Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • A Simple Way to Light Up Your Life with Meaning, Love, and Joy

    A Simple Way to Light Up Your Life with Meaning, Love, and Joy

    LOVE

    “Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.” ~Viktor Frankl

    Picture this: it was 3am but I couldn’t fall asleep. I had little to complain about, except a feeling that life seemed to be passing me by.

    My father had died abruptly some years earlier, my mother had come through a major operation, our children were growing increasingly independent, and our marriage was strong.

    Work was admittedly a bit stressful, and colleagues were less helpful than they might have been. But I ate a healthy diet, exercised, maintained a reasonable work-life balance, and did most of the “right” things. Still, despite my healthy habits, something was lacking.

    Fast forward to Boxing Day 2004: TV channels were full of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Something told me, as a doctor and scientist, to drop whatever I was doing and fly to Tamil Nadu in India. I arrived in Nagapattinam town to find large fishing boats lying in the middle of the street.

    The tsunami waves had flung huge boats around as if they were small toys. Entire fishing villages had completely vanished. The lightly constructed mud and leaf homes had been washed away as if they were matchboxes.

    Now thousands of homeless people were crowded into school buildings and makeshift tent villages. Many had no access to proper sanitation or drinking water. People who had lost loved ones were walking around in a daze.

    People crowded around me with tragic stories.

    One woman described how she lost both her children, and how she couldn’t have more, because she’d undergone a family planning operation. Another described how her infant had been passed from hand to hand as people ran from the waves. Her infant survived, but her toddler had been swallowed by the huge waves.

    I was not there when the tsunami struck, but I could easily have been lazing on that beach. I remember thinking how fragile life is. Even without a natural disaster, you or I could be in a fatal traffic accident today or tomorrow.

    Over the next fortnight I experienced involuntary fasts between huge vegetarian meals, over-work, exhaustion, mild diarrhoea, and dehydration, but this fortnight transformed me.

    Thousands of volunteers of all ages and backgrounds had converged on the tsunami-hit area. People in Muslim skull caps rubbed shoulders with Hindu monks in saffron robes and international volunteers.

    Everyone was pulling together, helping the local government officials. It was as if each of us was playing our own instrument in a symphony.

    We were like an army of love, driven to make a difference.

    My role was to set up a disease surveillance system and train local staff to operate it.

    Would there be outbreaks of disease in the relief camps? Would bereaved people succumb to disease? Would our surveillance system catch outbreaks in time to prevent epidemics?

    Nothing was certain, but we powered ahead. I felt calm yet energised, carried along by the warmth of newly made friends. There was no opportunity to maintain my healthy habits, but I felt more alive than ever.

    I felt carried along on a wave of love as we all pulled together in our common cause. Every little chore became lit up by purpose and meaning. That’s when I realized the wisdom of the saying: Stop asking what life can give you, start asking what you can give life.

    When life feels like a meaningless treadmill, you might lie awake at 3am and ponder the emptiness of it all. However, within you is a tiger that is merely sleeping, waiting to be unleashed in the pursuit of one or more great causes.

    I now still maintain healthy habits. But those worthwhile rituals are not sufficient to infuse life with meaning and passion. More is needed.

    Imagine flowing through life in the company of friends, all attracted by a shared vision of a better world, infused with love for others, pulling together to make a positive vision come true.

    Start giving and contributing of your best self, for the sheer joy of giving. That’s how you can become a calm achiever, tolerant of uncertainty, energized by meaning.

    It will seep into all areas of your life and make you more self-assured, more fired up, more attractive. Think of it as a channel for the great love which is within you.

    If you get paid for doing what you would choose to do anyhow, celebrate! If not, can you find some parts of your job that you would do even without pay, some angle perhaps that transforms life for others?

    If not, there’s still plenty of opportunity.

    You could identify a cause that you passionately believe in. You could take the first step by joining a local group or starting one. Look online, or in your local paper, for groups that meet near you; and start making a little time each week, or month, to nourish this heroic, passionate part of you.

    You could also write to your elected representatives to urge support for your cherished causes. Your taxes are spent on a variety of things that aren’t always dear to you. Influencing how public funds are spent can bring powerful support for causes you believe in.

    So, how well did our surveillance system work? Not a single life was lost to infectious diseases in the weeks following the tsunami.

    The whole experience felt like the sun of meaning breaking through the clouds of habit in my life. Now when I die, I would like my life to be measured by how much love I expressed through my life.

    Focus on contributing and transforming the lives of others, and your own life will light up with meaning, love, and joy. You’ll become a calmer achiever, better able to bear the stresses, difficulties, and setbacks that life often brings.

    The best time to start living like this was long ago. The next best time to start is now.

    Love image via Shutterstock

  • When Being Positive Can Hurt You and What To Do About It

    When Being Positive Can Hurt You and What To Do About It

    Rose Colored Glasses

    “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

    While confiding in a friend one day, I mentioned how I’d been feeling a little blue.

    “Snap out of it,” he said, matter-of-factly.

    While this wasn’t the first time I’d received advice like this, or heard someone else being on the receiving end of the likes of it, it still left me feeling as if there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t just snap out of it.

    He went on: “You’ve just got to be positive.”

    If only it was that easy to turn off that negativity switch in your head permanently, and dial up the one labeled “sunshine and rainbows” to 24/7.

    Let’s get real here: For someone who’s struggling with challenging circumstances like depression, heartbreak, or even major self-doubt, and isn’t ready to put on the rose-tinted glasses just yet, pretending to be positive isn’t going to work (nor is it healthy).

    Forcing yourself to jump on the positivity bandwagon when you really feel like crawling into a cave may even create more feelings of confusion and disconnectedness (I’ve been there, done that), and distract you from the things you should be doing to get better.

    Instead of trying to sweep difficult feelings under the rug and put on an upbeat front, here’s what you can do to make them work for you:

    Be okay with feeling sad and asking for help.

    Sometimes, life does feels like crap.

    It’s okay to feel that way—life doesn’t have to feel happy, positive, and easy all the time. I’m not asking you to wallow in self-indulgent pity indefinitely, but to be present with this emotion, giving yourself time to experience and respect it.

    It’s also fine to be okay with the fact that that cheesy, motivational poster your friend emailed to you isn’t making it all better. You don’t need to feel guilty or embarrassed about not connecting with someone else’s way of coping with the hard stuff.

    In fact, the “negative” emotions you experience are just as important as the positive ones in helping you cope with life’s ups and downs because they give you vital clues about what’s going on in your life, as well as help you evaluate and give meaning to your circumstances.

    Often, these emotions point to the fact that something needs to be fixed, and while not every difficult situation has a straightforward solution, what you can do get through this time is to ask for help.

    Take this opportunity to reach out to the people who are important to you—allowing yourself to be vulnerable to someone you care about will also give them permission to help and feel more deeply connected to you.

    Make self-compassion a part of your life.

    When I’m running low on my positivity reserves, one thing I find helpful with coping is to give myself compassion. This doesn’t mean skating over painful conflicts or letting myself off the hook when I make a mistake; it means that I:

    • Review my actions and acknowledge why I chose to act a certain way after I’ve made a mistake instead of being harsh and judgmental (“you reacted this way because you were feeling hurt” versus “you’re such a loser”).
    • Accept that I’m not perfect after an unexpected binge, examine why it happened, and choose to make a healthier choice at my next meal instead of giving up on eating healthily altogether.
    • Allow myself to go for a walk because I want to instead of subscribing to the ‘no pain, no gain’ mentality by forcing myself to go to the gym even though I’m not feeling up for it.

    There’s no need for a fake upbeat façade or over-the-top cheerleading here; just being understanding, kind, and nurturing toward you.

    Focus on tiny steps you can take every single day.

    Now that you’ve deleted that cheesy motivational poster, ask yourself, “What steps can I take to help me feel better and get out of this slump?”

    This could be:

    • Scheduling an appointment with your boss to discuss why the frequent late nights at the office aren’t working for you.
    • Spending five minutes before bed meditating to calm your mind so you don’t spend the night tossing and turning, and feel exhausted the next day.
    • Taking an hour on Sunday to prepare all the ingredients you need for your week’s lunches so you don’t have to eat the foods that trigger your binge eating.
    • Sitting with your partner to tell him or her that you’re not happy, and haven’t been for awhile, and that you’d like to figure out why together.
    • Letting your friend know that she hurt your feelings instead of trying to ignore the tension and discomfort between the both of you.

    Taking steps to change instead of faking an upbeat front can do wonders in helping you to lift those heavy, grey clouds off your shoulders.

    And remember, small wins add up to bigger wins, and more reasons to start feeling happier, more confident, and in the perfect position to feel positive…when you really mean it.

    Rose colored glasses image via Shutterstock

  • 7 Things Your Inner Child Needs to Hear You Say

    7 Things Your Inner Child Needs to Hear You Say

    Sad Child

    “Stop trying to ‘fix’ yourself; you’re not broken! You are perfectly imperfect and powerful beyond measure.” ~Steve Maraboli

    Have you ever thought about why you can’t move forward? Have you wondered why you sabotage yourself? Have you ever questioned why you so easily feel anxious, depressed, and self-critical?

    Inside each of us there’s an inner child that was once wounded.

    To avoid the pain, we’ve tried to ignore that child, but s/he never goes away. Our inner child lives in our unconscious mind and influences how we make choices, respond to challenges, and live our lives.

    My mum left me when I was six. I didn’t see her again until I was fourteen.

    I don’t remember ever missing her. I told myself it was a good thing that she left, because no one was beating me anymore.

    But now I had to prove myself to make my dad proud. He was all I had.

    So I was one of the popular kids at school. I got good grades. I went to a top university to get a commerce degree and was hired into a big bank’s graduate program before I even graduated.

    I worked for years in the finance industry, writing corporate lending deals, meeting clients, and selling derivatives trading tools. But I saw firsthand and up close how that was destroying people’s wealth and lives.

    It didn’t align with my values. I felt like a zombie, taking the transit every day back and forth, living like a fraud.

    But what else could I do? I had always believed that getting into finance was the way to success, and the wounded child within me was afraid of failing and disappointing my dad.

    Then, on my twenty-ninth birthday, I stumbled upon an online art course and discovered my passion. But ditching finance to pursue the life of an artist wasn’t easy for me.

    My dad was disappointed and angry, and he tried to change my mind. Now I understand that he was afraid for me. But at the time I was angry with him for not supporting me because deep down I was scared that he would no longer love me.

    I knew then, to have the courage and strength to continue down the road less traveled, I had to heal my fearful, wounded inner child.

    If you too feel lost, lonely, small, and afraid of losing love and acceptance, you may also benefit from healing the inner child who once felt insecure and not good enough. Saying these things to yourself is a good start.

    Say These 7 Things to Heal and Nurture Your Inner Child

    1. I love you.

    As children, a lot of us believed that we needed to accomplish goals—get good grades, make the team, fill our older siblings’ footsteps—to be lovable.

    We may not have had parents who told us we deserved love, no matter what we achieved. Some of us may have had parents who considered showing love and tenderness to be a sign of weakness. But we can tell ourselves that we are loveable now.

    Say it whenever you see yourself in the mirror. Say it in any random moments. Love is the key to healing, so give it to yourself.

    2. I hear you.

    Oftentimes when we feel hurt, we push down our feelings and try to act strong. For a lot of us, this stems from childhood, when we frequently heard, “Quit your crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

    But those feelings don’t just go away. They fester inside of us, affecting the choices we make as adults until we make the conscious effort to hear them.

    I never acknowledged that I felt abandoned when my mum left, but I did, and I carried that into my adult relationships. To heal, I had to acknowledge how her leaving affected me. I had to give a voice to all the pain I stuffed down back then.

    Instead of suppressing the voice of your inner child, say, “I hear you. We’ll work through it. It’s going to be okay.”

    3. You didn’t deserve this.

    As children, many of us assumed that we deserved to be abused, shamed, or abandoned. We told ourselves that we were a bad kid, that we did something wrong.

    But that’s simply not true. In many cases, the people who wounded us simply didn’t know any other way. Perhaps my mum was beaten as a child, so it was the only way she knew how to parent her daughter.

    A child is innocent and pure. A child does not deserve to be abused, shamed, or abandoned. It’s not the child’s fault, and though we may not have had the capacity to understand this then, now, as adults, we do.

    4. I’m sorry.

    I’ve always been an overachiever. I considered slowing down a sign of weakness.

    Not too long ago, I was constantly stressed about not doing enough. I couldn’t enjoy time with my kids because I’d be thinking about work.

    One day it dawned on me that since I was a child I’d been pushing myself too hard. I never cut myself any slack. I would criticize myself if I simply wanted to rest. So I told my inner child I was sorry.

    She didn’t deserve to be pushed so hard, and I don’t deserve it now as an adult either.

    I’ve since allowed myself a lot more downtime, and my relationships with my loved ones have improved as a result.

    5. I forgive you.

    One of the quickest ways to destroy ourselves is to hold on to shame and regret.

    The first night my mum returned home when I was fourteen, she asked to sleep with me. We only had two beds at that time, one for me and one for my dad. I couldn’t fall asleep, and I kept rolling around. Then all of a sudden, my mum blurted out, “Stop moving, you *sshole!”

    The next day, I put a sign on my door that read “No Unauthorized Entry” to prevent her from coming in. My mum left again. Then, a few days after, my dad told me that they were getting a divorce (after being separated for eight years).

    I thought it was my fault. Why did I have to roll around and so childishly put up a sign?

    But now I know that their divorce wasn’t my fault. And I forgive myself for anything I could have done better. I was only a kid, and like everyone, I was and am human and imperfect.

    6. Thank you.

    Thank your inner child for never giving up, for getting through the tough moments in life together with you with strength and perseverance.

    Thank your inner child for trying to protect you, even if her way was holding on to painful memories.

    Your inner child doesn’t deserve your judgment. S/he deserves your gratitude and respect.

    7. You did your best.

    As a child, I always tried to outperform, to overachieve, to meet someone else’s standard, to be “perfect.”

    I was always demanding and cruel to myself, and no matter how well I did, I never felt it was good enough.

    But I did the best I could at the time, and you did too. We’re still doing the best we can, and we deserve credit for that.

    When we let go of perfection, the fear of failure recedes. Then we can allow ourselves to experiment and see how things unfold.

    —

    I started saying these things to my inner child as I was recovering from depression. They’ve helped me experience more love, joy, and peace. They’ve helped me become more confident and compassionate.

    My social worker, who first came to work with me after a self-cutting incident, recently asked me how I got to be so content and happy.

    It started from acknowledging, accepting, and beginning the ongoing process of re-parenting my inner child.

    What is the one thing you most want to say to your inner child today?

    Sad child image via Shutterstock

  • 21 Tips to Release Self-Neglect and Love Yourself in Action

    21 Tips to Release Self-Neglect and Love Yourself in Action

    “To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    The most important decision of your life, the one that will affect every other decision you make, is the commitment to love and accept yourself. It directly affects the quality of your relationships, your work, your free time, your faith, and your future.

    Why, then, is this so difficult to do?

    Your Family of Origin

    I grew up with nine siblings. I had two older brothers, three older sisters, three younger sisters, and a younger brother.

    I never fit in. My sisters were tall and thin with beautiful, long, lush hair. By eleven years old, I was short and very curvy. My hair was fine, thin, and wild.

    For the most part, my siblings did as they were told. I was outspoken, out of control, and rebellious.

    I wore my sister’s hand-me-down school uniforms. I rolled up the hems on the skirts and popped buttons on the blouses. My look was unkempt.

    I was teased and bullied at home and at school. Yet I didn’t go quietly into the night. I fought for my place in my family. To protect myself, I developed a good punch and grew a sharp tongue. (more…)

  • Our Proudest Accomplishments Are Often the Quiet Ones

    Our Proudest Accomplishments Are Often the Quiet Ones

    Your Success and Happiness Lie in You

    “…I kept trying to run away. And I almost did. But it seems that reality compels you to live properly when you live in the real world.” ~Kenzaburō Ōe, A Personal Matter

    Recently I listened to an interview with author Kenzaburō Ōe, who won the 1994 Nobel Prize for literature. Ōe, who is now eighty-one, is a major figure in Japanese contemporary literature as well as playing an active role in the Pacifist and anti-nuclear movements.

    When asked what accomplishment he was most proud of over his long and distinguished career, he answered, without hesitation, that for the past forty years he has been home every night to tuck his mentally disabled son into bed.

    His answer hit me like a physical blow. For a good part of my adult life I was driven by my career.

    Of course, I had a family to support. I had to work. But at times I was so focused that I put my own ambitions ahead of my family.

    My work was in academia, and for more than twenty years I pursued the elusive tenure-track position. Nearly every professional move I made was carefully calculated to bring me closer to fulltime job security.

    I attended conferences, wrote papers, taught overseas, and continually worked on my teaching methods. Then I found it—my dream job teaching English at a small community college in a small town.

    About the same time I achieved what for many in the university world is the crème de la crème: a Fulbright research scholarship.

    For six months I would live in northern India where I would research, write, and work on building a teaching exchange between the university in India and the college where I taught.

    If anything, I thought the Fulbright would help secure my employment.

    It didn’t. In a move I will probably never understand, three weeks before I was scheduled to fly home from India, the college ousted me.

    At an age when most people are starting to think about retiring with some security, my career and financial stability were swept out from under my feet.

    I felt betrayed, angry, devastated, and afraid. My spiritual practice of compassion and acceptance was put to the test. To this day, I have trouble forgiving colleagues who turned on me.

    We humans are amazingly resilient creatures, though, and life has a way of presenting us with the lessons we need to learn. In the process of rebuilding a new career, I learned that my most important accomplishments have nothing to do with my resume.

    What about you? Are your ambitions outside of yourself?

    Job security, a nicer home to live in, good schools for our children are all valid ambitions, but alone they’ll only bring superficial happiness.

    In a moment any one of them can disappear.

    Instead ask yourself:

    It’s not easy to redefine yourself outside of a career. Often the first thing we tell a new acquaintance is what we do. I’m a teacher, an artist, a scientist, an entrepreneur, or clerk at a grocery store. It’s almost as if just being human isn’t enough.

    Eventually, I was able to look back at the job I’d lost more dispassionately. I saw former colleagues burnt out before the semester started and a climate of vicious college politics. At least four different instructors came and went in three years as they tried to fill the position they’d kicked me out of.

    Then I quit paying attention.

    After a short stint with the local newspaper, I moved to a quiet, isolated place on the high desert away from town. An online teaching job at a different college gave me enough money to get by, and I began selling some articles and photographs.

    Sometimes I still struggle with the underlying feeling that I’m not living up to my potential. After all, I spent years and a lot of money to get a Masters degree. Teaching was my career.

    Had I really given it up to live in a dusty little town that looked like it had slipped off the side of the highway?

    Time and a meditation practice helps, and whenever those feelings that I should be doing more arise, I have to admit something else as well. I am far less stressed than I have been in years and creatively I’m flourishing.

    After listening to the interview with Kenzaburō Ōe one summer afternoon when it was too hot to go outside, I began to read some of his work.

    He writes about displacement, about the lies we tell others and the lies we tell ourselves to survive. And he writes about quiet triumphs and living well and with integrity. He writes about the way his mentally disabled son brings unimagined depth to his love.

    Today my accomplishments are quiet ones. I try to live as well as I can, practice forgiveness, especially when it’s hard, and to be there when others need me. I try to love well.

    My life is far from perfect and there are many things I would still like someday: a home by the ocean, a fireplace, a car with a working air conditioner, and a bottle of Shalimar perfume. But I don’t base my happiness on these things, and if I never get any of them, it won’t matter.

    Even though all my work is online, I still sometimes get tired from grading papers or finishing an article at the last minute, but it doesn’t stress me out in the same way it used to because I work on my own schedule.

    We probably all know the maxim it’s the journey, not the destination that matters, and this may be the most important lesson losing my dream job reinforced.

    The meaning of accomplishment has changed. I have less money but more control over my time. And the time I do have, I never feel is wasted even if I’m just sitting and staring out the window.

    There’s beauty in simplicity, and peace can be found when we’re happy with what we have instead of what we want.

    What do you want to accomplish most in life?

    Success and happiness image via Shutterstock

  • 5 Fear-Based Decisions that Limit Our Potential

    5 Fear-Based Decisions that Limit Our Potential

    The Sky is the Limit

    “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself . . .” ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

    You’ve heard that quote more times than you can count.

    You’ve also made fear-based decisions; we all have.

    Looking back, you can point to times it has happened and caused you to fall short of what you could have achieved.

    It has certainly has happened to me.

    I was three years into my first career as a high school science teacher. I had always wanted to live abroad, specifically Mexico, and I had always wanted to learn Spanish (after taking an embarrassing amount in high school and college without really ever picking it up).

    So when I met a lady that had a connection to a high school in Monterrey, Mexico, where they taught the classes in English and had an opening for a science/math teacher, I jumped on it.

    I contacted the school and expressed an interest. When they told me if I ever came through Monterrey they would be happy to speak to me, I immediately booked a flight and flew down during the upcoming spring break.

    I went to the interview and told them I would be happy to teach science or math, or both. They told me about the program, and that they support all of the teachers with intensive Spanish-immersion classes.

    It was exactly what I wanted—a way to live in Mexico, learn Spanish, and keep teaching.

    I left the interview excited.

    A couple months later, they contacted me and told me I had the job if I still wanted it.

    Perfect, right? I got exactly what I had been dreaming of.

    I turned it down.

    I rationalized the decision at the time because I had already told my current school I would be there the next year and had already committed to a trip to Europe with friends that I would have to miss because the school year started earlier in Mexico.

    The reality is that my school would have understood and my friends would still be my friends (and Europe wasn’t going anywhere) if I took this opportunity, which I had been talking about for years.

    The real reason I didn’t take the job was that I was scared. Scared to move to a new country where I didn’t know anyone. Scared to leave my comfort zone. Just generally scared of the unknown.

    Now, looking back, I have a lot of regret about that decision. Over ten years later, I still haven’t lived abroad and I still don’t speak Spanish fluently.

    But I have also learned from that experience to push back when fear pops up to stop me from moving forward.
    And importantly, I’ve gotten much better at recognizing when it is fear that is stopping me, even when it isn’t so obvious.

    And that’s what I want to share with you.

    How You Can Target Fear and Beat It

    Below are five common, but not-so-obvious, ways fear works to limit our potential.

    And importantly, how you can recognize that fear for what it is, and then push through anyway.

    1. You procrastinate.

    We have a lot of faith (for no apparent reason) that the version of us that wakes up on Monday will start that thing we want to do.

    It’s like we believe some other person will be responsible for getting us up and moving.

    It’s hard to start now, when we are the ones in charge. Why?

    Fear lives in starting. Because starting means one of two things will happen: You will do the thing you set out to do, or you will fail.

    And failure is scary; we fear it. So we decide to start later.

    The problem is that later is quite elusive. So the change never really happens.

    Even though you think you are protecting yourself from failure by procrastinating, you are actually just ensuring it. By not starting, you take success off the table; the only thing left is failure.

    The solution is simple, but not easy:

    Recognize your procrastination for what it is—you letting fear prevent you from moving forward.

    Move anyway. It doesn’t have to be a huge movement, but just do something that commits you to either success or failure.

    2. You create your “big-hairy goal” and then wait for the magic to happen.

    I know, you’ve been told to set a “big-hairy goal.”

    The problem is that the definition of a big-hairy goal is a goal that seems impossible. Because it seems impossible, you don’t actually believe you can achieve it. So you don’t act. You just wait for some cosmic shift to occur.

    You are scared that if you act you just will prove that it is impossible. That fear paralyzes you.

    To overcome this, you have to set smaller, more approachable goals, after you set the “big-hairy” one. Goals that you see as possible, but that add up to the end game.

    Come up with three small goals that you believe are doable and that will get you closer to the “big-hairy goal.” They don’t need to get you there. They just need to head you in the right direction.

    When you’re done with those, come up with three more. Keep that up and that almost-impossible goal will become inevitable.

    3. You let “emergencies” get in the way.

    Have you ever decided that something you’ve been “meaning” to do for months, like organizing your closet, has now become a must-do thing?

    You are probably using your newly minted “must-do” task to avoid starting something that might open you up to failure.

    While organizing a closet isn’t fun, you aren’t going to fail at it, so it’s not scary. Even though it feels very much like you are being productive, you are actually paralyzed.

    If you hear yourself saying things like, “I know I said I would do X today, but I actually can’t because I really need to get Y done first,” you are probably falling victim to this fear-based behavior.

    The solution is easy: Realize that you haven’t done Y for the past two months, and so not doing it today will probably be fine and do X instead.

    4. You focus on the judgment of others.

    As soon as you go from, “This is going to change my life for the better” to “What will so-and-so think about it?” you have almost certainly sunk your chances of moving forward.

    Everyone wants the approval of their peers and seeks to avoid their disapproval. But you can’t let fear of disapproval prevent you from acting.

    It’s not easy. But, when you feel judged by your peers, and you feel like it is stopping you from moving forward, consider these questions:

    • Does this peer lead a life I value?
    • What values are they using to judge me?
    • Do I even want to live up to those values?

    If you don’t want to live up to their values, just shrug off their judgment and move on.

    5. You forget that your life is one big science experiment.

    Science is all about failure. And your life should be all about failure too.

    Science comes up with an explanation for the data available, and then tests that explanation.

    As soon as the explanation fails, everyone goes back to the drawing board and comes up with a new idea, incorporating the data that was collected as a result of testing the first idea.

    Over time, science gets more and more right. That is what life is about.

    You aren’t going to live a perfect life. You aren’t going to achieve everything you could possibly achieve. But, you can get closer to perfect. You can achieve more than you have so far.

    But to do so, you have fail. You have to try something new. And doing so, you will fail. Which is great. Because then you get to learn from your failure, and try again.

    To start, try to get three people to tell you no every day, ask random people to do things for you, ask for discounts on retail or food, whatever.

    I know it sounds stupid, but the whole idea is to get used to failing and so dampen the fear of it. Then you can see failure for what it is:

    A big billboard telling you are going in the right direction but that you just need to adjust your course a tad to take into account what you learned from the failure.

    Now What?

    You have the tools to recognize fear for what it is and to shine a light on it when it pops up its ugly head—no matter what form it is using.

    Then you can then address that fear, knowing that it is largely, if not totally, of your own making. And you can stop the rationalizing that you will inevitably use to avoid doing the scary thing that led to the fear in the first place.

    Once you have done that, you will start pushing the envelope of your potential and achieving more than you thought possible.

    So look fear in the eyes. Call it out. And, keep moving.

    The sky is the limit image via Shutterstock

  • Overcoming Family Rejection & Finding Strength in Pain

    Overcoming Family Rejection & Finding Strength in Pain

    Man Finding Strength

    “I don’t like being too looked up at or too looked down on. I prefer meeting in the middle to being worshipped or spat out.” ~Joni Mitchell

    Growing up, there were two sides of the kitchen table. On side A, there was my lieutenant colonel of the US Army, hardcore conservative, Wall Street trader of a father who used the word “faggot” while passing the salt.

    On side B, there was little ole me, who was pretty sure that I was that word my father so vehemently used.

    I thought Barbies were a fun toy (Malibu Barbie was my favorite, obviously) and at twelve years old, I got that funny feeling inside when I first laid eyes on Mark Wahlberg in his now infamous Calvin Klein ads. (Thanks for the memories, Markie Mark!)

    So there I was on side B, always feeling as if my side was less than. How many of us have been there before?

    I could never understand the larger than life, imposing, All-American man across from me, whose emotional unavailability and anger kept me at bay. But I tried, and tried, and tried.

    It was as if there was always some sort of divide between the two of us, and no matter how desperately I wanted to close the gap, I couldn’t jump it. There was no safety net in our relationship, and so as I got older, it was one of the many reasons I went down a dangerous path.

    Sure, the fear of my father that was ingrained in me was a catalyst for shame, feelings of unworthiness, and an inability to express who I was within the world.

    It was also the black hole that I learned to fill with perseverance, self-respect, and authenticity, and for that I now see its purpose with gratitude.

    When I hit rock bottom at twenty-five years old after years of drug, alcohol, and sex abuse, all roads led to the forgiveness of my father—and myself.

    I thought back to his absence in my life. All of the athletic accomplishments that he overlooked, meanwhile celebrating my older brother’s football success. All of the dating conversations we never had, and all the times he could never say “I love you.”

    I let those memories burn, and braced myself as the ashes dissipated in the air of my past. Though the immense pain, I cried as I waved goodbye.

    I waved goodbye to the day when I came out of the closet at nineteen years old, and my dad replied that it was “his fault” since he has a gay cousin. I waved goodbye to his belief that there was something wrong with him for “passing along the gay gene.”

    I parted with the memory that every time I brought good news, he could never celebrate it with me, as if it wasn’t good enough. I let go of the belief that I was never good enough.

    With everything I waved arrivederci to, I waved hello and embraced all that I had become and am.

    I welcomed the realization that it doesn’t matter if anyone else deems us worthy, so long as we accept ourselves.

    I hallelujahed the knowledge that I was my father’s son, and his gift for his own self-growth; and if he simply was not willing to receive that gift at the time, this was not my fault.

    It was not his fault either, as every person is doing the best they can at their own personal level of awareness. I could let go of all blame.

    I could just be me, and let him be him, and live with the hope that one day, he and I could become an “Us.”

    Within the larger story of Us, I see that our diversity is to be celebrated, and is the one thing that we all are able to appreciate in this often chaotic and messy world.

    Our uniqueness is unique to us, and is a gift. I learned to be grateful for that. The great thing about gratitude is that it is a predecessor for forgiveness.

    Once I was able to forgive my dad, I was able to see him differently. As I healed myself, my comfort around him healed us.

    When I was freshly twenty-eight years old, I was going through a crippling yet transformative break-up, and on Father’s Day, I needed him.

    I never spoke about men to my father, but I knew this was the moment. I packed my bags and blurry eyes in NYC and drove west to my parents’, where my dad was waiting for me.

    There, in the den with the TV off, through the tension, I cried, opening up about how much I loved this particular man and how much I was hurting.

    I admitted that I had started drinking again; that I felt deeply lost, that I needed help. That I needed my dad.

    “You’re too nice of a person to let people do that to you” was his simple console. In its simplicity, it was enough. I was enough, and so was he.

    The chasm got smaller; the separation united. I had jumped the gap and made it safely to the other side.

    Nowadays, there’s a flow where the river was once damned. We talk more than ever; about how smart Peter Thiel is, or how the stock market is doing, and I also share personal stories with him. I share my authentic self.

    Sometimes he just sits there and nods, and in his big blue eyes, I am given a world of quiet contentment. I no longer am looking to be anywhere but there when I am with him.

    Our relationship makes me realize that if we could all have open and honest conversations with one another, we would be able to realize that we are all similar underneath our differences; that there is never a reason to create a divide between.

    Of course, it takes two, and if the other person won’t meet us halfway, we can end up feeling divided in ourselves. If that happens, remember that you are wonderfully you for a higher reason.

    You are uniquely you and meant to find those whom support you for all that you are. As you are, exactly who you are, there are others who were put here to simply support that person.

    As an individual footprint in the paved path of the Universe, your mission is to be unapologetically who you are made to be. No one can step in your way if you are living a life of pure authenticity and self-respect, not even an unaccepting family member.

    Remember that others’ negativity is a projection of their own pain—and have compassion for them.

    How we feel about others is a direct mirror for how we feel about ourselves, and as someone who has experienced a lot of self-shame, I have seen the danger of taking my frustrations out on others and making it their fault.

    Any sort of judgment stems from self-judgment, so the more another person irks us, the more we need to question what irks us about ourselves.

    It’s important for us to remember that compassion can melt every boundary of anger and hurt.

    Family contention can often be an opportunity to let go of self-blame and find forgiveness in spots that were once hidden to us, if we allow it to be.

    It is often the stepping stone to massive healing if we are brave enough to take the jump. There is a reason why we go through everything.

    Lastly, remember that you are allowed to hurt.

    Some days, it’s important to let your heart bleed. Pain often connects us to our strength, so let it burn with faith that things are only getting better from here.

    They really are.

    The greatest part of my story is that when my father and I are at the dinner table now, there are no sides any longer; there is just one beautifully imperfect, real human relationship.

    There is acceptance, and there is love. I know this not only because he is able to tell me so these days, but because I feel it within myself.

    My relationship with my father gives me hope. It gives me strength. It gives me the belief that one day, between Side A and Side B, we’ll all be able to meet somewhere in the middle.

    Man finding strength image via Shutterstock

  • 3 Lessons That Help Me Overcome Anxiety and Depression

    3 Lessons That Help Me Overcome Anxiety and Depression

    “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” ~Maya Angelou

    I’ve suffered from anxiety and recurrent major depression for more than twenty years. Over that time, I’ve learned a number of lessons about living life and dealing with these diseases.

    Two equally meaningful and powerful days from that time stand out to me.

    My wedding day, fifteen years ago now, was a happy day when I was more confident and sure about what I was doing than any other.

    The day that rivals my wedding day in terms of my surety of purpose came just six months ago, the day I checked myself into the hospital because I feared I was going to kill myself.

    Complete opposites on the spectrum of happiness, these two days demonstrate the extreme highs and lows we can feel when we suffer from anxiety and depression.

    I remember so many people telling me they’d never seen me happier than when I married Emily. The aching loneliness and raw vulnerability of waiting in an emergency room for ten hours, wearing nothing but a disposable hospital gown on a bed in a hallway under suicide watch, will haunt me forever.

    But, of course, life isn’t solely made up of these extremes—most of life is filled with the in-between, the little moments that shape us, the lessons we grow from, the battles we fight every day.

    It’s been by being mindful of what I was thinking and feeling on these in-between days that I’ve been able to start recognizing and taking advantage of lessons I’ve learned from my struggles.

    Lesson #1: Realize that feelings and disease are separate from our selves.

    When we suffer from depression and anxiety, it becomes very easy for us to get wrapped up in our feelings and start thinking about ourselves in terms of our disease.

    When you spend so many days feeling depressed, it’s only a small step to start thinking of yourself as depressed. Identifying ourselves with our feelings is a trap these diseases set for us, luring us into becoming self-fulfilling prophecies of doom.

    When we start thinking, “I’m so anxious” or “I’m so depressed,” we set ourselves up with the expectation that we’re going to continue to be this way. We then become too anxious to, say, get through a day of work without feeling anxious. We’re anxious about being anxious or depressed about being depressed, and that’s the way we think we’re going to continue to be.

    So how do we break these self-fulfilling cycles that are so easy to fall into with depression and anxiety?

    The first big lesson I had to learn about dealing with depression and anxiety was this: I am not my depressed or anxious feelings, and I am not my disease. Learning not to identify with these destructive feelings is the first step to freeing yourself from them.

    The best way I found to separate myself from my feelings was by practicing mindfulness. I would repeat simple mantras to myself, such as, “I am feeling depressed, but I am not depressed.” Getting these ideas into my consciousness was an important part in making myself healthier.

    Lesson #2: Understand that choice is a strong difference maker.

    Depression and anxiety can leave us feeling out of control and trapped. We can’t control our thoughts or emotions; they’re just things that happen to us.

    I remember feeling so down, I’d lay on my couch with a pillow pulled over my head and ruminate for hours, just stewing about the way I felt or how worthless I thought I was. This could go on for days at a time, interrupted only by anxious sleep. I felt trapped in my own head.

    And if it wasn’t the depression, the anxiety would be sure to hammer me into inaction. Constant fear and worry would build on itself until I got anxiety about having more anxiety. I was constantly fearing that I would starting fearing something new, something that might push me over the edge.

    I was good at pinning myself in corners. With time and effort, I practiced lesson number one about separating myself from my feelings. And the times I was successful with that, I would move onto lesson number two.

    I realized that I couldn’t control my thoughts or feelings, but I also understood that I could choose how I was going to react to them.

    Seeing that I had a choice, even when I was feeling trapped, opened me up to new possibilities about the way I could potentially feel. I could choose to get off the couch and take a shower despite my depressed feelings. I could choose to go to work, even if I was scared of doing so.

    Knowing I had a choice left the possibility of improvement open in my mind.

    Lesson #3: Recognize that courage can be a powerful tool.

    Now that I had given myself the strength of choice, I found myself looking at the world a little bit differently. Having choices available to us also means that we’re going to have to make decisions.

    Being someone who suffers from anxiety, I found that at first this meant I was going to have more to worry about. What would be the consequences if I did this, or this, or that? It was easy to become paralyzed by my own fears.

    So I ruminated more. I dwelled on things longer. I was indecisive.

    I spent more time on the couch with my pillow over my head. At least now I was debating with myself instead of drilling deeper into feelings I couldn’t control. I needed something else to get me out.

    I needed courage.

    Such a powerful tool, courage. It allowed me to start taking steps toward believing in myself, toward doing things that were healthy for me.

    It started out with making choices to take showers every day, to eat on a regular basis, to take my medication on time, to keep getting it refilled and to stay on it.

    These small healthy choices have allowed me to grow and make bigger healthy choices. I quit a job that wasn’t good for me, I reprioritized my life, I checked myself into the hospital.

    I’m getting better, but there are times when I slip or my diseases get stronger. And when that happens, I go back to these three basics: not identifying with my emotions, recognizing my choices in any situation, and acting courageously. They’re steps that always get me pointed in the right direction.

    It’s up to me where I go from there.

    *This post represents one person’s personal experience. If you’re struggling with depression and nothing seems to help, you may want to contact a professional. 

  • 5 Priceless Gifts You Deserve to Give Yourself

    5 Priceless Gifts You Deserve to Give Yourself

    Gift

    “The greatest gift you can give yourself is a little bit of your own attention.” ~Anthony J. D’Angelo

    The other day, when I was out celebrating a friend’s birthday, someone asked about the best gift I’d ever received.

    What came to mind was getting my parents’ hand-me-down Corolla when I was sixteen. It was my first taste of being all ‘grown-up.’ I felt like my parents trusted me enough to give me the keys to go out on my own. It gave me a sense of pride and freedom.

    Aside from that, nothing else that was tangible came to mind. What stood out were the memories and the moments I shared with the people who celebrated my birthday with me. And the most memorable ones involved traveling or living in a foreign country.

    So this got me thinking—the best gifts you can give yourself are things that are priceless. They are a collection of moments and experiences that add depth and value to your life.

    Aside from a lifetime of adventures, here is a list of invaluable gifts you deserve to give yourself.

    1. Time to learn about yourself.

    In Dr. Meg Jay’s TED talk, she offers twenty-somethings a piece of advice—to invest in “identity capital,” something that adds value to who you are and who you want to be.

    I feel this point is applicable to people of all ages. One of the best gifts you can give yourself is to learn more about yourself.

    Give yourself the permission to explore and really get to know who you are. Discover what you like and don’t like. This will help you set your standards and boundaries, which are hopefully aligned with your values, so that you can create the life you want.

    Along the way you might find that things change. And that’s okay. It’s natural. When it does, recognize this and be mindful in your daily actions as you adjust to the person you are becoming.

    2. Peace of mind.

    Everything is temporary; nothing lasts forever.

    When you give yourself permission to befriend what is, instead of what you think it should be, you’ll realize that the best thing you can do is to focus on the present and count your blessings.

    There’s no need to worry incessantly, for you can’t control the future, or what others think for that matter. Most of the time people are self-absorbed, going through their own things, not even aware of how their actions and reactions may have come across to you.

    Worrying doesn’t accomplish anything; it only takes away today’s peace.

    When you are in the moment, just do what you can do. Sometimes it may be nothing, and it’s okay.

    Have faith that everything will work out for the best. After all, you have found a way to survive your ‘bad’ choices thus far. So going forward, why not trust yourself? You’ve got the proof that you are capable of more than you know.

    3. Time for yourself.

    We often put ourselves last on our to-do list.

    But it’s important to take care of your well-being and to recharge your batteries first in order to be at your best to give to others.

    Find ways to you nurture your body and nourish you mind. Take the rest you need to not burn yourself out. After all, you are the caretaker of your body and life. No one can do this for you.

    When you allow yourself to have moments to unwind, de-stress, and reconnect with yourself, you will be more productive, have more energy, and feel happier, which will result in fostering better relationships while reducing your stress levels.

    4. A chance.

    Give yourself the gift of following your dreams. Do what you love; do what is important for you.

    In order for you to live a fulfilled and meaningful life, you have to live it yourself. So don’t wait until it’s too late. Find the courage and willpower to live a life true to yourself, and spend your time doing what counts for you.

    I was once depressed and was lucky to find passion for life again.

    Through reading self-help books, following sites like Tiny Buddha, getting into yoga, and asking for help, I realized I’d been living someone else’s life . No wonder I was in a slump and unhappy.

    When I started to fall in love with life all over again, I was determined to start living on my own terms. And now I am giving myself a chance to do what it is I love, which is to help others whose lights have been dimmed to find purpose and passion again.

    As Wayne Dyer famously said, “Don’t die with your music still in you.”

    5. Forgiveness.

    “Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.” ~Unknown

    We often have a hard time forgiving ourselves for our mistakes. Instead of beating ourselves up, we need to appreciate the lessons we’ve learned from our unwise choices.

    Recognize that you did your best with what you understood back then. You are not defined by your past.

    The fact that you are upset and holding yourself accountable shows that you care and that you have reflected and grown from the experience. So it’s time to stop berating yourself and judging your actions.

    Forgive yourself like you would with a friend or a love one. When you forgive and let go of the guilt and shame, you give yourself the power to change your story.

    Last but not least, be your own best friend! Give yourself the gift of being the kind of person you would most like to spend the time with.

    When you catch yourself talking negatively, change it to a more positive and supportive voice. Be nice to yourself.

    You deserve it.

    Gift image via Shutterstock

  • How to Prioritize, Pursue Goals, and Focus When You Have Many Interests

    How to Prioritize, Pursue Goals, and Focus When You Have Many Interests

    Focus

    “A man who limits his interests, limits his life.” ~Vincent Price

    I can’t stay still.

    As a kid, I ran around, misbehaving, climbing everywhere—I was a nightmare for my parents, teachers, and anyone who had to take care of me. One year, my behavior assessment report at school stated: “Leaves a lot to be desired.”

    Through my teenage years, I suddenly quieted down. But my mind didn’t go silent; it still boils inside.

    I crave stimuli. Any time I have a couple of minutes on my own, while waiting in the car or in a queue, for example, I take my phone out and start reading. Or I take notes, whatever keeps my mind busy.

    I have many interests. If I let myself fully indulge in them, I would be all over the place, spread thin like a French pancake.

    Fortunately, I’ve learned to keep them under wraps, like presents that I can open at will. (Although sometimes the wrapping might not hold… I’m only human.)

    I know I’m not alone in my situation. Have you ever asked yourself any of these questions?

    • How can I keep my mind quiet to focus on the one thing that I have to do?
    • How can I stay motivated to pursue one goal and follow through with my plan when I want to do a hundred things?
    • How can I satisfy my many interests with the limited time I have?

    Over time, I’ve learned to deal with these challenges, and fortunately, I’ve found a solution.

    Here is the six-step method I refined over the years. With it, I can indulge in many interests and still stay focused to get things done. It gives me quick results and is highly flexible.

    1. Your must-haves.

    The first step is to define which activities are the most important in your life at this time—activities that stand at the core of the life you want. Examples include: spending time with your family and friends, exercising, reading, listening to music, and traveling.

    Undertakings that are part of your personal growth plan are also important, as they will make you the person you want to become. Examples include: learning new skills, improving your existing ones, starting a side business, and advancing your career.

    All these activities are your must-haves; they are highly important to you and they can have a considerable impact on your life. This is where you will put your full focus.

    Write them all down in a list.

    2. Nice-to-haves.

    Then, decide which other activities you are going to indulge in. What is important for your entertainment or your craving for knowledge? These activities are typically your hobbies, things you love doing like watching movies, playing games, and reading fiction books.

    Write down your nice-to-have activities on a second list.

    3. Clear the clutter.

    Our brain is constantly looking for stimulation. And conveniently, our modern society provides it. It will happily bombard our brain with stimuli through app notifications, endless news, emails, and texts.

    All these stimuli and our relentless quest for instant gratification inevitably bring us to procrastination.

    To get our head out of the water, we have to get rid of the clutter. We need to free time for our must-haves and nice-to-haves. Ask yourself the following questions:

    • What are the activities that you do purely out of habit even though you don’t enjoy them much?
    • What are the things you end up doing because you feel you “should,” even though they are not important to you? (Maybe you’ve been brought up to do them, or peer pressure “compels” you do these things.)
    • What are your typical procrastination activities?

    Here are examples of activities that might typically fall into this category: watching the news, checking Facebook or your email, and watching TV generally.

    Take your time to dig out all these activities and write them down on a third list. This is the list of activities that you should stop doing or do less frequently.

    Keep the list as a reminder in case you catch yourself “wasting” time on these activities.

    4. Get your one-page plan.

    Now that you have your three lists, write down your must-have and nice-to-have activities in a weekly plan.

    Put down the amount of time you will allocate to each of these activities every day or every week; for example: read for thirty minutes every day or exercise for thirty minutes on Tuesday and Thursday.

    Your time allocation for your must-have activities should naturally be more substantial. If you realize this is not the case, you should got back to step 1 and 2 and clarify what is a must-have and what is a nice-to-have.

    5. Track and adjust.

    Now that you have your weekly plan, follow it during a typical week. Try to stick to the time you have allocated for each activity. Then, every day, write down how much time you’ve really spent on all your activities.

    At the weekend, review your week and analyze the data.

    • Did you stick to your plan?
    • Did you spend a lot more time than planned on a couple of activities?
    • Did you manage to clear the clutter, or did you spend time on activities that were not part of the plan?

    Based on your answers to the questions above, make adjustments to your plan for the following week. Allocate more or less time to specific activities where it makes sense.

    Remove activities if you must. Refocus and commit to clearing out the clutter once again.

    6. Experiment, explore, shuffle.

    Your plan is not static. The whole point of the method is to indulge in the activities and topics you’re interested in. So feel free to shuffle your activities around and add new ones at will.

    Explore, try out whatever you fancy, even indulging in cluttering activities to see where it leads you.

    By exploring and experimenting, your will learn more about yourself and what brings you fulfilment.

    You might discover that one activity that you’ve wanted to do for a long time isn’t that exciting and fulfilling once you indulge in it. So you might end up dropping it, with the satisfaction of having tried it out.

    Over time, our interests and goals change; this is why your plan of typical activities will and should be updated on a regular basis, typically once a month.

    Have Fun

    This six-step process might seem pretty regulated, but it doesn’t have to be. Once you’re comfortable with your plan and devoting time to what is important and fulfilling to you, you won’t need to worry about the plan every week. You can then keep your planning to a minimum.

    I am actually not a very keen planner. But the benefits of tracking my daily activities and keeping my mind and life within the bounds I have set for myself overcome the pain of planning.

    A plan keeps you focused and prevents you from feeling overwhelmed by too many activities.

    So I follow a clear weekly plan for my must-haves. In contrast, my nice-to-have activities are more driven by the daily habits I put in place than a strict plan.

    Take ownership of the process and shape it to make it fit within your life. As long as you’re clear on what you want and committed to discovering yourself while trying new activities, feel free to do whatever you please.

    Do what keeps you excited and fulfilled. Have fun!

    Following this six-step system means that I had to drop, at least momentarily, activities that I love in favor of others that are more important to me right now.

    I listen to podcasts in the car for my personal growth, which means I don’t listen to music during my daily commute. I read more non-fiction than fiction books, even though I love fantasy and science fiction. I have reduced the time I spend playing video games, but they are still in my nice-to-have list—I’m a gamer at the core after all!

    In short, I had to make choices. I am happy with the outcome.

    I feel excitement knowing that my activities will keep changing over time. I can enjoy the journey, indulge in my interests, and feed my mind. I don’t feel like I’m missing out.

    The main difference from before is that I’m now in control. I learned to regulate my life to feel more relaxed and focused.

    My mind thanks me. My wife does, too.

    Focus image via Shutterstock

  • What It Really Means to Be Happy

    What It Really Means to Be Happy

    “Happiness is an inside job. Don’t assign anyone else that much power over your life.” ~Mandy Hale

    Everyone wants to be happy, but not many people contemplate whether or not they really are.

    Some of us feel too privileged to not be happy, while others don’t want to face the possibility that we might not be. Here are nine truths about happiness to help you think a little more deeply about what it really means.

    1. It isn’t a feeling; it’s a relationship to life.

    To be human means that we experience a range of emotions. If you were to look at a grid and see a line in the shape of a wave it would be an accurate representation of the human experience.

    We shouldn’t be operating as an even, straight line. That’s what I’d call a robot or someone numbed out.

    Human beings experience emotions in response to life circumstances. That means sometimes you’re going to feel happy, sad, and all the other emotions in between. Embrace it.

    True happiness is not a state; it’s the way we relate to our lives.

    If we’re rooted in unconditional love for ourselves, the world around us transforms.

    We have the ability to express gratitude for all experiences in life. We’re able to sit with difficult emotions without denying ourselves love. We’re able to be with ourselves and with the world in a way that shapes our overall perception of our lives to one of love and gratitude. This is the path to happiness.

    2. It requires a willingness to know the truth.

    I once felt guilty for not being happy. I felt like I had no right not to be happy. After all, I was born into a loving family, I was fed, I was loved, and I was educated. I had so much more than so many people on this planet.

    And then I woke up the truth that I was, in fact, not happy, and to deny that didn’t change the truth.

    I realized that my relationship to myself was the source of my unhappiness. I lived under the illusion that I loved myself by avoiding contemplating whether or not I did. I was able to see that I couldn’t actually be happy until I learned to love myself as I am.

    We have to wake up to our own underlying truths. Anything you’re lying to yourself about is holding you back from true happiness.

    3. You have to be willing to feel pain.  

    True happiness isn’t the expression of happy chemicals floating through our brains. True happiness comes from the willingness to face ourselves. Only through some of my most painful experiences have I come to live in true happiness.

    When I was willing to sit in the despair of my lost love, when I was willing to face the truth that I had become numb from feeling, and when I did the difficult work of healing I came out the other side. Sometimes I felt lighter, but always with a deeper understanding of who I am.

    4. It has nothing to do with whether or not people like you.
 

    Doesn’t it feel great when people like you? It’s like the high school experience I always dreamed of. As I got older and more comfortable with myself, I seemed to attract amazing people into my life. I loved them and they loved me.

    And then someone slipped through the cracks, and I experienced someone not liking me again. It stings, right?

    No one likes not being liked. But it also wasn’t my problem.

    As long as you’re good with who you are deep down and as long as you’re facing yourself each day, it’s not your problem if someone else doesn’t like you. It’s their problem, because more often than not people are reflecting their relationship to themselves.

    When someone doesn’t like you it doesn’t threaten your happiness. Your happiness is yours. It’s your relationship to yourself and your own life. What another person thinks about you can sting, but it doesn’t have to change how you feel about yourself.

    5. It’s what most people are pretending to be.

    Comparing yourself to anyone else is not only futile but also irrelevant. Your concern should be to uncover your own truth and live according to that.

    When you try to be like someone else, you are trying to live according to what you think it means to be happy like them. And the unfortunate truth is that most people are pretending to be happy.

    They may gloat about their successes or perceived achievements. But true happiness is a vibration that is undeniable and needs no proving.

    6. You can’t look for it anywhere outside of yourself.

    You will never find true happiness if you take out a flashlight and start searching. There is not one single thing outside of ourselves that will cultivate true happiness. Nothing. Not another human being whether it be a partner, parent, or child.

    The only place true happiness can emerge from is through the self. We can experience moments of joy and bliss in relationship to other human beings, but true happiness is a result of your connection to your own truth.

    Once you’ve awakened to that, all of your relationships will be more vibrant.

    7. It’s what babies see when they look in the mirror.
 

    I have six younger siblings. Years ago, I remember my three year old sister looking at herself in the mirror. When I asked her if she thought she was beautiful, her eyes lit up as she looked at herself, and without a doubt, without hesitation, she said yes.

    Children are not yet tainted by the judgments of our world. They see that beauty is not physical, that it’s an essence. They look at themselves without judgment.

    It’s the same relationship to self we now have to cultivate. We have to learn to let go of the judgments of others in order to see the truth of who we are: that we are, in fact, that same beautiful baby.

    8. You can’t buy it, drink it, or recycle it.

    True happiness is not a book you can read, lipstick you can wear, or act you can do. It’s almost ineffable. It’s most definitely not any of the things our culture has attempted to brainwash us into believing it is.

    It’s something you have to discover for yourself. It’s something you have to be willing to work hard to uncover. A good place to start would be to let go of all of the ideas that things and ideas are what will bring you to true happiness.

    9. True happiness reveals itself through love.

    In our moments of great deliberation we have two choices: love or fear. Love is not often the easy choice. Love can challenge us. It can make us feel uneasy. Love can actually elicit deep pain.

    Fear is the easy escape route. It’s the choice to express anger instead of vulnerability. It’s the choice to hide instead of face the pain. It’s the decision to push someone away instead of embrace them.

    True happiness will always be at arm’s distance when you choose fear. Choosing love, especially when it’s difficult, is the path to accessing true happiness.

    True happiness is an unwavering connection to your own truth. It’s is a connection to the soul, to the deepest part of ourselves that screams out for us to listen.

    You always have the choice to align yourself with it because your soul is always communicating with you. It’s happening now as you read this. Are you listening?

  • Learn To Flourish When You Are Not In Control

    Learn To Flourish When You Are Not In Control

    Woman Throwing Arms in Air

    “Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don’t.” ~Steve Maraboli

    On December 31, 2011 I experienced something I will never be able to blink away. I watched as my twelve-year-old daughter convulsed, turned blue, and stopped breathing on the floor of our living room.

    Time stood still. I heard my blood whoosh through my ears. I became a helpless observer. This simply couldn’t be happening to us; she was fine only a moment ago.

    I remember the exact moment when I realized that I was thinking that my daughter was dead.

    I will never forget that choking fear that everything in my life had just changed forever. Nothing mattered in that moment other than her. I begged her to breathe for me. I needed her to breathe. Fear dug in hard and wouldn’t let me go.

    After several moments of stillness, she took a very slow breath and then another. Her eyes were vacant and staring beyond me. Her arms and hands still twisted beneath her chin, against her chest. It would be hours before she would know who I was.

    Little did I know this was the beginning of an unimaginable journey.

    While I would lose her to a neurological conditional and medication side effects over the next four years, we would also learn and grow together, find happiness in the little things, and learn how to deal with the things we couldn’t control.

    She was diagnosed with Epilepsy within a few weeks. I was hopeful we could manage this and get on with life. We followed her doctor’s orders diligently, and I was meticulous with her medications.

    She had more seizures. We increased her medications. We changed her diet. I sought out alternative health practitioners and healers.

    Time had a way of slipping by, first in days, then months, and soon years had drifted by without me noticing. We went to the best hospital in the United States and we were told there was nothing more we could do. This was not what I could accept. Instead, I continued to hope.

    Her seizures increased. She couldn’t learn. She slept all the time. Depression and anxiety followed.

    Her medication side effects were brutal, and I didn’t even recognize my daughter anymore. Her beautiful spirit had retreated, held hostage there by the thirty anti-seizure pills she took each day. I knew I couldn’t give up on her.

    As her primary caregiver, I was sleep-deprived, anxious, terrified, and living in fear of the next seizure. She got worse, and I was drowning because I couldn’t control any of it. She required care, supervision and support that I felt I had no idea how to provide.

    One evening, I woke to find her having a Grand Mal seizure in her bed. I sat alone in the dark with her, crying, because I had nothing left to give. I had no way to help her. I had done everything I could and it still was not enough. I couldn’t change things.

    I crawled into bed with her so I could watch her breathe. Exhaustion settled over me, but I awoke with a shot of adrenalin when she began to seize violently against me. Again, I begged her to breathe.

    I crumbled in the fatigue and the stress and knew that something had to change or we were going to be totally destroyed by this.

    Surrender your desire to control.

    In that moment, I knew that I had to surrender my desire to control the uncontrollable. I had tried for four years to manage the things beyond my control. This choice got me nowhere and stole my energy faster than I could refuel. I was now absolutely depleted.

    I had to come to terms that I couldn’t control how long this beautiful child would have on earth. I could not breathe for her. I couldn’t watch her every single moment. This was not for me to determine.

    This was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but it made the greatest impact on my well-being, and ultimately hers, because I was able to show up differently for her.

    In fact, while focusing on my daughter’s health, my son was hit by a car while riding his bike. This was a wake-up call to me that trying to control the uncontrollable was nothing but an enormous energy leak.

    I couldn’t control the seizures, the side effects, or the memory loss. But I could control where I allowed my energy to flow.

    Shift your focus.

    I decided instead to shift my focus. I could control her schedule. I could make certain she got her medications.

    I could get her to doctor’s appointments and scans. I could be supportive and give her my time. I could help her see moments of joy. I could help her with schoolwork. I could be her advocate at school. I could give her more of what she needed between seizures.

    As I began to focus my energy on the things I could control, I regained some purpose.

    I felt more energized. My hope returned. I was less depleted and more strategic. I began to see new options and opportunities where before my fatigue saw nothing but closed doors. I felt a significant shift. I was spending my limited energy stores in a different way.

    Practice gratitude.

    The other thing I did was I began to practice gratitude.

    When you have something so massive pressing down on you, it becomes very hard to not be focused on that. We had been focused on her being sick. We fed the fears. We lived in anticipation of the next catastrophe. We forgot that we still had much to be grateful for.

    I began to look for things every day that brought me joy: the sun on my face, a warm cup of creamy coffee, or hearing my kids laughing in the other room. The more I looked for these lovely slivers of joy and hope, the more I saw them.

    Soon, I was focused on how blessed I felt and the joy that had always been around me but that I failed to see when I was looking the other way. Even in times of struggle, I continued to look for these simple things, and they were always there for me. I just had to decide to see them.

    What this personal struggle ultimately taught me is that letting go of what you cannot control is hard, but holding on to these uncontrollable things and trying to manage them is much harder. My energy was best spent on things that could bring me desirable outcomes, not on trying to hold the wind in an open hand.

    Our journey has taught me that I am in control of my thoughts, and when I pick my thoughts carefully, I can still flourish in challenging circumstances.

    Over four years has passed since this journey begun, and I am pleased to say that my daughter has recently enjoyed a couple months virtually seizure-free.

    We have begun to reduce her medications and introduced homeopathic medicine into her daily care. I am hopeful, energized and optimistic about her future.

    There is no doubt in my mind that had I not surrendered and let go of the things I could not control, I would never have had the energy and focus to continue our fight for a seizure free life.

    I know it is hard, but letting go of things you cannot control does not mean you do not care. It means you understand that letting go can lead you to a happier, less stressful life.

    Woman throwing arms in air image via Shutterstock

  • 5 Essential Practices to Enjoy a Stress-Free Life

    5 Essential Practices to Enjoy a Stress-Free Life

    Calm Man

    “Stress happens when your mind resists what is.” ~Dan Millman

    A troubling thought, isn’t it? That most of us are too stressed out to even sleep through the night. You try to relax and decompress after a stressful day, but all you do is fight with your frustrations and worries all through the night.

    As much as we’d like to, it’s hard to let go of nerve-racking tension. We get caught up in the notion that the world will stop turning if we don’t play our integral part. I know what a burden stress can be.

    When I graduated from college, I moved to south Texas armed with an empty resume and two wildlife degrees. Most wildlife jobs are seasonal. Depending on what was migrating or nesting or being hunted that year, I’d move all over the country working three months at a time. No sooner had I celebrated my new position when I had to dive right into my next job search.

    I didn’t have a permanent address. My home was furnished with whatever I could fit in my car. And I rarely got reliable phone service.

    I was surrounded by breathtaking outdoor views and the wonders of wilderness. But all I could do was stress out wondering where my next housing and paycheck were coming from.

    Eventually, I let myself enjoy everything I loved about nature. But first, I had to relieve the stressors that I dealt with. Here are a few pivotal habits that will help significantly if you’re dealing with stress in your life, too.

    1. Do work you love.

    Your job can be stressful. But not liking your job is different from not liking your life. It takes more than just an income to be happy and stress-free in your life.

    After college, I thought that if I got a job doing something I liked, I’d never work another day in my life. But sometimes the work you love and your job are two separate things.

    I love being outside. I enjoy maintaining trails and outdoor areas for others to enjoy too. It’s how I find solitude. But I realized that I wanted to do it on my time, not an employer’s. Eventually, I found ways to indulge in nature and keep up with the rigors of a demanding job separately.

    One of the best ways to de-stress is to do what you love outside of your job. Whether you indulge in a hobby or a business venture on the side, enjoy the fulfillment of doing something that matters to you.

    2. Take a toxicity vacation.

    Avoid people and situations that inflame you. If you cannot avoid them entirely, take a break from them and decide later if you want to invite them back into your life.

    Toxic people are like bad investments. They rob you of the hopes and dreams you worked so hard for. They’ve got a problem for every solution.

    Don’t waste another minute turning into a nervous wreck over people who stress you out. Instead, take time to relax and de-stress around the people who show you the support and respect they say they have for you.

    3. Declutter.

    Clutter leads to overcrowding. There’s nothing more stressful than feeling like you’ve lost control of the space around you.

    My friend Doronda stressed out over being alone in her forties. By herself in her bedroom one day, she got sick of doing nothing but complain about it.

    She started cleaning the mess under her bed. Pile after pile, she sorted and trashed until she cleared out what she called her “marriage space.” Doronda wasn’t just tidying up. She was reclaiming her space and deciding to stop stressing over dating. Not surprisingly, she met a man soon after whom she still dates to this day.

    Clearing away the clutter gives you a sense of expansiveness and spaciousness. When you feel like you have room to grow, you can relax and relieve stress around you.

    4. Find your voice.

    One of the worst ways to stress out is to hold everything inside. Get a creative outlet. Whether it’s through art, writing, dance, or music—express what’s inside you.

    One of my favorite excuses used to be, “But I’m not a creative person at all.” Using that line absolved me of ever having to risk looking like I wasn’t perfect. But using that line also silenced me. It kept me invisible, like I didn’t matter.

    Just because you’re not Picasso does not mean you’re not creative. It’s time to let go of the stress of feeling invisible and find your unique way to invent being heard.

    5. Just say no.

    Stop stressing yourself out with everyone else’s busy work. Trying to tackle everything that’s thrown at you is like trying to digest an elephant in one gulp. At the end of the day, all you’ve accomplished is swallowing an elephant.

    Don’t worry so much about what you “should” do. De-stressing is all about saying no to what’s not essential for you and yes to all that moves you closer to where you want to be. Address your priorities and say no to the rest.

    —

    Life has de-stressed for me. I’ve enjoyed the same home for almost ten years, I’ve got a job that I love, and I run a consulting business on the side. It took some effort, but I finally subtracted what wasn’t getting me near my goals and added what worked.

    Stress can rob you of your chance at happiness. When is that ever worth it? Do whatever it takes to practice a stress-free lifestyle. Wherever you get your income, fulfill yourself with work you love. Don’t put up with toxic people. Find your voice and be heard. You’ve got a lot of life to live. Why not enjoy it stress-free?

    Calm man image via Shutterstock

  • Turn Your Envy into Inspiration and Cultivate Your Own Joy

    Turn Your Envy into Inspiration and Cultivate Your Own Joy

    Jumping Woman Image

    “Envy is the art of counting the other fellow’s blessings instead of your own.” ~Harold Coffin

    What happens when your neighbor upgrades to a mansion leaving your house in its shadow?

    What do you do when your friend’s business is expanding while you’re living paycheck to paycheck?

    How do you view the blissful couple next-door, seemingly in a never-ending honeymoon phase, while the strife in your household could be cut with a knife?

    Although we are each walking our own journey, as social creatures we tend to compare ourselves to others.  This habit may start in the classroom at a young age—“Look how nicely Johnny is sitting; why can’t you behave more like that?”

    Facebook is the real-time reality show of nearly every one we know. We have friends posting their kids’ achievements, doting anniversary love notes to their spouse, and pictures from exotic summer vacations. We are getting a sneak peek into the lives of others and concomitantly thinking about our own.

    While these comparisons can be a slippery slope leading us down the rabbit hole of “never enough,” we can also use this tendency to our advantage.

    When Difficult Emotions Happen to Good People

    Oftentimes, when a moment of envy emerges we push it aside, deny it, or fall into the pit and drown in it. Is there any other choice?

    A good friend was telling me about the lavish interior-decorating project under way for her brand new, sparkling apartment. I remember feeling a sincere desire to be happy for her. But as much as I tried to evade the truth, I was envious.

    Taking a deep breath and a moment of reflection, I nurtured those feelings inside me. I wasn’t envious because I’m a bad person or secretly wished for the demise of my friend. I was hurting because I was unknowingly aching for a beautifully designed home to call my own.

    Compassion and love toward myself was the antidote; I decided to spend the next few months creating a home that brought me joy.

    In order to achieve greatness we must utilize both our positive inclinations and our negative inclinations for our own benefit.

    Here is how envy can be both helpful and healing:

    You see our friends’, neighbors’, or colleagues’ good success and feel a pang. Question that emotion. What is leading you to feel that way?

    If my colleague got the promotion and I didn’t, perhaps I can take an internal audit and determine in what ways I can be a better employee. On the other hand, I may not even be in a profession that is suited to my personality.

    About eight years ago, I traveled around Israel and Thailand for nine weeks. I remember sensing that one of my best friends was feeling a tad envious of my voyage around the globe.

    Can a relationship tolerate a certain degree of envy? Yes, as long as we channel it in the right direction.

    A year later, she went on her own trek to visit her brother, who was teaching English in Cambodia at the time. Rather than sinking into her own envy, she channeled it to propel her life and actualize her dreams.

    As long as we realize that we do not need to burst someone else’s bubble but instead can cultivate our own joy, we are able to utilize any emotion to our benefit.

    When other people achieve a goal or a certain level of success, envy is not about wanting to take that away from the other person. Rather, if we learn to honor our emotions, we can discover hidden treasures within ourselves.

    We can rediscover new passions and dreams that have gone neglected. We can become aware that we unconsciously seek a better relationship with our spouse or kids. We may realize that we have a desire to be a leader in the community.

    Instead of focusing on the other person, we can look inward, set our goals, and get to work. The question then becomes, how badly do we want it? How hard are we willing to work for our lives?

    Even if we don’t reach our goal, when we do everything within our ability with the cards we are dealt that is the truest measure of success, regardless of the results.

    Maybe We Have Exactly What We Need

    It also helps to consider that maybe we have exactly what we need.

    Consider a seed planted in the earth. Mother nature places that seedling in dirt, sometimes in harsh terrain and inclement weather. Beneath the surface, the seed must break, rip, and tear open in order to fulfill its purpose.

    How do we know what the universe is sending our way in order to rip open our unique potential? With this in mind, there is no longer a need to compare. Each seed is given the nutrients it needs in order to grow.

    Happiness Magnified

    There is the common saying, that nobody’s life is perfect. Another person’s situation may look good from the outside but there is always something beneath the surface, a challenge that we don’t know about, or a skeleton in the closet.

    Yes, each person does face his or her unique set of challenges, but that way of thinking always rubbed me the wrong way. This belief almost lends itself to wishing challenges on another person. I believe we can do better than that.

    We can elevate our thinking to realize that success and positivity in the lives of those around us only leads to a cycle of happiness in our own lives. When we can truly rejoice at our friend’s wedding, our family members’ success, or at another’s accolades, then the happiness we feel is only magnified.

    When we live in a way so that other people’s joy only adds to our own, how much happier can our lives get?

    We may not be married, but isn’t it inspiring to know that such true love is possible?

    We may feel stuck in our own job, but isn’t it motivating to see someone else take a risk and go after his or her dream job?

    Perhaps we didn’t have the best relationship with our own parents, but doesn’t it strengthen your faith to know that incredible parental bonds still exist?

    We easily feel empathy when a loved one is going through a challenge. Now is the time to feel the joy of others. By doing so, we create a circle of light in our own lives and increase our own happiness.

    By changing our filter, our thoughts, our own abundance is increased exponentially. We can use every single emotion in our tool chest for the betterment (not embitterment) of our own lives.

    Jumping woman image via Shutterstock

  • 5 Lessons on Living a Happy Life from Hiking in the Himalayas

    5 Lessons on Living a Happy Life from Hiking in the Himalayas

    Man Hiking in Himalayas

    “All seasons are beautiful for the person who carries happiness within.” ~Horace Friess

    This year I felt a calling to explore the beauty of nature in a different way. I enrolled in a program where I would be hiking in the Himalayas.

    I would be living in camps and guest houses, away from any communication or technology, and even away from almost all people. I would not have a shower or “standard” toilets, and I would experience a different lifestyle for some time where very limited resources are available.

    My heart is full of gratitude for what I experienced during those two weeks over there. Not only did I meet wonderful people in my travel group, but also interacting with the locals was an eye opener for me.

     I reconnected with the meaning of true happiness.

    The simplicity of their way of living made me question my own needs.

    The kindness of their hearts made me realize that we are really connected and capable of sharing, even when we don’t have much for ourselves.

    Their strength while facing challenging weather conditions made me realize that I too had the power to become stronger, and that I could overcome any obstacle in life.

    Today I want to share with you five valuable lessons I learned while I was there so you too can live a happier life.

    1. Simplicity amplifies.

    The less you have, the less you worry and the more you appreciate what you do have.

    When I was living in the guest houses I didn’t consider the local people poor.

    The truth is, they had limited resources and they would spend most of their year in the cold weather, eating what they harvested, and the rest of the time harvesting their fields, taking care of their cattle and living a very simple life with what they had.

    But they’re happy. You can sense an inner peace that is not present in the busy streets of London, where we are supposed to “have it all.” I believe that when there is less to choose from, there is more to value.

    2. Love is all around.

    When we open our hearts to truly feel and see love, it’s very easy to recognize random acts of kindness. In the Himalayas, people who don’t know you help you cross a river. People get help when you’re stuck in the middle of the mountain.

    It might be easier to notice when you are away from the buzz of the city, but random acts of kindness are everywhere if you start paying attention to them. You might notice a person offering a seat to someone on the bus, or holding the door open for you when you have your hands full.

    You might also want to start thinking about how you can be kinder to others or perhaps acknowledge kindness shown toward you more often. Kindness leads to happiness. The more you accept help from others, and the more you offer help to people in need, the more kindness and happiness you will experience in your life.

    3. You don’t need wings to fly.

    Fly where? Fly to achieve your dreams, feeling connected to the possibility of achieving something you truly want.

    When there is an obstacle, but there is enough will and persistence and you believe in yourself unconditionally, you can truly fly and reach for the stars. It all starts with self-belief.

    When I started believing that I was strong and I could actually climb mountains and go farther than I initially thought, things became possible. Of course, belief didn’t make me an expert climber overnight, but it enabled me to take a chance and push myself to learn and grow.

    So, my question is: What do you want to achieve? Start believing in yourself first and everything else will follow.

    4. Don’t keep expectations.

    Several things didn’t go to plan on my trip. For example, we ended up hiking for fewer days than originally planned because the weather changed unexpectedly, and that caused several delays, which affected our route. Now I feel that it was a blessing rather than a curse.

    It allowed me to practice living in the present moment and avoiding disappointment.

    There will always be situations where things don’t go to plan or are out of your control. Clinging to your expectations only brings worry, suffering, and unnecessary drama. When you live in the present, you allow yourself to flow with the unexpected and learn from the situation.

    By being fully present and not hanging on to expectations, I was able to enjoy and immerse myself in the experience rather than holding on to negative feelings. I had extra time to reflect on things that were important to me while I was waiting for the rain to stop. Rather than feeling disappointed, I asked myself: What can I learn from this?

    On this trip, I also discovered that I love hiking—and, rather than seeing the inclement weather as completely negative, in the end it became a motivation to start hiking more once I returned to the UK.

    5. Life is short. Live it now.

    When we leave our regular environment, especially when we go on vacation, far from our routine, many questions arise. What am I doing with my life? What do I truly want?

    For me, being in nature is like being in a meditative state. I get time to reflect and evaluate the direction of my life.

    And I know that life is short. We don’t know how long we are going to be on this planet, so each time I remind myself about the things I truly want to do before I die, and I re-plan to make them happen. Don’t wait for tomorrow; it might not come.

    —

    Happiness is not something you can measure, but you can feel it by sharing your heart with others. We can improve our lives through simple things such as walking in nature, meeting kindred hearts, or living in the moment and learning from what might have gone wrong.

    I know that I will be trekking more paths in this life. Life is a journey of discovery. In each step we take we learn new things and we grow. That growth is what brings true meaning and happiness to our lives.

    Man in Himalayas image via Shutterstock

  • Are You Settling for Less Than You Deserve in Your Relationship?

    Are You Settling for Less Than You Deserve in Your Relationship?

    Couple Facing Each Other

    “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” ~Alexander Graham Bell

    It was around six years ago that I faced the moment of truth. I was sitting on my meditation pillow, having spent the last few moments in deep contemplation about my current state of affairs. I was satisfied with practically every area of my life except for the one that meant the most to me—my love life.

    About five months prior, my relationship with my boyfriend of almost four years (who I had been certain was “the one”) had ended. Why? Well, let’s just say that we discovered that we wanted different things at the moment. I wanted the walk down the aisle and white picket fence, while he wanted to continue life as a single person (and all that entailed, to put it as delicately as I can).

    Actually, to say the relationship had ended isn’t exactly true. Although we had supposedly “broken up,” we were still in contact with one another. Quite a bit.

    In my desire to be a mature, spiritual, well-adjusted woman, I had decided that maintaining a friendship was the “adult” thing to do. After all, it’s not like I hated the guy—at some point I had actually thought he was “the one.” Why couldn’t we be friends?

    That five-month “friendship” actually turned into five months of emotional turmoil for me, since the “benefits” weren’t as beneficial as I’d hoped they’d be.

    At times I found myself hating him. At other times, I wished that we had never broken up. At times I felt jealous when I found out that he had gone on a date. Then, I would feel like I was being immature for being jealous because I felt like I should have been “bigger” than that. At times I wanted nothing to do with him. At other times, I stalked his Facebook page.

    Still, during this “friendship” period, I couldn’t help but to have the feeling in the pit of my stomach that while he was having his cake and eating it too, I was left with crumbs. (And I’m gluten-sensitive, so cake crumbs are totally not good for me).

    I was taking what I could get because I didn’t know whether I would find another relationship again.

    Finally, that day on my meditation pillow, after months of tears, self-reflection, and praying for my ideal relationship, I had a huge “aha” moment.

    There I was, hoping for the relationship of my dreams, yet at the same time, I was keeping myself anchored to the past. How could I possibly get myself in the mindset of meeting someone new who shared my life goals, when I was spending far too much energy clinging to something that was simply not what I wanted?

    So, I listened to my gut and cut it off.

    I told him that while he would always hold a special place in my heart, I had to let him go fully.

    I told him I wasn’t sure if it would be forever, but I knew that the current state of affairs just wasn’t healthy for me.

    I told him I needed to clear my head entirely so I could understand why I wasn’t moving on like I knew I should.

    I told him I was going to make space for what I really wanted in my life.

    I was taking a stand for myself, knowing I deserved more.

    And thirty-three days later, I connected with my now-husband. (But even if I hadn’t, I know I would be just fine).

    If you’ve ever been in a committed relationship, you know that it can sometimes feel like a pretty courageous act. Think about it—you make yourself vulnerable to another person by putting your trust in him or her. You open yourself up by sharing your hopes, dreams, and worries. And, you do all of this without any sort of guarantee that things will work out in the long run.

    When a relationship just isn’t working out, the thought of letting go of the known yet unsatisfying can feel pretty daunting. But, if like me, you are clinging to something that you know is less than you deserve, I encourage you to draw on that sense of courage to make some changes.

    Whether it’s having the confidence to ask for what you really want, engaging in the character-building work of improving your relationship, or moving on, take a stand for yourself, knowing that you are worthy of happiness and getting exactly what you want.

    Take it from me, being courageous during these moment-of-truth decision points can make all the difference in your quality of life.

    As Zig Ziglar said, “When the wrong people leave your life the right things start to happen.” Are there any wrong people in your life you need to clear out?

    Couple silhouette via Shutterstock

  • How to Hold a Broken Heart (So You Can Get Through It)

    How to Hold a Broken Heart (So You Can Get Through It)

    Broken Heart

    “Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness …This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.” ~Pema Chodron

    I remember a few years ago when I was going through a bad break-up. It wasn’t the longest relationship of my life or even the deepest. But it had so much potential and it ended in the most cursory of ways.

    Already a few drinks deep, I FaceTimed a friend who lives in D.C. and we had a long-distance whiskey together. As I teared up I asked him a favor, prefacing it as such: “I’m guessing it’s the case. I know this sounds dramatic. But I need you to tell me that I’ll find ‘the one’ and settle down at some point.”

    He looked at me, paused, and said something I’ve never forgotten. He said, “You will love again. That I know. Whether it’s one person for a long relationship or many people with shorter ones, I know you will fall in love again.”

    As a long-time Buddhist practitioner, I have studied and experienced the heart’s amazing resilience and ability to rebound and offer love, again and again. Yet my friend’s words hit me in a new way.

    I began to realize that the ability to love is innate. We love love. We all want to love, and while there are times when we feel devastated by loss, the heart ultimately heals and once more shines forth, hoping to connect anew.

    And maybe that means we love one person for the rest of our days, or many, but the heart’s ability to love is not something I have ever questioned since. That said, when you’re broken-hearted, it’s hard to contact your ability to love unconditionally.

    Now, if you’re like me when you go through a major break-up you have a particular set of things you do to distract yourself from that pain.

    You might hole up and binge-watch a television show. You might drink a lot, either at home or hole yourself up at a local bar with a handful of supportive friends. You might attempt to rebound quickly, filling your time with endless dates or casual sex.

    Whatever your form of distraction may be, you might have found what I found: these distractions are temporary and when your show ends/you sober up/you wake up next to someone you don’t really like your pain is there bigger and badder than ever.

    In my experience, big emotions like heartbreak aren’t meant to be avoided; they’re meant to be felt. It’s a bit like standing at the edge of the ocean and having a giant wave come crashing down on you. You can kick and fight and pull against it, but it will only drag you further out to sea.

    Instead, you can look at it and dive headfirst coming out the other end, perhaps even feeling refreshed. The same goes for heartbreak. The more you kick and fight against it, the more you will get dragged into the very depths of that misery. The only way is through. You have to let the emotion roll over you like that wave.

    The main practice I recommend is one I do for heartbreak moments both big and small. I place my hand on my heart, drop the story line around the underlying emotion, and rest with the feeling of the emotion itself.

    Instead of getting lost in the mental maze of “Why did she do that?” “How can I get her back?” or “What did I do wrong?” I acknowledge those thoughts then bring my focus back to the emotion that exists right beneath their surface.

    As Pema Chodron says at the beginning of this piece, I let myself go past the anxiety and panic and touch the genuine heart of sadness that exists underneath. From that place of vulnerability and authenticity, I find the energy to once more connect with others from a place of wholeness and love.

    Years after that emotional talk with my friend, when I went through a similar break-up, I knew that the best way to see myself through to the other side of my broken heart was to take the time to rest.

    I would notice the pain of missing that person and the sinking feeling that occurred in my body. When that would happen I would lie down and breathe into it. I wouldn’t entertain the story lines that came up. Quite the opposite—I would return to the sinking feeling.

    And then, as if I had said some magic spell, the sinking feeling would lift and I could go about my day once more. I could connect with others, offering my vulnerable and tender self authentically. By diving into the heart of what I felt, I ended up feeling liberated. Today, I love again. Tomorrow, I hope to do the same.

    Broken heart image via Shutterstock

  • An Ode to Solitude: The Beauty of Just Sitting

    An Ode to Solitude: The Beauty of Just Sitting

    Man sitting on pier

    “I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.” ~Henry David Thoreau

    Meditation makes you realize it’s not so much the silence as it is the not being around people that’s so profound. No human interaction, a human break if you will, is its own simple kind of joy.

    Who knew that as a species who can’t function without the social ties of community, it is solitude that re-charges us and gives us the strength to go out into the big, bad world and interact with that lovely mess I like to call humanity?

    In our hyper connected, overworked, extroverted, always-on-the-go American culture, the very idea of solitude can seem anathema to what we as Americans hold dear. The mere possibility that a person would skip out on social gatherings or not respond to work emails on the weekends because they want some alone time seems downright un-American.

    For most of my life I was (and still am, I admit) a quintessential “busy person.” I pretty much came out of the womb with a list of things on my to-do-list, and as I got older that to-do list became longer… and longer… and longer….

    But that was the way I liked it. Each time I ticked off a box I’d get a sense of satisfaction, a rush not unlike I imagine one feels after doing a line of cocaine or popping some ecstasy tablets. And, as with most drugs, once the satisfaction of accomplishing something on my list wore off, I would work on accomplishing the next thing, chasing that next rush, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum.

    I made the drug comparison purposely, because the constant need to be doing something can feel like an addiction if taken to the extreme. After each line on my to-do-list was checked off I couldn’t wait to add ten more things.

    And, not surprisingly, my incessant busyness was reinforced at every turn. It encouraged me to get good grades and load up on the extra-curriculars in high school, which in turn helped me get into an ivy league school for college, which then helped me get into a highly competitive medical school program… you get the gist.

    But once in medical school I kind of reached a breaking point and realized this treadmill life where I never gave myself a break was not sustainable.

    It was fitting then, that around this time I started to learn about meditation. I find it ironic that in the hyper competitive, fishbowl of an existence that is medical school I found the one thing that advocated the exact opposite.

    Once I started going to meditation classes and getting better at being in the present moment, I began to gain some introspection, which made me rethink this whole busyness thing.

    I actually started to worry a bit about my poor little restless soul and wondered if this is what it was going to be like for the rest of my life. This constant need to fill my days with something—anything—so I wouldn’t have to face the vast emptiness of doing… well, absolutely nothing. It was unfathomable to me.

    Living alone, however, made me change my perspective. As I got older and could afford to live without roommates, this whole world of solitude opened up.

    At first it was terrifying. As busy as I am, even I couldn’t fill every second of my waking days, so the restlessness grew stronger and stronger, until I thought I might explode.

    But once I got past this obsessive need to always be doing something, I loved it. I could just sit, literally. I started to feel like I had all the time in the world.

    Actually, I started to feel like time itself didn’t even exist anymore, and I could just sit there, forever, in my wonderfully empty apartment on my wonderfully empty couch with my wonderful self for company. I noticed that a previously unknown feeling started to make its way into my life. I believe they call this feeling serenity.

    A recent Pew Research Center survey asked: How important is it to you to have times when you are completely alone, away from anyone else? My answer: as important as being around people.

    In all my reverence for solitude, the fundamental truth is that solitude vs. sociability doesn’t have to be an either-or equation. They are both necessary if one wants to be a healthy, functioning adult. It’s just that we as Americans have way more of the sociability than the solitude.

    A wise person once said, “Don’t just do something, sit there.” So take some time out of your busy schedule each day to just be.

    No computer, no phone, no Internet, no TV, no music, no reading, no talking. Just you and your own crazy thoughts.

    Though it may be terrifying at first, you might be surprised at what you find lurking in the deepest corners of your mind. Peace, joy, forgiveness, clarity? There’s only one way to find out.

    Man sitting on pier image via Shutterstock

  • How to Start Setting Boundaries and Prioritizing Your Needs

    How to Start Setting Boundaries and Prioritizing Your Needs

    Woman at the Beach

    “You teach people how to treat you by what you allow, what you stop, and what you reinforce.” ~Tony Gaskins

    I highly value being loyal, honest, empathetic, and supportive. I am also partial to advocating for the underdog. As a result, I have historically attempted to be a ‘hero’ in situations of difficulty, tension, conflict, or stress.

    I take pride in being the person who others can turn to for support, guidance, and empathy after an upsetting experience.

    When a friend was going through a troublesome period, I literally dropped everything to race to her and give her a hand. I drove her everywhere when her car was destroyed in an accident. I sat with her in the car for hours each day and listened to her troubles in the driveway when dropping her home.

    I often answered the phone late at night when this friend was having a crisis. I barely spent time with my husband as I tended to her needs, even when our marriage began to show cracks as a result.

    I would fall prey to her criticism and insults when she was distressed and seemingly needed a ‘punching bag,’ or when I didn’t respond as quickly or as perfectly as she desired. I regularly defended her behavior and tried to cheer her up when she questioned her value as a friend, in an attempt to help her feel better.

    I convinced myself that it was a stage that she was going through and that she needed my support—that despite the emotional manipulation and unreasonable expectations—a good friend would stick by her, no matter what. Besides, she was a beautiful person and a wonderful friend in many respects.

    When another friend wanted to provide a quote on a personal project, despite my intuition warning me against mixing friendship with business, I proceeded out of concern that I’d offend him if I did otherwise.

    When he made a number of errors and contradictions, was significantly late with his submission, and quoted a much higher figure than initially indicated, I continued to reinterpret his behavior and make excuses for him.

    Even upon first hearing that he had then proceeded to lie about conversations and events to others, my initial reaction was to defend him and make excuses for how he might have been misled by other influences (when this was very unlikely to be the case).

    When a single friend who liked to frequently sleep with different women who he met at a bar each weekend suddenly got upset by the fact that he hadn’t met his soul mate, I’d regularly open the door to him at three in the morning if he wanted to have a drunk DMC about his life and situation.

    When a man came at my friends and I with a baseball bat in a Melbourne train station, I tried to reason with him and determine why he was so worked up and how I could help deflate that— before my friends dragged me away to safety in disbelief.

    I could provide many more examples of where I have put the needs of others before my own, to the point where I have been hurt or experienced significant difficulty. I bet that if you’re still reading this article, that you can do the same.

    I thought I was being a loyal, giving, and kind person who continuously chose to see the good in people. I took pride in this, and identified with it being a core part of who I was. But then I started to notice a painful pattern.

    My own health, happiness, needs, and desires were continuously neglected. I was so busy helping others that prioritizing my own needs wasn’t possible.

    I implicitly told people that I didn’t have boundaries, so it was understandably a shock to the system when I tried to put them in place at a later date.

    I also demonstrated that I held an impossible expectation for myself to be perfect in a relationship, and people started to hold me to that level of perfection and expect it from me 100% of the time (even when they did not hold their own behavior to anywhere near the same level or quality that they expected from me).

    And what hurt most of all is that I started to notice that people often didn’t do the same for me. They didn’t risk putting their neck out on the chopping board and they certainly didn’t hang around to fight for our relationship when even the slightest bit of difficulty appeared. When I started to better manage my own energy and space, they would ‘dump’ me in a flash.

    I suddenly realized that I needed to change.

    I needed to respect and value myself and my needs more. I needed to make me a priority. I needed to stop being a martyr. I needed to introduce and maintain boundaries.

    I needed to find a way to balance being big-hearted, loyal, and generous with taking care of myself and protecting my own energy and interests.

    It was a difficult period—a period of adjustments and lessons, that are still continuing to a lesser degree. But at the end of the day, my increased emphasis on taking care of myself was not only good for me, but also for the people that truly loved and valued me.

    But how could it be a good thing, you might ask? You lost friends, you suffered, you learned that many people you loved wouldn’t be there to back you up when you needed them. How is that a good thing?

    Please, let me explain. When I ‘lost’ or better managed those who drained energy from me and disregarded perfectly reasonable personal boundaries it:

    • Freed up more time for me to support and enjoy the company of those who did respect, value and cherish me—those who were uplifting and supportive
    • Led to me respecting, valuing, and honoring myself and my own needs more, which allowed me to feel more energized, vibrant, happy, healthy, and ‘on purpose’ than ever before
    • Allowed me to learn more about myself and what I valued in a relationship and to be more cautious about spending time with people who didn’t align with these values
    • Helped me further fine-tune the art of boundary setting, a skill that I believe can impact on your life in so many ways
    • Encouraged others to start treating me with more respect
    • Inspired others to start taking better care of themselves and their needs too
    • Helped me learn how to say no and to ask for help—two valuable skills to have in your internal wellness toolkit

    The above are only examples, of which I am sure there are many more, of the benefits I have experienced from setting boundaries and learning to prioritize myself and my own needs.

    Now this might sound great in theory, but I know from personal experience how difficult it can be to start setting boundaries and to prioritize your own needs, desires, and dreams. Some suggestions to help you get started include:

    1. Begin to take notice of who you spend your time with and how they make you feel.

    Do you enjoy their company? Do they make you feel supported and uplifted? Do they bring you joy? Or do they deflate you? Make you feel bad about yourself and your character? Suck the energy from you? Perhaps it is time to consider how you manage your time with these people in the future.

    2. Take time out to reflect on and identify your own needs, desires, and dreams.

    Do you have a self-care and me-time practice? Do you make time for activities that you enjoy? Do you feel satisfied with your work, home life, health, or other areas that you value? Commit to making a conscious effort to start prioritizing these areas more in your life.

    3. Actively look for ways to make time for you.

    What can you organize or change in your schedule to make this happen? Where can you find efficiencies or introduce systems that will make time for you? Where could you ask for help or delegate work or tasks to free up time? What items can you cull from your to-do list in order to drop some balls and pick up the self-care ball?

    4. Practice saying no.

    Putting a stop to the automatic “yes machine” and learning to say no are vital steps for setting boundaries and learning to place more value on yourself, your time, and your desires.

    Learning to say no can take practice. I suggest that you start with a ‘buying time’ script, where instead of responding with a clear “yes” or “no” straight away, you tell people that you are busy and that you’ll check and get back to them. This buys you time to formulate a more considered response in line with your own needs and desires.

    At the end of the day, please remember that you matter. Your life matters. Your needs and desires matter. And when you take care of yourself, you are in a much better position to be of service to others and the world.

    In finishing, I’d love to leave you with a quote from Dodinsky that sums up one of the main points of this article: “Be there for others, but never leave yourself behind.”

    Woman at the beach image via Shutterstock

  • How to Regain Confidence After Someone Puts You Down

    How to Regain Confidence After Someone Puts You Down

    Sad man

    “You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anyone.” ~Maya Angelou 

    Have you ever been the recipient of put-downs, snide remarks, or hostile language?

    If you have, your confidence may have suffered a significant nosedive.

    I once attended a summer music camp for young musicians. I was studying the piano and enjoyed playing classical music, but I always had a deep fear of performing in front of others, especially other highly skilled musicians.

    Desiring to overcome this crippling fear, I decided to audition for an upcoming recital. To my surprise, the audition went smoothly, and I qualified to play in the recital.

    Though my performance was far from flawless due to my overwhelming anxiety, I was proud of how I’d faced my fears and completed my performance despite some significant slips.

    Some days later, a faculty member asked me to be a page-turner for him for the next recital. I agreed to do so. After that recital, a fellow student approached me afterward and said:

    “You page-turn way better than you play.”

    After the initial shock had worn off, I tried to brush off the comment. But the voice in my head was swirling with all kinds of thoughts like, “Serves me right for trying to play in the big leagues,” and, “She’s probably right because she is a much better pianist than I am.”

    Her biting words festered in me for weeks and months after the camp was over. I’d lost whatever little confidence I had in my ability to play in public. I’d lost confidence in myself, period. I felt helpless and eventually wanted to quit playing.

    However, with time and perspective, my confidence slowly returned. And after some reflection, I realized that we can take effective steps to mitigate the damage in the face of significant put-downs:

    1. Acknowledge your feelings.

    After the incident, I experienced a series of emotions. My initial surprise turned to anger, which then turned to shame. As I tried to deny the emotions I was feeling, they grew stronger and began to manifest in unexpected and destructive ways.

    My first step back on the path to confidence was to acknowledge the emotions I was feeling. Doing so allowed me to observe them rather than be swept away by them.

    If you’re struggling with difficult emotions after a put-down, acknowledge the feelings. Allow them to pass through you without resisting or attaching yourself to them, always remembering this simple truth: you are not your emotions.

    2. Contain the damage.

    When we’re put-down, our confidence suffers because we over-generalize and make faulty conclusions about ourselves using the internalized negativity of others.

    Regaining my own confidence meant replacing my initial conclusion of “I am a bad pianist” with “I performed that day to the best of my ability.”

    If you’re put down or criticized, confine your feelings about the criticism to the action being criticized rather than making it about you. Do this even when the criticism feels like a personal attack.

    In fact, the more personal the put-down, the greater the likelihood that the incident is more about the other person’s insecurities than it is about you.

    3. Focus on the positive.

    Put-downs can make us feel small.

    Sometimes, they can feel like a powerful vortex sucking you down or like a powerful ocean current that sweeps you under water. It’s tempting to feel like you have no control over how you feel when you’re caught in a hostile situation.

    But you do have power. You can choose to focus on the positive.

    In my situation, this meant choosing not to focus on how small the comment “made” me feel. Instead, I chose to focus on how I was willing to put myself out there and fail in order to grow.

    When you decide to choose your attitude, you’ll create an emotional shield that can withstand any insult. Why? Because you’ll understand the powerful truth that it’s not the put-down that makes or breaks your confidence; it’s how you choose to think and feel about it.

    4. Realize that your worth is intrinsic.

    We all struggle with the tendency to tie our worth to our abilities and the opinions of others. We let our sense of worthiness depend on performance—on the job, at home, and even when we’re just hanging out with friends.

    We exhaust ourselves by constantly trying to measure up to implicit or explicit standards and expectations. But the sense of self-worth we so desperately seek outside of ourselves already resides within us.

    Because I couldn’t play the piano like the person who was judging me, I felt unworthy and useless—despite how well I played. But I’ve learned that my worthiness does not come from my ability as a pianist. My worth is intrinsic to who I am as a human being.

    It cannot be bought or earned, but simply uncovered.

    You do not have to wait to be accomplished in the eyes of others to feel worthy. You can choose to feel worthy right now.

    5. Forgive and let go.

    When someone hurts you deeply with their words, the last thing on your mind at that moment is forgiveness. But your willingness to forgive and let go will lift your spirit and restore your confidence in yourself and others.

    My path back to self-confidence meant forgiving the person who made the careless and hurtful remark to me. This doesn’t mean that I tried to become her friend, or pretended the incident never happened, or demanded she apologize.

    It just meant that I chose to stop holding on to my negative feelings toward her and let them pass through me.

    It meant forgiving myself for allowing the experience to control my life for a time. It meant giving up the comfort and safety of self-loathing that gave me permission to avoid the pain, but also the payoff, of personal growth.

    What past insults are you clinging to right now? Trust that you won’t fall into the abyss if you let them go.

    You Alone Are Enough

    Are you willing to give up years, even decades, of joyful and confident living over mean-spirited remarks?

    Are you willing to believe the lies others tell you so that they can feel better about themselves?

    Are you willing to play small rather than rise to every occasion?

    I didn’t think so.

    Refuse to believe the voices that say you are not intelligent enough, beautiful enough, or worthy enough.

    Because you alone are enough. And only you have the power to bring that realization to life.

    Sad man image via Shutterstock