now gently bring up your first belief, for example, the one about appearing ambitious. Who decides how you appear? Can you control what anyone else thinks of you? What if you never had the ability to think this thought?

    Allow each question to sink into silence without allowing the mind to answer. Take as long as you need to feel the effect of this sinking in. It will feel like a whoosh in your body when you suddenly realize that a thought is completely untrue. You don’t have to let go of anything. When you stop believing an untrue thought, it lets go of you. This is freedom.

    4. Feel

    Another powerful way of dealing with our limitations is to feel them in our bodies. Start as above, sitting comfortably and taking a few deep breaths. Relax. Bring up the first belief from your list. Where in your body do you feel it? Belly? Chest? Back? Focus entirely on feeling and not thinking. What does it feel like? Is it a heaviness? Contraction? Discomfort?

    Feel it fully, without trying to change it. Become curious about it. Does it come and go? Does it move anywhere?

    Continue to breathe deeply as the sensations subside. Notice that sensations come and go, but you are here. Our thoughts, beliefs, and sensations are temporary phenomena that become a problem when we hang on to them long after they are gone.

    Once you get comfortable with feeling sensations in your body, try the question exercise. Allow each question to sink in while observing the sensations. The energetic signature of a belief is felt in the body as a sense of contraction or tightness. When the belief dissolves through questioning, the energetic signature relaxes and this is felt deeply in the body.

    5. Act

    Once you’ve become adept at questioning your thoughts and beliefs in a meditative state, it’s time to put it into practice. Any time you feel paralyzed with self-doubt or when the old patterns start acting up, pause. Now you know that this belief is untrue.

    The only way out of this disabling pattern is to surrender to the present moment. Focus entirely on the task and not thoughts about the task, its outcome, or how you feel about it.

    If you need to give a presentation, do that. Keep bringing your attention to the tasks of researching, preparing, and rehearsing. Step into your light. What is your full capacity for each task? Do that. When “what if,” “should,” or “should not” thoughts and beliefs arise, drop into the body and feel the sensations while questioning the truth of these voices.

    The only thing that we ever have control over is our intention for acting. As long as we keep our hearts open, genuinely value ourselves and others, and act in ways that serve more than just ourselves, we are good. Learn to relinquish control over the outcome, which isn’t in your hands anyway.

    —

    As I’ve learned to work with self-doubt, I’ve come face-to-face with the fear of appearing ambitious and of feeling like a fraud for my successes. The more I inquire into this, I realize that these fears lie in my conditioning of how someone like me—a woman in a male-dominated field—is supposed to behave or expect.

    The practice here is to drop into the body and observe the sensations as they arise and subside, noticing that all phenomena including self-doubt, naturally pass. Paradoxically, it is when I allow it to arise fully that it lets go of its death-grip and my actions become spontaneous, light, and joyful.

    Self-doubt lies either in the past as memories or in the future as imaginary projections. It cannot exist in the now. Action lies in the now, where there is neither self-doubt nor self-grandiosity, both of which are thoughts of the past or future.

    In the now, there is only doing what is required. When we learn to ignore our self-doubt and put our best foot forward, it eventually lets go of us. In this newfound freedom, we become fearless, having relinquished the desire for any particular outcome and learned the value of acting for purely the joy of it.

  • 5 Common Mistakes People Make on Their Spiritual Journey

    5 Common Mistakes People Make on Their Spiritual Journey

    “I still have a long way to go, but I’m already so far from where I used to be, and I’m proud of that.” ~Unknown

    Just like any student, I’ve made mistakes throughout my spiritual journey. Although I prefer to see mistakes as learning opportunities, below are a few things I’ve learned not to do through my years of meditation and detox weekends and constant effort to stay on the divine side of life.

    1. Constantly looking for answers externally

    When I started meditating regularly, I experienced heightened intuition. Triggered by this, I constantly tried to find signs to guide every decision I made. While waiting for 11:11, feeling a butterfly landing on my shoulder, or simply finding a four-leafed clover, I was trying to find the answer outside.

    I went from one spiritual teacher to another, trying to find the one who would give me the “answer.” This “the universe owe me an explanation” mind-set paralyzed me from being self-sufficient in determining my own life direction.

    You know what finally works? The regular sit down, close your eyes, and focus on your breath method. Yes, that good ole technique. Apparently our heart always knows the answer, but our minds are often too clouded to listen.

    2. Thinking I am above those who are “unenlightened”

    When I first started on my spiritual path, I condemned those who didn’t meditate. I didn’t like hanging around those who could not keep up in conversations about positive energy and the law of attraction. I thought of them as unfortunate mortals who would never live the fulfilling life I was living.

    But then I met unspiritual people who are warmer and nicer than many spiritual people I know. Although they never keep a gratitude journal, they’re happy and contended with their life. They might not consciously choose to walk in the path of love, but they are demonstrating every aspect of having it in abundance.

    I figured out that spirituality is not about how much you know about chakras or how cruelty-free your diet is. It’s about how you have incorporated positivity in your life, sometimes even without realizing it.

    3. Being attached to your spiritual practice

    A year ago, I joined a walking meditation class. We were advised to practice it every day, but the lazy me often failed to do so. Then I would feel bad about myself, so I eventually stopped doing it altogether because I didn’t want to be reminded of my failure.

    Did you ever start a daily meditation ritual to reduce your anxiety, only to be even more anxious on days when you couldn’t find time to meditate? It was kind of like that.

    When we rely on rituals to feel better about ourselves, sometimes we become too attached to them. Next time you’re doing your daily meditation, ask yourself, are you doing it out of self-love or out of fear of not doing it?

    One easy way to answer this is to observe whether you’re meditating as an act of self-care or so you can feel good about checking it off your to-do list.

    The key to healthy spiritual practices is doing it to enhance your well-being, not for a sense of accomplishment or to build your self-worth.

    Do you remember the cliché but true saying “When you truly love someone, you love them in spite of their shortcomings, not only because of their good qualities”? Now I feel enough despite not doing my rituals, not because of my rituals.

    So what if I don’t have thirty minutes to spend in silence today? I realize I am still the functional, magnificent creature I am. It’s just that when I do spend the thirty minutes focusing on my breath, it even further boosts my already awesome self.

    4. Doing good things just to feel significant

    This is just another form of attachment, although from the outside it looks very positive. Yes, your surroundings would probably benefit from this. However, have you ever gotten angry because someone rejected your nice gesture? If yes, then that’s your issue.

    You felt that way because you weren’t doing it for them, you were doing it for you. Maybe you hoped they would pay you back, or maybe you were using them as a tool to rack up good karma.

    I too was guilty of this. A few months into my first job out of college, I really wanted to be liked and wanted to “spread love.” I would send long, overly nice emails to my colleagues—which turned out to be ineffective, since it took a lot of time to read them. Also, I would voluntarily help people without assessing whether my assistance would benefit or burden them.

    In my fourth month, I was wondering “Why am I not loved by everyone already?” In retrospect, I suspect they could smell my insincerity and felt uncomfortable about it.

    The key to doing good deeds is remembering you are doing it for others, thus your focus should be on them, not you.

    5. Thinking of spirituality as a destination, not a journey

    I have met many spiritually enlightened gurus, and none have claimed that they’re done with improving themselves. Spirituality is a long, ever-changing journey.

    I used to believe that if I were spiritually awakened, no bad things would ever happen to me again. I would never feel sad, only be surrounded by nice people, and from there on life would always feel positive.

    I could not be more wrong. Spirituality is not about suppressing or diminishing your dark side. Spirituality is about raising your mindfulness to a level where you can always make the conscious choice to do the right thing, in spite of what happens and what you’re feeling.

    Along the spiritual journey, you will finally accept that you always have options. And that, my friend, is the true meaning of freedom.

  • How to Break the Bad Habits That Hold You Back in Life

    How to Break the Bad Habits That Hold You Back in Life

    “You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success if found in your daily routine.” ~John C. Maxwell

    We all have bad habits. The problem is that many of our habits are so deeply ingrained that we don’t even notice them anymore. If we do, we make excuses to hang onto them.

    If you’ve tried to change your habits to no avail, maybe it’s time to try something different. The steps below will help you succeed.

    1. Become aware of the status quo.

    Does this sound familiar? You set your mind to do something good for yourself. Maybe you tell yourself that you’re going to make better use of your time or lose weight. You’re excited and committed. You set a goal, and you plod ahead.

    A few days go by, and you’re doing great. Then something happens to make you fall off the wagon. You feel like a failure. Your goal seems impossible. You go back to your old ways.

    This cycle happens over and over again.

    Your first mistake is setting a goal without becoming fully aware of your current situation.

    You have to define the problem before you can even contemplate a solution.

    Instead of jumping straight to change, start by noticing what is going on now. Do this for a week.

    Some questions you can answer during your observation include:

    • How do you feel when you’re engaging in your bad habit?
    • How do you feel when you’re not doing it?
    • Do you typically do anything before or after the bad habit?
    • Is there a behavior or emotion that brings on the bad habit?
    • Why do you want to break this habit?

    It’s not enough to simply read these questions, nodding and telling yourself that you’re going to make an effort to think about them over the next week.

    The best way to approach this exercise differently is to take notes. Write in a journal every night, or keep track of the answers to these questions every day on your smartphone. Call a friend to let them know what you observed every day.

    The best part of this step is that you can’t fail. You’re not trying to meet a goal; you’re just observing.

    The current bad habit I’m trying to fight with is watching too much TV.

    I’m telling myself that after work I need to do X, Y, and Z, but I end up watching new episodes of my favorite TV series, then a movie on Netflix. Bam! All evening is gone, and I didn’t do anything productive. From time to time, it’s great to have a free evening and just do nothing, but it shouldn’t be most evenings during the week.

    2. Use visualization.

    Goals are great. You can’t get to where you’re going if you have no idea what your destination is. However, a goal needs to be more than words on paper to be meaningful.

    Many people never achieve their goals because they don’t have a clear picture of what they’ll do when they succeed.

    Someone who is trying to break the habit of spending frivolously may have trouble staying away from shopping because they don’t have a specific plan for what they’ll do with the money they save. That person may not have visualized the rewarding feeling of saving money in the first place, so the rewarding feeling of shopping wins out.

    Instead of just setting a verbal goal, feel the outcome with every part of your being. Visualize what your life will be like when you break the habit. What will your daily routine look like? Will there be different people in your life once the habit is broken?

    In addition to visualizing the logistics, try to access the emotions you’ll feel when the habit is broken. Will you feel excited, calm, or balanced? Sit with those emotions for some time every day. Conjure them up so that you begin to adopt the motivation for change throughout your body and mind.

    What do I see for myself? Working more on my website, changing my job, going to the gym, spending more time with my family and close friends, and feeling more fulfilled and happier with my life.

    3. Recognize when you’re making excuses.

    Everyone makes excuses, including me.

    • I still have time. I’ll start doing it tomorrow.
    • I did enough this week. It can wait few more days to be done.
    • I don’t have time to do it today (because I wasted it playing games).

    The most common excuses in the book? “I can’t” or “I don’t want to.”

    What you really mean is, “I don’t do that now, so it seems too hard to change.”

    Change is hard, especially when you haven’t yet been rewarded. Change means work.

    This takes us back to steps 1 and 2. If you are aware of what you’re doing and what’s not working, you can get a better sense of what will work.

    Step 1: You notice that you’re starving at work every day at 11:00, and because you’re so busy, you gorge on sweets as soon as you get a chance and feel awful after that.

    Step 2: You visualize yourself wearing your favorite suit comfortably all day long once you lose weight and having consistent energy throughout the day to come up with novel ideas at work. This leads to a promotion.

    Going through step 1 and two allows you to push past your excuses every time they flood your brain. You know what you want to change and how you’ll feel once you’ve made the change. Now it’s just a matter of challenging the voices that tell you not to do it.

    I see myself as a consultant in one of the best companies in the world, traveling around the globe for different projects, solving issues for my clients, improving their solutions. I know that I cannot achieve it sitting in front of the TV watching next episode of Breaking Bad.

    4. Be consistent.

    Research shows that you have a better chance of breaking a bad habit if you’re consistent. If you tell yourself that you’ll go to the gym on Monday mornings, Tuesday evenings, and Friday afternoons, you’re more likely to lose momentum than if you go every day.

    Although it may not be realistic to do something every day for the rest of your life, it helps to set it up this way while you’re breaking a habit.

    Maybe you want to stop eating sugar. If you let yourself have a little treat every night, this habit can easily expand into eating a larger treat every night, and before you know it, your sugar cravings are triggered at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

    Make the change small enough that you can do it every single day. Although researchers say that the length of time necessary to change a habit differs from person to person, it averages from twenty-one to sixty-six days.

    If you can make a small change every day for that long, you can begin to play around with flexibility after you feel like the bad habit has been broken.

    I don’t watch as many movies as I watched in the past, and in the last couple of weeks I’ve made tremendous progress regarding my future and prospective job. From time to time I allow myself a lazy evening in front of the TV, but I don’t fault myself for that since I’ve broken the habit and now do this in moderation.

    5. Have a plan.

    Just like you can’t reach your destination if you don’t know what it is, you’ll have more trouble if you don’t have a map to show you how to get there.

    If you can’t find a program that’s already out there to help you break your bad habit, make your own plan. Write it down.

    When you leave room for guessing or experimentation, you’re less likely to succeed.

    When you’re creating a plan, if you set guidelines for what happens when you cheat, want to take a break, or fall off the wagon, you won’t have to speculate about how you’ll get back on the path to your goals. A plan can help you kick start the healthy habit when you’ve gotten off track.

    Going back to step 1, if you know what typically sets you off toward failure, you can work that into your plan too.

    If you’re trying to quit smoking, but you know that you always want a cigarette after you eat dinner, make specific plans for what you are going to do during and after dinner instead. Maybe you’ll eat in a different location to break the association. Come up with several options for rewarding things to do after dinner to keep you distracted and occupied. Think of a treat that you can give yourself every time you follow that plan, like a candlelight soak in a sumptuous bubble bath.

    The great thing about having a plan is that you know where to start again if you do veer off the path. You know you start again because you’ve started before. Every time you hit an obstacle, you may have to start over, but at least that starting point will become more and more familiar.

    When you’re breaking a bad habit, remember not to see every step away from the plan as a failure. The way we learn is by making mistakes.

    Imagine what happens when a musician learns a new piece of music. That musician doesn’t just pick up the sheet music and play through it flawlessly; she goes through a few measures, makes a mistake, and then goes back to the beginning.

    With time, she’ll continue to play a few more measures. As she does this, she’ll solidify the earlier behavior until the entire piece of music is embedded in her cognitive and muscle memory.

    The same process applies to breaking a bad habit. The bumps in the road are part of the process and will only make your eventual success sweeter.

    What bad habit are you going to bust by using these steps? I told you mine. Now it’s your turn!

  • How Your Ego Thrives on Fear and Keeps You Panicked

    How Your Ego Thrives on Fear and Keeps You Panicked

    “The ego is the false self—born out of fear and defensiveness.” ~John O’Donohue

    “The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient, and yet exceedingly shy.” ~Parker Palmer

    Does it sometimes seem like the world is just a little too much for you? Do you feel that you need to protect yourself from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? (Thank you, Hamlet.) Are you a fragile flower being buffeted by life’s storms?

    Then I think you’ve been listening to your ego too much. I understand all of those feelings very well, but I’ve recently discovered something life-changing: It’s only the ego, or small self, that’s fragile.

    The soul—your authentic self—is a honey badger.

    You know those honey badger videos on YouTube, where the little guy gets bitten by a cobra or stung by a whole swarm of African killer bees, but just keeps on going? That’s what your soul’s like. “Honey badger don’t care…”

    We always have access to these two different perspectives, but most of the time we’re so identified with the small self that we forget about our honey badger souls.

    The ego is a prickly little thing, with a hair trigger reaction, ready to go off at a moment’s notice. The soul is incredibly calm and resilient—not touchy and reactive, and yet capable of taking effective action when needed with a minimum of fuss.

    The ego’s self-appointed function is to help you get what you think you need from the world and prevent you from losing what you have. It’s fueled by fear, and sees threats everywhere. This fear leads inevitably to feelings of separation, lack, competition, judgment, grasping, and deep loneliness—in other words, suffering.

    The soul, in contrast, is rooted in love and a deep-seated well-being. Things that put the small self in a tizzy often bounce right off it.

    Recently, I had two experiences within days that gave me a brilliant chance to practice switching focus from ego to soul and seeing what a difference that could make. Neither one was really a “big deal,” and yet both had my poor little ego off and running. What a drama queen the ego is!

    In both cases, a person I loved and trusted hurt my feelings, probably unintentionally. Misunderstandings happen; we’re all human. The real issue was my ego’s reaction, which was to immediately shut down in an effort to protect myself from being hurt again.

    It went something like this: “Well, I’m certainly going to have to stop being around those people, because I never want that to happen again, and they obviously can’t be trusted anymore.”

    The problem is, both of these people are part of a wellness community that I love. This community is all about personal growth—about learning to overcome the illusion of ego and live from the authentic self, or soul.

    Pondering my instinctive response to protect myself, I had to ask: Just exactly what needs protecting here? The only answer I could come up with was my ego.

    My ego felt hurt and vulnerable when these two people seemed to not understand or value me. My ego didn’t think it could handle that happening again, but when I checked in with my soul, it was like: “Honey badger don’t care…”

    I had to laugh when I realized how unperturbed my soul was by what my ego saw as a huge affront and threat. Stonewall Jackson once said, “Never take counsel of your fears,” and yet that is exactly what we do when we put the touchy ego in charge of our reactions.

    Ego is like the boy in the fable who raises the alarm at every passing shadow. Ironically, though, crying wolf like this only makes it harder to perceive a true threat when it comes along. The soul doesn’t waste time on false alarms, but when there’s a real need for action, it will roll on that just as fearlessly.

    Here’s what my fragile ego thought it needed in order to be okay in the situations I mentioned: first and foremost, an apology to salve my hurt pride (ego is always big on pride); assurances that I really am loved and valued (more pride, with a touch of emotional neediness); and finally, an ironclad guarantee that something like this would never happen again (is that even possible, given that we are all human?).

    Now, all of those things would be lovely to have, I’m not kidding. But do I actually need them? Not really. When I drop down to soul level, I find a sense of well-being and security that far transcends my ego’s desperate grasping for reassurance and amends.

    Soul knows that I already have everything I need to be okay. Not that it’s a pushover by any means, but things like wounded pride, which are all-important to ego, don’t really faze the honey badger much. He’s got a much tougher hide and a bigger heart by far. Honey badgers do care, but not about the things ego finds important.

    So this is how my soul dealt with these situations: First, because I felt genuinely hurt, I let myself feel that pain with compassion. I didn’t dismiss the hurt. Next, I looked carefully at my own part in what happened, to find out if there was anything I needed to clarify or apologize for. Then I reached out and expressed my feelings as kindly and truthfully as possible. And then I stopped.

    This part is the trickiest of all. The ego hates uncertainty with a passion (at least, mine does). My ego wanted things resolved, pronto, and it was screaming at me to take action.

    Maybe I should try to garner support and sympathy for myself by telling other people about what happened? That always feels good. Or else I could apologize profusely—for what, I’m not sure—and get everything patched up and smoothed over as quickly as possible. Or….

    So once again I consulted my honey badger soul, who said: Sit tight. Everything is just fine. No worries at all, mate. As long as I was clear about my own role in the disagreements, my soul was content with that. No need to escalate, but also no need to overly justify or explain or “make nice.”

    Unlike the ego, my soul knows that it’s only responsible for its own reactions, not everyone else’s. Gotta love that.

    And so I waited. In one case, things have already ended up sorting themselves out very well—I’m sure far better than they would have had I listened to my ego. In the other, I’m still waiting (and that’s okay).

    I’ve decided that, even in the face of this uncertainty, I don’t need to take extraordinary measures to “protect” myself, at least not yet. There might come a time for that, and I trust my soul to recognize it if it does.

    When something like this happens to you—when your small self feels threatened and is telling you to attack or pull up the drawbridge—stop for a moment first and check in with your soul. Take some deep breaths and sink down under that surface panic.

    What do you really need to do, if anything? Is there truly a threat, or is it just your fragile ego crying wolf again? Chances are slim that you’ll find your honey badger soul in a panic. Whether there’s action to be taken or you just need to sit tight for a while, the calm, resilient, and loving energy of your soul is always there to draw on.

  • The First Steps Toward Creating a Life You Love

    The First Steps Toward Creating a Life You Love

    “My goal is to build a life I don’t need a vacation from.” ~Rob Hill Sr.

    The other day I had an interesting conversation with a friend, who asked me the question “Who is the happiest person you know?”

    Ask yourself this question now. It’s difficult to answer, isn’t it?

    There are certainly people around me who seem to be happy, but the happiest person I know? I couldn’t easily come up with an answer.

    The conversation with my friend proceeded with him saying, “You seem happy, but it’s so easy for you; you live in Cornwall by the sea, you work for yourself, and you have all the freedom in the world because you’re single.”

    It made me smile to think about how people perceive others’ lives. If you ask the next person they might say the absolute opposite: “It must be hard for you living so far away from anything, starting a heart-centered business from scratch with nothing. You must be so lonely being single and doing it all on your own.”

    And the truth is, all the above is true. I feel each and every variation of the above on occasions because I’m human! I think and dream just like a regular employed person, I love just like a married person, and feel and breathe just like a city dweller. We are all the same.

    But the conversation made me reflect on my own happiness. What does it mean to be happy? I feel the happiest I’ve ever been right now, whether I look at my life with glass-half-full or half-empty eyes. I asked myself why, and the only answer I could think of is, right now I feel authentic.

    I wake up each morning and my work feels like a joyful adventure, so I don’t have to drag myself through days, questioning the point of what I’m doing.

    Feeling complete deep down for the first time in my life soothes the loneliness of not being in a loving partnership right now, and walking the beach with my dog every morning watching the sunrise, instead of being on a packed London commuter train, makes my heart burst with happiness.

    This isn’t a recipe for happiness in any shape or form. These are just my things. My choices leading to the life I am creating for myself, from a place of authenticity.

    I have started to understand and accept that my life is up to me—my choices, my creation. The life I am living right now resulted from the choices I made before now, and yet they are no longer important; only the choices I make right now are. Right now I am free from the past but have a choice in creating my future.

    So often we look outward and feel trapped by things that aren’t real. For me it was my past, my CV, other people’s perceptions, my own fears, and those pesky little shoulds, from myself and others. Or we think that we’re slaves to the choices we made in the past. But the beauty of life is you always have a choice.

    I understand that some things in life we literally can’t change—maybe you’re a parent or caregiver or have other responsibilities that limit you—but you still have a choice.

    You can choose to resist and focus on the negative, the struggle, or you can choose to see differently, create opportunities for change, and ask for help. No matter what your life looks like right now, you can still create a life you love.

    I believe that everyone can dig deep to find out what feels right for them, be honest with themselves and others, and align their life with that place of authenticity.

    Perhaps you’re wondering, how an earth do I go about creating an authentic life? Where do I start? Well, this is obviously vastly different for everyone, but my advice would be to just start somewhere, and what better place than where you are right now?

    By that, I mean start by looking within.

    A simple daily meditation practice has changed my life, and I truly believe it can help anyone.

    Meditation, for me, is about carving out a few moments each day to sit quietly, breathe, connect with myself, and recognize my part to play in a bigger whole.

    Even if it’s just a few moments after I wake up or before I hop into bed at night, this is time free from distraction, free from the roles and responsibilities I identify myself with, free from the complications in life that I might identify as stress. It’s time for just me, to connect with myself and my truth.

    Creating a life you love is really about aligning your life with your own core values—those things that are most important to you personally. Regular meditation will help you discover what those are.

    It might also help to think about the activities you loved doing as a child and find some time to do one of those things one day soon. Express yourself and be creative—journal, draw, sing. Join an activity group, take a class, volunteer, be of service. Move your body with exercise or yoga.

    The point is to listen to yourself and take action on what you discover. Connect with how you really feel and use that as your guide when making choices so you can create a life you truly love.

    If you do this, you may eventually realize, as I did, that it doesn’t matter one teeny, tiny bit who the happiest person you know is; all that matters is that you’re happy with yourself and the life you’re living.

  • How Gratitude Shifts Your Perspective When Things Go Wrong

    How Gratitude Shifts Your Perspective When Things Go Wrong

    “Gratitude turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity…it makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~Melody Beattie

    Yesterday, while praying in the Ganges River, my purse got stolen.

    Standing in The Holy River Ganges, praying up to my neck in her healing waters, the outside world felt as if it had stopped.

    The feeling of happiness to be back in Rishikesh was so strong it bordered on invincible. Instant immersion into the healing waters of Maa Ganga was the only thing on my mind.

    I had casually left my bag on the beach before going in the river. Since I had never had any problems here in previous trips, my guard was down.

    India, a magnified mind mirror, reflects back exactly what I think about at lightening speed. It also has a knack of teaching me exactly what I need to learn.

    Upon getting out of the river, I didn’t notice my purse was missing, because it had been piled under clothes and nothing seemed amiss.

    Sitting on the beach, absorbing the feelings of my post prayer bliss, a dodgy Indian man approached, asking me if the beach was safe.

    “That’s weird,” I thought. “Why is he asking me if the beach is safe?”

    My internal alarm bell started ringing and I took it as a sign to check my belongings. Sure enough, my purse was gone.

    Now what? Here is the real test. How do I respond?

    Well, first, I went after the dodgy guy, assuming he was the thief, and told him to give me back my purse. He denied up and down that he knew anything about it.

    After badgering him for a while to return the purse, I realized it was a lost cause.

    Now what?

    Searching the rocky beach, hoping maybe he had stashed it, seemed like a good idea, but there was no luck on that front either.

    Two other western girls, who were sitting farther down the beach, kindly helped me to look for it after hearing my story.

    No luck.

    Feeling as though I had exhausted all possible options at the scene of the crime, the next logical step was to return to my room, call the bank, and cancel my ATM card.

    In the purse was $100 worth of Indian Rupees, my ATM card, and both room keys. Amazingly, the rest of my cash and passport were still safe in my room.

    Listening to the little inner voice that told me to leave them there, just prior to the beach excursion, was proving to be a massive blessing.

    I had switched out the padlock on my room door with a lock I had brought, thinking it would be more secure, and both sets of keys were in my stolen purse.

    Upon hearing the lost key predicament, the Ashram manager, without blinking an eye, set out to help break into my room.

    It wasn’t an easy mission.

    It took him about an hour of trying to saw through the un-sawable lock, until finally he decided to saw through the hardware on the door, which worked. I was able to enter my room, while the manager quickly ran to the market to buy new hardware for the door.

    Meanwhile, I called my bank and cancelled my ATM card. The bank people were absolutely lovely, empathetic, and helpful.

    My neighbor in the Ashram offered to make me a cup of tea, and the neighbors on the other side offered us some of their beautiful meal they had just cooked.

    In the midst of my vulnerability, I felt supported on all sides!

    Immediately, I began searching for the lesson in my purse getting stolen.

    Acceptance, gratitude, humility, and letting go were the words that came.

    Instead of focusing on what I had done wrong and beating myself up about it, I chose to focus on what was actually good:

    • I still had my phone and money I had left in my room.
    • I had a spare ATM card and credit card in the room.
    • I still had my passport.
    • Coincidentally, I had run into a friend the day before who remembered he owed me money, and it was the exact amount I just lost.
    • My neighbors were generous and kind.
    • The Ashram manager was lovely and helpful and didn’t bat an eye at destroying the door hardware.
    • The bank people were helpful.
    • The kind girls at the beach helped me search for my purse.
    • I had everything I needed!

    After making this gratitude list, I realized how much I truly have, how blessed my life is, how many kind and generous people are in the world, and how I am always provided for.

    Sometimes the lowest times are what make us stronger.

    Coming to India always shakes me out of my comfort zone, and this was no exception. I am still absorbing the lessons, and they are powerful ones:

    • This experience has made me want to give more.
    • It has made me realize I only need to take with me what I need.
    • I felt the vulnerability of having nothing for a short period of time, and that made me want to help others.
    • It showed me my inner progress: I didn’t panic. I didn’t beat myself up. I don’t feel like a victim and am not blaming the person who stole my purse.
    • It snapped me back into respect—respect for all that I have and respect that there are people that have a lot less. It reminded me to treat all people as equal regardless of their financial status.
    • It reminded me to give others not only what I can monetarily, but also acknowledge the presence in others, by giving them my full attention.
    • It also reminded me that have a choice where I focus my thinking and attention; I can choose to accept the things I can’t change, and have the courage to change the things I can.

    What happened, happened. Now I have a choice to learn the lessons and receive the gold out of the situation.

    Today I went back to the same beach to do my prayers in the river. This time I didn’t take anything with me except my change of clothes, bringing only bare essentials. Keeping a close watch on my bag, I didn’t let yesterday’s event tarnish my heartfelt love for this place.

    Feeling blessed, grateful, and humbled to be in Mother India again, I feel love for the people here, and especially the ones who have nothing.

    The Power of Gratitude is Astonishing

    It’s amazing how gratitude can shift your perspective when things go wrong. The next time you face a challenging situation, hit your internal pause button, breathe, and survey the situation. Don’t panic.

    Ask yourself, what can I do right now? What is the number one priority?

    Accept that what has happened, happened. Don’t beat yourself up for what you didn’t do. Drop resistance and fighting what is and instead focus on what you can do now.

    Focus on what’s good in the situation. Ask yourself, what are the lessons to be learned from this? And make a gratitude list as fast as possible.

    Talk about the good that came from the event rather than constantly repeating a negative story to others. Integrate the lessons, let it go, and move on.

  • Ask Why: How to Motivate Yourself to Keep Going When Things Get Hard

    Ask Why: How to Motivate Yourself to Keep Going When Things Get Hard

    “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

    My father was an amazing man. I’m sure most sons think that about their fathers, but it’s a belief held by more than just myself. I’m not saying he was a great father, but he was a great man.

    He was a Vietnam veteran, a carpenter, and a social paragon in the small town I grew up in. Our neighbors declared him the “Mayor of Bluebank” (the road he lived on.) His funeral was one of the most attended events that our small town in Kentucky had ever held.

    Dad believed in working hard, and, true to his word, his health began to sharply decline after having a lung removed (the unfortunate “cure” to lung cancer caused by Agent Orange exposure). He passed away on Veteran’s Day, 2012. A cruel twist of irony.

    I had the pleasure of working with my father on many projects, from building homes to cutting staves at a sawmill. I was fortunate to learn what a real work ethic looks like by working with Dad.

    When Things Seem Impossible

    Even though Dad isn’t here to give me advice, I still ask myself what he would do when I’m faced with something that seems impossible.

    “I feel too tired to work today…”

    “Where will I find energy to tackle this project?”

    “I don’t know where to start…”

    Everyone faces situations that seem impossible at times. It’s an unfortunate lack of grit and resilience that’s common to my generation.

    Luckily, I have one invaluable piece of advice that I managed to get from my father before he passed away.

    Advice on Working Hard

    When I was in my late teens and doing irresponsible crap, I once asked my father how he worked so hard. He enjoyed socializing on the weekends, but he seemed to enjoy working his butt off just as much (even with the occasional hangover.) I didn’t understand it.

    His response stuck with me. He smiled and told me, “Stop asking how I work so hard, son. Ask me why.” His response was rhetorical; he didn’t want me to actually ask him “why.” His point was that the reason he worked was how he found the energy to work.

    Dad’s wisdom didn’t quite click with me until my son was born. I’d always had what I considered an inherited strong work ethic, but it wasn’t truly tested until I was kept up all night for weeks on end with a crying baby.

    Babies, a Day Job, and a Side Gig

    It can be lonely at 3:34 a.m., especially when you’re awake with a crying newborn. The three minutes and fifty-five seconds it takes to heat four ounces of refrigerated breast milk can seem like an eternity when you want to go back to sleep.

    Once I manage to get the boy fed and back to sleep, I crawl into bed to wink before the alarm goes off at 6 a.m. so I can get ready for work. Quietly.

    In situations like this, energy at work can seem fleeting. You know your job performance is suffering, but you manage to grit your teeth and get back to it. Somehow. Your shift takes forty hours longer than it used to, but you push through.

    To top it off, I write articles in my downtime. That means research, writing, editing, submitting, promoting, etc. Work ethic seems like a stupid thing when the beautiful Siren of Sleep is calling you.

    Staying Strong to Get Things Done

    Fortunately, I remember the lessons that my father taught me. Not just, “If you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late. If you’re late, you’re f*&^ed.”

    All I have to do is ask myself, “Why am I doing this?” when I feel like giving up.

    “Why am I working overtime at my day job?” So I can keep the heat on this winter for my family. So I can put food on the table.

    “Why am I pushing myself to write another article?” So I can build a business and legacy for my son. So I can spread ideas and wisdom.

    “Why am I feeding this thing that causes so much exhaustion and frustration?” Because it’s my son and I love him. I want him to grow up so I can teach him how to be a great person.

    Why Is “Why” So Powerful?

    Asking the wrong questions can get you stuck. We want to avoid questions that carry negativity.

    When you ask yourself why you’re doing something, you tend to attach a larger motivator to your actions. This becomes your motivating reason.

    Make sure you have a strong positive emotion attached to your motivating reason. When I ask myself why I’m doing something, it’s always attached to something large and promising, like my family and my future.

    A Recent Time When I Needed This Advice

    I was reading Smarter Faster Better, by Charles Duhigg, when I came across the following passage (edited for brevity):

    Quintanilla had been marching for two days by this point. He had slept less than four hours. His face was numb and his hands were covered with blisters and cuts from carrying water-filled drums across obstacles. […]

    “Why are you doing this?” Quintanilla’s pack buddy wheezed at him, lapsing into a call-and-response they had practiced on hikes. When things are at their most miserable, their drill instructors had said, they should ask each other questions that begin with “why.”

    “To become a Marine and build a better life for my family,” Quintanilla said.

    His wife had given birth a week earlier to a daughter, Zoey. […] If he finished the Crucible, he would see his wife and new child.

    If you can link something hard to a choice you care about, it makes the task easier[…] Make a chore into a meaningful decision, and self-motivation will emerge.

    My dad’s motivating reason was the same. He worked hard for his family.

    For the Impossible

    Going to work and writing articles with a newborn in the home is difficult, but I wouldn’t say it’s impossible.

    For the tasks that truly seem impossible, it’s important to break them into more manageable pieces. If I want to build a business so that I can eventually work from home, I can’t tackle the entire thing at once.

    Break your huge project into multiple SMART Goals—goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-based (even if you have a newborn in the home). Don’t forget to ask why you pursue your “impossible” goal. The bigger the goal, the bigger your motivating reason will need to be.

    Check my goals again to see this tagging in action—I work overtime for food and electricity for my fiancé and my son. Not that big of a deal, still a big reason. I work on my articles so that I can grow my business and spread ideas. That’s a big deal to me, and ultimately a larger goal, so I have much larger motivating reasons.

    Find a Motivating Reason

    “Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” ~John F. Kennedy

    Whether you have one purpose or multiple areas of your life that can give you incentives to tackle the impossible, find a reason and hold on to it.

    When things are getting too hard to move forward, when the baby is crying and you’re trying to get one more sentence typed out, when your day job seems like Hell and your alarm is the devil, just ask yourself why.

    The impossible becomes possible when you break it into manageable pieces and fuel the fire in your belly with a motivating reason. You’ll come out the other side of the “impossible” as a stronger person with more grit and resilience than you ever thought possible.

  • How Listening to Depression Can Help Us Overcome It

    How Listening to Depression Can Help Us Overcome It

    “These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.” ~Rumi

    My first diagnosis of depression came at the age of fifteen. Depression runs in my family; it wasn’t a case of overmedicating. It was genuine, and the black dog has followed me all my life.

    I’ve been on eight different antidepressants and a handful of anti-anxiety drugs. I’ve been in and out of therapist offices and hospitals for most of my life, and I expect that I’ll continue to do so.

    My mindset (and that of my family and doctors) was that depression is an adversary to be defeated. If only we found the right medication or the right therapy, we could solve the problem. But that mindset ignores a positive effect of such a negative condition: depression’s ability to induce change.

    Depression lies to you, but it also tells you the truth. And that truth leads to change.

    Silencing

    As I began my career as a lawyer in New York City, my depression worsened. Law is a perfect profession for depression to get worse. I was taught to look for mistakes, to be cynical. A pessimistic mindset is an advantage for a lawyer.

    Lawyers have high rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. I don’t know whether depressed people become lawyers or becoming a lawyer makes people depressed. It’s probably a combination, though ultimately it’s irrelevant.

    My depression found expression physically and emotionally. I had chronic tension headaches; when I woke up feeling like head was squeezed into a vice, I knew the pain would last all day. My back and neck were steel cables of tension.

    I gained weight from a combination of lack of exercise and poor diet. On the weekends, I would order huge amounts of food, seeking solace and finding only regret.

    Emotionally, I was ashamed. Ashamed for being depressed and ashamed for hating my job. It was the prize so many of my law school classmates had competed for. Why didn’t I want it?

    More than the shame was an overarching sense of sadness, like a gray filter applied across the screen of my life. It felt like other people were seeing in color, but for some reason I was seeing in black and white.

    I remember discussing a medical leave with my therapist (she was supportive, and I owe her much). But I was crushed as I realized that a leave was only that—I’d have to return to the office.

    Late one night, unable to sleep, I found myself scrutinizing my apartment’s lease agreement, looking for a way out. My apartment was bathed in darkness. In the pale glow of my laptop’s screen, I broke down, shoulders heaving with sobs.

    I had been trying to kill the messenger. I wanted to silence my depression, as if I could put my hands over my ears and make the noise stop. But instead, I needed to listen to what my depression was telling me.

    Listening

    In those times, depression felt intractable. It was a heavy stone that I wasn’t strong enough to move. But I think, more subtly, depression can signal change. Pain is a messenger.

    Just like physical pain, emotional pain is a signal. Your body is telling you to change what you’re doing. And those changes can’t take place if you don’t stop and listen.

    And how to listen? Sit in stillness, observing what thoughts and emotions arise in the silence. No control, only observation.

    I learned to focus on my breath, observing its rising and falling, without focusing on a specific object or mantra. I learned this meditation technique at a vipassana retreat near Kathmandu, Nepal, and it still serves me well.

    Meditation clarifies the difference between genuine pain and temporary discomfort. Genuine pain is a messenger of change. Temporary discomfort is a passing phenomenon we all experience at one time or another.

    It’s like exercise at the gym: it can be unpleasant and uncomfortable, even though you know it’s good for you. In contrast, some pain is like breaking an ankle. You have to take time to heal.

    In this sense, meditation is a guide to distinguishing between depression’s truth and lies. Depression tries to trick you: it lies to you (in the form of cognitive distortions like catastrophizing) while sometimes telling you the truth (the genuine pain that you’re in). Meditation separates the truth from the lies.

    Recognizing

    I relied on meditation to help me recognize the pain I was in. Not only had I run away from my depression, I had chastised myself for even feeling it (“you shouldn’t feel this bad”) then felt guilty for being depressed. Meditation cleared this fog of avoidance and guilt.

    It also taught me to stop trying to figure out my depression. Attempting to intellectualize how I felt was a fool’s errand. I had to recognize my depression in a visceral, bodily way.

    When a stove is hot, you pull your hand away so you don’t get burned. It doesn’t matter if the stove is gas or electric, or who turned it on. None of that information will prevent you from getting burned. It’s happening; the exact causes don’t need to be figured out to act accordingly.

    And this is exactly what meditation taught me: to focus on the sensations (breath, bodily discomfort, thoughts) instead of attempting to rationalize those sensations. That’s why vipassana retreats require you to surrender your books and journals. Experience the phenomena, don’t intellectualize them.

    Acting

    In the end, my thoughts were just excuses. When my lease was up, I told myself, I’ll quit in six months after I get my bonus. When I got my bonus, I told myself, I’ll quit in six months when my lease is up.

    Once I stopped attempting to reason with myself, it became clear that I had to quit. My depression had lied to me before, but it wasn’t lying this time.

    I’m not recommending recklessly quitting a job without a plan. I had to sublet my apartment and figure out my finances before I left. But my depression had led me, finally, to make a decision.

    Then I had to take the leap. As I told my boss I was quitting, I felt a strange combination of anxiety and exhilaration. I shook.

    I left New York City. I remember sitting at the airport and deleting my work’s email app from my phone. It sounds like a millennial’s cliche version of catharsis, but deleting that app felt immensely freeing.

    I’m still in the process of letting myself be sad sometimes, and I doubt that process will ever truly end. I’m still on medication. But the gray filter over my life has lifted.

  • Life Is Too Ironic

    Life Is Too Ironic

  • Love Is In the Little Things

    Love Is In the Little Things

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

    Valentine’s Day has never been a big deal to me. It always felt commercialized, so forced. I’ve never felt I needed Hallmark to remind me to do something special for my husband, or vice versa.

    This certainly isn’t a reflection of how we felt about, treated, or appreciated one another; it just wasn’t a priority to us.

    In our more than seventeen years together, some years I would receive a card, flowers, or chocolates, but other years it would pass by like any other day. I’ll admit on a couple of those occasions I felt a little hurt, even slightly unappreciated.

    In November 2009 my husband Bill was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia. It was a total shock, as cancer always is. Breaking the news to our three children was almost as devastating as the diagnosis itself.

    Bill was a very involved father, never missing a special event or game. He coached our ten-year-old son’s hockey team at the time. His life was his family.

    While Bill had a very successful and demanding career as an electrical engineer, he always put us first. Sometimes that meant staying up until 3am to do work, just so he could make it to our daughter’s soccer game.

    After Bill was admitted to hospital, his concerns were still about the kids and me. He was actually worried that I had to put out the garbage myself and shovel the driveway. He liked taking care of things like that. He was always trying to make things easier for me.

    During Bill’s time in hospital we did a lot of reminiscing. We laughed, we cried—more laughing than crying. Bill and I shared an unusual sense of humor, sometimes making light of things that weren’t funny. It was our little way of coping.

    Life with three kids is busy, especially without any family nearby. Couple time was hard to come by, and as sad as our situation was, it gave us a chance to reconnect.

    Bill began an intense four-week cycle of chemotherapy. The first cycle would prove to be unsuccessful, and a second cycle was also a failure.

    On New Year’s Eve, Bill’s hematologist told us things didn’t look good. The doctors said they could make one more attempt at a very risky, experimental treatment. We decided to go ahead with the treatment, despite the risks.

    A few weeks later Bill developed fungal pneumonia, a very dangerous situation for someone with a compromised immune system. On February 13, Bill’s doctor asked to speak with me privately. I was told he was dying, maybe only having a week or so left.

    I was heartbroken and devastated. What was worse, he didn’t know. We decided it was best not to tell him since he was already so sick.

    I spent that night at his bedside, and the following day he deteriorated quite quickly. He was struggling to speak and breathe. The medical team increased his medication to make him as comfortable as possible.

    Bill remained in and out of sleep that day. He briefly woke up and asked me, “Am I going home tonight?” I said,  “No, not tonight honey.” He responded, “Wouldn’t it be cool if I went home tonight?”

    I told him I loved him, and he whispered the same. I spent the rest of the night holding his hand while he slept. Then it hit me: it was Valentine’s Day. The realization brought me to tears, tears I had been fighting back for weeks.

    I didn’t give a damn about roses, chocolates, or jewelry. I just wanted my husband to live. He was only forty years old and I was thirty-seven. We had so many things we wanted to do together as a family and a couple, so many dreams for our future.

    I didn’t sleep a wink that night; I just held his hand and prayed. The next afternoon while standing at Bill’s bedside, I placed my hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat. Moments later it stopped. He was gone.

    It hasn’t been an easy seven years since Bill’s passing, but I am grateful we had the opportunity to say what we needed to say and have a real understanding of how much we truly appreciated each other.

    Now when Valentines Day rolls around, it’s a reminder of how life’s tender moments have the most impact on us.

    It’s the feeling of contentment that I miss most. I had no idea what an underrated emotional state it really is. We don’t need a dozen roses once a year to make us feel loved. It’s the little, everyday things that give us that feeling… even taking out the garbage.

  • Seek Respect, Not Attention

    Seek Respect, Not Attention