Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • Stop Shaming Yourself If You Want to Start Losing Weight

    Stop Shaming Yourself If You Want to Start Losing Weight

    Woman Hiding Face

    “Love yourself first and everything else falls into line.” ~Lucille Ball

    As I sat on my bedroom floor almost in tears that night, surrounded by all the clothes I’d just tried on before a night out with my friends, the same thoughts replayed through my mind. You’re fat, you’re ugly, and you’re disgusting for letting yourself get this way.

    I still cringe when I think about that, and the way I used to speak to (and about) myself. I would never think that of another person, let alone talk to them like that, yet it was second nature to say those things to myself!

    I canceled on my friends that night; I was so unhappy with how I looked and felt that I couldn’t face going out and worrying what other people thought of my shape and size.

    It’s ironic, isn’t it, that when we feel so low about ourselves, that’s the time when we’re most self-absorbed? We retreat into a small bubble that’s all about us. As if the people in the bar that night would care what I looked like! They were there to have a good time with their friends, and I should have been too.

    I struggled to lose weight during that time because I just couldn’t stay consistent or build new healthier habits. I’d do well for a while, but then I’d have one off moment and I’d give up, feeling like a failure. It was a vicious cycle, with my lack of consistency and results feeding my low self-esteem, and vice versa.

    That night that I canceled on my friends still sticks in my mind all these years later because it was a turning point for me. This was not the life I wanted to be living.

    If I could go back in time, I would tell that girl to get up off the floor and go and enjoy a great night out with her amazing friends. But that’s probably because I’m in a totally different place now and I no longer have those awful thoughts about myself.

    When this change first started happening and I grew my self-esteem, with that, I found it easier to take far better care of myself, and that’s when I really started to lose weight. Everything clicked into place. These are the steps I took to get here, and I hope they’ll help you make it too:

    1. Treat yourself as you would a close friend or loved one.

    Take stock of your thoughts as they come into your mind. Would you say that to a loved one? If not, get rid of it or reform it. If you wouldn’t say it to a loved one at all, discard it! If you would say it in the situation but word it differently, reform it.

    Try to always ask yourself: Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it inspiring? Is it necessary? Is it kind?

    2. Stop obsessing about yourself; start thinking about others.

    It’s so easy to get into that little bubble I mentioned earlier, but you need to get out of it and take your focus away from yourself sometimes. Try doing random acts of kindness, or helping someone you know, or even volunteering. Anything that helps you to remember there is much more in the world than yourself.

    3. Forgive yourself and release any guilt or anger.

    We’ve all done things we’re not proud of and messed up in some way. But our mistakes don’t define us as people. A friend of mine used this analogy when we were talking about this some time ago:

    Sometimes bad fruit can grow on good trees. The tree is good at its core, but it has produced something bad by mistake. But it’s also produced a lot of good fruit too!

    Good fruit never grows on bad trees. If a tree is bad at its core, it can never grow good fruit.

    If you’ve ever ‘produced good fruit,’ you are a good person at your core. Good people still sometimes do bad things, and ‘produce bad fruit,’ but it does not make you a bad person.

    4. Learn what your body needs.

    And start giving it those things! Learn about nutrition and healthy foods; find out which types of foods your body thrives on. Drink plenty of water each day to stay hydrated. Move your body—we’re not designed to sit at desks all day and then come home and sit on the sofa. Even if it’s not scheduled exercise, just getting more activity into your day, like taking the stairs, will help.

    And always remember to switch off and rest. With technology the way it is now, it can be difficult to unplug and unwind, but it’s so important to your well-being. Find out how much sleep your body needs to work at it’s best, and try to get those hours in each night; it’s different for everyone, so it’s worth testing out.

    5. Have more fun and connect with people.

    When we get into this place of low-self esteem it can affect our daily habits and our social life. Don’t forget the things that make you happy and light you up. Keep a list of them if you need to and make sure you do them regularly.

    Put yourself out there more and connect with people again. We all need human interaction and social bonds, we all need people we feel comfortable with. And it will help so much to have that group while you build your self-esteem.

    —

    These points take time to go through; you won’t suddenly become confident and love yourself overnight. But they do work in helping you build healthier thoughts of yourself and enjoying your life more again.

    They help you want to take better care of yourself and, if you’re trying to lose weight and get in better shape, they will help you enormously.

    Woman hiding face illustration via Shutterstock

  • The Easy Path to Purpose: Forget “Should” and Do What You Love

    The Easy Path to Purpose: Forget “Should” and Do What You Love

    Stop Dreaming

    “Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.” ~Khalil Gibran

    In my mid twenties I found out I had a mass on my pituitary. I was told it could be cancer, it could be benign, it could be a cyst—we wouldn’t know until my doctor performed a surgery to remove it. This surgery meant I could go blind, be on lifelong hormone replacement therapy, or even die.

    I don’t want you to wait until something bad happens to dedicate time to things you love.

    Countless people I meet share the same story over and over again when I tell them I’m an artist:

    “I was told I was good at drawing, but Dad wanted me to be a doctor,” “It reminds me of my love of the theatre. I keep thinking about joining our local community theatre, but I never seem to get round to doing it.”

    It seems calling oneself an artist triggers a longing for creative expression in many.

    How can we find and follow our inner guide?

    While waiting for the big day of surgery, I hid away in the basement of my sister’s home. I painted for perhaps my last time. I painted for the pure joy of painting. For perhaps the first time in my life I didn’t hear a bunch of “shoulds” running around my mind. I painted as a channel, connected to whatever source gave me the inspiration for that work.

    The world around us communicates a whole lot of expectation on our lives. We have pressures to stay connected, to succeed, to travel, to be the perfect parent, to somehow “balance” our life, all while eating green smoothies, cooking homemade fresh organic meals, and exercising regularly.

    That’s a whole lot of “shoulds.” Unfortunately, and often, people wait until something bad happens in their life that helps them see the big picture and realign with their own personal hopes, dreams, or even calling.

    Cultivating Purpose Step 1: Reflect on What You Want

    Rather than wait for bad things to happen, why not start reflecting on this today? Sit in a quiet, meditative space or partner with a good friend. Ask yourself: What is important to me? What makes me feel like I’m successful or living a “balanced” life?

    Is the slow food movement important to you and your lifestyle? Maybe it’s about teaching your children to be mindful. These are all modes of creative expression; creativity isn’t just about art.

    Somewhere, at some point, our culture has become hell-bent on achievement. It’s about outcomes that include white picket fences, degrees from prestigious institutions, and a bottom dollar.

    This is why countless high school students have told me they can’t take an art class, or their favorite creative writing class, or insert your creative interest here. The achievement, the honors, and keeping up with outside notions of success are more important than what our heart calls us to do.

    Once the day of my surgery came I felt free; there was no more waiting and wondering. Thankfully, my surgery went well—no cancer, no blindness, no hormone therapy. I returned to work as an art teacher and kept thinking about those paintings. Something had shifted in me.

    An opportunity to enter my work for a young artist award fell into my lap shortly thereafter. I jumped at the chance to have my art be part of it.

    I entered those paintings into a competition with VSA arts and won a money award for being a finalist. My work toured the USA for two years and included exhibition at the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

    I knew all along I wanted to be an artist, that making art and teaching art would fill me up. But I battled with accepting that part of myself for years. It took adversity for me to advance to the next level of my work and life. It took adversity for me to take action.

    Cultivating Purpose Step 2: Make Different Choices

    Don’t wait for bad things to happen to do the things you love. Write down one thing you’d love to experience or explore. What are three tasks you can take this week to help you realize it?

    Make a public announcement about your goal to someone or a group of people who can hold you accountable. Creating external urgency can be a great motivator to start working toward the things you love.

    I spoke with a cancer survivor about my painting experience, and he articulated something I had felt but didn’t know how to put into words: When you know you have a strong chance of dying and the last thing you might ever do fits into the two days before you, you make different choices.

    Too many voices about how I should make art and if I should make art at all had clouded my mind. But in the days before my surgery those voices were silent. Who cared if it didn’t hold to anyone’s standards? There was no one to impress anymore. I was painting for me.

    My friend said he created his best art while he fought cancer. It opened this door that freed him of expectation, external pressures—those “shoulds.” He’s found the trick since that time to be: How do we cultivate and keep that perspective now that we’ve survived?

    My life ebbs and flows with my ability to treat life preciously. I know I’m lucky to be here but it’s easy in the ruckus of everyday life to lose sight of our limited time. Familial pressure, work, myriad circumstances can make us lose sight of what we feel called to do with our time.

    Cultivating Purpose Step 3: Stay Connected to Your Inner Guide

    I’ve found a way to help me check back in and harness that powerful inner guide. Every night I journal and I write down six things to focus on in my next day. (It’s called the Ivy Lee Method). I always include a task directly related to my personal interests, and I place this as my first priority.

    Secondly, I do that work in the first part of my day. For me this can mean dedicating twenty minutes to a morning yoga practice or even just fifteen minutes to my art. My mind is open and receptive in the morning. The day’s obligations have yet to cloud my mind or heart. I’m open to possibility and to learning. And my spirit feels honored.

    Making room for our sometimes secret, creative interests can change our lives.

    We don’t need permission from anyone to dive into those hopes and dreams we’ve had since children. To be human is to be creative. Creativity isn’t just about art. Creativity includes the contributions we give the world when we set out to do what our hearts call out for us to explore.

    There is a shift happening in society. We are beginning to recognize and celebrate the importance of mindfulness, of listening to our heart, our body, our mind. People are slowly feeling license to express their true selves. But we are only at the beginning.

    I had to wait until a life threatening health problem before I could fully own my artistic voice. But once I did own my voice, I had work recognized by VSA Arts and exhibited at the Smithsonian. What could I have accomplished if I started painting “for me” sooner?

    What could you accomplish today if you practice being present and truly listen to that inner voice of guidance and support?

    We treat life like a race, but I wonder, what exactly are we racing toward? What could you accomplish if you didn’t wait for your dreams, but you decided to start right now, today?

  • You Can Make a Difference: 7 Ways to Create a Powerful Legacy

    You Can Make a Difference: 7 Ways to Create a Powerful Legacy

    Man Silhouette

    “Don’t be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don’t have to live forever; you just have to live.” ~Natalie Babbitt

    Recently I was searching for information online about a friend of mine who I lost touch with about a decade ago.

    Pam and I went to psychology graduate school together in the early nineties and stayed in touch for a few years after that. But in those pre-Facebook days it was easy to lose touch with people, and Pam and I eventually drifted apart.

    Curious about what my friend was up to, I typed her name into Google. Imagine my shock when I found her obituary. It turns out that she had died three years ago from colon cancer at the still young age of forty-four.

    Even though Pam and I lost touch a long time ago, learning about her death hit me hard. Months later, I’m still shocked that she’s no longer with us.

    Pam’s death was also a wake-up call for me. As a gift to future generations, I want to use my life to create a powerful legacy and to make a positive contribution to the world. Yet, up to this point in my life, I haven’t taken intentional actions that will create the type of legacy that I want.

    And while I hope to live for at least another forty years, the date of my death is outside of my control. Like my friend, I could die at any time.

    But no matter how many or how few years I have left, I absolutely have the ability to positively impact the world and touch lives far into the future. And so do you!

    The truth is that we create legacies with every single action that we take. The question we need to ask is whether or not were taking intentional actions to create the type of legacy that we want to create.

    After much reflection, I came up with the following seven ideas for how I plan on building a powerful legacy with my life. I hope that they inspire you to do the same and without needing the wake-up call that I received.

    1. Decide what legacy you want to create.

    In order to create a powerful legacy with your life, you need to decide what contribution you want to make to the world. I suggest spending some time journaling and reflecting on the following questions:

    • If you knew with certainty that you only had five more years to live, how would you spend those years, and why?
    • What message do you want to send with your life to the world and to those who matter most to you?
    • Imagine that you are attending your own funeral. What would you want your family and friends to say about you and how you lived your life?

    2. Start creating your legacy today.

    We all have a limited time on this planet. And yet, we often live our lives as if our time was unlimited, putting things off, thinking that we’ll always have more time. I’m sure my friend Pam was expecting to live a lot more than forty-four years.

    Yet the truth is that none of us knows how long we’ll live. If you want to create a powerful legacy with your life, then you need to stop wasting time and start creating it today.

    Look over your answers to the questions from Point 1. Based on your answers to those questions, identify three to five specific goals you can set for creating the legacy that you want. Then, for each goal, figure out the first step you can take and start taking it today!

    3. Simplify your life and focus on the essentials.

    Another friend of mine, who died a few years ago, created a powerful legacy by simplifying his life and focusing on the essentials. John centered his life around three main things—building powerful connections with others, creating beautiful art, and cultivating his own spiritual growth.

    I would guess that most of John’s life energy was devoted to these three activities. John didn’t let himself get distracted by trivial or meaningless pursuits.

    Learn from my friend John. Figure out the two to four things that are most important to you and put the bulk of your energy into those activities while letting go of the rest.

    4. Treat everyone you meet with kindness. 

    A powerful legacy can often be created with the simplest actions. Simple acts of kindness have been known to change lives in powerful ways.

    And a simple act of kindness can inspire acts of kindness by others—which means that every time you touch someone’s heart with your kindness, you create positive ripples, ripples that will last for a long, long time.

    You can even create a kindness ritual. For example, sparked by my friend’s death, I’ve decided to contact one friend a week, and send them a short note letting them know what they mean to me.

    5. Serve to the best of your ability.

    None of us can do it all and none of us is perfect. And yet we often use those as excuses to do nothing. We do nothing because we can’t do everything or we do nothing because we can’t do what we want perfectly.

    My suggestion is to just serve to the best of your ability. Do your part to make the world a better place, and stop worrying about the fact that you can’t do everything or that you can’t do it perfectly. The truth is that we can all do something to serve and doing that something creates a much more powerful legacy than doing nothing.

    6. Do the next right thing. 

    Maybe you don’t know what kind of legacy you want to create with your life. I completely understand that. We live in a complicated, overwhelming world in which our attention is pulled in a thousand different directions.

    If that’s how you’re feeling, then I suggest that you focus on doing the next right thing every time you’re faced with a choice or decision. Every time you do the right thing—however you define it—you create a powerful chain of actions which leads directly to a powerful legacy.

    7. Remind yourself that you have limited time. 

    In certain Buddhist traditions, people are taught to imagine a little bird on their shoulder and to ask that bird every day if today is their last day.

    Repeatedly using this technique or similar ones reminds us to make good use of our time and that we need to work toward creating our legacy every single day.

    — 

    A few days ago, a friend told me in an email that she didn’t think she had a legacy. The truth though is that we all create legacies with our lives.

    The question isn’t whether or not we’re creating a legacy. The question is whether or not we’re actively creating the legacy that we want to. Incorporate some of the suggestions above, begin leading your life deliberately, and I have no doubt that you’ll create a powerful legacy that will last for generations.

    Man silhouette via Shutterstock

  • The Secret Laid-Back, Always-Happy Guy Knows That You Don’t

    The Secret Laid-Back, Always-Happy Guy Knows That You Don’t

    Happy Guy

    “Most folks are as happy as they make their minds up to be.” ~Abraham Lincoln

    Have you ever wondered, “How is that guy always so laid back and freaking happy all the time, no matter what is going on around him?”

    It might be a co-worker, a friend, or a family member, but almost everyone has somebody whose baseline level of happiness is just higher than almost everyone else.

    I certainly do. Although I have known a few people that fall into this category, the one that stands out most is a friend I met my freshman year in college in my dorm. I’ll call him Andy.

    Andy smiled all the time. A huge smile. Raining outside, smiling. Test didn’t go that well, smiling. From the moment I met him, he gave a big handshake with an equally big and goofy smile. When I picture Andy, I always picture him smiling.

    It was certainly annoying at times. When I wanted to brood over a test gone bad or a girl I couldn’t get to notice me, smiling Andy made it nearly impossible. But I mostly just wanted to know why he was always so happy so I could be annoyingly cheery too.

    Is Andy and the rest of his ilk just delusional?

    No, (at least not exactly), they actually know something you don’t, and I’m going to let you in on it. But first, let’s talk about you.

    How are things? Things are . . . fine.

    If you are like the vast majority of us, your baseline is that things are generally “fine.” You probably could have slept a little longer, but waking up wasn’t terrible. You could eat better, but you do okay. You don’t particularly love your job, but it could be worse.

    All that is normal. Right?

    Probably, but that doesn’t really mean it’s good. In fact, considering the general happiness level of the average person isn’t particularly high, normal is probably not what you are looking for.

    The problem is that while “fine” and “normal” aren’t exactly the “big hairy goals” that everyone likes to talk about, they don’t hurt either.

    “Fine” and “normal” are comfortable. Your basic needs are met and, at this point, it happens with almost no intentional engagement from you:

    You wake up, get ready, go to work, do some stuff, waste some time, do some more stuff, go home, watch TV, go to bed, repeat.

    You might have some exercise thrown in here and there. You hang out with your friends, your significant other, or your kids. But most days look pretty similar to this.

    Which is fine.

    Except when your time on this planet is over, you don’t want “fine” to be the best description of your life.

    You want something more.

    Okay, so how to do you get it?

    What does that guy know that you don’t? Let’s look closer at the happy guy. What’s his take on life?

    Fine isn’t it. He thinks life is great, awesome, brilliant, and extraordinary. And he’s right.

    And that’s the secret.

    Yes, I realize this seems way too simple. But that’s really it.

    His story is different than most of ours.

    I don’t mean he lies to himself about what happens day to day. And I don’t mean bad stuff doesn’t happen to him that makes him sad, angry, or annoyed. I mean he gives each moment a different meaning than rest of us.

    When he wakes up, he views the day as an opportunity. An opportunity to grow, to create greater connections, to have experiences, to be excellent, and to serve others.

    Today is not a rinse and repeat of yesterday or of tomorrow. It is its own thing. And whatever it brings will be particular to it, and that is awesome.

    So happy guy attacks the day with an inquisitive mind, curious to see what it will bring and what he can get from it.

    That mindset bleeds into the rest of his day. And it has two big effects on how he lives it:

    He has perspective—little things don’t bother him, they are just things to observe and move on from. So, the coffee spill, the one-day-delay on the report, or the guy that honked at him at the light, none of it bothers him. He recognizes what matters and what doesn’t.

    He rarely, if ever, sees the events of the day as a sign that things are going to end badly. He almost always believes that, while the path may not be clear and may have twists and turns, everything will work out.

    It isn’t because he is just blindly optimistic, it’s because he views everything as an opportunity to grow, learn, and move forward.

    And when everything that happens gets you a step closer to where you want to go, you can’t help but believe you are moving toward your desired outcome; it’s the only logical conclusion.

    How you can become that happy person that confuses everyone?

    1. Daily smile scavenger hunt (may sound corny, but it works).

    Every day, find five things that make you smile, and do it as soon as you can. Write down what time you hit number five. Try to break your personal best every day. Look at each day as an opportunity to win this game with yourself.

    Why does this matter: You will increase your ability to recognize the little things that make you happy, the things that we mostly overlook in the rush to get to this place or to do that thing.

    And, after a while, it won’t stop at five. You will keep doing it all day long habitually.

    And this will get you in a mindset that better prepares you to deal with the guy that honks at you or the person that drinks the last of the coffee without making a new pot. It will give you perspective.

    For example, here are my five things from today:

    • A text message I woke up to from a friend asking about a new restaurant to take his wife to for her birthday (I enjoyed helping him out)
    • Finding the pair of socks I took out last night (my feet were cold this morning)
    • Using my new coffee grinder to make coffee this morning
    • Chatting with a friend before starting my workout
    • Seeing my wife and son pull into the parking lot of the restaurant we met at for breakfast. 8:58am. Boom.

    2. Cheat and rig the game of life to win early.

    Like I mentioned before, a huge piece of why some people that have a happier baseline is that they view the world optimistically.

    To start gaining that mindset, and have it carry through your day, it’s critical to get early wins and, almost more importantly, avoid early failures.

    Yes, I said avoid failures. Does this mean run scared from all challenges before noon? Absolutely not.

    What I mean is, don’t set yourself up to fail from the start of the day.

    So if you know you are terrible at getting up early, don’t tell yourself that getting up early is the only way you can make the change you want to make.

    If you struggle to get up at 7:00am or 8:00am, getting up when it’s dark at 5:00am to do something that you likely view as hard probably isn’t going to work. You’re setting yourself up to fail, and what’s worse, you’re doing it to start your day.

    If you do that, you will probably drag yourself up at 7:30 or whatever time, and you will have already missed two goals for your day, getting up at 5:00am and whatever the thing you wanted to do when you got up was.

    So you view the day as a failure before you even start it. Now when challenges happen throughout your day, you are far more likely to view them as difficult, overwhelming, and generally pessimistically because your mindset is that the day is a failure.

    So don’t do that.

    Instead, set yourself up to win in the morning. Set your goal as something that doesn’t take a mountain of will power right from the start.

    And then, rig the game.

    Whatever you are trying to change, do your work the night before so that in the morning, you are destined to win.

    For example, let’s say you want to eat breakfast at home instead of picking up some unhealthy food on the way in to work or eating a muffin or donut once you get there. Prepare the breakfast the night before, so that all you have to do is eat it, or at a minimum warm it up.

    For example, for me, a healthy breakfast is coffee, eggs, and a side of avocado.

    So, to set myself up for success, the night before I can get the coffee maker ready to go, crack a couple eggs, scramble them, cover them up, and then pop them in the fridge.

    In the morning, all I have to do is turn on the coffee maker, toss some butter in a pan and pour the eggs in, and, in the two or three minutes it takes the eggs to cook, get some avocado. Five minutes total, and I have a healthy breakfast. Easy peasy.

    But if I started from scratch, the whole process would take longer, which in my mind would mean I have to wake up earlier or leave the house later to do it. Neither of which sound like great options, so I would likely just skip it. Thus, starting the day with a failure.

    Why does this matter?

    Getting that win early frames your day. It makes your story about winning and gives you momentum. You will begin to view things less as a hindrance, and more as opportunities to keep winning, to grow, to move toward your goals.

    And combining winning each moment with a more attuned sense of the little things that make you smile will make you much less likely to spend so much energy getting riled up about little things that used to annoy you and much more likely to have an optimistic view about how things will turn out.

    And soon you will be that happy person that confuses everyone.

    And “fine” will no longer be sufficient to describe your life.

    Get started now!

    Think back on today, what are the first five things that made you smile and what time, approximately, did the fifth one happen? Put your time in the comments. Can you beat my 8:58am?

    Happy guy image via Shutterstock

  • How to Draw Your Own Happiness Map & Follow It to Bliss

    How to Draw Your Own Happiness Map & Follow It to Bliss

    Little Girls with Map

    “Happiness is a direction, not a place.” ~Sydney J. Harris

    Cars played a big part in my life growing up in Southern California. As a kid, there was a succession of crappy old station wagons that routinely broke down on the highway because we couldn’t afford anything better.

    I remember Dad standing helplessly outside in traffic as drivers slowed down to gawk at us, then sped up as they drove on into their lives.

    And the rusted green ’42 Chevy pickup truck my grandfather taught me to drive years before it was legal to do so, gears grinding when I missed the shift. My legs weren’t quite long enough to get the pedal all the way to the floor.

    “Lookin’ for the Heart of Saturday Night”

    In high school, I was enamored with the low-riders cruising up and down the boulevards, “lookin’ for the heart of Saturday night,” as Tom Waits so poignantly wrote in his song.

    You know, lots of hairspray holding up very big hair? Black eyeliner with perfectly executed tails? Carefully cultivated coolness? Like that.

    Then there was the older boy, already out of high school and working … a grown-up. He drove a ’67 Chevy Impala SuperSport, with baby blue metallic paint that matched my eyes. I ended up marrying him.

    Before long, though, I realized I needed my own car, my own life. To have those things, I needed to understand what made me happy.

    Believe me, when I was growing up, we did not sit around the kitchen table talking about being happy or fulfilled as we ate tuna casserole mixed with Campbell’s mushroom soup, salty Lay’s potato chips crumbled on top.

    Top-Notch People-Pleaser

    Martin Seligman, Ph.D., says that, “Authentic happiness comes from identifying and cultivating your most fundamental strengths and using them every day in work, love, play, and parenting.”

    My problem? Way too many of my “strengths” were filtered through lenses that didn’t belong to me. Rather, those strengths had been projected onto me by my parents, teachers, and a culture that molds people-pleasing little girls into supportive, one-step-behind young women.

    Things like top-notch people-pleaser, knows how to keep quiet, does her work on time, never complains weren’t going to get me where I wanted to go.

    I needed to learn how to draw my own happiness map, and follow it. Here’s what I learned.

    How to Draw Your Happiness Map

    1. You’ve got to know something about who you are, and what lights you up.

    Get some objective feedback on your strengths, talents, and gifts, using free tools such as the University of Pennsylvania’s happiness questionnaire and Strengths Finder.

    2. Use mindfulness to remember who you are, and what lights you up.

    I love writing, sharing my experiences, helping others; it’s part of my happiness map.

    You may love something entirely different. Great! It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you’re reaching for your stars.

    There’s a lot of magic and plenty of miracles every day, if we only remember to look for them.

    Developing a simple mindful practice helps set the compass point of your personal happiness map in the direction of what matters to you, what you’re willing to work for, who and what you want to love, and why.

    Tara Brach has an incredible mindfulness meditation website—lots of free guided meditations and talks.

    3. Try expressive writing to explore what you don’t want/doesn’t feel good.

    Find a local writing group that focuses on personal narrative/healing; try Julia Cameron’s famous Morning Pages; do some personal writing work with me.

    Sometimes it’s easiest to begin a trip knowing where you don’t want to go. What doesn’t feel good. What (or who) feels like sandpaper against your skin?

    The guy with that ’67 Chevy Impala SuperSport? It didn’t work out.

    Back then, with no self-awareness or insight, all I knew how to do was blindly grab for what everyone else said I should want. That usually doesn’t work out very well.

    4. Use your brain.

    All the fantastic neuroscience findings show us how to consciously use our brains to turn thoughts, attention, and choices toward the direction of happiness.

    I am not those early messages of shame directed at a poor family with too many kids in beat-up cars.

    You are not your thoughts or your emotions. Focusing on what lights you up keeps re-setting your brain for the positive instead of hanging out in its default negativity bias.

    Watch this short Youtube video with my favorite neuropsychologist, Dr. Rick Hanson, as he talks about how to re-wire for positive experiences.

    5. Let yourself love what you love, as poet Mary Oliver invites us to do.

    That’s the direction of your happiness: not your mother’s, not your friends, not what your ego is telling yourself you’re supposed to be doing.

    This is how I end up hosting a popular weekly public radio show. I mean, who knew?! Not me … not ‘till I learned to let myself love what I love.

    A terrifically fun way to do this is to take five minutes before you get of bed, every morning, and watch the movie in your mind called “My Perfect Life.”

    In your imagination, see what your room looks like. What’s the view from the window? Who’s next to you in bed? When you get up, what does your home look like? Where is it? How does it smell? What sounds do you hear?

    What are you doing that day? What are you doing next month? In six months? How do you feel?

    6. Give yourself permission to be human, to be messy.

    Honestly, this one can be pretty hard. Those of us who are perfectionists, or like me, who’ve experienced trauma that caused us to do whatever it took to feel safe in the world, well, we need to re-learn a lot of stuff.

    It’s okay that life is messy. It’s okay that we take wrong turns all the time, even get lost once in a while.

    It’s okay that we’re still learning how to do it better, or make a different choice. As a beloved friend said recently, “Don’t let perfection get in the way of what’s good.”

    7. Remind yourself often that happiness is a direction.

    You’re the one drawing the map. You’re in the driver’s seat.

    I mean, how wonderful is it to be driving down the road, windows down, music turned up, feeling into the peace and freedom of simply being alive?

    We all know it isn’t always easy. That sometimes, it’s a lot of work. Is it worth it, though? Oh my goodness, yes!

    Yes, it’s important to get where you need to get, to accomplish goals and attain competency. It’s equally important, as well, to enjoy the journey. To be grateful for this amazing ride called life.

    And if you change your mind, and decide to take the interstate instead of the dusty dirt road, that’s cool. Why? Because it’s your life, and you’re in charge.

    Taking responsibility for your choices is just about the coolest thing ever. (Almost as cool as my hair looked back in the day, cruising with Eddie.)

    8. Once you’ve drawn your happiness map, you now get to start traveling.

    Using your newfound self-insights, a five-minute daily practice of envisioning your most perfect life ever, and a map (maybe even an actual one), you begin making different choices.

    Do you say no to a couple of commitments and/or people? Choose to take the very first thirty minutes of your day to write instead of check emails? Give yourself an hour of no-tube-time after work, and do one thing that feels good, just because it does, like yoga or taking a community college class?

    It’s all Good

    I’ve had my own car for many years now. I’m living my life on my terms, always heading in the direction of happiness. Yes, I’ve had a few flat tires, and took a couple of back roads that went nowhere. Ended up at the edge of a cliff more than once. That’s okay.

    Flat tires can be changed. Back roads are lovely. Put the car in reverse, and back up, away from the cliff edges.

    Pay attention. Be gentle. From that place, you can begin making better choices. As my son says, “It’s all good.”

    If you’re draining your energy and power, giving it away to people/ideas/choices that do not nurture you, just notice that. And start making different choices.

    Because, if you’re moving in the direction of happiness, you will absolutely, totally, no doubt about it start feeling more fulfilled, more peaceful, and happier.

    Little girls with map image via Shutterstock

  • A Relaxing Yoga Practice for People with High Stress and Low Energy

    A Relaxing Yoga Practice for People with High Stress and Low Energy

    Childs Pose

    “We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.” ~Goethe

    Nine years ago after I had my twins, I was eager to get back into a routine of a weekly yoga class and daily home practice. However, I didn’t account for the soul-sapping fatigue I felt as a new sleep-deprived mum!

    I simply did not have the energy or ability to leave the house for a satisfying active class. And truly, I did not want to venture far from my precious babes.

    That’s when I discovered a soothing style of yoga that met me exactly where I was. I could do it at home, using equipment that I already had, and it made me feel refreshed and pampered.

    I fell in love with restorative yoga—a deliciously yummy practice where I could gently move my tired body, but with the support of comfortable props to help me feel completely supported, beautifully nurtured, and best of all, deeply rested.

    As soon as my babes slept, I would clear the floor, gather some props, and sink into a few slow, rejuvenating poses.

    As an avid yoga practitioner and instructor, I had a variety of specialty yoga props at hand—cork blocks, bolsters, and blankets. However, not wanting to miss my chance for some downtime, I would often improvise with whatever lay around, grabbing sofa cushions and towels to use as a bolster, a stack of small books wrapped in a pillowcase for a block, and a clean sock to place over my eyes.

    Even if I could spend just five minutes in a pose every other day this time became invaluable. It was time just for me. With every melting moment I could feel some of the resentment from having so little time to myself slip away. I would emerge rested and (mostly!) ready to begin again, feeling great at having moved my body.

    Restorative yoga is the super chilled-out member of the yoga family. This slow, passive practice combines the elements of time, warmth, comfort, support, and soft light to create a sequence accessible to most bodies and trigger the body’s natural healing responses.

    Just as an active yoga practice, a good restorative sequence aims to mobilize the spine, moving it backward, forward, laterally, and in a twisting motion.

    What make restorative yoga poses different to its more vigorous cousins are the longer holds (five to thirty minutes) and the use of props to cradle and hold the body in position.

    There’s no physical effort required; instead, blankets, pillows, bolsters, and blocks serve as a nurturing landing pad into which tired, achy bodies can dissolve.

    The longer timings and supports encourage tight muscles to let go and mental tensions to ease. Warmth is also important; as the body relaxes it cools down, so it’s a good idea to cover up with a blanket in the poses. Soft lighting also encourages relaxation. Draping an eye-pillow or washcloth over the eyes can further soften tensions around the eyes and reduce visual stimulation.

    When we’re relaxed, the parasympathetic branch of the nervous system switches on and begins the job of healing and restoring the body. In this rest-and-digest mode, the heart and respiration rates slow, busy thoughts subside, and a wonderful pause descends over body and mind.

    This delivers a much needed mini-break from the usual busy-ness of life, where the sympathetic or fight-and-flight mode of the nervous system can be habitually stuck in overdrive. Too much time here can cause stress, which could lead to negative states such as anxiety, sleeplessness, or adrenal fatigue.

    Ready to sample a restorative a pose or two?

    Start by gathering your props. Here’s what you’ll need, plus some “DIY” tips to make your own!

    Mat – A yoga mat is helpful, as it provides a non-slip surface, but it’s not essential. Substitute with a towel, blanket, or a carpeted floor space.

    Block – Store-bought yoga blocks can be made from solid cork, bamboo, wood, or foam and measure 9″ long x 6″ wide x 4″ thick. Make your own by making a stack of books to approximate this size, then secure with rubber bands or wrap in a pillowcase.

    Bolster – Bolsters are long, oval, or round firm pillows measuring about 26″ long, 7″ wide and 3″ high. DIY by folding a firm blanket or two into this shape, or substitute sofa cushions.

    Blankets and towels – use what you have around the house.

    Roll – roll up a bath towel, blanket, or space yoga mat until it’s around 31″ long and 6″ in diameter.

    Eye-pillow – these block the light and provide a subtle, soothing weight over the eyes to promote relaxation and sense withdrawal. A folded washcloth works well.

    Constructive Rest Pose

    A great place to start, this basic pose rests the spine, head, and limbs symmetrically. The neutral position invites us to check in with breath, body, and mind before moving on to more poses.

    What to do: Lie down on your back, with the head and neck supported by a folded towel or blanket. Bend the legs, space the feet hip-width apart, and ground the feet into the mat. Rest the arms beside you, an even distance from the mid-line, palms facing up. Let the head be heavy; relax the eyes, face, and neck.

    Descend the shoulders and allow your weight to drop into the floor. Notice how your body feels; notice the activity of the mind, notice the emotions, notice the breath. Stay five minutes or more. To come up, hug the knees to chest, roll to the side and press yourself up to a seat.

    Upper Back Booster

    This refreshing backbend helps to counter rounded shoulders and a slumped chest. It lifts the heart and encourages full, easy breathing. The entire front body receives a nice stretch.

    What to do: Place a roll across your mat. Take constructive rest pose again, this time with the roll underneath the nipple-line. Do any wriggling and adjusting till you feel comfortable, with a sense of lift at the chest. Straighten the legs, if desired.

    Stay five minutes or more, then remove the roll and revisit constructive rest pose again for a few moments. Hopefully, you feel like you have a brand-new back! Exit the pose as for Constructive Rest Pose.

    Legs Up the Wall

    Try this pose for a full body/mind refresh. The reversed blood-flow from toes to torso particularly benefits tired legs and the back is positioned nicely for rest and length.

    What to do: Clear some space and sit side-on to a wall. Take the outer shoulder to the floor, then gently roll onto your back and swing your extended legs up the wall.

    Rest your head on a pillow/folded blanket for extra comfort, and cover your eyes if you like. Stay for five minutes or longer. When ready to come out, bend the knees to chest, roll to the side and press up to a seated position. Observe how you feel.

    Child’s Pose

    This is a beautifully grounding, nurturing pose perfect to counter busy-ness and over-stimulation. It also helps to soothe a cranky lower back.

    What to do: Rest one end of your bolster on your block. Kneel at the other end with the bolster between the knees. Bend from the hips, fold forward slowly, and lay your whole front body along the length of the bolster. Turn your head to rest on one cheek.

    Place your hands and forearms either side of the bolster. After a few minutes, rest on the other cheek and stay in the pose for an even amount of time.

    When you are ready to come up, ground your hands either side of your bolster and slowly lift up. Come to a seat and see how you feel.

    Savasana – Corpse Pose

    This is a simple way to complete your practice and allows the mind and body to soak up all the goodness from your sequence. You can also take this pose anytime as a stand-alone pick-me-up.

    What to do: Rest your entire back-body along the mat. Insert a bolster or roll under the knees to take any pressure from the lower back, and a position a support under the head and neck.

    Pop an eye-pillow or cloth over the eyes, and cover up with a blanket to keep warm. Once warm and comfortable, make a commitment to be still. Give yourself permission to let go of physical tensions and mental chatter. Simply rest and enjoy the gift of relaxation. Stay in Savasana for ten minutes or more.

    When you are well-rested and calm your whole family will feel it too!

    Child’s pose image via Shutterstock

  • Declutter & Destress: How to “Live Tiny” in Your Not-Tiny House

    Declutter & Destress: How to “Live Tiny” in Your Not-Tiny House

    “Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance.” ~John Petit-Senn

    I love the tiny house movement because it embraces simple living and diminishes the spiritual and financial burdens of materialism. However, I don’t really want to trade in the 1,700 square foot house I love for something that’s 200 square feet!

    If you’re like me, you may have felt the same pleasure watching shows like Tiny House Nation, but not known how to apply the ideas they present to life in your larger house.

    Well, I’ve found you really can “live tiny” in a not-so-literal way, and reap some of those tiny-living benefits in your bigger home!

    Step 1: The ruthless pare-down

    First of all, no one transitions to tiny living without trimming down the stuff they possess. I decided I didn’t need a living space reduction to inspire me to undertake an extreme pare-down.

    I commenced systematically sorting through everything in my seemingly uncluttered and organized home. (Those qualities were really only on the surface.) I didn’t give a pass to spaces that never got assessed because they seemed fine as-is. I went through my house thoroughly, basement, garage, and gardens included—no drawer, cardboard carton, or crawl space was exempt.

    A tiny-living-style purge requires something stricter than the usual “have I used it in the last year?” rule applied with frequent exceptions. For example, of course I hadn’t used my high school prom dress in the last year, but it always got spared in pare-downs due to sentimental value. This time I put the dress on, took a picture, and said goodbye to it.

    Here’s a tip regarding clothing reduction: You can easily see how often you use items in your closet by turning hangers to point to the front rather than the back when you wear something. If you find a long time goes by with many pieces on unturned hangers, you’ll see what a small sacrifice it would be to donate them to the needy.

    Now don’t be fearful as you purge! This process isn’t nearly the challenge tiny living requires. You have the leeway to take into account how your belongings contribute to your individual quality of life.

    Most people have glassware or coffee mugs gathering dust, making them perfect candidates for chucking. Me, I kept a few of every kind of bar glass imaginable—because mixology is one of my passions and I actually use them. But I gave away the eighteen duplicate tools we had between our upstairs tool drawer and our basement tool chest—because you don’t need two drills to be a home handywoman.

    The key is simple: As you evaluate each item, ask yourself, Can I have an excellent quality of life without this?

    Step 2: Don’t buy new when you can enjoy the old

    So, you’ve completed your purge and feel a great weight lifted from your soul. Now the task is to keep things that way! Again, look to the example of the tiny house lifestyle.

    I used to love finding a way to justify buying something new—don’t we all? Well, tiny house dwellers don’t have room to expand, so they think twice before making new purchases. And if you do that too, here’s what happens: First, you save a ton of money. Second, you keep your possessions level down. And third, you discover just how great the stuff is that you already have!

    Do you even fully know what you already have? I thought I did, but no. I found clothes, décor items, hobby supplies, dishes, etc. that I had forgotten completely but saw had real value. So now I use them! Odds are you too have a ton of possessions that could be a joy to rediscover and use, and it costs nothing.

    So, maybe the workhorse old mixer you own isn’t as exciting as a new Kitchenaid, but the money you save by living with it could pay for a month of groceries, a weekend getaway, or fifty eBooks. And why not revert yourself to the wise lifestyle of your grandparents? Mend and repair whenever you can!

    In those moments when you used to think, “Oh goody, we could use a new one of these!” ask yourself, Can I have an excellent quality of life without replacing this?

    Step 3: One in, one out

    So maybe you really do need that new item. You can still adopt the “one in, one out” principle employed by tiny homeowners. They literally have no choice but to make room for new items by removing the old, and that’s the way they keep their belongings at a steady level.

    You can discipline yourself to do the same, by finding an unnecessary item to “open a berth” for something new. This is something I’ve traditionally done right before the holidays, to make space for incoming gifts. Even better to apply the principle all the time; you’ll never have to do an extreme pare-down again!

    When you bring in the new purchase ask yourself, What can I spare to open up the space for this—who might make far better use of that item than I?

    Step 4: Maximize your space

    Tiny house dwellers have to get absolutely everything they can out of every square foot of space. They find hidden storage under beds and on the ceiling, and they have brilliantly clever furniture that does double duty as couch/bed or dining table/desk, etc.

    Take a good look around your house and make sure you are using all the space you own. (You may even find this inspires you to move to a smaller house!) Your purging could free up a closet that could become a modular home office space. A kitchen can double as a crafting room—I have my crafting materials in rolling storage that I can bring into the kitchen, and the table folds out into a larger size for claying or painting.

    One excellent way to gain storage space is by reducing your inventory of books. Keep a small library of special volumes to cherish, of course. Then consider collecting eBooks instead, which take up no physical space at all. Love to read books on paper? They are free at your local library! Or take a tip from Tiny Buddha founder Lori: buy used books and sell them back to the store later (one in, one out).

    If you’re short on closet space, look to the challenges met by tiny homeowners. Use an old trunk as a coffee table, under-bed boxes for clothing, and shelving added to vertical spaces. You don’t need to move to a larger home in order to have the space to meet your needs.

    Ask yourself, in HGTV parlance, How can I Love It rather than List It?

    Step 5: Discover the zen in being minimized and organized

    Living tiny in your big house isn’t just about reducing expense and consumption. You’ll be amazed at how following tiny house principles enhances your relationship with your belongings.

    Here’s a lesson from our cat toys. Previously we had cat toys in two drawers, two baskets, and four closets—they are now purged, mended, and organized. Now it’s easy to put away stray toys, I know where our stock of new ones is, and I’m not tempted to buy more. And better than that: I’m also more inspired to play with the cats!

    In other words, I’m more in tune with my home and all who dwell within it. With distractions reduced, I am more mindful of my environment and how I interact with it. Meanwhile, I don’t miss out on what I already own, and get more enjoyment out of my belongings.

    For example, I created a meditation corner with objects incorporating the feng shui elements. I found nearly everything I needed among my current stuff (I did treat myself to a Himalayan salt lamp). Not only do I now have this inspiring, Zen space, but things that were previously hidden away now have a purpose.

    Every day or so, find something in your house you haven’t engaged with in a while. Ask yourself gratefully, What is it about this that I really love—and how can I enjoy it even more?

    No pain, all gain

    If you’re like me and find the tiny house movement really inspiring, the reasons why are clear. Tiny is a great way to live! And in a bigger home, applying these ideas to your lifestyle is all upside. You won’t sacrifice necessary items, space, or privacy. All you give up are things like this:

    • Not knowing what you own or where it is
    • The stress of clutter and crowding
    • Not making full use of your stuff and your space
    • Unnecessary consumption and expense

    And you gain things like this:

    • Sharing your abundance by giving away what you don’t need
    • Gratitude for and appreciation of your possessions
    • More complete utilization of what you already have
    • Increased peace and serenity

    So join me in discovering the wonderful aspects of tiny living that we bigger home-dwellers can enjoy. Think tiny…and live large and well!

  • Why We Should Always Be Kind to Strangers

    Why We Should Always Be Kind to Strangers

    Make Someone Smile

    “Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of rewards, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.” ~Princess Diana

    Recently I was reminded of the importance of kindness, particularly kindness to strangers.

    I was given the opportunity to film the wedding of a family friend. As a videographer, I’m always looking for ways to build my client base and enhance my professional experience, so naturally, I agreed.

    Most of the guests at this wedding were friends of my parents, many of whom I hadn’t seen in years. Although I recognized a lot of the people, most did not recognize me, particularly with a camera in my hand and “on the other side of the fence,” so to speak.

    A few kind souls were extremely friendly, looked me in the eyes, sparked conversation, and spoke to me with dignity. But to my surprise, the vast majority of guests at this wedding pushed past me, bumped into me, or spoke down to me. Again, these were people that I knew!

    If we had been in any other situation—if perhaps, for example, my parents had been there with me—I’m certain these very same people would be giving me hugs and asking about my life with convincing interest.

    But instead, I was treated as I was seen, like just another person in the service industry. It was as if an invisible fence existed between “us” and “them.”

    What bothered me most was not the poor treatment I received, but this notion of separateness that was so pervasive in the once familiar atmosphere around me. Here I was amongst families with whom I grew up, and those who did not recognize me treated me as though I was not worth recognizing. As if I wasn’t even here.

    While the looks I received symbolized separateness, what they provided for me was an instantaneous sense of wholeness.

    Almost immediately, I’m reminded of the homeless man who holds a sign beside me as I wait for the stoplight to turn green and try to keep my eyes averted. Or the clerk at the McDonalds drive-thru, at whom I roll my eyes when I’m late for a meeting and she’s slow to deliver my vanilla iced coffee.

    In this moment, we are one. And that’s when it hits me.

    We’re each a part of a whole, and everything we do (every thought, word, and deed) affects the whole. My mind wanders to the countless individuals who are disregarded in some way, shape, or form, every minute of every day. We’ve all experienced it and we’ve all been a party to it.

    Why do we do this to each other? What is this invisible fence dividing us vs. them? Where did it come from? And why is it popping up across all areas of our lives?

    Safe in the confines of our car, we feel distant from those who stand on cold corners asking for our help. In our own bubble of a morning ritual, we forget that our coffee servers have morning rituals of their own. A false reality exists around us, and most often, without even giving it a second thought, we choose to live in it.

    Like a prison built on the delusional foundation that we are somehow separate from one another, we’re trapped. But what if we chose to live in truth instead? If we can recognize the intrinsic unity of humanity, perhaps we can finally be free.

    Much like disregard, kindness for others is cyclical by nature. Kindness begets further kindness. And you never know how a simple “thank you” or smile could affect someone on any given day.

    To be acknowledged and appreciated are among two of the greatest and most basic human needs. If we can fulfill this in one another with small acts of kindness that perpetuate themselves, why would we ever choose to do otherwise?

    It’s the simple, unexpected acts of generosity that change lives, and a culmination of these small acts can change the world.

    Let’s acknowledge the security guards and say, “thank you” to the janitors. Let’s start acting as if the conversation we have is the most important one we will have all day. Let’s look for the good in other people, and when we find it, let’s treat them as though that’s all we see.

    We don’t have to expect anything in return in order to be kind. With kindness, the giver benefits just as much, if not more, than the receiver.

    Let’s make it our goal to make at least one person’s day, every day, and see how our own lives are transformed in the process. After all, we’re all in this together…

    Make someone smile image via Shutterstock

  • 4 Things to Remember When Your Relationship Falls Apart

    4 Things to Remember When Your Relationship Falls Apart

    Lonely

    “At some point you have to realize that some people can stay in your heart, but not in your life.” ~Unknown

    I was filled with excitement and nerves as I stood waiting to meet him for the first time in Paddington station.

    It was one of the wettest days I’d seen in London, and the rain dripped steadily from the peaked hood of my blue rain jacket. Zipped up to my chin and the hood pulled tight over my head, only my eyes peered out, searching for him amongst the crowds and falling rain.

    Months later, he told me that he’d fallen in love with me the moment he saw me, those big eyes staring out at him from beneath my hood.

    We’d been introduced on Facebook via a mutual friend after I’d commented on how cute he was. He lived in California. I lived in London. He’d quit his job to travel for a year and was passing through the city. He asked if I wanted to meet.

    I said yes.

    But in the same moment that he fell in love with me at the station, my excitement faded away. What I’d hoped to feel when we finally met just wasn’t there.

    Over the next few months, from wherever he traveled, he pursued me with a persistence I’d never known.

    At first, I was annoyed. I wished he’d leave me be.

    But as the weeks and months went by, things started to change. He wanted to know everything about me. He was interested. Interested in a way no one else had been before. He took time to get to know me. And I started to get to know him too.

    I realized that I’d judged him too soon.

    When he returned to California, we spent the next few months talking online almost every day. With every question he asked, I started to love him a little bit more.

    Eventually, we talked about meeting again, this time in California, to see where this all might lead.

    And so three months ago I boarded a plane at London Heathrow to meet this man who I’d begun to love.

    We spent the next three months on one long adventure. It was filled with road trips, hiking, forest trails, gentle kisses, holding hands, the wind in our hair, the sun on our cheeks and the smell of California all around us.

    We argued, too.

    But it was perfect.

    And yet when those three months came to a close, we both acknowledged the unhappy reality that we were two people traveling in two very different life directions. We both felt that continuing our journey together would mean neither of us would ever quite be truly content.

    And so my grieving began. A sort of grieving I’ve not experienced before. Because here was a man I loved. And yet I also knew that we weren’t meant to be.

    The last few weeks have been filled with a great deal of sadness, confusion, and questioning, as well as gratitude and happiness for the time we spent together.

    I don’t think there’s a person amongst us who has escaped heartbreak in this thing we call life. And so amongst all this, I wanted to share a few thoughts on love and life. It’s helped me to write this down. I hope it might help you too.

    Leave nothing on the table.

    In our final week together, we watched a film called Miracle, the true story of Herb Brooks (Russell), the player-turned-coach who led the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team to victory over the seemingly invincible Russian squad.

    There’s a moment in the film when Herb turns to his wife and says:

    “The important thing is that those twenty boys know that in twenty years they didn’t leave anything on the table. They played their hearts out. That’s the important thing.”

    And that is the important thing.

    I could have said no to this experience. I could have told myself about all the ways in which it could end in disaster and heartbreak. I could have stayed in London.

    But then where would we be?

    Two people who left everything on the table. Two people who refused to play their hearts out.

    And while these endings bring pain, I never want to live my life not playing my heart out. I don’t think anyone should live that way. Not in business. Not in love. Not in life.

    So keep opening up.

    Keep playing your heart out.

    Leave nothing on the table.

    You are lovable.

    Right now, one of the things I’m really having to fight is the stories my mind is trying to create. Stories like:

    • You’re not lovable.
    • You’ll be alone forever.

    In times of pain and vulnerability, the brain searches for stories to make sense of what’s happened. Oftentimes, we come up with stories that aren’t based in truth. But our brain doesn’t know that. It only knows that it’s now got a way to make sense of what’s happened.

    Those stories get locked in and then they impact the way we behave in every similar situation in the future.

    So I’m reminding myself every second of every day that this love story not working out doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me.

    So I want to remind you too. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re lovable. You’re loved.

    Permanence is an illusion.

    I spent some time reflecting on why I feel so sad. To be sure, this is grief, of a sort, and my sadness is legitimate and welcome.

    But as I look at what’s behind my sadness, I see stories of clinging.

    Clinging to a person who was never mine to begin with.

    Clinging to stories of the future, which will now never come to be.

    I remind myself, now, of the law of impermanence.

    That all things come and go.

    That all things, both pleasure and pain, pass.

    That there is nothing in this world that will remain as it is in this moment.

    And I remind myself, too, that just because something no longer is, doesn’t mean it never was.

    Look for the good things. 

    It’s easy for me to seek out only the bad in all of this. It’s easy to focus on the sadness and the pain and the reasons why it didn’t work out.

    But I once read a story about a mother who told her son, every day before he went to school, “Look for the good things.” 

    And now, even though his mother is gone, he remembers, always, to look for the good things.

     I loved this story and it’s what I’m trying to do now.

    I think it’s important to acknowledge pain and sadness. They need their time and space. But amongst all that sadness, don’t forget to look for the good things too. They’re there. I promise.

    Lonely image via Shutterstock

  • Finding Happiness: 11 Simple Ways to Get Your Smile Back

    Finding Happiness: 11 Simple Ways to Get Your Smile Back

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

    A while back my sister arrived for a family get-together and remarked, “Your mad laughter is missing. What’s happening?”

    My mind trailed back to my childhood and teenage years and showed me images of a girl who could laugh easily, loudly, and madly.

    Somewhere along the line I had lost my ability to laugh—truly laugh, with wonder and without worry.

    At first I brushed it off because I didn’t even notice myself changing. The change was gradual, imperceptible.

    I had come to take life too seriously.

    As a child and teenager, I had disappointments. But as I think back, the hope for my future greatly outweighed my setbacks.

    Of course, my future didn’t play out exactly as I’d imagined it would, and I encountered a series of disappointments.

    My financial situation was far from great. My relationships went through turmoil and turbulence. I let them become set in stone and define my life.

    I blamed myself for not being wise enough to make good decisions. I blamed myself for not being smart enough to catch my wrong decisions. I felt miserable. And then I blamed myself for feeling miserable, because strong people don’t waste time feeling miserable, do they?

    I became angry and, even worse, I felt entitled to my anger. I felt horribly wronged. I directed my anger at people. I became less capable of experiencing joy, and therefore, giving it too.

    Reading Tiny Buddha’s 365 Love Challenges emphasized for me how self-love is the beginning of the expression of love toward everyone else in our world. Still, it’s not always easy to be good to ourselves.

    The inner critic is the most active when we need that voice to be appreciative and loving. Instead of spending more time understanding ourselves, we indulge in self-bashing, self-abuse, and harsh judgments about ourselves.

    It takes some serious mindfulness and awareness to turn that around.

    So, after a few more observations from people who thought I mattered enough to give me feedback about my attitude, I decided to observe my thoughts and myself.

    I began to think of what made me feel better, and what helped me keep the feeling longer, so I could get my smile back.

    After months of watching myself, I saw that a few things helped me consistently.

    1. Being aware of physical and emotional triggers.

    I started paying attention to my body. My health had a big effect on my mood, and vice versa. I starting eating what would calm my stomach and keep my body at ease.

    Things like procrastinating made me feel bad about myself, so I kept up my schedule with greater caution. I also learned to avoid over-scheduling myself so I didn’t have things piling up, making me feel inefficient and inadequate.

    Your body is constantly giving you signals even when you are trying hard to ignore it, so start paying attention.

    2. Being aware of reactions.

    I started focusing on the results rather than on the source of the problem. If things did not go as planned, I consciously avoided looking to fix the blame and looked at fixing the problem. I felt less overwhelmed and more in power. It also made me more approachable.

    Develop the mindset to look for solutions, and avoid “if-only” thinking, since this only keeps you stuck.

    3. Dressing up.

    No matter how I felt, I always felt better when I got up and freshened up. Wearing well-fitted clothes, clothes that I liked, made me look better and, therefore, feel better about myself almost instantly.

    There is a whole lot of science about dressing the part, so pick colors that will soothe and accentuate you own personality.

    4. Following a ritual.

    The simple act of following a ritual—any ritual—gave me a sense of stability and grounding.

    Following a ritual that aligned with my beliefs and values made me calmer and more in control over other areas in my life.

    I chose the ritual of mantra chanting before having my first meal in the morning, and that uplifted me immensely, giving me the assurance that I could change other areas of my life too.

    5. Smiling more.

    We smile when we’re happy, right? Wrong! Studies have shown that our external expressions act as a continual feedback loop reinforcing our internal emotions. So, smiling more even when we are unhappy gradually makes us feel happier.

    True to this, smiling at strangers while standing in a queue or during a walk made me look beyond my world. To put it simply, it made me feel good, and I kept at it. Not to mention that smiling through a bad situation automatically seemed to defuse it.

    Take time to do things that give you more scope for “happy-time,” like seeking the company of children, listening to music, dancing, cooking, reading, cleaning—anything that makes you feel like yourself.

    6. Talking to somebody who loves you.

    One afternoon, when I was recovering from an intense anger bout, my father called. I did everything I could to hide my anger from him. But during the conversation, he referred to an incident in my childhood and said, “You are always so childlike.”

    It threw me off. Here I was, bashing myself for being angry and hurt, and feeling even more angry and hurt for not being able to control it, but a simple conversation with my father reminded me that I wasn’t always this way. The fact that he remembered it so fondly made me like myself. It made me want to let go and try again.

    Make time for your old friends, your parents, your friends’ parents, and siblings—anybody who has been a part of your past who sees the best in you.

    7. Being kinder.

    Formerly, I had the tendency to show indifference to people with whom I was angry (and not necessarily engage in a war of words or palpable anger). However, it still made me miserable, irrespective of whether they noticed it or not. When I consciously resisted the urge to be indifferent to them, I felt more in control.

    A kind exchange has the power to set the tone for your day. Kindness is not restricted to a physical exchange; even a gentle conversation over the phone or a kind email made me significantly happier.

    There are hundreds of studies to show that kindness can impact your brain in a powerful way and increase your feeling of connectedness.

    8. Making that decision.

    After accidentally discovering my passion for writing about three years ago, I continued to put up with a stressful job and kept putting off my plans to start doing something that filled my soul.

    Making the decision to quit and re-focus wasn’t easy. But making up my mind and letting go felt like I was clearing stale clutter and starting afresh in my mind. I felt invigorated, though it was hard work.

    If you are on the brink of a major decision, making it one way or the other will be a great emotional leveler.

    9. Starting somewhere.

    I kept putting off my plans because it was not yet there—in my mind. In short, I was afraid of showing my imperfect side to the world. In reality, I was only judging myself.

    Waiting for the perfect time to start/launch something is a mistake we all make. Even nature took billions of years to be where it is today. And it will continue to evolve for billions of years from now. Then, why do we have to be perfect today?

    10. Breaking the negative thought pattern.

    Every time I felt angry with somebody, it was because I associated something negative with him or her.

    I started consciously associating positive things with them, like remembering the skill they are really good at or the one time they helped me or somebody else, and the negativity seemed to melt away. Of course, it kept coming back, but the more I countered it with positive thoughts, the less power it seemed to have.

    So, the next time you are really annoyed with somebody, try remembering a nice thing about him or her. It makes a world of difference.

    11. Remembering that everyone is only human, and that includes yourself.

    Forgiveness contributes greatly to our well-being, fulfillment, and happiness. There is really nobody in the world who hasn’t been hurt or let down by somebody they trusted, or at least wishes they had been treated differently.

    Everyone—that includes yourself and the people that hurt you—is only standing at one single point in the huge learning curve of life, and our actions spring from what we are exposed to from that particular vantage point. Understanding this was a huge milestone for me in learning forgiveness.

    To seriously learn forgiveness as a life skill, spend more time with kids. They are the only people who unerringly practice the art.

    —

    To sum it up, for renewed happiness: Invest in yourself, take time to understand yourself, be gentle to yourself, do the things you love and, most importantly, give yourself time to heal, no matter how much it hurts!

  • Why It’s Okay to “Fail” at Meditation 90% of the Time

    Why It’s Okay to “Fail” at Meditation 90% of the Time

    Man Meditating

    “Giving up is the only sure way to fail.” ~Gena Showalter

    So you want to meditate.

    You can’t help but notice the benefits touted everywhere: a clearer mind, more focus, better sleep, and better health and happiness. What’s not to want?

    But then you try it out. And dang, it’s not easy.

    When you sit down on that cushion or chair, your previously normal human brain has turned into a crazy swirl of thoughts.

    Did you have this many thoughts before? Isn’t this meditation thing supposed to be about clearing your mind and getting focused?

    The next thought that comes to mind is usually this one: “I’m failing at meditation. I can’t do this.”

    Welcome to the club! All experienced meditators know this feeling. We’ve all had this experience. We’ve all thought at some point that we’re failing at meditation.

    When you sit still to stop doing and start being, your brain doesn’t cooperate easily. Its job is to think. Our brains will think about the breakfast, plan the day, even have imaginary conversations.

    This is the legendary “monkey mind,” and it’s totally normal. However, bump that into our expectations of clarity and bliss, and we believe we are “failing” at meditation.

    Want in on a little secret?

    Ten-plus years into this meditation thing, I still “fail” at it 90% of the time. My mind wanders somewhere between often and constantly during my daily morning practice. Planning, mostly!

    So my practice is to notice the thinking. I label it “thinking,” or “planning.” Then I bring my attention back to my breath.

    And I’m not the only one.

    Even experienced meditators’ minds wander—a lot.

    A monk from Blue Cliff Monastery joined my meditation group one evening for practice. We did twenty-five minutes of sitting meditation, ten minutes of walking meditation, and ten more minutes of sitting meditation.

    During the discussion time, he shared about his practices. He related that he had about two minutes of clarity during our session—just two minutes!

    It was incredibly freeing for me to hear. If the mind wandered for a monk who spent his whole life in an atmosphere that supported his practice, then I could accept that my mind wanders too.

    Once I accepted that, my practice became even more fruitful. And I knew I wasn’t failing after all.

    You’re still benefiting.

    After years of reading about mindfulness, I finally began to practice at home.

    I’d suffered from waves of deep lows for all of my life. They would hit me on a regular basis. Dad told me that this was just how life was. That I had “an artistic temperament.”

    My life would be going along, with its ups and downs, when the stressors became too much. I couldn’t handle it all anymore. I’d break down with tears and an inability to do anything much for a few days. My ways of coping weren’t healthy—binge eating was my dirty little secret.

    I thought that something was wrong with me. That somehow, I wasn’t strong enough to handle life the way other people seemingly did.

    I’d been reading about the benefits of mindfulness to soothe myself for years. Finally, I decided to step into the area and do it. I had built up my strength and resilience with yoga. I could do this.

    I began to practice meditation by sitting at home for ten minutes almost every day. In a few weeks, I bumped it up to fifteen minutes.

    And I had this thought:

    This is not working. I’m just sitting here basically thinking the whole time. This isn’t doing anything for me.

    But, several months into it, I looked back at my life. I realized that I had not fallen into the pit of a deep low. At all.

    It was an amazing revelation for me. Even though I thought I was doing a crap job at this meditation thing, I was receiving the benefits. It was working!

    Amazingly, I haven’t had those regular series of lows in the ten years since.

    It’s practice, not perfection.

    Mindfulness is a lovely thing to think and read about, but it’s really all about practice.

    Practice doesn’t mean perfection or performance. It’s about making friends with our wandering, imperfect minds.

    Try this now:

    Set a timer for sixty seconds. Sit tall and put your attention on your in-breath and your out-breath. Feel it at the nose, chest, or belly, whatever is most accessible to you. When your mind wanders, label it “thinking,” and come back to your breath until the timer rings.

    You did it!

    Practice diligently. Practice with persistence. Accept that your human mind wanders. It’s an essential part of the learning.

    Keep practicing and keep “failing.” You will still benefit.

    Man mediating image via Shutterstock

  • 5 Ways a Creative Practice Can Help You Through Grief

    5 Ways a Creative Practice Can Help You Through Grief

    “The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort toward wholeness.” ~Madeleine L’engle.

    Heartbreak, sadness, and loss are uniting experiences across humanity—all of us are likely to experience grief in some form.

    In grief, it can be common to feel lost, demotivated, depressed, and also, to experience a loss of self-esteem; it’s difficult to feel good about yourself when you’re processing all of the emotions that go along with grieving.

    Developing a regular creative practice can be a helpful, healing way through loss. I used a creative practice to help find my way through a time of immense sadness and change—a divorce.

    When my relationship ended after sixteen years, there wasn’t a single aspect of my life that remained the same: my family, friendships, the way I parented, where I lived, my work and financial situation—every aspect of my life changed dramatically.

    It was a huge time of change that I termed “reinvention,” and I rebuilt my life from the ground up.

    I grieved the loss of a family, of the amount of time I had with my son, and the fact he was now a child of a split family. I grieved the possibility I would never have more children, and the picture I had for my future life.

    In my experience, grief is something you work through over a period of years. As the old adage says, it takes time. As humans, we experience grief in many forms, so while causes of grief and individual experiences differ between people, I think there are lessons and experiences that we can share.

    I have completed several Photography 365 projects over the last six years since my divorce. These have been the foundation for creativity and gratitude practices that are now the cornerstones of my life.

    Whether you are a creative person trying to maintain your creativity or someone who is looking for a tool to help you through grief, developing a regular creative practice will be helpful.

    When you’re grieving, it can feel as if everything in your life has changed, and often it has. Creativity can be a solid, comforting, and familiar friend—a pillar of self-support.

    A creative practice is any creative activity you undertake on a regular (preferably daily) basis. Ways of utilizing and growing your creativity are virtually limitless—from cooking, to coloring, car-restoration, and on to calligraphy.

    The key is to find an accessible, achievable activity that works for you, that you can commit to adding into your life. (If you’re grieving, consider leaving that larger-than-life art installation for now, and focus on something you can work on in your pajamas if need be!)

    Make no mistake, establishing a creative practice takes effort, commitment, and discipline, just like many of the most worthwhile things in life. But it will reward you, again and again.

    Creativity has the ability to become a cornerstone of your life, as well as a pathway through grief, and a stimulant of huge growth.

    Creativity shares a trait with grief that is not commonly acknowledged: They can both be tools for growth. Typically, grief throws down challenges you wonder whether you have the strength to bear, but which, over time, you can learn to live with, heal from, and even thrive because of.

    Creativity, in a gentler fashion, can do the same. It will undoubtedly stretch and challenge you, but can be gentler than grief, because you can actually enjoy it! Choose an activity you love, are curious about, or have always wanted to try, and surrender to the healing power of creativity.

    Here are some key ways that creativity and a daily creative practice helped me, and can help you.

    Creativity challenges us to look for (and find) the beauty in every day.

    The world can look grey through grief. The shine disappears from everything and you feel as though you’re looking at the world through an ever-present veil.

    My creative practice—a Photography 365 Project where I took a photograph of my life every day for a year—helped (and forced!) me to look for something beautiful in life, every single day.

    Some days this was a struggle, but if I took a poor-quality, boring picture, it made me feel worse to look at it, and I realized I felt much better when I took a great picture. So I kept looking for beautiful pictures to take, one day at a time.

    Creativity provides a focus and something to look forward to.

    I completed my photography 365 projects with a group of like-minded women from all over the world. We shared our pictures online, became a part of each other’s daily lives, and helped motivate and support each other. We brainstormed, counseled, shared ideas, and held space.

    I cannot emphasize how critical a group of like-minded souls will be to helping you complete a sustained creative project. I not only looked forward to discovering what my photo of the day would be, but I looked forward to seeing what everyone else found as well.

    A cheerleading squad in the form of an online community, a virtual or real class, or a group to join can be enormously helpful as you develop your creative habit.

    Seeing something beautiful in every day makes us grateful for the good in our lives.

    Looking for the photo of the day became a daily, all-day search. I became far more aware of all that was around me: I chased the light, examined people’s faces, noticed nature, and raised my eyes to the horizon. I became an observer of the beauty of life, which helped me on the days I felt too sad, overwhelmed, or exhausted to be my beautiful self.

    The irony was, that by capturing the beauty in photographs, I became part of it, and as I recorded it I had it to look back on as proof. Proof that life was still good—that there were good moments in every day.

    As I worked through my 365 Project, it inspired me to begin another 365 Project, where the subject was consciousness.

    As I found my feet through grief, I bought a tiny red diary where I recorded one forward step toward my dreams (no matter how small) every day. I also wrote down what I was grateful for in each day, and the good things that had happened.

    (Note: the size of the diary was important in this project for me. I didn’t want to feel overwhelmed by 365 large blank pages, so I deliberately bought the tiniest diary I could find. Just a small space to fill each day, with one forward step. It helped).

    Creativity provides a daily outlet for feelings and emotions.

    It’s important to be honest with yourself and others about how you’re feeling, particularly in grief. A creative practice provides you with a forum in which you can check in with your feelings.

    You turn up to the page, the canvas, or the camera. You breathe, and then you feel. Your inner dialogue becomes the window through which you make or create. You can feel, process, and then let your emotions go when you express them creatively.

    The beauty of this is that the process is two-way. I made art to express my feelings, and I took photographs that depicted sadness, vulnerability, love, emptiness, loneliness, hope, and many other feelings. But in the main, I wanted to make beautiful art—art that lifted me up. So I made art to express my feelings, but I also felt better because I made beautiful art.

    Creativity is a portal into joy. No matter your age, stage, ability, or creative outlet, creativity gives you a place to simply be, to turn up, and either feel all there is to feel, or lose yourself entirely in the creative process.

    Chances are, you’ll do both. And while you do, creativity will be working its magic in your life—slowly but surely stepping you toward greater joy. When you’re grieving, these can feel like small steps, and it does take time. But if you persist, if you can open your heart to allow creativity in, you will succeed.

    Creativity can improve your self-esteem.

    Creating through grief can be difficult, because creativity is linked to self-esteem (creativity and self-esteem both sit in the sacral chakra). When we’re heartbroken, self-esteem can suffer.

    As a highly creative person, I was often frustrated by my grief, because it made creating so difficult. The effort required to push through the sadness, exhaustion, overwhelm, and all that was going on as I rebuilt my life made completing the big projects in my head seem almost impossible.

    And yet, by breaking my creativity down into tiny daily tasks, creativity became manageable, and I accomplished a long-held goal: I documented my daily life in photographs for an extended period of time, creating a body of work for a solo exhibition.

    Ultimately, how I chose to respond to my divorce led to me stepping fully into my creative purpose and life as an artist. Creativity helped me heal, and what I clung to in a difficult time has been reinforced as my greatest strength.

    —

    We do not always choose what happens to us in life, but we do choose how we respond. Creativity is an invaluable component of our lives, whether we’re in grief or not; and its powerful healing properties are transformational.

  • Why Stress Is Good for You and How to Respond to It

    Why Stress Is Good for You and How to Respond to It

    Stress

    “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~Viktor Frankl

    These days we can’t seem to get away from stress. We all feel it, and we all hate it. Even my sister’s two dogs are on a special diet for their stress-induced digestive issues, and I’m pretty sure they hate stress too.

    Recently it hit me: Our relationship with stress is dysfunctional. No wonder we’re stuck in an anxiety-ridden existence!

    Stress is Love

    Stress has gotten a bad rep, but it serves an important function—it keeps us safe from danger. Closely linked to our ability to feel fear, stress enables us to be alert and respond to perceived threats in our environment.

    When we perceive a threat, the amygdala in our brain sends a distress signal to our hypothalamus, which activates our sympathetic nervous system. This switches our body into “fight or flight” mode, triggering a series of physiological responses to help us get away from whatever is threatening us.

    Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are released, and our heart rate and blood pressure increase. Our blood sugar levels rise to give us more energy, and our breath quickens. This sharpens our senses and gives us a temporary boost in energy, strength, and reaction times.

    All of this happens in the name of increasing our chances of survival and keeping us alive. We wouldn’t be here as a species if we were not able to feel stress and react accordingly in dangerous situations.

    Bottom line? Stress loves us and wants to keep us safe. We owe stress a big fat thank you wrapped up in an apology for bad-mouthing it all the time.

    This realization was a tough pill to swallow. A few years ago burnout brought me down to my knees physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I blamed stress and hadn’t quite forgiven it for all the suffering it caused me.

    The truth? Stress wasn’t to blame. If I had properly acknowledged it, seen the red flags, and reacted sooner then maybe I never would have burned out in the first place.

    This was hard to accept, but it was also incredibly empowering.

    The Timing Problem

    Historically, being able to pick up on external stressors such as predators and fighting, hiding, or running away was a matter of life and death. The problem is that what stresses most of us these days is very different from what used to stress our ancestors, yet our bodies respond to these stressors similarly.

    In other words, our bodies overreact to stressors that aren’t life-threatening. This includes internal stressors like negative thoughts and external stressors like deadlines or, in my case, toddler tantrums.

    It’s a timing issue. We live in a modern time where we experience stress 24/7, but we’re armed with a primitive stress response with which to cope. This stress response is activated so frequently that our bodily functions and stress hormones rarely have a chance to return to normal levels.

    If fighting or sprinting away from deadlines, relatives, bills, responsibilities, toddlers, and traffic police was a socially acceptable way to deal with our daily stressors then we’d be all set. In most cases though, running away, hiding, or fighting makes matters worse.

    And so we get stuck—bombarded by stressors and experiencing the physiological symptoms of stress that we’re biologically programmed to experience, yet unable to cope by responding how we’ve historically responded.

    It is this prolonged stress that has a negative effect on our health and our life. Long-term effects can include disrupted sleep, a compromised immune system, poor digestive function, increased abdominal fat, blood pressure changes, brain fog, low mood, sugar cravings, inflammation, and chronic pain to name a few.

    I’ve experienced most of these and they aren’t pretty. The hardest part was clawing my way out of bed every morning because I was so wiped out and exhausted down to my core.

    No wonder I hated stress! 

    Reset Your Relationship With Stress

    When it finally hit me that stress comes from a place of love and protection, I decided once and for all to mend my dysfunctional relationship with stress.

    I’m now convinced that our relationship to stress is one relationship we can’t afford not to heal. Our health, happiness, and sanity are riding on it.

    Here are three steps you can take to reset your toxic relationship with stress and restore its rightful place as your ally.

    1. Shift your stress mindset.

    Stop badmouthing stress and blaming it for ruining in your life. It’s not an external evil force out to get you, so show it a little bit of respect. To get it on your side, you need to first believe that it is on your side and that you are in control.

    Believing that stress has my best interests in mind, I now ask myself: What is my experience of stress right now trying to tell me?

    For me, it is often a signal that I have taken on too many things at once and need to slow down. Or, that I have been prioritizing everyone else and haven’t been taking good enough care of myself.

    2. Mend your relationship to stress.

    Instead of judging stress, start making more of an effort to get to know your stress response. Like any supportive relationship that is based on trust and mutual respect, the first step is to listen. Pay attention and get curious:

    • How does your unique experience of stress feel?
    • What are your triggers?
    • Where does stress show up in your life?

    I experience stress as back, neck, and shoulder pain, coupled with a tightening sensation in my stomach that is often accompanied by digestive issues.

    Some of my triggers include work deadlines, the travel hustle (scrambling to get a million things done before a trip), sleep deprivation, the deadly combination of gluten and dairy, my email inbox, feeling rushed, and having to get my son into his car seat.

    3. Change how you engage with stress.

    Learn how to de-escalate your stress response. Most of us don’t know how because we weren’t taught. It’s as simple as learning a few new skills to put to use when you feel stress getting the best of you, and committing to actually using them.

    Mother nature wouldn’t have given us a highly sensitive stress response if we didn’t need it. She also wouldn’t have done so without equipping us with simple ways to switch it off. Breathing, laughter, meditation, and changing our internal dialogue are a few examples of this.

    We’ve become so busy in our lives that we’ve lost touch with this and turned stress into the enemy. This is disempowering because we’re actually in control of our mind and body, so we’re in control of our experience of stress.

    I use different techniques to switch off my stress response depending on the stress trigger I’m facing, how desperate I am, and where I am. Some are more conducive to being done in public than others. I recently did an eleven-minute kundalini meditation with my arms up in the air on an airplane, but many would find that awkward!

    When it’s a person causing me to get flustered—like my toddler when he is in tantrum mode—I’ve found that it’s important to stay present, connected, and “be cool.” In these instances I choose techniques that don’t involve closing my eyes or doing anything outwardly visible or obvious with my body.

    For example, I’m currently loving silently repeating the phrase “all is well” in my head when I feel my stress levels escalating, and combining this with belly breathing.

    First, I bring awareness to my breath. Breathing from my nose, I consciously start to slow down and deepen my breath, making sure that my abdomen is also expanding out (on the inhale) and contracting in (on the exhale) with every breath. Placing my hand on my belly helps.

    Then, I begin to repeat the phrase “all is well” in my head as I inhale, and repeat it again as I exhale. As I do this, I retain my awareness on my breath and on the movement of my abdomen. I keep repeating this phrase and breathing pattern for a minute, or longer if necessary.

    Slowing down my breath connects me with the present moment and automatically turns off my body’s stress response. Repeating “all is well” reshapes my thoughts and signals to my mind that I am safe, also switching my body out of “fight or flight” mode.

    Basically, I’m assuring myself that there is no predator in the room, so it’s okay to relax!

    Do you have any go-to techniques you use to regulate your stress response? I’d love to hear them in the comments below.

    Stress image via Shutterstock

  • Set Yourself Free: 5 Things You Gain When You Forgive

    Set Yourself Free: 5 Things You Gain When You Forgive

    “When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.” ~Catherine Ponder

    Somewhere in the middle of my freshman year of college, my best friend from high school broke up with me. Out of nowhere, she just stopped talking to me. I tried relentlessly to reconnect, but she stopped responding and never gave me an answer why.

    For years it was the most painful heartbreak I had going in my life. It’s still what I consider my worst breakup. And it haunted me until I decided to forgive her.

    Forgiveness sounded ludicrous to me at first, but eventually, the pain of carrying the grudge seemed like it might be worse than the pain of setting it down.

    I heard a number of people in my life, including one of my yoga teachers, talk about the power of forgiveness. While I didn’t get there right away, I started to marinate on the idea of forgiving my former friend.

    I became curious about what acceptance and non-attachment could look like with someone who had really hurt me. It took months after deciding that I wanted to forgive. Until one night, I was ready.

    I drafted the email, did a small amount of Internet stalking, and sent it. I apologized for my role in the breakdown of our friendship, offered my forgiveness, and wished her well. I gave her the best last gift I could: to set my grudge down.

    What surprised me was what I gained in the process.

    1. Space and quiet 

    Forgiving gives us the space and quiet to invest in new people and nourishing ideas.

    Once I let go, I stopped spinning the story in my mind over and over. My mind simply didn’t need to keep hanging on to the old narrative any more. It had space to cover new ground rather than rehashing yesterday’s news.

    2. Self-compassion 

    When I forgave my friend, I was also able to forgive myself for some past mistakes. Forgiveness requires practice, like anything else. It’s like developing a new muscle.

    If I could let go of my greatest hurt, I could surely offer that same reprieve to myself. I’m now gentler with myself when I make mistakes. I know that offering myself compassion and then moving on from the situation is not only possible but much more loving.

    3. Trust in others

    I don’t see friendship through the same lens any more. I have more faith in the people in my life and understand that while friendships end, it’s not the end of the world. I live in my relationships more presently.

    I don’t waste an opportunity to tell the people in my life what they mean to me. I trust in my friends. It took me a long time to get there, but forgiveness gave me back that capacity to trust in the people around me. By letting go of bitterness and cynicism, you too will be better able to trust in others again.

    4. Perspective 

    When I created the conditions for forgiveness and resolution, I was able to see our relationship clearly. I could also see the places where I was responsible and can now address those tendencies.

    I also could see that the hurt was a relatively small part of our relationship. Most of it was filled with laughter, and being able to see that has been very healing. Forgiveness allows us to appreciate the good, without the lens of resentment over it.

    5. Gratitude 

    I’m personally thankful for the memories and what I learned through that friendship. I’m grateful that I had this experience and for all the joy that our friendship brought me. I’ve grown a lot, and that wouldn’t have been possible without the process I’ve been through.

    Forgiveness polished the hurt off my heart, and now all that’s left is gratitude. I also appreciate the preciousness of my new friendships and make a greater effort to actively nurture them.

    We always gain something, even if it’s not immediately obvious. Forgiveness gives us the opportunity to recognize and appreciate that.

    —

    Forgiveness is a delicate thing, and very personal. I would never argue that you should forgive someone. But, if you are interested in exploring what forgiveness might mean in your circumstance, I invite you to get quiet first.

    Cultivate a little bit of compassion for yourself, foremost, and meet this undertaking with curiosity (rather than an outcome in mind). What could that forgiveness look like? What might pave the way for forgiveness to be possible?

    Before you can forgive others, you may need to forgive yourself for past hurts you’ve inflicted. Forgiveness is really a gift that you’re giving yourself; it’s not about absolution for the other person or excusing anything.

    Ultimately, forgiveness takes a lot of non-attachment: to the initial incident, to anger, and to a desired response to this forgiveness. You may not get the answer or outcome you’re looking for, and that’s okay. The process (and it can be a long process) and the act of forgiveness are what matter here.

    While I never heard back from this former friend, that felt surprisingly okay. I wasn’t attached to an outcome; I just wanted to stop carrying the load. So I did, and that was that.

    Not having to carry that grudge has been a huge gift to me. I’ve learned so much about myself that I would never have otherwise—like knowing that I have the courage to forgive and see what’s on the other side. And that I get to choose to be free. You can too.

  • How to Respond to a Verbal Assault Without Losing Your Cool

    How to Respond to a Verbal Assault Without Losing Your Cool

    Two Angry Men

    “Often those that criticize others reveal what he himself lacks.” ~Shannon L. Adler

     I answer the phone.

    And then the yelling starts. The woman on the other end lets fly a barrage of abuse.

    She’s angry and upset and she’s taking it out on me. Because I haven’t sent her a text message for two days.

    She wants to know why I haven’t responded and what is wrong with me. She wants to know how I can be so mean.

    I don’t understand. I thought I was giving her space during a difficult time. I was also dealing with events in my own life.

    I’ve known her for five years, during which time she’s shown herself to be a powerful ally, a fierce supporter, and a generous friend.

    But her power has a flip side, as she’s also difficult and draining.

    Forceful and forthright, she’s an expert in getting people to do her bidding.

    This power had caused cracks in our friendship some time ago, and recently those cracks had become chasms.

    I knew she had a string of broken friendships that had erupted dramatically when she perceived a slight.

    And now it was my turn because I didn’t respond to her SMS.

    Normally I hate conflict. I turn to jelly, stutter and stumble over my words, and feel guilty as all hell. I take on more blame than I should—say it’s all my fault. I just want the conflict to stop.

    Actually, I want to run and hide until it all blows over.

    But there’s no hiding from this call. No running away from this angry torrent of questions and blame.

    And somehow I don’t turn to jelly this time. I find I have a strong inner core. A firm resolve that I can call on.

    I’m not quite sure how, but I managed that conflict effectively. Even elegantly.

    I didn’t necessarily manage it in the way that the other person wanted me to, but I managed it in such a way that I am proud of myself.

    I managed to draw on all the conflict resolution skills I read about, but never used.

    Here’s what I did.

    1. Take their side.

    One of the best things you can do to deflate a conflict is to empathize and agree with the other person, particularly if they’re really angry and emotional.

    By agreeing with at least some aspect of their argument, they have nothing to fight about.

    The goal isn’t just to placate them. You may find that by empathizing you recognize some truth in what they’re saying. When someone is emotional, it’s hard to recognize when they have valid points, but at times they do.

    If you simply can’t see eye to eye, you don’t have to agree with their whole argument, just agree with something. You can start by saying, “You have every right to feel that way.”

    What I said during that call was “I’m sorry you’re upset.” Because I was genuinely sorry that she was so distressed. Saying this allowed me to empathize with her, but not give away my own power or accept blame for the situation.

    2. Pretend it’s Groundhog Day.

    Remember Groundhog Day—when Bill Murray had to do the same thing over and over? Well, it’s often good to pretend it’s Groundhog Day when someone is angry.

    You see, when someone is really emotional and upset or angry it’s a little like they’re drunk. Adrenaline is coursing through their body. This sets off a series of events that triggers the release of hormones.

    In fact, some people use the term “adrenaline drunk” because when we’re in this state our ability to behave appropriately, listen to reason, and even control ourselves is vastly diminished.

    That old expression “I’m so angry I can’t see straight” is fairly accurate.

    So repeating your message is necessary. I kept repeating, “I’m sorry you’re upset, but I haven’t done anything wrong.”

    3. Channel Eeyore.

    If you keep your voice calm and soothing, it has a relaxing effect on both of you.

    Try channeling Eeyore. He’s the pessimistic grey donkey in Winnie the Pooh. Although he’s often a little gloomy, he’s completely unflappable.

    Nothing gets Eeyore riled or cranky. And he’s also empathetic, so channeling Eeyore can be really helpful when you’re caught in the crossfire of someone’s fury.

    During this call I managed to distance myself and remain calm. I didn’t raise my voice or get emotional. Everything I said was spoken in low tones, and I forced myself to speak slowly.

    It wasn’t easy, but I held it together until the end of the call. Using a soothing voice calmed me as much as it calmed her.

    4. Establish ownership.

    Get clear on who owns the problems or issues that come up. I know this is easier said than done, but doing this helps to separate the person from the problems.

    It also allows you to work on solutions, and to be clear on your own attachment to both the problem and the solution.

    If you can do this, you retain your personal power. This technique allows you to stay in control, and ensure that you don’t become involved in an emotional slanging match.

    During this call I listened to what the real problems were. It turned out that my friend had a lot of unwritten rules for our relationship.

    These were rules I didn’t know or understand, and rules she felt I’d disobeyed. She was upset that I’d violated these unspoken rules.

    I also realized that I wasn’t interested in keeping a friendship that was so complex and difficult. For me, the cost of this relationship suddenly looked far too high.

    5. Look after yourself.

    Above all else, make sure you take care of yourself.

    Sometimes you can’t reach a win-win solution, or even a win-lose solution. In my case, I had to agree to disagree because the underlying issues weren’t resolvable.

    One of the ways I looked after myself was to know that I’d done everything in my control to resolve the situation in a reasonable way. I tried my hardest but we couldn’t make it work.

    I was sad the friendship was over. But I was comfortable that I had stayed true to myself.

    I also knew that I had taken part in the conversation as an equal party. I had made a conscious decision not to apologize or ask forgiveness.

    I could easily have given in, accepted all the blame, and done whatever it took to patch things up. I could have let all her yelling and anger bully me into apologizing.

    But I put myself first, and that made a huge difference. Normally I focus on the hurt that the other person is feeling. This time I focused on myself.

    Respect is Everything

    Here’s the key takeaway I have for you: Respect is everything.

    Conflict is part of life, whether we like it or not. And the real key to any conflict is respect.

    It’s important to show respect for the other person’s thoughts and feelings, and you can do that by agreeing with some part of their argument.

    But you don’t have to agree with everything. And you don’t have to give in or turn to jelly.

    Because showing respect for other people’s thoughts and feelings is only half the story. Your feelings and thoughts are just as important as anyone else’s.

    You deserve to be heard and understood too.

    Your opinions and beliefs are valuable.

    Your message is just as valid as anyone else’s.

    You don’t have to shout from the rooftops. You just need to look after yourself.

    So the next time you find yourself involved in a conflict, keep yourself calm by speaking calmly.

    Breathe deeply and find your inner core.

    It’s there, just waiting for you.

    Two angry men image via Shutterstock

    Editor’s Note: This post has been expanded for clarification, and the title has been changed to better reflect the story and messages shared.

  • The Power of “No”: Better Boundaries Lead to a Better Life

    The Power of “No”: Better Boundaries Lead to a Better Life

    Just Say No

    “’No’ is a complete sentence.” ~Anne Lamott

    When I went to counseling for the first time, my therapist told me I needed better boundaries. I had no idea what he was talking about, and although the book he lent me on the subject helped a little, I still didn’t really get it.

    I tried here and there to integrate the few concepts I’d picked up from the book into my life, but mostly I stayed away from anything that could be considered boundary setting, as I still couldn’t quite figure out what it meant.

    A decade after my first introduction to the concept, though, two life coaches I admire happened to be teaching a free class on the subject, and I jumped at the chance to take my learning to the next level.

    After hearing what they had to say, things finally started to click. I began to understand that it wasn’t about trying to control someone else’s actions, but rather about being clear on what action I would take if and when my boundaries were crossed.

    Still, it was hard for me to set boundaries, because I felt very uncertain of myself and my worth. Was it okay to tell someone no? Or that I wasn’t satisfied with the way things were?

    Since the world works in mysterious ways, chances to test my boundaries continue appearing in my life whether I want them to or not.

    Most recently, it came up with my child, an area where I’d never realized boundaries would be necessary (silly, but true).

    My mother and I were out to lunch with my toddler, and I spent most of the wait for our food walking around bouncing my daughter, trying to keep her entertained. After the food came I was barely able to eat, because my little girl wanted to be held and would not stay in her high chair.

    After that experience, my mom sent me an email. She thought I needed to start setting some gentle boundaries with my daughter, and was buying me a book that she thought would help. I burst out crying because I knew she was right.

    As soon and I started reading the book, I finally got it. Everything that I’d been trying to understand about boundaries for the last fifteen years finally made sense, and I finally started believing it was okay for me to get my needs met, and that it was totally acceptable to say no sometimes.

    This change with my daughter has come more easily than I imagined, and, thankfully, it’s starting to impact how I interact with adults, too.

    I have a feeling I’m going to need another fifteen years to become an expert at setting boundaries, but here are some things I’ve learned so far.

    1. Most of us are socialized to actively not have boundaries.

    We’re taught that we shouldn’t say no, and that it would be impolite to ignore another person’s wishes.

    This point was driven home for me the other day when I saw a kid’s TV program that made it clear that even the youngest members of our society are being taught they should always do what other people want.

    In the program, one character (a bear) was watching TV, but then a second character (a little girl) came in and wanted to watch something else. She gave the bear big, sad, puppy dog eyes, and, even though he clearly didn’t want to, he gave up the TV.

    As the girl watched TV, the bear paced back and forth, wishing he was watching his program. He kept hoping she would fall asleep, or go play outside, so he could get back to what he really wanted to be doing.

    This is exactly how we start learning that it’s not okay to say exactly what we want. When we’re young and impressionable, we’re taught that it’s rude to be clear on what we do and do not like.

    2. Not having clear boundaries keeps us in lives that are subpar.

    In my own life not having boundaries has been a huge problem. It’s allowed me to stay in unhealthy relationships (both the romantic kind and the friend kind), made me a doormat, and made me anxious and unhappy.

    Setting a boundary simply means saying no if I don’t want to do something (instead of feeling guilty and obligated). It means telling my husband what I need rather than getting mad when he doesn’t read my mind. It means only working the hours I’ve set for myself rather than running myself ragged trying to do “enough.”

    3. When you refuse to set a boundary, it leads to anger and resentment.

    It can tear relationships apart, keep you in a role at work that doesn’t suit you, and cause you to feel badly about yourself.

    Looking back on a relationship I had in college, I can see how not having boundaries set us up for failure. My boyfriend at the time was involved in a couple of activities that made me very uncomfortable, but I wouldn’t set a boundary with him, so instead I just lashed out with anger and jealousy, which just made things worse.

    The healthiest thing I could have done for myself would have been to say, “I’m not okay with you doing that. If that’s something you’re going to continue doing, I am going to have to remove myself from this relationship.” I was too fearful of the consequences, though, so it took me a long time to end things.

    One caveat when setting boundaries like this: You must be sure you’re not setting a limit in order to control or change someone. You must be truly ready to walk away from the relationship, and you absolutely must be setting the boundary from a place of love and respect for yourself, rather than a place of fear and control toward someone else.

    4. Setting boundaries is going to be uncomfortable sometimes.

    If you always say yes to everything, or let your parents or neighbors come over unannounced even though it really annoys you, or always clean up after your spouse because you don’t want to upset him or her by requesting they clean up after themselves, you’re going to have to take some scary steps to start drawing lines in the sand.

    The uncomfortable feelings don’t mean you shouldn’t follow through with boundary setting, though. In the long run everyone will be happier if you set better boundaries, and if they’re not, it’s really and truly their own issue, not yours.

    5. Boundaries are never about trying to change someone else’s actions or behaviors.

    This one gets kind of tricky for me, but think of it like this: If you’re in the car and someone is speeding, your boundary wouldn’t be “stop driving so fast,” it would be “I am very scared that you’re driving this fast; if you’re not going to slow down, I need you stop and to let me out of the car.”

    You’re not trying to make them stop speeding, you’re telling them you won’t allow yourself to be in the speeding car.

    Boundaries are about getting your needs met, but not by getting someone else to sacrifice their own needs. You have to decide what you really want for your own life, and then go about setting limits that serve these goals.

    Just say no image via Shutterstock

  • You Don’t Need a Guru; Life is Your Greatest Teacher

    You Don’t Need a Guru; Life is Your Greatest Teacher

    Monk

    “Forget what hurt you, but never forget what taught you.” ~Unknown

    I read a tribute Elizabeth Gilbert wrote for Richard from Texas who features in her book Eat, Pray, Love. It got me thinking that our teachers in life can take many forms and not always an obvious ‘traditional’ teacher.

    In Eat, Pray, Love Liz went looking for a guru in India but learned a whole host of lessons from Richard, who was probably there seeking out the same guru for his own answers.

    We can go through life looking for gurus, trying to learn from the experts, and seeking out those who seemingly have the answers to our questions, but what we often overlook is that the answers are there all along.

    We don’t find the answers when we find the guru; we find them along the way, as part of our journey.

    Sometimes a guru may help us uncover the answers within, but there is also so much more that those we meet and our experiences along the way can teach us about life’s journey.

    The lessons can come from our kids, our partners, our friends, our enemies, and most of all from ourselves.

    We can be our own teachers if we allow ourselves to learn from our mistakes.

    A monk once told me there are no mistakes, only lessons, and we are a product of the lessons we’ve learned. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Without the mud there can be no lotus.”

    We grow stronger from our challenges; we learn or to grow from these experiences, and this is what makes us who we are.

    I’ve traveled around the world to various retreat centers, sat on many hill tops, and consulted a few gurus, but the answers I sought I found within me when I arrived home, stopped searching, and sat still long enough to notice them.

    This led me to rebuild my life around my passion and fill it with meaning and purpose. I became a yoga teacher and was thrilled to be doing a job I loved, but in the early days I struggled. Marketing was not my strong point and the numbers for my classes were low, sometimes non existent.

    As I sat in an empty room one night with my lesson plan, feeling defeated, I thought to myself, “What can I learn from this?”

    I try to ask myself this question often, but especially when times get tough. Life is not always easy. Things sometimes don’t go to plan, and often we don’t succeed until we’ve learned a lesson and tried again, failed more, failed better.

    I have learned valuable lessons from people who’ve come in and out of my life (often for only fleeting encounters). I’ve learned both from failed relationships and those that have evolved over different parts of my life to be stronger now than they ever were.

    A friend’s betrayal taught me about forgiveness. A friend’s love has taught me about trust. My nephew taught me the importance of making time for play, and my pets taught me the power of unconditional love.

    Depression taught me that it’s through the cracks the light gets in, and burnout taught me about my real priorities and the value of self-care. A house fire taught me about attachment, and a homeless man taught me to be grateful for the little things I have.

    Success is a product of learning from experiences and failures—a product of our life, our experiences, and the people we meet along the way. This is the stuff that shapes us and builds our world, it comes from within, not from an expert or a guru.

    Yes, we have formal teachers we can learn from—our parents, our schools, our gurus, those we aspire to and admire. But never underestimate the power of the lessons ‘ordinary’ people will teach us, the likes of Richard from Texas and indeed the lessons we learn from ourselves and our experiences as we navigate through life.

    So take a moment and ask yourself what you can learn from your current circumstances and the people in your life. Whatever, or whoever, you’re struggling with could very well be your greatest teacher—and a stepping stone to greater peace, purpose, and happiness.

    Monk image via Shutterstock

  • How to Stop Beating Yourself Up Over the Little Things

    How to Stop Beating Yourself Up Over the Little Things

    Woman in a Cage

    “You are perfect just as you are and you could use a little improvement.” ~Shunryu Suzuki-roshi

    A few weeks ago, I had a day that I felt like an utter failure.

    I had eaten junk food even though I was trying to get healthy. I’d skipped out on going to the gym for no good reason. I forgot to call my parents even though I promised them I would. I didn’t meet my daily writing goals and ended up watching two movies I’d already seen.

    In other words, I slid into a lot of bad habits all at once.

    I think we all know the feeling you get after a day like that.

    I was spinning out of control, losing hold on everything I’d managed to build so carefully over so many months.

    My grip on order felt slippery at best, like trying to catch a determined fish with your bare hands. I remember sitting down on the floor and just crying, full of the shame that comes with letting yourself down.

    The worst part? It was the third day in a row I’d felt this way. It was the third in a series of days in which I’d gone to bed feeling like my life was falling apart on my watch.

    I felt like the ultimate letdown, consistently messing up something that I knew was in my control. It was my life! Why was I having so much trouble getting a handle on it?

    Then I remembered someone long ago who had said to me, “You are perfect just as you are, but you are still growing.”

    I don’t remember who said that or in what context this little olive branch was offered to my soul, but like all integral memories, it surfaced at just the right time. I got off the floor, brushed myself off, and said, “I’ll do better tomorrow.”

    And I did.

    As a writer, I let myself down all the time. I don’t reach my word quota. I watch too much TV when I should be working. I forget my house chores, the gym, the cat. I eat badly because I’m eager to get back to work, or I take a long lunch to procrastinate something important.

    But even before I was writing, back when I was in the medical field, I remember that there wasn’t a day that passed where I wouldn’t let myself down in some small way. Forgot to take out the trash. Said something thoughtless or rude. Ate more than my fill.

    This wormhole is a tempting one to enter, the I’m-not-good-enough black spiral of thoughts that can suck you in forever. Your brain is always happy to supply an infinite list of reasons that you’re not good enough, smart enough, loving enough, witty enough, pretty enough, and so on.

    And if you feed that cycle, fixating on all the tiny ways you failed, then it comes back. You condition your brain to think that you want those thoughts, so it offers more of them.

    Trust me, I’ve been there.

    What if we all forgave ourselves for the little failures? What if we let go of the tiny mishaps that happen in a day and focus instead on what went well? What if we released the shame and pain of all the ways we didn’t measure up and allowed ourselves to relish in everything we already are?

    It’s an old argument, but it bears repeating because it’s a practice that must be rehearsed every day. I know I’m human. I know I’ll fail. I’m not perfect, and that’s part of the beauty of life. I am perfectly imperfect, an exquisite human specimen who’s doing the best with what she’s got.

    However, accepting that doesn’t mean we are allowed to stagnate, because we are still improving. We can fail today and aim to do better tomorrow.

    We need not feel ashamed or inferior because of slip-ups. All we need to feel is normal, accepting the challenges of a life on this Earth with patience and grace.

    Taking it one day at a time, we can always do better tomorrow.

    I started focusing on this practice after my meltdown week. Ever since then, I’ve tried focusing on doing the best that I can on a given day.

    I give every task my all, give all my love to my friends and family, pour all my energy into whatever I’m doing. And I don’t (or at least try not to) focus on how I fall short. I do the best that I can that day, and when I feel like it didn’t bring me as close to my goal as I wanted it to, I simply say “I’ll do better tomorrow.”

    Because that’s all I can do.

    In this bustling, high-speed country, I think we all strive for our slice of perfection. We fight for the perfect body, marriage, home, kids, job, etc. without any real idea of what that fight is doing to our psyche.

    What’s the point in pursuing perfection if we don’t get to enjoy the journey there? And the shame we gather in not reaching the ludicrously unattainable goals we set for ourselves dulls the bright colors of our life.

    This toxic feeling of inadequacy is a poison that will ruin the pleasure of striving for a goal. Not only that, shame will make the pursuit of a goal that much more difficult. Negative reinforcement and mentally beating yourself up will halt any progress in its tracks, and that will only push the spiral deeper.

    Fight this venom before it ruins your days.

    Self-forgiveness and acceptance are the counter-wind to that inner tornado.

    Allowing yourself to be human, perfect as you are, enough will bring you far more joy than focusing on all the ways you are insufficient.

    Don’t be ashamed of what you’re not, be joyful in what you are! You are a human being, struggling to be better, but whole and perfect in this moment.

    And we’re all right there with you.

    Woman in a cage image via Shutterstock

  • Why It’s Okay to Be Right Where You Are in Life

    Why It’s Okay to Be Right Where You Are in Life

    “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” ~Arthur Ashe

    Whenever I go see my Rolfer Jennie, I look forward to the wisdom she shares with me. As a Rolfer and Bodyworker of twenty-five years and an expert in the mind-body connection, she has it by the bucket-load.

    Recently, upon visiting her, I fell into my old familiar trap of wanting to be ‘fixed’ or perhaps wanting her to have a simple answer for me with regards to some tension in my inner leg that had been progressing (even though I’m fully aware things are never simple with the structural scoliosis in my body).

    So as we began working, and she pinpointed several things that were going on, I said with a sigh, “I’m just going to have to continually bring my attention to different areas, aren’t I? My spine is never going to just be pain-free or without other problems cropping up that are connected to it?”

    And she replied with the crystal-clear clarity that Jennie always does.

    “Darling, you start with where you are. You always start with where you are and work from there no matter what stage you’re at or how much work you’ve already done.”

    And this really couldn’t be truer, not only for our health, fitness, and what’s going on in our bodies, but for everything else in our lives as well.

    You see, for many years now I’ve been doing a lot of work on my body, on myself, and on building businesses, and although a fascinating journey, at times it’s not easy.

    There’s always a temptation to want to be further along the road than we already are, to have it all figured out, be stronger, more balanced, ‘fixed,’ and have everything feeling amazing.

    And we can sometimes tell ourselves that when we reach a goal we’ve set, or we finally get something we’ve wanted for a while, that we’ll be ‘sorted’ or happy or things will perhaps seem easier.

    But we’re forgetting that every time we shift, every time we unwind, and every time we strengthen and then let go of something, there is always something new that will require our attention, because we’re never ‘done.’

    There is always a new area that needs our energy and nourishment. And there is always a new layer to educate ourselves on underneath every layer of ourselves that we have already shed.

    And this is what Jennie and I discovered in my body. We’d realized that some work we’d done together to open my spine and neck had been hugely transformative. But as my body had adjusted to the new pattern (which is pretty awesome on its own), because I’m not naturally perfectly straight and balanced, a new imbalance had occurred in my leg, and my body had found a new way to compensate in the only way it knew how.

    I could have viewed that as an annoyance (don’t get me wrong, at times I do get angry with my body and the way I was born, and at first I did). But then I realized that instead, I could decide to view it as a new challenge and a new interesting layer to work with and unwind, and get curious about what I could learn from it.

    The point here is that we can’t rush change.

    Meaningful, lasting change to our development, to our patterns, to our beliefs, our bodies, and to our lives cannot be rushed. 

    Because no good thing, no amazing thing worth doing, was ever created in some slap dash kind of a way.

    When we try to rush life and try to get to the ‘finish line,’ when we try and force ourselves to do something new in a way that doesn’t feel fully aligned for us (much less forgetting to celebrate how far we’ve already come), what usually happens is that it simply doesn’t stick.

    It’s like when we throw ourselves into a new exercise routine that requires us to suddenly get up two hours earlier every day. The results are usually injury, exhaustion, or resentment because we’re doing it as a result of feeling we have to, in a way that doesn’t sit right with who we are, and we’re pushing ourselves too hard, too fast.

    We’ve got to work gradually on our deeper, more profound change.

    We’ve got to open ourselves up to working on things carefully, layer by layer.

    We’ve got to exercise more patience with ourselves.

    We’ve got to allow our truth and our message to evolve as we evolve and figure out what we need to serve us.

    And we’ve definitely got to acknowledge and celebrate how far we’ve come more frequently so that we can practice being kinder to ourselves along the way. 

    So can you let yourself off the hook here and just be okay with starting where you are at right now?

    Having got to somewhere you wanted to be doesn’t necessarily mean there won’t be more new challenges ahead, but neither does it mean you have to start all over again; you’re just starting from a new place.

    We’re never ‘done,’ we’re never finished, and for the things we really love and are passionate about, why would we want to be?

    So how about getting excited about that instead of frustrated?

    How about welcoming it in with fondness and anticipation instead of impatience?

    And what would it feel like to just be okay with being where you are right now while knowing that you’re doing your best, you’re moving forward, and you’re more than equipped and ready for what’s next?

  • Courage Is Doing What You Really Want to Do, Even When You’re Scared

    Courage Is Doing What You Really Want to Do, Even When You’re Scared

    All Our Dreams Can Come True

    “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” ~Ambrose Redmoon

    It’s only 9:25am on a Saturday morning and I feel myself welling up already.

    I know this is difficult. This might just be some of the hardest stuff he’s ever had to do.

    I’m there. On the sidelines, watching him.

    I know him so well by now and all of his little “giveaways.” His eyes looking for mine. Fidgeting.

    We’ve agreed that he’ll give it a chance because he really wants to do this. REALLY, REALLY. There’s no doubt about that.

    But in order to get what he wants, he needs to show up. He needs to:

    • Be present
    • Get out of his comfort zone
    • Feel the insecurity, the nervousness, and all this new stuff

    It’s not my job to ensure that he’s always inside his comfort zone and let him stay there forever.

    It’s my job to be by his side every single time he exits his comfort zone, his safe place where everything is familiar, easy, and nice.

    And then the tears come. A mix of being (oh-so!) proud and me seeing myself in him.

    Phew! I take a deep, deep breath.

    He’s running toward me. Throwing himself in my arms and cuddling up for a deep hug.

    “Mom, I’m actually a bit scared. There’s so much noise and I don’t even know all of these other kids.”

    He hugs me a bit harder. We sit like this for a few minutes until I feel him relaxing.

    “All right, out you go. Just do another five minutes,” I tell him, cheering him on. “You can always come back for another hug, but we’ll stay here until the game finishes, so get out there and play.”

    We had five lovely hugs in two hours and when we got in the car to go home, he was a very (very!) proud five-year-old boy.

    “Mom! Did you see my goal??”

    “I sure did, sweetheart!”

    Let’s wind back time seven days to when I was on a plane to London, feeling:

    • Excited
    • Anxious
    • Nervous
    • A knot in my stomach
    • Curious

    I was on my way to a big conference with a whole lot of people I didn’t know.

    “Ohhhh, Mads, I almost don’t even want to go. Why does it have to be like this every time I do something new?” 

    I said this to my husband all snuggled up in a big hug before we got in the car for them to drop me off at the train station.

    “It’s part of the game, baby. You know that. And Maj, remember that you feel this way every single time, and you go through with it and feel awesome. You feel proud for going through with it, for being brave and for learning all this new stuff.”

    I know.

    My husband is a very wise man.

    My point:

    Whether you’re five years old and about to play your first indoor football match, feeling super nervous but really wanting to learn how to play football, or you’re thirty-seven years and going to a big conference in London, about to meet some of the world’s leading teachers and have a private dinner with them, it takes courage.

    Don’t let it fool you, though!

    Courage is not the same as an absence of fear.

    In no way.

    Courage is doing what you really want to do, even if it scares you to death.

    Like this… me writing this blog post to you, telling you (very openly and honestly) about my own vulnerability; telling you how I feel when I have to do something I haven’t done before.

    Courage is taking teeny, tiny steps in the right direction even though, sometimes, that really is freaking terrifying to do.

    And sometimes you need to go back for another hug and just soak up a little bit more of that security before you make room for another tiny little step.

    The courage that makes you an inch closer to where you want to be.

    The courage that makes you, in one year, closer to the goal you visualized than you are today.

    Courage is also required when you’re being honest in a relationship.

    It’s being brave enough to say what your heart knows is right but you know might upset your partner.

    Being brave enough to say what you’re missing the most even though you’re afraid that your partner might see this as criticism and might snap at you.

    Saying the one thing that makes you so vulnerable and gives your partner the possibility of hurting you.

    Being brave enough to taking that step in that direction that enables you (and you as a couple) to, in one week, one month, one year, be even closer to the relationship you long for and the relationship you know, deep down in your heart, is right.

    Courage is doing something you wouldn’t normally do despite the fact that you’d much prefer to do what you usually do.

    It’s courageous to be brave enough to pursue something better.

    It’s brave to put in a hardcore effort to get closer to your goal.

    Whether it’s indoor football for juniors, a conference in London, a better relationship, a better job, or the courage to be bold enough to work on getting more quality into your life in general, it all requires courage.

    And it requires you to be brave and that you act.

    Just one step at the time. Teeny, tiny steps in the right direction.

    You know what the next step for you is, right now. Take that step.

    Yes, it’s a challenge. Be courageous!

    Dreams come true image via Shutterstock