Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • How to Enjoy Life Without Buying Lots of Stuff

    How to Enjoy Life Without Buying Lots of Stuff

    “Minimalism isn’t about removing the things you love. It’s about removing the things that distract you from the things you love.” ~Joshua Becker

    Over the recent few years of being a digital nomad, I got a chance to live in Spain, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and Canada for a month or longer. As I didn’t have a home base and only had one medium-sized suitcase with me (still do), I couldn’t really afford to buy new things.

    I mean, I would need to put them somewhere, and my suitcase is already over forty-five pounds while most airlines only allow up to fifty.

    Even when I had to go back to my home country and stay there for almost a year because of the pandemic, I knew I’d be on the road again as soon as possible. So I continued to not buy anything other than essential things.

    I was never a shopaholic before, but I still felt miserable wearing the same few-year-old clothes and watching my friends (not even mentioning social media influencers I follow) regularly enjoy new things.

    I didn’t realize that more often than not we only buy things to fill a void or to relieve stress, not necessarily because we actually need or even want them. As soon as I figured that out, I started looking for alternative ways to fill my days with joy that didn’t involve buying new stuff.

    Today I want to share four things that I’m buying now when I want to feel better, which don’t occupy any space in my suitcase!

    1. Online courses

    Maybe it’s just me, but courses that teach me new skills are my favorite things ever! Even my husband knows that giving me a course as a gift will always make me happy.

    I have a ton of hobbies and things that I’m interested in, and each of them could become a full-time thing if I wanted it to. So there is no lack of information to keep learning.

    For example, last year I was into photography and took a bunch of courses on the subject. I learned mobile photography, then normal photography, and even some videography. I studied lots of related things including photo and video editing and even dipped my toes into stock photography.

    This year I’m learning digital illustration. YouTube and Skillshare are my two best friends right now and would probably be the most visited websites in my free time if I were to track my web activity. It just makes me so happy to ace a new thing I couldn’t imagine creating before!

    Honestly, I could never understand people who get bored staying alone at home and don’t know what to do. I wish I had another twenty-four hours in my day just to fit in all the things I want to learn!

    Besides, investing in yourself is never a bad idea. You never know where your new skills might appear useful on your life journey.

    2. Experiences

    You might say that it’s easy to find new experiences when you are traveling, and that’s true. I often go on walking tours, participate in cooking classes, and find other interesting things that my next country has to offer.

    But if you think I didn’t invest in experiences when I wasn’t a nomad, you are wrong.

    My favorite kind was always visiting an escape room. If you aren’t familiar with the concept, it’s a quest where you go into a room full of hints and puzzles, solving which leads you to the next one, and so on until the final thing gives you a key or something to escape the room. Usually, there is a specific theme for the room, you have one hour to escape, and there can be more than one actual room involved.

    Over the years, with my friends and coworkers, I went to almost every room that existed in my city at the time (which is a lot). Some were very easy; some were so hard that we didn’t get out on time. I remember the one which was absolutely dark and another one where they put chains around your ankles and wrists at the beginning, which you have to get out of.

    The feeling of nailing another quest room can hardly compare to anything else; it’s like actually being in an adventurous book for an hour. If you happen to be a nerd and avid reader like me, you know what I mean.

    Meaningful experiences strengthen your relationships and create memories for years to come. Do you remember every shirt you buy or reminisce about it with friends? I doubt that!

    3. Little gifts for friends

    This one is a bit of a cheat, as you might actually get to buy a physical thing.

    But, instead of it piling up in your closet, you give it away and feel good about it. Your friend is happy, you are happy, and your home doesn’t get cluttered. Not bad, huh?

    Just make sure to only buy things your loved ones actually want so they don’t start hating you for cluttering their home. Especially if your friend happens to be a minimalist.

    Wanna know my approach to always giving really good gifts? I swear by wishlists!

    I have had one for many years, and I made each of my friends and family members make one. Not everyone likes the idea at first, but I promise you, everyone loves getting specific things they want as presents! And don’t worry, it can still be a surprise, especially if their wishlist is long enough.

    To support the idea of having less stuff, encourage your friends to add items to their wishlists that aren’t physical things. About two-thirds of my own wishlist consists of specific online courses I’d love to take, new experiences I wish to try one day, and gift cards for fun things like massages and yoga classes.

    When it comes to hobbies and lifestyle choices, people usually know exactly what they want, and you can never go wrong with a wishlist. Without it, unless you know for sure all the details, it’s easy to gift someone a book they already have or a course that is too beginner-oriented (or too advanced) for their level. If you have doubts, better buy them a gift card to their favorite store or learning platform, so they can choose a specific item themselves.

    If you think you need to wait for a holiday or a birthday to give someone a gift, think again!

    The best presents are unexpected ones. Try surprising your friend with something they want for no particular reason, and just see how excited they get! They will feel loved and valued, which is something we can all benefit from.

    And as for you, the process of finding a perfect gift and seeing your friend genuinely enjoying it releases dopamine and endorphins, which basically make you feel happier. Win-win!

    4. eBooks

    The last thing on the list of things I still buy is eBooks.

    I am the person who used to read 100+ books per year and had a full bookcase at home. Now I travel with my tiny Kindle and am more mindful about what I’m reading.

    With that said, I still love the smell of real books and the feeling of actually turning pages! I still have a few of my favorite bookmarks. But I only buy digital books as it would be impossible to travel with “real” ones. I wish I had Hermione’s handbag with an extension charm on it, but sadly I don’t.

    I know many people these days don’t read books. With so many kinds of easily digestible visual content options we have online now, books became something of an old era. However, the process of reading still has a ton of health benefits: from improving your concentration skills and vocabulary to releasing stress and anxiety that is a constant problem in most of our lives.

    Nothing else can take your mind off your routines and worries quite as an interesting book can. It may only weigh a few kilobytes, but it has a whole world inside.

    —

    These were my four things to buy that won’t ever clutter your life! They might, however, make a big impact on your self-development, make you smarter, improve your skills and mental health, and make you happier. Not a bad deal, is it? Especially for things that don’t take up any space.

    I hope you can agree with me now that it’s possible to live happily without buying new stuff all the time. I am not exactly a minimalist, but I like the idea of surrounding yourself with things that bring you joy instead of cluttering your life with things that only bring you instant gratification and then get forgotten.

    Try to fill your days with fun experiences and learning new skills, as your memories and abilities are things you can always take with you, wherever you go.

  • The Joy of Unexpected Kindness and 3 Reasons It’s Hard to Be Kind

    The Joy of Unexpected Kindness and 3 Reasons It’s Hard to Be Kind

    “Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.” ~Howard Zinn 

    Have you ever experienced an unexpected act of kindness that completely changed your day?

    I have, and I sincerely hope you have too.

    Please pause for a moment and try to remember the last time that happened. How were you feeling before? What happened? And how did the act of kindness impact you?

    If I look back on my own life, I can find countless moments where the suddenness, the unexpectedness of an act of kindness, shook me awake.

    It might sound strange, but this seems to have been especially so when it came from a stranger.

    That’s not to say that the kindness of those close to us isn’t important, because it is. The kindness of our friends, family, and colleagues can keep us going when life throws challenges in our way, and their joy in our happiness makes the good moments radiate even stronger.

    But there is something about an act of kindness from an unexpected source that causes its healing ripples to be especially powerful.

    And most of the time this isn’t some great or inspiring act but just a very small gesture: a smile, a friendly greeting, a sincere question, a few words from someone who genuinely seems to wish you a good day.

    I remember the first time I went backpacking, feeling lost in a city, staring at my map, when a random stranger offered me his help in pointing out the way.

    I remember feeling tired and lost in thought after a long drive, stopping for gas and a quick bite, and the man working behind the counter at the restaurant clearing my mind with the pleasure he took in his work, smiling with a disarming friendliness.

    I remember sitting in a train in Thailand for fourteen hours, anxiously moving toward my first month-long meditation retreat, and suddenly getting a few genuine words of encouragement and advice from a pair sitting across the aisle.

    I remember a woman sitting in her car, rolling down her window to share her joy in seeing my son race down a hill on his bike.

    I remember yesterday, when the cook at our canteen advised me on what to choose, doing her best to prepare my dish with full attention and then sincerely wishing me a good day.

    In all these situations I was not only left with a feeling of joy, but also a sense of connection.

    Kindness can bring a short moment of relaxation in an otherwise busy day, or a complete change from feeling stressed and chagrined to feeling elated, open, and interconnected with the world.

    Kindness is just that powerful.

    And the beautiful thing is that we all have the chance, every single day, to contribute to this kindness in the world.

    So, again, pause for a moment and this time think about the last time when you were the kind stranger. When was that? How did it make you feel?

    To start with the second question, my guess would be that it made you feel good. The first question might be more difficult to answer. Looking at myself, although I would love to say “today,” that just isn’t true.

    Interesting, isn’t it.

    So, kindness is very powerful and important, it helps us and others, it doesn’t cost us anything, yet it still is difficult to give every day.

    I can think of many reasons why it is difficult, but to keep it simple I’ll list three:

    1. You can only give what you have.

    If you want to give somebody money, you must first have money in your bank account. If you want to give kindness, you must first practice being kind to yourself.

    That is why, for example, Buddhist meditation on loving-kindness (mettā) begins by giving loving-kindness to yourself, and only then to others.

    But don’t worry, you don’t have to spend hours each day meditating; just start with a few minutes every morning (or any other time that fits your schedule) by wishing yourself and those close to you happiness and health. Then try to act on this throughout the day by honoring your needs and prioritizing things that bring you peace and joy.

    It’s okay to wish yourself happiness; it’s not selfish. If you are happy you will be able to radiate that happiness outward, making spontaneous acts of kindness easier to do.

    As your ability to do so strengthens, you can always add a few minutes to wish the same to people you know but about whom you do not have a specific feeling, or a neutral feeling. If that gets easier and easier you can even start adding people you dislike, strengthening the power of your kindness further and further.

    2. You have to see the other person.

    If you are anything like me, then you probably live most of your life in a form of zombie state. Moving from place to place, working, talking, acting on what’s happening, checking your smartphone way too often, all without any form of true consciousness or mindfulness.

    You can do the following test to check this for yourself.

    At the end of the day, look into the mirror and ask yourself how often that day you truly noticed how and what you were doing. That’s all.

    Chances are the honest conclusion will be that you just rushed through the day (again).

    If you don’t notice how you are during the day, if you are not mindful of your own state of mind, if you do not see yourself, then how can you truly see another person?

    It all comes down to how much conscious space we have—how open our mind is toward ourselves and those around us.

    Consciousness tends to expand when we harbor wholesome qualities such as patience, energy, calm, and so on, and it tends to narrow when we harbor unwholesome qualities such as anger, desire, envy, and so on.

    Fundamentally, these mental qualities depend strongly on mindfulness, on our ability to see our mind for what it is.

    If you let a goat loose in a field of grass it will just do whatever it pleases and eat wherever it pleases. If you tie the goat to a pole, the goat will only eat the grass within the circumference of the rope and pole.

    Mindfulness is like the rope that binds our mind to ourselves, keeping it within. Keeping the mind within prevents it from creating all kinds of illusions and personal realities that cause the unwholesome aspects of your mind to arise.

    Keeping the mind within helps bring calm and contentment.

    To strengthen your mindfulness, you do not necessarily have to sit down on a meditation cushion as is often suggested. Mindfulness is something you can practice every day, whatever you are doing.

    Just pick a few routines you do every day and cultivate the intention to do them as mindfully as possible. Do only what you are doing, with all your attention, and if you find your mind drifting off bring it back to your task.

    The more you practice this, the more it will become an ingrained aspect of your mind, bringing with it the experience of calm and openness—and the better you’ll be able to really see other people and recognize opportunities for kindness,

    3. You have to practice regularly and be patient with yourself.

    In the end, kindness isn’t different from other skills. Every human possesses the potential to be kind, but you have to practice it in order to bring that potential to fruition.

    Research by the University of Wisconsin showed that compassion can be learned. Just like a muscle can be trained by weightlifting, people can build up their compassion.

    The most direct route I know of is training through meditation—by practicing loving-kindness meditation and the practice of being mindful, as mentioned about, even if it is only for a few minutes every day.

    But don’t go at it with the businessman’s approach most of us grew up with. A businessman’s approach means expecting results relative to the time you invest. Developing the mind, developing kindness, doesn’t work that way.

    We all have our own personal qualities and hindrances, and just as with other skills, to some it comes natural, while others need more time and effort.

    Don’t worry too much about the results; getting on the path to becoming a kinder person is the most important thing. If you keep practicing patiently you will develop the power of kindness within yourself sooner or later. And it will become second nature to offer those small gestures of support, appreciation, and encouragement that can completely change someone’s day.

  • How Embracing a Good Enough Life Gave Me the Life of My Dreams

    How Embracing a Good Enough Life Gave Me the Life of My Dreams

    “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” ~Eckart Tolle

    It was perfect. Well, almost.

    I was doing the work I love, with someone I love, my two boys were thriving, and we seemed to finally be on the road to retirement. What could possibly be wrong with this picture?

    A lot, apparently.

    I was waking up worried and unsatisfied. Always feeling like life was missing something, like I was missing something, not doing enough, asking: How can my business be better? What will my kids do next year? Is my partner gaining weight? Did I run yesterday?

    Anxiety crept into my mind and contracted my body before I had a chance to get ahead of it. It was an unease that something just wasn’t quite right. And if it was, then it wouldn’t be for long.

    I knew enough about neuroscience and anxiety to know what was happening.

    Negative thoughts are a protective pattern that come from scanning our environment for potential threats.

    Our ancestors were wired this way to survive, thankfully, and we are probably in the first generation that can even talk about the word “abundance,” at least in this part of the world. The intergenerational trauma of feeling unsafe is in the recent past and runs deep in our DNA, especially for women.

    But even armed with all the knowledge of trauma and all the best practices of breathing, meditation, and yoga, there was still a missing link.

    My worries seemed trivial given the war that was raging in the world. It seemed self-indulgent to want more, to even consider that this was not enough. Even when it felt enough, it was because all the factors were lining up in that moment, but it felt precarious, like a house of cards—even though I knew it wasn’t.

    All the self-help books promised I could “reach for my dreams” and “have my best life ever” if I only changed my habits and my mindset and lived like I thought all the people around me were.

    In fact, I was so busy working on my life that I felt exhausted and still felt like I wasn’t doing or giving enough. Even when deciding what charity to donate to, to help those in need, I felt like I had to choose the “right” one!

    It was through my work with people in chronic pain that one day something shifted. I was teaching about the difference between acceptance and giving up in the search for a cure, and I said something like “It’s not so much what you are doing but how you are doing it.”

    Doing something from a place of pressure and intensity, with a worry about making a mistake or not getting it right, creates fear. Fear creates more fear in the end, and it creates pain.

    My inner perfectionist gasped and took a step back. She was outed.

    Not only did I see how my inner perfectionist had been running the show, I knew that if I wanted to negotiate with her, I was going to have to come from a different energy other than “getting this right.”

    She had helped me; she had worked so hard to stay on top of everything and got me through some tough times.

    She had guilted me when I felt like a bad mother, a bad friend, a less-than therapist, or a mediocre spouse and showed me all the ways I could be better. She even lent her expertise to my family, telling them how they should behave, what they should eat and not eat, and how they should conduct their lives.

    This was sometimes done directly, but she also worked coercively behind the scenes through people-pleasing, manipulation, and other passive-aggressive behaviors.

    She was based in fear and shame as a trauma response, learned early on in my childhood years, that told me my authentic self was clearly not good enough. So I employed her services to keep me safe, help me fit in at school, get good marks, and be an all around “good girl” on the outside. But the inner pressure of a perfectionist is unbearable and soon morphed into an eating disorder when life felt out of control.

    Many of us live in a nasty triangle that can be difficult to see and even more difficult to disrupt. It goes: shame-inner critic-perfection, and it balances itself precariously inside our mind and body leaving its imprint of “not good enough” to guide our lives.

    This is compounded by a culture that primes us to feel like we’re not okay and there is always something to buy, change, or fix, because it is not normal to just be okay.

    Even though my trauma happened decades ago, the vestiges remained. I could not quite relax into my life without something or someone, mostly myself, feeling “not quite good enough.” I also found this same core belief to be at the root of many if not all of my clients’ struggles with anxiety, depression, and chronic pain.

    It was the constant feeling of being here but wanting to be… somewhere or someone else. A knee-jerk resistance to life or an inability to truly sink into all life has to offer without finding fault or a hiccup somewhere. Or worse, thinking that I had to earn my worth by doing more and being more, and all without effort!

    Not. Good. Enough.

    Not good enough for what? For whom? This is an unanswerable question because it is a lie. But it is one thing to know that and another to let my inner perfectionist know I was safe now and she could take a backseat because, well, I’m good enough.

    I thought about the times I felt free and at peace.

    I thought about the people I knew whose lives had the biggest impact on me.

    I had a chat with my future self twenty years from now about the qualities she had, how she moved, and what she valued.

    And it came down to a word: simplicity.

    Here is where I had to tread carefully. My inner perfectionist would make finding simplicity very, very complicated and approach it with an all-in attitude, as she did everything: live in a tiny house, two chairs, two sets of cutlery, and a bed.

    No, there had to be another way, an easier way.

    It turns out, it was the easiest way possible: Embrace what is here now.

    What if everything was good enough, just as it is, in this moment? What if I was good enough, just as I am, in this moment? What if my body, my health, my relationships, all the ways I tried, were just good enough?

    It felt radical, revolutionary. It felt like I was disrupting all my programming about what it means to live a good life. It was not the energy of giving up or rationalizing that I didn’t deserve more and I should settle for less. It wasn’t even the energy of gratitude or appreciating what I have and how privileged I am.

    It was the opposite.

    Embracing my life as good enough busted the myth of inferiority and superiority that tells us some people are more or less worthy than others. It let me relax into the fact that we are all doing the best we can with what we know at that moment. If I was good enough, then others were too.

    It busted the myth of needing more and being more, because I didn’t have anything to prove to anyone. It also busted the myth that if I truly accepted my life as it is, I would just lie down on the couch and never get up. Again, the opposite happened.

    Energy was freed up for more of what I love, not what I should do. Worry and struggle were replaced with self-forgiveness.

    Embracing my life as good enough gave me the doorway I needed to a quality of life I couldn’t imagine.

    I realized I was good enough to show up just as I am.

    I realized I was good enough to set boundaries around what and who aligned with me.

    I realized I could write, speak, and create in a messy, fun, good enough way.

    I realized I was good enough to rest.

    I realized I was good enough to embrace my own wants, needs, and desires.

    I realized I was already good enough for pleasure right here and now in a million ways I couldn’t see before.

    I realized my life was not about being better, improved, fixed… it was about being who I am, and that was enough.

    I realized I could work less and make more money.

    I realized my body was a remarkable organism that was to be loved and held, not manipulated.

    I realized that every decision I made was right for me because it was good enough.

    I realized that struggle was never meant to be my life, but giving, loving, and contributing were.

    I realized I was already good enough to live a life of joy, comfort, and ease.

    One of the most beautiful parts of this is looking in my children’s eyes and knowing that they, too, are so perfectly good enough just as they are. They don’t need to prove their worth to anyone.

    Embracing my good enough life has allowed me to enter my life, just as I am, and has turned “good enough” into “how good can it get?” It gave me the safety I needed to “do what I can, with what I have, where I am” (Theodore Roosevelt).

    Can you imagine a world where everyone knew they were just good enough? Where we all lived life from a place of forgiveness, grace, and compassion for ourselves?

    What are you already good enough for that life is just waiting to give you?

  • How to Reclaim Your Joy After the Pandemic: 3 Things That Helped Me

    How to Reclaim Your Joy After the Pandemic: 3 Things That Helped Me

    DISCLAIMER: Though vaccines have allowed many of us to return to more normal activities, the pandemic isn’t over, and it’s still crucial that we all follow the evolving CDC guidelines to keep both ourselves and others safe.

    “Perfect happiness is a beautiful sunset, the giggle of a grandchild, the first snowfall. It’s the little things that make happy moments, not the grand events. Joy comes in sips, not gulps.” ~Sharon Draper

    It was a rainy, late Sunday afternoon. The sun was already going down, and it was getting dark outside.

    “How are you?”

    “Oh, good. Nothing special. It’s quiet,” my mom responded when I called her a couple of months ago.

    “It’s quiet” had been her response for the past two years, possibly before that. My mom is retired. Since the pandemic, her life became even more “quiet” than before—fewer friends, fewer activities, less fun.

    I’m not retired, but I work from home, and the same happened to me. To some degree, I let it happen.

    I got used to not seeing people, not laughing, and not dancing. I got used to being alone, and it became more comfortable to stay home on Saturdays than going out for social activities. Was I developing a mild form of social anxiety? Maybe.

    Two things were for certain: my social skills had atrophied, and I had forgotten how to have fun. What was joy like?

    “I feel like this must be what it’s like for the elderly; when no one visits them and they don’t have many friends and activities, they sort of start dying inside.”

    “That’s how I feel right now,” my mom responded.

    Have you experienced that too at some point? Not feeling like doing anything and seeing people because you forgot how to connect with them and what you even enjoy doing?

    “I think it’s a slippery slope. We should do something about it. We should make an effort to break the pattern and start socializing and doing activities again before we die inside,” I told my mom.

    After hanging up the phone, I reflected upon what I had just said. I knew that “shoulds” wouldn’t make the situation better; I had to be proactive and do something about it. I took out a pen and a notebook and started writing an action plan.

    Here are the three things I wrote down that day that have most helped me to reclaim a sense of joy in my life.

    1. Do one thing on your list of “joys.”

    A piece of advice that was very helpful came from a friend who lost his partner to cancer a couple of years ago, just a few months after she was diagnosed.

    It was a shock to him. They had projects together, like buying a campervan, traveling around North America, and building a house off-grid. Suddenly, those plans were gone, and my friend had to learn to live alone again while coping with grief.

    One thing that helped him get out of depression and slowly regain his spark for life was to make a list of things that made him happy (even just a little). Every day for the next three months, he did as many things on his list as he could.

    I took that advice and created my list of fifteen “little joys.”

    They’re not complicated. They include things like watching the sunset, reading a book while drinking a mocha latte in the morning, walking in nature, wearing my favorite outfit, dancing to progressive trance music in my living room, and watching funny dog videos.

    Every day, I picked at least three things on my list to do that day; if I could do more, great! But I did at least three. Over a few days, this simple practice started making me feel happier.

    Of course, you’ll first have to create your own list of “joys,” but once you have it, it’s a wonderful tool to bring more joy into your daily life.

    2. Do one thing to trigger the “helper’s high.”

    Another thing that significantly impacted my mood and energy was to do one act of kindness every day.

    I had read articles about the science of altruism and happiness, and I knew that helping or being kind to others makes us happy. There’s even a specific term for it: the “helper’s high.”

    I began asking myself every morning, “What’s one act of kindness I will do today?”

    Since I don’t always feel creative first thing in the morning, I made a list of fifteen acts of kindness ideas that I could choose from. Like my list of “joys,” they aren’t complicated. They include writing a nice comment on someone’s Tik Tok video, posting an uplifting quote on Facebook, and complimenting someone.

    Just doing this one thing, intentionally, every day made me feel more alive. But in case you don’t feel inspired to do one act of kindness a day, here’s another idea.

    Another thing I started doing recently, which I learned from Tim Ferriss’s book Tools of Titans, is a ten-second loving-kindness exercise created by Chade-Meng Tan, the man behind the popular mindfulness-based emotional intelligence course for employees at Google called Search Inside Yourself.

    The exercise is very simple: A few times a day, randomly choose two people you see and secretly wish for each of them to be happy. You don’t have to do or say anything—just think, “I wish you to be happy,” with a sincere intention from your heart.

    I find both the ten-second loving-kindness exercise and doing one act of kindness a day therapeutic. They take our focus away from our problems and increase our sense of connection to others, even when the act of kindness is anonymous, and we don’t physically interact with the person.

    3. Do one thing every day to nurture your social circle.

    It took me some time to realize that my mental health was being affected by a sense of isolation. I’m an introvert and enjoy my own company. It wasn’t obvious that my desire to eat more ice cream than usual and my lack of motivation to get out of bed in the morning had something to do with spending too much time alone.

    Some weeks during the height of the pandemic, I talked to no one except my clients on Zoom and the cashier at the grocery store. And the more time I spent alone, the less I wanted to see people. The idea of socializing began to feel daunting, and I chose to stay home (alone) more and more often.

    But it was killing me inside. I had to break the solitude pattern before the hole I was digging and putting myself in became too deep.

    I started small but did something every day to revive my social life.

    One day, I commented on an acquaintance’s Facebook post. Another day, I messaged a friend on Messenger. The following week, that friend suggested we go for lunch, and I went.

    Friendships must be nurtured to grow stronger and thrive; otherwise, they atrophy.

    So, perhaps you can ask yourself every day, “What’s one thing I can do today to nurture and expand my social circle?”

    Start small.

    —

    I did a few other things to bring more joy into my life in the past few months as well, like taking on a new hobby (learning to play the djembe) and attending social events every other week. But the three actions I mentioned in this article are the ones that made the most significant difference in my well-being in the long run.

    What do you do to feel alive and inspired? Share with us in the comments so we can all benefit from each other’s wisdom.

  • How the Deathbed Meditation Can Bring You Clarity, Purpose, and Joy

    How the Deathbed Meditation Can Bring You Clarity, Purpose, and Joy

    “Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.” ~Socrates

    There’s a lot of beauty and value in positive, light-and-love approaches to mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

    But I challenge you to go a little deeper and to face something we’re all going to experience eventually:

    Death.

    I know this may sound macabre, bizarre, or downright unappealing. But hear me out!

    There is a certain power and beauty in consciously visualizing and meditating on one’s death.

    What could be more awakening and more revealing than putting your current self into the perspective of your dying self—into your last few moments?

    Such a precious practice helps to bring a stunning clarity and crystalline focus to everything going on in your life.

    Indeed, what is referred to as the “deathbed meditation” helps you to:

    • Figure out what is most important to you
    • Let go of old pains and hurts
    • Focus on what brings you joy
    • Find your true life path
    • Uncover your hidden gifts

    As humans, we tend to live our lives as though they will never end. From one day to the next we live in a kind of autopilot mode where we take everything (and everyone) for granted.

    The deathbed meditation is a powerful practice you can incorporate into your life whenever you feel lost, stranded, stuck, out of focus, or simply aimless.

    My Experience With the Deathbed Meditation

    I’ve always been someone who desperately needs a strong purpose in life.

    But something happened last year that tossed me into a dark existential crisis where I questioned (1) what my place in the world really was, (2) why old wounds were rising to the surface, and (3) why I felt so lost—despite having a strong self-care and spiritual practice.

    With the advent of COVID-19 and the retriggering of old traumas, I felt empty inside.

    You know that feeling of falling and not having anything to catch you? That’s how I felt.

    Witnessing the suffering in the world and in my own circle of family members, I realized something major: “I could die tomorrow.”

    I realized this isn’t a groundbreaking thought; we all have it at some point (I know I have). But in that moment it felt like a lightbulb went off in my head—I suddenly realized that the key to finding the answers to life was to contemplate something so few people dare to approach: death.

    The answers I received from that subsequent deathbed meditation have guided my life, reawoken my purpose, and fuelled me with vision ever since.

    How to Practice the Deathbed Meditation

    Doing the deathbed meditation is an act of radical self-love. There, I said it!

    Why radical? The deathbed meditation is radical because it’s rarely mentioned or practiced by anyone (that I’m aware of) due to its intimidating nature.

    But let me assure you that the answers you can potentially find are so soul-nourishing, so meaningful, so profound, that you will be overjoyed that you courageously took this step.

    Before you embark on this inner journey, please ensure you have a neutral mind—we don’t want minds that are feeling down or frazzled or unhappy for any reason (that will bias your discoveries).

    When you’re ready, let’s begin:

    1. Focus on feeling safe and relaxed.

    Before you begin your deathbed meditation, find a space in your house that feels cozy. You might like to place a blanket over you and a pillow behind your head for extra comfort. Draw the blinds or curtains and ensure the atmosphere is dark.

    It’s important that you feel safe and relaxed so that your heart and mind can open up and gain the most from the meditation.

    Place a blindfold, sleep mask, or cloth over your eyes so that you can’t see anything. Then take some gentle, natural, grounding breaths and settle yourself.

    2. Find some funereal music (optional).

    Some people prefer their meditations to be totally silent, but if you’d like to set the mood, find some funereal music (or music that would be played at a funeral) to prepare your mind for the scene.

    Again, do whatever makes you feel most safe and comfortable. If you prefer total silence, that’s okay too.

    3. Visualize yourself on your deathbed, surrounded by loved ones.

    In your mind’s eye, imagine that you only have a few minutes (or hours) left to live. You feel comforted and at peace with your loved ones surrounding you.

    What kind of room are you in? What kind of bed or seat supports you? Focus on some kinesthetic details to help enrich the visualization.

    4. Ask yourself, “What was I most happy to have done in life?”

    Take some moments to reflect on this crucial question: What were you most happy to have done in your life? Let images and scenes play out in your mind for as long as needed.

    This powerful question will help you to hone in on what truly matters in your current life. If you’re struggling with making an important decision or finding a life direction, this simple question could be the key to unlocking deep truths residing within you.

    5. Ask yourself, “What did I regret not doing?”

    Regret is a natural part of life, yet many of us shy away from it, trying to sweep it under the rug. To avoid accumulating too much regret, ask this simple question within your deathbed meditation: What did you regret not doing?

    Let any thoughts, images, memories, or scenes run through your mind’s eye. Take special note of them.

    6. Ask yourself, “What is the most important thing in life to me, above all else?”

    Values are what guide our lives, and yet we are often totally unaware of them. By asking the question, “What is the most important thing in life to me, above all else?” we come to understand, truly understand, what we value deep down.

    Take a few moments in your deathbed meditation to contemplate this question, letting it sink into the recesses of your mind, heart, and soul. The answer you discover can have the potential of shifting, expanding, and empowering your entire life.

    7. Thank your loved ones and end the meditation.

    Once you’re done asking all or some of the above questions, smile warmly to your loved ones and thank them for their presence in your life. Then, when you’re ready, return to the room you’re in, get up very slowly, and do a big stretch.

    You might also like to drink some water to ‘emotionally digest’ your experience.

    —

    The deathbed meditation has been one of the most powerful tools in my life for getting straight to the heart of what I most love, cherish, value, and need.

    After all, what else can put things in perspective other than our own mortality?

    If you’re feeling confused, lost, or in need of direction, I highly recommend that you try this unique meditation at least once. You might be surprised by how intensely transformational such a practice can be!

  • 5 Questions I Ask Myself Nightly Since My Father’s Sudden Death

    5 Questions I Ask Myself Nightly Since My Father’s Sudden Death

    “Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.” ~Langston Hughes

    Nine years ago, I was sitting mindlessly in my office cubicle in Omaha, Nebraska, when the receptionist called to inform me that my dad was in the lobby.

    I walked out to greet him: He was happy, smiling, and donning one of his favorite double-breasted suits. He was there because he needed my signature on some tax preparation forms before he handed them over to his accountant. My dad always took care of things like that.

    It was a Friday in February, late morning. We briefly discussed getting lunch but ultimately decided not to in the interest of time. We would see each other over the weekend, anyway. After all, we were planning a trip.

    A week prior, my dad told me he wanted to take me to Vegas for my thirtieth birthday. I’d never been to Vegas. There were things to discuss, hotel rooms to book, concert tickets to buy.

    I signed the tax forms, thanked my dad, and walked back to my cubicle. I don’t remember anything else about this day. It was, in fact, just like any other day. It was ordinary. Humdrum, you might say.

    But the next day…

    The next day is forever seared into the pathways of my hippocampus, every detail a tattoo on my mind’s eye.

    Because the next day…

    That’s the day my dad died.

    I remember the morning phone call I got from my sister.

    9:38 a.m.

    I remember running to my car, half a block up Howard Street, and then another block down 12th. I remember the whipping wind and the stinging cold. I remember the saplings lining the streets of downtown, their branches brittle and bare, scratching the ether like an old lady’s fingers.

    I remember the seventeen-minute drive to the hospital.

    I remember the hospital, the stairs, the front desk, the waiting room, the faces, the hugs, the tears, the complete and utter shock.

    I remember that my mom wasn’t there.

    Three times we called. Where is she? Why isn’t she answering? Who’s going to tell her?

    It seems like our lives are defined by days, even moments, like these—the most joyous or the most unbearably tragic.

    I miss my dad.

    I miss his ridiculously big heart, which we were told was the thing that killed him.

    I miss the lingering scent of his cologne, a sort of woodsy, leathery blend that comes in a classic green bottle. I miss his laugh, which could range from a barely discernible chuckle to a jolly, high-pitched guffaw. I miss seeing him in my clothes—the shirts and shoes and jeans that I wanted to throw away because they were clearly going out of style.

    I miss the things I never thought I’d miss, the quirks and ticks and peccadillos that drove me crazy—like the way he’d crunch his ice cubes or noisily suck on a piece of hard candy in an otherwise quiet movie theater.

    I wonder if I chose to write this today instead of tomorrow because writing it tomorrow could prove too difficult. Or if I chose to write this after nine years instead of ten years because ten years is one of those nice, round numbers we use for milestone birthdays and anniversaries and other such occasions we’re supposed to celebrate. Or maybe because ten years is a whole decade and a whole goddamn decade without my dad just seems too strange to fathom.

    When I think of the last time I spoke with my dad, I can’t help but also think of that Benjamin Franklin quote—the one about how nothing is certain except death and taxes.

    But only one of those things comes with any sort of predictability.

    Studies have shown that our brains are wired to prevent us from thinking about our own mortality. Our brains shield us from the existential thought of death and view it as something that happens to others but not ourselves.

    So, most of us, perhaps because of our biological wiring, rarely even think about the unfortunate truth that we’re going to die, and we have no idea how or when.

    On the other hand, some of our greatest ancient philosophers actually practiced reflecting on the impermanence of life—otherwise known as Memento Mori, which literally translates to Remember you must die.

    “You could leave life right now,” wrote Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations. “Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

    Personally, I don’t think about my own demise a whole hell of a lot.

    But there’s a reason I decided to pack up my things and move to a new city six years ago.

    There’s a reason I decided to make a career pivot five years ago.

    There’s a reason I decided to quit my day job at almost forty years old and start working for myself two years ago.

    Because nine years ago, death did a number on me. I had one of those unbearably tragic days that seems to define our lives.

    And now, before I go to bed each night, I ask myself:

    Was I a decent person today?

    Did I challenge myself today?

    Did I have any fun today?

    What am I grateful for today?

    If I were on my deathbed, would I have regrets?

    Asking myself these things helps me live a more fulfilling life—the kind of life that I want to live. And I’m proud of what I’m doing here, right now. I think—at least I hope—my dad would be too.

    I still haven’t been to Vegas, though.

  • Why It’s So Hard to Just Rest and Why We Need to Do It

    Why It’s So Hard to Just Rest and Why We Need to Do It

    “If you don’t give your mind and body a break, you’ll break. Stop pushing yourself through pain and exhaustion and take care of your needs.” ~Lori Deschene

    In November of 2021, my autoimmune issues flared up. My doctor and I are still unsure which of my conditions—rheumatoid arthritis or fibromyalgia—was the culprit, or if they were acting in cahoots, but the overall achiness and debilitating fatigue were a solid indication that something was more active than usual.

    I woke up tired, needed naps, and often ran out of spoons—a phrase familiar to many with chronic conditions, based on a gorgeous essay called “The Spoon Theory” written by Christine Miserandino.

    While I may not know the reason, the one thing that was certain was that my body was demanding rest.

    Do you have any idea how hard it is to just rest?

    I mean it.

    Knowing that I needed rest did not grant me the immediate ability to actually pull it off.

    I would sit down to watch a show and find myself trying to multitask. Or I would attempt to put off a nap like a recalcitrant toddler. Instead of throwing myself on the floor in a tantrum, I was trying to “push through” so I could finish typing an email or move a load of laundry into the dryer.

    Even with a body and brain that were crying out for rest, it was difficult to allow myself to do it. In the end, I had to reparent myself in order to be able to rest, enforcing stopping times and rest periods.

    Those of us in the western world, especially here in the United States where I live, are programmed to be productive. We are told—and we tell ourselves—all of the things that we “should” be doing in order to be busy. Work in all its forms, from job tasks to errands to chores, is what we are “supposed” to do.

    We are conditioned to be productive and to stay busy from the time we are young. We hear people say things like “I’ll rest when I’m dead” and “no rest for the weary.” We are exhorted to “pay our dues” and “put in the work.”

    If we were somehow fortunate enough to avoid the overt messaging about staying busy and working hard, most of us received those messages indirectly by watching the people in our lives.

    We watched our parents come home from work with arms full of grocery bags, only for them to fix dinner while putting groceries away. Or we were asked what we were doing and made to feel wrong if our answer to the question was a child’s honest “nothing.”

    Long after dinner, once everything was cleaned up or tidied and it was “time to relax,” we watched our parents do additional work, both paid and unpaid. Or we watched them knitting, ironing, or puttering around the house.

    We have been told that we have to “work hard” in order to succeed. That “nothing good comes easy.” That we shouldn’t stop when we are tired, but only when we are “done.”

    Sitting down and resting is not prioritized. Those who decide to rest often must justify it: they have to have earned the right to rest.

    Rest doesn’t only mean sleep, although sleep is a large part of it. It also includes sitting comfortably doing not much of anything at all.

    It could mean listening to music or watching TV or meditating. Or perhaps working quietly on a jigsaw puzzle or craft or reading a book or article. Maybe playing solitaire, or looking out the window, or journaling.

    In the fall, as I was struggling with my autoimmune flare, it occurred to me that I should rest more. I was so accustomed to overriding my body’s signals that I hadn’t realized how far I’d pushed myself.

    When I tapped into how my mind and body were truly feeling, I was shocked to find that my mind and body were almost buckling, on the edge of collapse.

    I waited to notice what was happening until I’d reached the point where I was unable to do many tasks in the day at all. A banner day during that time might have involved doing a single load or laundry or cooking dinner for my husband and me.

    I was so fixated on staying busy that I could no longer assess my need for busyness in an honest manner. I had lost the ability to tune into my body to find out if it needed to move and stretch, or even to stretch out and sleep.

    Had I continued to push ahead for much longer, I’m certain that I would have fallen ill. As it was, I was dealing with brain fog, fatigue, and both joint and muscle pain, all of which made life unpleasant.

    It is easy to see now that I should never have allowed things to get to that state, but fatigue and pain and brain fog have a way of teaming up on you so that you can’t clearly assess much of anything. Nevertheless, when I hit the edge of collapse and burnout, I realized that some serious rest was in order.

    I essentially cleared my calendar for at least three weeks. I cleared my work calendar of appointments, scheduled some brief blog posts and emails, and took time off.

    It was torture at first.

    For one thing, my husband was still getting up and heading out into the world to teach tai chi and qigong classes, so he was modeling “proper” work behavior. For another, I discovered that I was incapable of “just resting.”

    I had to relearn how to listen to my body to discover what it needed. 

    I also had to reprogram my thoughts about rest as being an inherent right that we all hold, and not a reward for productivity.

    I also had to learn how to actually do it.

    I did all of the things I listed earlier as forms of rest, from naps to puzzles to sitting quietly. It was ridiculously difficult.

    I had to almost force myself to limit myself to single-tasking, which is doing one task at a time. That was especially hard if the task was mechanically simple, such as watching a television show. My inner monologue would kick up, chastising me for “just sitting there,” urging me to “be productive.”

    In those moments when I decided that rest meant watching a movie on TV, I sometimes sat on my hands to make sure that I didn’t pick up my phone or a crossword puzzle or something else. I often put my phone on silent and deliberately left it in another room, just to reduce temptation.

    Full disclosure: Even with taking affirmative steps to single-task, I didn’t always manage. I did, however, learn through reinforcement that there was nothing likely to arise in an hour or two of time that required me to give up on resting and take immediate action.

    I realized that in many ways, I was retraining my nervous system to allow itself to relax. It was so used to being in a state of alertness that resting and allowing it to have some time off took some getting used to.

    What I learned when I started to budget rest into my days was that I could start to tell more easily what signals my body was sending. It became easier to converse with my brain and body to find out how they were feeling and what they needed.

    It sounds a bit dissociated when put that way, but I have never felt more integrated than I do now. At any given moment, I can pause, tap into what I am feeling (mentally and physically), and act on my own needs in ways that are more nurturing and caring than before.

    When I realize that I am losing focus on a project—perhaps while typing a blog post or planning a workshop—I no longer push through. Instead, thanks to months of practice, I pause and check in with my brain and body. Thanks to practice, I can quickly ascertain whether I need to take a simple break, to get up and walk around for a bit, to take a walk outdoors, or to stop for the day.

    I am learning to embrace the idea that rest is an inherent right, not something that needs to be earned. It is no longer something that occurs only once I have pushed myself until the point of collapse. 

    As it turns out, the more I lean into rest and build it into my days, the more energy I have to actually accomplish all the things I want to get done in life.

    When I add time off or breaks during the day, I find I have better focus when I need to be working on a task. When I include rest in my days, I have the energy to exercise in the morning and also make a good meal for dinner.

    I invite you to join me in adding actual breaks into your day, where you do nothing “productive” at all. No catching up on phone calls or emails or texts—just rest. I’d love to hear if and how it works for you.

  • 4 Simple, Heart-Opening Exercises to Fill You with Joy, Love, and Light

    4 Simple, Heart-Opening Exercises to Fill You with Joy, Love, and Light

    “Why are you so enchanted by this world, when a mine of gold lies within you?” ~Rumi

    Happiness, love, and joy—we spend our lives in search of them. We often look to external things to fulfill our desire to experience them. A relationship, a trip abroad, a career, or maybe that shiny new car. We can spend our lives chasing these desires and believing that once we check everything off our list of life accomplishments, we will experience them all.

    But what if I shared with you that all of this—happiness, love, and joy—exists in you right now? That you are the source, not the external items. What if I told you that living in a perpetual state of love and joy is your natural state of being?

    Would you think I’m full of BS? That I’m living in a hippie Never-Never Land?

    Please let me share with you a few simple exercises that showed me my true self.

    Exercise #1: The Love Wave

    Close your eyes and take a minute to connect in your heart with a person in your life that could use a little love. Feel yourself smiling into their eyes and embracing them in a giant, warm hug.

    Allow the love to flow. Sit in this love. Let it grow in strength and surround you both. Then send it out into the world, creating a wave of love. Know that you can come back to this place of flowing love at any time.

    Try this now and then read on.

    Hopefully, you just had a wonderful experience of love. Now I have a question for you. Where did the love originate from? The person you were thinking of, or you?

    It was from you. The person you pictured just helped you unlock the love. You are love. You can actually imagine many different things to unlock it. Try a smiling baby, or playtime with a pet, or a concept such as world peace. These things are just the keys that unlock the true love that is in your heart.

    You can access this love any time you want. You are just tapping into your true being. It is who you are.

    I like to start my day off with this exercise. I tend to do it in the peacefulness of the morning light, right after my morning meditation. Just open your front door or a window and feel the fresh air on your face, then close your eyes and start. It is a beautiful way to begin the day.

    Exercise #2: The Gift of Giving

    One day I was browsing in a bookstore when an old man approached me. He had snow white hair and was wearing a threadbare, beige sweater. He handed me a chocolate rose and said, “Have a beautiful day,” I was taken aback. Who was this man? Was he trying to poison me? Was he hitting on me? I reluctantly took the chocolate rose and said, “Thank you.”

    The clerk noticed my discomfort and told me that the man buys a dozen chocolate roses every day and hands them out to random strangers. I suddenly felt special.

    This incident happened many years ago. Even though my initial reaction was one of unease, I remember this man with fondness. When he finally passed away the entire town mourned. There was a glowing write up in the local newspaper about him. He had brightened the days of countless residents with his gift of a chocolate rose.

    I invite you to pick a day this week and give everyone you meet that day a gift. It doesn’t have to be a physical gift, though it can be. It could also be a compliment, your undivided attention, or a heartfelt smile.

    Don’t expect anything in return. Remember my reaction to the old man? You might not always be met with gratitude. Just practice the act of giving.

    At the end of the day, notice how you feel. You spent the day leaving heart prints everywhere you went. Did this bring you joy? Is the joy within you or did you take it from the people you met?

    Exercise #3: The Vulcan Mind Meld

    We all have goals and expectations. They are important. But what happens when we can’t fulfill them? If we don’t get that promotion or find our perfect mate? We can become disheartened and depressed. How do we prevent this?

    Close your eyes and imagine yourself ten years from now. Give your future self that thing you believe will bring you happiness. Maybe it’s kids, money, power, or something else entirely. Notice how you feel. You might feel confident and secure. Or perhaps loved and important. Whatever you feel, allow it to expand and grow. Sit in it. Enjoy it.

    Then, while keeping your attention on the way you feel, bring back the image of yourself today. Think about what you already have that fulfills you.

    Maybe you don’t have kids, but you have amazing friends. Maybe you wanted a better income, but you can afford things you enjoy already. Look for the abundance within you now. Keep going until your “present self” feels the same as your “future self.”

    It’s almost like a mind meld—make those two beings one. Again, sit in the wonderfulness of it all. When you are ready, open your eyes.

    Try this out before reading further.

    Do you feel happy?

    When we live our lives from a place of lack we experience suffering and discontentment. We are always searching for the external thing that will make us happy. Rather than focusing on the things you don’t have, try living from a place of fullness. You already have an abundance of things to enjoy and appreciate—you just have to change your perspective.

    All that security, love, confidence, happiness, and joy you saw in the vision of your “future self” is accessible right now. Everything you experienced is within you today. Recognizing the abundance or fullness of your life is the key to happiness. If you experience that abundance, not meeting a goal or expectation becomes a minor bump on the road.

    I refer to the belief that we need external things to be happy as “the big lie.” Because when we finally finish off our checklist of life’s “wants,” we often experience “the great disappointment.” The list doesn’t bring us the happiness we thought it would. It’s not the source. We are.

    This frequently happens when people become suddenly wealthy. They think that they will be happier. They are surprised when they aren’t. In fact, having a lot of money comes with its own set of problems.

    Exercise #4: A Gratitude Nap

    This exercise imprints you with the beauty of your life as it is now.

    Lie down and get comfortable. Use as many pillows and blankets as you like.

    Set a timer for three minutes.

    For those three minutes, state out loud things you are grateful for. It’s a bit difficult at first. Please know every item does not have to be deep. Be grateful for the couch you’re lying on, the length of your hair, sand on the beach. Anything goes.

    After the three minutes, set an intention to be open to whatever is there for you to receive. Surrender as much as you can.

    Rest for ten minutes. Notice at the end of the “nap” how you feel. I’m willing to bet you feel a lot lighter after basking in the glow of all your life’s goodness.

    —

    We spend so much of our time dealing with the pressures of life that we forget to do the things that unlock our love and joy. Our true nature gets covered by layers of life experiences and traumas.

    There is an Ayurvedic concept that you can shine with so much light that the darkness has no place to take hold. That light is within you now. It is your true state of being. It just needs to be set free.

    Tips to help access the joy, love, and light of your true being:

    1. Start your day with the love wave exercise.
    2. Make it a priority to do one thing each day that unlocks your joy.
    3. Live life from a place of fullness and abundance rather than from a place of lack.
    4. Practice gratitude.

    I would like to thank all of my teachers who have shared these beautiful exercises with me. Please feel free to share them too.

    Namaste.

  • How to Thrive in Life after Surviving Cancer

    How to Thrive in Life after Surviving Cancer

    “Have a little faith in your ability to handle whatever’s coming down the road. Believe that you have the strength and resourcefulness required to tackle whatever challenges come your way. And know that you always have the capacity to make the best of anything. Even if you didn’t want it or ask for it, even if it seems scary or hard or unfair, you can make something good of any loss or hardship. You can learn from it, grow from it, help others through it, and maybe even thrive because of it. The future is unknown, but you can know this for sure: Whatever’s coming, you got this.” ~Lori Deschene

    Isn’t it amazing how some days are etched in your mind forever and other days are just lost in the wind? One day that is etched in my mind forever is December 27, 2006. This is the day I was told I had breast cancer. While breast cancer is common, being twenty-six years old with breast cancer isn’t that common.

    So here I was, twenty-six years old with breast cancer saying to myself, “Well f*ck, that sure throws off the plans I had for basically anything.” I quickly fell into fear, worry, and “why me?”. I will spare you the details of treatment; it wasn’t any fun. I lost my hair and my dignity and fell into depression when life returned to “normal.”

    Whatever normal is, I was living it. However, nothing was normal. I didn’t know how to live without a doctor’s appointment to go to. I mean, all I wanted was an end to the endless appointments and here I was without them, and I couldn’t figure out what to do.

    So, I took lots of naps because I was exhausted, or so I thought. Well, it turns out I wasn’t exhausted; I was depressed. I was alone with thoughts of wondering when my cancer would come back. I was sucked into a pit of despair that I had never seen before. Who was I becoming? The person who sat in their pajamas all day while I worked from home—yep, that was me.

    I wanted to scream, “I survived cancer, now what?” Where was the manual on how to live after cancer? Who helps me get back to living? I just go back to what I was doing, as if nothing happened? I was tired of saying to myself, “But I’m supposed to feel better, right?”

    As the stream of appointments, scans, lab draws, and phone calls from friends and family continued to slow, I tried hard to be well and remain optimistic. Continue doing my job, walking the dogs, and dragging myself to the gym. Life just didn’t seem real, and depression overwhelmed me for days or weeks at a time. A quick nap turned into a four-hour slumber; my physical body was healing, and my mental body was spiraling downward.

    The difficulty of shifting back to life was not what I expected, and thank goodness for friends. My dear friend Rebecca asked if I wanted to run a half-marathon, but my visceral reaction was no. Then I learned the race took place one year to the date after I finished chemo, so I thought, “Heck yea, take that cancer!” It was perfect timing. One foot in front of the other, I trained for my first half-marathon.

    I kept myself going by trying to run when I could. Running was my go-to mental health fix pre-cancer, and it was starting to work post-cancer too. I remember there were days when I would drag myself to run and come back home in minutes. Then there were days I felt like I had superpowers and it felt so good.

    Rebecca and I crossed that finish line, hand in hand, and celebrated with margaritas and Mexican food, my other go-to mental health fixes.

    So why do I feel inclined to share my story? It’s not just about cancer, depression, running, and margaritas. It’s about making something good come from something bad. 

    Cancer taught me a lot of things. The biggest lesson was to control what I could. That looked like taking a long way home instead of sitting in traffic, not getting worked up about long lines in the grocery store, taking risks like rock climbing in Utah, trying new things like fly fishing in the mountains of North Carolina, singing in my car on the way to work to pump myself up for the day, going on camping trips with my girlfriends, and leaving behind a soul-sucking career.

    I can’t say I am exactly happy I had cancer, but I can’t imagine life without it. It’s a love/hate relationship. Looking back, it was an opportunity for growth and learning that I can do hard things. It was a reminder to focus on being truly alive.

    There is not a guidebook for cancer survivors, no way to time travel to the person you were before your diagnosis, no way to return your body unscathed, or quick way to restore your trust in your body again.  It’s a journey that you must figure out for yourself, one minute, hour, and day at a time.

    You must accept what has happened and discover a new self.

    I learned more in the year after cancer than I had in the previous twenty-six years. You don’t need a cancer journey to do this.

    Life is short; learn to live life to the fullest. However, if cancer is part of your journey back to living, you are not alone in your quest to learn to live again. You can do this. One tiny step at a time, you will learn to truly live again. You will stumble back and take huge leaps forward.

    You can have a life full of purpose, happiness, gratitude, and adventure. Don’t merely survive cancer, thrive after cancer! What are you waiting for? Let’s do this.

  • The Science of Happiness: 9 Feel-Good Tools to Boost Your Mood

    The Science of Happiness: 9 Feel-Good Tools to Boost Your Mood

    “Remember, being happy doesn’t mean you have it all. It simply means you’re thankful for all you have.” ~Unknown

    I remember sitting on the New York City subway, tears streaming down my face, armed with valium and lithium along with other antidepressants that my psych had just prescribed.

    I was desperate, in that cave I had come to know as depression. Dark, hopeless, fearful depression. The cold metal seat of the subway made me feel raw and exposed. I couldn’t function. I couldn’t stop crying. I was panicked that I would be like this forever.

    That was an example of one time in my life. Yeah, I got over it. And there were other episodes of this beast. I gradually became sick and tired of being sick and tired.

    I remember the day. I had been in depression again, and from what seemed like nowhere I started to feel the light of gratitude. I was actually feeling grateful! And it felt so very good! I knew I could start to think and feel differently.

    Then and there I finally vowed to find out how to bring happiness into my life on a consistent basis. Sure, there would be the hard times, but my goal became to live my life in the most positive way I could. I discovered that happiness is an inside job and a process. There is a science to being happier. And I’m here to tell you, it can be done.

    Maybe you’ve never been that down. I hope not. But if you’re feeling low or blue, there is help for you.

    So let’s look at the science of happiness.

    Sonia Lyubormirsky and colleagues have discovered that we can actually raise our happiness levels. According to their research, 50% of our happiness is genetic, hardwired, we are born with a happiness set point. This might explain why your sister is always happy, while you struggle to make it through a day at times. Unfortunately, this set point cannot be changed.

    The next thing to consider: 10% of our happiness is due to life circumstances—our gender, our age, where we grew up, our occupation, significant events in our lives, whether we are married or single, etc.

    For instance, you might think that having more money or having that new car would make you happier, but it only would make you happier up to a point. Then the effect of “hedonic adaptation” takes over. That is the tendency we all have to get used to what we have, causing our happiness levels to go back to the way they were before we got that “new thing.”

    If you’re worried about survival, then having enough money would be critical. But studies show that the rich aren’t any happier than the rest of us. In fact, it’s been reported that they claim they have more headaches and worries. Again, happiness is an inside job.

    Now the good news: 40% of our happiness is left for intentional activity. This is where we have choice. We can change and manage our state of mind. This 40% is where we have control over our happiness levels. We may not be able to change our set point, but we can change our happiness levels! It’s up to us.

    There are many things we can do as intentional habits. We can practice acts of kindness, learn to forgive, connect with others, take care of our bodies (through both physical activity and meditation)—and these are just a few.

    One of the best places to start is with a daily gratitude practice. Write down three things that make you grateful daily. Choose different things each day. Write down why they make you grateful. The why is very important.

    Studies done in corporations like Google have shown this practice increases positivity levels. Make this a daily intentional practice. It may seem corny at first but, hey, science has shown that it works. Guaranteed to change your mindset.

    There is a whole science to happiness, and it consists of daily, (what I like to call), “happiness hygiene habits.” You do these things like you brush your teeth. They keep your happiness levels higher. You choose what works best for you and you make it a daily practice.

    For instance, Harvard Health Publishing has reported that moving your body, be it exercising, walking, dancing, or practicing yoga, has in most cases been as effective as an antidepressant. Low intensity exercise sustained over time spurs the release of proteins called neurotrophic or growth factors, which cause nerve cells to grow and make new connections. The improvement in brain function makes us feel better.

    Back when I was so down, I had an insight and realized that if I wanted to have better days I was going to have to do for myself. I was going to have to understand what helps me change my mindset from negative to positive.

    Happiness isn’t something you go after and then once you get it, you have it for good. It’s an ongoing process of daily maintenance using the tools that the science of happiness has uncovered. 

    Some of these tools:

    1. Setting realistic, achievable, and personally significant goals has given me a purpose.

    My goals become projects that inspire and excite me. I set intrinsic goals versus extrinsic goals. These pursuits make me happier and keep me young. I no longer set goals about money, ego, or power. I value and truly “own” my goals; they are not handed down by what society dictates or what my parents, neighbors, or anyone else externally thinks are worthy

    2. Savoring positive moments has become a real source of joy.

    When I find a sunrise with a glowing moon that is awesome, I hold onto that awe and revel in it. Catch the beauty, savor the positive.

    3. Connecting with people can make a huge difference.

    Reaching out to good friends, (even when I don’t want to) has helped me stay more connected and therefore more content.

    4. Sharing with a close friend what’s going on in my life helps to take the weight off my shoulders and I get to share my secrets.

    You’re only as sick as your secrets. Sharing is caring. Listening to good friends is just as healing.

    5. Practicing random acts of kindness (letting someone go first in a line or writing a “thank you” letter) has shown me compassion.

    These small acts get me thinking along the lines of being of service. Being of service takes the focus off of me and onto others. Where can I make a difference in someone else’s life?

    6. Increasing my spiritual connection has become a source of hope and strength.

    Through meditation, prayer, and contemplation, I have found a connection with the universal source which I tap into daily.

    7. Catching my negative self-talk has been huge in helping me to stay positive.

    Catching negative talk such as: catastrophizing (“This is terrible”), all or nothing thinking (“It always turns out like this”), negative predictions (“My finances will be in ruins”), labeling (“I’m so stupid”) and so on has been a big turnaround.

    Catching these thoughts is not always easy, but I’m on the lookout for them now. I immediately stop myself and switch the thought to a positive, more accurate statement. Our negative thoughts aren’t the truth of the situation; they’re lies and distortions the ego tells us. It’s all in how we perceive it.

    8. Paying attention to the little things helps me maintain a healthy mental space.

    Even something as simple as listening to my music and getting up and dancing will almost always lift my mood.

    9. Finally, living in the moment as much as I can, without bringing the past into it or dooming and glooming about the future has allowed me to be free of torment.

    The “now” is where true peace lies. Present moment awareness is simple but not always easy.

    —

    So all of these actions and more can make up our 40% choice point. We can raise our state of well-being through practice of the happiness hygiene habits. Science has proven that practicing these habits has helped in raising low-level pessimists into low-level optimists.

    Hey, if I can do it, anyone can. And that means you!

  • How One Fleeting Mindful Minute Completely Changed My Life

    How One Fleeting Mindful Minute Completely Changed My Life

    “Don’t believe everything you think.” ~Unknown

    I am a self-confessed overthinker. I could spend hours thinking and going down the rabbit hole in my mind trying to find answers to all sorts of situations.

    About ten years ago, I struggled with burnout. I was a nurse for about twenty-two years. All I knew was nursing, and I was defined by it. As they say, “A nurse is always a nurse.”

    This makes leaving nursing something hard to do, even when it’s unhealthy.

    I’ve always worked in high-stress areas like intensive care and trauma emergency rooms, but burnout made it impossible to be there physically and mentally. It is sad to say, but at that point, I had no compassion to give.

    I was physically drained, couldn’t focus, crying all the time, and the anxiety of it all was unbearable. I needed to know why this happened and what I did wrong. Hence, the overthinking that came with it all.

    Before all this, I was a goal-setting planner person. At that time the only thing I could plan was where to sit on the couch to ponder.

    I literally sat around analyzing my life, which only brought more regret, blame, and despair.

    At this point, I also lost my spirituality, which made it much worse.

    The sad part about burnout is you don’t realize you are in it until it’s usually too late, so you tend to go back into jobs you know, and for me that was the high-stress environments. I did what I knew, not what I should do.

    I failed again.

    This was about the fifth job I left because of the burnout, and now money was dwindling. I remember driving over a four-lane bridge from yet another failed opportunity, thinking my bridge to cross was bigger.

    In my case, I couldn’t see the water’s edge or future on the other side.

    What was the point?

    Devastated, I stopped working altogether, using my savings to get by.

    I would sit on the couch “strategizing,” which meant overthink everything for hours.

    Regrets, dreams lost, future uncertain, bad career decisions swirled in my head. Then I would plan my future with unrealistic goals from the comforts of my couch and blanket.

    I even pondered my navel hoping a Divine source would help me.

    Around that time, someone told me I needed to get out of my head and become mindful.

    This is when the amazing minute would soon come in.

    Mindfulness seemed elusive, and of course, it was something I had to analyze.

    I was far from mindful. Watching thoughts meant more things to think about. I was trying to find mindfulness and bring it back to my couch.

    Until one day…

    I finally got off the couch and went for a walk. I sat down by a stream, and before I knew it, I was completely present for about a minute watching this little leaf.

    It turned and twisted as it floated down the stream. It wasn’t struggling like I was. It was letting the flow of the water carry it where it needed to go. If it bumped into a rock, it would twist away. if it got stuck, it would become unstuck by the water’s gentle movement.

    This little leaf had no resistance to what was happening.

    At that moment everything clicked. I felt spaciousness as this sense of peace washed over me.

    This was presence.

    Letting go of the struggle. Letting go of the thoughts that held me in my past.

    This was a powerful experience. For a minute.

    It was fleeting.

    I kept going back and forth between overthinking and being mindful.

    I wasn’t going with the flow; instead, I was fighting it, trying to control the direction of the stream.

    I then realized a few important things…

    I could be grateful for the small moments of mindfulness. Five seconds or a minute were precious.

    I needed to stop trying to hold onto mindfulness. It wasn’t something tangible that I could hold, grab, or pull within me. It was already there, waiting for me to let go of my resistance to it.

    I learned being mindful could happen anytime and anywhere. It didn’t have to be a big thing. I could be mindful of washing my hands, petting my cat, or listening to a car go by.

    These simple things started to take on a greater meaning.

    But it was still fleeting. Until I finally stopped analyzing mindfulness.

    I was trying to create the experience of being mindful, except I was experiencing it from a memory perspective, and then I would look forward to the next experience in my future.

    At that point I realized, fleeting was okay.

    The present moment will always be fleeting as it’s a point of time between the past and the future. To stay in the present is to stay in the now without the worry of before or after.

    I now look at all my thoughts as a stream of consciousness that, like the leaf, I can float upon as I remain in a state of calm. There is no struggle here. No resistance. Just a sense of now.

    Over the next two years, my burnout went away, my overthinking and anxiety decreased, and I was able to go back into nursing.

    This time, I started off slow, working in a small nursing home, doing home care, and then eventually I went back into a hospital setting, albeit a non-stressful environment.

    I finally found peace and contentment in the simple things, and I was able to bring my tiny present moments with my patients and coworkers. I finally enjoyed my career for the first time in a long time.

    Mindfulness is a big part of my life, and I’m grateful for the lessons this situation has given to me. Without it I would have never had my mindful minute that changed my life.

    I now appreciate going with the flow, because I have become that tiny leave who navigates down the stream of life, one mindful minute at a time.

    Fleeting or not, it’s perfect the way it is.

  • Not Happy with Your Life? I Changed the Rules and You Can Too

    Not Happy with Your Life? I Changed the Rules and You Can Too

    “I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I’m just trying to create a good one for myself.” ~Jim Carrey

    If someone had told me years ago I’d one day be serving mushroom mafalda to a former VIP client, I’d have laughed in their face. Not an “I wouldn’t be caught dead doing this” type of cackle; more with an “I haven’t waited tables in twenty-five years, why would I start now?” kind of incredulity.

    But it’s true. I’ve gone from defining myself as “Career Girl Sam”—toiling in an industry that was killing me—to a far simpler existence. Literally pulled from my laughable one-page resume: giving people a positive dining experience.

    Now this trope may seem overdone. People quit their highfalutin jobs every day. Maybe they’re sick of the rat race. Maybe they wake up and realize the lifestyle they’re trying to maintain is unnecessary. Or maybe their mental health is under attack (mine was). Whatever the reason, walking away from a pressure-cooker job is not a new thing.

    Since I walked away, however, I’ve been challenging the so-called “rules” of life. I’ve decided to re-write them. And I have the pandemic to thank for giving me the clarity I never even knew I needed.

    The First Shift

    I’ll start with how I saw myself. Like all of us, I had a different hat for every role. The one I wore as Sam, the mom. It was a practical hat, meant to keep my ears warm in the winter. The one for Sam, the career girl. More a signature, fashion piece netting plenty of compliments. And, of course, the ones I wore as Sam, the daughter… Sam, the friend… Sam, the sister… I could go on, and so can you.

    Over the course of twenty odd years, I’d worn and collected so many damn hats I’d forgotten who was underneath them.

    I’d forgotten about the Sam that I am.

    Well, you reach a certain age and suddenly you’re aware of time running out. I could hear the clock pounding in my head at night.

    Once I realized there was someone living inside me who had been buried underneath all those hats, I decided I needed to give her a chance. And the best way I knew was to figure out how to thrive in my own way, on my own time, and with my own set of ideals.

    I don’t hold any secret sauce to succeeding at this game called Life. But I can tell you, I’m happier these days. Changing up the rules has made a huge difference.

    Screw the Productivity Hustle

    I’ve been in a perpetual state of anxiety for most of adulthood. In the past, I was rarely in the moment. (Was I ever? Probably not.) Because it was a constant series of this, then that, then don’t forget about these 500 other things I was juggling. All of which could come toppling down at any moment.

    And here’s the deal: I’m not ashamed of my incessant quest to get sh*t done. It’s part of who I am. But I’ve learned some things that shocked me. Thank you, pandemic, for showing me that it’s okay to wake up and know your contribution to the world is simply being alive.

    The stripping away of so much from our regularly scheduled days has created space for… well, nothing, if I choose. Understand this is decidedly not how I roll. I will try to squeeze seven minutes out of every five whenever I can.

    But it’s unhealthy. And I saw myself projecting my constant hustle onto others. If my husband “sat around” on his day off, it would trigger me. “What did you get done today?” “Uhhh, I watched ‘Forged in Fire.’ Why?” The poor dude. He’s entitled to rest and restoration. Just because I didn’t allow myself the same luxury didn’t mean he had to operate under that hard-core philosophy.

    He said to me the other day, “Sam, I’m not you,” and then it hit me. Why am I driving myself so much?

    I fill every second with a TO-DO that, quite frankly, does not add much value to my life. So what if the house hasn’t been vacuumed in a month? So what if the laundry resembles a mountain of clothing chaos I summit only when necessary? (Like, hardly ever. Rummaging is more our style these days.)

    I’ve decided to stop chasing—and exalting—productivity. It’s exhausting! Here’s what I now do instead.

    Do you and forget about validation.

    Along the way, I’ve prided myself on being a woman who could pull amazing things out of thin air. Elaborate costumes made at the eleventh hour. Corporate events I’d swoop into and sprinkle my own “something something.” Need a little pick-me-up? Standby while I write you a rap song and perform it in front of all your peers.

    I believed in trying to nail everything I was involved in. Which meant operating at high intensity, twenty-four-seven.

    And I documented it all on social media.

    I wanted everyone to know how capable I was. I gobbled up their validation, morning, noon, and night. But unconsciously.

    In fact, I thought I was just being funny. In some ways, I was. Getting stuck in my red leather boots at airport security in Toronto proved highly entertaining for my Facebook peeps a number of years ago. Losing my keys in the snow. Smashing my phone for the umpteenth time. It was all part of my little show. Another persona—Sam, the relatable dumpster fire.

    For the last eight months, I’ve mostly been off social media. I was initially motivated to take a break by the same things that probably irk you. But when I felt an uncomfortable vacancy after completing something cool that nobody knew about, it hit me.

    Newsflash: I was desperate to be liked, and hungry to be lauded. I knew I needed to stop relying on this external validation.

    Now if I have a private moment to myself, I don’t feel any pressure to whip out my iPhone and snap a photo. I can, if I want to, but it’s for me. Or my family. These moments have become sacred.

    And I’m not pooh-poohing anyone who loves their daily scroll through the lives of others. Nor am I judging those who enjoy sharing things themselves. Have at ‘er.

    But I can tell you, I have more available real estate in my head, and I truly do not give a flying you-know-what on the opinions of followers. I’m doing me. On my terms. No permission needed.

    Prioritize joy.

    I’m not sure why, but I grew up attaching a sense of shame to the feeling of joy. Maybe it was because my mother suffered from crippling depression. We kind of tip-toed around, trying to keep the confusion at a minimum. Maybe it was the energy placed on productivity and success. I’m not sure. But what I now know is that joy is allowed. Joy matters. And I’m not going to dim my pursuit of it to make anyone else feel better.

    Because I’m choosing to find it in the smallest of things. Like my hot oatmeal this morning. How incredible was that first taste—the crunch of the green apple, the punch of the cinnamon I added. A small moment; just for me.

    How lovely is it to sit in that one sliver of sunshine that beams in your house first thing in the morning? Or to notice the squirrels chasing each other? These seemingly silly observations which at one point in my life would have gone completely unnoticed are now part of my ongoing quest.

    Where can I find joy? Is it in the smile of the barista who made my latte? Is it in this parking space I lucked out on? And I don’t just look for it, I want to dish it out. Because it matters. We all deserve joy.

    Get real with yourself. And calm the F down.

    My tendency in life is to live in the extremes. When things are bad, I assume the worst. When the going is good, my rose-tinted glasses convince me that only the best possible outcome is reserved for me.

    Well, I’ve spent the last year getting real with myself. This has involved challenging the absolute worst-case scenario that lives in my head.

    I quit my career to lead women on these gorgeous, global walking adventures. I’m oversimplifying, but it’s what I did. It seems so obviously like a pipedream, it’s not even funny. The truth is nothing is as simple as the idea. I’m learning this. (She says while popping a Tums!)

    With the pandemic stalling my plans for this new business, I’ve found myself twisted up in even more fear. But I’ve looked it square in the eye and decided I can live with the worst-case scenario: instead of getting this thing off the ground, what if it plummets into cold water like some sloppy cannonball?

    What will that mean? I’ll have spent time and money chasing a dream that didn’t work out. Will I say it was wasted? No way. Because I’ve always believed we can’t know until we try. Will we end up in the streets? I mean, I guess, that’s always a possibility. But unlikely. I have skills, and I’m fairly certain I can just go out and get another J-O-B.

    Which brings me to my next point.

    Stop asking people what they do for a living. Ask them what they’re about, instead.

    A part of me has had to face some ugly bits of my ego. I used to feel good about myself when I answered that famous question, “What do you do for a living?” I’d pretend to stammer around, but secretly would be full of pride that I owned a company and worked in finance. I thought (foolishly) this gave me credibility. I thought, somehow, I was worthy. Because I flat-out defined myself as Sam, the career woman.

    I’m here to tell you it’s all rubbish.

    Thanks in part to walking the Camino, I figured out that I am not that. The “Sam I Am” is not what I do for a living. Nor does anyone give a rat’s ass what I do for a living, unlike what we’re led to believe. I could be perfectly content living a simple life, under the radar, away from regulations and scrutiny and incessant pressure.

    Like my new part-time gig of waiting tables. I live in a small town with a handful of nice restaurants. I knew it would mean the inevitable bump into past clients. But it doesn’t faze me—not even a noodle. And it will happen one day. I imagine a conversation going like this: “Oh hello, Mr. Former VIP Client! Yes, I do work here now. Any questions about the pasta selection?”

    Let’s redefine that annoying question, “What do you do for a living?” Why do we feel the need to put people in boxes? Why does it matter how someone earns money these days? As though their job somehow defines them. Hypocrisy moment: it used to define me. Or so I thought, until it didn’t anymore.

    And I’m a little frustrated that we start as young as we do, even with kids. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’m all for having dreams and a path to work toward. But are we not setting ourselves up for a future that has far too much emphasis on what we do and how that relates to our worth in the world?

    I think it would be more interesting to answer the question, “What are you about these days?” or “What matters to you in life?” Next time you find yourself in that classic situation, why not switch things up?

    I’m just now figuring out what matters to me in life. It’s not the job. Not the house. The car. The clothes I wear. It’s not the likes. The comments. Or the number of holiday cards I receive. It’s not even the hikes I go on.

    What matters to me are the same things that truly matter to you. Your family. Your sense of self-worth. Trying to stay on a path that feels like your own.

    So throw out the rules that aren’t working for you. Nobody said you had to follow them anyways.

  • 5 Things to Do When You’re Tired of Pretending to Be Happy

    5 Things to Do When You’re Tired of Pretending to Be Happy

    “Happiness is like being cool, the harder you try, the less it is going to happen. So stop trying. Start living.” ~Mark Manson

    I am a lucky person. In this crazy pandemic, my entire family and I have made it through in one piece. My husband has been out of work for half of a year and my son’s school has been closed. But I still have a job that can support my family.

    I am grateful.

    Every day after dealing with crazy deadlines and pressure at work, I go home and see my son’s sweet, cute face.

    I am happy. Or at least, I should be happy. At least, around him so that he can see and feel it. So he will grow up to be a happy person too.

    But sometimes, I’m tired. I’m tired of trying or pretending to feel happy when the weight of the whole world is on my shoulders, and I have to push every single second in my life to make it.

    Sometimes when I wake up so early that it is still dark out to go to work, I feel lonely and depressed. Sometimes when making my coffee, I cry a little while drinking it.

    That’s when I feel the burden of feeling happy.

    It is ridiculous that feeling happy becomes a burden. But it does. And all day long we’re bombarded with ideas to be happier and reminders that other people already are.

    How often do you surf the internet or scroll down on your Facebook, TikTok, or whatever app and see all of the so-called tips and tricks for a better body, a better salary… a better life?

    These kinds of life hacks are like ten a penny. Some are golden, some are stupid. And most of the time, people just make them up.

    Even though we might already know many of them, if not all, if we don’t go through them, what do we feel?

    We feel uncomfortable. Like we should watch them so we can learn more, so we can do more. So we can be better. And happier.

    How about when you are sitting on your couch, watching TV while eating chocolate, and a commercial comes on for a new workout or diet program. Immediately, you feel guilty as hell.

    Or how about when you scroll through your high school friends’ social media pages, and they seem to “have it all.” They talk about their healthy lifestyle, their new business, all the travel they’re doing, and you just feel like a complete loser.

    The fear of missing out is the real deal. So is the invisible competition between you and everyone else.

    We are always afraid.

    Especially when the whole world is going one way and we are going the other. But we don’t have to be happy all the time. And we don’t need beat ourselves up for feeling down.

    If you’re also feeling the burden of happiness, these ideas might help. (More tips and tricks, I know—but hopefully these ones won’t leave you feeling bad or guilty!)

    5 Simple Tricks to Let Go of the Burden of Feeling Happy

    1. Stop setting unreasonable goals and holding ridiculously high standards for yourself.

    We often think we have to be doing things all the time so we can be there for other people and we can achieve and attain the things we think we need to be happy.

    Here’s the harsh truth…

    We are not some damn robots that are wired to be superheroes and rescue the world. We don’t have superpowers or special magic that can get things done in a snap of our fingers.

    There are some days when we feel like we can do it all, but there are other days when we get lazy and tired.

    And it is completely okay to say “f*ck it” for a day or two.

    We don’t have to “save the day” all the time, it is okay to be saved too.

    So stop setting unrealistic goals and holding yourself to crazy high standards. It’s okay to want to accomplish things, but when you lay down those SMART goals and create your daily to-do lists, remember to give yourself some space to breathe too.

    2. Rethink your daily to-do list.

    Not the one you use to remind yourself of the important things. I am talking about the to-do list that requires you to jump from one thing to the next without any time to relax or drink some coffee. There is no point keeping a list of things that you know you won’t be able to complete. But we do it because we think we should happily go, go, go—be it all, do it all, and do it with a smile.

    Call me crazy, but there are days I am so busy that I don’t have time to go to the restroom. And I don’t drink any water on those days.

    So if your boss is crazy enough to ask you at the end of the day to submit a report the next morning, tell them you need more time.

    Don’t say, “Whatever you need!” Ask yourself what you need instead, especially on days when you’re not feeling your best.

    3. Be honest with your true emotions

    I am always envious as hell when I see some of my high school friends’ Facebook pages. When they seem to have it all figured out, but I am still trying, and struggling, and trying again.

    I used to brush away those feelings, telling myself to focus on what I have. But the feelings were still there. They don’t go away. And you know what happens with buried feelings.

    I now comfortably and publicly admit my emotions. I get jealous of people. I get sad. I get scared before speaking at every meeting. I say it out loud and I feel better.

    Some days I go to meetings and I tell everyone that I am nervous. And surprisingly, those meetings often go well.

    If you don’t know how to be honest about your true emotions, I highly recommend journaling. It helps to gradually open up your mind and lower your defense system.

    4. Come back to your core.

    Sometimes we are so lost in finding happiness that we forget what it really means—to us personally.

    Think about it, why do you do what you do? Is it just about money and responsibility, or is it also about taking care of your loved ones and feeling like you’re making a difference?

    Answer those questions, and when you’re aware that you are going against your core, lovingly turn back. No judgment. Remind yourself that it’s okay if you don’t feel happy in your daily grind because there’s a greater purpose behind everything you do.

    5. Do not compare.

    Remember, you are yourself. You are doing the best you can at the moment. No one has gone through what you’ve gone through, no one has done what you’ve done, so no one will fully understand.

    And the good thing is, you don’t need anyone to understand because you don’t need their approval.

    Same thing to others. You don’t know what they’ve been through. So do not secretly wish to switch your life with theirs.

    And remember you don’t have to be the best at everything you do. If you are not a super mom, it’s fine. I’m not mother of the year, but my son is completely cool with it. He still needs to hug my blanket and smell my scent to take naps when I’m not home.

    —

    It can be so unfashionable to admit that you don’t always feel complete, content, happy, and at peace. But it’s okay if you don’t.

    You are not a robot with wired emotions. You get scared, freaked out, worried, jealous, anxious, or whatever. And you are still an awesome you.

  • Choose Joy and You’ll See the World with a Brighter Perspective

    Choose Joy and You’ll See the World with a Brighter Perspective

    “We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.” ~Joseph Campbell

    It’s been just under five years now since I had a head injury that changed my life forever.

    Unfortunately, I spent more than two years going to multiple kinds of therapy and doctors several days a week and ultimately had to stop working. I was devastated.

    I loved my career as a special educator and school administrator. I’d been in classrooms since I was twenty years old, and here I was at fifty-seven, suddenly unable to return to a school in any capacity because of a head injury.

    The first two years, when I wasn’t being transported to therapies and doctors, I was mostly in bed or on the sofa.

    To be honest, it wasn’t just because I was physically hurting so bad—it was because I was emotionally hurting, too.

    I have had a headache every day since that horrible day almost five years ago when the head injury occurred. I have problems with dizziness, vertigo, fatigue, and sleep.

    A neuropsychologist diagnosed me with executive functioning, processing, memory, and recall delays.

    But even these problems were not as bad as the emotional anguish, and the hurt in my soul, once I realized I would never be able to go into a classroom again.

    And sadly, I learned the hard way.

    It was the first Grandparents’ Day at my grandson’s school after my head injury. My husband took off work and picked me up from home, dropped me off at the school doors, parked the car, and then escorted me to our grandson’s classroom.

    I always loved Grandparents’ Day at schools where I worked, as well as at our grandchildren’s schools. I loved greeting the grandparents when they arrived at my schools; some of my most treasured moments were when students would introduce me to their grandparents.

    We always made a big deal out of Grandparent’s Day with our own grandchildren, and I was thrilled to be attending this year because it was one of my first ventures out of the house for anything other than medical appointments.

    I continued to have balance problems, anxiety, panic attacks, vision issues, headaches, and other symptoms from post concussive syndrome and post traumatic stress disorder.

    But my husband was my best support person, so I thought I’d be okay for this outing.

    Until I found myself backed into the corner of a crowded classroom with dozens of grandparents and students, and no way to get out.  And I had a full-blown panic attack.

    Difficulty breathing, sweating, shaking—and near syncope.

    My husband excused us quickly and escorted me through the crowd and out of the classroom immediately.

    I was unable to stay.

    I was devastated.

    The next time it happened, I was attending a basketball game at our granddaughters’ school where they were cheerleading and dancing.

    I thought I could handle the crowds until suddenly the stands started filling up around me and another panic attack left me sweating, shaking, and having trouble breathing.

    Again, my husband escorted me through the crowd and out the building—unable to stay.

    As the appointments became fewer and farther between over time, and the doctors claimed I was improving, I continued my counseling appointments for PTSD.

    I was becoming much better at using coping skills we had practiced weekly for more than two years. But I still struggled.

    I was now doing my physical therapy and vision therapy at home, so I didn’t go to those appointments anymore. I wasn’t seeing the specialists or doctors as often as before.

    I was seeing my counselor remotely because of the pandemic, so I didn’t even get out of the house for that weekly appointment.

    Around the two-year mark, I knew something had to change. The joy in my heart and soul had suffered long enough. In fact, it was probably lost for a while. I needed to find it again.

    I was living half of a life. My career was over because of the head injury, and I was going to retire. My social life was stagnant because I couldn’t drive or be in large crowds.

    But I knew my life was not over and I had much to live for.

    I made the conscious decision to crawl out from under my rock! I was done living a life of seclusion and self-pity without joy in my heart and soul.

    I knew I had to find, and choose joy, from here forward. I was going to work hard on changing my mindset and not allowing what happened to me to control my life.

    As I was coming out from under my rock, friends and family noticed a change. I would explain that I was taking back my life and choosing joy again. People were super proud of me. In fact, I was proud of me.

    But I sometimes discovered that the concept of choosing joy didn’t always resonate with people. They didn’t seem to have the spiritual foundation necessary to understand what I meant.

    So, I started explaining exactly what I was doing—choosing joy as a lifestyle. I shifted my attention and mindset from what had happened to me to all the wonderful things around me—flowers, animals, music, sunshine, and smiles.

    I practiced compartmentalizing like I had done as a school administrator. I used strategies from my counselor to help me put what happened behind me. I had to focus on positive things rather than negative things.

    I made it a point to laugh more—watching more comedies and scheduling time with fun people. It took a lot for me to ask friends or family to drive because I was always the driver—but I did it.

    I even laughed about the mess my house had become during my down time and decided to just pronounce “Bless this mess!”

    Little by little, I worked on cleaning the house and getting organized again. Fortunately, my husband was very patient and understanding during those difficult times. Clothes piled up, bills piled up, and mess piled up.

    I focused on an attitude of gratitude and controlling what I could control—my attitude, my words, my behavior, and my responses to life. I also accepted my imperfections rather than beat myself up for not being perfect (or being able to work anymore).

    The more I talked about choosing joy, the more empowered I felt to take back my life. And I could see and feel more joy around me every day.

    I spent time outside and spent quality time with my family (and my cats). I planned family get-togethers again and learned to live with my headaches and panic attacks.

    I accepted that IT’S OKAY TO NOT BE OKAY.  If I had to cancel something because I was having a bad day, the world would not fall apart. I accepted this fact. And so did my family and friends.

    My whole life shifted.

    My mindset shifted.

    And I felt the joy return to my heart and soul.

    I have now been able to see the value of being retired and love it! I have started making jewelry again. My house is cleaner and more organized than it’s been in twenty years. And I am more functional than I’ve been since the head injury.

    Not because I’m all better but because I have a better mindset. I am choosing joy and it changes everything!

    Some days are better than others.

    It’s still like that.

    Almost five years later.

    But I no longer live under a rock—or in bed under my covers!

    I’ve learned through it all that choosing joy is a lifestyle concept. And I’ve been living it as I recover from my head injury and take back my life.

    I’ve become empowered and confident again because I control how I see the world.

    Joy is a lens through which you see the world. Choose joy and you will see the world from a new perspective.

  • Put Down Your Phone: Why Presence Is the Best Gift You’ll Ever Give

    Put Down Your Phone: Why Presence Is the Best Gift You’ll Ever Give

    “When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    The only thing worse than not listening to someone is pretending to listen.

    Giving the vague murmur of agreement, or a quick nod to communicate “Yes, I’m listening, totally,” when really, we’re not.

    I remember vividly a dinner I had with friends about four years ago. I’d been backpacking in New Zealand for twelve months and had just returned to the UK. Traveling in the car to my friend’s house, I imagined how the night would look…

    There would be lots of laughter (it was always side-splitting when we all got together).

    There would be lots of hugging (I hadn’t seen them for a whole year after all).

    There would be lots of storytelling (I would get to share my epic adventure).

    Did all of this happen? To some extent, yes, but not how I had imagined.

    In fact, I left feeling a little miffed, a little gutted.

    At first, I couldn’t work out why.

    My friends were the same old fun-to-be-around people.

    Despite ‘finding myself’ while traveling (I joke), I felt I was pretty much the same old person.

    So what was different?

    It hit me.

    The constant. Mobile. Phones.

    The entire evening was tainted by endless selfies, videos, status updates, incoming phone calls, outgoing phone calls, and notifications.

    Distraction after distraction after distraction.

    There were moments you could have heard a pin drop as the four of us, faces illuminated by the glow of the mobile phones, sat, hands glued to our devices. Ironically, telling anyone who was on Facebook and Instagram that night what a terrific time we were having.

    To begin with, I was angry with my friends. But soon I realized I was really angry with myself. I was equally guilty, and people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones after all.

    What could have been, rather, what should have been, an evening of being deeply present with one another, each one of us offering our full and undivided attention, was tainted by technology, spoiled by social media, marred by meddling mobiles.

    Backpacking was more campfires and deep life conversations below the stars, so this evening was felt like a return to reality. Most of us struggle to put our flipping phones down.

    If we stop and think about it, what message does it send to the human beings in front of us when we are busy on our phones?

    I made a vow that evening to get better at this, to be more present with friends and family, anyone I’m communicating with.

    I didn’t want to make anyone feel how I felt that evening—unheard and unimportant.

    Zoom forward to today and, well, I’m much better but far from perfect.

    Technology certainly is a huge barrier to presence, but it’s not the main culprit.

    The main culprit lives between our ears, the mind.

    The mind is a lot like a talking alarm clock, and you have no control over when it goes off and what it will say.

    For example, I can be sitting face to face with someone, physically a few centimeters in distance, but consciously, a world away.

    Instead of listening to what the person sitting across from us is saying, we listen to our thoughts.

    Hey, did I leave the oven on this morning when I left the house?

    I hope my breath doesn’t stink.

    Why is that stranger in the corner laughing—is my underwear tucking into my shirt?

    Or literally, anything else. Anything. Any other thought can pop up at any moment, pulling my focus momentarily away from the person in front of me.

    Luckily for us, people can’t always be certain when we’re not being fully present with them, especially if we’re an expert fake listener, able to give a very convincing response like “Yeah, sure, I get you.” Occasionally, I sense that the person I’m talking to senses I haven’t been listening. I feel bad and forgive myself for being human, before returning to the conversation.

    On the other hand, when someone is really listening to us, fully present with us in the moment, we can be certain. Without a doubt, because we feel it.

    It’s tough to put such moments into words, but you just know.

    Moments when we’re fully present with someone and it’s reciprocated, it’s like magic, like the rest of the world fades into the background. Like the first time you fall in love and you just feel connected; you feel the dance of communication, the resonating, the synchronicity, the oneness.

    That’s it. This, for me, is what presence is all about. The oneness.

    A few of my favorite ways to get present and cultivate oneness are:

    Eye contact

    The eyes truly are the windows to the soul. Giving eye contact really lets people know they’re being heard.

    Listening to understand instead of listening to respond

    We’re stuck in our heads if we’re listening purely to plan our response. Tuning into a person’s words and also how they say the words has greatly helped me to connect with people.

    Limiting distractions.

    Technology, off. The world can wait.

    Remember the good old days when only landline phones existed and if you weren’t at home people would leave a message and patiently wait for a response? Bliss. Nowadays, we’re available on mobile, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Snapchat, email… the list goes on. Flight mode is my friend. Anytime I want to get present, flight mode is activated.

    Facial expressions.

    When I really listen to someone, I find I empathize with them so much more. Naturally my facial expressions will reflect this, communicating I understand how they’re feeling. We all wish to feel understood.

    In a few weeks’ time, I’ll be flying back to the UK to spend time with my family. In fact, this will be the first Christmas in six years we’ll all be together (my dear parents, older sister, younger brother, and me).

    A part of me is sad knowing that around the world, there will be families sitting in their living rooms, surrounded by their nearest and dearest, but not really being there.

    Distracted either by their own minds, their mobiles, or maybe their new presents.

    It doesn’t have to be like this. Board games can be played and conversations can be had, with presence, together.

    In truth, we needn’t wait until the holidays to connect in this way, as any moment, any conversation, offers a chance to be present with each other. But the holidays, for me, really are prime opportunities.

    To be surrounded by the ones we love most and be with them more than just physically, but emotionally and spirituality too, well, this is worth more than any gift you’ll give or receive this year. This holiday season, give presence.

  • Happiness Is Being Around People Who…

  • When Things Have to Change: How to Find the Willpower to Achieve Your Goals

    When Things Have to Change: How to Find the Willpower to Achieve Your Goals

    “When it is obvious the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.” ~Confucius

    Do you want to know my biggest fear?

    I’ve just come out of the closet, my parents have rejected me, and I am terrified, really, really terrified, because I’m completely alone, and the pain is unbearable.

    But it’s not just the rejection that terrifies me—it’s also what happens after that.

    With no one to turn to, I find comfort at the bottom of a bag of chips.

    Three months and thirty pounds later I’ve yet to leave the confines of my bedroom. I’m wasting away, haunted by dead dreams, dirty dishes, and empty soda cans. The depression is unbearable. I feel like I’ll never be able to turn things around.

    I look in the mirror and don’t recognize this person looking back at me. I’ve resigned myself to a life of sadness, solitude, and self-neglect. It feels as though everything is hopeless and I’ll never to amount to anything in life.

    Feelings of depression, lack of confidence, and fear of failure drive me to seek comfort with Aunt Jamima instead of with a new diet plan. This vicious cycle of depression and binge eating leads me to a state of paralysis, and obesity. I’ve completely stopped taking care of myself. I feel like I may as well die because my life is over!

    Yikes! Dramatic much?

    The secret is, not only is this one of my biggest fears, this actually happened!

    Spoiler Alert: Eventually, with therapy, I was able to break out of the depression and drop thirty pounds. Equally important, my parents have grown to love and accept my gayness! But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the five strategies that helped me crawl my way out of the hole and get back to a healthy place, physically and emotionally.

    If you’re feeling discouraged and unmotivated to create positive change in your life, these five strategies may help you alleviate your emotional triggers, increase your willpower, and achieve your goals.

    Strategy #1: Chunking

    Many of us cannot complete the tasks we set out to do because we get overwhelmed thinking of all the work required, which leads to a state of paralysis. Overwhelm is one of my main emotional triggers, and chunking is a great way to alleviate this and follow through with my goals.

    Chunking is when you take a large task and break it down into smaller, more manageable pieces. With chunking you will find you have increased confidence and willpower and are able to complete more tasks with less stress.

    We basically have unlimited willpower (it’s true! See tip #3: Perception), but when presented with a momentous task the brain becomes overwhelmed and says, “ENOUGH! I’M DONE! BRING ME CHIPS!”

    When my depression was at its height I had many days where I didn’t feel like going to the gym and hitting the weights. When I was in this negative emotional state, I found my mind focusing on the long, tiring workout I had planned ahead while feelings of inadequacy and not measuring up to my peers came creeping in. It’s exhausting just thinking about it!

    It’s called paralysis by analysis—when you’re overthinking something and you get stuck in a place of inaction. During times like this I feel things are hopeless. I plop my ass down on the couch and prepare for a good long Netflix binge, with a side of chips of course! Then comes the uncomfortable feeling of my potential being wasted and my waistline slipping further and further away.

    To get over this state of inaction, I use chunking. I focus on the task at hand and think, “What is the next right move for me in this moment?”

    I tell myself that I’ll go to the gym and I’ll do just a five-minute workout. If I want to exercise more after that, I have the option to do so. After the first five minutes is complete, I tell myself I’ll do five more minutes. And repeat.

    Eventually the resistance to working out subsides, an hour goes by, and the workout is complete! I’m always in a better mood after I leave the gym, and the emotional triggers that were holding me back oftentimes seem insignificant once my workout is complete and I’ve gotten out of the house.

    Strategy #2: Confidence

    Confidence is the belief you have in yourself to achieve your goals. After coming out to my parents and feeling alone and abandoned, my confidence was basically non-existent. I needed to get my confidence back if I was going to be successful. Approaching a task with confidence will decrease the willpower required to complete said task, and feelings of self-doubt and insecurity will begin to melt away.

    How is it possible to increase confidence, you ask? It’s not as hard as you might think! Start by changing the way you frame your goals.

    When I wanted to lose thirty pounds, for example, I felt an extreme lack of confidence pursuing such an ambitious goal. Feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt became debilitating. I felt like I was permanently stuck in a place of inaction, never to achieve my goals.

    The truth is, the way I was framing my goal was setting me up for failure.

    I found success by chunking my goal down into something I felt was easy, manageable, and achievable. I shifted my focus from losing thirty pounds to losing just one pound. One pound is easy to lose, so I felt confident in my ability to achieve this small chunk of my ultimate goal.

    I started paying attention to the small wins and milestones. I began tracking my progress with a fitness app on my phone. A Virginia Tech study found that having a visual representation of your progress provides motivation to reach your goals; the easier a goal is to see, the closer it seems.

    Tracking your progress is another great way to increase confidence. It also decreases the amount of willpower required to stick to your routine and diet.

    With my renewed confidence, a strategically planned diet, and training regime, I achieved my goal weight and lost thirty pounds! Once I truly believed in myself, I was able to accomplish something that I thought was impossible.

    Strategy #3: Perception

    Perception is everything when it comes to maintaining willpower. It will make or break your chances for success.

    A recent study conducted by Stanford University found that if you believe you have unlimited willpower, you will in turn have more willpower than the average person.

    This means that when you believe you have a finite supply of willpower, you’re right! When you believe you have an infinite supply of willpower, you’re right about that too!

    You create your own reality. The beliefs you hold dictate the world around you. The limitations you put on yourself are the limitations that also hold you back. Create a new narrative for yourself, one in which you are empowered to achieve your goals, and you will transform limitations into strengths.

    Remember back when my depression was at its height and I gained thirty pounds in three months? l had lost all respect for myself and my body. I stopped believing I could achieve my goals. Feelings of hopelessness took over. I was sinking deeper and deeper into an intense and painful depression.

    Eventually, I began to realize how my perception was limiting my ability to lose weight. If I didn’t believe in myself, how could I expect to achieve anything? Through meditation, and with a lot of support from some amazing friends, I was able to shift my perception from hopeless to hopeful!

    With this shift in perspective, and a newfound love for myself, I began to take care of my body properly. The weight began to melt off and I became the success story you see today.

    Strategy #4: Identity

    Identity shapes the way we view ourselves and what we believe we are capable of, and it dictates our response to emotional triggers.

    Are you a smoker? Do you love to jog? Are you a fat, lazy slob who will never amount to anything? These are all examples of the identities we create that can hold us back or lead us to success.

    We constantly use our identity to quickly recognize the things we are good at and things we suck at. Did you ever stop to think about how this identity is based out of past experiences—many of which do not even hold true today? These beliefs will hold you back from reaching your full potential if you let them.

    When I gained thirty pounds I had allowed myself to take on the identity of victim, and as a result I became disempowered to change my situation. Eventually I learned to shift my identity from disempowered to empowered, by changing the stories I was telling myself.

    No longer was I a victim of circumstance. I accepted full responsibility for my situation and let go of the victim identity. Once I chose to stop playing the victim, I directed my energy toward creating the life I’ve dreamed of.

    By shifting my identity so that it was aligned with my life goals, I changed the narrative and opened the door for real change in my life. I also decreased the willpower required to achieve my goals and began my journey on the path to success.

    So I know you’re thinking, “How the hell do I change my identity!?”

    You can start by changing the stories you tell yourself. Flip the script!

    I’m reminded of a time when I was trying to quit smoking (for the tenth time). When I had a bad craving I would tell myself things like “I’m not allowed to smoke.” The language I was using—“I’m not allowed”—is of someone who identifies as a smoker. By speaking that way I was creating a sense of deprivation and giving away my power to the identity of being a smoker.

    I found that by changing the story from “I am not allowed to smoke” to “I do not smoke” I decreased feelings of deprivation. It also empowered me to create a new identity of someone who does not smoke.

    With this new identity, I decreased the amount of willpower required to quit smoking. I became empowered to make the changes necessary to achieve my goal, and I was able to successfully stop smoking with a slight shift of identity. I felt so proud of myself for this one too!

    Strategy #5: High-Level Thinking

    We essentially have two types of thinking: high-level and low-level.

    Low-level thoughts focus on how to complete a task, short-term goals, and execution of plans.

    “How am I going to workout today?” is an example of a low level thought.

    High-level thoughts focus on why you want to complete a task, and are charged with a sense of meaning and purpose. They help us to find that extra bit of willpower we need to carry us through tough times.

    “Why do I want to workout today?” is an example of a high-level thought.

    The high-level thought shown above focuses on the motivation behind the goal. It re-enforces the belief that working out is what’s best for me. Thinking in this way reduces the resistance to the task at hand and reduces the amount of willpower required to accomplish goals.

    A study by Professor Fujita in 2006 concluded that people who often engage in higher-level thinking have a higher amount of willpower than those who regularly engage in lower-level thinking.

    When I was in a full-blown depression I found low-level thoughts were much more common than high-level thoughts. With my focus on logistical things like the endless steps involved in getting in shape, I would feel overwhelm and sink deeper into depression. Just leaving the house to go workout became an arduous task.

    Eventually, I changed my focus to why I was going to the gym and connected to my overall goals of being fit and healthy. With less focus on the mundane day-to-day tasks, a lot of the resistance to leaving the house subsided, and I was more frequently able to get my workouts in as planned.

    With continued practice I’ve become more mindful of opportunities to choose between high-level and low-level thinking throughout the day. Just this morning I had an insatiable craving for cream in my coffee! I’m currently experimenting with intermittent fasting, and one of my rules is no cream till after 4:00pm.

    The struggle got real. I was ready to give in and make that coffee creamy and delicious. I didn’t care how wrong it was because it felt so right!

    Suddenly, as I was about to pour the cream, I started thinking at a higher level. I realized this cream would stop me from progressing toward my larger goal of being fit and healthy and inspiring others. After thinking at a higher level, the cream became much less tempting and I was able to put the cream down.

    Thanks to higher-level thinking, I found the willpower I needed to not break my fast!

    Conclusion

    These five strategies—chunking, confidence, perception, identity, and high-level thinking—are all tools to add to your tool box to help you alleviate negative emotional triggers, increase willpower, and ensure you reach your goals.

    These techniques have helped me through some very tough times, but they will help you with any goal in life that requires persistence and dedication. Implement these tools in your life today and see how much they help you!

    Let me know how this works for you—leave a comment in the comments section below!

  • Why We Need to Put Ourselves First and Prioritize Our Own Happiness

    Why We Need to Put Ourselves First and Prioritize Our Own Happiness

    “Putting yourself first is not selfish. Quite the opposite. You must put your happiness and health first before you can be of use to anyone else.” ~Simon Sinek

    If you’re someone who cares deeply for the people in your life, you may want to do anything you can for them. This devotion isn’t always reciprocated. Not to say we should only think of things in a transactional nature, but sometimes we can selflessly give ourselves away to people who are careless with our own needs.

    It often leaves us feeling like we’re being taken advantage of.

    It often leaves us feeling depleted, empty, and resentful.

    It often leaves us feeling like we’re trying to make everyone else happy, yet we’re miserable.

    Instead of doing things because we want to do them, we end up doing them because we’re attempting to make others happy.

    These are the moments that eat me alive. I end up sticking around a project far longer than I should because I’m worried about what it will mean for the other person.

    For the last year, I’ve been producing a weekly podcast with a friend. When we started it gave me purpose and joy, and I loved to work on it. But now? It feels like work I dread. I think about wanting to quit all the time. It’s an energy suck on my life. And all I can think of is, will they be unhappy with me if I tell them I don’t want to do the podcast anymore?

    I’m guessing we’ve all done this before—base our happiness on the happiness of others. We think…

    My parents won’t be happy unless I become a doctor, so I’ll go to medical school.

    My partner won’t be happy unless I prioritize their career over mine, so I’ll give up on my dreams.

    My kids won’t be happy unless I devote every waking moment to their needs, so I’ll sacrifice my sense of self.

    My friends won’t be happy unless I drop everything when they need me, so I’ll put my life on hold.

    My family won’t be happy unless I am the person they want me to be, so I’ll put their needs first.

    My cat won’t be happy unless… cats will *never* be happy. Much like most of the people who expect you to do these things for them. If they attach an expectation, you aren’t dealing with someone who values your worth and what’s meaningful to you.

    They’re looking at you as a means to something they want. This isn’t saying that’s a “bad” person, it’s the reality of being a human. There’s software running in the background that is based on self-preservation. It is universal among all living organisms.

    This software doesn’t exactly serve us in situations like this because it does everything it can to avoid pain and fear. And that’s exactly what’s keeping us stuck in these circumstances. We don’t want to cause pain in others, and we sure as hell don’t want to experience pain ourselves. And we fear what will happen if we say no to these people and prioritize our own needs.

    Will our parents stop loving us?

    Will our partner leave us?

    Will our kids suffer?

    Will our friends stop being our friends?

    Will our family start to ignore us?

    Will my cat still love me?

    It’s normal to have feelings of pain and fear.

    That’s worth emphasizing because you might think that the pain and fear are unique to your situation. It’s not. Pain and fear are a normal part of life.

    If we can see the choices we make through this lens of pain and fear, we can better understand why others are perhaps projecting their pain and fear onto us and our decisions.

    This is where it takes some courage. The only way things will ever change is if you stand up for yourself (because nobody else will). Stand up like you would for someone you love or a cause you care about. Stand up like your survival depends on it… because it does.

    It’s not selfish to put yourself first (what you want to do with your life). It’s selfish to expect others to put you and your needs first (what others want you to do with your life).

    I have a kid on the way. And thinking of her being here has forced me to think of my happiness differently. If I’m working on projects that feel like they’re robbing me of my time, I’m willingly sacrificing the kind of dad I want to be—present and grounded. The poor kid would be left with a warm body and a mind that is elsewhere racing with anxiety because I’m focused on making others happy.

    You could do nothing with the hopes of avoiding pain and fear, but it will invite a lifetime of regret. This is the equivalent of death by a thousand paper cuts. You lose your sense of identity, your life feels meaningless, and you drift aimlessly in a life that is not yours.

    This.

    Is.

    It.

    There are no do-overs.

    No second chances.

    You don’t get to do this life all over again.

    So don’t waste your days living someone else’s life.

    In the end, I decided that who I want to be as a father is a hell of a lot more important to me than a project. And much like most things we avoid in life, I had turned the decision into something far more complicated than it needed to be. It was a lesson learned from Dr Seuss who wrote, “Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind”

    Those who matter want to see you happy.

    They’re not the ones holding you back. They’re the cheerleaders of your life who ask you, who do you want to become?

    Commit to living your answer. It’s not selfish. It’s prioritizing your happiness.

  • When Life Forces Your Hand, Embrace the New Chapter

    When Life Forces Your Hand, Embrace the New Chapter

    “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” ~Seneca

    Like most people, I’ve tried to control many aspects of my life, and this hasn’t always worked in my favor. Just when I thought I had it all under control, life has inconveniently shown me many, many times that I was getting a little too cocky.

    You name it, I’ve tried to control it—from my schedule and time (hello, Type A personality) to forgoing random opportunities because my mind was made up on going a certain direction. I even tried calorie counting at the height of my exercising routine because I wanted ultimate control of what I put in my body.

    Now, none of these are necessarily bad. Planning your time leads to efficiency, forgoing things because you are on a mission means you might be on the path to your purpose, and calorie counting could help you get the body you’ve always dreamed of. But when you do these things day in and day out, all at the same time… well, let’s just say the process can be stressful.

    But I tried anyway because I figured I might as well try to control what I could since life was going to be random no matter what. It also gave me satisfaction, almost a somewhat false sense of accomplishment, that I was shaping my own destiny.

    I think most of us fall into this way of thinking because we all want to foresee things before they can potentially happen in order to feel safe. But ironically, when we try to control life, we end up missing out on possibilities that may have come our way if only we’d let go and allowed life to happen.

    It’s hard to say what exactly I’ve missed out on because of my former desire to control most aspects of my life. I won’t worry myself too much about it because it’s a pointless exercise. But I can think of a couple of big areas, one of them being a complete career shift that could have happened much earlier on in my life had I not resisted so much.

    Instead, I was rigid and decided that I wanted to stick to a career that I didn’t enjoy because it was my college degree and I was making great money. I did end up switching careers eventually, just not in the area I had a unique opportunity in at that time.

    The Three Golden Rules

    Try as we may, we can’t always control life, and sometimes painful things happen that we couldn’t possibly predict or prevent.

    Recently I lost a job that I was excelling at and actually enjoyed. My performance was on fire, I got along great with all my coworkers, and then one day, out of the blue, I got called into the CEO’s office and told that, due to ongoing strategy changes at the company, my time was up.

    Talk about knocking the wind out of my sails. I had just gotten back from a work conference and was slated to lead a new project before receiving the bad news.

    Has this been easy since it happened? No way. I still struggle with it daily. But somewhere, deep down, I know that life happens for me, not to me. And that this has created an opportunity for something bigger and better.

    What is that something? If I could predict the future, then I’d probably be playing the lottery knowing I’m picking the right numbers. But I can’t foresee what’s coming down the road. I can only choose my attitude when I hit roadblocks along the journey, which ultimately shapes my choices.

    What helps me maintain an optimistic attitude and cope when things go wrong? Three very important ideas:

    1. Life happens for you, not to you.

    2. This too shall pass.

    3. Be with what is.

    When life doesn’t go to plan, we must embrace the change and realize that our lives are composed of chapters; one has ended, and another one is about to begin. But we can’t move on to the next chapter if we continually reread old ones. We have to willingly accept that life goes on, and that we have a chance to create something bigger and better.

    I lost my job, but I don’t want to play the victim card. Yes, life has forced my hand, but that doesn’t mean I need to feel sorry for myself. This just means I have a better opportunity coming my way, whatever that may be.

    I also realize that time plays a crucial factor in our lives. Our time is limited, and it consistently passes at the same speed, with no bias. This means that, with time, the inner turmoil I am currently dealing with will, without a doubt, pass.

    Last but not least, I know that I must be with what is. In other words, stop resisting. Fighting the fact I lost a job won’t suddenly bring it back. Fighting the fact your relationship ended won’t necessarily have them running back into your arms.

    Before we can move on, we must accept what is happening in the present moment. Then and only then can we proceed forward with calmness and clarity.

    But There Is No Golden Formula

    I understand this may not be easy to digest when you’re hurting, especially in situations that involve a loved one. Grieving is a natural part of this process, and I am not discrediting it in the least. It’s part of the human experience, and it’s okay to take as long as you need as you internalize.

    I lost my father over five years ago. The death of a loved one is probably the hardest loss to deal with. How are you supposed to see the space that has been created from such a tragic event? I understand if you don’t, because I fully admit it’s been hard, even five years later.

    But at the same time, I trust that life is working for me somehow. I just have to stop resisting. I have to understand that the feelings of loneliness, desperation, fear, and loss will pass. I have to stay in the moment and fully accept all that is happening to me.

    No, it will not be easy, and it isn’t meant to be.

    Trust The Process

    You’ve probably heard the proverb “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

    Our lives are a lot happier when we strive to make the most of what life gives us, but the step before it is equally important: Trust the process and embrace the change, whatever it is. Only then, once you stop fighting it, can you go about making your lemonade.

    We’ve all been faced with situations in our lives that force our hand. And we likely will be faced with these kinds of situations again in the future. In these moments, it’s important to hold onto the notion that life could be creating space for you to do something differently.

    If you lost your job and didn’t enjoy the work, life is potentially giving you a hint to pursue something further aligned with your passions and purpose. If you went through a breakup, life is potentially giving you a hint that you deserve and can do better.

    When I look back on my past, I realize that every loss has taught me beautiful, valuable lessons that now help me in the present. The same is likely true for you. In these moments of inner turmoil, or let’s just call it life turmoil, you are taking mental notes. Mental notes that will help you grow and help you in the future when dealing with whatever else life throws your way.

    You’ve made it through loss and hardship before; what makes you think you can’t now? You can. You just need to remember three things: life happens for your benefit, not against it; everything heals with enough time; and it’s pointless to keep resisting.

    With these ideas in mind, it should be exciting to think about the potential you have in your life.

    The next chapter could be even more amazing than the previous one. And you may even have chosen to start that chapter eventually. Your schedule just got moved up a bit.

  • How to Really Live In the Moment and Appreciate Life

    How to Really Live In the Moment and Appreciate Life

    “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~Albert Einstein 

    Just when you think you have the whole living in the moment thing down, a four-year-old comes along and shows you how it’s done.

    I’ve been working hard on this, actually, keeping a gratitude journal and everything. I was feeling pretty good about my progress yesterday when I decided to take said four-year-old on a walk rather than rushing through the to-do list burning a hole in the back of my mind.

    “I’m going to be totally present,” I reminded myself as we headed out. I took deep breath and said a silent thanks for the beautiful day.

    Like I said, I was feeling pretty proud of my progress. Then my daughter blew me away. She schooled me in everything I have been working so hard on, and she wasn’t even trying.

    Her commentary on the walk went exactly like this:

    Ohhhhhh, what an amazing house!

    What an amazing garbage can!

    Oh wow, what a wonderful tree!

    Look at the rocks!

    I hear a bird!

    I hear a wind chime!

    Mom, do you hear that dog? It’s perfect!

    I hear a truck!

    Do you feel the wind? It is so soft!

    Look at the beautiful cactus,

    Look! Two trucks. 

    She was so amazed by things that I never notice or worse, complain about. 

    Now, I wasn’t completely unaware. I was thankful for another spring day before the summer heat, and I was enjoying this rare one-on-one time with her.

    But I had no idea that the neighbors had wind chimes. I have never looked at a garbage can and called it amazing (at least not since I was four). This perfect dog is the same one that I complain about to my husband. The wind was messing up my hair.

    There were at least a thousand other concerns competing for my attention while she was content to watch ants on the sidewalk.

    Sometimes I wish I could be a little more like her.

    She didn’t care if I sent out that attachment with that email. She didn’t care about how many calories we burned on our walk. She didn’t mind that her clothes didn’t match because she picked out exactly what she likes.

    I was not going to let this fade from my memory to be overtaken by another thousand concerns.

    “Be amazed,” I thought.

    I repeated it to myself the way you do a telephone number.

    “Be amazed,” I scrawled as fast as I could on the first piece of paper I found when we got home.

    Be amazed.

    I set a reminder in my calendar. I made a post-it. I wrote it down in my journal.

    Be amazed.

    I don’t want to forget this feeling. This absolute clarity.

    My mind can be the most hardened criminal against my own happiness. It snatches the joy right out of my hands. It confuses busy with important, urgent with significant, and difficulty with meaning.   

    My mind gives the future and the past too much space. It wanders over to what the neighbors are doing. It reminds me of what I have yet to accomplish. It wants to speed up time, and it plows right through those moments to be amazed by.

    With this clarity also came sadness. My heart broke for the lost opportunities to just be and appreciate.

    I guess that’s the bittersweet part of life. You can’t wait until this one tough part is over, but then it’s gone and you can’t go back. There’s a new stage to take its place, and the cycle continues.

    Soon, you find yourself telling wide-eyed new parents and self-conscious teenagers (and basically anyone in one of those stages that you wanted to rush through when you were there) that these are the best years.

    “Enjoy this while you can. It goes so fast,” you say.

    Be amazed.

    Looking back, the times that I once wished would pass by quickly actually turned out to be the hardest to let go. I could scold myself for this, or I could remember to be amazed now.

    One way or another, time marches on. Old becomes new, new becomes old, and you get another chance to be amazed.

    Each new stage is also another chance to be nice to yourself about the whole thing. It isn’t humanly possible to love every second of life while it’s happening. Even four-year-olds aren’t amazed all the time.

    This little walk with my four-year-old reminded me that even the simple things are amazing, and the things I complain about? They’re life, and they’re doable. Sure, life now is different from life pre-kids (and pre-husband), I’m doing different things than my friends, and maybe my life doesn’t measure up to someone else’s definition of amazing.

    So what?

    I can be amazed anyway.

    Be amazed.

    Starting now, these two words will be a compass guiding me when it feels like I don’t have it all together. They will remind me what direction I want to go even when I feel completely lost.

    Be amazed. Take a step back and look at your life with gratitude every now and then.  

    Be amazed. Squeeze every last ounce of goodness out of what is around you. Savor it. Soak it up. Luxuriate in it.

    Be amazed. When you’re burned out, bone weary, and bedraggled, use amazement to fill yourself back up. Seek out those situations, people, and activities that remind you of what it means and how it feels to be amazed.

    And those painful parts? You know, the ones that really, really hurt. The ones you barely survive. Maybe there’s a little room for amazement there, too.

    Amazement when you make it to the other side.

    Amazement for how much the heart can hold.

    Amazement for your resilience, your ability to heal, and your capacity to keep loving and hoping.

    Be amazed by your spirit. Your tenacity. Be amazed by that part of you that refuses to give up.

    You only get one shot at life, and you don’t have a whole lot of control over what happens to you in it. Take advantage of the choices that you do have.

    I will choose to be amazed.