Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • Moving from Heartbreak to Happiness: How to Work Through the Pain

    Moving from Heartbreak to Happiness: How to Work Through the Pain

    Lonely Man

    “Pain makes you stronger. Fear makes you braver. Heartbreak makes you wiser.” ~Unknown

    There I was, sitting in my lounge room, waiting for my girlfriend to return home.

    We had just bought our first house together and had been living there for a week. It was a chaotic time, balancing moving, work, study commitments, and an obscene amount of renovations. However, the heartfelt joy of settling into our own place overshadowed the chaos.

    Our new home held the dreams of a future life together. The thought of raising a family there filled my heart to the brim.

    It was an exciting time in my life, and I felt I was exactly where I was meant to be. I had the house, the girl, and the ring ready to propose with. Life was good.

    When she arrived home, she was visibly upset. Clueless as to why, I comforted her and asked her what was wrong. Then came the heartbreaking words I never wanted to hear: “I can’t do this anymore.”

    There was no warning, no hint of anything being wrong with our relationship.

    As I sat there, overcome with so many emotions and questions, I tried to comprehend what had just happened. I desperately did everything I could to convince her not to throw away what we had.

    Yet, the more I talked to her, the more I began to not recognize her. Her assertiveness and aggression grew, and the girl I thought I knew concluded with “I no longer love you.”

    With that, our once inseparable connection dwindled to nonexistence. Devastatingly, I lost all hope when she moved into another relationship shortly after leaving me.

    If rock bottom was a destination, the heartbreak of losing the relationship and her moving on to someone else seamlessly had sent me there. Not only was I left mourning the loss of love, but I was living with the fact that someone else had taken my place in her heart.

    I had to give up the house, along with my dreams of spending our lives together. Even losing her family after they had embraced me as one of their own cut me more deeply than I could express.

    All day, every day, I kept picturing her everywhere—even in my sleep, as I dreamed of her constantly.

    What was wrong with me? I asked myself over and over again. I wondered, how could someone say they love you and show so much affection for so long, but within an instant turn into a stranger? The relentless analyzing of our time together seemed to never end.

    I could see my family and friends were doing everything they could for me, but I couldn’t connect with them, or myself. I constantly felt my heart was being crushed and I thought I was losing my mind, as I would endure a year’s worth of emotions each day.

    However, after countless breakdowns, grieving, crying enough tears to fill the Amazon River, and spiralling into depression, I came to realize that some of the greatest answers in life come from the questions we never ask.

    These are the answers I found to help reclaim my life back from heartbreak.

    The first answer came through forgiveness. Forgiving your heartbreaker is a personal decision. You don’t have to do it face-to-face, nor do you have to condone them for their actions. I found my forgiveness had to happen continually; “forgive over and over again” became my mantra.

    One thing that helped me forgive was empathizing with my ex’s decision to leave me. Although this shattered my heart, I came to accept, forgive, and understand her choice, because she wasn’t happy; and that’s something I can understand, because I too would leave a relationship if I were no longer happy.

    In the end, she decided what was best for her path in life, and it was up to me how her decision affected my life.

    I could either be bitter and angry because she abandoned me, or I could choose to forgive and see her off with love.

    It was by far the hardest thing I’ve done. However, choosing love through forgiveness was an essential step to take on my healing journey.

    Another step in the right direction for me was writing down everything I was grateful for every morning and night—simple gifts in everyday life, such as the warm sun on my skin, a fresh breeze, or even a smile from a stranger (it’s amazing what a smile from someone does to you).

    Taking the time to recognize all the little blessings each day offered completely changed my outlook.

    If you feel you are struggling to find gratitude in your life, place your hand over your heart. Can you feel its beat? That alone is the most powerful gift you can be grateful for.

    Practicing these lessons has allowed my personal development to grow further than I thought possible.

    I still have moments where I break down, cry, and feel as though I’ve been swallowed in a sea of sadness, anxiety, and stress. Nevertheless, I have learned to be watchful when these moments start to overwhelm me. I begin to focus on my breath and mindfully engage with the present moment by acknowledging my senses and focusing on what I can see, hear, and feel.

    Once I have bought myself to the present, I recognize and accept my thoughts and feelings with complete self-love. I do not judge or discourage myself for having them. Instead, I embrace and grow through each thought or feeling while it is with me, knowing it shall eventually pass.

    Everything passes eventually. The present is all we truly have, and the only permanency in life is impermanence.

    When you’re dealing with heartbreak, happiness can feel another world away. However, continue to read, write, create, surround yourself with loved ones, seek professional help, and allow yourself to do the things you enjoy. These are the steps that will help you get through this.

    Furthermore, be brave and open up to new ventures. Engaging with people on deeper levels, daily meditation, writing, and finding yoga were some of the greatest gifts my heartbreak welcomed into my life.

    So say yes to happiness, to love, to a positive mindset, and continually affirm that you have the strength to handle whatever comes your way. Acknowledging that things are constantly getting better will be a huge turning point in your healing.

    While the pain may sit with you as you adjust to this new phase in life, remember, you are growing in these times, and every experience in life offers you a gift. Even heartbreak.

    A bad chapter in your story doesn’t mean it’s the end, either. It’s just part of your journey. And everyone’s journey is different, so don’t feel you must rush through your grieving and heal as fast as possible; instead, welcome in all that comes with it. You may be hurt, but you are reading this and taking the steps to gain strength so you can move forward in life.

    After all, moving forward is all we can do. How would you do driving a car constantly looking in the rear-view mirror? Don’t allow your past to cause a crash in your present. Continue to look forward and see the world in each moment as it continually comes toward you.

    When you are ready, you will open your heart and love again. Even though you may feel your heartbreaker took that love away, they didn’t! They simply helped bring it out of you by reflecting the love you feel eternally within yourself. The beauty of this is that you can feel that love all the time through self-love. No one has the power to take that away.

    The more love you give yourself and others, the more you’ll receive in return.

    Embrace this time and let your life become full of beauty and love as you move onward from heartbreak to happiness.

    Lonely man image via Shutterstock

  • The Technology of Joy: Tools for Happiness (Interview & Book Giveaway)

    The Technology of Joy: Tools for Happiness (Interview & Book Giveaway)

    Woman with cell phone

    Update – The winners for this giveaway are:

    • D. Arturo Gutierrez
    • Preston Cox
    • Kathleen Han

    If you’re anything like me, you may think that technology can be both a blessing and a curse.

    Sometimes I lament that we now live in a world where tiny screens often hinder real-world engagement, and social media can create pressure to entertain an audience our peers by sensationalizing our everyday lives.

    But then I remember that technology is just a tool, and its affects depend on how we use it. Sure, technology can create distance and exacerbate the struggle to be authentic, but it can also do the opposite if we use our gadgets to create deeper, more meaningful connections.

    In much the same way, technology can increase feelings of isolation and depression, or it can contribute to our overall well-being. It all depends on our intention and our choices.

    Since I am always interested in discovering new tools to increase my joy and foster inner peace, I was excited to learn about psychotherapist Jonathan Robinson’s new book The Technology of Joy: The 101 Best Apps, Gadgets, Tools and Supplements for Feeling More Delight in Your Life.

    His book covers a variety of methods to boost your joy, including:

    • Gadgets that can enhance pleasure, deepen relationships, and help you feel gratitude
    • Specific apps that have been shown to make people happier and create more loving relationships
    • Supplements that can induce euphoria, elation, and feelings of connection and peacefulness

    You’ll learn what these tools can do for you, and how and where to get these happiness hacks. In addition, you’ll discover how to know which of these tools are most likely to be the best ones for you.

    I’m grateful that Jonathan took the time to answer some questions about his work and his book, and that he’s provided three free copies for Tiny Buddha readers.

    The technology of joyTHE GIVEAWAY

    To enter to win one of three free copies of The Technology of Joy:

    • Leave a comment below
    • For an extra entry, tweet: Enter the @tinybuddha giveaway to win a free copy of The Technology of Joy http://bit.ly/1qYeSk8

    You can enter until midnight PST on Monday, April 25th.

    THE INTERVIEW

    1. Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to write this book.

    I’ve been a psychotherapist for thirty years, as well as someone who has been interested in such things as meditation, hypnosis, and the use of various drugs.   Since I like to feel joy and ecstasy, I’ve always been on the lookout for any simple technique or tool that can safely help me to feel fantastic.

    Over time, I have collected a lot of gadgets, tools, and supplements that can do that. In fact, my friends often come to my house to “get high”—without needing to ingest drugs—by making use of my various tools.

    They eventually wanted to know where to get all these things, so in my book I laid out the best of what I’ve learned and used over the years.

    2. A lot of your work focuses on finding peace and happiness. Why do you think so many of us struggle with depression these days?

    We used to spend more time with nature, or with a caring family or spiritual community. Yet nowadays those things are hard to find. We live in a stressful culture, and yet we are not taught how to let go of the ongoing stress we are subject to.

    Now more than ever it’s important for people to find happiness and peace within themselves. To do this takes practice and the right equipment—just like learning to cook or play tennis. Most people have not invested in learning good practices or finding the right equipment (technologies) for overcoming depression and/or being happy.

    3. You’re a proponent of treating depression without antidepressants. I find that people often get quite upset by the suggestion that they can heal without medication. Why do you think this is such a hot button issue, and do you believe anyone can treat depression through alternative means?

    Studies at Harvard show that antidepressants are no better than placebos for 93% of the people taking them. For the other 7%, I believe (and research shows) that antidepressants can be very helpful.

    The reason I think this is a hot button issue is that people want to blame their depression on a “brain imbalance,” and thereby abdicate that there is anything they can do to help alleviate it. Yet, the research shows that there are many things people can do that are more helpful than taking antidepressants for overcoming depression.

    If people want more information about that, I have a whole website dedicated to it at: www.FromSad2Glad.com

    4. How did you come across the 101 methods you shared in your book?

    I have long had a fascination with methods that are quick, easy, and powerful. For thirty years it has been a “hobby” of mine to research and try out anything that I thought might help myself or others feel more joy and peace.

    Most things out there don’t work very well, but every now and then I would come across a supplement, app, or gadget that really worked extremely well. Such tools have made my life a lot richer, more peaceful, and joyous.

    5. Which of the methods have you found most personally helpful, and why?

    I’ve noticed that different things work for different people, but personally I have really enjoyed certain cognitive enhancing supplements such as Sulbutiamine and CDP Choline—especially when taken together.

    I also love something called “the Tingler,” a neuro-stimulator called “the Thync,” and about a dozen high tech audio soundscapes that I name in the book that help induce feelings of peace, joy, and even ecstasy. If you try enough things out, you soon find things that fit what you really want, and are convenient enough that you really use them.

    6. What did you learn from your interview with the Dalai Lama about these technologies?

    The Dalai Lama was extremely interested in these technologies. In fact, he said, “If it was possible to become free of negative emotions by a riskless implementation of an electrode without impairing intelligence and the critical mind—I would be the first patient.”

    He has long supported research into the brain in order to help facilitate what could be called the “engineering of enlightenment.” I believe that someday soon, we will all be able to more easily reach higher states of consciousness with the aid of various technologies. They have certainly helped me.

    7. You mentioned a bunch of joy-boosting apps. Which were your favorites, and why?

    There are a lot of them out there. I list over thirty of them in my book. Yet the ones I find myself using the most are ones called Happier, Buddhify, Headspace, and Gratitude Journal.

    Many of these have simple and quick guided meditations that make me feel really good, or have ways to help me tap into feelings of gratitude. I also like one called Couple that helps to deepen one’s primary relationship.

    8. You talk about a magical mantra that leads to gratitude. Can you share what that mantra is?

    Many years ago, I went to India to visit a guru who supposedly had a “magical mantra” for feeling gratitude. When I finally got a chance to talk to this guru, he said, “Whenever possible, repeat the following words: the mantra I give you are the words ‘thank you.’”

    Hearing that, I was very disappointed. I looked at him and said, “That’s it?” He responded, “No, ‘that’s it’ is the mantra you have been using, and that mantra makes you feel like you never have enough. My mantra is ‘thank you,’ not ‘that’s it.’ ‘That’s it’ will take you nowhere!”

    Well, to make a long story short, although I was disappointed with this so-called “magical mantra,” since I had journeyed so far to get it, I started to use it.

    Many times a day I’d say “thank you”—from my heart—for life’s many blessings. I’d say “thank you” to God or the Universe for a hot shower, a good meal, a hug from my wife, a greeting from my dog—whatever. Soon, I noticed I was feeling a lot more gratitude in my life. His “mantra” really worked!

    9. What do you think the future of “hacking happiness” will look like?

    Slowly but surely scientists will figure out even better ways to help us let go of stress, negative emotions, and suffering. In addition, new tools and supplements will be developed that help people to tap into the “kingdom of heaven within.”

    Fortunately, that “future” is already here—but most people don’t know about the great tools and supplements that already exist. In the future, these tools and supplements will become more popular, more convenient, and even less expensive.

    10. What is the most important thing you want people to take from your book?

    I want people to get that in order to feel more joy, love, or gratitude in life, there are many tools, gadgets, and supplements that can really help. By investing a little time and money in learning what works for you, your life can become a lot richer and more enjoyable.

    You can learn more about The Technology of Joy on Amazon here.

    FTC Disclosure: I receive complimentary books for reviews and interviews on tinybuddha.com, but I am not compensated for writing or obligated to write anything specific. I am an Amazon affiliate, meaning I earn a percentage of all books purchased through the links I provide on this site. 

    Woman with cell phone image via Shutterstock

  • Switching Paths: You Can Live an Exciting, Fulfilling Life

    Switching Paths: You Can Live an Exciting, Fulfilling Life

    Excited Man

    “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” ~Neale Donald Walsch 

    Lights out. Eyes closed. We biked through an imaginary trail. Our guide shouted the magic word, “switch,” and we knew it was time. We began using our minds to visualize where we wanted to be.

    I imagined biking down my favorite street in a city abroad.

    I enjoyed feeling the bumpy ride on the uneven pavement, looking at the clothes line-drying from beautiful ancient buildings, smelling delicious aromas from local cafés, and listening to the different languages that people were speaking around me.

    My heart felt full. I felt happy.

    The instructor told our group to shout the word “switch” whenever we felt the urge, and each person had the choice to either stay where they were or switch their path.

    I felt every muscle working, my heart pumping, the energy soaring within and around me. Hearing that powerful word pushed me to courageously continue on the path that felt right to me. I did not want to switch back.

    I felt fearless.

    Then the class ended. My eyes opened, the lights turned on, and I was still in the same place. I was left with the idea of that path, and I knew I wanted to be riding down it more than anything.

    Playing this game in my college spinning class reminded me that we all have the ability to create the life we want, but we must be willing to get uncomfortable and embrace change.

    Which Path Would You Choose?

    There’s a path we are taught we “should” follow, a path that we learn about early on from our family, friends, and teachers. There is also a path that is true to our heart, a path that feels right to each of us individually.

    For a long time, I lived as a people pleaser and had difficulty making my own choices without getting approval from others. I wanted to switch paths, but I was afraid I would disappoint the people I loved the most.

    A while back, I realized that I had lost my way to the path that inspired me. I had become too comfortable because I had ignored my heart for so long, and I did not know how to make a change.

    I had recently completed my bachelor’s degree and started teaching. I had a loving family, great friends, a perfect puppy, a motivating job, and many materialistic comforts surrounding me. But deep down inside, I felt like something was missing.

    I had the urge to explore, to travel, and discover the unknown. But I wouldn’t allow myself to follow these urges because the people I cared about and respected perceived them as irrational.

    However, “Switch” reminded me that I am free to choose the path I want to go down, and it ignited the power I have within myself to make it there. So I decided to incorporate “Switch” into my real life.

    My switch was leaving everything that felt familiar to participate in a six-month work/study abroad program.

    Most people in the program were eighteen, and I was twenty-four. Many people questioned why I wanted to do this at my age. But I knew why, and that was all that mattered.

    I was going to live in the Middle East for six months. I would learn a new language, volunteer wherever I was needed, share a room with two eighteen-year-old strangers, and meet ninety people from twenty-six different countries.

    I was bursting with excitement but scared out of my mind, because this would push me out of my comfort zone, and I had no idea what other changes in my life would stem from this big switch.

    The moment I stepped on the plane, there was no turning back. My life was changed forever.

    Incorporating “Switch” into Your Life

    Each one of us has the ability to choose the life we want to live, and to change direction throughout the course of our lives.

    Opportunities for change may become limited after we take on more commitments and responsibilities, and our families grow. But there are still options available to us. If we are willing to get creative and are open to change, we can follow our interests at any stage in our lives.

    Your switch can be minor or more dynamic. Switch is about what you need and what works for you.

    If you feel that you are on a path that is not true to your heart, if you have pushed yourself to pedal along but think you are heading in the wrong direction, if you are afraid of change or are ready to make some changes, employ these five strategies to help you switch and begin living the life you want to live.

    1. Incorporate minor switches into your life.

    Switch the way you drive to work, switch up your schedule, switch your usual restaurant.

    Minor switches prepare you to make larger changes in your life, and enable you to get out of your comfort zone and live the life you want to live.

    2. Visualize what would make you fulfilled.

    Allow yourself to veer off the “should” path and imagine yourself going on a ride to find what’s true to your heart. Focus. Create a picture in your mind and really try to be there.

    What does it look like? Where are you? Who are you with? What are you doing? How are you doing it? How do you feel doing it, and why?

    It’s all too easy to go through life trying to please everyone else, without ever identifying what you value and what interests you. But in order to change paths, you first need to visualize one that excites you.

    3. Identify small switches you can make to work toward your goals.

    There are always possibilities for us to enhance our lives if we are willing to get creative.

    You could take a night class to work toward learning something new; search for free workshops or events (in person or online) that intrigue you; begin a book, debate, or art club with your friends; and/or try something that will make you feel good, such as yoga, dancing, or volunteering, independently or with your family.

    Don’t stress about making a major switch. Not everyone can drop everything and travel abroad (and not everyone wants to). The goal is to identify tiny steps you can take to work toward that life you envisioned.

    4. Don’t attach to your worries. 

    It’s natural to want to please the people we love, but try to let go of any expectations you feel from others, or ones you might have created for yourself.

    If you start worrying about what other people might think of you or fearing their judgment, remind yourself that this is just a story in your head, and you don’t have to attach to it.

    I have learned that the people who truly care about you will be there to support you wherever your path may take you. You might be surprised when you find out who that is, but they will be the ones that set you free, and you’ll both know that it isn’t goodbye forever.

    5. Prepare to be at least a little uncomfortable.

    Whenever we try something new, even if it’s something we’ve always wanted to do, it can feel a little scary and uncomfortable. But that feeling fades over time, as we stretch our comfort zone, and we usually end up feeling glad that we pushed ourselves to grow.

    For example, taking my first spinning class was uncomfortable for me, but over time, challenging myself felt good. It had a meaningful impact on my mind and body. It also ended up leading me to the game “Switch,” and helped me identify the major switch I wanted to make in my life. You never know what you’ll discover about yourself when you get a little uncomfortable.

    —

    It’s never too late to live a life that excites you. Develop a “switch” mindset, and allow yourself to take the first steps toward the life you want to live.

    Excited man image via Shutterstock

  • How to Deal When You’re Overwhelmed: 5 Ways to Turn Stress into Joy

    How to Deal When You’re Overwhelmed: 5 Ways to Turn Stress into Joy

    Stress

    “When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways—either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength.” ~Dalai Lama

    You’re overwhelmed and stressed by all the things that need to be done. All your best-laid plans for becoming a better version of yourself are feeling very tenuous at the moment.

    You still want to be healthier, more present in your relationships, and able to appreciate and express gratitude for all the things you have instead of worrying about the things you don’t. But, you are strongly considering putting off the work it takes to create those things in your life until things slow down.

    If you do that, you will be missing an opportunity to bulletproof your changes and make the joy that will come along with them inevitable.

    My wife recently had our second child. It has been great, and in a lot of ways easier than when we had our first. However, there is no doubt that between having a newborn in the house and an energetic toddler running around, overwhelmed is an accurate description of my life.

    At first I felt that at any moment the stress would be too much and I would say something I didn’t mean, use a tone I shouldn’t, or forget that showing patience and love to my family is the most important thing to me.

    But then I realized, each moment is practice for all the moments that will follow. And, if I maintain my composure, continue to show up for my loved ones, and be a positive example for my oldest kiddo, then this time of overwhelm can be a time of incredible growth.

    As life normalizes, and things are more predictable, it will be easier to be the person I want to be because I will have done it in much more difficult circumstances. It is just like training for anything else. If you train in harder conditions than you expect to compete in, once the competition gets there, it feels like a breeze.

    I haven’t been 100% all of the time, but I am definitely building a resilience that will make sticking to my habits and values that much easier going forward.

    Here are the five ways you can turn overwhelm into a practice and guarantee your future will be full the joy living an intentional life brings.

    1. Take mental breaks.

    If you are in the middle of a stressful situation, it can be very difficult to see the big picture of what you want for your life and act in accordance with it. You are just trying to triage your way out of the moment because it seems like survival is the best you can hope for.

    But despite what it feels like at the time, you can do much better with the situation than just surviving it. You can turn it to your advantage.

    To do that, when you feel blinded to your big picture by a desperate need to just survive the moment you are in, take a beat. Literally, take fifteen seconds, two deep breathes, then ask yourself what your next action would be if you were going to act in line with the vision you have for yourself in the future. Then do that.

    The other day, as I was corralling my three-year old son to go to school so I could make an appointment, disaster struck. A stick that he was saving (because certain sticks are a treasure to him at the moment) got chomped by our dog.

    My son lost it. It was very much like the worst thing in the entire world just happened.

    Between my dog chopping a stick to bits in the house, my three-year old howling uncontrollably with tears streaming down his face, our new baby joining in because all the noise woke her up, I was very much ready to follow my son’s lead and lose it.

    Then I stopped and took a beat.

    Instead of escalating the situation, yelling at the dog, and dragging my wailing three-year old out the front door, I hugged him and waited.

    Eventually he calmed down. I asked him if he wanted to go see if there was a new stick outside on the way to the car to go to school. He said yes. We gathered our things, he found a suitable replacement, and the day went on.

    Those few seconds allowed me to see that the most important thing in that moment was taking the opportunity to help my son learn to get control back over his emotions, and to let him know that I will be there for him when they are a little out of control.

    Just putting a little bit of room between my reaction and the stressful situation gave me a chance to reflect.

    Try it next time you are feeling overwhelmed and like you are just reacting. It will make a world of difference in how you react to stress.

    2. Smile.

    You know how it is when you get stressed; it seems like the world piles on. Yet another thing comes up that you have to deal with on top of everything else you already had on your list.

    You weren’t sure you were going to get everything done as it was. Now you can’t even imagine how it is possible that you could finish.

    And there’s no way you are going to be able to workout, or meditate, or journal, or whatever other good habit you are trying to start for yourself.

    Smile.

    Just smile.

    Know that time will pass, you will do as much as you can with it, and you can either have a furrowed brow and be short with everyone around you as you go, or you can smile and pleasantly do as much as you can.

    You will get whatever you can get done either way. But the chances that you do whatever you do in a way that aligns with who you want to be go way up if you are smiling while you are doing it.

    3. Remember this will pass.

    Life is going to continue. Things will change. Things always change. You are overwhelmed now. You won’t be at some point. Then you will be again. That’s just how it works.

    View the time you feel overwhelmed as just a season of life. Not something you’ve been cursed to experience in perpetuity.

    Whatever is causing it will pass.

    It may sound trite. But try it. It is amazing how much easier it is to deal with stressful situations while sticking to your habits and your values when you don’t view it as something that you will always have to deal with, but instead as just a period you have to get through.

    4. When In doubt, don’t.

    When you are overwhelmed, you are very likely to make a bad decision, to act in a way you regret, and generally derail a lot of the good stuff you have going.

    So, when you are really stressed, don’t follow your gut. That’s right, your gut is probably leading you astray.

    When you know you are overwhelmed, be on the lookout for those quick, off-the-cuff reactions. If it makes sense in the moment to eat the whole bag of potato chips (your gut literally leading you astray) or fire off a heated rebuke in an email, you probably need to tell your gut to take a break. So when you feel yourself wanting to react like that, stop.

    I was driving my son to school recently (not the same day that the Great-Stick-Chomping Incident occurred), and the car in front of me kept slowing down, then speeding up, then slowing down, then swerving, and at one point just stopped in the middle of the road.

    We were late, I had somewhere I needed to be after dropping my son off, and, as I mentioned, life in general is a tad more stressful these days than normal.

    So when that car stopped, my gut very strongly told me to lay on the horn, roll down my window, and string together quite a few explicit terms. This guy was being completely disrespectful to everyone else on the road, and was the direct cause of me being even later than I already was.

    But, instead of following my gut, I gave a short honk to let him know there was someone behind him and said nothing. He looked up in his rear view, waved apologetically, and scooted on, driving like a reasonable person.

    If I had followed my gut, I would have not only chastised what seemed like a nice person who just didn’t know where he was going, but I would also have modeled for my son that when you are annoyed, you should lash out to deal with it, which is obviously not something I want him to learn from me.

    So when you are in a place that you know makes your gut more likely to lead you astray, be very intentional about whether you listen to it. Take a second to consider if what it is telling you aligns with how you want to behave and portray yourself. If it does, great, but if not, ignore it and do nothing.

    5. Practice, practice, practice.

    If you believe in the habits you are trying to create or the values you are trying to exhibit with your life, then you can override the reflex to let stress derail you by reminding yourself that now is the time to practice being the version of yourself you want to become.

    While it will never be something you seek out, when you view stress and overwhelm this way, they become the vehicle to ensure your long-term success.

    You will turn negative situations into positive ones and, as a result, you will be far more likely to come out the other end stronger and better for it.

    —

    No one wants to be overwhelmed or stressed out. But that doesn’t change the fact that all of us will be at some point.

    We can plod through those times only to come through them needing to re-establish the good habits and way of life we had started before the challenging time came, or we can cement the person we want to be during those times.

    You can use the five techniques above to choose the latter, and guarantee that you will be the joyous person you want to be, no matter what season of life you are in.

    Reducing stress image via Shutterstock

  • 4 Things You Need to Hear When You’re Emotionally Exhausted

    4 Things You Need to Hear When You’re Emotionally Exhausted

    “Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you.” ~John De Paola

    You’re on the verge of burnout.

    You’re unmotivated to perform even the simplest of tasks. You’re physically and emotionally isolated. Slight annoyances cause you to snap.

    You may be blaming your work, other people, or circumstances. But if you dig a little deeper, you may be surprised to learn that your own choices have led to emotional exhaustion. This is good news because it means that you can alleviate your own pain without the permission or blessing of another person.

    In my junior year of college, I experienced a bout of intense mental and emotional exhaustion. I was pursuing two demanding majors and the heavy workload had finally caught up with me.

    Desperate to find a way to motivate myself to finish college, I bought Tony Robbins’ Personal Power motivational program after watching his infomercial on late night television.

    As I delved into the lessons, I fully expected Tony Robbins to motivate me back to good emotional health. Instead, I learned that I needed to take full responsibility for my emotional state. I learned that I had all the tools I needed to nurse myself back to emotional and spiritual health.

    When I was emotionally exhausted, I realized that my own body was trying to communicate its needs to me. I just needed to listen.

    If you’re on the brink of burnout, here are some things your body may be trying to tell you:

    1. You need to trust your intuition.

    I started college as a music major. Though I’d always had a passion for music, I decided to take on computer science as well in order to be practical.

    I still remember the day I made that decision. It was the second day of classes and panic had set in. I kept having the thought “I’ll never be able to support myself as a musician.” The stereotype of the struggling artist was burned into my brain.

    As I rushed to my academic advisor’s office that morning, I told myself I was making a rational choice. I did well at math and science in high school and it only made sense to build on these skills in order to secure a good paying job.

    Intuitively, I knew I was wrong. I already knew deep down that I would not enjoy studying computer science. I knew that I could trust my musical gifts to create income. But I decided to ignore my intuition and went with the rational choice instead. My emotional exhaustion was the price I paid for choosing this path.

    While I completed both degrees in the end, it is my music degree that provides my income and enjoyment.

    Are you currently pursuing something you know isn’t right for you? Are you exhausted by the emotional conflict created in choosing what’s practical versus what you love? Do you lack motivation because your life is devoid of joy, fulfillment, or meaning? Your exhaustion may be an invitation to trust your own intuition.

    2. It’s okay to ask for help.

    As an international student studying in the U.S., I often felt alone. My family and support systems were far away. I underestimated how vulnerable I would feel being in a different culture. My initial reaction to this vulnerability was to fool myself into thinking I could go it alone.

    In the Personal Power program, I learned that we need to feel connected to others in order to feel alive. By denying my vulnerability and my need for connection, I suffered mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Once I’d suffered enough, I decided to embrace my vulnerability and reach out to others. It made all the difference.

    Emotional exhaustion can leave one feeling intensely vulnerable. It can be hard to ask for help for fear of being viewed as a failure or as someone who is unable to manage their own lives. But in your exhaustion is the presence of a deep truth: It’s okay to ask for help because you were never meant to go it alone.

    3. Be patient.

    Collectively, we’ve lost our capacity for patience. Our deepest needs are constantly being eclipsed by our immediate wants. And all the while we struggle to tell the difference.

    During my college years, I was very ambitious academically. There’s nothing wrong with ambition. But when unbalanced, ambition can give way to disillusionment and emotional burnout.

    My desire for success left me feeling impatient. I took full course loads every semester. I rarely made time for leisure, play, and rest. I’d given up my need for balance in favor of assured academic success.

    But my emotional exhaustion was a wake up call that this strategy was not working. It was a sign that I needed to slow down, reorder my priorities, and think about success more holistically.

    Are you currently on the fast track to emotional exhaustion? It may be time to slow down.

    4. Surrender.

    In my quest to be in full control of my future and ensure my happiness, I nearly burned out in college.

    My emotional exhaustion was an invitation to face the reality that I don’t control everything.

    In his book The Surrender Experiment, Michael Singer poses this question:

    “Am I better off making up an alternative reality in my mind and then fighting with reality to make it be my way, or am I better off letting go of what I want and serving the same forces of reality that managed to create the entire perfection of the universe around me?”

    After years of fighting, I decided to trust in forces larger than myself. I still worked and studied hard, but I also gradually let go the expectations and pressures I’d created for myself. I created space for leisure, rest, and personal development.

    Sometimes the only thing you can do when you’re emotionally exhausted is to surrender. Befriend it and allow the process to be part of your healing.

    Are You Listening?

    Next time you’re feeling emotionally exhausted, treat it as an opportunity to listen to yourself.

    You don’t need to tough it out, double down, or assign blame.

    Just take some time out to listen, reflect, and respond.

    You won’t regret it.

    Stressed man image via Shutterstock

  • How to Change Your Life Without Doing Anything Big or Scary

    How to Change Your Life Without Doing Anything Big or Scary

    Victory

    “Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.” ~Jim Rohn

    We’re human.

    Every single one of us participates in behavior that we know has a negative or adverse effect on our well-being.

    We also know that at some point we are going to have to stop these negative behaviors, because ultimately, they create bigger problems for us. However, most of us choose to wait until something breaks before we decide to take any action toward fixing a problem.

    I waited to change my diet.

    I waited until things got really bad and I was forced to react drastically in order to change my outcome.

    Difficult?

    Ummm, that would be an understatement. Let’s just say the list of what I had to give up was so extensive, it was easier to tell people what I could eat rather than what I could no longer eat.

    It was an extremely difficult transition, and I’m not going that route ever again. No ma’am.

    Everything you do to improve any area of your life, no matter how small, matters.

    Why?

    Because change is a process, and it’s an undeniable fact that a lot of tiny successes add up to bigger ones. If you make small steps consistently over time, it is impossible for your momentum to not shift in your favor.

    Consistency is key.

    If you add a marble to a glass every day, just one marble, eventually it’s going to fill up, right?

    It’s exactly the same with change, but somehow, somewhere, we got it in our mind that change was an all-or-nothing proposal.

    This mindset has left many of us completely paralyzed and incapable of instituting new behavior, because we only see the end result. Then fear paralyzes us because the process involved in getting to our end goal just feels like too much work.

    I tell people all the time to “chunk it out.” I don’t care what it is, just chunk the task out into smaller, doable, reasonable bites, and eventually you will feel the shift in momentum and make the final push toward achieving any goal.

    As I age, I know if I want to have a good quality of life, there are more changes in my future. There is no getting around it.

    Instead of waiting for things to break (as I have previously done), I’m taking an easier route. I’m going to be proactive rather than reactive. I’m taking my own advice and chunking it all out now, before another problem presents itself. I got the wake-up call.

    Here’s what I know for sure.

    I want to be strong going into the second half on my life.

    I do not want to wither away and die o-l-d. In order to reach that goal, I need to take consistent action toward changing my overall heath and integrate some new behaviors into my weekly routine.

    In the last four months I have started activity in three areas that I am certain will help me achieve my long-term goal of overall better health. Hopefully, my actions will inspire you to make small changes in whatever area of your life you’d like to improve.

    Meditation

    Our culture has us running around with our hair on fire trying to be overachievers.

    I have known for a long time that meditation would be a gateway to a lot of good things in my life, but my biggest draw for meditation was stress-reduction. Somehow I convinced myself I couldn’t do it because I didn’t have an extra forty-five minutes a day to sit and learn to quiet my mind.

    I have no idea why I thought it would take that much time, but it doesn’t much matter. I used this excuse to talk myself right out of participating because it would require time I didn’t have. If I were completely honest, I’d admit I just didn’t want to do the work.

    As my stress level grew, so did my awareness that I needed to take action.

    I took my own advice and chunked it out. I searched “guided five-minute meditation” videos on YouTube. Five minutes a day, twice a week. That’s where I started.

    Then I bumped it up to seven minutes…then ten…then fifteen.

    There are thousands of guided meditations on YouTube. You’ll never run out of options. I found a variety of lengths that suit me and I integrate them as I can.

    Now I’m going to hour-long meditations outside my home once or twice a month, and I love them.

    It took me months to get up to where I’m at now, and I’m still not doing it daily, but I am patting myself on the back for what I am doing instead of beating myself up for still not taking action.

    The whole point is to create the habit in a way that is doable, not overwhelming, and I’m very hopeful.

    Cardio Exercise

    The bane of my existence has always been routine exercise. I have probably joined the gym eight times in my life, and actually showed up and worked out maybe twenty times in total. The thought of getting on a machine to exercise makes me want to throw up, no joke.

    Run? Not unless someone is chasing me.

    Walk? Routinely, not so much. Every now and then yes, but I have to have a destination. My brain can’t embrace walking for walking sake. I keep trying, but have great difficulty in maintaining it as a routine practice.

    So what’s a gal to do?

    I decided to try cycling.

    I bought an inexpensive beach cruiser to test the water, installed big baskets on the rear, and now I do a vast majority of weekly errands on my bike. Cardio exercise, sunshine, and vitamin D, along with an opportunity to easily stop and chat with people during my ride, make this a huge win.

    I love the idea of having a task or a destination. It totally changes my perception of the activity in my head. I’m no longer exercising, I’m getting stuff done.

    I live two miles from the heart of a beautiful coastal city of about 60,000 people. We’re not small, but we’re not large either. The downtown area is speckled with lots of mom-and-pop operations, as well as places I regularly visit like my bank, the post office, the library, coffee shops, museums, and my local food co-op.

    As I ride my bike to and from any errands or meetings here’s what I’ve discovered…

    Endorphins.

    Serotonin.

    I had completely forgotten all about them. They make me feel really good. My brain has made that new association and is inspired.

    Winning!

    Yoga

    The healthiest older folks I know practice yoga. The benefits for the mind and body are life-changing. I have known for a long time that I would benefit greatly from yoga, but in my mind this fell into the “gym” mentality I had about exercise, and I was hesitant to grab this bull by the horns and take action.

    What’s a gal to do?

    Chunk it out.

    I didn’t sign up for a six-month package at a yoga studio. Nope. Once again, I turned to YouTube and decided what kind of time commitment I was up for (fifteen minutes), and got cracking.

    I started with targeted shoulder/back/relaxation stretching for newbies. I did this once a week for several weeks. Once a week.

    Then I expanded a little bit to a twenty-three-minute sitting yoga video for the same targeted area. I did this once a week for several more weeks.

    The next step was attending free classes that were held at the community center at my local food co-op. I found one that I liked and went a few times. Then found another. Now I go twice a week every week and will continue to so.

    –

    As expected, these changes have had an incredibly positive impact on my day-to-day life.

    Mostly, I’m proud of myself for finally taking action, and I love the sense of satisfaction I have from doing so.

    Self-empowerment through change is inspiring!

    When we prove to ourselves that we can successfully institute a new behavior, it encourages us to move toward more.

    In my opinion, zero to hero is not a recipe for success.

    Chunk it out.

    Make it doable.

    Proactive behavior has had a snowball effect in my life. The more positive changes I see and feel, the more I want to experience.

    Still winning!

    Winner pose image via Shutterstock

  • How to Let Go of Resentment and Forgive Your Ex

    How to Let Go of Resentment and Forgive Your Ex

    Angry Couple

    “I used to be afraid of the pain letting go of the past would cause, until I realized how much pain holding on has caused.” ~Steve Maraboli

    Getting over the pain of a bad relationship is never easy.

    Even when I finally felt more in control of my feelings, the pain from my past would still spill over into my present.

    I would constantly compare my new partner to my ex who had torn my heart apart. Even though I had moved on from that relationship, I was too afraid to fully trust my new partner for fear of being backstabbed again.

    I feared reliving that gut-wrenching pain I felt the last time I was cheated on. The thought of it happening again made my heart race. I’d lose my appetite and feel sick to my stomach. I would feel like I was having a full-blown panic attack.

    And the worst part about it was that I had no real reason to distrust my current partner. He was honest, loving, and he truly cared about me. I was feeding off of bitterness from my past.

    I refused to let go of resentment.

    Not until I realized I had to move on and forgive my ex was I able to change my future and have a fulfilling relationship. Once I changed my approach and adopted a few strategies to help deal with my pain, I was able to live a happier life.

    Manage Your Thoughts

    When I found out my ex cheated on me, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I could’ve done differently to prevent him from straying.

    I thought to myself, Maybe I should’ve tried a little harder, or I should’ve been more attentive to his needs.

    I cooked, cleaned, and always made sure he was well taken care of. But apparently, our relationship wasn’t enough.

    I soon realized that no matter how attentive or loving I was, he would’ve cheated on me regardless.

    I constantly pictured him with the other woman. The thought would infuriate me.

    All I could think was, How could he do this to me? Why would he want to throw away all the years we’ve shared together? And while he had moved on and was enjoying his new life, there I was still suffering in silence.

    It soon became too much to handle. I had to stop torturing myself. I had to somehow let go.

    So I began shifting my focus. Instead of dwelling on my pain, I would imagine myself in a happier place. I would replace every bad thought with a positive one.

    Instead of thinking, How could he choose someone else over me? I would think, I’m better off with someone who values me and treats me with love and respect.

    The more I did this, the less resentment I felt toward him.

    By changing my thoughts, I was able to change my feelings. As time went on, I was able to move on.

    Remember What Makes You Smile

    At one point, my relationship stressed me so much that I didn’t want to leave the house. I despised seeing happy couples on the street. Even going outside on a sunny day was a struggle. I’d rather it rain to reflect my mood. That’s how miserable I was.

    I desperately needed to move on with my life, despite my heartache.

    I had plenty of things to be grateful for. I needed to reflect on everything that was going well in my life.

    Overall, I had a great family. I knew that regardless of what I went through, they would always be there for me. I had a beautiful daughter. And despite how rejected I felt, I knew she would always love and care about me.

    The more time I spent with my relatives, the more I felt loved and wanted.

    I also found things to do to make myself feel better. I’d go on dinner dates with my friends and take vacations to different places.

    Thinking back now, even working out would’ve been a great way to release some tension.

    I realized my life wasn’t over simply because I had a bad relationship. I was still alive and breathing another day. That alone was a reason to be grateful. Each day the sun rose was another chance for happiness.

    When we’re hurting, we tend to experience the pain continually in our minds. If we find enjoyable things to do, we can replace negative memories with positive ones.

    Find the Lessons

    If I could go back in time, I would never erase my past. That’s because my past shaped me into the strong person I am today.

    Once I began focusing on the lessons I learned from my experience, I stopped drowning in resentment.

    I learned that his cheating was not my fault. No matter how attentive or loving I was, he would’ve cheated on me regardless. He chose his wants and desires over our relationship.

    And just like him, I had a choice to move on and be happy. I was only hurting myself by not releasing the pain.

    If I wanted to have a healthy relationship in the future, I had to let go of the bad memories from my past relationship. I couldn’t allow my new love to suffer for my past love’s mistakes.

    And lastly, I deserved to be happy just as much as anyone else. Holding onto bitterness and resentment wasn’t worth sacrificing my joy.

    The lessons I learned were priceless. And once I decided not to allow what a person did to me dictate my feelings, I began to live a happier life.

    All the pain, heartache, and tears I experienced turned me into the resilient person I am today. And now I can help others overcome their pain.

    Sometimes we go through negative experiences to encourage someone else. Someone’s out there who will benefit from your story. Come out of your pain victoriously so that you can be an inspiration to others.

    Take It As a Learning Experience

    When I decided to let go and forgive my ex, despite his actions, I was finally at peace. Once I released my anger, it no longer had control over me. I was no longer in bondage to the wounds from my past.

    I now have a new understanding of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not for the other person; it’s to heal us. When you forgive your ex, you take away the power they had over your emotions.

    You don’t have control over your past, but you have full control over what you do in the present.

    When you learn to let go of resentment, animosity, and bitterness, you experience freedom. Freedom from the hurt and pain that once held you captive.

    Angry couple image via Shutterstock

  • Healing a Broken Heart: It Will Get Better

    Healing a Broken Heart: It Will Get Better

    Sad Woman

    “This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.” ~Elizabeth Gilbert

    I thought I went through my last breakup a few years ago. I thought I had paid my dues, cried my share of tears, and dealt with some deep wounds. I thought I was done. I was happy and in love, and talking about moving in with my boyfriend.

    One day we took a little vacation. We laughed and explored the desert excitedly talking about our dreams. Three days later I found myself sobbing on the floor of my tub, hot steam clouding around me.

    Our breakup was actually quite beautiful aside from the shock and confusion. We looked into each other’s eyes. We smiled. We cried. We held each other. We said goodbye.

    It might sound like we handled this really well, and in many ways we did. We always respected one another. We never said anything hurtful or manipulative. I think that shows how much we loved and cared for one another.

    But I was still a mess, deeply heartbroken and deeply depressed. It was the deepest depression I’d ever been in. I could do little more than cry and stare at the ceiling. Nothing in me wanted to stay in bed and nothing in me wanted to get out. It felt like torturous limbo with a crushing weight on my chest.

    My mind couldn’t comprehend a day when I wouldn’t feel like this. Each night I fell asleep I prayed the morning would be different. But each day I woke up with a pang in my stomach and a heaviness in my heart.

    Until one day I didn’t.

    It wasn’t a miracle. My pain didn’t disappear in my sleep. But I started to feel better. The first day I was able to eat a little more. The next day I found myself laughing with a friend. I slowly started to be able to sleep longer hours and function more clearly. It was a snail’s pace, but it was progress.

    If you’re going through a breakup right now the truth is that it will get better.

    I needed to hear this over and over again from other people. When the pain is so intense it takes over everything. It’s very difficult to believe anything will change. I would call my mom in the mornings sobbing into the phone, “It still hurts. It’s not getting any better. Why does it still hurt?”

    It’s supposed to hurt. Your heart is broken. You loved deeply, and now it’s over. One side of the coin is that endings are really sad. The other side is that endings are opportunities for new beginnings, and that’s really exciting, even if you can’t feel the excitement right now.

    It was difficult for me to see that I was making any progress so I documented my days over those weeks. I found that there were five key things that helped me begin to heal:

    • I felt all the feelings.
    • I took advantage of my support system.
    • I gave myself love and compassion.
    • I took responsibility for my life.
    • I focused on me instead of him.

    I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to allow yourself to grieve when your heart is broken.

    Our bodies are intelligent. They can hold trauma for a lifetime. When we sob so deeply our chests heave and the tears fly out, our bodies are purging the pain. Allow this to happen. I was so tired of crying, but I would keep on doing it as I needed. I actually cried a little a few hours ago. It lessens. The pain lessens. I assure you this.

    There were two or three people who were my everything during my lowest low. I used their support to get me through all of the times when I just wanted to give up on my life. I talked things through incessantly, something that can help us come to terms with the situation. Our minds need to process the change, especially if it was traumatic or sudden.

    It’s really important that these are people who understand you, who are capable of being there for you in this way, and who are nonjudgmental. Someone who is going to say to you, “Honey, I am so sorry you feel like this. My heart breaks for you.” Not all of our friends and family are capable of taking on that role, and that’s okay. You just need one or two.

    Through these first two steps I started to gain my own strength and identity back. I got to a point where I knew that only I could pull myself up out of it. I had enough moments of clarity through my pain that I was able to see what I needed to do for myself, and I gave myself so much love.

    I honored myself and acknowledged that my heart was broken. I didn’t judge myself for being weak or stress out about being low functioning. I just let myself fall into my own arms.

    I treated myself like my own daughter. I asked how I was feeling and listened to the response with compassion. I kept telling myself, “I am here for you. I am always here for you.” This type of love for myself helped the pain dissipate. It helped me to feel worthy of life again.

    I am also someone, probably very similar to you, who is always looking to better myself. Nothing in life is isolated—we’re all connected and affected by one another, so I knew there were deep things about myself to look at.

    Instead of focusing on my ex and why he left, I began to look at myself. I questioned what I was doing in my life that left me in relationships where men chronically abandoned me.

    I didn’t put pressure on myself to figure it all out, but I allowed the question to be there. I invited the answers to come in as they needed to. I knew that whatever was most obvious was probably not the full picture — and it wasn’t.

    Through a candid conversation with a very close friend, I began to discover some of my deepest fears. I realized that when I get very close to people I become afraid I will lose them, something that occurred repeatedly in my childhood.

    When someone I was close to shared a different perspective than mine, on some deep unconscious level I became threatened, terrified this was the beginning of the end for us. Ironically, my own fears of abandonment contributed to my relationship ending.

    This kind of revelation is liberating when there is a lack of clarity in a breakup. I saw myself so much more clearly, and then I looked at the relationship through my ex’s perspective. I saw my newfound self through his eyes, and I understood how he felt. It all made sense.

    One of the most important things I did that allowed me to heal was to focus on myself each time I thought of him.

    This is especially true if you are not the one who wanted to break up. I didn’t reach out to him at all. I gave us each space. I knew seeing him show up on social media would increase the pain so I used all my willpower to stay focused on myself. If I felt the urge to check up on him I reminded myself that I didn’t need to feel any more pain. This was enough.

    Getting through a breakup inevitably comes down to letting go. All of the steps I’m describing are about allowing.

    We have to allow ourselves to feel everything.

    We have to allow our feelings to be okay.

    We have to allow ourselves to be supported.

    We have to allow ourselves to be worthy of our own love.

    We have to allow ourselves to see the truth.

    And finally, we have to allow ourselves to move on.

    I know it’s hard. I’m right there with you. Just remember that it will get better. 

    Sad woman image via Shutterstock

  • When Something Has to Change: How to Push Yourself to Take Action

    When Something Has to Change: How to Push Yourself to Take Action

    Stressed woman

    “The truth you believe in and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new.” ~Pema Chodron

    At some point, there comes a defining moment when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you just can’t keep living the way you’ve been living.

    You know that something has got to give and realize that you only have two options—either change or stay the same.

    The idea of having to choose either one of those options feels absolutely unbearable, so you find yourself trapped between the two, in this awful purgatory of indecision.

    That’s exactly where I was trapped: unable to stay in an unhappy marriage, and unable to leave it.

    The prospect of changing required the long journey inward, having to look at myself honestly and courageously and do the things I was afraid to do.

    To change meant that I had to leap into uncharted waters, not knowing if I’d sink or swim. And in the face of that, I was easily lured back to the comfort of the familiar.

    I was quick to reassure myself that even in my unhappy situation, with all of its heartache and suffering, at least I knew what to expect. And that thought was comforting.

    In precise tandem with that thought was the awareness that if I couldn’t bring myself to leap off the cliff to change, I would be stuck living life in this state of unhappiness and dysfunction. And that thought was terrifying.

    I couldn’t stay where I was, but I was too afraid to move forward.

    This purgatory of indecision was an awful place to be. It was filled with its own unique despair. It was fraught with doubt, shame, anger, and huge amounts of fear. But in spite of that, it still wasn’t enough to propel me in any one direction.

    I was stuck in this purgatory for years. Eventually, I came to understand that my thoughts and beliefs didn’t actually come from me. They came from the very loud and dictatorial voice of my codependent mind.

    It had become so loud and powerful that it had all but drowned out my own voice. One of its most potent functions was to convince me that every terrible thing I told myself about myself was the gospel truth.

    I’ve learned to think of my codependency as a seed—and the same analogy applies for addiction, depression, and other struggles.

    There sits the seed of it, buried deep in our brain. And in some of us, at some point, something will happen to trigger it.

    That event acts as the water it needs to grow. If it’s allowed to set its roots down, it continues to grow stronger and stronger. The voice of that dysfunction slowly and steadfastly takes over and begins to drown out you.

    Eventually, this dysfunctional voice is the only one you hear, and so you recognize it as you, but it’s not.

    I think of it as two minds—my mind and the codependent mind. My co-dependent mind had grown so big, and its roots so deep, that it was calling all the shots.

    The mind of any dysfunction, regardless of where it originated, has its own unique sets of toolboxes. In my case, my codependent mind was a master at using fear and self-doubt to create confusion.

    Fear, along with self-doubt, whispers “you’re not good enough” or “you are not worthy,” and insists, “you can’t trust what you feel or what you think,” thereby creating all kinds of space for confusion to reign.

    There was a constant tug of war going on inside of me. I was convinced that what I wanted and needed was wrong if it wasn’t in alignment with what others wanted and needed from me.

    Daily, my codependent mind reminded me that I was inadequate, unlovable, unworthy, and incapable. And as the codependent voice got louder and louder, it eventually became the only voice I recognized and heard.

    But here’s the thing: The secret to silencing that voice of dysfunction is to challenge it. We must disbelieve what it’s saying.

    The problem was that any attempt at disagreeing with what my codependent mind created huge amounts of anxiety and fear.

    So you can see the predicament: To silence it, we have to disbelieve it. And to disbelieve it creates tremendous anxiety.

    The thing you need to know is that anxiety is the superpower of any dysfunction. It uses our disdain and discomfort for feeling anxious as a way of staying in control. This is what makes it so clever and difficult to outwit.

    And it was this desperate need to avoid feeling anxious that kept me from challenging my codependent thinking.

    As tough as it may seem, to be able to change your beliefs about yourself, you need to disbelieve what that voice of dysfunction is telling you, and do the very thing you think you can’t do.

    As you challenge it, you will experience anxiety and fear. But no one has ever died from feeling anxious or afraid. Ever.

    Feeling anxious or afraid will not kill you. But it will free you from the life you are trapped in, and from the incessant voice of your dysfunctional mind.

    I began by deciding to actively disbelieve any negative or unkind thoughts I had about myself.

    If they didn’t lift me up, I disbelieved them. Martha Beck, author and monthly columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine says: “All thoughts that separate you from genuine happiness are lies.” That became my daily mantra.

    As I practiced this new way of being—refusing to believe those negative thoughts as gospel truth—slowly but surely, my thoughts and beliefs about myself began to change.

    When my codependent thinking said I wasn’t capable, I chose to trust my capabilities were enough for that moment. When my codependent thinking said I wasn’t good enough, I chose to believe that I was enough.

    The more I decided I was lovable and worthy of love, the more confident, assured, and certain I became of who I was, and the more clearly I could hear my own voice.

    You must decide that you will no longer trust the voice of dysfunction. And once you do, I promise you, it will begin to retreat, and your voice—the voice of self-love, truth, and wisdom—will become loud and clear.

    Stressed image via Shutterstock

  • How to Feel Your Feelings and What That Will Do for Your Life (Everything!)

    How to Feel Your Feelings and What That Will Do for Your Life (Everything!)

    Colors of Mood

    “You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.” ~JK Rowling

    Sometimes the last thing we want to do is feel our feelings. Because feeling can hurt.

    Feeling can make you cry in the laundromat.

    Feeling can make your face unattractively red in the frozen food aisle.

    Feeling can make you think this whole being human racket is not the best way to spend your time.

    If you’ve been stuffing your feelings back into your rib cage whenever they try to break for the light, this is especially true. I know, because this is exactly what I did with my feelings for thirty-three long years.

    Oh, those crafty feelings would make the occasional jailbreak, and then I’d vibrate with a nameless rage that ended in cell phone destruction when technology met brick wall. Or I’d start screaming and yanking at my clothes—yes, actual rending of garments—because the rush of pain was too intense to contain within my frame.

    My mom is fond of saying that, for the first few years of my life, she thought she was raising a monster. As an empath in a house where emotion was treated like a ticking bomb, I was feeling emotions for the entire family, and all those feelings were processing through my eyeballs and via my vocal cords.

    So I learned to stifle my sensitivity and emotion in a well-meaning but mistaken effort to protect those around me. Many of us do.

    We learn that emotions aren’t safe.

    We learn that crying is not appreciated.

    We learn that life runs more smoothly when we pack our emotions into our spleen and forget about them.

    It wasn’t until my father landed in the hospital thirty years later that my personal emotional apocalypse began.

    Trapped in a hospital bed, unable to move, all the feeling and empathy my father had successfully stifled for seventy years—with work, wine, and science fiction novels—rose up to claim him. He couldn’t bear to be in his body any more, so he stopped eating until he didn’t have to be.

    Pressing play on his favorite John Coltrane track or reading his favorite passages, not sure what he could hear through the morphine haze, the solidity of my emotions began to crack.

    As we waited for my father to die, I roamed the hospital halls and spilled coffee on the pristine floors, feeling like I would jump out of my skin. Since writing was the only means I had of processing emotion at the time, I began to record my experiences on Twitter. Never before had I experienced such a rush of love and support.

    The cracks began to widen.

    After his death, my tenuous yet carefully clutched emotional control completely unraveled.

    As I began to lean into the cleansing rush of feeling, rather than running determinedly in the opposite direction, life began sending me the experiences I needed to learn how to surf the wave of the emotional onslaught.

    I learned how to greet my feelings as friends rather than as a nameless beast out to destroy my life—or at least my morning.

    I learned where emotions would hide in my body, lurking between my ribs or huddled in my belly.

    I learned how to allow the literal physical feeling of my emotions to burn itself out by simply feeling the sensation instead of judging it or making it mean something.

    I learned how crucial it was to feel my way through my emotions so that I could connect with my inner wisdom.

    Devoting myself to processing my feelings, rather than letting them build up until they drained me, began to shift and transform my life.

    Depression became a distant memory. I stopped feeling the need to drink, heavily or at all. Quitting sugar became easy, unless I was in the first throes of grief.

    (Any necessary grieving process buys me a few months of sugar, low energy, and crankiness. When I’m grieving, I won’t have energy or optimism anyway, so I may as well eat red velvet cupcakes.)

    When I try to pin down exactly how I learned to shift and flow with my feelings, rather than strapping them into concrete shoes and tossing them into my stomach, this is what shows up:

    Every feeling has a message.

    Maybe that message is simply to allow yourself to feel the emotion until it dissipates. Maybe the feeling is guiding you toward some action.

    Once, when a boyfriend and I were talking about moving in together, fear and anxiety began flying through my body like cocaine-addled pinballs for no apparent reason. In other words, I started flipping out, which didn’t make any sense, given that this was something I’d been wanting.

    When I began to explore the onslaught, I realized that there were deeper issues we needed to delve into before taking that step.

    If something persists—anger, fear, anxiety—simply ask it what it wants to tell you. Sit quietly and allow the answer to appear. When you feel peaceful, you have your answer, whether or not you like what that answer says.

    Processing your feelings gives you access to your own inner wisdom and innate creativity. 

    If I sit down to write and nothing comes, I hunt down any feelings that I’ve been avoiding. Sometimes I’ll need to abandon work to roam the beach and cry. Sometimes I’ll give the feeling five minutes of attention and get back to work.

    You already have all the answers you will ever need inside of you—and your emotions are a primary vehicle for those answers. Learning the language of your feelings will give you your own personal Sherpa through life.

    All this feeling you’re carrying around may not be yours.  

    Sensitive, empathic people are the proud recipients of a double whammy. You’re not just carrying around your emotions; you’re also carrying the emotions of people you walked past in the grocery store, the homeless woman you spoke with on the corner two years ago, the friend who vented last week.

    Your own emotions may be crowded by the emotions of others that you absorbed unconsciously, sometimes by simply walking past them in the street.

    Learn how to clear the emotions of others from your field. One way to do this is to imagine roots extending from your feet into the center of the earth. Send all the emotion and energy that doesn’t belong to you down those roots and into the earth. Feel it draining out of your field and into a place where it can be transformed. Do it daily.

    Feeling your emotions brightens your life, both internally and externally.  

    You already have every answer you will ever need inside of you; you just need to learn how to access that information. Answers about your relationships, your life direction, how to take care of your health, how to move toward what you want. Translating what your feelings are trying to tell you provides a direct conduit to your own higher wisdom.

    It may take time and sustained attention to clear out what you were in the habit of stuffing down, but the more you lean into whatever is asking to be seen, the more your life will open and expand.

    Brain gremlins won’t have as much sticky emotion to latch onto and they’ll become easier to gently set aside. What once felt heavy and overwhelming will feel light.

    And everything will change.

    Colors of mood image via Shutterstock

  • How to Beat Anxiety So You Can Live Life to the Fullest

    How to Beat Anxiety So You Can Live Life to the Fullest

    Meditation Silhouette

    “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” ~Jack Canfield

    When I was in my twenties, I was confident and fearless, and I lived life to the fullest.

    I remember going on vacation, and one of my friends was terrified to get on the plane. We had a four-hour flight ahead of us, and I thought her anxiety and fear of flying were ridiculous.

    I thought she was being pathetic and selfish, and spoiling it for everyone else. I remember having a ‘quiet word’ with her and berating her for talking absolute nonsense. I had no empathy or compassion for her feelings. In hindsight, I wasn’t being a very good friend.

    It’s funny how things can change. In June 2006, life as I knew it collapsed around me because a business I’d put my heart and soul into didn’t work out. I began to feel panicky, disconnected, scared, lost, weak, vulnerable, utterly ashamed, and broken.

    Simple daily tasks I once found easy became a chore. Even more disturbing was the realization that everything I previously enjoyed had become a source of fear and dread, such as going away, meeting friends, driving, and ironically, getting on a plane.

    Every minute of every day was filled with fearful thoughts; I overflowed with insecurities, self-doubt, and self-loathing.

    Physically, I felt nauseous, shaky, and dizzy. Day after day, my anxiety was relentless and exhausting. I was trapped on a never-ending emotional rollercoaster, and I couldn’t find any peace.

    Inappropriate anxiety makes you believe that there is something wrong when there isn’t; it eats away at your confidence and affects every part of your life.

    I was scared of my own thoughts and bodily sensations, constantly on red alert for the next attack. I spent my days trying to gain back some control by constantly monitoring my feelings and avoiding situations in which I felt anxious.

    I went on like this for ten years and spent a fortune on trying to ‘fix’ myself.

    I realize now that there was nothing to fix. I was the source of my own pain and suffering.

    The painful truth was that no amount of books, therapy, or money could get me out of the living nightmare. They would help me along the way, but true recovery came from within—the only way out was through.

    The Turning Point

    My turning point came one day when I had a panic attack in my car. I chose to sit with it and observe it. I didn’t add any more fear to it; I simply welcomed it and tried to understand it.

    I experienced my body calming down on its own, without any intervention from me. I then consciously decided that I wouldn’t revisit the experience in my head by worrying about it, analyzing it, or telling other people about it.

    The more I did this in various situations, the more my anxiety lost its substance.

    I acknowledged that my anxiety was like a dear friend, working for me and not against me. It had my back, warning me about pending fearful situations like an overprotective mother would. The only problem was, there was nothing to fear.

    I recovered by allowing myself to feel the anxiety without trying to suppress it, ignore it, or get rid of it. I learned how to accept it as my protector, and to be comfortable with anxiety being part of my life until my mind found other non-anxious ways.

    I gave up analyzing it, researching it, and looking for quick fixes. I stopped talking about it with others. I undermined its power by learning how to stay in the present moment and remain strong in the knowledge that it was just a feeling that would eventually pass.

    The more I did this, the more my confidence grew. It took time and patience, and there were many blips along the way, but by changing my relationship with anxiety, I eventually found my peace.

    I showed myself compassion, just like I should have showed it to my friend all those years ago on the plane.

    How You Can Help Yourself

    Anxiety is the body’s way of telling us we need to address something about ourselves.

    For me, my anxiety manifested because I’m a perfectionist; I’m also ambitious, but didn’t feel fulfilled in my work; and I generally take on too much, which puts extra stress on my body and mind. Throw in the fact that I’m a people pleaser, and  anxiety is sure to thrive.

    Anxiety can be messy, but it’s possible to fully recover.

    Here are the things that helped me.

    1. Tackle your stinking thinking and anxious behavior. 

    Recognize your anxious, negative thinking patterns, and be bold enough to challenge and change them. It takes time, but it works. It’s a huge breakthrough when you realize that you are not your thoughts.

    Before, I constantly feared the worst, dreading upcoming situations in case I felt unwell and anxious. This is called catastrophizing, when you think the worst will happen even though you have no concrete evidence that it will.

    Other unhelpful thinking patterns include:

    Over-generalizing – assuming that something will happen again just because it happened before. “I’ll mess up again, because I remember that last time I did.”

    Mind reading – assuming you know what others are thinking of you and situations. “She ignored me because she doesn’t like me.”

    Fortune telling – thinking you know what will happen in the future. “It won’t work, so I won’t try.”

    Critical mind chatter – negative thinking about yourself. “I’m such an idiot.”

    Black and white thinking – where you can’t see any middle ground, such as “my job is awful and I hate it” rather than “I don’t enjoy my job right now, but it could be worse and I’m going the make the best of it.”

    Here’s some helpful ways to deal with negative thoughts:

    • Recognize and label the unhelpful thinking pattern.
    • Challenge your thoughts; for example, if you think, “I’m not good enough,” think of some scenarios of times when you were good enough, which will dilute your initial negative thought.
    • Recognize extreme words you might use such as “I always fail,” and change them to “I sometimes fail, but that’s okay because I’m only human, and failure is simply feedback of how I can do better.”
    • Write down negative thoughts and journal next to them a more helpful way of thinking.
    •  A negative feeling such as low mood generally starts with a negative thought process, so try to link the two. If you’re feeling low, ask yourself what you’ve been thinking that led you to that low feeling.

    When I listened to my own thoughts, I realized how negative my mind was most of the time. No wonder I felt anxious!

    If you continue challenging your thoughts, eventually, more balanced thoughts will become second nature. You will become more skilled at it as time goes on, but do remember to pay attention to your thoughts and do the work needed to change them.

    2. Practice acceptance. 

    Accept that you have anxiety. Don’t suppress; instead, try to understand it, and see it as your friend and protector. Your body is working perfectly fine. Yes, anxiety makes you feel scared, but it’s meant to; that’s its job, right (fight or flight)?

    My anticipation anxiety was truly horrendous. The thoughts and feelings I experienced before going away even for one night were so strong that I often cancelled my plans. Once I saw anxiety as my overbearing protector, I could calmly tell it that I no longer needed its protection, and slowly it learned to back off.

    This requires you to be bold and strong, and to go against your natural instincts. It feels weird and scary at first, but keep going and you will find the anxiety eventually retreats.

    Acceptance means understanding that, for this moment in time, you are dealing with anxiety, and will still feel anxious while you’re going through the recovery process. There will be a period of time when negative thoughts keep popping up; this is only natural. Just learn to accept it as an anxious thought and move on.

    3. Look after yourself.

    Good nutrition, good sleep, and exercise set great foundations for tackling anxiety head on. Give yourself the best chance possible to beat this.

    Do as many things as you can to help you to relax, connect with your inner being, and make you laugh. Surround yourself with positive things and people. Be kind to yourself and make it your number one priority to fully recover.

    4. Look at your lifestyle.

    Are you in a bad relationship? Do you feel unfulfilled? Are you trying to please people? Ask yourself what anxiety is telling you to address in your life.

    What got you anxious in the first place? Is this something you are still continuing to do, and what could you do change this?

    5. Don’t avoid. 

    Don’t avoid the things you previously enjoyed and were able to do comfortably pre-anxiety. No matter how bad you feel, just keep on pressing through, knowing that anxiety cannot hurt you and will eventually pass.

    What helped me was to see every fearful situation as a challenge. I got excited about impending anxiety because it was an opportunity to face and overcome.

    I know all too well how it feels when every bone in your body tells you to avoid a fearful situation. In these instances, it’s beneficial to not engage in the negative thinking. Simply float through the feelings and know they will naturally pass.

    All avoidance does is teach your brain that there is something to fear, when there isn’t—that’s what keeps the anxiety alive!

    6. Don’t engage.

    Don’t feed the anxiety by monitoring it, engaging in conversations about it (even with yourself), or trying to fix it, suppress it, or wish it away. Allow it to be present for as long as it needs to be, and it will naturally diminish.

    See anxiety as your old habit. Like any habit, it will take time to heal, but by constantly engaging with it and worrying about it, you’re making it important and keeping it alive. Make your day structured, and fill it with fulfilling activities that keep your mind focused on something other than anxiety.

    7. Never give up!

    Never lose faith in yourself. Know that you are strong and resilient, and you can recover from this like many others have before you. Anxiety is, in fact, an easy thing to cure once we know how.

    Finally, if you’re suffering with anxiety, please know that you can and will recover. I now see my anxiety as a blessing because I’m a much stronger, more positive and compassionate person. Anxiety has taught me to live my life to the fullest and love every moment.

    Meditating silhouette via Shutterstock

  • We’re Only Guaranteed Today, So Stop Waiting for Tomorrow

    We’re Only Guaranteed Today, So Stop Waiting for Tomorrow

    Woman Running

    “If your forever was ending tomorrow, would this be how you’d want to have spent it? Listen, the truth is, nothing is guaranteed. You know that more than anybody. So don’t be afraid. Be alive.” ~Sarah Dessen

    Sometimes it takes a traumatic experience to make us face our fears and start living the life we truly desire.

    I spent many years letting fear hold me back from pursuing my dreams. I was afraid that I would not be good enough, strong enough, or smart enough to accomplish the big goals I had for myself. I didn’t think I was special and I definitely didn’t think I deserved to be successful.

    The day that all changed was the day my father nearly died of a heart attack. I didn’t know it at the time and I never imagined anything good would come from that experience, but to say that day dramatically changed my life would be an understatement.

    That day, we were told my father had about a 1% chance of living and if he did, he would likely have brain damage.

    The weeks that followed led my family and me on an emotional roller coaster. My dad slowly improved, but his memory was lacking. It was devastating to us when he couldn’t remember the Disney vacation we just went on or that he had a seven-month-old grandson.

    By some miracle, my father made a full recovery and is back to his old self. It was impossible to imagine that he could ever recover from the state he was in on that very first day in the hospital. Seeing the transformation in my father over those few weeks truly opened my eyes to what is possible in this life. 

    I did a lot of thinking in those few weeks while my dad was recovering. I decided I needed to stop letting fear get the best of me and start taking action toward my goals each day.

    In just eight months after my father’s heart attack, I have traveled solo (which was completely outside of my comfort zone), enrolled in a health coaching course, enrolled back in college to finally finish my bachelor’s degree, quit my job, and started my health coaching business.

    I’m now the happiest I’ve ever been. I get to spend more time with my kids and I get to do things that truly make happy each day. I am helping people transform their lives by prioritizing their health. I have less stress and anxiety and way more energy than I’ve ever had before.

    The experience of almost losing my father taught me valuable lessons that have helped me transform my life, and I hope that by sharing them they will inspire you to do the same.

    Cherish Your Loved Ones

    At the end of the day, if I had nothing else in my life but the people I loved most, I would be content and happy. Your loved ones are there for you during the good and the bad times. They are often your cheerleaders and support system, and their love is unconditional.

    Prior to my father’s heart attack, I often let work and my busy life get in the way of prioritizing time for those that mattered most. It was common for me to go weeks without speaking to my sister, months without seeing my best friend, and I even lost touch with some of my closest friends.

    When I was told that I may possibly lose my father, all I could think about was that I hadn’t seen him in a few weeks and that I would give anything to talk to him again.

    It’s so important to cherish your loved ones and make the time for them because when they are no longer around you will wish you had one more moment to spend with them.

    Too often, we get busy in life and forget about the importance of staying connected to those we love most. Call your mom, visit your friend, and make the most of the short time you have on this planet before it’s too late.

    Prioritize Your Health  

    If you want to live a long and healthy life, you must start prioritizing your health. I truly believe anything you want in life is possible as long as you have your health.

    I’ve been health conscious for many years now, but it wasn’t until my father nearly died from a heart attack, a disease that is highly preventable through a healthy diet and lifestyle, that I actually experienced what can happen if you don’t take care of your health and body.

    This made me realize that I needed to share my knowledge and passion for health with as many people as possible to hopefully prevent someone from going through a similar situation as my father.

    It’s time to stop with all of the excuses of why it’s too hard or there’s not enough time to eat healthy or exercise. Trust me, nothing else will matter if you get sick or pass away tomorrow because you didn’t make an effort to be as healthy as possible today.

    Stop Taking Everything So Seriously  

    Too often we get caught up focusing on all of the little problems and challenges we face on a daily basis. We stress and worry about things that we have no control over. We obsess over our flaws or mistakes and waste time trying to fix them.

    For years, I’ve worried and stressed over the little things in life. I stressed over the little mistakes I made at work, not being the “perfect” parent, or not being thin enough. I was a people pleaser, extremely self-conscious, and avoided any uncomfortable situations. My feelings were easily hurt and I simply took everything way too seriously.

    The truth is, when you are faced with life or death, these so-called issues do not seem to matter at all. You will not care if you missed that deadline or what that stranger thinks of you. These challenges and insecurities are a part of life, but do not need to take over your life.

    Life is Too Short

    The harsh reality is that before you know it your life will be over. We are only ever guaranteed today, so stop waiting for tomorrow.

    If you want to quit your job, make a plan and do it. If you want to find your soul mate, then put yourself out there and find him/her. It took my father’s near-death experience to wake me up and realize that I needed to make a change in my life. Don’t wait for a tragedy to happen before you get your act together.

    You Are Enough

    I let fear and self-doubt hold me back for years, and I know I’m not alone. We all struggle with fear, self-doubt, and shame and we allow it to take over our lives. Successful and happy people are the ones who experience these feelings, but follow their desires anyway.

    Whether you believe it or not, you are enough and you deserve to be happy. It has taken me a while to come to terms with this and I still work at it every day, but I now know that I am enough… and so are you.

    Woman running image via Shutterstock

  • The More You Do, The More Opportunities Open to You

    The More You Do, The More Opportunities Open to You

    “We’re here for such a short period of time. Live like you’re already dead, man. Have a good time. Do your best. Let it all come ripping right through you.” ~Jeff Bridges

    Yesterday, a Chinese exchange student we hosted two years ago texted to let me know her mother would like to invite my family to visit them in Nanjing—and she would pay for our plane tickets and let us stay at their vacation home.

    Of course I told everyone I know (I mean, China! C’mon!) and they all said, “You’re so lucky!” And it’s true, we are lucky.

    However, there’s more to our luck than, well, luck. Receiving amazing opportunities is a function not of waiting around and wishing for good things to happen, but of going out and living life to the fullest so good things can’t help but come to you.

    The China trip is one example: Since 1997 we’ve hosted fourteen exchange students for periods of time lasting from one month to the whole school year.

    Our friends and relatives have always thought we were nuts to take on the inconvenience and expense. (No, you don’t get reimbursed for hosting.) But we consider hosting foreign exchange students to be part of our civic duty, a lot of fun, and a good learning opportunity for our now seven-year-old son.

    Our kid has lived with students who hail from all over the globe—from South Korea to Ukraine to France—since he was one month old.

    So is this free trip luck, or a natural outcome of hosting fourteen foreign teenagers over the years?

    Another example: We entertain a lot, including holding weekly board game nights for ten to twelve gamers in our home. We’ve gone to great efforts to host these game nights—including managing a Meetup Group, supplying drinks, juggling our son’s bedtime routine on game night, and even having our garage converted into a board game room.

    We’ve become good friends with one family we met through this group, and for my birthday last week they offered to pay for tango lessons for my husband and me.

    Tango! I would never have thought of learning tango if we had not met these people and if they had not offered to get us lessons. Even though we expected nothing from our game group but some fun gaming, we have a new opportunity to do something fun and exciting that will stretch our limits—in a good way.

    I started thinking about this more and more, and the concept holds: The more you do, the more opportunities open to you.

    “Do More WHAT?”

    Doing more means different things to different people, but at its core it’s about stretching, learning, expanding, and experiencing new things.

    For some, that might mean helping at the soup kitchen or learning a new language, while for others it might mean starting a meditation practice or forming a book club. It doesn’t matter, as long as what you do is one or more of the following (the more the better!):

    • A learning experience
    • Something you’re passionate about
    • Mind-expanding
    • Helpful to others
    • Exciting
    • Requiring effort on your part
    • Scary

    Traveling, training for an athletic event, learning a new skill, volunteering, joining a new team at work, entertaining, writing, creating, launching…it’s all fair game. Just don’t fall into the trap of simply ramping up the intensity or frequency of the same-old-same-old if it’s not what lights your fire; try something new.

    “How Does It Work?”

    I can’t say for sure, but I can theorize. My feeling is that when you make an effort to try new things and expand your life experience, the universe—or heck, even your friends—see that you’re open and ready for more awesome opportunities, and they rush to make those opportunities happen.

    After all, who would you invite to join you at a class at the local clown college, or to co-launch a business—the friend who’s ready for anything, who you’ve seen taking part in all kinds of events, competitions, and activities? Or the friend who shrinks from new experiences and who sticks to the same routine year in and year out?

    “This All Sounds Expensive.”

    It can be if you want it to, but it doesn’t have to be. Volunteering is free. You can start a new business or volunteer organization with a WordPress website for nothing. Starting a book club, dinner group, or running group on Meetup.com costs only about $13 per month, and you can charge dues to make up for it. Training for a 5k or fitness competition for free.

    These (and many other activities) will create bonding experiences, memories, and opportunities to do even more—all without breaking the bank.

    “But Wait…Isn’t This the Opposite of Non-Attachment?”

    As a reader of this blog, you’re probably interested in concepts like being present and accepting what is. If you’re making efforts to experience more, create more, and do more, doesn’t that mean you’re grasping, attaching, obsessing about the future, and generally not being satisfied with your current self?

    It could mean that, but there’s a way to experience more and create new opportunities without falling prey to attaching: Go after everything you’ve ever wanted to experience and create—but enjoy the journey while you do it and try not to attach to the outcome.

    Work to improve your PR for that weightlifting competition, but don’t freak out over how you’ll perform at crunch-time. Write that book, but expect and accept rejection.

    Even if all your plans go awry, you still have the memories, and the results of your hard work. Write a novel and you have a novel. Pump iron for a competition and you’ll be stronger. It’s the doing that matters, not the results.

    Want to open yourself up to positive, amazing opportunities today? Think of something you’ve always wanted to do—whether it’s taking drum lessons, completing a sprint-distance triathlon, or hosting a gigantic family reunion—and take the first step toward that goal right now, before your “logical” mind steps in and tells you all the reasons it’s not possible.

    Once you do that, please post your experiences in the comments below. Here’s to great experiences!

  • 10 Ways to Increase Your Self-Worth

    10 Ways to Increase Your Self-Worth

    10 ways to increase your self-worth

    Source: Steven Aitchison

  • How to End Your Stress and Live a Life of Peace and Balance

    How to End Your Stress and Live a Life of Peace and Balance

    “To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life.” ~Jill Botte Taylor

    I used to be a stress bunny. Something was always driving me to want to do better—to be more, to have more, to compete and win at everything.

    I thrived on pushing myself, thinking achievement was a great thing.

    I was also restless. I always had to be going somewhere—doing something—never sitting still. I was bored, frustrated, and trying to find happiness outside myself.

    One day after I graduated from college, I became totally paralyzed by a rare syndrome and landed in the hospital. The doctors couldn’t tell me when or if I would ever walk again.

    I soon understood why I pushed myself so hard. I was running from myself so I didn’t have to face all the inner thoughts that were fueling my stress.

    Suddenly I couldn’t even walk away. I still wanted to run, but I was forced to lie there—tortured by my own racing thoughts.

    Talk about stress! This frightening experience taught me many valuable life lessons. One of them is that stress has no redeeming value. You can live a much happier, more successful life by transforming your stressful inner thoughts.

    Tying Our Emotions to Specific Outcomes Trips Us Up

    We’re all striving for certain things in life. Security, love, happiness, purpose, success, and independence are among our top goals, however we define these for ourselves.

    We live our lives trying to find happiness. But, as John Lennon sang, “Life is what happens while we’re busy making other plans.”

    Sometimes our disappointments can be extremely jarring, like when I landed in the hospital. Other times life is on a roll, and we become elated. But then things turn, and we’re headed for a crash landing. Life’s ups and downs can be so distressing.

    When we feel like we’re being torn apart, we learn to protect ourselves by not getting our hopes up about anything. But then we’re living a life of resignation, which isn’t fulfilling, either.

    Tying our emotions to all the ups and downs is like stepping onto a perpetual roller coaster, riding through multiple dips every day. Why live with that kind of stress when a better alternative exists?

    How to End Stress and Achieve a Life of Peace and Balance

    Wayne Dyer said, “Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.”

    If that sounds like giving up or giving in, that’s not what Dyer meant. He was referring to the flow of life. We can train ourselves to take advantage of this flow and stay in balance regardless of any temporary elation or dismay.

    1. Loosen up on expectations and attachments.

    When we expect something great to happen, we begin to set ourselves up for the roller coaster. We’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t happen, or happy if it does. Pair that with being emotionally attached to the outcome and wham—there’s an even bigger charge. You just stepped onto life’s roller coaster.

    If you realize every situation offers growth and opportunity, you can more easily live without expectations. You can feel confident being open to whatever happens, knowing that you can appreciate good events and accept the challenge of things you feel are negative.

    Some of us have a general fear that bad things might be just around the corner. Try to detach yourself from fear of what might happen and experience life as it unfolds.

    2. Remember, nothing is permanent.

    When life is great, we hope it continues forever. When we’re in a dip, we can’t wait until it ends. But nothing is permanent. That’s hard to remember when we’re stuck in a bad situation and hard to accept when life is good.

    Reminding yourself that all things must end (and new situations will replace them) is a great way to begin detaching, and maintaining balance no matter what.

    Being paralyzed and not knowing what was in store was terrifying. But I faced each day with hope that the paralysis would stop progressing. When it did, my doctor told me I had actually willed it out of myself because nothing he had given me had the power to stop it.

    3. Catch yourself when you’re judging and evaluating.

    Life just is. It’s easier to relax and meet it with a smile when you can. If you practice living and being in the moment, rather than evaluating how everything is affecting you, events will lose their grip.

    Human beings experience physical pain differently than animals do. We exaggerate pain by thinking about how bad it is and how much we don’t want it. But we can get control of our pain by focusing on the actual size of the area it covers and how it truly feels. Observing instead of judging can help us see reality.

    The same applies to events we label as bad. Next time, try to take your focus off of feeling bad long enough to assess the reality. Then shift your mind to finding a positive aspect of the experience or thinking about something good that is also happening.

    For example, when I was still adjusting to being paralyzed and in the hospital, coworkers and neighbors who I thought were just acquaintances came to see me. I was amazed that so many people I hardly knew cared about what was happening to me. Experiencing this was a great comfort.

    4. Use the signs life provides to guide you.

    Life is like a flowing river. We can do three things when we jump in: We can go with the natural flow, letting the current carry us forward; we can try to go upstream; or we can hang onto a rock to try to stay put.

    If we go with the flow, we’ll be carried along peacefully. If we try to go upstream, we’ll have a real battle on our hands. If we hang onto a rock, we’ll risk being battered against that rock.

    Why not take the easy route and go with the flow? This doesn’t mean you can’t shoot for your goals. It means be aware of signs that your chosen path is on or off target. If you’re struggling too hard, try a different approach.

    For instance, if you’re beating your head against the wall trying to convince someone to love you and it’s not happening, try finding a different wall with an open door.

    5. Find the natural flow of life.

    With more practice, you’ll begin to see solid evidence of the flow of life. Experiment to find it so you can really trust and let go.

    Maybe you have far too much on your plate for one person to handle, and you always end up completely stressed over not being able to get things done. This is so common today.

    Stress further slows your progress as you worry about whether you can ever catch up.

    Try stepping back, relaxing, and taking a bigger view. Focus on believing that everything will get done in its own time if you take one step at a time. When you do this, you’ll find that things will fall into place with less effort on your part. You’ll experience the flow of life.

    Every day, give yourself a simple list of two important things you want to work on that day. This will ensure that you get to those two important items, which likely isn’t happening if you’re reacting to all the little distractions. Doing so also allows time to handle most of those little items too.

    I’ve done this for several years, and I’m amazed at how much more I accomplish, with less stress.

    Ending your stress is in your power—what a relief!

    —

    I survived my ordeal with paralysis and healed perfectly in a few months. This experience was a wake-up call that taught me to stop stressing so much, appreciate life, and live it to the fullest. To do that, I slowed way down and learned what a gift it is to live in the moment, open to whatever life brings.

    Like any major challenge, the experience showed me how strong I can be. This helped me reduce general fears of what might happen in the future.

    It was a great reminder that even horrible situations are only temporary, and since I can learn so much from them, it’s better to look for the lessons than to focus on how bad things seem.

    Life can’t always be just the way we want it. But if we go with the flow and work with each situation as it is, we will often be surprised that things turn out better than we wanted.

    A balanced life that is far less stressful makes everything more enjoyable.

  • Think You Can’t Do It? Don’t Let Your Mind Limit or Define You

    Think You Can’t Do It? Don’t Let Your Mind Limit or Define You

    “The limit is not in the sky. The limit is the mind.” ~Unknown

    I was having a conversation with a friend. She was telling me how maybe I should quit my writing and focus on something that wasn’t so challenging for me; that I should accept my limits and work within those boundaries. Her words made me cringe.

    You see, I am dyslexic and I struggled greatly to write this story down. I am probably going to read it twenty times and will still have many mistakes that need editing.

    My job is a daily struggle, and sometimes I break down and cry because it takes me double the time than it would take a non-dyslexic person. But here’s the thing, I’m not quitting, no matter how many times I cry, no matter how many times the editor sends my story back, or how bad I have it with dyslexia. I won’t quit.

    I’ve seen a man with no legs and no arms swimming in the ocean, Albert Einstein was dyslexic, The Beatles were told their music sucked, and I was told I would probably fail in university.

    Am I a story of success? That depends on what you think success is.

    In a world limited by people’s opinions, I was fortunate enough to have parents who pushed me beyond what I thought were the limits imposed by my circumstances.

    I was born with a heavy form of dyslexia that saw me fail over and over again math and Spanish (my native language). Teachers preached to my parents about how I would struggle greatly if I ever decided to go to university.

    I felt like a failure, unable to cope within this non-dyslexic world. My parents, on the other hand, pushed me for greatness, but in my own mind I felt I couldn’t go very far. I let my own fear of failure keep me from going to university after high school finished.

    For three years I searched for forms of making a living that didn’t involved math or Spanish. I became a waitress, a maid, a bartender, and a dog walker, until I realized I didn’t want to live my life with jobs that weren’t personally fulfilling and that left me no sense of satisfaction. I wanted to write. But how could I if I have dyslexia?

    In spite of the great fear I had for my dyslexic mind, I enrolled myself into university. Ironically I chose a career path focused on writing. Journalism.

    I pushed myself beyond what I thought were my own limits. I worked harder than my fellow classmates, and if it took them two hours to do an essay it would take me twelve. But I wasn’t fighting against them; I was fighting against my own self. Pushing and working beyond the pain, frustration, and desperation.

    I spent countless sleepless nights trying to get each essay perfect and flawless, re-writing every sentence to make it correct and still I had flaws, mistakes, errors that made me feel like a failure.

    It came as a surprise to me (but not to my parents) that I actually managed to graduate top of my class and got a freelance writing job in English! Which is not even my native language.

    No, I’m not rich, I haven’t written a bestselling book, and I don’t make much money. But I can tell you this: I love my job, I love writing, I cry when I get sent back stuff, and I get very frustrated, but I keep going beyond my limits only to discover that it is limitless on the other side.

    I keep improving with every mistake I make, and I’ve been fortunate enough to find amazing editors that value the creativity in my writing more than my mistakes.

    Our bodies may have limits. We can only stand certain temperatures; we can only go a limited amount of time without air. But our minds forge their own limits. Those with limited mindsets will work within their limits and stay within the comfort zones that allow them to feel contentment with a sense of conformity.

    But pushing our minds beyond their own limits can give us an indescribable sense of joy by showing us how limitless we truly are. We are what we think we are.

    If you think you can’t run a marathon, you’ll never push yourself to start training; you’ll limit your body by your minds perception.

    If you think you can’t start a new career in a creative field, you’ll overlook opportunities to strengthen your craft and potentially earn from it.

    Doing what you want to do starts with believing it’s possible, no matter how difficult it may be. Achieving what it’s beyond our pre-conceived limits is what strengthens not only our bodies, but also our own minds.

    Muhammad Ali didn’t become the greatest boxer of all time by believing it was easy, but by pushing beyond the pain and frustration, by forging a mind that saw him go beyond what he thought were his limitations.

    I can whine and quit because I have a learning disability, or I can accept I have a disability and work around it, through it, and over it. For many years I saw my self as a failure for having something I never wished I had, but the moment I took responsibility for myself, my life, and my mind, I found the courage and determination to not let it define me.

    Don’t let your mind define you. You are so much greater than what you think you are.

  • How to Live a Rich Life Without Lots of Money

    How to Live a Rich Life Without Lots of Money

    Woman with Coffee

    “Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.” ~Oscar Wilde

    Does the race for riches leave you unfulfilled?

    Does the thought of constantly chasing ever more cash leave you stressed, depressed even?

    Does the whole idea of measuring your personal worth in terms of your personal wealth leave you deeply dissatisfied?

    It did for me.

    Poor in possessions and somewhat fiscally challenged, I never fit in with my richer friends.

    And no matter how much I told myself that money didn’t buy happiness, I still felt worthless because I was worth less … financially.

    So in my thirties, I finally caved in and chased the money dream.

    Five exhausting, stress-filled years of ruthlessly pursuing more money.

    But when I got there, it meant nothing to me. It didn’t make me happy. It made me miserable.

    In those five years, even to the small extent I succeeded, the so-called riches that money can buy actually left me poorer in happiness, health, and relationships. My heart and head were as full as my work schedule, but not with the people and things that really mattered.

    I discovered that rocking a 24-carat rock didn’t rock my world. And bling definitely didn’t make me swing.

    So with no idea where to go from there, I found an empty journal and started a record of the True Riches In My Life. For each year of my adult life, I jotted down every experience, achievement, adventure, friendship won or lost, and every decision I could remember making.

    What an epiphany!

    I realized my life had been full of riches long before I started chasing financial wealth and material gain. I realized most of the truest riches in my life actually came when I didn’t have all that much money.

    Sure, when money’s really tight, it’s not so easy to focus on much beyond finding enough for the essentials. When I was lost in the financial doldrums, struggling to pay my rent, and praying there’d be reduced food in the supermarket, it took up a lot of my mental energy. But I wish I’d known then that I would have felt so much better about myself, about my situation, if I’d recognized the riches I did have.

    Whether I’d had enough money or not, I’d missed seeing all those infinitely precious things because I’d been looking for the wrong kind of riches. I’d been measuring my inner wealth by my external wealth.

    I realized in that epiphany that no matter how much a part of me may have wanted it, I would never be materialistic. It just isn’t in my makeup; I am much more spiritual than material.

    Just like you.

    And even though you can have lots of money and still be spiritual, spiritual people measure true wealth in different terms.

    So forget the race for riches, start your own True Riches In My Life journal, and discover your own inner wealth.

    14 Infinitely Precious Things For A Rich Life

    1. Authenticity

    Forever staying true to yourself and being at peace with who you are is the greatest richness in life.

    Each morning, tell your reflection that you are going to do yourself the greatest service of being you. This act alone makes me feel happier, regardless of my personal financial situation or lack of ‘status.’

    Start your Riches In My Life journal with a declaration of the authentic, spiritually rich person you truly are.

    2. Acceptance

    Overcome your natural desire to control the uncontrollable in life, and replace struggle with acceptance and peace.

    Every time you catch yourself wishing you could change the unchangeable, write it down in your journal, and say, “It’s okay. I accept this just as it is.”

    3. Curiosity

    Childish wonder is still within you. Forever questioning and experimenting is the sign of a rich mind. My most enjoyable days are always those marked by a discovery, where I’ve learned something new, however tiny, that I can’t wait to share.

    Reignite your spark and excitement for life by reading different types of books, learning about different cultures, and delving deeper into anything of interest. Jot down these new discoveries in your True Riches journal—you’ll be amazed!

    4. Creativity

    Creating something from nothing is a courageous act that brings a valuable accomplishment amid the practicalities of everyday life.

    Let your self-expression rule in your journal—start that book, paint that picture, or maybe just sketch out an idea or inventive solution.

    5. Forgiveness

    Letting go of anger or hurt rewards one with peace of mind—a priceless freedom. The act of forgiveness is a true testament to your inner strength.

    Write in your journal and say, “I forgive you, [name].” Don’t worry if you don’t feel forgiveness the first time; it will come in due time.

    6. Gentleness

    Confucius listed gentleness as one of the greatest virtues, and it is a quality you can see in spiritual people from Buddha to Gandhi. The ability to be strong without being abrupt or harsh is a rare and valuable quality.

    Next time the kids or a colleague act up, smile, speak softly, and note in your journal how you stood firm but gentle.

    7. Patience

    Being patient isn’t easy in this age of instant gratification. However, with patience, you can achieve things over time that may seem impossible. Journaling my ideas and projects has taken me from being “Missy, I need it right now or not at all,” to truly feeling the joy that more substantial, longer-term projects bring.

    Next time you start beating yourself up over a missed goal, write a realistic time scale in your journal, and remember to be as patient with yourself as you are with others.

    8. Gratitude

    It takes dedication to notice what you have and be thankful for it. But acknowledging all the good things in each day will make you rich in happiness.

    Challenge yourself to note one thing each day you might have taken for granted, and add it to your journal to build a treasury of blessings.

    9. Generosity

    Giving when you believe you don’t have enough yourself is true generosity of heart. And doing so leads to the realization that you always have enough to share.

    Give someone your undivided attention for half an hour when you think you have no time. In this hectic world, your full attention is one of the most generous things you can give. Write these acts of generosity in your journal.

    10. Kindness

    Being kind brings its own rich rewards—inner peace, happiness, and the knowledge that you are making a real difference in the world, one people will remember.

    Next time you feel unhappy or are beating yourself up, do one small act of kindness for someone, then do one for yourself. Note these in your journal.

    11. Compassion

    To understand and feel another’s pain is a truly selfless act. It allows you to appreciate the areas of ease and plenty in your own life.

    In your journal, note all your compassionate thoughts and actions. I find these to be the most powerful of my journal entries; they wrap a security blanket of all that I’m blessed with round me each time I re-read them.

    12. Love

    Making that emotional connection with others, whether it’s your partner, family, or friend, brings an abundance into your life that money can never hope to match.

    Each day, tell someone you love them, and write in your journal every time those wonderful words are said to you.

    13. Vulnerability

    Letting down your defenses and showing your weaknesses allows others to see the full picture, not just a silhouette. Being vulnerable builds trust in relationships. This is my Achilles heel, but by consciously letting others in, initially unremarkable relationships have blossomed into great friendships.

    In your journal, record all your positive experiences of being vulnerable to help you build this rewarding habit.

    14. Contentment

    Realizing you already have abundance in your life brings serenity and contentment. Achieving this in a materialistic world takes a special skill.

    In your journal, read through all the infinitely precious things other than money that you are wealthy in. Acknowledge all the wealth you already have because, as the proverb says, “enough is a feast.”

    Find Your Real Riches

    Imagine being unconcerned about the race for riches.

    Imagine no longer stressing over constantly chasing ever more cash.

    Imagine measuring your personal wealth in terms of your personal worth, and feeling true contentment with the result.

    Start that True Riches In My Life journal.

    Embrace the genuinely spiritual person you are, and be at peace for the incredible riches you bring to the world.

    Woman with coffee image via Shutterstock

  • How Short Rests Can Make You Healthier, Happier, and More Productive

    How Short Rests Can Make You Healthier, Happier, and More Productive

    “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” ~John Lubbock

    Do you ever fear taking breaks?

    Maybe you think that if you stop working, everything is going to come crashing down?

    Sometimes it feels like you’re riding a train of momentum, and if you try to stop or slow down you’re just going to come off the tracks.

    I know the feeling. Believe me, I used to feel the same.

    I wanted so badly to achieve everything I could, and would beat myself up if I didn’t. Coffee would fuel my mornings, deadlines and adrenaline my afternoons.

    At the time I wasn’t completely oblivious to the problems with my lifestyle. No matter how tired I would get, I still wasn’t sleeping well, and I’d often spend weekends thinking about work.

    I could be out at lunch on a Sunday, only half engaged in a conversation with friends because I was already mentally rehearsing Monday.

    I knew that I was always just a little bit too stressed. And to make it worse, I was confused, caught between the fear of slowing down and the fear of allowing stress to damage my health.

    The problem is, it already was. I started getting headaches at work and waking up with chronic tension in my neck and my back. At a certain point I realised it just wasn’t worth it.

    Finally I decided it was time to do something.

    So I read a few books on how to better manage my energy. Once I started learning about how important breaks were to my body, mind, and well-being, I began to start taking them seriously. And I noticed something strange—I was becoming more and more productive and I had less stress.

    So today I want to tell you something, and I really want you to listen.

    You need a rest.

    I know what your brain is telling you. How will the kids get to school? How will the bills get paid? I have three to-do lists—and that’s just this morning. How on earth am I going to find time to rest?!

    Fortunately, short rests can become a part of anyone’s lifestyle, no matter how busy they are. And the truth is that if you don’t rest, you’ll never feel like your body is recharging properly.

    You might collapse at the end of the day and fall into a deep sleep every once in a while, but that feeling of being refreshed and ready to take on the day when you wake up just won’t be there.

    So Why Is Rest Important?

    Our modern idea of success is to work longer and longer hours until we crash. Companies who praise the ‘hardest workers’ fuel this. It sets a precedent where everyone gives all their energy, but very little of their best work.

    The result is that we have a society where rest is considered to be a reward, or even worse, indulgent. But this is not the case at all; rest is a cornerstone of a healthy, happy, and productive life. In fact, rest throughout the day is as important as food, water, and sleep.

    Getting in Tune with Our Natural Rhythms

    In the mid-twentieth century physiologist Nathan Kleitman discovered that our energy levels rise and fall in ninety-minute sleep cycles. What isn’t as widely known, though, is that he also found that we have ninety-minute wake cycles.

    These are called our ultradian rhythms, and if we don’t take proper rests to manage our arousal, we end up less creative, our stress hormones stay elevated, and our dopamine levels can get out of balance—leading to mental illness.

    What happens with most people is that as their focus starts to wane, they continue to push themselves to work. In the process they start to draw from their reserves of adrenaline and cortisol to get through the fatigue and maintain enough arousal to work. While some release of these stress hormones is natural, if you don’t rest enough to allow your body to balance them you’ll end up fatigued and unproductive.

    So what you need to do is make sure you take mindful, non-work related breaks, at least every ninety minutes.

    Here are some ways to make sure you take effective rests throughout your day.

    Take decent size rests.

    Rests should be at least five to fifteen minutes long. They should also include an activity that is completely detached from work or technology.

    Some effective ways to rest are through mindfulness practices, deep breathing, yoga, light walks, or exercise. Creative activities are also a good way to clear your mind, such as sketching, free-writing, or journaling.

    Add it to your calendar.

    Treat your commitment to rest with as much respect as you would any other daily task. Put the restful activity in your schedule or to-do list and try to find an accountability partner to make sure you stick to them.

    Time your work.

    If you can time your work and follow the natural cycles of your body you’ll immediately see a huge improvement in how you feel. Try to stick to the advice above and do no more than ninety minutes of straight work without a break.

    Get to know yourself.

    We all have certain periods during the day in which we experience dips in our concentration. For a lot of us it is between 2 and 4pm. This is a great opportunity to take a slightly longer rest, such as a short nap, if the option is available.

    Remember, rest isn’t an excuse to work less, it’s a natural method to help you work better, and more importantly, feel better!

  • Why Someone Else’s Success Isn’t a Threat to Yours

    Why Someone Else’s Success Isn’t a Threat to Yours

    Envy

    “Stop beating yourself up. You are a work in progress; which means you get there a little at a time, not all at once.” ~Unknown

    I got embarrassed at the gym.

    I sat down at the bench press, ready to hoist up 135 pounds of iron. My goal was eight reps for the first set.

    Before I started my first set, I heard someone huffing to my left. I looked over and saw a young guy benching 315 pounds!

    I counted his reps, and he went all the way up to eight. It was the same number of repetitions that I aimed for, only I was lifting 135 pounds, which is one 45-pound weight on each side (compared to his three on each side).

    How embarrassing!

    In that moment, I felt like I was wasting my time at the gym.

    This young guy beast was leagues ahead of me in terms of physical strength. For the same number of reps, he could lift 180 pounds more than me. That difference is so much that, despite the point I’m making, my pride told me to omit this story.

    Pride isn’t a good thing though, so here’s the story!

    Others’ Success Is Not a Threat to Yours

    I didn’t leave the gym early from discouragement because I realized two things.

    1. I can bench press my bodyweight now (150 pounds), which is something I had wanted to do for a long time.

    2. LA Fitness has mirrors for walls. Peering into a mirror, I noticed how much stronger I looked than ever before.

    In other words, I had a lot of progress to be happy about, and that’s not all that I noticed. Literally one minute before this happened, I saw a man downstairs; he was walking on the treadmill, and he was obese.

    I came full circle and realized that here I was feeling embarrassed for my puny bench press, when someone like the guy downstairs could possibly be jealous of my physical conditioning. It helped me understand why the overweight man, the beast, and I should all ignore each other’s progress.

    Detach Your Progress from Everyone Else

    Unless you’re having a competition with a friendly wager, your personal progress is 100% independent from the world and the people in it.

    So what if the guy next to me can bench press a small car? That doesn’t impact me unless I make it my new standard.

    So what if the guy on the treadmill is out of shape compared to many others at the gym? That doesn’t change what he’s there to do.

    Also, there is a difference between using someone else as a representation of where you want to be and letting their success threaten your sense of satisfaction in the progress you’ve made or are making.

    If you need to clarify your goal, you can then say something like, “I want the physique of Hugh Jackman.” That’s useful because it gives you a clear target (visually) of where you want to end up.

    What I did in the gym did not start with me—it was from the outside in. I saw the guy in the gym, and I interpreted his strength as a strike against the value of my progress and goals.

    I think it’s easy to mix up referencing and enviously comparing, because both involve the desire to improve. One is to clarify an idea while the other is a guilt-ridden, envious focus on who are you not.

    No Pain, Still Gain?

    I think it’s common to be envious of someone’s progress and want to use that as a motivator. But such “negative motivation” is mentally draining and relatively ineffective (guilt and discontentment are short-minded and inferior ways to move forward in life).

    There’s something really important I’ve experienced in the last couple of years: amazing progress doesn’t require emotional pain; it only requires consistent effort. From the story, did you notice what seeing the 315-pound bench presser did to me? It made me hesitate to make progress, which doesn’t make sense.

    Seeing him bench that much decreased my motivation to exercise because my efforts seemed futile in comparison. Of course, we’re human and we will always look around to see what others are doing, but when it comes to our progress, it seems we’re better off disregarding what we see.

    The Permanent Cure for Envy Is Progress

    It’s easier to let go of a disappointing comparison to others when you see and know you’re making progress. Otherwise, a sense of futility and despair can set in (and unfortunately, I know this from experience!) I don’t even expect or care to bench 315 pounds, but I know I can continue to get stronger every week, because I’ve proven it.

    I mentioned earlier that I can bench press my body weight (150 pounds). Well, a couple years ago, I had a close call in the gym: I couldn’t get the barbell back up on my fourth rep (without a spotter), and I had to duck my head out from underneath the bar as it crashed into the bench.

    How do I know it was close? The rough “grip” part of the bar actually scraped my head on the way down! And it was only 115 pounds. I’ve made a ton of progress since then. But if we’re going to make comparisons, let’s go for the extremes.

    Compare my one push-up a day to this guy’s 315-pound bench press. Head-to-head, his achievement makes mine seem less than worthless, and yet, my one push-up a day transformed my life. This is why comparisons are invalid—your progress is only relative to you, not other people.

    Since I started my one push-up a day mini habit two years ago, I’ve gained twenty pounds of mostly muscle because the more progress you make, the more you’ll be willing and able to make.

    Who or What Is Your Most Bothersome Comparison?

    Try this: Think about your version of the 315-pound bench press guy. Does someone else have the fame, power, money, or respect that you crave? Do you know someone who has your dream job?

    Whatever you came up with, admit and internalize that it is irrelevant to your journey and personal progress.

    There will always be someone who is further along the path than you are in every area. Instead of seeing that as a threat to your success, see it as irrelevant to your success, because it is! I can’t think of a single time that I changed my life because I thought I compared unfavorably to another person. Can you?

    It’s great to have other people in life for support, socializing, and new perspectives, but when it comes to your personal progress, it seems best to leave others out of it, and especially so in the early stages of your growth in an area.

    If you’re already world class in running, comparisons to other elite athletes might motivate you to get to the next level (and even in a healthy way). But in that case, you already have the solid foundation to build from. Many people don’t have such a powerful foundation, which is possibly why they want to improve, and so the comparison (to someone well ahead of them) makes them overreact.

    In my case, I might try to lift too much weight and hurt myself or else quit going to the gym because it’d seem trivial by comparison. That’d be a mistake, as what seems to be a little bit of progress in the world’s eyes can compound and completely change your life.

    The only person you have to measure up to is the person you were yesterday. If you can beat that person, trust me, you’re doing very well.

    Envy image via Shutterstock

  • Life Goes by Too Quickly to Postpone Our Dreams

    Life Goes by Too Quickly to Postpone Our Dreams

    Reach for the stars

    “The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.” ~Paul Valery

    As I am sitting at my desk, looking out the window, I am contemplating if I should fly to Germany or not.

    My father has been very sick for the past three years. I spent three months in Germany last year to have some time with him and help him get better. He finally recovered and I flew back home to Miami.

    When I talked to my stepmom the other day, she gave me the news though that my father had a relapse and seems to be worse than ever.

    My first instinct was to get on the next plane to go see him. My father refuses. He doesn’t want me to come. He doesn’t want me to see him suffer, so he prefers I stay home while he is waiting for a place in the clinic.

    Situations like these make you realize how precious life is. Everything we take for granted can be gone in a heartbeat. Knowing that, why do we keep procrastinating? Why do we keep postponing our dreams?

    We always think the time is not right, we don’t have the resources we need, we don’t have enough knowledge, we don’t have any support; the list is endless.

    I was just like that. I always dreamed of going full-time with my personal training business. But even though I felt depressed, kind of empty inside, and even useless once in a while, and I had a day job I wasn’t passionate about that seemed meaningless to me, I kept making excuses.

    I kept telling myself, there are too many trainers out there, I won’t be able to make a living, it’s going to be too hard, I am not skilled enough, I am not fit enough, I am not outgoing enough, and—my all-time favorite—right now is just not the right time to take the leap.

    You know what though? The time is never right! We will never feel ready and the conditions will never be perfect.

    My father’s illness made me realize that I don’t want to continue living this way. When my time comes I want to be able to say “I tried.” No ifs and buts.

    Last year I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and promised myself that I would make it happen. I wouldn’t let doubt, fear, or excuses stop me. I quit my dreaded job at the hotel and jumped head first into my entrepreneurial journey.

    It hasn’t been easy; I keep making mistakes, and I keep learning. Believe me when I say, you can’t come up with anything the tiny little voice in my head hasn’t already thrown at me.

    You might think you don’t have the resources to make your dreams a reality, but believe me, you do, and if you don’t, you can get them. You know enough to get started, and the rest you will learn while you’re on your way.

    Your family and friends don’t support you? Find other support systems! Go online, check out groups, go to seminars, events, meet knew likeminded people. If you don’t have a support system, create one!

    We think we have all the time in the world to pursue our dreams, but the reality is we don’t know how much time is left. You might have fifty years, twenty years, or you could be gone tomorrow. Do you really want to look back at the end of your life and ask “what if”?

    Now is the time to make your dreams a reality.

    You want to build your own company? Make a plan, start networking, and check out financing options.

    You want to travel the world? Start selling the stuff you don’t need, make a list of countries you want to visit, start figuring out ways to earn money while you are on the road.

    Okay, okay, I know what you’re about to say: This sounds great but it’s not that easy. And you are right. We all have responsibilities; we have monthly bills we have to pay, maybe a mortgage, and some of us have children to care for.

    I’m not telling you to drop everything you worked for and throw all security measures out the window. My point is that we need to follow our passions; we need to remember what makes us smile, what makes us laugh, what makes us happy.

    Sometimes even small steps in the direction of our dreams are enough to bring us back to the present moment and allow us to enjoy life again.

    Maybe on the way you realize that having your own company or traveling the world won’t actually make you fulfilled. Or you come to realize that you are indeed on the right path and that you do want to make drastic changes in your life, and then you accept the sacrifices you have to make.

    But in order to find out what it really is that gives you joy, you need to start shooting for the stars.

    But people will think I’m crazy! It’s too risky! I’m scared!

    This is your life. It doesn’t matter what other people think. You deserve to create a life you don’t need a vacation from. You deserve to be able to look back on your life with a smile on your face instead of regret in your heart.

    Yes, it is scary, and yes, it might be risky, but if you don’t try you will never find out what could have been. Take every opportunity you get. You might fall once in a while. That’s okay.

    I still struggle. I still get anxious because I have months where I try to figure out how to pay my bills. And sometimes I have this awesome idea for a new program and invest all my time into making it happen, just to find out that I was the only one who thought it was a great idea.

    It happens. Let’s take things like this as a lesson learned, get back up, and do it again. Just don’t let these challenges convince you that you should give up.

    I pray every single day that my father will recover and I will be able to spend a lot more time with him. But even if he doesn’t, I know he won’t go with a lot of regret. He always enjoyed his life, did what he wanted, said what he wanted, and didn’t care about the opinions of others.

    Let’s take that as an example, and let’s keep pushing our dreams forward and make them a reality. We deserve it!

    Reaching for the stars image via Shutterstock