Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • 3 Ways We Unconsciously Sabotage Our Relationships (And How to Stop)

    3 Ways We Unconsciously Sabotage Our Relationships (And How to Stop)

    Couple in love

    “Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source.” ~Anaïs Nin

    As a long-time commitment-phobe, my love life has been somewhat inconsistent, to say the least, but this year it seemed I’d finally met someone I was ready and able to think about building a future with. Still, along with this feeling of hope came some challenges that I had never experienced before in a relationship. (And yes, it did occur to me that maybe these two things went together!)

    I knew I loved my partner, but we often seemed to argue about nothing in particular. This was bewildering to me. I really couldn’t understand what had gone wrong! But, thanks to her patient reflecting to me, I recognized how I was contributing to this pattern, and why I needed to alter my own attitudes and behavior rather than blaming my partner and expecting her to change.

    I began thinking about all this because it was frustrating to get into a shouting match but not be able to remember what had kicked it all off, only to realize, at the end of it, that we could both have used that time in many more enjoyable or productive ways.

    I was sick of feeling stressed about it all, so when the opportunity came up at the local community center, I took a mindfulness class. My expectations weren’t that high, to be honest, but I was ready to try anything!

    One challenging exercise was to take a step back from reacting when things got heated between us so that I could see more clearly what was actually going on, what I was doing to fan the flames, and some ways I could change.

    One bad habit, I discovered, was how I would often interpret what my lover had said to me in the most negative possible way. If she told me I seemed tired, I’d worry she was saying I wasn’t as good in bed; or, if she said I was looking “healthy,” I’d think she meant I was putting on weight.

    I had been too ashamed to actually share these thoughts with her, to see if what I was hearing was what she actually meant. But finally, I couldn’t avoid it any longer. So I plucked up the courage to share these vulnerable feelings, only to discover that I was creating almost all that negativity in my own head.

    I realized that my interpretations stemmed from my own low level of trust and self-confidence; and that I needed a lot more reassurance from my partner than I had been willing to admit.

    I understood how, because of my history, including the strained relationship I’d had with my parents when I was a child, I found it hard to accept love, even from the person I was closest to. This was hurtful and frustrating for her, and it was making me miserable.

    In a strange kind of twist, I was nervous about being happy, even though it was what I wanted, because that meant the risk of being hurt and disappointed, as I’d been in my childhood. The only antidote to these fears seemed to be to learn to love and accept myself for who I was, and not be dependent on getting approval from anyone else.

    My partner has been very supportive with this, and paradoxically, this sense of greater emotional independence has made it possible for me to risk being, and feeling, closer and more loving with her.

    After reflecting more on the roots of conflict in our relationship, I identified our three main types of communication and saw how confusing them could easily create a mismatch between the intention of what we were saying to each other and how the other interpreted it.

    This often led to an argument, which was nothing more than two people with different perspectives each pointlessly trying to convince the other that they were right—a futile pattern that were both keen to avoid.

    You might recognize some, or all, of these; if so, what I learned about how to defuse them might work for you too.

    1. Arguing with emotions.

    These are statements of fact about the experience of the person sharing them—i.e.: “I feel nervous when you drive that fast”—so there’s no point in disagreeing with them.

    My mistake was to respond to this kind of statement as if it were my partner’s opinion, and then disagree with it.

    Or, I’d respond to personal statements, such as “I feel like you don’t listen to me,” or “You don’t prioritize sending time with me” with a rebuttal, such as “What do you mean, of course I do,” or defensiveness, i.e.: “You’re always criticizing me!”

    Denying her reality like this was a sure way of disempowering and upsetting her. Instead, I’m learning to be more tuned in to how she’s feeling, and to respond in ways that validate this and show that it’s important to me.

    So now I might respond with, “I’m sorry you feel that way. Can you explain more?” or “Is there anything that I could do differently to change this?” Then I’ll try to act on any response she has given me.

    This listening and hearing builds a bridge of trust between us, rather than the wall I used to put up, and makes it much easier for us to find compromises and solutions. It changes from being a zero sum conversation to a win- win.

    If you ever deny your partner’s feelings, take a step back before responding and get curious instead of defensive. It’s not easy, but validating each other’s emotions creates an atmosphere of love, care, and understanding.

    2. Stating opinions as facts.

    The trouble was, we both used to express opinions as if they were facts, the underlying assumption being that one of us was right, and therefore, anyone with a different point of view was wrong. Now, I appreciate and accept that my partner and I can have different perspectives on anything, and neither of us is necessarily more right. I can accept and enjoy our differences rather than being threatened by them.

    Formerly, my partner would express opinions like “You’re being selfish,” or even “You work too much!” to me as if they were facts. It was hard for me not to feel judged and criticized.

    If she insisted, this led to angry denials. In a perfect world, she would always recognize that these are opinions. But it’s a fact of life that I can’t control what she does, only how I respond to her. So now I try to understand where she’s coming from and why, rather than just reacting, and if I can’t, I ask for an explanation.

    Try to recognize when you are stating opinions as fact, or trying to make your partner “wrong.” Communication goes a lot more smoothly when neither person feels judged or criticized.

    3. Blaming each other for our own feelings.

    I sometimes blamed my partner for my feelings, saying things like, “You’ve made me angry,” or “You’re so insensitive.” Thanks to her patient refusal to take these kinds of accusations on board, I came to see that these statements revealed more about me than her!

    With a new awareness of how these dynamics operate between us, I’m able to take responsibility for my own negative feelings, which gives me a much better ability to do something about them, if that’s needed or possible. This also allows me to nurture more mutual trust and intimacy with my partner.

    When you’re about to blame your partner for how you feel, step back and ask yourself, “How would I respond if I took responsibility for my feelings instead?” You can still acknowledge how their actions affected you, but you will be doing so from a place of owning your own experience and responses.

    —

    Reflecting honestly on this process has been painful and challenging. If you’re at all like me, you may avoid doing any of this work for that very reason. It’s completely natural; we all instinctively avoid pain. All I can say is that, in my experience, it’s more than worth it.

    By being clearer about what we are trying to communicate, and more conscious about how we share and listen to each other’s feelings, we can avoid the pitfalls of misunderstanding that could sabotage our relationships. And that will leave a lot more time and energy for what we really want to be doing: sharing love and being happy!

  • A Small Good Thing: A Documentary on Simple Sources of Happiness

    A Small Good Thing: A Documentary on Simple Sources of Happiness

    A small good thing

    We live in a world that encourages the pursuit of happiness, which it seems we’ve collectively defined as “more.” We chase more money, more recognition, more stuff, more connections (and often, more followers and “likes”). If it’s quantifiable, and sometimes even when it isn’t, there’s no such thing as enough.

    Given that you’re here, visiting a website that promotes simplicity and appreciation for the little things, it’s possible you haven’t fallen into this trap. Or perhaps, like me, you have, and that’s why you now recognize that less is often more.

    Given my own experience chasing things that inevitably led to emptiness and disappointment, I was intrigued to learn about Pamela Tanner Boll’s new documentary A Small Good Thing.

    A Small Good Thing follows six people who’ve “recast their lives so they can find a sense of meaning.” If you’re disillusioned by the American Dream and fascinated by people who’ve found their own unique path to happiness, I highly recommend you check it out.

    I’ve never shared a documentary here before, but as you may remember, I’ve spent the better part of this year working on my first short film (which I’m excited to share here soon!) And I’m also planning to work on my first documentary, on a similar topic, next year.

    Given the synchronicity, I was thrilled to speak to Pamela about the motivation behind A Small Good Thing and what she learned in the process of making it.

    The Interview

    How did you choose the cast for A Small Good Thing? What’s the common thread?

    We were looking for individuals who were living in this new century in a better way. We wanted to find people who had made positive changes in their lives through mindful practices, through a closer connection to the natural world, and through a stronger connection to the greater good.

    Stephen Cope from Kripalu’s Institute for Extraordinary Living in Lenox, Massachusetts introduced us to Tim Durrin, who was working at Kripalu at the time, and through mindful practices (yoga, meditation, cycling) had been able to deal with his struggles with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and addiction.

    I met Yoga and Breathing Instructor Mark Gerow at Canyon Ranch in Lenox and was very impressed with his story of how he used his yoga practice to overcome the personal struggles in his life and to learn how to share his story with others.

    We were introduced to Jen and Pete Salinetti from Woven Roots Farm and were fascinated with the fact that they were able to harvest twelve months out of the year in Western Massachusetts, as well as with the amount of food they were producing on a one and a half acre farm.

    Also, we learned about Sean Stanton who worked on both his family farm, North Plain Farm, as well as managed Blue Hill Farm for the Barber family. He was also giving back to his community as the Chair of the Selectman Board for the Town of Great Barrington.

    Finally, I heard about a woman in Pittsfield MA who was doing amazing community work with young adults who performed all over the state with the Youth Alive Step Team. I met Shirley Edgerton for coffee and found out that she was really guiding young people to a life of purpose.

    Why did you choose the Berkshires for the location of this film?

    The Berkshires has long been a place that attracted artists, visionaries, and change-seekers who value their creative expression and want to live closer to nature. It’s also one of those communities in the world that supports and encourages people who want to live in a different way. There seems to be less importance put on “keeping up with the Joneses” and more importance on “checking in with the Joneses.”

    While we focus on the Berkshires in the film, people who are practicing mindfulness, connecting to the natural world, and engaging in their communities can be found all around the world. Yoga studios, farmers markets, and community gardens and centers can be found all over New York and other urban settings.

    We also filmed in the Berkshires because it was closer to home for us. Our production company is located in Winchester, Massachusetts, right outside of Boston.

    How long did it take to make this film? And how did making this film influence the happiness in your life?

    We begin in 2011 researching the film for over a year focusing on the recent happiness studies and the science behind yoga and meditation. We also did a lot of research on how living in closer connection to the natural world also positively impacted our well-being.

    We began shooting in the Berkshires in 2012, and continued for over a year. The first edit, which took another year, was flat and disjointed. In December 2013, I made a decision to close down the production. I did not feel that the edit expressed my original vision.

    After four months, I found a new energy to complete the film in a new location with a new editor, T.C. Johnstone.

    In the making of this film, we all learned that living an authentic life is not easy. It’s hard to be vulnerable and to make mistakes. But this is the path to living a life that is meaningful and full of purpose. Like Shirley says in the film, “…the true success in life is you finding your purpose and your passion and you living it out.”

    How does watching these small stories about individuals transforming their lives help us to transform the world?

    Our culture is more invested in comfort than in truth. Our planet is suffering from our consumer-driven way of life. Although we have more connections through the Internet and social networking, we as a society have become more isolated and lonely. We have more material wealth, but we are not happy.

    These stories show individuals who are making small changes in their lives that have a big impact in the world. Jen and Pete Salinetti use only environmentally sustainable practices at Woven Roots Farm. Also, Sean Stanton feeds his livestock a natural diet; his cows are grass fed and his pigs and chickens are raised on pasture and eat all certified organic grain.

    Farms that use these types of regenerative agricultural practices can turn back the carbon clock, reducing atmospheric CO2 while also boosting soil productivity and increasing resilience to floods and drought. Also, the agronomists tell us now that you can produce more calories per acre on a small farm than a big one.

    Studies show that mindful practices such as yoga and meditation relieve our stress: blood pressure goes down, heart rates drop, negative emotions decrease, and positive ones increase. Tim Durrin and Mark Gerow have overcome the struggles in their lives by applying these mindful practices every day. And in doing so, have learned that by exposing their struggles to their community, they feel less isolated and more blessed.

    And finally, Shirley Edgerton is guiding her young adults to live a life of purpose. She is teaching them at a young age, “that if you leave yourself open that you move with the universe [and] that’s where you blessings coming in.” This is how we can live in a more engaged way, a way that helps us to develop empathy and compassion.

    Why did you make this film? What resources influenced your research?

    A few years back, everyone I talked to had the same complaints: People were running so hard to keep up with the pressures of life that they felt overwhelmed, isolated, exhausted, and unhappy. Even though our country had more material wealth, people were depressed.

    Given the additional worries about the growing income disparities, climate change, and the vanishing natural world, the question of what makes a good life became important to me. So, I did what I usually do—I read lots of books. These are just some of the books that informed the film:

    Earth and Deep Economy by Bill McKibben

    Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life by Dacher Keltner

    The Empathic Civilization and The Third Industrial Revolution by Jeremy Rifkin

    The Wisdom of Yoga and Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope

    Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff

    The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky

    Being Happy by Tal Ben-Shahar

    Loving Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzburg

    Flow and Finding Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

    The Art of Happiness by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

    The Wisdom of Tuscany by Ferenc Mate

    You can learn more about A Small Good Thing here.

  • How We Can Stop Judging Others and Ourselves

    How We Can Stop Judging Others and Ourselves

    Judging woman

    “There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

    We live in a world of ticker headlines, 24/7 news, and constantly updating Instagram and Facebook feeds. We are constantly making snap-decision judgment calls, categorizing what we see into “good,” “bad,” or “unimportant.”

    In a second, we can see an image and believe we have all we need to form a fully realized opinion.

    It’s in our biological wiring to judge everything we see—it’s how we have survived for generations upon generations. We are in a constant state of scanning our environment for threats and attempting to efficiently neutralize them when we do come across them.

    And yet, ironically, we seem to have gotten to a point in our evolution where our judgments are doing us more harm than good, keeping us more unsafe than safe, and keeping us more in fear than in love.

    When we get down to it, fear and love are the only two emotions we really have. They are our roots, the seeds of our souls, our most base and primal instincts.

    All others are just off-shoots and iterations of the same.

    We fear what we judge as bad; we love what we judge as good.

    When we are in a state of fear, our bodies and minds do whatever they need to keep us safe. That may mean avoiding it, destroying it, or simply making it as different from us in our minds as possible. This is where the roots of racism, sexism, homophobia, and all other fear-based rationalizations are planted and nurtured.

    I, like all other humans, have lived much of my life in this place of fear.

    Only I didn’t call it fear.

    I felt that I judged people fairly, that I saw in them things I would never be or do or feel in myself.

    Though I have done deep work within myself to live in a place of love, forgiveness, and unconditional acceptance, I, like all people, still struggle with it from time to time.

    It happened as recently as this morning.

    I took my daughters to the grocery store for our weekly shopping trip and plunked them in a shopping cart shaped like a car. My eighteen month old daughter immediately ripped my list in half causing me to have to hold the two parts together every time I needed to check it.

    I pushed the behemoth cart up and down the isles, cramming things in until I felt overwhelmed by both decision and physical fatigue.

    My daughters were generally well-behaved but still did their part to act like kids: fighting over who got to hold the cereal, then both refusing to hold the cereal and throwing it on the floor in an attempt to throw it in the cart, pushing each other for more elbow room, asking to buy flowers and cookies and ice pops and a stuffed animal and tacos and pistachios and Finding Dora shaped Pirate’s Booty.

    By the time I got to the register, I was ready for the trip to be done. It was still early in the morning, so only a few lines were open. I chose what appeared to be the shortest line and began unloading my stuff onto the belt.

    That’s when I noticed that although I had chosen the shortest line, I had also chosen the one with the slowest cashier.

    She and the woman in front of me were chatting and making small talk as if they were out on a coffee date, not in an increasingly crowded supermarket line with cranky kids and customers that were waiting to pay for their food and get on with their lives.

    I did my best to surrender to the moment and keep it together. I reminded myself that I was waiting to pay for a cart full of healthy, nutritious food for my family—a position many women would do anything to be in. I smiled at my daughters and thought about how lucky I am to have them.

    But still…

    The clerk was really getting to me.

    Finally, she started scanning my food and putting it into bags. And making small talk. And as she talked, she slowed down. Then she stopped and got out a roll of paper towels from under the register and started wiping down the belt where the frozen food had left a puddle of condensation.

    I couldn’t help it: I rolled my eyes. I didn’t respond to her chatter. I refused to make eye contact.

    Who the hell was this woman? She had a job to do and she was stubbornly refusing to do it in the efficient manner I know she had been trained to do it in.

    I judged her. Harshly. And then I judged myself even more harshly for judging her.

    As always, my judgments of her came from a place of fear:

    • That I was going to lose control of my kids who were getting bored and cranky.
    • That I might actually lose control of myself and say something I would later regret.
    • That I never have enough time.
    • That the situation could get worse and then it would feel even harder.

    And then my frustration with her turned into frustration with myself and fear about myself:

    • I’m not patient enough.
    • I’m not kind enough.
    • I’m too much of an introvert.
    • I don’t appreciate what I have.

    People who are in a state of fear can be vicious.

    So what is the answer?

    Love.

    Love means unconditional acceptance of the light and the dark that we all have as humans and understanding that one cannot exist without the other.

    Sure, it’s fair to say that the clerk should have been fully present and doing her job in a way that was efficient and respectful of the customers’ time. But I was making her responsible for my fear-based reaction.

    The clerk was chatty and slow, just like I’ve been many times. Therefore, I really couldn’t condemn her without automatically condemning the same qualities in myself. This was probably why I was judging myself even more harshly than her!

    In reality, there is nothing positive or negative that exists in someone else that doesn’t also exist in us because we are all human.

    Perhaps instead of giving the clerk dagger eyes, I needed to see the experience she was giving me with gratitude. Maybe she was there to remind me that when we allow others to hurt us, we hurt ourselves. This was clearly illustrated by the fact that I quickly turned my anger toward her into anger toward myself.

    Luckily because of my mindset work, I was able to move from seeing the clerk as an opponent and source of frustration to seeing her as a teacher for me and myself as a teacher for her, and also for my daughters who were a captive audience in the car cart.

    Teaching is done mainly by example, and what we teach others we are also re-learning ourselves. What we share is strengthened in us, and so I had the choice to allow peace and love to happen in a moment that felt very un-peaceful by being peace and love.

    Love is the remembering of who we all are at our core. Looking at a situation with love reminds us that our “flaws” are universal and therefore irrelevant.

    Peace in that moment meant recognizing that I was having a vulnerable, overwhelmed moment, which put me squarely in the category of being human just like everyone else.

    I took the lesson of having compassion for myself and for others that the clerk was teaching me and began to see things differently.

    I gave myself a lot of grace and told myself that a moment of being annoyed and an exasperated eye roll didn’t make me a bad or ungrateful person. I reminded myself that both the clerk and I can do things imperfectly still be worthy of love anyway.

    When you find yourself in a judgment/shame spiral, determine that you are willing to see things differently: with love.

    Do this, and you will be guided by the most powerful force there is.

  • A Daily Self-Care Ritual for Anyone Who Feels Lost in Life

    A Daily Self-Care Ritual for Anyone Who Feels Lost in Life

    “When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.” ~Jean Shinoda Bolen

    We all get lost sometimes.

    So lost that we lose track of who we are, where we’re going, what we want, and how to give ourselves what we need to feel nourished and healthy.

    I’ve been there many times, enough times to realize that it’s an inevitable part of life, to realize that it’s okay to get lost.

    The triggers? They’re never predictable.

    Some are subtle and prolonged; some are brief but so huge they knock me off my feet and leave me reeling from shock: the pain of not fitting in at school as a teenager, the sudden death of my father when I was away at university, my first serious breakup, the time I found myself in an emotionally abusive relationship but couldn’t work up the courage to leave, a betrayal by a friend that made me question if everything that we shared was even real.

    At times like these, when I find myself down on my knees, the first thing to go out the window is my motivation to take care of myself.

    I either eat too much or stop eating. I stay in bed all day. I don’t drink enough water. I drink too much alcohol. I become unkind to myself. I lose patience with myself and others.

    It just feels easier to not care.

    It was only in recent years, when I hit my mid-thirties, that I became aware of how repeating this cycle of behaviors wasn’t serving me in any way. In fact, they were keeping me stuck in a negative place and holding me back from healing and moving forward.

    It’s been during this time that I decided to break that cycle and give my intuition the voice and attention it deserved by making the following self-care steps a part of my life.

    I give myself permission to not feel motivated all the time.

    I always thought that motivation was this bright, powerful flame of desire that would drive me to do what was good for me, no matter what.

    After all, if something was important enough, I should want to do it all the time, right?

    Not really.

    As time passed and I gained more experience in life, I came to realize that there will be highs and there will be lows where I’ll feel like jumping off the moving train because it feels like too much work to stay on it.

    It’s important that you recognize this and allow yourself to be in this place without feeling guilty about it. Give yourself the space you need to breathe and be still, then gradually start easing yourself into taking the steps you need to get to where you want to be.

    I set an intention for the day the minute I wake up.

    When life has knocked you off your feet and you aren’t sure where to go, the thoughts that go through your head in the first few minutes of your day can mean the difference between getting closer to the path of healing or drifting further away from it.

    Instead of allowing negative thoughts to take center stage in my mind the way they used to, I now guide my thoughts to these two steps the minute I wake up:

    • I think of three things that I’m grateful for, and then…
    • I set an intention for the day ahead. This can be something as simple as keeping my spirits up throughout the day, or something more challenging, such as coming up with ten actionable solutions for a difficult situation that I may be facing.

    Your intention doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated. It just has to be meaningful to you.

    I prioritize getting enough restful sleep.

    Over the past few years, I experienced several violent break-ins into my home, and at the same time was struggling to deal with an emotionally abusive relationship.

    As a result, anxiety became a constant companion, making it difficult for me to fall and stay asleep.

    Now as I heal, doing my best to make sure that I get enough sleep each night has become a priority for me, and this means having a pre-sleep ritual in place:

    • I make sure my computer is turned off by 8 p.m. and that I head to bed at the same time every night.
    • I don’t drink coffee, but I love tea, so I stick to caffeine-free teas after 4 p.m..
    • I spend an hour before I plan to go to bed doing something that helps me let go of the stresses, excitement, and chaos of the day, and this typically means spending time with my dog and family, reading, talking to a friend, or going through a soothing yoga sequence. Within this hour, I also spend five to ten minutes questioning any stressful thoughts that I might have, with the help of Byron Katie’s “The Work” so that they have less power over me and are less likely to keep me up during the night.

    If you’re finding it difficult to sleep restfully for at least seven hours a night, I encourage you to start putting together a pre-sleep routine that will help calm your mind and body down to make falling and staying asleep feel easier.

    I focus on building mindfulness.

    Having been an emotional eater since my teens, it can be easy for me to fall back into my old pattern of turning to food for comfort when stress and anxiety get the better of me.

    This is why nurturing mindfulness is an important part of my daily routine, especially when things get rough.

    Rather than numb myself with food, alcohol, compulsive shopping, or some other habit that helps me avoid facing the difficult emotions I’m experiencing, I acknowledge their presence, the discomfort that they’re stirring up in me, and what the old me used to do when they came up.

    I then consciously make the decision to not give in to those old habits—habits that I know will ultimately drag me down and hold me back from getting back on my feet.

    If you’re struggling to give up a habit that you know isn’t good for you, here’s my challenge to you: Every time you’re tempted to say yes to that box of donuts, bottle of wine, or pity party, ask yourself, “Is this going to make me stronger?” If your answer is no, move away from it.

    I make gentle movement a part of my day.

    I know I can’t be happy and capable if my body isn’t healthy and strong, so I make time three to five times a week to exercise.

    If I’m not in a good place and am running low on energy, I can’t make it through an intense workout that involves heavy equipment, so I shift gears and go slow with my own body weight instead.

    Fitness isn’t always about going hard and fast all the time or getting flat abs—it also means being able to listen to your body and spirit so that you can add purposeful movement into your day that helps you build the resilience you need to deal with the anxieties of everyday life.

    I learn something new that will strengthen me from the inside out every day.

    Whenever I feel stuck in a rut or painful place, I often have my gut telling me that it’s because I may not yet have the necessary skills, insights, or right mindset to heal and break free from it.

    This is why I set a goal to learn one new thing every single day by reading a book, blog post, listening to a podcast, or even connecting with someone who has more experience than I do so I can approach life or a particular situation that I’m in from a fresh perspective.

    The internal shifts that happen don’t have to be huge, but they do add up in a way that makes a significant difference to my life: I gradually become stronger, gain more clarity, and start feeling more confident about taking that first step in a new, healthier direction.

    No matter how low or lost you feel right now, I want you to know this: There’s always a way out and up, and it will always start from within you.

  • How Letting Go of Your Goals Can Make You a Happier Person

    How Letting Go of Your Goals Can Make You a Happier Person

    “No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.” ~Alan Watts

    When I started kicking chairs at work, I knew things had gone too far.

    I didn’t kick things when other people were around, and I thought it was the perfect way to release my anger. I could lash out with as much fury as I wanted, but I didn’t hurt anyone.

    Why did I start kicking chairs? I’ll explain in a minute. But the truth was, I was hiding a bigger problem: I’ve spent much of my life hating myself.

    When I was eight or nine years old, my mom asked if I was okay. She had heard me sobbing in the shower.

    I told her I was furious at myself because I hadn’t been writing in my journal. I had skipped a few days, and a few days had turned into a few weeks, and now I was too far behind to catch up.

    I was miserable. At nine years old, my life held no purpose because I hadn’t written in my journal for a month.

    My mom comforted me, but I repeated the mistake countless times.

    In my teens, I crafted a set of rules to lead me to perfection.

    My plan was a sixteen-page document with eighty-four rules for the New Year. It included everything from a plan to improve my handwriting to why I would never use sarcasm or ask for seconds at dinner.

    Focusing on specific rules would have made a few goals more manageable, but by January 3rd, I realized I couldn’t keep up with all eighty-four. So I blamed myself. I felt like a worthless human being who couldn’t do anything.

    It only grew worse after someone broke my heart.

    I spent years wondering where I had gone wrong. The person I wanted in my life refused to be with me, and I couldn’t figure out how I had messed up.

    The answer, it always seemed, was that I wasn’t perfect enough. To appease the gnawing pain, I’d create a new list of goals.

    I decided to build a body that would win me love. I spent ten hours a week lifting weights. I ate 4,000 calories a day for months to build muscle and then starved myself on 500 calories a day when I decided I didn’t look lean enough.

    I spent $500 on new clothes in one shopping trip, only to find I was the same person inside, just in different fabric.

    I earned a perfect 4.0 GPA in college and a well-paying job afterward. I immediately started working towards a new career, hoping the allure of accomplishment would make myself more appealing.

    None of the changes made a difference.

    When my extreme measures backfired, I bullied myself even more.

    I was a failure at relationships because I was a failure at becoming perfect because I was a failure at everything.

    It shouldn’t surprise you that a few years later, I realized I was unhappy. I wanted to become a happy person. I wanted to be cheerful.

    So naturally, I created a goal of becoming happier. I measured my happiness each day and tracked my progress.

    But when looming anger crippled that happiness, I became ruthless with myself again. I wasn’t happy because I could never be happy. I was a loser at even the most basic of human emotions.

    And so I started kicking chairs.

    My life had become a cycle. A cycle of feeling like a failure, setting unreachable goals, missing those goals, and feeling like an even greater failure.

    But the solution had been with me the whole time.

    The solution was to let go.

    That wasn’t one of the solutions. Letting go was the only solution. It just took me years to realize it.

    The few times I chose to let go, I accepted my faults and felt whole again.

    Now I live like that all the time. I allow myself not to meet my goals or even to break them.

    To clarify, I still work to achieve things. But instead of dozens of lofty goals, I have two or three I’m confident I can meet. They are simple, and if they don’t happen, I will be okay. They don’t define my life.

    By letting go of my goals, I am growing more. I am becoming a better person and goals are guiding me—not controlling me.

    If I start to feel overwhelmed, I know I need to let go a bit more.

    I’ve found these three strategies the most helpful when letting go of your goals.

    1. Let go of your goals all the way.

    You must first write every goal. Every single one.

    All the silly, absurd, unrealistic, and idealistic goals you’ve ever imagined. Then consciously let go of them all.

    Imagine what your life would be like without those goals. If you never accomplished any of them. Come to peace with that idea.

    Only then should you add back in the few most important.

    Too many people delete goals, only to think of them for months to come. They decide they don’t have time to read more. But they spend hours wondering about the books they are interested in, how it would feel to read them, and what they would tell friends about them.

    Pondering half-hearted goals will cause as much strife as overcommitting yourself.

    If I choose to let go of a goal, it receives 0% of my mental energy. If I focus on a goal, I give it 100% of my mental energy. That simple.

    2. Let go of your impatience.

    A slow accomplishment is still an accomplishment.

    I tend to overcommit. If I want to become better at something, I’ll decide I need to spend an hour or two on it each day.

    The problem is I can’t maintain that schedule and I give up, disappointed and discouraged.

    I’ve found I work best when I ask myself the likelihood of taking that action step every day for the next month. If I’m less than 90% sure I can do it, it won’t happen.

    Instead, I take a small action step each day, something I’m 90% sure I can do.

    Yes, I want to work out six times a week. But I’ll meet the same goals working out three times a week. It will just take longer.

    Yes, I want to practice guitar an hour every day, but I also know that’s too much time. If I try to practice for 5 minutes, though, I’m 99% sure I’ll be able to do it. If I practice more that day, I’ll feel good, instead of beating myself up when I play for 50 minutes instead of 60.

    3. Let go during your morning routine.

    At the beginning of each day, I review what I accomplished the day before.

    My criterion used to be how much I did. Did I succeed with each goal? I usually found myself lacking.

    Now my criterion is different. Was the day fulfilling? Did I do things that added to my life, even if none of them involved a goal? If so, then the day was a success.

    Whereas most days began with me berating myself for failing at my goals, now I spend my mornings being grateful for the enchanting things I did yesterday.

    When you change the way you measure your life, your life changes.

    In my morning routine, I also spend some time planning what I want to do that day and making sure I am doing the right things. Any task that isn’t important, I let go. It just isn’t necessary.

    The day is better that way, and I’m more productive, too.

    —

    Since coming to terms with my goals and letting many of them go, I am a much happier and fulfilled person.

    Instead of hating who I am, I’ve come to accept myself and my accomplishments. I’ve let go of the goals that held me back and now let the important things push me forward.

    I don’t need a measurement to know I’m happier this way.

  • 7 Lessons to Remember When Life Seems to Suck

    7 Lessons to Remember When Life Seems to Suck

    “I’m grateful for past betrayals, heartaches, and challenges… I thought they were breaking me; but they were sculpting me.” ~Steve Maraboli

    I winced in pain as I climbed off the elliptical. This was one of the few times that I had ever set foot into a gym. And it was out of necessity rather than choice.

    That necessity came from chronic lower back and leg pain, which I had been living with for the better part of six months. At the time, I didn’t know it would end up being just chronic, idiopathic pain.

    All I knew was that it hurt, and I was limping with every step I took.

    The pain had a definite impact on my quality of life.

    For those first two years I could rarely sit for more than five minutes at a time, as a burning sensation would soon envelop my hip and thigh area, making it uncomfortable. The only way to alleviate the sensation was to stand. This was difficult for me, as I am an engineer who makes his living in front of the computer.

    In my quest to get better I saw enough specialists to count on both hands. Because I lived in a small town, they were often two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half hours by car, one way! Imagine the challenges of trying to sit in a car for that long a period of time when the very act of sitting was uncomfortable for me.

    Each time, the doctor would say that he didn’t know what was wrong with me. The good news, at least, was that I was not in danger of dying anytime soon.

    Little did I know at the time that I would find myself on a journey of self-improvement, borne out of a spiritual necessity. As a result, I would make drastic changes to my life.

    I would eventually learn to stop using pain as an excuse not to exercise. I discovered what it meant to make a decision—to decide, really decide.

    I would also discover that I am my own worst enemy, what with the constant barrage of negative thoughts that consumed every waking moment as I sought answers from one doctor to the next.

    Through it all, I would discover the power of meditation to help me deal with life’s stresses (people or situations).

    Four years later, this chronic pain is but a distant memory. From time to time it returns as nothing more than a mild muscle soreness or tension.

    These are the lessons I wish to share with you today.

    You Are What You Think

    Among many of the things I started changing were my thoughts.

    Because I have a history of cancer in my family, when I first started the doctor visits, I constantly assumed the worst.

    Several relatives had already passed away from this disease. My father had two bouts with cancer. Both times, he was fortunate enough to walk away.

    Unfortunately, after each time he still believed the disease was in his body, despite the doctor declaring a clean bill of health some ten years after his first bout.

    Sound familiar?

    Because I had the best training in the world, I saw doctor after doctor, trying to find something wrong with me. I refused to accept the second, third, or fourth opinion that I was really fine. That there was nothing wrong with me.

    Be in the Habit of Questioning Your Beliefs

    It starts with a subtle shift of consciously being aware of your thoughts and questioning them. I’m not saying that you should be constantly monitoring your thoughts. That would be tiring.

    So long as you are able to step back every now and then to ask yourself these questions, you are in good shape.

    • Why did I just think what I thought?
    • From where did I get these beliefs?
    • Are they correct? Is it possible that my beliefs are wrong?
    • What other perspectives are also correct?
    • How are these beliefs helping me?

    Question your thoughts, for they lead to emotions. Watch your emotions, which lead to actions. Examine your actions (or lack thereof), which ultimately lead to results.

    Another way to look at things is this: If you don’t like where you are, begin by looking at your results. Then look at the actions you took to achieve those results. Look yet another step backward to the emotions associated with those actions. Going further back, look at the thinking that created those emotions in the first place.

    Now, can you see why what we think is so important?

    Sometimes Things Have to Get Worse Before They Get Better

    Those words were from my chiropractor, and they would keep echoing through my head as I fought back the waves of pain running down the lower right side of my body.

    I almost laughed when he first said them to me, thinking they were terribly cliché. Yet, this doctor was doing something none of the other specialists could do: alleviate my pain. Within the first hour of seeing him, my discomfort had almost halved.

    Not only was he helping me with my pain, his simple words motivated me to start an exercise program for the first time in my life, despite the pain.

    Keep in mind that two other doctors had also suggested this, but I dismissed their advice, thinking it was crazy to suggest exercise to a patient in pain, since I assumed it would exacerbate his condition. In other words, I thought I knew best.

    As for what led up to those waves of pain, I was on the elliptical, trying this strange machine for the first time in my life. And I was hurting.

    It had only been ten minutes, but they were grueling. The guy next to me made it look easy, clocking in at thirty minutes and still going. I was hurting too much and had to jump off the machine.

    As I stood there wondering what was going on with my health, I had a do-or-die moment: I could give up, go home, piss and moan about how much everything was hurting and what a dumb idea it was for the doctors to suggest that I start an exercise program, and never come back.

    Yet, the words of my chiropractor kept playing back in my head. It shifted my perception: Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.

    At this moment in my journey, my back was to the wall. I had no other direction but forward. I would decide then and there that I would give it another month to see if my condition would improve better.

    Many more times on the elliptical, something amazing gradually happened: My chronic pain was starting to go away!

    The Bad Times Are a Gift

    And so it is with things you are attempting for the first time. It may seem to really suck, when you’ve failed for the 100th time, with success seemingly a long ways off.

    It’s in these bad times that we choose to shift our perceptions and decide that failure is just a feedback mechanism. We learn both from our mistakes and our missed takes in life, about both the situations and ourselves.

    And when we finally achieve success, we can truly appreciate what had at the time seemed like terrible moments in our lives. It’s these moments that brought forth the hidden potential within us. In other words, we discover truly powerful and resilient parts of ourselves that would have lain dormant had these “bad” times not been gifted to us.

    Stop Finding Excuses for Why You Can’t

    Instead, look for reasons why you can.

    Over time, I added weights to my repertoire in order to strengthen my core. Initially, I was concerned about lifting because of my scoliosis. I soon attracted a Crossfit crowd into my life. This would be a source of valuable workout information for me.

    In particular, I met a power lifter (this guy can lift 700+ pounds!) and asked what he thought about scoliosis and lifting. He told me about Lamar Grant, a power lifter who stands at just 5’2” and has scoliosis.

    What was amazing about Grant was that he could deadlift 661 pounds at a bodyweight of 132 pounds. Grant holds world records for deadlifts in his weight class.

    What this friend was telling me was in essence this: Stop looking for excuses for why you can’t do something. Instead, go do it in spite of the situation.

    In my case, I should be lifting to strengthen my core because I do have scoliosis. I should be lifting because Lamar Grant is a prime example of someone who persevered in spite of his circumstances. It was because of his circumstances that he went on to set world records.

    Successful People Are Thankful for Their Circumstances

    Lamar Grant would not have been the Lamar Grant if he never started lifting because of his scoliosis.

    If not for his deafness, Beethoven would have fallen into obscurity as just another live concert performer. In spite of his growing and near complete deafness, Beethoven went on to compose some of the world’s most moving and beautiful symphonic pieces. Almost 200 years after it was written, his music is still listened and enjoyed today.

    These people rose above their circumstances. They asked themselves, “What is it that I am to learn from this particular set of circumstances at this time? How does the Universe want me to grow?”

    In other words, they stopped blaming whatever hand they had been dealt and learned to play it as best they could.

    In my case, I learned the discipline of working out three times a week on top of working through my pain. This discipline would transfer to other areas of my life.

    No matter how tired I am after work or how little I feel like going to the gym, I still do it. I know that as soon as I develop the habit of not going to the gym, then it’s over. Likewise, I simply developed the habit of going to the gym.

    It’s the same with other things I dislike doing. I do them anyway, as they are necessary to the path of success.

    You Can Calm Your Mind Through Meditation

    When I first learned how to meditate, it was one of the most difficult things to do. I would often fall asleep. Or, my mind would wander in totally different directions. I even gave up for some time.

    As I was still studying self-improvement, the concept of meditation kept coming up, especially among highly successful individuals. They often credited meditation as one of the pillars to achieving lasting success.

    So, I decided to give it another shot (or ten!) Over time, I was getting better at dismissing thoughts as they entered my mind, without any judgment or emotions.

    When you learn to mediate, you start to live in your own world, in your own terms. People who would have normally pushed your buttons no longer have the effect they used to have.

    I frequently get comments from my coworkers, who wonder how I can be so patient with so-and-so. They even thank me for being a buffer, or tell me they might have lost it already. I tell them that the “secret” to my inner peace and calmness is meditation.

    The “old me” would have been fuming for days after the offending event. The “new me” responds much differently.

    I have discovered another benefit of meditation. When I was first going through my chronic pain issue, one night I was able to “disconnect” my brain from my body. In other words, for that moment I felt pain-free!

    I now meditate every day for about fifteen to twenty minutes when I first wake up. This is the best time to meditate as your brain is still closest to emitting theta waves. Theta waves are generated during sleep and are the closest to accessing your subconscious you can get.

    By meditating during this time, you tap into the true self within you. As an example of why you would want to tap into your true self, consider this: You might have at one point in your life woke up, hit Snooze on your alarm, turned back to sleep, and said, “I hate my job. I don’t want to go to work today.”

    By meditating right after waking up, you will get closer to finding what truly gets your juices flowing. You discover what your real values and passions are so that you can start living authentically.

    Those intuitive thoughts or random ah-ha moments that you’re trying to tap into during meditation do not necessarily come during meditation. For me, 99% of the time they come when I’m taking a five-minute break, sipping some tea, working out, taking a walk, washing dishes, or doing something as mundane as sitting in the dentist’s chair.

    In other words, the payoff is outside of meditation. Through meditation, you learn to first let go of random thoughts so that you stop obsessing over the ones that hurt you. Instead, you want to focus on the ones that resonate with you.

    Most of All: Decide!

    You have to decide, really decide, what it is that you want. We have all made half-baked decisions in our lives. We put in the effort for a little while before giving up. That’s not really deciding.

    You already know what it is. When you have really decided, you feel it in your gut. You know that no matter what happens, no matter how long it takes, no matter how hard it is, you will see it through to the end.

    For me, it was that do-or-die moment when I was in pain from being on the elliptical. My back was to the wall, and I truly had no place to go but forward.

    Even to this day, when I am about to make a big decision, I think back to this defining moment and the emotions it wrought. I know I have really decided when I feel those same emotions.

    So grab hold of that feeling. Or, look for it when you make a decision. That’s how you know if you truly meant it when you decided.

    The Lessons at a Glance

    To sum up the lessons learned, here they are.

    • You are what you think. So, choose carefully!
    • Question your beliefs.
    • Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.
    • Stop finding excuses for why you can’t. This is called blaming. Instead, find reasons why you can. This is called taking the initiative.
    • Be thankful for both the good and the bad in your life for both are gifts.
    • Meditate
    • Really decide.

    I used to wonder if, given the chance to be spared those three years of pain, infirmity, and uncertainty, would I take it.

    I have come to realize that at any given moment, life brings with it challenges. With each challenge is the amazing the opportunity to grow, so long as we see it this way. Others may rail against it.

    It’s made me the person I am today. I would have missed all those important lessons and tremendous opportunities for self-growth. More importantly, I would have missed sharing those lessons here today.

  • Dealing with Rejection: It Doesn’t Mean That You’re Not Good Enough

    Dealing with Rejection: It Doesn’t Mean That You’re Not Good Enough

    “The best way out is always through” ~Robert Frost

    I was trembling as I hung up the phone. He’d dumped me.

    It was as if, while I was watching a murder mystery at the edge of my seat, the electricity had gone out. Poof! I wasn’t going to get to see the end of the movie, and I had no control over when the lights would come back on.

    I felt the fangs of rejection sink into my heart like a merciless tarantula. My mind, which is normally going 500 miles an hour, came to a halt. Suddenly I felt nothing. Frozen. I had no thoughts. Total shock. The poison of the rejection spider slowly oozed into my bloodstream, paralyzing me in my seat.

    “Get up! Get up now!” I heard the voice in my mind say. For some reason, it seemed as if moving could unfreeze my emotions.

    I did get up, but stood there as if I was listening to the strange noises coming from the kitchen in the middle of the night. Waiting for someone to tell me that I was “punked” and that he was going to call me back to tell me that it was just a silly joke. Then we were going to make up and live happily ever after. That did not happen.

    “We create what we defend against.” ~Marianne Williamson

    We had a few close breakup calls before, and I always felt like I dodged a bullet when we ended up in a smooth place. Apparently, we had used up all the close calls reserved for us.

    It was official: I was just not good enough. I was too broken to be loved. No one was going to love me forever. Um, can I get that in writing as well? I did. An email followed his phone call. It was as official as an IRS letter arriving on a Friday afternoon.

    The words I had dreaded, protected myself against at all costs from the man who had professed his undying love for me: “Banu, you are too this and that. So I am out.” He said he was sorry.

    Clingy is not sexy, nor is desperate. I had become both. All because I had not done the work to correct a limiting belief that runs in almost every human being on the planet: I am not good enough.

    In the following days and weeks, as my emotions defrosted in the scorching heat of heartache, I felt a strange sense of relief. Finally, it had happened. I was still alive. Still breathing. Still able to work, bathe, and feed myself.

    There was no news coverage on CNN about how my heart was broken, nor did the ending of my relationship break the Internet. Life went on for everyone as usual, except for me. It was the beginning of my freedom and I didn’t know it.

    I had feared being broken up with all my life because, deep inside, I believed that I wasn’t good enough. That belief was so deeply ingrained in me that I had finally created it.

    I was always the one to end a relationship because the fear of the other shoe falling would tap out my nervous system sooner than later. The guy could barely recognize the confident woman he fell in love with, who now was an emotional wreck, clinging to him for dear life.

    “A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.” ~Jean de La Fontaine

    I am convinced of one thing: People come into our lives as mirrors of who we are.

    If we don’t recognize our worth, causing us to seek validation and approval from others, the world mirrors that, and we meet people who don’t see our worth either.

    Rejection seemed like death to me. It was. It was the death of my old self and the birth of a new era of new choices, thoughts, and beliefs about my own self-worth.

    It was unfair to tie my sense of self to the approval of one man. Unfair to both parties, in fact. What if he had died in a car crash? Was I going to become worthless then?

    The gift of getting dumped was that I saw that I could still stand on my two feet and manage not to turn to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain. I allowed myself to feel, journaled to process what was coming up, and paid attention to the self-negating stories I was telling myself.

    You would think that it would be devastating when you are rejected for the very things that you perceive are your biggest flaws. It wasn’t.

    The blessing is that, once we get through the disappointment, anger, and pain, if we are willing to look at the truth of the situation, we will find the door that has been left unlocked, leading us to freedom and our self-worth.

    And it is not the “He was a jerk anyway; it’s his loss” kind of freedom. It’s the “I am worthy of love, and I’ll be darned if I leave my sense of worth in someone else’s hands again” kind.

    It’s about making a commitment to value ourselves, and living as if we do. This affects our choices, from what we eat, what we wear, and how we behave to how fast we get up after we fall.

    “The world is a mirror, forever reflecting what you are doing, within yourself.” ~Neville Goddard

    Looking back, I could see that I had set myself up for rejection so that I could learn that my own self-rejection hurts more than someone else’s.

    I had been unknowingly rejecting myself for the things he recited as he said his final words. He was a perfect mirror.

    And the healing wasn’t going to come from someone telling me how wonderful I am fifty times a day. It was goi­ng to come from me believing it and living it. The importance of self-love and self-appreciation was the lesson.

    Through this experience, I got some insights into rejection by a love interest, which you might find helpful:

    1. Everyone experiences rejection.

    Even the hottest, most intelligent, most successful people on the planet get cheated on or broken up with. If you think that your size 10 body, your negative bank balance, or your dead end job are the reasons why you might be rejected, think again.

    If physical perfection or success could guarantee that we never get broken up with or experience heartache, no fashion model or mogul would know what rejection feels like. That’s not the case, is it? It’s a common human experience, and though it can be painful, what hurts more is the belief that rejection says something about our worth.

    2. Trying to be something we’re not just to please someone else is essentially rejecting ourselves.

    Because then we don’t get to discover who we are and be that person. We get stuck in the role we know they want us to be. We cheat ourselves of an authentic existence.

    What people like or need is strictly personal to them and dependent on where they are in their lives. If someone rejects you because they want something else, that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It just means they’re not the right match for you.

    3. Once you experience rejection and work through it, the fear loses its sting.

    If someone chooses to not be with you anymore, and you use the experience as an opportunity not to reject yourself, you are getting to a place where you will know that you will be okay no matter what.

    You get to a place where you think, “Too bad it didn’t work out. I can see what I need to heal and change more clearly now. It hurts, but I am okay.” You can only go up from there. Unfortunately, we can’t get there without going through it.

    “The best way out is always through.” ~Robert Frost

    Rejection is a part of life. If you have experienced it, consider yourself lucky. You now know that you can survive it. If you have not, believe me when I say this: You will be okay. And perhaps, as it did for me, rejection can lead you to a deeper sense of self-love and self-acceptance.

  • Does Your Partner Often Get Angry and Shut Down Emotionally?

    Does Your Partner Often Get Angry and Shut Down Emotionally?

    Relationship Trouble

    “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” ~Carl Jung

    Three years ago I was on top of the world after realizing I had fallen in love with my best friend. Relationships this rare are beautiful, until one vital piece of them breaks down: clear communication.

    Although I didn’t know it at the time, when my ex and I came together as a couple, rather than being in love, we were both just mirroring each other’s deep unconscious pain; his mother had walked out on him at a young age, and my mother had unconsciously shut me down emotionally at a similar time in my life due to her pain and frustration with the reality she had created.

    I was not my most wise when I was with my ex, and I certainly wasn’t connected to my highest self. Instead, I was living from my mother’s pain, which I had taken on as my own. And I was putting undue amounts of pressure on my partner to step up and be the man I was waiting for him to be instead of accepting and loving him for the one he already was.

    So many of us do this, but it’s not our fault. If our parents only ever show us how to behave in childish or selfish ways, then that’s what we’re going to default to when we’re under pressure in our own relationships.

    I watched my mother behave resentfully toward my father on a regular basis when he did something that in her eyes was inherently “wrong.”

    I watched her shut him out for working late or not living up to her expectations, because she was struggling but unable to communicate how she was feeling.

    Then, whenever my partner did the same thing to me and I also considered it unjust, I activated my mother’s pain and everything she had taught me as a child. Consequently, I did the exact same thing to him, toxically damaging the trust between us.

    What I didn’t realize was that I needed to fully heal the wounds of my past. Without first doing my own healing work around my relationship with my mother and really understanding what she was going through, I could never fully love or trust a man, whether that man was my best friend of fifteen years or not.

    It appears that most people are recovering from a broken heart caused by one or both of their parents.

    I was broken hearted not from the so-called flaws in my partner and our relationship (although there were many issues), but from the deep, unconscious sadness that stemmed from never experiencing real love.

    If our parents are never educated on how to show us love, how can we hope to give that to ourselves and then create a strong foundation on which to meet a partner?

    It’s hard to show our true feelings to the person closest to us in our adult life if, as kids, we were repeatedly told to “shut up” every time we started crying.

    My mother’s behavior, learned from her own mother, made me numb and often terrified. She taught me that I needed to be perfect, and I unconsciously expected that same perfection of my partner.

    Because my mother had exhibited cruel behavior toward me when I was a child, I often didn’t feel safe to express myself around my partner and just be who I really was. So I often activated pain and anger that wasn’t mine, but was actually hers. I didn’t feel permission to ask for what I really wanted in my relationship, or anywhere else in my life.

    My ex and I were products of loveless marriages full of fighting, anger, and emotional numbing. That’s the education that many of us receive on relationships as kids, and so that’s what many of us perceive as “normal.” Then we carry that education into our own adult relationships and interactions.

    My ex’s stories and mine matched; neither of us had parents that showed us what it really meant to feel safe and secure.

    If we could all learn how to tap into and release our subconscious pain and understand each other and our differences, our relationships would take on a completely different form.

    I didn’t know how to communicate my feelings without my partner feeling judged or rejected because I had such a backlog of unprocessed emotion. In the same way, he didn’t know how to fully let me know he loved and supported me without feeling that he had to risk his masculinity and pride by being intimate and letting me into his heart.

    If we misunderstand each other and make assumptions that our partners don’t want to support us, we continually shut them down emotionally.

    So here’s what we need to understand and remember when our partner seems to be shutting down or struggling.

    We’re not angry with you. Our hearts were broken at a young age, and we’re not always aware of how deep that pain goes or how to communicate that to you.

    We don’t require you to troubleshoot for us when we’re struggling. We simply long for you just to listen to us talk about how we’re feeling and hold us in your arms when we’re not feeling good enough.

    We don’t mean to take our frustration out on you. We’ve just forgotten how to really love and nurture ourselves because we were never shown how to connect to ourselves on a deeper level and put ourselves first; you can remind us that it’s more than okay to do that at the times you can see our strength wavering.

    When we pull away, it’s not really the person you can see in front of you that’s doing this; it’s the terrified little child inside of us who has been frozen in time, and who’s still scared of getting their feelings hurt. Sometimes that child just needs a reassuring hug.

    There’s no doubt that our parents can mess us up emotionally, but it’s up to us to change the stories we have been conditioned to believe are our reality.

    Really, all that was playing out in my relationship was the result of what both of our parents had shown us. I denied the painful feelings of my parents’ divorce and played that story out unconsciously with my partner.

    Most people exist in relationships unconsciously, but if we’re serious about creating real and healthy partnerships, we need to become conscious. It’s about finding the best in each other every single day and co-creating an epic and expansive life together that allows two people to grow as individuals, as well as together.

    It’s time for us all to wake up and do the necessary work to understand each other so that we can coexist on this planet without pain, and learn to live only from love.

  • Happiness Is Feeling Good About Yourself Without Needing Approval

    Happiness Is Feeling Good About Yourself Without Needing Approval

    Happiness

  • What Really Makes Us Happy, and Why

    What Really Makes Us Happy, and Why

    Happy woman

    “Whatever you do, make sure it makes you happy.” ~Unknown

    Like many of us, I live paycheck to paycheck. Which is okay. We aren’t alone. CNN reported nearly 76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

    I want to give a quick shout out to all the hardworking folks out there who budget every week to see how much they can spend on groceries. We got this.

    So back to that 76% number, for the sake of simple math that means that three out of every four people are living paycheck to paycheck, which sounds about right in my experience.

    I guess I have rich friends, though, because they all have big savings accounts, houses, and nice cars.

    Am I a little jealous? You bet. I am sitting over here hoping my car makes it another six months.

    I drive a 2002 Acura RSX, with over 150,000 miles on it.

    Some people might be thinking, there’s plenty of life left in that car; what are you talking about? This might be true, but it’s starting to give me problems, and not being a car guy, I’m left trying to figure out what is worth fixing and what can be put off and paid for at a later time. Not the most reassuring thoughts when commuting.

    You might be thinking, oh great, another one of these “woe is me” posts. But bear with me; you might be surprised what I learned by the end of this.

    More to the point, I have always wanted a truck, for a variety of reasons that I won’t get into right now.

    So my plan was to start saving for one.

    I started reading about ways to save money and put together a plan. Here are the quick highlights of what I did to save up enough for the down payment.

    • I called Comcast and cancelled my cable (saved $80/month)
    • I refinanced one of my credit cards (saved $20/month)
    • I opened a ROTH IRA and put $35 a month in there because I can make better returns than it sitting in savings, and it helps me not spend it frivolously ($35/month)
    • I started tracking my beer consumption and cut it way back ($30ish/month)
    • I cancelled my Audible subscription ($15/month)
    • I priced out my grocery budget and realized I could save money by ordering from a meal service ($20/month)
    • I started saving everything I could from each paycheck ($100+/month)

    Total savings: $300/month

    It took a while, but I was able to finally save up enough.

    I was so pumped to start shopping for my new truck. (I had my heart set on a Toyota Tacoma 4×4.)

    I started looking on AutoTrader, Craigslist, and Cars.com, and would Google every dealership I drove by.

    I even test drove one and had a huge smile on my face the entire time.

    Dealers were calling and emailing me every day (which was annoying, but I secretly liked the attention). They were out there looking for the perfect truck, with my requirements and in my price range, just for me.

    Then it happened. I got punched in the face with buyer’s remorse.

    I started thinking, am I really going to spend $25,000+ on a truck just to fit in and be like my friends? Is this really the best purchase for me? Will buying this really make me happy in the long run?

    I started getting nervous thinking about the downside of taking on more debt.

    I started to calculate the difference in insurance, gas, etc., and got frustrated with my lack of thoughtfulness up until then.

    To make sure I wasn’t just beating myself, I consulted with my dad on the topic. He gave me some great advice.

    He said, “Son, there are going to be things in life that you just want but can’t really afford. If it makes you happy, go for it, because working hard your whole life and being unhappy isn’t worth it.”

    That made me feel a little better. But my dad said something that really got me thinking. If you read between the lines, what he really said was “find what makes you happy and do that.”

    So I sat down and started thinking about what would make me happy.

    I thought about it for a couple of days and came to a big realization: The truck wasn’t going to bring me the happiness I ultimately wanted.

    Saving money is what really made me happy.

    Saving money is a powerful habit to create for yourself.

    The reason why saving the money felt so good to me was because I proved to myself that I had the discipline, persistence, and knowledge to do what was necessary to save.

    This may sound weird, but I was proud of myself for saving the money, not for being able to impress my friends with a new purchase, but for having the self-control and introspection to question what I really wanted.

    I knew that saving money for my future would make me happier over the long run, so I decided to put off purchasing the Toyota Tacoma (sorry, dealership dude who is still calling me).

    I thought about it long and hard and decided to fund my ROTH IRA with the truck down payment.

    The big realization for me was that buying expensive items to fit in, in an attempt to buy happiness in the short term, wasn’t nearly as rewarding as saving for my future.

    Maybe one day I will buy a truck, but that will only happen when I can take on the payment and everything else that goes with car ownership and be comfortable enough to keep saving money as well.

    After reading some basic personal finance books and learning about how you can make money work for you, it seems like a no-brainer to put off big-ticket items in favor of a healthy savings account. Already, my decision to invest in myself was paying off.

    Ask Yourself, Is the Outcome of Your Goal Really What You Want?

    If you are thinking about a big change in your life, or thinking about splurging on a big-ticket item, ask yourself:

    • Are you pursuing this goal because you think you should, or because you’re comparing yourself to your friends?
    • Does your goal align with your top values in life (the few things that are most important to you)?
    • If your goal involves buying something, could you use the money you’ve saved in a way that would be more meaningful to you?
    • Raise the price. Would you still pay for your goal if it costs five times what you want to pay for it?
    • How will you grow as a person by achieving this goal?
    • How will the ones you love benefit from your goal?
    • Will you be proud of yourself for what you have accomplished with this goal in ten years?

    If you found it difficult to answer some of those questions, you may want to think about what you really want and if your goal is leading you to the best version of yourself.

    I learned that when you are looking for happiness, it’s worth it to sit down and question if what you want will really provide it.

    For me, working toward a goal and reaching it was what made me happy. Having extra money to contribute to my future made me excited and helped have a more positive outlook on where I was going in life.

    Hopefully you have a goal in mind for the near future. I would challenge you to question yourself about your true motivations and what will really make you happy.

    You got this.

  • How to Deal with Painful Emotional Triggers in Your Relationships

    How to Deal with Painful Emotional Triggers in Your Relationships

    “A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.” ~Unknown

    I’ve been looking for a new job, so I recently decided to update my resume.

    “Hun, can you please help me with that?”

    “Of course, my love.”

    “Thanks, babe.”

    Not only did my wife help me revamp my resume, she drafted me a killer cover letter as well.

    “You’re the best, babe!”

    “Happy to help, sweetie.”

    I opened the cover letter the other day and found a discrepancy, something that immediately touched my deepest core wound.

    There, at the bottom of the page, where my name, email address, and phone number are supposed to go, was someone else’s phone number, not mine. It wasn’t even remotely close to being mine.

    Within a matter of seconds my panic alarm went off. Abandonment alert! Abandonment alert!

    Is my wife is cheating on me? Where did she meet this guy, and how long have they been talking to each other?

    No exaggeration. That’s right where my irrational thoughts went.

    I Googled the number and found that it belonged to a John Smith from Los Angeles. (That’s not his real name.) It was like pouring gasoline on an already burning fire. Who the heck is John Smith?

    As if that wasn’t bad enough, I went to Google images and saw that John Smith is a tall, slender, good-looking guy. WTF?! She’s sleeping with this guy. I just know it!

    Stop, Zach! Stop!

    I couldn’t. The part of me that’s afraid of being abandoned was in charge and driving the bus straight down to crazy town. What should have been contained (my fear of abandonment) leaked into our relationship.  

    I text my wife to ask if she was available for a quick phone call.

    “As long as it’s quick,” she replied.

    I had no intention of actually accusing my wife. I just wanted to ask if she knew whose number was at the bottom of my cover letter. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

    “I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” she said.

    “I don’t know who John Smith is, nor have I ever seen that number before.”

    “I was just using a template that a friend gave me.”

    A template? Yeah right. Who the heck is this guy?

    I kept telling her that I wasn’t accusing her of anything, which was a complete joke. News flash, Zach: Anyone could’ve seen that I was accusing her even if I didn’t say the actual words. It was total covert manipulation on my part.

    And it gets worse.

    Talking to my wife wasn’t enough to ease my panicked mind, so I picked up my phone, blocked my number, and called John Smith. I’m gonna get to the bottom of this!

    Ladies and gentleman, we have a full blown blazing inferno.

    Turns out his name isn’t John Smith. It’s Bob Smith. (Again, not his real name.) After getting his voicemail I did one more Google search and found out that he works at the same company that my wife’s friend works at. The same friend that gave my wife the cover letter template that she used for me.

    I let out a deep sigh of relief because it finally all made sense. There was no other guy. It was just a larger than life story that I made up in my head.

    With the fire finally out, I took the steering wheel away from the part of me that lives in fear, called a friend, and told him what I did. In hindsight, it’s something I should’ve done right from the get go, but we have to make mistakes to learn and grow.

    Look, I get it, I was freaking out that day. Not because of something my wife did but because I was emotionally triggered and in a fearful place. I assumed she was cheating on me—“assumed” being the keyword—and then I reacted by blaming her for how I was feeling.

    But why?

    Emotional triggers stem from our past, and they can be very painful. When touched upon, we become hypersensitive and we make up stories like I did. We react and blame someone else because we don’t want to re-experience a painful childhood feeling.

    It’s a way for us to remain in control rather than feeling out of control like we felt when we were little. It’s a coping mechanism. An unhealthy one, but one nonetheless.

    When I was little, my mom died of cancer. It was painful and scary, and deep down that little boy, me, is positive that someone will leave him again. When that part of me gets triggered, it’s the scariest feeling in the world.

    Containing something that scary is difficult to do, but I believe necessary for our personal growth.

    I’ve put together a list of what I believe are healthy alternatives for dealing with thought patterns that can sabotage relationships in all areas of our lives. Remember, it’s not the fear destroys relationships; it’s how we handle them.

    Practice Healthy Boundaries

    My therapist and I talk a lot about healthy boundaries. A good boundary acts as a block for all that wants to come out, and it also acts as a filter for all incoming and outgoing information.

    For example, a healthy emotional boundary for me would’ve been to see the incoming information—the wrong number at the bottom of the cover letter—for what it really was: just a random wrong number.

    My wife has never given me a single reason to doubt her, ever, and this is where my fears should have come to an end, but instead I allowed the false information to seep in and affect me. That’s me having a bad personal boundary.

    Next, a healthy boundary would have prevented me from blaming my wife because boundaries help to regulate how reactive we are. They help us contain everything that so desperately wants to come out.

    When executed correctly, boundaries help us develop a better sense of self because we learn to hold ourselves accountable for our feelings and our behavior.

    Share Our Fears with a Close Friend/Mentor

    I called a trusted friend later that day, and he reminded me that I was reacting to a past experience. “Zach, the death of your mother was completely out of your control. She didn’t want to leave you. You’re not a bad person. She loved you.”

    Tears streamed down my face as he reminded me of this. I was finally feeling my feelings. The tension that consumed my body earlier in the day was gone.

    My friend encouraged me to write down all of the fearful thoughts that I had around this specific event. He reminded me that I’m powerless over a negative thought entering my mind but not over what I do with it.

    Writing helps with this because the longer we stay in our heads with our fearful thoughts, the worse the problem usually gets.

    Feel Our Feelings

    I’ll never get over the loss of my mother if I don’t learn to sit through my painful feelings every time they come up, and I can’t sit through the painful feelings if I’m reacting and blaming someone else for how I feel. That’s not me living my truth, and that’s not me developing a sense of self.

    Truth is, it’s scary when my abandonment wound gets triggered, but I’ll never get over the pain if I don’t learn to sit with it.

    What I should’ve done that day was allow myself to feel the emotional pain that was coming up for me and let it pass. That’s me leaning into and working through the feeling rather than reacting to it. Remember, it’s not someone else’s job to take care of us emotionally; it’s our job.

    —

    I called my wife after talking to my friend and told her I was sorry. I told her that in the future I would do a better job containing the part of me that’s afraid of abandonment. She didn’t deserve to be blamed for a wrong number; that was all me.

    Bottom line, blaming someone else for how we feel doesn’t solve our problems. Honesty, feeling our feelings, and ownership does. We miss an opportunity for personal growth when we react and blame other people for how we’re feeling.

    It’s about progress, not perfection. Personal growth is a daily practice, and we’re all worth it. Even me. Namaste.

  • Trying to Change Your Life? 6 Reminders to Help You Keep Going

    Trying to Change Your Life? 6 Reminders to Help You Keep Going

    “You can’t change what’s going on around you until you start changing what’s going on within you.” ~Zig Ziglar

    When you’re studying for eighteen years to have a chance at a better future, you’re not expecting to end up wearing yellow gloves and washing dishes, right? But what if I tell you that it made me happier than a job sitting behind a desk at a renowned institution?

    You might be thinking now, “If this post is about how to change from a job behind a desk to one behind a sink, I better not waste my time reading it.” But no, it isn’t.

    This post is about the attitude that helped me to overcome a situation that was eating up my soul and create a life that makes me excited about the future.

    We’ve all experienced different kinds of change in life: changes that you don’t want to face, changes that you’re forced to accept, and changes that you can’t wait to see happening but that seem to be impossible, leaving you feeling stuck with what you have.

    After I got my master’s degree in psychology and spent months without a clue about what I was going to do with it, I finally got a job in a pharmaceutical company, working as a psychologist for patients on a clinical trial.

    It felt like I had won the lottery. I had my office and my desk; the company paid for trips around the world and gave us an unlimited supply of coffee and soda. The old-fashioned side of my mind thought, “This is it. I just got myself a job for life.” Yeah, sure.

    After one year there, thinking I had finally become a grownup a with a real job despite my internship-like earnings, I asked for raise and got fired for that reason, two weeks before Christmas.

    At that time, I had no practice in mindfulness and had never meditated, so my boat would rock hard with any little storm. I cried, and it wasn’t pretty.

    How was I going to pay the bills? How was I going to manage to continue living in that beautiful little duplex downtown?

    Well, it turns out, just like most of the things that happen in life, this was also a blessing in disguise.

    Being fired forced me to let go of a life that I was getting used to, even if it was far from my ideals of living in harmony with nature, with time and the freedom to be more creative. It was a wake-up call that forced me to find another path, one more aligned with my values that would lead to a future I could rely on myself to build.

    I decided then that I didn’t want to put my future in others’ hands and wait for their recognition or approval to progress in life.

    Of course, I had moments of uncertainty and a little despair when I was forced to change, and had no idea what I was going to do. I knew that sitting behind a desk again wasn’t going to be the best option, or else I wouldn’t be searching for alternative jobs and alternative lifestyles on every single break I had on that job.

    So how did I move on? Well, first by doing nothing. What? I hear you ask. That’s right. I took the time just to do the things I loved to do, explored more about what they were, and allowed myself to take a break from the “must be doing something” mindset.

    Then, when the opportunity appeared and the moment felt right, I moved to Sweden—a place where I had been happy before—to experiment starting a new life.

    I got a second master’s degree while being a waiter, living in tiny rooms, and taking many skinny dips in beautiful and extraordinarily cold lakes.

    Then I got the courage to travel to India by myself, where I took yoga and meditation courses.

    I did all this with a purpose in mind: to own the creation of my life.

    So even when I was washing other people’s plates with yellow rubber gloves on, I felt happy. It all had meaning; I was pursuing my dreams.

    The result? Now, I finally am my own boss and have full ownership and responsibility for my future. And I get to live in a house with a sea view, in harmony with nature, as I dreamed.All it took was the right mindset, along with calm, courage, willingness, and persistence.

    If you’re going through some imposed change or you’re looking forward to seeing one, it may help to remember these six thoughts that helped me make that transition and create lasting transformation:

    1. Don’t panic: this too shall pass.

    Just because there’s something you desperately want or need to change, that doesn’t mean you need to go into urgency mode, trying to do all at once. Keep yourself calm and relaxed so that you can make the right choices, not choices urged by worry and stress.

    Change is inevitable; you don’t need to rush it. Just keep yourself open to receiving what life brings you and try to make the best out of it.

    2. Being still is much better than moving in the wrong direction.

    When you calm down and give yourself time for self-discovery and improvement, the next right step will become much clearer.

    If you don’t, you’ll end up getting yourself in some situation that seems different but, at its core, is the same. You’ll just be wasting your precious time—that time that you so want to use wisely and not spend on wrong life decisions.

    3. Change doesn’t happen in a day, it happens with every little habit.

    Sure, there are times when life calls for dramatic changes, such as leaving a job, moving to a different country, or ending a long-term relationship. But the biggest changes are the ones that we cultivate day in and day out.

    Every time we decide to work out and eat a healthier meal, every time we choose a positive thought over a negative, and every time that we do something we love, even if that scares us, we are shaping the course of our life.

    4. Our life is a reflection of our mind; energy flows where attention goes.

    Every day we have an opportunity to make change happen. No matter what situation we’re in, it’s our choice and our responsibility.

    The state of our life is not our parents’ fault, nor the economy, nor luck. The choice and the responsibility for our life and our success are ours, and it starts with what we focus on, how we perceive things, and how that perception influences how we decide to act.

    If we focus on our fears and worries, our actions will reflect that, and we’ll find more to fear and worry about. If we focus on hope and possibilities, our actions will reflect that, and we’ll find more to be excited and hopeful about.

    5. Change means progress, and progress means happiness.

    Life is, in essence, change. Trying to fight it is like trying to stop the seasons.

    Nature is in constant transformation, and so are we, and so is our life.

    If we embrace change as something natural, we can start to cultivate it positively, just as one waters a seed to make it thrive and grow into a fruitful tree.

    When we accept living a progressive, ever-changing life, we feel more alive, purposeful, and proud of ourselves. We see more meaning in the experience of living.

    6. Sometimes, what seems to be a step back can be a huge step forward.

    Many times, what holds us back from going after our dreams is the attachment we feel to what we already have or a stiff idea of how things should and shouldn’t be.

    One shouldn’t be washing dishes with two master degrees, right?

    But it’s the ability to be open and flexible to life circumstances that dictates how much progress, success, and happiness one is able to experience.

    Sometimes, we need to take a step back if we want to move forward.

    Change might not always be easy, but it’s what leads us to different experiences and lessons in life. Isn’t that what life is all about? A journey of evolution and learning?

  • Healing the Inner Child: Free Yourself from Subconscious Pain

    Healing the Inner Child: Free Yourself from Subconscious Pain

    Cute little girl

    “The child is in me still and sometimes not so still.” ~Mr. Rogers

    We’ve all been there. Either we’ve said “Stop acting like a child!” to someone who we felt was acting immature, or someone said it to us in a moment that we’re not too proud about. Many couples would sum up their frustration with their partner by saying that, at times, they act like a child.

    For many of us, we continue to feel frustration and disdain for the part of us that seems to repeat in failure, pain, or foolish behavior. Whether it’s unhealthy relationships, acting out, or some level of attention seeking, no matter how hard we try, there seems to be in all of us a little child that won’t be still and act right.

    I spent most of my life trying not to make mistakes and hiding the parts of me that I knew others would disapprove of. As a kid I excelled in sports, grades, and music. I was “cool” enough to play the drums and always managed to be first chair in the band (this is the best drummer position, for non-band nerds).

    Each week there would be a test to determine who would be first chair. One day, while testing, I forgot to repeat a certain part of the routine. The room fell silent, and everyone turned, looking shocked that I’d made a mistake.

    It didn’t even take me a split second to know what I needed to do. I lied. I told the band director that my sheet music was covered up. She gave me a chance to test again, and of course… perfection. Mistake avoided. As a child, I learned quickly to be perfect and hide my flaws.

    As an adult, the inner child in me is still doing that. The truth is, no matter the issue, the inner child in all of us still acts like a child at times.

    The problem is that most of us do not pay any attention to it. We avoid it, we run from it, we chastise it, but we do not listen to what s/he is saying. Yet, as most experts note, the areas that are causing us the most pain and frustration are the areas that we need to listen to the most.

    If we took the time to stop, sit, and really listen to what that inner child is screaming that it wants, it most likely would point back to something lacking within us, that has its origins in childhood.

    In order to understand what is happening and figure out what to do with this child that’s throwing temper tantrums and causing chaos in our lives and relationships, we must recognize these key points.

    We are very impressionable as children.

    No matter how great of parents we have (or had), they all influence and leave a mark on us.

    I have great parents that love me very much and wanted me to be the best that I can be in life. This message some how got crossed in my childhood, and I felt an extreme amount of pressure to not make any mistakes. I grew up, but that part of me didn’t.

    That child part still gets defensive when corrected, worries about making a mistake, and fears I will be rejected when I do.

    We, as children, generally cannot hold two opposing thoughts.

    If our parents love us but put tons of pressure on us, we tend to cling to the love and suck it up and deal with the pressure.

    If one of our parents is abusive to us but gives us gifts, we accept the gifts as love and bury the abuse deep in our subconscious.

    We desire to see our parents as loving and providing all the nurturing we need. When they don’t, we, as children, can’t comprehend that they have their own issues. So we take the good and bury the bad.

    As adults, that bad stuff we buried subconsciously, the conflict that we avoided, still wants to be worked out.

    The child inside of us begins to scream and figure out ways to get what s/he didn’t get during childhood.

    This usually plays out in relationships.

    The child that is longing to be accepted, as an adult, jumps from relationship to relationship.

    The child that was abused marries an abuser in hopes that s/he is different.

    The child that felt not good enough, as an adult, keeps seeking approval.

    And the child that was abandoned, as an adult, feels that everything is threat.

    The way to fix this is to understand that you hold the key. What that inner child did not get from Mom and Dad, it is longing to receive from you. Not your husband or wife, not your career or success, but from you.

    The abandoned child within needs to hear that you are there.

    The pressure-driven child within needs to hear that you are okay with him/her making a mistake.

    The inner child that never felt loved needs to know you accept them.

    If we can learn to give ourselves enough grace to stop and listen to what that child is trying to tell us, we can then be kind, embrace him or her, and hold ourselves in the arms of self-acceptance and love. When this is done, the inner child becomes still and is at peace.

  • The Key to Happiness

    The Key to Happiness

    The key to happiness

  • When Fear and Panic Win: How to Deal with Anxiety

    When Fear and Panic Win: How to Deal with Anxiety

    Panicked man

    “Anxiety happens when you think you have to figure out everything all at once. Breathe. You’re strong. You got this. Take it day by day.” ~Karen Salmansohn

    As much as I believe that you can move through fear to do whatever it is that you want to do, sometimes fear wins.

    Sometimes, try as you might, you can’t push yourself forward. You retreat, worn, battle scarred, banged up, and with your tail between your legs.

    You wave your white flag. You surrender.

    Fear wins.

    But it is in this moment of loss that you can learn some very important things.

    Let me explain.

    Earlier this year, a friend invited me to a play. Looking forward to it, I got dressed, ate lunch, and headed out to take the train.

    On the train to the show I had a panic attack.

    Sometime along my teen years, I developed a phobia called emetophobia (the fear of throwing up). It manifests itself most often as panic attacks, usually in confined spaces like trains. It had been better for years, and that day on the train the panic came back.

    Through sheer grit, distraction, and tears I made it to the theater, pulled myself together. and tried to pretend that I was okay (to my friend and to myself).

    We made it to our seats in the top row in the corner and panic began again. About five minutes into the show, the panic returned, and all I could do was hop out of my seat and book it down the steps and out into the hallway.

    I tried to wait it out. I went to the bathroom, paced in the hallway, went downstairs, but I couldn’t go back inside. I sent a text to my friend to tell him that I wasn’t feeling well and needed to go home, and then I left, absolutely defeated.

    Still feeling too anxious to get in a moving vehicle, I decided to walk, or rather I just started walking. I walked almost 1.5 miles (or 2.4 kilometers) home wearing heels. About halfway home, I called my mother to tell her what happened and began to cry hysterically.

    What a sight. Fear had won. I had lost.

    Shame, disappointment, and self-hatred poured into my psyche from all angles.

    “What’s wrong with you? You’re defective. You’re unlovable like this. You’re a failure. How can you write about fear when you can’t even master your own?”

    My mind hurled insults faster than I could catch them, and by the time I got home I was so exhausted that all I could do was go to sleep.

    After I woke the next day and in the weeks after, I began to journal about my experience and speak to people about what happened.

    I learned some things that have made a profound difference in how I experience and deal with anxiety now and I’d like to share them with you.

    1. You are not alone.

    The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 18% of adults in the United States experience an anxiety disorder. That’s at least 50 million people! And when you add in what’s likely to be similar rates around the world, that figure grows even more.

    When you’re struggling with fear, it’s easy to feel like you’re alone and no one else goes through what you go through. Anxiety is way more common than you think, and while it’s sad that it affects so many people, you can use that knowledge to lighten up on any judgment you make of yourself.

    2. With that said, there is nothing to be ashamed of.

    Fear, anxiety, and panic don’t make you defective or broken; they make you human. When I experienced a panic attack, I would find myself feeling ashamed. Like I was wearing a scarlet letter, branding me as a worthless person.

    Ever notice how people who suffer from a physical challenge like arthritis or poor vision or a broken leg don’t often feel ashamed about their condition? It’s just something they’re dealing with. They are not lesser people because of it. It’s the same with fear-related struggles.

    There is nothing wrong with you if you struggle with fear, anxiety, or panic attacks. It’s just something that you’re dealing with.

    3. Sometimes fear wins, but it’s how you bounce back that matters.

    If I’ve learned one thing thus far in this journey of life, it’s that there’s always something to work through. This means that while you might be accomplished in dealing with fear in one area (for example, I’ve developed the ability to go to social events by myself, in spite of fear), you might come across other areas that you want to work on, and that’s just life.

    The power comes in recognizing this, acknowledging that you’ve had a setback and then picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and trying again some other time. In that way, fear may win a small skirmish, but not the long-term battle.

    4. Sometimes fear wins, but it’s what you learn that matters.

    Again, fear doesn’t win for long or at all if you learn something about yourself or life through the process.

    When I panicked on the train and at the theatre and immediately went into self-hatred and judgment, I realized just how much I was loving myself with conditions. When things went well, I felt pretty good about myself, but as soon as I felt anxious, I snatched that love away.

    True self-love comes from accepting yourself as you are, not from waiting until you are perfect. It’s about loving yourself in spite of what you feel might be wrong, and not because nothing is wrong. Let those things that you find lacking in your life make you love yourself more.

    Learning to use the panic attack as a signal to love myself more has made me feel safe in my own body to experience whatever it is that happens to come up.

    5. And in addition to self-love, learn to treat yourself with extreme care and kindness.

    Pretend you’re dealing with a small child who is terrified. What would you do? Probably not yell, judge, or berate the child. You would likely give the child a hug, offer to buy them a treat, play with them, or try to make them laugh.

    Pretend you are that child. Give yourself what you would give that child. In many ways we all carry around our child self, even when we become adults.

    6. Who you have in your corner outside of yourself also makes a difference.

    Fear can be so isolating. It’s easier to retreat to the safety of your own known thoughts than it is to chance being exposed or judged by another. At least that’s what I used to believe.

    I now believe that fighting fear completely alone can be so much harder. Having at least one person in your corner who you can talk to about your fears and your bouts with anxiety can help you keep moving forward. Someone who can say to you the things that you have a hard time saying to yourself. Someone who is kind and caring and can help you learn how to be kind and caring to yourself by internalizing their words.

    7. And finally, panic feeds on running.

    It’s the running that makes things worse, so find ways to stay with what’s happening.

    I’ve been learning more about what happens in our bodies when we have a panic attack, and it’s essentially a fear-symptoms-fear cycle.

    You feel or think a scary thought. Your body responds with the fight-or-flight response, causing your heart to race, your breathing to quicken, your hands to shake, your stomach to feel weak. You interpret those physical symptoms as something being wrong and then you get more afraid, furthering the cycle, until you’re in a big panicky mess.

    The most effective way to deal with these feelings is to understand what is happening in your body, know that it’s not dangerous, accept that you feel those things without trying to push them away (being fully able to admit how much the feelings are uncomfortable), and then just wait and let them pass. In time, they inevitably will.

    As much as I resist this, I’ve since tried this approach many times, and while uncomfortable, I’ve seen it work enough that I’m convinced that there’s something to it.

    The more you can view your panic attacks as an opportunity to learn about yourself and practice unconditional self-love, the less you will feel like a victim in your life. And when you feel empowered to know that you can trust yourself to move through any scary situation that comes your way, in the end you will have won.

    I’d love to hear what you do to support your journey when fear and panic win. Please share your tips (or questions) in the comments below so we can all support each other!

  • 4 Simple Sentences That Can Prevent Arguments and Resentment

    4 Simple Sentences That Can Prevent Arguments and Resentment

    Couple with dog

    “There are two sides to every argument, until you take one.” ~Unknown

    The phone rang. My partner and our daughter were away hiking and camping. I’d wanted to go with them, but my partner had discouraged me.

    My partner had a last-minute change of heart, but I’d remained firm. They hadn’t welcomed me, I said, so they could do without me.

    Now, after a day of hiking, our daughter phoned me. They wanted me to join them for dinner and then join them for the second day of the hike.

    How do you deal with feelings of disappointment, frustration, or resentment? How do you deal with differences, apart from arguing or sulking? How do you restore the spirit of love?

    We often feel embarrassed to share our unpleasant feelings. But we all have them. We’re all human.

    So what did I do, and what did I learn to do? It helps to understand why I’d wanted to go, and why I was so upset.

    We’ve traveled to many places as a family. I love the aura of mutual support and love that flourishes during our travels.

    It’s us against the challenges of the world. Each of us gets something done so that all of us can enjoy the trip more.

    For example, when we drove into the center of Melbourne at night, trying to find our hotel, one of our daughters was waiting on the sidewalk to flag us down. When we arrived one night in Matanzas, Cuba, by bus, she surprised us by appearing at the bus stop to take us to a specially prepared dinner.

    Such considerate efforts and little joys tend to nurture the spirit of love. So I look forward to our family adventures, even if it’s only a brief local outing.

    Now I was facing an unexpected situation. I was being discouraged from hiking with them. They said that my leisurely pace would slow them down.

    “Hardly the point,” I said. “It’s a family outing.”

    But they remained keen on walking as quickly as they could. I didn’t really fancy walking on my own.

    I felt rejected, but also angry at being rejected. I hadn’t sulked for some years, but I thought that I was now entitled to a big dose of sulking.

    Eventually, I tried to identify my unpleasant feelings. Finally, I found the exact word I was looking for: “ostracized.” That’s how I felt, I decided.

    People with disfigurements are sometimes ostracized. People with facial burns, or skin diseases, or congenital malformations, all face ostracism.

    I had no disfigurement. I merely tended to walk more slowly than they did. But I felt ostracized by my own partner.

    On the night before they left, I finally blurted it out to my partner: “I felt ostracized by the way you put things.”

    Back came the response, promptly: “I’m sorry for that. That’s not what I intended.”

    A little while later, this was followed by, “Please will you come with us?”

    That illustrates the power of simply stating your feelings. That’s the first lesson I learned.

    Unfortunately, my mind was stubbornly set. “I don’t waste my time where I’m not welcome,” I said. How delicious it is to be stubborn, and how self-defeating!

    They were off before I woke up in the morning. I decided to tackle the many tasks awaiting my attention.

    I embarked on a major project which had long been postponed. It was so absorbing and enjoyable that the hours flew by. Then the evening came, with the surprise phone call from my daughter.

    Would I drive over to join them for dinner? Would I join them for the rest of the hike? “No,” I said.

    But our daughter doesn’t give up easily. She kept talking, telling me about their day, describing where they were going for dinner, and said she’d phone again with directions. A few minutes later, she called again and gave me detailed directions, telling me at what time they expected to arrive at the restaurant.

    “It would be great if you joined us,” she said. The gentle tone of that suggestion lent it power. There was no lecturing, no “you should have,” no “you should,” no judgment.

    She hadn’t been at fault in this whole episode, I thought. So why punish her? I got changed and drove off.

    It turned out to be a charming restaurant, with delicious food. As we chatted, I forgot to stay resentful.

    By the end of the meal, my wish to punish anyone had evaporated. Still, my newly started project at home was far too engrossing. So I decided not to join them for the second day of the hike.

    The next evening, they returned, exhausted and sore from the very long hike. I was almost grateful to have been spared the blisters. I cooked them a nice dinner, to help build on the aura of collaboration and closeness.

    This episode reminded me of four powerful sentences that I’d once been advised to use. These sentences can help transform any argument into a conversation and collaboration. From now on, I hope I remember to use them in difficult situations.

    Here they are:

    1. “There’s some truth in what you’re saying.”
    2. “I feel [like this] when you [say or do] that.”
    3. “It seems as if you’re upset; tell me more about how you feel.”
    4. “It would be good if [this happened].”

    When expectations differ, these sentences enable mutual respect, kindness, and win-win solutions.

    You can insert your own appropriate words or phrases into the brackets.

    For example, here’s what I might have said to my partner:

    “There’s some truth in what you’re saying. I do tend to walk more slowly than you.”

    “But I feel ostracized when you say you want to go without me.”

    If my partner had seemed upset, I’d say: “It seems as if you’re upset. Tell me more about how you feel.”

    If I had a suggestion I’d say: “It would be good if we went together and did one day at my pace, then one day at yours.”

    These four sentences, appropriately modified, can be used by anyone. They can be used at home, at work, or in any difficult situation. They can be used together, or separately, as the situation requires.

    Unhelpful feelings often lead to self-defeating arguments or brooding resentment. Before a situation deteriorates, try using your own version of these four sentences. Use them and be prepared for argument and resentment to turn into collaborative problem-solving.

    Don’t omit listening to the other person. Also, be prepared graciously to accept good suggestions they may make.

    These sentences are simple, but powerful. They help solve problems while restoring the spirit of love. And love heals.

  • Gratitude: The Antidote for Painful Feelings and Fuel for Happiness

    Gratitude: The Antidote for Painful Feelings and Fuel for Happiness

    “The struggle ends when the gratitude begins.” ~Neale Donald Walsch

    The longer I travel on my journey, the more I realize that gratitude is the universal antidote to painful feelings. In fact, it’s the quickest route I know to happiness, which makes it a good idea to be grateful all day long.

    However, when we are in a low mood or something knocks us off course, it can be easy to forget just how many amazing things there are in our lives to be grateful for, even just in one single day. It’s as if a setback erases our memories of all the good things and it feels like nothing has ever gone right for us.

    Like so many things in life, it takes daily practice to develop gratitude. As a wise anonymous person said, “Gratitude is not the result of things that happen to us; it is an attitude we cultivate by practice.” So just how can we practice being thankful and bring more of this into our lives?

    For me, my gratitude diary is the single most effective tool to date in my self-development.

    It’s not a chore, but a practice that is essential to my well-being, combined with meditation to relax and focus on the present moment. I want to share with you just how I approach this, in the hope that it might support and inspire you too.

    A few mornings ago, I woke up very early feeling low, worried, and anxious, and didn’t want to get out of bed. I had suffered a lack of sleep from worrying, and nothing seemed worthwhile.

    I was full of fear and doubt about the less conventional path I had chosen for my life. Shouldn’t I be following the nine-to-five work routine like everyone else?! What did I think I was doing trying to follow my dreams?!

    I had been used to a fixed structure or routine in my life, like a safety net or comfort zone (not that it had been that comfortable, which was part of the reason I chose something else!) Suddenly, I felt vulnerable without it and panicky. What was going to happen to me? My inner critic was working overtime, and I was momentarily in the grip of my fears.

    Luckily, I have established a daily routine of writing in my gratitude diary and doing twenty minutes of meditation first thing every morning for over a year now. I do it without fail, even when I can’t be bothered or it seems pointless. Even when my heart is not in it.

    It’s an important ritual that resets my day on a positive note from the very beginning. In the words of Buddha, “Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”

    Within a few seconds of putting pen to paper, I am reminded of why I do it. Gratitude is a lifesaver. I can’t help but smile as the process of writing helps me remember just how many things I have experienced, even just in the past day, that I am grateful for.

    It’s not so much the words on the page, but the process of recalling the memories and writing them down.

    This also makes me feel, again, the enjoyable emotions that I felt at the time I experienced these things, so it reinforces the positive feelings and sets up a sort of loop of gratitude and of happiness.

    In the words of another anonymous speaker of wisdom, “When you smile about the life you live, you end up living a life worth smiling about.”

    So, here are my tips for how to establish and maintain an effective daily gratitude practice:

    Pick a time of day that suits you.

    The morning is without a doubt the best time for me to write my diary. It sets me up for the day. Not only do I have the chance to review all the wonderful experiences of the day before, but this programs my mind, right at the beginning of my day, to look for things to be thankful for in everything I do.

    I also know people who write such a diary in the evening so that they go to bed having reviewed and appreciated everything in that day.

    Try different times of day to see what works best for you as an individual rather than subscribe to how other people approach this.

    Fake it till you make it.

    Write things down even when it feels insincere. If you are feeling low, it is a great opportunity for this practice to help lift you mood. You would be surprised how quickly your mood can change for the better, even from the time you start writing to when you have finished.

    If you can’t think of anything to be grateful for, start with what seem like small things: the fact that you are alive today, you have a roof over your head, you have food in your belly, you have your breath—not only does it brings you oxygen, but it gives you access to calmness and the present moment. The list goes on, and writing one thing leads to another, until you realize just how much there really is.

    Do it every day.

    Make this part of your daily routine. Even if your mood doesn’t change immediately, persist with the practice. To me, it seems that, like meditation, it has a cumulative effect. So, even if you don’t notice the difference in your mood over the first few days or weeks, don’t give up. It builds a reserve of gratitude in you that will eventually affect every moment of your life.

    I know this might sound too good to be true, but this practice really does start to seep into every aspect of your life.

    Set aside the time to do this as a gift to yourself.

    It is easy to say that we don’t have time to do things. However, using that excuse means we often cheat ourselves out of practices that would really benefit our well-being.

    My diary writing takes me ten minutes before I get out of bed in the morning. I keep my diary next to my bed, and it’s the first thing I do after opening my eyes. To wake up to gratitude is the best way to start my day. Along with twenty minutes of meditation, once I am fully awake and feeling positive from my diary writing, my whole pre-breakfast routine takes me just thirty minutes.

    (Actually, sometimes I go for a run too, if I feel like it—another great way to start my morning.) I avoid the urge to check emails or social media. This is my sacred time that is set aside each morning for me. It’s a way of starting the day as I mean to go on, by taking care of myself.

    Try a format that works for you.

    I love writing, so that is a format that suits me. However, if that doesn’t work for you, try something else. What about drawing? A video diary is another option, or an audio version.

    Another option is to write something you are grateful for on a piece of paper and put it into a jar. After a year, you can open it—maybe on New Year’s Eve—and read all the wonderful things you were thankful for that year. Again, don’t be swayed by the way other people are doing it. If you don’t enjoy the process then you won’t keep up the practice. Do what appeals to you.

    Don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself.

    If you set a target of two pages of gratitude diary every day, you are unlikely to keep the practice up for long. Set yourself a goal that is easily achievable and doesn’t feel like a chore.

    My commitment to myself (as part of a longer list of self-care promises) was to write just three things a day. Anyone can write just three things. You will be surprised, though, how easily three things can turn into a lot more.

    Because I know I only need to write three items, I am relaxed and not pressured. This means that I invariably end up writing a whole page, maybe more, just because I want to and because the gratitude flows easily. You would be surprised, once you get started, just how many things there are to be grateful for.

    Actively choose gratitude.

    Your mind is a powerful and adaptable tool. If you program it to be a certain way, including with the language you use to yourself, then it will learn to be that way. If you program it to look for and celebrate things to be grateful for, then it will learn to do that for you. As Buddha is quoted as saying, “The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”

    It’s our choice and it’s a simple question really: Do I want to spend the day being miserable, or do I want to choose to do something about it and shift my attitude? As Wayne Dyer said, “Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”

    See things to be grateful for in every occasion.

    If you can even identify and be grateful for the opportunities that come to you as a result of seemingly bad occurrences, then you are a master of gratitude and well on your way to a happy life! The ultimate example of this is perhaps famous Haiku poet, Basho, when he wrote;

    “Since my house burnt down,

    I now own a better view

    Of the rising moon.”

    Mine is just one approach to keeping a gratitude diary; maybe you do yours differently. Or maybe you have another gratitude practice that works for you. I would love to hear what you do to focus on an attitude of gratitude.

  • 5 Reasons to Forgive Yourself and How to Do Better Going Forward

    5 Reasons to Forgive Yourself and How to Do Better Going Forward

    “At the end of life, the wish to be forgiven is ultimately the chief desire of almost every human being. In refusing to wait; in extending forgiveness to others now; we begin the long journey of becoming the person who will be large enough, able enough and generous enough to receive, at the very end, that absolution ourselves.” ~David Whyte

    The last time I saw my mother she was smiling and laughing at nothing in particular. My mother has had dementia for almost ten years now. Each visit brings an onslaught of guilt and uncomfortable feelings. Could I have done something different to ease this for her?

    For years I discounted my heritage and all my ancestors, and in doing so devalued her. How could I have been so heartless? How could I have stayed out all night and worried her to death when I was in my twenties? Why didn’t I stay with her in Boston after I married? The list goes on and on.

    I can count each transgression and easily relive the selfishness of a younger version of me. I want to reach back in time and slap that younger self, admonishing her for losing out on caring for the person that loves her most.

    I want to send her the warning that time is running out and she is wasting it on trivialities, ego-centric activities, and hurtful behavior. But I cannot reach back in time, and for many years I carried the burden of a wild adolescence that had no regard for the one who cared most about me.

    There have been times when, on bent knee, I pleaded silently and tearfully for her forgiveness, but she would have none of it. She simply continued her incoherent storytelling with a smile and eyes that were viewing something in the distant past. The best I could do was to stay present with her in her story, allowing her to share whatever needed to arise unconditionally.

    And then it happened.

    During one visit I was again listening to her storytelling, laughing with her, sharing her jokes and following the winding path of her conversation when she suddenly stopped. Something in her eyes shifted. It was as if a light turned on for a moment. And then she said it, even using my name, which she had not recalled for years.

    “Alicia, I’m fine. Let it go. Focus on your life and move on. I’m fine.”

    And with the same suddenness she disappeared into the fog, her eyes coated with the same film that hides the chapters of her life. I burst into tears.

    Grace is Found in Forgiveness

    We discover grace in forgiveness. We unburden the baggage we carry with us when we are forgiven, and when we forgive. Transgressions, real or perceived, carry an energetic and negative tether that creates a network of dark knots that expands as we continue to carry these transgressions through our relationships and into our lives.

    We believe that others hold the ability to release us through their forgiveness. When we surrender the power to forgiveness to someone else we lose the ability to recover our goodness and worth. In truth, we each hold the power to forgive simply because we are the ones that need to forgive ourselves.

    In the moment that my mother spoke I felt a release and then an awareness that the forgiveness I attributed to her was really within me. I needed to forgive myself for my behavior and lack of awareness that created the guilt I carried with me. What my mother did was make me aware that I needed to “move on.” And to do so meant to forgive myself.

    5 Reasons We Have to Forgive Ourselves

    1. The other person may not forgive you.

    For years, I was haunted by past transgressions that caused harm to someone else. The sting of the lies of the past and the impact on those that I cared about caused such shame in me that I became rigid about what was right and wrong. There was no one to call for forgiveness. Those relationships existed in the past and have long since moved on.

    I had to forgive the teenager and the young woman who foolishly thought the world revolved around her needs.

    If you look back into the past you’ll notice you may be carrying shame too. It’s time to forgive the person you were so that the person you are can keep growing.

    2. If you don’t forgive yourself then how will you keep going?

    You can’t make changes or move forward in your life carrying the weight of your mistakes.

    Imagine putting all your past mistakes into a bag, adding to it each time you make a new one. The bag would become so heavy, the burden so great, that it would be impossible to keep going.

    It’s time to put that bag down, take out each item, and forgive so you can let go of the past and move forward, having learned the lessons that will make you a better person than before.

    3. You can’t forgive others if you can’t forgive yourself.

    You have to learn how to forgive, starting with yourself. If you cannot offer yourself compassion and forgiveness, you will never be able to offer the same to others.

    Life’s missteps are an opportunity to learn. These mistakes are useful in that they point you away from the person you do not want to be and reveal the path of growth and authenticity that you can choose for your life.

    4. The shame of the past can only be transformed through forgiveness.

    I confess that I intentionally caused hurt to others out of ignorance or narcissism before I realized what true connection and love were. I’ve learned that when I lash out, it is a projection of the anger or discomfort I feel toward myself. Unless I forgive myself, I will carry that anger into the world and project it onto others.

    Change your anger into a call to attend to something that is hurting within you. Forgiveness is the alchemy that transforms shame into self-love.

    5. To accept and value yourself you must embrace both virtues and flaws.

    We human beings are flawed. We must accept that we are not perfect. We make mistakes, and sometimes we make mistakes that hurt others. However, our mistakes do not define us. They are opportunities to learn about ourselves, who we are and who we aspire to be. By acknowledging our flaws and our strengths, we can consciously choose how we live our life.

    —

    I’ve learned to forgive myself and have adopted practices that help prevent those missteps that cause guilt, regret, and shame. These practices are integrated into my life today because yes, I still mess up.

    1. Practice conscious living.

    Too often we hurt others due to our sheer ignorance or lack of empathy. We are not caring for others when our lives are so full and busy that we are unable to stop and notice how someone else is feeling.

    When you are present to yourself and to those around you, you are conscious of your choices and actions. Your awareness of your environment increases. You will notice the person who is feeling sad or disappointed and offer them a kind word.

    So many of our regrets, the things we wish we had done or said, are due to sleepwalking through our lives. Observing yourself, learning about yourself, and choosing your thoughts and actions means you are conscious and present to your life and to others.

    2. Accept what you have done without denial or justification.

    It’s easy to justify our actions or to blame others for our mistakes. Take responsibility for your decisions and you empower yourself to choose wisely.

    This requires that you face your transgressions and tend to that wound so that you can begin to heal. Do this with an open heart and allow self-love to flow so forgiveness may transform the pain into peace.

    3. Identify what it feels like when you are angry, resentful, or sad so that those feelings do not hijack you into doing harm to others.

    These strong feelings can take us over, and we are left wondering how we could’ve behaved so badly. When you become self-aware, you notice when those feelings begin to arise so you can better manage your emotions. Of course you will feel these emotions at times. This is part of our human nature. Acting on them is what causes regret and shame.

    4. Practice meditation and mindful breathing.

    Through mindfulness, you begin to recognize the impermanence of things so you can make healthier choices. Nothing lasts forever, whether it’s joy or sadness. Sometimes we have to endure the discomfort of the moment by breathing through it until it passes. And it always passes.

    5. Forgive imperfection.

    Self-compassion means you accept that some days, you are doing the best you can do at the time. It’s not perfect but it’s good enough, and that’s fine. Perfection is a heroic standard that no one meets. It sabotages your confidence and self-esteem.

    How different would our world be if we forgave each other? Begin by forgiving yourself and let the waves of that forgiveness ripple out so that one day, maybe, the compassion and forgiveness you offer yourself can create more peace and tranquility in a world desperate for its own transformation.

  • Dealing with Postnatal Depression: It’s Okay to Ask for Help

    Dealing with Postnatal Depression: It’s Okay to Ask for Help

    “The light at the end of the tunnel might seem a long way off. But the switch may be very near.” ~ Anonymous

    When I think about it now, the ominous signs of postnatal depression were there even while I was pregnant.

    What started with worries and anxieties would continue to escalate after the birth of my child, finally coming together like a perfect storm, to become a deep, dark depression that would threaten to take my life away from me.

    Eighteen months after my daughter was born, now barely able to function, I found myself alone in the grounds of a mental health unit. I remember quite clearly looking up at the sky and asking aloud a question that would come to change the course of my life.

    “How did this happen?”

    I’ve spent the last twenty-five years unearthing the answers.

    The Landscape Changed Around Me

    I had sailed through my first pregnancy. My son was a placid baby and slept so much I sometimes had to prod him awake just to make sure he was fed. Life felt perfect but, between my first and second pregnancy, the landscape of my world began to shift and change around me.

    We moved. We took on a much bigger loan, but within a few months interest rates had risen so much we could barely make the payments. The property market had gone from boom to bust, and the value of our house came crashing down around us, threatening to throw us into negative equity. Now we couldn’t move again even if we wanted to.

    The financial pressures caused tensions. This was when I found myself pregnant for a second time. I felt a confusing mixture of joy and fear. This second pregnancy would be nothing like the worry-free first.

    And there was another problem: I wasn’t sure I even liked our new house, or, more to the point, where it was—right next door to a busy pub. Now pregnant, I began to focus more and more of my frustration and anxiety onto the pub and everything I hated about it.

    I hated the way its upstairs window overlooked my garden. I hated the smell of cooking and the sound of people drinking and laughing outside. When I was hot and sleepless at night, if I leaned out of the bedroom window, I could just about hear the extractor fan buzzing relentlessly. How I hated that extractor fan!

    Trapped

    I felt trapped and unhappy. All the worrying in the daytime ensured I slept restlessly at night, or not at all, and I grew more tired.

    Midway through the pregnancy, I caught shingles. Not only could I not take any medication to ease the pain because of possible side effects, but I grew worried about whether the shingles would affect my unborn child.

    But I kept soldiering on, pretending to the outside world that everything was okay. When people greeted me with “Hi, how are you?” I would smile and say, “I’m fine,” as we all do. Nobody wanted the true answer, it seemed to me.

    There was another problem in admitting I wasn’t coping: I didn’t want anyone to think I was anything less than a perfect mother, and there was an underlying concern, whether real or imaginary, that my children might be taken away from me.

    By the time my daughter was born, I was already running on empty, and perhaps that was partly why she was restless, demanding, and so different from my first child. She had eye problems, joint problems, and, as it later turned out, a hole in the heart too, as a result of the shingles.

    By now I felt I was a different person altogether. Hollow-eyed, tired yet wired, I was plagued by a feeling of heaviness, vague aches, pains, and stomach problems. I finally visited my doctor and told him I thought I was having a nervous breakdown. His response was to put me on a four-month waiting list for counseling and to give me a prescription for the antidepressant Seroxat.

    I started taking them and felt so much worse. Now I was foggy-headed and confused too, and I started having disturbing nightmares, often, violent ones. I’ve since found out these are common side effects. It was Christmas and I couldn’t even raise the energy to cook a Christmas dinner. When I did eat, I couldn’t taste the food. I felt I was shutting down.

    I eventually ground to a halt and had to admit how things were for me. The perfect mother mask had finally slipped, and I had no alternative but to be more real. When people asked me how I felt now, I told the truth and it was a relief. Being fake, as it turns out, is really tiring.

    I accepted all the help I was offered. I had no choice.

    I was referred to a counselor, which helped a lot. Finally, I could offload all the worries and ruminations to someone who didn’t judge me, who simply allowed me to talk and hear my own thoughts.

    Friends and neighbors rallied round. People offered to mind the children so I could take a break. I felt I’d forgotten who I was and had to find myself again.

    Months later, feeling calmer, I wandered into the garden and sat down, with my back to the pub, on a swing seat.

    From here, I had a view of my home I had not really seen before. A pretty thatched cottage lay before me with roses around the door and colorful flowers tumbling down from its window boxes. Fatman, my cat, laid stretching and dozing on the path in the sun, and my children slept, safe and sound, inside.

    And in that moment, my perception shifted. I suddenly saw things from a different angle and realized that nothing in my life needed to change; I simply needed to change the way I was looking at my life. Things had happened to me and around me over which I had no control. Finally it hit me like a speeding train: My real control was over the way I chose to respond to those events.

    Nothing, and nobody, could make me unhappy without my permission.

    It was a moment of clarity and insight that became the turning point in my recovery. It was also the start of my long quest to uncover the mysteries of depression.

    How Antenatal Depression Begins

    Being a mother can be the most rewarding, yet the most demanding, of roles. Society has high expectations, especially now with social media piling on the pressure for perfection. Antenatal depression can resolve with the birth of the baby or might evolve, as it did for me, into postnatal depression.

    The signs and symptoms of anti, and postnatal, depression are the same as for any depression:

    • Tears and feelings of sadness
    • Restlessness and insomnia
    • Difficulty concentrating
    • Irritability with yourself, others, or life in general
    • Loss of appetite or overeating
    • Severe fatigue and wanting to stay in bed
    • Difficulty leaving house or handling social situations
    • Aches and pains
    • Loss of interest in things you used to enjoy
    • Loss of hope about the future
    • Feelings of guilt or self loathing

    How to Get the Help You Need

    Be open.

    Communicate with those around you. Explain how you are feeling and ask for support. Talk to friends and family. Other mothers are probably not as confident and upbeat as they appear to be. When you’re honest, it gives others permission to own up to being less than perfect too. Being authentic means you don’t have to pretend, which is such a relief.

    Speak to your doctor about what you’re going through, as well. Many pregnant women and new mothers feel guilty about having negative feelings at a time when they think they should be happy. But being open and sharing your concerns will help you, and others, understand and overcome the problems.

    Go online.

    There are many forums now that support mothers and parents. There is nothing to feel guilty or ashamed about if you are anxious or down. Plenty of others do. Talking openly to others who understand can relieve the burden and isolation.

    Take “me time.”

    Self-care is not vanity. You may be busy running around after other children or family, but you do need to take your physical and mental health seriously and support yourself with a healthy diet, plenty of rest, and some fun too.

    Keep a journal.

    Write down how you feel, to get thoughts from the inside to the outside. However, remember also, to keep a gratitude list rather than just focus on the negatives. Bring to mind the things that have gone well, like a trip out with friends or even a beautiful sunset.

    My list grew longer the more I searched for the positives. As I expressed my gratitude for the things I hadn’t previously paid attention to like my home, my health, a good meal, or even a lovely sunset, I started to be more mindfully aware throughout the day.

    I began to harvest the good stuff and started to feel better. I now know that when we actively look for the good and express our gratitude and thanks, we are re-setting our internal brain filters and begin to re-wire for positivity.

    Practice meditation and mindfulness.

    Track down a local yoga or meditation class. If you can’t visit a class, download one of the relaxation apps and downloads that are now available online. Learning to focus on the present moment trains the brain to switch off when you want it to. In this way, you can take a break from all that negative internal chatter.

    Get some talking therapy.

    Agencies such as MIND or Rethink or the Samaritans offer low cost, or no cost, support, and there are many private therapists too.

    Talking to a professional has some real advantages. They are trained to listen and offer support, and they can help you heal your past and identify changes you may need to make to meet more of your emotional needs.

    Don’t try to be perfect.

    Finally, cut yourself some slack. You don’t have to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect daughter, or perfect anything else for that matter!

    Consider the wisdom in the ancient tale of the carpet weavers.

    The carpet weavers, who were experts at their trade, would spend many months creating the most beautiful carpets, but just at the point of completion, they would deliberately weave a mistake into the intricate pattern, because, as they said:

    “To aspire to be perfect is to aspire to be god-like and who are we, mere mortals, to be as the gods?”

    Editor’s Note: Although the author did not have a positive experience with medication, everyone’s experience is different. Please consult your doctor before considering stopping any prescribed medication.

  • 3 Things That Cause Unhealthy Food Cravings and How to Stop Them

    3 Things That Cause Unhealthy Food Cravings and How to Stop Them

    desserts

    “Reminder: food is fuel, not therapy.” ~Unknown

    I learned about food cravings at a young age.

    My parents divorced when I was six years old. My older brother and I ended up living in another city with our grandmother. We used to spend long hours alone, and we learned soon enough how food could help us lift our mood and suppress our real feelings.

    That was when I started having unstoppable food cravings.

    Eating would make me feel good and bring me peace and calm. Trying to avoid my favorite foods would make me nervous and unsettled, and would bring my real feelings back.

    I was overweight until my teenage years, and I hated it every single day. Over the years, I became afraid that giving into cravings was making me lose control over my relationship with food, my weight, and my body.

    In high school, I learned all I could about calories and how eating better could help me lose weight. I put this knowledge into practice and finally dropped some pounds.

    And I promised myself that I would never, ever be overweight again.

    I decided to learn as much as possible about nutrition so I could find my own my way to manage my weight. That’s why I became a nutrition specialist.

    Learning to control my cravings naturally has helped me overcome my fears of gaining weight again. But paying attention only to the numbers on the scale is not enough, and only when you are in control of your weight you can say you made it.

    In this article, I’d like to share the knowledge I’ve gained over the years and show you how you can stop food cravings naturally.

    It’s Essential to Understand the “Whys”

    Have you ever felt an unstoppable food craving that was stronger than you?

    You knew you shouldn’t go for it, but you couldn’t resist.

    This lack of control is very annoying, isn’t it?

    As with many other things in life, weight management related issues are much better approached when you understand what’s going on in your body, why, and the actions you need to take.

    In this post, I will explain the causes of those uncontrollable food cravings and the biological processes behind them, and I will give you easy to apply recommendations on how you can stop food cravings naturally.

    Just imagine how it feels to be in control of your food cravings and what it would mean for your weight!

    But before we dive in, a disclaimer:

    This is not a scientific paper on food cravings that aims to cover every single aspect of the topic, but an effort to explain the main reasons for food cravings and how to practically deal with them, in understandable terms without going too deep into science.

    The goal of this post is to give you enough information to understand the “whys” behind the food cravings and enough practical means for you to be able to stop food cravings naturally.

    What Triggers Food Cravings?

    Although food cravings can be caused by hormone imbalance or nutritional deficiencies, I would like to declare those food cravings off topic here.

    The way to deal with such food cravings is pretty straightforward: Either accept them and let them pass (pregnancy or PMS cravings, for example), or see a doctor if you suspect a nutrition deficiency.

    Instead, I’d like to focus this post on the unhealthy food cravings that you deal with every day.

    If you’re craving celery sticks, go for it! But if it’s donuts, chocolate, cheeseburgers, and similar foods that you can’t keep your hands away from, it’s dangerous for your health in the long run and you have to stop them.

    So what triggers these unhealthy food cravings that make you feel so powerless?

    Three things:

    • Your emotions
    • High-processed food as a product of food engineering
    • Sugar imbalance in your body

    Many authors cover the emotional part of food cravings, not considering food engineering and biology, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that you can crave food even without emotions involved.

    In this post, I’d like to fill this gap and put the spotlight on food engineering and sugar imbalance as triggers of food cravings.

    Let’s look at each trigger in detail.

    Trigger 1: Your emotions

    You see an apple pie and instantly think about a pie your mom used to make. Your mom lives far away, but that pie is right there.

    You feel lonely, but there is no one around. There is, however, chocolate ice cream in the fridge.

    Your boss is being unrealistic, and there’s nothing you can do about it. So you jump into a bag of chips, as you do every time you feel stressed.

    Many feelings are hard to deal with, and food is an easy way to help you handle them… and there is a physiological explanation for it.

    There are areas in your brain responsible for memory and sensing pleasure, which also act as reward centers.

    Specific foods can send signals that reach those brain centers and “make you feel good,” which will of course help you deal with those emotional needs, like calming you down and reducing your desire and anxiety, at that particular moment.

    The way it works is that the brain recognizes those feelings and knows that certain food can help alleviate them, so the body produces appropriate hormones (for example, cortisol) and other biochemical substances, like the neurotransmitter serotonin to make you crave for the “right” food.

    You can read more about biochemistry of food and food cravings here.

    Trigger #2: High-processed food as a product of food engineering.

    Have you noticed how you go for groceries to pick up “just bread and milk,” but once you’re in the store, you suddenly start craving all this food from the colorful packages aligned so nicely on the shelves?

    This would be fine if all this high-processed food was healthy for you.

    Except it’s not. It is delicious, though, and this is exactly the problem.

    The food manufacturing industry makes a conscientious effort to get people hooked on foods that are inexpensive, but yet tasty.

    They hire food engineers and gather tons of data taking an engineering approach to processed food.

    Although food engineering has been there for many years, the power it has over the consumers has not really been acknowledged until the most recent research and work of Michael Moss, the author of the best article on this topic you’ll ever read: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food.

    Food engineering is manipulating your taste buds.

    Food engineers work hard on the food’s taste, which is measured by how much craving this particular food will induce.

    With that idea in mind, manufacturers have been adding sugar to many products that didn’t really need it, like tomato sauce, bread, and crackers.

    They look for the exact amount of sugar that will make the product highly attractive and desirable without making you feel overwhelmed by the intense flavor (they call it “the bliss point”).

    Not only will you crave that product again, but you’ll expect it to taste sweet. As a consequence, your taste preferences will change to prefer food that contains more sugar, and you won’t be satisfied with something that has less sugar.

    Food engineering is also turning you into an addict.

    You may be thinking I’m exaggerating, but numerous studies (like this one and this one, for example) indicate that sugar has similar effect on our brain as the drugs of abuse.

    This is why it is so hard to get off sugar and carbs once you are hooked.

    Trigger #3: Sugar imbalance in your body

    You can experience food cravings even if you don’t get emotional or eat high-processed food.

    In this case, your food cravings will be triggered by sugar imbalance in your body that happened because you’ve been eating your sugar and carbs “the wrong way.” (I’ll explain what I mean by this in a minute.)

    Let’s first look at how your body processes sugar and carbs.

    How Your Body Processes Sugar and Carbs

    The first organ that your biology needs to take care of is your brain. If your brain doesn’t work properly, nothing else will.

    The only source of energy that your brain can use is glucose. When your brain can’t find glucose available immediately, it will find a way to get it.

    The fastest, easiest, and most effective way your body can get glucose is by releasing the right hormones to make you crave food that contains a lot of it: simple sugars and carbs that break easily into glucose.

    But high sugar levels in your bloodstream are toxic, so your body needs to lower those levels. For this, it makes the pancreas release insulin to remove glucose.

    This process is called sugar metabolism.

    The higher the glucose levels, the more insulin is released and the faster all the glucose will be processed, leaving no glucose in the system again, which will start the cycle from the beginning.

    What Causes Sugar Imbalance

    As you can see, your sugar metabolism needs equilibrium for you not to get trapped in the vicious cycle of food cravings.

    This equilibrium, however, gets disturbed if you, in simple terms, eat your sugar and carbs “the wrong way.”

    In this case, eating sugar and carbs “the right way” means making sure the quantity, frequency, combination, and quality of your meals are appropriate.

    Quantity: How much sugar and carbs are in your meals?

    When you consume large quantities of simple sugars (glucose) or carbs (more or less complex forms of sugars that are transformed into simple sugars) in the same meal, your sugar metabolism will be activated in the emergency mode, removing all glucose suddenly.

    As a result, no glucose will be left in your bloodstream, and your brain will activate the mechanism to release the hormones that will make you feel hungry and eat more so it gets glucose again.

    Say hi to another food craving!

    Frequency: How often are you consuming sugar and carbs?

    When you are constantly eating food rich on sugars or carbs, not letting enough time pass between meals to let your sugar metabolism rest, it will end up constantly working, creating a circle of constant eating and hunger.

    When you wait enough time between meals (three to four hours), assuming you had a balanced meal, the sugar metabolism gets to rest and does its work properly.

    Combination: What are you mixing your sugar or carbs with?

    When you eat sugars or carbs alone, with no fiber, protein, or fat, the absorption of glucose will be faster.

    You’ll feel hungry sooner, and as a consequence your brain will trigger a food craving.

    Quality: How “good” are the sugars and carbs you’re eating?

    Simple carbs (like white rice, pasta, and bread, for example) and sugars break down into glucose faster, causing it to be absorbed faster as well.

    When you eat complex carbs (like brown rice, whole grain pasta, and whole grain bread, for example), however, glucose is released gradually.

    It means that in case of simple carbs, your blood sugar level will rise faster than if you eat complex carbs.

    To understand how fast a specific food will break into glucose and how much carbs it contains, you should look at its glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) values.

    Eating high GI & GL carbs will generate a fast rise in sugar and therefore a faster metabolic response, which will give you another food craving.

    How to Stop Food Cravings Naturally

    In the beginning of this post I promised you that I’d show you how to stop food cravings naturally by fighting the cause and not the symptoms.

    Now, when you know what triggers food cravings and what keeps them reoccurring (i.e. you understand the cause), it becomes clear that to beat those food cravings, you need to fight the triggers—deal with your emotions and resist the temptation of food manufacturing industry on one side, and keep the equilibrium of your sugar metabolism on the other side.

    Let’s look at it step-by-step and identify the practical solutions for each trigger.

    Cravings Caused by Emotions: Recognize That Food Doesn’t Change Anything

    If you think about it, that pie, ice cream, chips, or anything else you’re craving won’t change the way you feel about things in the long run.

    The food that you crave is the specific one that will make you feel better immediately. But the moment you finish your food, those “feel better” compounds will disappear again and you’ll be exactly where you were before, and you’ll probably even having the same cravings again.

    You need to realize that satisfying those food cravings helps only for a short period of time, and that this vicious cycle needs to be broken.

    Recognizing that food, even the most delicious one, does not change anything is the first step.

    Think about what brings up those emotions in you. Learn about yourself so you can predict them. Do your job and fight against them instead of just reaching for a piece of cake.

    Don’t give up by thinking there is nothing you can do.

    There are many hormones that you can’t really control, like your hormones during pregnancy. But many others are released as a consequence of your emotions. Once you acknowledge that you can do something about it, you’ll be able to handle them much better.

    Here are some practical tips on how to stop food cravings that are triggered by emotions:

    • Find other ways to reduce stress. For example, get a relaxing massage instead of hating your boyfriend, boss, and waistline, instead of eating ice cream.
    • Look for ways to manage your emotions (talk to a friend, get a pet, go for a walk or to the movie theater).
    • Eat healthy. It will help you maintain your hormones under control.
    • Call your mom or visit her if you miss her instead of eating her pie.

    Cravings Caused by Food Engineering: Don’t Let Them Trick You

    The food industry has many tricks to manipulate you into eating food that you’ll end up crave more and more.

    Food manufacturing companies are powerful, they hire the best food experts in the field, and they are always one step ahead predicting new trends and developing new ways to hook you on their food.

    But you need to be smarter! Learn their game. Don’t let them decide what and how you eat.

    Be the one in charge of what food you like by changing your buds’ taste and start craving for healthy food instead.

    Here’s how to stop food cravings caused by engineered food:

    • Most probably food engineering has got to your food buds already, so now you need to change your taste preferences back to healthy food. Do it slowly, one change at a time. Otherwise it will be harder to succeed.
    • Cook your own meals, which is the best way to know for sure what your meal consists of exactly. You’ll be able to avoid most of the added sugar and many other undesirable ingredients you will usually find in highly processed food.
    • Find out where the sugar, fat, and salt bombs you are more susceptible to are hiding so you can avoid them. Here are a couple of popular examples: potato chips, crackers, Japanese snacks, sesame sticks, etc.
    • Recognize that the attractive packages can make you desire unhealthy food.
    • Understand that the commercials are there just to trick you into thinking that eating certain foods will improve how you feel about yourself.
    • Visualize:
      • How food engineers are designing new food to hook you on it.
      • How food marketers play with you by making the food they want you to eat look irresistible.
      • How processed food is hurting your liver and adding fat to your abdomen.

    Cravings Caused by Sugar Imbalance: Eat Your Sugar and Carbs “the Right Way”

    Keeping your blood sugar levels under control and preventing sugar imbalance in your body is an essential way to stop food cravings naturally.

    To do so, you need to:

    • Eat only as much as your body really needs (quantity)
    • Let enough time pass between your meals (frequency)
    • Combine your meals properly (combination)
    • Stick to foods with low glycemic index and glycemic load (quality)

    This is how you can practically achieve it.

    Quantity: What are healthy portion sizes for carbs?

    You should learn and stick to healthy portion sizes of any food, not only carbs, of course. But it is especially important for foods that contain a lot of sugar (remember, carbs are a complex form of sugar).

    You shouldn’t eat more than a healthy portion size for carbs, which is one cup.

    Frequency: How often should you eat?

    Don’t eat too often so you are not making your sugar and carbs metabolism work all the time.

    You should eat four times a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and a morning or an afternoon snack, depending on when you need it. Ideally, these meals should be three to four hours apart.

    For example, if you have an early breakfast and a late lunch, you need a morning snack. Otherwise you’ll be too hungry at lunch and definitely overeat.

    Combination: How to combine your meals properly?

    Fiber, protein, and fat make sugar absorption slower and less efficient, therefore reducing the risk of food cravings.

    In fact, the right combination of meals will make them healthy yet filling, which will help you with two previous aspects: quantity (you will be able to stick to healthy portion sizes) and frequency (you will stay satiated longer).

    Have every single meal with the healthy portion size of protein and fat, and avoid having meals that consist only of sweets or carbs.

    Quantity: How to choose what to eat?

    Stick to foods with low glycemic load and glycemic index.

    Such foods will release glucose slower and help you manage your sugar levels properly so you don’t have food cravings.

    To summarize, this is how you prevent food cravings triggered by sugar imbalance in your body:

    • Maintain your healthy portion sizes for carbs, which is one cup.
    • Have four meals a day making a break of three to four hours between them.
    • Compose your meals properly and always have fat and protein with your carbs.
    • Choose foods with low glycemic load and glycemic index values.

    Over to you!

    Do you believe me when I say you can stop food craving naturally? Do you think it’s doable? What are your personal challenges when it comes to controlling your food cravings? I would love to hear from you!