Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • 3 Words That Can Change Your Perspective and Your Life

    3 Words That Can Change Your Perspective and Your Life

    “Sometimes a change of perspective is all it takes to see the light.” ~Dan Brown

    It was a cold January morning in California when a woman living on the streets uttered three words that forever altered my life.

    It started with my alarm blaring its wake-up call at 6:15AM. I had a Kundalini yoga class at 7:00, but I wanted nothing more than to hit the snooze button. I did. Four times.

    Lying in bed with drowsy eyes open, I silently whined, “Do I have to go? I don’t wanna… Why did I sign up for this?” I was in full resistance when I finally got up and forced myself out the door.

    Rushing to the yoga studio, with my mat under my arm and an unenthusiastic attitude in tow, I crossed the path of a woman on crutches.

    She had a missing leg and was clearly homeless; but rather than ask for money or food, she pointed a finger at me, smiled, and asked, “You going to yoga?”

    “Yes,” I replied.

    Her smile got bigger before she said, “Good for you. You’re lucky.” She continued on her way, but her words, so direct and honest, crippled me momentarily.

    In that moment, I realized something big. Something life-changing big.  I am lucky. I don’t have to go to yoga; I get to go. Those three words—I get to—completely changed how I experience life.

    It wasn’t a fell-swoop change. It took effort and time. It took me being aware of my perspective, even catching myself in the backslide. I learned that if we’ve chosen to do something, there’s a good reason why; there’s something we’ll gain from it, even if we can’t see what that is. Yet.

    After that day I saw how much I categorized things in my life. There was the “have to’s” and the “should’s.”

    And when I lived from that perspective—the one of obligation—it completely stripped me of the fulfillment of all the things, even those I disguised as should’s, that are actually extraordinary blessings. They are things I want to experience, do, and learn.

    Not only that, I was the one who chose to go to yoga in the first place. It’s crazy how all of a sudden my choice had become something that was being forced upon me.

    There are benefits in the choices and decisions we make. And in those moments of have-to’s and should’s, we can shift into an attitude of get-to, which will transform our experience of those moments to being one of choice and a blessing.

    Also seeing everything in life as a ‘get to’ has us focus on the positive benefits. You can apply those three powerful words—I get to—to any experience you feel resistant about. When you do, the resistance turn into liberation.

    Up until that life-altering day, I had been feeling like this beautiful privilege of practicing yoga was something that was being forced upon me like so many other things in life. But really, I was lucky to get to wake up in a warm bed, and lucky to get to walk myself into the yoga studio with two working legs and a healthy body to do my sacred practice.

    Often, we reserve luck to coincidences and random acts, like winning the lottery. But each of us is lucky, in our own right.

    We can apply this same shift of thinking even when there is something that can feel challenging, like working a double shift on a Saturday.

    That double shift doesn’t have to be the thing we grumble about; rather, it can be the thing we appreciate. That shift we get to do on a Saturday means we have a job and money to live.

    While those three words can often shift your attitude to one of gratitude, it can’t fix everything.

    There are some things in life we just have to endure—like being there for a loved one who’s fighting cancer—and that’s okay. We’re only human. Our experiences are never black or white but always a varying shade of alive.

    It’s been about a year since that encounter on the sidewalk, and my world has shifted. In the big-big way. In the way that matters.

    Living from a place of “I get to” and forgiving myself when I slip, which I’m happy to say has become pretty rare, has lessened my inner resistance and created deep fulfillment and possibilities I wouldn’t have seen before.

    I now wake up with more vibrancy and gratitude, reminding myself of all that I get to do, get to be, get to know. Lucky me.

  • How to Free Yourself from the Pain of High Expectations

    How to Free Yourself from the Pain of High Expectations

    Imprisoned

    “Suffering is traumatic and awful and we get angry and we shake our fists at the heavens and we vent and rage and weep. But in the process we discover a new tomorrow, one we never would have imagined otherwise.”  ~Rob Bell

    During my pregnancy, I was the poster child for prenatal health. From taking my supplements and participating in birthing and breastfeeding classes to doing downward dogs up until three days before my birth, postpartum depression never crossed my mind.

    I am married and financially and professionally successful.

    I hungered to be a mom.

    I have a robust community of friends.

    I do not fit the stereotype of who is at risk for postpartum depression.

    And yet, less than six weeks after giving birth to my daughter, I found myself sobbing and shaking on my bedroom floor in the middle of the night—incapable of getting up, incapable of taking care of myself or of my daughter.

    To understand how I found myself in this position, it’s important to understand what happened leading up to my birth.

    From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I began designing the vision for how I wanted to bring my child into the world.

    This was going to be my greatest creative act.

    I would labor at home as long as possible so that I could take baths and walk in my meditation garden.

    When I finally arrived at the hospital, I had an iTunes playlist (think Yanni, Jack Johnson, and Snatam Kaur) that was to play while my husband rubbed lavender and frankincense essential oils over my body.

    I did not want any pain medication. After all, my husband and I trained in hypnobirthing so that he could help me manage my pain.

    I created a lengthy document listing my desires as well as what I most definitely did not want. I posted it in multiple spots in my hospital room and provided a copy to my obstetrician and each nurse who attended to me.

    As you have probably guessed, my birth did not go according to plan.

    From the moment I was told that I needed to be induced because my daughter was in fetal distress, I watched myself move from protagonist to bit player in my birth story.

    Cervical ripening. Pitocin. Ruptured membranes. Epidural. Each of these medical interventions I abhorred the thought of I found myself submitting to as my labor stalled and my daughter’s breathing become more erratic.

    Twenty-seven hours after my induction, I gave birth. Only, I did not feel bliss or even gratitude. I was emotionally exhausted, disappointed, and anxious about what would come next.

    Within a day of my beautiful and healthy daughter entering the world, my cat of thirteen years exited it. As I grieved his passing, I found it difficult to bond with my daughter, particularly as she struggled to latch and my attempts at breastfeeding became futile.

    My fragile emotional health ultimately compromised my physical health. After a lengthy upper respiratory infection and weeks of postpartum insomnia, I began to feel like a dark, unfamiliar force had taken over my body. And I had no will to do anything about it.

    Fortunately, my mother and husband rallied to my rescue. They ensured I received the multiple forms of treatment needed to get back to me while my daughter was provided the nurturing that I could not give her at that time.

    By five months postpartum, I felt whole again. I felt connected to my daughter. Fortunately, she felt connected to me.

    I felt excited about my own and my family’s future.

    Postpartum depression forced me to question everything I thought I believed about what makes me happy, what I want my life and work to look like, and what makes me feel worthy to receive love and happiness.

    I am grateful for these lessons, even though the process to them was painful.

    While I now know that I was unconsciously equating my success and self-worth with my birth experience, strangling one’s self with an unrealistic benchmark for success is most definitely not just a woman’s issue.

    I do not want to allow myself to become prisoner to my expectations ever again.

    And I do not want you to become a prisoner to yours.

    Most of us struggle with how to create an ambitious and achievable vision for what we want for ourselves without getting our identities wrapped up in achieving them.

    Whether we strive to scale a business, negotiate a salary increase, payoff debt, buy a house, or take a family vacation, the key to having aspirations that fuel us, that make us feel good, is shifting our expectations about the outcome.

    First, we want to create goals for how we want to feel as we pursue what we are seeking to achieve.

    Prior to postpartum depression, I had never realized that in both my personal and professional life my goal setting always revolved around achieving something I could check off a list. And unfortunately, whether or not I checked off that thing on my list, was in large part not in my control.

    As a result, my feelings often operated by default rather than by design, and they were directly connected to my outward achievement.

    If we want to set ourselves to do well and feel good, we have an opportunity to set expectations for how we want to feel going through the process of achieving our vision.

    Had I done this during my pregnancy, I would have been lauding myself along the way for feeling healthy, creative, present, and so forth rather than pinning all of my success on the ultimate destination, the childbirth.

    We know from neuroscience that our beliefs shape our thoughts, and our thoughts give rise to our feelings. We have an opportunity to decide we are ready to feel a particular way—i.e., grateful, inspired, or accomplished—and align our beliefs and thoughts accordingly.

    Of course when we are triggered from something unexpected, upsetting, or downright devastating we are entitled to whatever emotional response is evoked. In these moments, we can observe our emotions moving through us without becoming them, or getting stuck in them, until we are back on the path we want to be on.

    When we put our awareness on believing that the feelings we desire can and will happen, it empowers us to have moment-to-moment thoughts (even if there are some occasional interruptions) that support the realization of the feelings we are striving for.

    This, ultimately, gives us a more solid base for realizing our expectations.

    Second, we want to find a way to measure success that goes beyond yes and no.

    To me, a successful childbirth was delivering my child without what I deemed were “unnatural” forms of medical intervention. I now realize how silly this goal was, given that it did not even address my daughter’s health.

    Yet if I were to time travel back or at some point have another child, I likely would still strive to minimize many of the medications and procedures I experienced.

    The key is the word “minimize.”

    I would focus on minimizing medical interventions that were not needed for the emotional, physical, and spiritual health of my child and me.

    That is very different, yes?

    How can you create goals that allow success to be lived in the gray, very important space, between black and white?

    Third, we must surrender in the wake of surprises and setbacks.

    When we surrender, we make peace with what is, and we use our newfound awareness to expand our conscious capacity for how to move forward with grace and ease.

    Note: This is not giving up.

    When we have an expectation that clearly cannot be met, we may grieve the shedding or the reframing of the expectation, but we do not adopt embarrassment, shame, or guilt about what has happened.

    We give ourselves space to awaken to the lesson, and then we incorporate it in how we move forward.

    To recap, if we want to consistently preserve our self-worth and ensure our identity does not become enmeshed in our results, we begin by shaping expectations that set us up to be successful in multiple and holistic ways.

    Then, we pause and pivot when expectations are challenged or outright dashed. We forgive ourselves for whatever role we played in the situation. And no matter what, we remember we are the protagonists in the story we choose to create about our lives.

    Prisoner image via Shutterstock

  • Why It’s Essential to Find Humor During Your Darkest Hours

    Why It’s Essential to Find Humor During Your Darkest Hours

    Little Monks Laughing

    “A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing.” ~Laura Ingalls Wilder

    During my pregnancy with my second daughter, Grace, a routine scan showed that the baby had a rare and serious heart defect.

    From that moment onward, my husband and I started walking along the most challenging, heart-breaking, and grueling road either of us has ever traveled. The journey often saw us cry, but you may be surprised to hear that we laughed a lot too.

    On the day of the scan, the fetal cardiologist spent a long time scanning our baby’s heart. When she had finished, she sat us down to explain her findings. Up until that point, we knew that the problem was serious, but we didn’t know the exact diagnosis.

    She took out a pad of paper and began drawing a detailed diagram of a heart. She then looked up and asked, “How’s your biology?” My husband (who has one failed attempt at a biology GCSE under his belt) looked worried, as if he were fifteen again and she was about to test him.

    “Not good,” he said apologetically. Even in the midst of such a traumatic experience, I found this small part of it funny. So I laughed.

    There’s no point trying to be solemn for solemnity’s sake. Even in the darkest, most trying and difficult moments, I believe if something is funny, you have to laugh. Seize the opportunity to escape the situation, even if for a few seconds, and welcome the release.

    On the day of Grace’s funeral, as my husband and I sat together clutching each other’s hands, the choir began the first song.

    I had never properly heard my husband sing before, and it was the poorest display of tone-deaf screeching I have ever been subjected to. It was also extremely funny, and I couldn’t help bursting into fits of giggles (everyone else thought I was crying).

    You may think me heartless—how could I laugh at my own daughter’s funeral? Believe me, that day was the saddest and heaviest of my life. Minutes earlier, when my husband and I carried Grace’s tiny white coffin into the crematorium, the pain was so intense that I didn’t think I could make it.

    And then suddenly, my husband once again exercised his great ability to make me laugh. The laughter lightened me for a few moments.

    A minute of laughter allowed me to momentarily forget my sorrow, and the heavy burden was temporarily lifted.

    Grace only lived for one day. I will never know the person she would have become. But I do know that she would have loved me, and she would be happy that my laughter helped me endure the pain of losing her, even if it was just for a short period.

    My husband is a very funny man who has me in stitches every single day (so much so that sometimes I can’t even stand up).

    He hides this from the rest of the world, and I feel privileged to be one of the few people he shows this side to. When we were at the doctor’s office and Grace’s funeral, he wasn’t trying to be funny, and yet even during the most difficult of times, he still has the ability to make me laugh.

    When Grace died, many people told me that the burden of grief would probably cause our relationship to become strained and difficult.

    We were given lots of well-meaning advice, and yet our relationship didn’t suffer at all. Indeed, we became stronger and developed an even deeper bond. I think humor had a lot to do with this.

    The ability to laugh every single day, despite our grief, pulled us through our mourning together. I came to admire my husband even more for his strength, compassion, kindness, and (of course) his wonderful sense of humor.

    Laughter is a remarkable healing force, allowing you to forget yourself and bond with the person you are laughing with.

    I have witnessed friends who, when going through tough times, stop themselves from laughing at something (even though I know they would normally find it funny). We have a tendency to halt our laughter because it doesn’t seem right or appropriate, because we might feel guilty if we let it go.

    Laughter is always right and appropriate (as long as it’s not at someone else’s expense).

    In your darkest hours, if you find something funny, allow yourself to laugh. Many studies have shown that laughter and humor have a huge array of benefits, including strengthening the immune system, reducing pain and stress, and increasing energy.

    If you are going through a difficult experience or are generally feeling down, humor may accidentally find you. Embrace it.

    And if you don’t come across it by chance, track down a way you can lose yourself in some proper laughter. Watch a film that never fails to make you chuckle, speak to a humorous friend, or read a funny book. It’s not wrong to laugh when things are tough; on the contrary, I promise it will help.

  • Your Feelings Have Messages for You (So Stop Ignoring Them)

    Your Feelings Have Messages for You (So Stop Ignoring Them)

    Emotions Talking

    “But feelings can’t be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem.” ~Anne Frank

    As a sensitive person, I have a complicated relationship with my feelings. They are the sensors I extend out into the world, to pull it in. They are the guides that help me decide what works or doesn’t work for me. But there are also times when my feelings rise with such force that I am left gasping for breath.

    Then, I am tempted by the thought that not feeling so much would have definitely made things easier.

    And yet, I don’t feel all my feelings. Parts of my emotional life feel numb. For a long time, like many people, expressing anger was extremely difficult for me.

    We’re all like this, whether we think of ourselves as sensitive and emotional or logical and rational. Our emotional lives are a patchwork made up of beliefs we have internalized and things that we have seen modeled.

    We are never taught how to relate to our emotions, and so, we must make our own way through.

    Here are some things I have learned that might help you:

    There is no such thing as a negative emotion.

    We are trained to think of emotions as positive and negative. But in truth, every emotion serves an important function. What would we be without anger to protect our boundaries? Where would we be without fear that tells us that something is wrong? How can we let go of things if we never allow ourselves to feel sad?

    We confuse a negative or destructive expression of a feeling with the feeling itself. Yes, unhealthy expressions can be harmful. But if we banish some feelings and don’t allow them to move through us, we get stuck in places that we belonged to a long time ago.

    These are no longer our reality, but we go on living as if they are.

    Giving up the belief that certain emotions are okay to feel and certain emotions are not okay is the first step to help us process our emotions.

    But many of us don’t even know what is it that we are feeling. How are we supposed to channel something that we can’t even name?

    Expanding our emotional vocabulary can tell us where we are in our emotional lives.

    Think about what happened when you first started learning new words. You had access to a whole new universe. You had a way of naming your experience more precisely than you had before.

    Cognitive psychologists are now finding that a more precise vocabulary (for example, having specific names for light blues and dark blues, as Russian speakers do) helps make people quicker at identifying subtle differences.

    In a similar way, if we can name our emotions precisely, we can identify subtle nuances and hone into what exactly we are feeling. That can help us take the most effective emotional action.

    Karla McLaren, the author of the wonderful The Language of Emotions talks eloquently about the different forms in which one single emotion can show up. Did you know that indifference can be a form of anger? So can coldness, resentment, and impatience.

    In its mood state, anger can show up as sarcasm and arrogance. And of course, we know anger when it erupts in rage and violence. But bitterness is also an intense form of anger, albeit a hardened, calcified form.

    Seeing that anger shows up in different degrees and forms can help us get straight to the heart of the problem.

    McLaren tells us that the question anger poses is: What must be protected? What must be restored? If we are feeling resentful or cold, where have we given too much of ourselves away? What can we do to enforce limits that will make us feel protected?

    If we do this, we catch anger before it morphs into an even stronger form and becomes harder to deal with. We also stay on course instead of getting lost and disoriented about the direction of our lives. For me, the belief that “Nice people don’t get angry” meant that I stayed in an exploitative work situation for several years.

    As soon as anger came up for me, I dropped it. I would work harder, be better till someone noticed me. But what I didn’t realize was that the increasing fear and shakiness that I was feeling was a direct result of rejecting my anger.

    How can you not feel scared and insecure when you have opened yourself up to harm?

    The fear had risen because I had banished the protective energies of anger. I was, indeed, in undefended psychic territory.

    So, fear, another so-called “negative” emotion comes bearing its own important messages.

    My fear took the form of confusion and disorientation. Your fear might take some other form, depending on what the situation is.

    In its diffuse form, McLaren tells us, fear can be experienced as our caution, uneasiness, or instinct. You might feel disconcerted, doubtful, or concerned that something is off. You might feel jumpy, nervous, or suspicious.

    At the root is the same feeling. It’s showing up in different ways, and asking you to probe for answers.

    Is the fear natural? Is it tied to something that is happening around you? What can you do about it?

    But what if you get stuck in one feeling? What if you have repetitive fearful thoughts that don’t track back to real dangers? Then, it’s likely that your feeling response is locked in place.

    This often happens when we have experienced trauma in the past. We remain hyper-vigilant long after the traumatic event is over. If this is the case, we need professional help to release the traumatic material.

    But in the normal course of our days, feelings naturally ebb and flow. They direct our attention to what is happening in our lives. They urge us to take action.

    Venting and repressing feelings are not the only choices we have.

    But what action should we take? Isn’t that the trickiest part of dealing with feelings?

    One of the reasons that I didn’t allow myself to feel anger in my work situation was because I was not sure what I could do with it. Expressing it felt dangerous, because I had stored up so much emotion. Repressing it felt like the only other thing to do.

    Many of us get stuck in this tricky space.

    We keep hearing that the only way out is through the feeling, but doing that doesn’t seem viable without expressing it and hurting someone or harming something in the process.

    One of the ways that I am learning to work with my feelings is to first consciously experience the feeling myself. One way to safely release anger, for example, is to beat pillows for ten minutes or so. That lessens the intensity of the rising emotion.

    Another practice that McLaren suggests is called “conscious complaining.” You sit all by yourself and complain loudly about all the things that are going wrong in your life. Again, we are attempting to use up some of the energy of the feeling, and move it out of our systems.

    For fear, we can put on some music and imitate the shaky energy of the feeling, and lessen the burden that it is putting on us physically.

    Remember that emotions, by their very definition, are energies that move us to take some action. So, a physical release is important.

    Something is rising, and we are letting it move us. We are now just choosing that movement consciously.

    Once we have released some of the energy of the emotion, we can then think of what action we can take to address the issue that it has brought up. For example, if we are angry, how can we restore the boundary?

    One important realization I had about anger was after reading Harriet Lerner’s book The Dance of Anger. In it, she tells us that venting anger is often ineffective. We are trying to convert someone else to our point of view. If they don’t agree to what we are saying, we often get stuck in the space of trying to get them to agree.

    Believing that we need agreement is what keeps us stuck. We are, in effect, maintaining the status quo.

    If it’s something important to us, a limit we are choosing to place, then we don’t need permission. What we need is the clarity and courage to enforce this limit and to deal with the anxiety that rocking the boat often brings.

    This emotional process has been a learning curve for me. It is not easy and I often falter. But whenever I can experience my feelings and move through them, I feel a sense of ease.

    I guess it’s because I am not invalidating my experiences. I am owning them, letting them speak their truth.

    What about you? What will opening to all your own feelings do for you?

    People talking image via Shutterstock

  • Let Other People See the Awesome Person You Are

    Let Other People See the Awesome Person You Are

    You Are Awesome

    “Sometimes I panic; what if nobody finds out who I am?” ~Billy Joel

    At home, you want to go out and be social. When you’re out being social, you want to go home and be alone.

    At home you feel free, joyful, and ambitious. You’re smart, funny and insightful. Out in the real world, you’re quiet, non-confrontational, and you struggle to connect with others.

    That person you remember from being home alone is a thousand miles away, and you feel like a shell of yourself.

    Does this sound like you? Why does this happen? Who are you really? How will anyone ever know how you feel on the inside?

    First, some good news: All of those wonderful thoughts you have about yourself? They’re true. How smart, funny, and attractive you are? Yes, yes, and yes. I’m not just blowing smoke. We all are amazing at our core, at our true essence.

    What about the negative thoughts? Are those true, too? Here’s more good news: No, those are misconceptions. Simply misunderstandings and wrong interpretations of life situations.

    You know, and I know, that the real you—you at your core—is awesome. If you feel compelled to read on, then this is ringing true for you. Good.

    For years in my teens and twenties, I felt this wonderful person inside me at all times. I was most able to connect with this person when I was alone. This made me an introvert, I suppose. But put me out with people or in a crowd, and I lost that person.

    He was nowhere to be found—hidden behind a plethora of uneasy thoughts and the desire to escape and be alone again.

    At parties, I was the guy who found a quiet spot and stayed there. Unless, however, I was drunk, which was the only way I let my guard down enough to let people see who I really was.

    And that’s exactly the key here—letting people see who you really are.

    As kids, we all did this quite easily. We had not yet learned to censor ourselves or hide our true feelings. We had not yet learned to fear for our well-being in social situations and cope with that by putting on masks or pretending to be things we’re not.

    I specifically remember as a teenager, that going into tenth grade, I made the firm decision to be someone I was not. I pretended to be more social, more outgoing, and more confident, but it was all an act.

    I felt like a fraud. It wasn’t based on true feelings of confidence and the desire to connect with others. It was based on not wanting to be socially ostracized or bullied. I did my best to imitate the behavior of others, and it was exhausting. I preferred to be alone.

    Due to the positive feedback I received from my peers, however, this new effort became an unconscious habit. I spent years and years automatically hiding who I really was, and giving people only a shell of what I am or how I think.

    Shockingly, many years later, I realized that nobody really knew me. And looking back, whose fault was that? Mine. I took my short-term survival tactic of not being myself and made it a lifestyle. It was a Band-Aid that I adopted as a permanent part of my skin.

    So how do we change this now? It’s a pattern so ingrained in ourselves that many of us aren’t even aware we do this. It’s just “normal.”

    So the first step is to become aware. Are you the same person out and about that you are at home? Do you want to be? Great, we’ve gotten that far.

    Next, what’s preventing that? The awesome person we feel like inside—what’s preventing us from letting others see that? The answer is our fears.

    What are fears? At their core, just thoughts. For example, social ostracism. It feels unsafe to be a social outcast, which is why many people seek to avoid it.

    So what if you change your thought about this? What if you began to think, “It’s okay and it’s safe not to fit in with certain groups”? When you change your thought about this, your fear will dissipate. Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly.

    Once you reach a certain level of awareness, further thoughts and realizations will dawn on you as never before.

    You’ll realize that it’s emotionally painful to subject yourself to the company of people who won’t accept you for who you are. Shortly after that, you’ll come to understand that the awareness and pain are really first steps toward finding those who will accept and appreciate you.

    And it’s fine that some people won’t accept or appreciate you. That’s just life; nobody is perfect. It’s best to let that go and move on to better things.

    These new understandings will have a momentum all their own, and each one will transform your mind, piece by piece, to a new place and a new feeling.

    If you’re the kind of person that can change their mind wholeheartedly on a dime, you can move forward quickly.

    If you’re the kind of person who has to stick their toe in the pool first to gauge the temperature, then their knee, then their leg, it’ll take some time and trial and error for you to commit to changes in thought.

    But once you’ve changed your thought, once you’ve removed your fear about letting others get to know the real you, you’ve opened doors and windows to who you really are—that wonderful, witty, loveable person you’ve always known yourself to be.

    In time, the gap you feel between when you are alone versus when you are out and about with people will shrink. You’ll even consider thoughts like “maybe I’m not really an introvert,” as your desire to let people connect with the real you grows.

    As a bonus, you’ll make stronger, deeper connections with people, because the connections will be with the real you, not a shallow exterior you’ve held onto for so long.

    Many of your current relationships will change for the better, and you’ll begin other relationships anew. These bonds, and the newfound ability to express the real you and let others see it will increase your enjoyment of life and positively affect your experience of it. Your life will be forever better.

    You are awesome image via Shutterstock

  • 7 Habits That Keep You Strong (Even When Things Go Wrong)

    7 Habits That Keep You Strong (Even When Things Go Wrong)

    “I’m stronger because of the hard times, wiser because of my mistakes, and happier because I have known sadness.” ~Unknown

    It’s happened to most of us.

    Despite our best intentions, something goes dreadfully wrong.

    You suffer a heartbreaking loss, make a terrible mistake, or get blindsided by an injury.

    In disbelief your mind cries, “Wait. What?”

    And then, “No, no, no, this can’t be happening.”

    After the initial shock, when the surge of stress hormones has subsided, you realize that yes, this is happening.

    And you can’t help thinking: “But how could this happen? It’s not fair. I can’t bear it. Why me? Why now? How will I ever get through this?”

    Your mind is reeling. You feel anxious and dejected.

    Well, something like this just happened to me too.

    After eight days away and a grueling fifteen-hour return trip, my husband and I were relieved to finally arrive home at 1:00AM on a Wednesday.

    But as soon as I opened the front door, I knew something was terribly wrong. My beloved cat Tiffany had come to greet me, but she wasn’t purring in her usual comforting way.

    She was yowling in distress in a way I had never, ever heard before.

    “Wait. What? What’s wrong, what’s wrong?”

    And then somehow, I just knew. I ran further into the house and discovered evidence that confirmed one of my worst nightmares.

    My trustworthy, longtime pet sitter had not been in to care for Tiffany.

    My sweet, sixteen-year-old cat had been home alone with no food, water, or heart medication for eight days. How was she even still alive?

    As a devoted animal lover, witnessing Tiffany’s trauma and subsequent physical and mental decline has been heartbreaking for me.

    I’ve had plenty of negative, angry, and despairing thoughts vying for my attention over this. And I definitely felt weakened by the experience.

    But as soon as I could, I consciously returned to the habits I’ve created over time that keep me strong no matter what shows up in my life.

    1. Use your power of choice.

    No matter what your circumstances, you have the power to choose your direction and how to use your energy. You can choose to use your energy in positive, productive ways or in negative, destructive ways. Either way, the choices you make now determine your future.

    As soon as I opened my front door and saw Tiffany’s suffering, I had some choices to make. I could choose to stay devastated, distraught, and depressed. Or I could choose to embrace the miracle that my cat was still alive and empower myself to give her the loving attention she deserved.

    Practice choosing to focus your energy in positive directions until it becomes a habit. Once it does, you will be more empowered and experience less trouble in your life. You will feel like you are living on purpose, taking charge of your direction rather than viewing life as something that just happens to you.

    2. Accept what is, no matter what.

    Practice not mentally labeling what happens as good or bad; just let it be.

    Accepting what is, instead of judging it, puts you in a state of inner non-resistance. You can still want to change things, but you have a calmer attitude, and any action you take to improve your situation is more effective.

    I rated my Tiffany’s circumstances as terrible at first. But by quickly accepting the situation instead of raging against it, all my mental and intuitive energy was available to discern what she needed most so that I could help her right away.

    Allow things to be as they are rather than resisting them. Once this becomes a habit, you’ll find yourself calmly thinking of effective solutions for problems that used to be overwhelming.

    3. Be grateful.

    Besides enhancing your everyday life, finding things to be grateful for can help you cope during hard times by giving you a wider perspective that helps you feel less overwhelmed by difficult circumstances.

    An eight-pound, sixteen-year-old cat with a heart condition could easily have died from such a trauma. So I had three things to be grateful for that night.

    First, Tiffany was still alive. Second, I got home just in time to rescue her. And third, I was grateful that my pet sitter had taught me to leave extra water out when going on a trip. This is probably what saved Tiffany’s life.

    Practice focusing on what’s going right. Notice things to be grateful for every day. Soon, finding something to be grateful for will become your automatic response to anything that happens. And eventually you’ll find that your gratitude habit brings more joy into your life.

    4. Neutralize the negative.

    Sometimes our thinking is directed by our inner critic, who can say some harsh things. But when you pay attention, you can recognize unhealthy thoughts and change them to more positive statements.

    My inner mean girl spoke up that night. “Tiffany counts on you to keep her safe. How could you let this happen?”

    I immediately cut this off by replacing the unhelpful thoughts with words I often say out loud to my sweet cat: “I love you, Miss Tiffany.”

    Always question your negative thoughts, and practice changing them to positive, helpful statements. Once this becomes a habit, you’ll find that negative thoughts lose their power to upset you. Over time, you will be able to more easily let them go, and your mind will become more peaceful.

    5. Return to the present moment.

    As human beings, one of our favorite mental activities is to get lost in thinking about the past or the future.

    Remembering to bring your attention back to “now” sweeps the debris from your mind and returns you to a state of simplicity.

    Throughout that long night, I did my best not to get lost in thoughts of how this could have happened or what Tiffany’s health would be like from then on. I just kept bringing myself back to the present moment with, “I love you, Miss Tiffany.”

    As you go about your daily activities, keep your full attention on whatever is happening here and now rather than getting lost in thought. Once this becomes a habit, you will be more connected to your inner wisdom. You will notice that decisions are easier to make, and life begins to flow more smoothly.

    6. Trust yourself.

    It’s better to trust in your own feelings and intuition—even if you make mistakes along the way—than to look outside yourself for guidance.

    Even though this felt like an urgent crisis, I took my time considering the options.

    I could put Tiffany in the pet carrier and go for a forty-five-minute drive to the emergency veterinary hospital. Or I could quietly care for her myself for a few more hours until my local vet’s office opened.

    It was the middle of the night, and she had already been through so much. My intuition said that keeping her home would be less stressful, so that’s what we did.

    Remember to always tune in to your inner wisdom for help. Once you make this a habit, you will feel less stressed and more positive. You will have a sense of inner security and self-contained confidence that is not based on the approval of others.

    7. Forgive.

    True forgiveness means that you accept the reality of what happened without an emotional charge. You recognize the healing and growth you have achieved from working through the upsetting experience, and you wish healing and growth for the other person.

    My pet sitter was distraught by her scheduling mistake and begged me to forgive her. I knew she would never intentionally cause harm to any living thing. I also knew how devastated I would be if I was the one who had made such a mistake.

    And so I did. I forgave her.

    Practice forgiving others and releasing the toxic resentment that hurts your heart. Forgive yourself too; we all make mistakes at one time or another. Making a habit of forgiveness frees you to move on with your life and experience higher levels of inner peace.

    You: Calm, Clear, and Confident

    Life’s hard when things go wrong.

    Feeling shocked, anxious, and dejected is no fun.

    But practicing these habits when times are fairly good will enhance your life and help you stay strong during the hard times.

    Imagine being in the middle of a disappointment or a crisis and being able to move swiftly through the shock and stress rather than getting stuck there.

    Imagine feeling calm, clear, and confident during difficult circumstances instead of confused and overwhelmed.

    Imagine even reaching a state of inner peace as you take action to make things right again.

    Some of these concepts are easier to turn into habits than others, and they all take time to master.

    But if you will pick even one and start practicing, you will become stronger, wiser, and more resilient no matter what life throws at you.

    If I can do it, you can too.

  • 5 Ways to Experience the Kind of Love You See in the Movies

    5 Ways to Experience the Kind of Love You See in the Movies

    Love Is in the Air

    “Maybe it’s not about the happy ending. Maybe it’s about the story.” ~Unknown

    Growing up, I often pretended my life was a movie, and created quite a few awkward situations by trying to force real life to look like a romantic comedy.

    In the movies, everything was so electric.

    People didn’t just care about each other; they adored each other. They didn’t just date; they had a montage of amazing memories, complete with tandem biking, skipping, hand-in-hand, in a field of flowers, and dancing in the rain.

    That’s the kind of love I wanted—the intense, always exciting, never disappointing, made-for-the-big-screen kind.

    And I was willing to fake it ‘til I made it.

    I remember this one time when I was dating someone who quite obviously didn’t care for me. (I gravitated toward a lot of men like that back then. My Pavlovian response to disinterest? Obsession, every time.)

    I told him I didn’t think we should see each other anymore, hoping he’d put his finger on my lips to silence me, then kiss me after realizing what a huge mistake it would be to let me go.

    That didn’t happen, but I still held out hope for a cinematic realization that we were meant to be.

    I left his family-owned restaurant, got ten feet down the street, then turned around, ran back in, leapt into his arms, and said something horrifyingly cheesy, like, “You complete me! I’ll never let go!”

    I didn’t have to. He let go. And then pushed me away. And probably filed me under “crazy stalker” in a mental folder for girls he’d never call again.

    (Somehow those lines sound a lot less worthy of a restraining order when said by Renee and Kate.)

    I’ve since realized that I fixated on romantic love because I was trying to fill a massive void that stemmed from low self-esteem. And I inadvertently repelled men with my neediness, obsessive behaviors, and lack of self-awareness.

    I’ve also come to learn that the type of romance depicted in these comedies differs from real love—and that we need to complete ourselves first if we ever hope to experience it.

    Real love isn’t about finding your one and only soul mate, sweeping them off their feet, and maintaining a fantasy worthy of popcorn, soda, and waterproof mascara.

    Real love is messy. It takes effort, sacrifice, and compromise. It entails both highs and lows—moments both extraordinary and ordinary.

    And it’s not reserved from romantic relationships. It’s what inspires us to hold a door for an injured stranger, hold a friend’s hair when she’s battling cancer, and hold a parent’s hand when he’s taking his last breaths.

    It all comes from love. Different flavors, of course, but love nonetheless.

    All this being said, I still want to experience the kind of love you see in the movies. Not the romantic kind (though I’ve always wanted to dance in the rain).

    I’m talking about something altogether different, but equally magical and transformative.

    It’s the kind of love that creates a world so beautiful, we don’t need escapist fantasies.

    The kind of love that fills us with something far greater than lust and euphoria.

    It’s something we can all experience by doing these five things, and in doing so, create a better, kinder, more loving world.

    How to Experience the Kind of Love You See in the Movies

    1. Save the cat.

    In his definitive guide to screenwriting, the late Blake Snyder instructs writers to introduce their movie hero with a “save the cat” moment—meaning the hero does something kind, which makes the audience like and sympathize with him or her.

    While there’s no one whose sympathies we need to earn, because we’re (hopefully) not being watched, we can all create a better, more loving world by looking for these “save the cat” moments.

    It’s when you step in to defend someone who’s being bullied, or grab an extra sandwich for the homeless person sitting outside, or take a little time out of your busy day to help someone who’s struggling—with anything; homework, a heavy bag, or a heavy heart.

    The best way to experience love is to be willing to give it. We can do this every day—no field of flowers required.

    2. See the good in people.

    In a world where we’re constantly bombarded with bad news, it’s easy to become jaded. It’s tempting to assume the worst in people and live behind a metaphorical suit of armor, ever ready for someone to do something that justifies our cynicism.

    But when we constantly look for the worst in others, we miss out on the best.

    You can certainly find your fair share of cynics in the movies, but for most Scrooges, there’s a transformation—a shift in their fundamental beliefs that changes how they engage with the world, thereby changing the world they experience.

    If we want to see a world of beauty, hope, and kindness, we need to be willing to look for these things.

    This doesn’t mean we should ignore the harsh realities of life; to create positive change, we need to first acknowledge what needs changing.

    It just means we open our eyes to see those “save the cat” moments when they happen. People do good things every day. If we want to nurture a loving heart, we have to recognize and appreciate them.

    3. Inspire the best in others.

    We’re more likely to see the best in others if we proactively aim to inspire it. It’s not always easy to do this; unlike in the movies, the Jerry Maguires of the world don’t always get the business and the girl in the end.

    But we’re all drawn to people with visions—people who put other people before profits, people for whom integrity is more important than notoriety.

    When someone stands for something good—something that benefits not just that person individually, but the world at large—it touches something inside us, and motivates us to devote ourselves to a purpose that can help create a better world.

    Choose a purpose—maybe not for your lifetime, but for this time in your life. Write your “mission statement.” Wrap your love around a cause. Aspire to make a difference, no matter how big or small, and you will.

    4. Check your ego.

    As story consultant Jen Grisanti wrote in her Tiny Buddha post, in the best movies, the protagonist starts with an ego-based desire—to get the job, or revenge, or adoration and admiration—and ultimately reevaluates their goal to better serve and connect with others.

    It’s when Bruce Almighty stops obsessing on being a successful news anchor and instead, becomes a loving, attentive partner to his fiancé, and someone who actually appreciates reporting on good people doing good things.

    We all have goals and ambitions, even those of us who consider ourselves spiritual. For some of us, those ambitions might be more about making a living or making ends meet than making a name for ourselves.

    But many of us are chasing a feeling, whether we hope to feel worthy, valued, or important. Ironically, the things we chase, when caught, often leave us feeling emptier than when we started.

    To truly feel fulfilled, we need to set goals that reflect not only what we want to gain, but what we want to give.

    I used to think “you get what you give” referred to reciprocity, but I now know this means that the giving itself is the getting. If you’ve ever experienced profound joy after helping someone else, you know this too.

    5. Believe in love (and love yourself).

    In the movies, a protagonist might not believe in love from the get-go, but if not, that’s his or her journey—to open to the possibility of love again, despite having been hurt or betrayed.

    Then there are those heroes who start their journey obsessed with finding love, much like my former self, only to realize they first need to heal and learn to love themselves.

    We’ve all been wounded in some way, and most of us have learned to either push people away or cling to them in attempt to lessen our pain.

    Real love is neither fearful nor needy. It’s not about broken people completing each other. It’s about coming to each other healed and whole, ready to complement each other.

    To experience this kind of love, we need to let go of how we’ve been hurt in the past, and believe that there are people out there who will treat us with care, kindness, and respect, if only we give them the chance.

    And we need to show ourselves we’re worthy of this kind of love by treating ourselves the same way, and letting go of people who don’t.

    Real love isn’t a fairy tale, but it’s so worth it, and possible if we work for it.

    —

    I still like to think of my life like a movie, but not because I’m waiting for someone to ride off into the sunset with me.

    I think of my life like a movie because I want to be inspired. I want to be kind, I want to see the best in people, and I want to do my part to create the kind a world where we all inspire the best in each other.

    The goal isn’t a happy ending. It’s to live a happier story. And that starts with how well we give and receive love.

    **If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy the upcoming book Tiny Buddha’s 365 Tiny Love Challenges, launching October 6th. Pre-order now and you’ll instantly receive $300+ in free bonus gifts, including several eBooks, eCourses, and meditations on love and relationships.**

    Love is in the air image via Shutterstock

  • How to Find Joy in Every Day (Even the Hard Ones)

    How to Find Joy in Every Day (Even the Hard Ones)

    Jumping for Joy

    “Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” ~Unknown

    It’s the question we’re all trying to answer: What is happiness and how do we get it? We fill our lives with the busyness of searching for happiness in many things, yet it’s possible that the very pursuit is taking us further away from the goal.

    I spent many years following society’s recipe for happiness.

    I was settled with my partner, climbing the career ladder, dining out, buying clothes, and planning nice holidays, but I was so busy chasing happiness, I missed out on moments of joy.

    Everyone is so busy these days. It gives us our sense of self-worth; if we’re busy, we’re successful, we’re accomplishing things, we’re important, and we’re needed.

    As a result we can often be too busy to notice if we are happy, and potential moments of joy pass us by.

    We think happiness arrives at a point in the future when our lives become perfect, with a backdrop of fireworks and fanfare, without any disasters or annoyances. But happiness generally doesn’t come in the form of winning the lottery or marrying from Brad Pitt. It’s often more subtle and smaller.

    For example: a sunny day at the beach, your favorite slippers, lying in the arms of the one you love on a lazy Sunday morning—it’s all happiness. We just need to learn to recognize it, appreciate it, and cultivate it.

    Brené Brown puts it well in her book The Gifts of Imperfection: “Joy is not a constant. It comes to us in moments—often ordinary moments. Sometimes we miss out on the bursts of joy because we’re too busy chasing down extraordinary moments.”

    Happiness is not about a final destination of pure perfection, but more about a journey through life, with moments of perfection sprinkled throughout, if we just stop to notice them.

    So how do we find those moments within our own lives and ensure we can get more of them to create a life full of happiness?

    There are two main ingredients for experiencing joy every day. The first is living in the present.

    How can we be joyful if we’re too busy worrying about the future or going over the past? And how can we be joyful if we’re too busy?

    Take time to smell the roses and be in the now; that’s where the joy is.

    People wait all week for Friday, all year for summer, and all their lives for happiness, but by the same token if we are always rushing to get to the next place, we can’t take time to enjoy where we are.

    The second ingredient for happiness is gratitude. If we appreciate all that we’re fortunate to have, rather than spending our time and energy going after what we don’t have, we’ll experience more joy.

    In our consumer-driven society, we’ve put too much emphasis on having many things—bigger houses, better cars, the latest in fashion.

    It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that if you have something you want, you’ll be happier with more. And we struggle in the modern world with debt, obesity, and addiction as a result of this mantra.

    We are also prone to comparing ourselves with others and wanting what they have (their house, salary, partner, looks). These are surefire ways to extinguish our gratitude and rob us of our happiness.

    There’s always joy to be found, even in the mundane moments of the day, and we can tap into this by being more present.

    Next time you’re sitting in a traffic jam, rather than becoming resentful of the delay or whisked away in a daydream, why not take a moment to see what you can appreciate?

    Maybe it’s the nature outside, the sound of the birds, the sun shining, or just the fact you have a car to drive in and somewhere to be going.

    I hate winter. I even travel to the other side of the world each year to avoid it. But even on the coldest, wettest, darkest days, I can find joy.

    Maybe it’s the feel of my cozy, warm bed sheets, or being curled up by the fire with the cat and a good book, or the clean crisp look of the landscape after the first snowfall.

    I try to find something to be grateful for every day, even if this is just breathing clean air, being alive, being healthy, or having an abundance of food.

    There are so many people worse off than we are, but we often overlook the small things that others would be so grateful for.

    I’ve also uncovered joy from “happy lists”—lists of all the small things you like to do that make you happy. It’s important to find time to do these things often. It may be a walk on the beach, listening to your favorite music, having a hot bath, or sitting in the garden with a cup of tea.

    As Robert Brault said, “Enjoy the little things for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”

    Rather than waiting for happiness to arrive, I’ve changed my perspective to realize that it had been there all along; I just hadn’t noticed. If we look hard enough, we can find moments of joy in every day. Or, if the day is a particularly bad one, reach for your happy list and create your own joy.

    Jumping for joy image via Shutterstock

  • Finding Strength and Moving On from Heartbreak

    Finding Strength and Moving On from Heartbreak

    Broken Heart

    “Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together.” ~Marilyn Monroe

    Whether we’re processing disappointment or a tragedy, heartache can seem irrevocable, as if our entire existence has been nuked into bleak devastation.

    While it can be hard to consider the possibility that these barren circumstances could be necessary, or fruitful, heartbreak can show us a great inner strength that exists in unsuspecting, subtle ways.

    I was never the kind of person who was convinced that consuming, true love was real. (You know, the kind that Celine Dion sings about.) Yet, that is exactly where I found myself when I met a man who had a set of traits that I had only dreamed of.

    And when it abruptly ended, with no explanation, I was devastated and bewildered. Now on the other side, these are the things I would have said to the girl laying on the pitch-black bathroom floor when she was drowning in questions about faith and forgiveness.

    Every activity is an act of strength when you’re struggling.

    Every time you get out of bed, go to a yoga class, or just do the dishes is a strong initiative of willpower because you’re pushing forward with your life, household, and health. You may still feel depressed, but it’s in these small measures that you’re seeding something wholesome for your present and future.

    Be proud you took a risk.

    While the destination may not be the oasis you’d envisioned, you have to remember why you set out on the journey.

    You took a chance by opening up to someone or attempting a new endeavor. It takes a great deal of courage to venture into an exploration of the precarious unknown, and you have to give yourself praise for making an effort.

    Move with the emotion.

    Sorrow can feel like a suffocating place of confinement. Yet trying to power through and forcing yourself to get over what you’re feeling is an act of denial. Our sentiments are a part of us and they can’t be amputated on command. Honor this part of yourself and try to progress with it in tow.

    Accept your choices.

    We can incessantly pick at the “should haves” and “would haves,” but your inner GPS chose a route based on the information you had at the time. You couldn’t have done anything different. When you can fully embrace this, it is an act of forgiveness to yourself, because you stop questioning your capabilities. Everything you did was as it was supposed to be.

    Stay present.

    The monkey mind wants to pick at the past and guess about the future. It takes work, but when you can fully focus on the details of the present moment, the questions and concerns will subside. You can do this by taking notice of your senses in your immediate surroundings—the taste, smell, touch, and of course your breath.

    Just like any fitness routine, it takes practice. Don’t be bothered by the number of times you have to re-center your thoughts; just keep doing it.

    Look for beauty.

    Whether you go to a museum, a botanical garden, or just enjoy a sunset, seek out the aesthetic that you find pleasing. Doing so will allow you to reconnect with a part of your true self. It can also be a soothing reminder that there are other amazing things in life beyond your distressed situation.

    Ask for company.

    Some cultures teach us to shoulder our own burdens. And as such, you may want to lock yourself away in isolation because you may not want to reveal your state of affairs or you don’t want to trouble anyone else. But if you’re really feeling lonely, reach out to family member or a friend.

    You probably feel fragile in this vulnerable condition, but showing up with an affliction allows others to know you on a more genuine level, and it also may reveal a greater depth of their own. Even when you feel broken, other relationships can form and even grow.

    —

    Getting through heartache can be incredibly difficult. Give yourself what you need to let your healing unfold day by day, without judgment for the method or self-care that you choose.

    You can’t predict how long the process will take, but there will come a time when the pain and anguish will diminish. You’ll get there…

    Broken heart image via Shutterstock

  • 3 Behaviors That Keep Us in Unhappy Relationships

    3 Behaviors That Keep Us in Unhappy Relationships

    Unhappy Couple

    “Don’t settle for anybody, just so you can have somebody.” ~Unknown

    Here I was again, sitting in front of my computer looking at things I could involve myself in to occupy my time now that I am newly single.

    Should I pay $125 for a private tennis lesson and still be terrible afterward? Could I buy a soul cycle package and not eat lunch or dinner for the next month? How many paint nights could I do over the course of the summer? Do I even have enough friends to join me?

    As I sit here and think about what happened, I ask myself, was my life a happy one before and after this person left? The answer is yes. Yes, it was!

    I have a career I’m happy about, live on my own (finally), am getting into shape again, and have marvelous friends, family, and my cat. The only difference is that I do not have him.

    I had imagined many things with this man. I told myself we got along perfectly—that he and I understood one another; that we just “meshed.” So I felt like he must be “the one” until he made it clear he was not.

    Although I was sad because he was no longer in my life, I realized I was mourning the assumptions I had made, the uneasy feelings I overlooked, and the dream I created in hopes that the search was over, that the uncertainty about my future had vanished.

    So what is it that I really did here? What is it that I, and so many people, do to convince ourselves that we are with “the one” when we, in fact, are not?

    Here’s a list of the three behaviors we are repeating and how to change them. (Hooray!)

    1. We underestimate or overlook our intuition.

    We don’t listen to that nagging voice or feeling that says, “Nope, this feels weird,” “You just lied about the kind of food you like, to please him/her,” and “S/he doesn’t get how passionate you really are.”

    2. We become anxious about the future.

    If your family is like mine, they want to know if you will be married…ever, and they “worry” when you’re single. This is ingrained in us. Societal pressures and norms tell us that we have a problem if we don’t at least have a prospect in our late twenties to early thirties.

    We have internalized this message, and hope and dream every time we get into a relationship. This can keep us in relationships because we have convinced ourselves we could not start over again and that this must be the partner for us.

    3. We settle.

    Yes, I said it. I don’t mean settling in the sense that we will date any individual because they give us attention. What I mean is we are willing to compromise on some fundamental values, qualities, and important character traits. This can happen because of #2, or because we simply do not yet know what we want in a relationship.

    How to Change These Behaviors

    We all have that intuitive feeling; some of us call it a “vibe,” others call it an energy. It exists so that it can be used! Listen to it. If you feel something is off, it more than likely is. Don’t ignore it. Sit with the feeling, and then dig.

    Ask yourself: Why do I feel this way? What feels wrong here? Be your own explorer. This could help save you time and energy in a relationship where you do not feel comfortable or understood.

    As humans, we all want to avoid pain and suffering. It’s normal. So in relationships, we can do two things: run away when we are afraid emotions are invested, or we can stay in a relationship and tell ourselves we are happy.

    The brain is a powerful tool, and if you tell yourself something enough times, you will begin to believe it. If you have made up your mind that your lot in life is to suffer in relationships, then you do not believe in all the beautiful things the universe has in store for you.

    This is what causes us to get caught up. We think “this is probably as good as it’s gonna get”

    No, it isn’t! Create a vision board, or write out the qualities you seek. Being firm on what you want in a relationship, and believing it is possible to attract someone with those qualities, will make it less likely that you will settle for less.

    Part of the problem many of us have faced is that we are unclear on what we want, and so we attract some qualities but not all. Believe it or not, dating and break-ups allow us to regain clarity, to say, “Yeah, I like this but not that.” The clearer you are, the clearer the universe can be.

    Settling is a painful word. We all want to believe we have and never will do this. It’s not to say who we dated isn’t worthwhile, but it’s saying you decided that person’s needs were more important than your own.

    You were willing to shut something off inside yourself for this person, and that, my dear, is unacceptable.

    Everything you are, you think, and feel is important. You deserve to have all of that valued by your partner. If you find you are suddenly overlooking parts of yourself, or omitting them, then you are not being true to your authentic self.

    Now imagine doing this long term. Not happening.

    The best thing to do here is to begin the process of learning who you are as an individual. What do you like? Where do you enjoy going out? What kinds of people do you like spending time with? What were some things in this relationship you consider to be deal breakers? What are some things you loved?

    Take this into your next relationship. But remember to give yourself time to grieve this loss, and turn the focus inward.

    There’s a line that always pops into my head after a break-up. Its “square peg, round hole,” and I usually say, “I did it again, didn’t I?”

    I was reaching, trying so hard to make him fit. But I have realized this is a part of the process. This is okay; I am human! I am allowed to have hopes and dreams; I just need to learn from these experiences.

    So that is what I will continue to do—enjoy my life, love who I am, and one day when I am ready, I will meet my round peg!

    Unhappy couple silhouette via Shutterstock

  • Keep These People Around

    Keep These People Around

    Keep Them Around

  • How Taking No Action Can Help You Change Your Life

    How Taking No Action Can Help You Change Your Life

    Woman with raised hand

    “If you’re still looking for that one person who will change your life, take a look in the mirror.” ~Roman Price

    For years and years I was in denial. I denied the obvious dysfunction in my marriage, and how terribly unhappy I was in it.

    I told myself over and over that things would change and get better, that it wouldn’t be this way forever, and that I could find a way to be happy with how things were.

    I had long given up hope that my spouse would change, but I have to admit, I joyfully splashed around in deep denial, telling myself that I could change.

    In my mind, if I could change my feelings about my marriage, I would miraculously be at peace, and things would get better.

    I tried to change what I needed, what I thought, and what I wanted in attempt to make things better.

    The key to this false sense of peace was to accept the unacceptable—and I had become a master at it.

    I’d tell myself, “My relationship is good enough as it is and I’m just going to be happy.”

    No matter how hard I tried this ‘acceptance’ strategy, I was not and could not be happy with the way things were. I desperately wanted more companionship, conversations, and intimacy. I wanted to feel seen and heard.

    But day in and day out, lingering below the surface was this feeing of loneliness in my marriage. The truth was, I had an emotionally unavailable partner who had shut down, and he completely shut me out in the process.

    Acknowledging the truth about my marriage and my unhappiness in it only bombarded me with all kinds of emotion—from sadness, to fear, to guilt, to shame. So I did everything I could to avoid it.

    Every time unhappiness came rushing up to the surface I would skillfully wrestle it back down again.

    Then one day, a glimmer of light shone through in the form of a question. I was asked a simple, and what would be life-changing question: “Was my marriage enough for me? And if so, why?”

    That question stopped me dead in my tracks. I knew the answer to it immediately—it wasn’t enough. It came bubbling up from that wellspring of inner ‘knowing’ that I had been keeping silent, mostly out of shame and fear.

    I knew I wanted more. I also knew that for way too long I had allowed the unacceptable to be acceptable.

    You would think that this light bulb moment would lead me to immediately take action and change what I needed to in my life, but that wasn’t the case.

    What happened for me next is what I have come to recognize as the dance between fear and denial. It unfolds like this:

    At first glance, the idea of change may feel good to you. It’s even inspired you enough to peek out from behind your wall of comfort to see what lies on the other side.

    Once you see what lies beyond, you have that moment of ‘deep in your soul knowing’ that it’s right for you. For me, it became crystal clear that I wanted more from a relationship, from myself, and from my life.

    Then a strange thing happens. As you move closer to thinking about making the change, going for the life you want and need, you seem to find all kinds of reasons to stop. And there you sit—stuck.

    This is where fear, with its beautiful toolbox of deceptive tricks, swoops in and efficiently constructs this brick wall called ‘denial.’

    The wall of denial blocks the very truth you’ve just caught a glimpse of—the one that whispered to you that you want to be more, have more, and do more.

    Denial starts its conniving routine of reassuring you that nothing is really wrong with the way things are, and as a matter of fact, you really don’t want or need to make any changes.

    You wonder what on earth you had been thinking and without warning, you actually begin to defend the old undesirable life you are trying to move away from. In my case, it was my marriage.

    What if I never find anyone better? What if I’m alone for the rest of my life? What if I can’t make it on my own? What if I’m making a mistake?

    Denial will always feel like a welcome relief because it skillfully lays your fears to rest, enticing you to resume life exactly as it is.

    The late Debbie Ford shared an insightful acronym for denial: Don’t Even kNow I Am Lying.

    And there you sit. No rope, no ladder, deep hole of denial.

    So how do we outwit this sneaky thing called denial?

    First, we must give ourselves permission to do absolutely nothing at all.

    The truth is, we can’t change what we don’t acknowledge. And we won’t acknowledge the problem if we think it means we have to take any kind of action before we feel ready to.

    I believed for a long time that if I really acknowledged how bad things were in my marriage, I’d have to take immediate action and leave.

    And if I didn’t take immediate action and leave, it meant I was a coward and was inevitably doomed to live an unhappy life in an unhappy marriage.

    Either option terrified me.

    This is the thing though, the reason we are stuck in denial isn’t because we are afraid to admit our own unhappiness. We are stuck in denial because we are afraid we have to do something we aren’t yet ready to do.

    Taking ‘no action’ is the way we create safety. It’s from this safe place of ‘no action’ that we are able to look honestly at ‘what is’ and evaluate it. In the safety of ‘no action,’ there is no pressure or fear of changing ‘what is.’

    The goal of ‘doing nothing’ isn’t to trick yourself into eventually ‘doing something.’ Nor is it to strong arm yourself into taking an action you’re not ready for or, for that matter, even sure you want to take.

    The goal of ‘no action’ is to create space for you to just become aware. In the safety of ‘no action,’ awareness is the rope that allows you to pull yourself up and out of that deep hole of denial.

    Awareness always brings with it the generous gift of transformation. Stepping out of denial and into awareness is where the journey of healing and transforming yourself begins.

    Regardless of whether we find ourselves in an unhappy relationship, unsatisfied in our job, or struggling with money issues, the solution is never about changing or not changing our circumstances—it’s always about changing ourselves.

    The truth is that when we decide to look at our lives with eyes wide open (through the lens of awareness) and not with both eyes closed (with the blindfold of denial) we give ourselves the most amazing gift.

    We discover who we are, what we need and what we want.

    In allowing myself to be present in the beautiful ‘no action’ space of the truth about the circumstances of my marriage, I began my journey of healing and transforming.

    I began untangling myself from the fears and beliefs that no longer served me.

    I started taking responsibility for my own happiness and stopped waiting for someone else to make me happy. In the process, I also stopped taking responsibility for everyone else’s happiness.

    I learned what healthy boundaries were and began to put them in place and practice them in all aspects of my life. I learned to let go of any judgments about what I should and shouldn’t do, and learned to hear and honor my own voice.

    I stopped accepting the unacceptable and claimed my right to live my own life.

    I warmly invite you to allow yourself permission to be present with what is going on in your life and begin to explore how you feel about it, knowing you are to do absolutely nothing but simply observe it.

    Is it enough for you? Is it what you want and need? What’s missing? What are you tolerating? Where are you accepting the unacceptable?

    Take a good look, knowing that transformation begins in the exploration of ‘what is.’ The answers you need will arrive in perfect timing, when you are ready for them, and not a moment sooner.

    And then, from that beautiful, safe place of awareness, you will make your decisions based on truth and not denial.

    Woman with raised hands image via Shutterstock

  • The Truth About Failure: How Hitting Hurdles Makes You Successful

    The Truth About Failure: How Hitting Hurdles Makes You Successful

    Woman Jumping Hurdles

    “There are no failures. Just experiences and your reactions to them.” ~Tom Krause

    I had spent years training for this race. This was the big one. If I won and made the qualifying time, I would go on to compete in the Canadian National Track and Field Championships.

    I was burning to win. Only the winner of this race would qualify. Second place wouldn’t cut it.

    Competing at the national level could lead to all kinds of opportunities: sponsorship, athletic scholarships, and a career in athletics.

    My favorite form of self-torture was the 110-meter hurdles. I lived and breathed sprinting and hurdles. Track and field was my life in my last year at high school. In fact, track was probably the only reason I even showed up at class.

    I was good at it too. I had run the fastest time in my event that season and I was on target to win the Provincial Championships.

    I trained four to five days a week on the track, plus I hit the gym two to three times a week. I was in peak form and ready to destroy my competition.

    I was laser-focused on the day of the event in Vancouver, Canada, at the Provincial Track and Field Championships. In my races, I was usually the first one out of the blocks and this race was no different. I exploded out of the starting blocks and was the first one to reach the first hurdle.

    The hurdles for my age category were thirty-nine inches tall (three inches lower than Olympic height), made of thick wood, and were weighted with a metal base. When you hit them, they resist and they don’t move much.

    Best if you don’t hit them.

    I felt powerful in this race. By the third hurdle, I was already taking the race. At no time was anyone in front of me.

    Then, I started hitting hurdles. A lot of them. Each time you hit a hurdle, it dramatically slows you down.

    Some hurdles I smashed into with my knee, while others I hooked with my foot. Painful every time.

    And I didn’t just graze the hurdles. I really clobbered most of them. At times, it almost brought me to a complete stop.

    I hit five hurdles that day. There are ten hurdles in total. It was the worst race I had that season.

    Despite hitting so many hurdles, I still came in second place. I could have touched the winner with my arm, it was that close.

    If I had run a clean race like I usually did, I would have shattered my previous fastest time. I would have easily run the fastest time that year in the province and I would have qualified for the Canadian National Track & Field Championships.

    I was devastated after that race. All my training for nothing. I wasn’t going to get a chance to compete nationally. Game over. Done. I felt like all the life had drained out of me.

    That was the last time I ever jumped over a hurdle.

    I spent the rest of the summer partying and hanging out with friends. I became a bit directionless and I no longer had much interest in going to university (the only reason I was thinking about going was so that I could compete in athletics).

    At the end of summer, I started working full-time in a supermarket and saved up cash. By spring of the following year, I was on a four-month trip around Europe with one of my best friends.

    After that trip, the demands of life took over. I got stuck in low-paying jobs for a few years.

    I had an unhealthy diet and I would sometimes get drunk on the weekends. I barely had time or energy to even go for a short jog once a week.

    Failure Hangs Heavy

    That race is still my biggest failure in life. Seems silly but there it is.

    Over the years, I occasionally thought back to my track and field days.

    “That race was mine and I should have won that. If I had won, maybe I would have gotten sponsored by a sports company. Maybe I would have gotten an athletics scholarship. I might have had a sports career. I totally screwed up my big chance.”

    The concept of failure is very pervasive in most modern cultures. It’s also responsible for a lot stress, poor health and well…basically crazy, unbalanced behavior.

    In our culture, the attitude of “Second place is the first loser” is prevalent. You’re either a winner or you’re a loser. Not much in between.

    We equate “winning” and success with achieving certain milestones such as having high salaries, being in a relationship, or having high-status roles in life. For many of us, not achieving these external successes means we’re failures.

    Additionally, “mistakes” are often not tolerated at work or in relationships with people. There is usually a background, gnawing pressure to always say and do the right thing.

    Failing can feel like an imminently dangerous threat that we must avoid at all costs, and cover it up when it does happen.

    But it doesn’t have to be this way. If we just shift our focus, we can use failure to propel us towards our goals.

    You Must Fail to Have Success

    Quite often, when learning something new, we think that we have to nail it right off the bat. Who wants to look like a rookie, right? A clueless beginner?

    Nope, not me.

    Everyone wants to avoid mistakes and failure. But it is precisely through the path of making mistakes and “failing” that we learn.

    You will hit hurdles in your life. You’ve been hitting them. What matters is what you do after you hit one.

    In my case, I focused on my failure. I focused on hopelessness and I identified myself as being a failure just because I had a bad race.

    I didn’t value coming in second. I ignored what was good and I was dismissive of anything positive that I had achieved.

    I even gave up doing something I really loved doing.

    You can see how dangerous having a “win or lose mindset” is, right? It shuts down our learning, closes off options and causes us to suffer emotionally.

    We need to focus on our little successes, on what we did right and on how to keep learning and improving.

    Let’s get comfortable with the idea that we’re going to make “mistakes” and that we might not always run perfect races.

    If you take on the challenge of cultivating an improvement-oriented mindset, this will help you in all areas of your life.

    You’ll become curious about your mistakes, observing yourself kind of like a scientist might: How can I do this better? What could I do differently so that I can avoid making that same mistake?

    Winners and No More Losers

    I still cringe sometimes when I say or do the “wrong” thing, but I usually catch myself and resolve to do something different the next time.

    If I feel ashamed about making a mistake (or bombing big time), I try to move on as quickly as possible.

    I recognize that my mind is my greatest ally; I’m the one who defines my own version of success, and I re-frame my experiences in a healthy, positive way, whenever I can.

    Everyone deserves to “win” in life, and everyone is capable of reaching their goals in a way that is emotionally and physically healthy.

    Can everyone really be a winner in life?

    Yes, definitely…and you don’t need to come in first place or be the “best” to be a winner. When you love what you’re doing and when you’re focused on learning and making small improvements, anything is possible.

    That’s winning.

    Woman jumping hurdles image via Shutterstock

  • How to Start Dreaming Again When Others Have Discouraged You

    How to Start Dreaming Again When Others Have Discouraged You

    Stargazing

    “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” ~Wolfgang von Goethe

    I was one of the lucky few people that always knew what I wanted to do with my life when I was young.

    Unfortunately, when the time came to pull the trigger and go full steam ahead toward my passion, I got talked out of the dream.

    When I brought up what I wanted to do (Chinese Medicine) to people I knew, I saw them raise their eyebrows:

    “Chinese medicine? How much will you make when you graduate from medical school? It’s not the same as a doctor right?”

    “How far in debt are you going to have to be for those loans?”

    Or, this one:

    “Interesting…”

    It’s such an alarming feeling to share the biggest dream you have with people, and not having a single person cheer you on and say, “Go for it!”

    It’s such a strange, isolating feeling no longer being sure that your dream is somehow right.

    It’s an unsettling feeling that what you knew was right the entire time, might not have been right all along.

    But ultimately we do know it’s right—and sometimes the logical chatter of the mind talks us out of our heart.

    For a long time after, I was pretty depressed and lost.

    In fact, it took me almost half a decade of aimlessly wandering, floating around in a haze of unhappiness, to finally come back and honor what I wanted to do all along.

    In retrospect, it’s not that surprising why I became so depressed—why nothing seemed to have any point or any purpose, and why I didn’t like anything about my life.

    My calling was there all along, and I ignored it because I listened to other people.

    We all know someone that’s been broken like this.

    In fact, it seems like most people reside here their entire lives.

    Day in, day out, it’s the same old same old.

    When you talk with them, it seems like something is missing—for lack of a better word, their spirit is missing. They look empty. They feel hollow.

    I’ve noticed they don’t feel alive. And honestly, just seeing this over and over in others—and recognizing it in myself—scared me.

    As I began to ‘wake up’ a bit more and listen to myself, here were the three things that helped me dream again.

    Three “Soul Wake Up” Strategies

    1. Do the five-minute coffee shop ritual.

    The five-minute coffee shop ritual is simple: I would just let myself entertain the idea of my dream.

    Here’s what I’d do. I’d go to my favorite local spot, get a nice cup of tea or an espresso, pull out a white sheet of paper and a pen, and just write.

    I would write down one thing: What’s the most incredible life I can imagine for myself?

    I would take time to write out and visualize every aspect of that life—ranging from what I’d do every day, where I’d live, how I’d feel, how much I’d make, who I would be with, etc.

    I would write down and visualize as much about my dream life as possible.

    The only reason for this ritual was one thing: giving myself permission to actually dream again, after having all my dreams subdued.

    2. Do the ten-year check.

    It can be incredibly discouraging to have someone tell you that your dream is impossible or not worth it—but I would repeatedly ask myself one thing:

    Is this person living the life I want to live, and ten years from now will taking their advice bring me to the life I want?

    Overwhelmingly, I observed that the average person criticizing my dreams or telling me “it couldn’t happen” was someone that was already deeply unhappy with their own life.

    So whenever someone would criticize me from then on, I asked myself if I would be willing to trade places with them. Did I see them as a happy, fulfilled, successful person?

    If not, it was easy to ignore their advice.

    3. Do some gut-living for twenty-four hours.

    The final experiment I did for myself to “re-awaken” was to do a twenty-four-hour gut living experiment.

    It can be scary to tell yourself, “I’m going to do whatever my heart says no matter what,” so instead I told myself I’d do it just for a day. That’s it.

    So rather than waking up and being dominated by all the things I thought I should do, I only did the things I intuitively was drawn to.

    After work, I would make sure on one specific day of the week to cancel whatever plans and obligations I had, and then would do whatever I intuitively was drawn to.

    Again, this was just one day, so it wasn’t like I was avoiding all my life responsibilities.

    But just by going 100% with my gut, I noticed that I began to follow it a lot more in my life.

    Over time, the life I really wanted began showing up.

    It’s such a sad circumstance that, overwhelmingly, the people that try to talk us out of our dreams are the ones who were talked out of theirs.

    But just by following these three core strategies I was finally able to figure out what I loved again, and then have the guts to go for it—no matter what other people said.

    It started with me having the courage to dream big again—to live with my intuition (even if only for twenty-four hours to start).

    It started with imagining the biggest, most amazing life I could possibly dream up, and then taking the first baby step to make that really.

    And finally, it started with me having 100% crystal clear faith that things would work out if I just kept taking baby steps, day after day, and just kept going.

    So what are you waiting for? Get started!

    Boy looking at stars image via Shutterstock

  • 5 Tips to Help You Stop Being a People Pleaser

    5 Tips to Help You Stop Being a People Pleaser

    “One of the most freeing things we learn in life is that we don’t have to like everyone, everyone doesn’t have to like us, and it’s perfectly okay.” ~Unknown

    I have a confession to make: I am a recovering people pleaser.

    If I had a dollar for every time I did something that I didn’t want to do because I didn’t want people to be angry or disappointed if I said no, I would be a rich woman.

    I say that I am recovering because, as with any ingrained pattern, sometimes I slip back into the tendency to put other people’s wants before myself and my needs.

    When I talk about putting other people’s needs before your own as a pleaser, I don’t mean being there for someone or helping someone in a way that you want to. If you want to help someone, or you compromise with someone that you care about to come up with a solution that works for both of you, that’s healthy.

    Pleaser behavior goes beyond this and becomes unhealthy when:

    • You say yes to something that you really don’t want to do just to keep someone happy and have an ‘easy’ life
    • You feel uncomfortable about a situation that you’re in but carry on regardless; for example, being asked to do something dishonest or that isn’t in line with your values
    • You feel exhausted and depleted from putting everyone else’s needs before your own and not taking the time out to practice self-care
    • If you do say no (for whatever reason) then you make excuses and spend a lot of time feeling guilty afterwards.

    Luckily, there are some ways that you can start to manage your people pleaser tendencies. Here are five of the most effective actions and mindset shifts that have worked for me:

    1. Make peace with the fact that not everyone is going to like you—and actually, that’s okay.

    The quote at the start of this article says it all. It certainly set my own mindset shift into motion a few years ago when I decided enough was enough and that I was going to start putting myself first.

    When I feel my own pleaser instincts kick in, I always take the time to remember that it’s okay for people not to like me; I don’t like everyone and everyone isn’t going to like me.

    As a pleaser your main drive will be to do everything in your power to make someone like you. For me, and for many other pleasers, this comes from a place of severe low self-esteem. Basically, when people like you, you like yourself; when they don’t, your opinion of yourself drops.

    The best way to lessen the need for validation from others is to start working on loving yourself and increasing your self-esteem.

    As a starting point list all of the things that you love about yourself. Aim for at least ten things initially, and refer back to it and add to it regularly. Also, start treating yourself as you would a loved one or really good friend, and start connecting with people who love and accept themselves as they are. Model their behavior until it becomes your own.

    2. Learn to say no in a way that feels okay to you. (No making excuses allowed!)

    “No” is a word that many of us could stand to use a little more often. How many times have you said no only to go back on your decision when put under a little bit of pressure from another person?

    I used to do that all the time, or I would say no and then make a number of excuses to justify my decision (many of these were white lies to make saying no more feasible).

    The thing with making excuses rather than offering a firm and honest no, complete with a truthful reason that you can stick to, is that it opens up the possibility of negotiation with the other person. If that happens, your inner pleaser is likely to give in and you’ll once again find yourself doing things that you don’t want to do and putting yourself last.

    So, how do you stop this behavior? Say no in a way that feels good to you, but in a way that is strong.

    You don’t have to use a one-word answer, but you should be truthful; for example, “I would love to help, but unfortunately I have booked a me day that day,” or “That sounds like a great opportunity, but I think someone else would be better placed to help.”

    Stick to the original answer and if someone tries to enter into negotiation them simply but firmly repeat it.

    3. Accept that you will feel guilty when you say no to something the first few times.

    Pleasers often feel guilty when they say no to a request. You probably feel that you are being selfish or that you have let someone down. This is misplaced guilt. You have done nothing wrong, and that person will most likely find another solution to their problem.

    When you feel guilty, honor the feeling, but think about how much worse you would feel if you said yes to yet another thing that you didn’t want to do. The likelihood is that this would feel worse. Remember that the guiltily feeling will fade quickly.

    If you feel that bad, grab your journal and list all the pros and cons of your decision. I bet the pros list is longer!

    4. Start setting some boundaries.

    It’s okay to put yourself first. In fact, you will be a happier, more productive, and more amazing person for it. The best way to do that? Set some boundaries. When we stand for nothing, we will fall for everything, as they say!

    Find somewhere quiet, where you won’t be distracted or interrupted, and list all of the things that you’ve done over the past three to six months that you didn’t want to do.

    Once you have your list, go through and write down the reasons that you didn’t want to do each thing. You will probably notice some recurring reasons; for example, it cut into my time with my family, it made me too tired, it wasn’t something I was comfortable doing because…

    Use these reasons to start setting some boundaries for yourself. For example:

    • Getting enough sleep is important to me. If it stops me getting eight hours a night I will say no.
    • I don’t want to be around negative energy. If something is going to expose me to negative energy, I will say no.
    • If something goes against my values of honesty and integrity, I will say no.

    Start by setting yourself four or five boundaries at first, and then practice upholding these over the next few months. You can then add more and gradually build up knowing what you will and will not accept in your life.

    5. Let go of the people who use your people pleaser tendencies on purpose.

    As with anything in this life, there are people who will try to take advantage of your good nature.

    As you begin to raise your levels of self-esteem and start to assert yourself, you will begin to see those who are trying to trigger your inner people pleaser for their own benefit.

    They will be the ones who deliberately try to push your buttons, no matter how many times you say no. They will continue to overstep the boundaries that you set.

    The best thing to do here is to let them fall away from your life and accept the lessons that they’ve taught you about who you are and what you want in life.

    If it’s not possible to let someone go completely, if they are a family member for example, simply create some healthy distance and prepare for any meetings that you may have with them by reaffirming your boundaries to yourself.

    Remember, this is a process and if you slip back into old behaviors don’t be too hard on yourself. But do keep going and making progress, your life and self-esteem will be much better as a result!

  • What to Do When You’re Panicking Because You Can’t Make a Decision

    What to Do When You’re Panicking Because You Can’t Make a Decision

    “No one saves us but ourselves. We alone must walk the path.” ~Buddha

    I got a frantic message from a friend last night.

    Everything was going wrong—her job, her relationship, her life—and she didn’t know what to do.

    “Help me, please,” she kept saying. “I don’t know what to do.”

    I tried hard to stifle a giggle. I know, completely inappropriate. But I found it really funny.

    Why? Because I’m the last person anyone should be asking for advice. If I knew what to do, if I knew how to help her, I’d have:

    1. implemented this a long time ago in my own life to solve issues that I, myself, have been grappling with
    2. created a website and published a book and video tutorials with the answer
    3. bought my own island in the Caribbean just from the proceeds of the book sales (I’d give the money from my website ad sales and video to charity, obvs)

    I’d be rich, because this is what every human being confronts at some point in their lives—what should I do?!

    We all hate the unexpected. We all hate uncertainty. These situations usually mean we haven’t gotten what we want or things aren’t going as we wanted them to go. We know we need to make a decision. We know we need to do something. But making a decision is hard, especially when things are uncertain.

    In moments like this, we become frantic, we flail, we panic. I know because I’ve done all three. Several times.

    And then we become obsessed with our problems. We think about them.

    All. The. Time.

    And then we think about them some more.

    Sometimes my brain actually starts to ache from all this thinking and analyzing. We get exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally. And when we realize we are no closer to solving our problems or making a decision, we start becoming more frantic and we flail and panic even more.

    So of course, it makes sense that we turn to others for answers at times likes this. Because in this moment, we are in no state to save ourselves. My friend is not an exception. Most of us have turned to others at some point or another.

    I couldn’t give my friend any answers that night. I knew she wanted a specific solution to address her issues. But I didn’t have any. And here’s the scary news: no one does.

    You are the only one who can save yourself. You are the only one who can solve your problem.

    Hearing that probably wants to make you hide under your duvet and never come out.

    I don’t know what to do, remember? How am I supposed to save myself?? I don’t even trust myself to change a light bulb!!

    I hear you. And you can stop hiding now and jump out of bed, because here are three simple things you can do in times like this.

    (Note: These three ideas aren’t solutions to your problem. But they help you, they help the situation, and they allow you to get to a place where you are better able to pin down the right decision.)

    I know they might not seem like much, and it’s easy to dismiss them. It might even seem like I’m not taking your problem seriously. All I can say is that I’ve gone through these situations time and time again, and doing the things below has definitely helped me.

    It stopped me from being completely consumed with my problem. It helped me create much-needed space and clarity.

    Also, if you are being put out of balance by one part of you life, your best hope is to bring in some balance from another end.

    What’s the alternative? Thinking more about the problem at hand?

    We both know how that usually works out.

    1. Be frantic, flail, panic … then get it out.

    Whine to your amazing friends who listen to you patiently with nothing but love and empathy, even though you’ve been putting them through this time and time again.

    Then go jogging, go to the gym, go for a swim. Write in a journal. Do something to get all that anger, resentment, fear, and pity out of you.

    You’re in over-active child mode right now—tire yourself out.

    2. Go spend some time outdoors.

    Go for a meander in the woods, walk along the ocean. Observe the birds in action, pay attention to the trees, watch the clouds in the sky. Basically spend some time in nature.

    I’m not sure what it is, but there’s something calming about nature. It slows us down. It tires us out (see point 1). It gives us perspective. It shows us that there is more to life than our problems and worries. Mary Oliver’s beautiful poem, The Shore comes to mind;

    I go down to the shore in the morning
    and depending on the hour
    the waves are rolling in or moving out,
    and I say, oh, I am miserable, what shall—
    what should I do?
    And the sea says in its lovely voice:
    Excuse me, I have work to do.

    3. Do something else.

    Worried about whether you should end a relationship? Go learn to play a new musical instrument.

    Worried about how you are going to make your mortgage at the end of the month? Go volunteer at your local charity. Or:

    • Read something uplifting every morning, afternoon and right before going to bed
    • Watch YouTube clips that crack you up
    • Meditate
    • Write five things you are grateful for every morning
    • Start a new habit (i.e.: get up an hour earlier, drink more water)
    • Learn origami
    • Spend some time cleaning your closet
    • Offer to babysit for your friends (kids are amazing distracters!! It’s hard to focus on your problems when you are constantly trying to keep them from falling over or hurting themselves.)

    As humans who lead very human lives, mud gets thrown at us at some point or another. And when you stop flailing and panicking, when you calm down, when you focus on something else, you give the mud a chance to slide off and settle down; you allow the waters to get less murky. And things get clearer.

    Maybe in this clarity you’ll know what to do. Or maybe you will have made your peace with what’s happened.

    More likely, you’ll probably have moved on to something else and forgotten what was winding you up in the first place. Or something else might have happened to completely transform the initial situation.

    That’s the other thing about life. It’s full of surprises.

  • The Magic of Momentum: A Simple Path to Achieving Any Goal

    The Magic of Momentum: A Simple Path to Achieving Any Goal

    Man at Summit

    “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” ~Confucius

    What stops so many people from changing their lives is a lack of momentum. They feel daunted by the sheer size of the task ahead and so revert back to inertia. It’s so much easier to just trudge along and hope that one day it gets better.

    I used to get up at 5.30 in the morning every Tuesday to attend a business networking breakfast. It was a severe shock to the system at first, and as I drove to the hotel where the event was held, I thought to myself, “What am I doing on this motorway so early?”

    This was quickly followed by the question “What are all those other people doing on this motorway, and where are they going?” I did this for over three years.

    Don’t get me wrong, I did get business from attending this group. Not great business, but business nonetheless.

    I actually ended up running this networking group, and that’s when the trouble started. I reasoned that in order for everyone to get more business, we should grow the group. Instantly, splinter groups formed and started lobbying to get me removed as director.

    I got upset at first, as I was acting in what I thought was the interests of the group, but they just wanted a cozy boys club with a few token females and weren’t interested in ramping things up.

    My partner suggested instead of getting up at 5.30 in the morning to get stabbed in the back by a load of schoolchildren, I get up at the same time and compose music in my garage studio. So I took her advice and quit the networking group the next week. It was the best thing I have ever done.

    In that hour before I went to my day job, I set about composing a full blown symphony for a seventy-five-piece orchestra, followed by four other albums worth of material. All this from just one hour a week.

    I had truly engaged upon my journey of a thousand miles and it began with a single step—setting aside one hour a week. So what lessons have I learnt from this experience?

    1. Find just one hour a day or a week and see what you can accomplish.

    It’s the discipline of finding that single hour in which to start your masterwork that makes the journey truly begin. I swapped the hour I was giving to the networking club for an hour in my studio.

    Examine your week. Could you get up an hour early five days a week, or one day a week? It might be best to avoid Mondays or Fridays, but what about the other days? Is your dream important enough to give up an hour of sleep?

    2. When you do something strictly, regularly, and without fail, it becomes a habit.

    It was the fixing of a set time each week that would not be broken, come hell or high water. I used to sit in the garage with a fan heater on, hat, fingerless gloves, scarf, and winter coat, but I never broke that appointment with myself. I already had shown I had the discipline to do this from attending the networking group.

    3. A single step if followed by another step becomes a journey of a thousand miles.

    Taking the first step is one of the hardest parts, so don’t think about the end destination. If you were going to walk for a thousand miles, you would probably give up if you kept thinking, “How am I going to walk that far?”

    So just think about achieving small steps. I would write just a few bars each week, and it gradually grew into a symphony. It took six months, but I got there in the end.

    4. There is magic in momentum.

    Once the weekly or daily routine has set in, it becomes a firm habit. Then you start to see progress and begin to feel proud of what is forming in front of your eyes.

    You might be building a blog or website, and that little bit of regular effort begins to create something amazing. If you are trying to tackle a physical goal, like running a marathon, your regular discipline will, over time, lead to increased strength and endurance.

    That is the magic of momentum. Once the flywheel has got over the enormous effort to begin moving, momentum takes over and the wheel begins to turn on its own using momentum. This is what you will find once the habit is engrained.

    5. Don’t stop the habit once you have that magical momentum.

    It might have been tempting to stop the early Tuesday morning habit when I finished my symphony so I could get some more sleep. But having seen the magic of momentum, I then plunged myself into composing new tracks for the next album, and was bashing them out at the rate of a new track each week.

    Twelve weeks later another album was completed, and a month later it was in the shops. Wow! This was exciting. This was addictive.

    Don’t make the mistake of pausing or losing momentum. Launch into the next project, the next book, the next album, the next painting, the next mosaic, the next marathon, the next website. Keep that morning habit.

    6. Leave that magical hour for your dream.

    Don’t be tempted to do administrative tasks in that golden hour. Try to make that hour as productive as possible.

    If you are painting, then get your palette ready ahead of the golden hour (choose the paints and have the tubes of paint lined up).

    If you are a musician, get your sound palette ready in advance (choose your drum sounds, samples, etc.).

    If you are writer, have your research done and your notes written up so that you can launch into the first chapter or the next chapter.

    If you’re training for a marathon, have your clothes and shoes ready so you have the full hour to run.

    Equally, promoting your masterpiece should be confined to other times of the day. If you are building a website or blog, just focus on writing new content. Leave the social media promotion to another time.

    7. An hour becomes much much more—just wait and see!

    The clever thing about limiting yourself to one hour a week or one hour a day is that before you know it, you are doing tasks relating to that hour at other spare slots in your week. The momentum creates excitement; you see that you are making serious progress, and this spurs you on to more; at least, that how it works for me.

    Go and take your first step on that thousand-mile journey!

    Man at summit image via Shutterstock

  • Let Loss Remind You to Live

    Let Loss Remind You to Live

    Man on a Pier

    “Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom.” ~Unknown

    Experiencing a death of someone, no matter how close you were to them, is a shock to the system.

    One moment you’re just drinking your morning cup of Joe and then suddenly, you’ve collided with the uncertainty of existence.

    Daily, we do everything we can to numb ourselves from our own fragility, but sudden death reminds us all that impermanence is still there under the surface, throbbing.

    The other day, I logged onto Facebook and received a message from an old coworker. He asked me how I was and we exchanged the usual pleasantries, until, he dropped a bomb.

    “You should know, Armando was killed in a car accident last week.”

    Armando and I were not extremely close, but we were friends during the eight months I worked at a café with him.

    We got to know each other when I began opening with him on Sunday mornings, me arranging box after box of fresh pastries in the case, him preparing the hollandaise sauces and turning on the ovens.

    Sunday mornings were always slow, so Armando and I got a lot of time to chat and goof off.

    We made a game out of calling each other the wrong names, which Armando especially loved. “Eighty-six croissant, Karla,” he’d yell from the kitchen, and I’d shoot him a, “right-o, Archie,” that would have him doubled over in laughter.

    Armando made the monotony of our workdays colorful and fun, and I was always so thankful when he was on my shift.

    Fast-forward to the day I found out he was gone. My impulse was to lump his death in with the rest of the bad news we are bombarded with every day. After all, I thought, we hadn’t been friends for long.

    I was ready to downplay his impact on my life, to distract myself from the email about his memorial, to numb myself from the pain of loss. Really, I didn’t think I had the right to be upset about the death of someone I barely knew.

    Except, there was still a knot in my gut that these thoughts weren’t helping to unwind. Armando brought joy and laughter into my life during a time when I was worn out from working three jobs and feeling lonely in a new city.

    His light-heartedness often shocked me out of my bad moods, and no, I hadn’t known him well, but I could still be heartbroken the world had lost his light.

    Then suddenly I was driving in my car, the same invention that killed Armando.

    I wound through the streets of Berkeley, past the café we worked at together and the BART station and the library, and I let myself think about Armando. The special strawberry salad he used to make me and a coworker on our breaks, the times I got red-cheeked from catching him and his girlfriend kissing in the storeroom, the night of the wild Christmas party when we all went out and sang karaoke.

    I thought about how he told me he wanted to move back to Mexico City, how much he loved it there. I let myself remember that he was more than a percentage or trending story, but a beating heart. I let myself cry for him.

    Then I reminded myself: it’s okay to let yourself be affected by things.

    Acknowledging tragedy puts our own fragile existences into question, and it forces us to face that we could’ve been the one who died suddenly.

    That is a scary realization, but I say let it scare you. Let it put a fire under you. Let your limited time on this planet propel you toward your dreams with incalculable fervor.

    Perhaps most importantly, let it make you grateful for the people around you who bring joy and laughter and love into your world, however fleeting.

    Man on a pier image via Shutterstock

  • How to Get Started with Meditation

    How to Get Started with Meditation

    “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” ~Simone Weil

    It’s so easy in our busy, results-driven world to lose track of ourselves in a drive to address the needs of others. What with your work performance demands, evening dinner preparation, the Facebook post from a friend that requires your response before the sender gets upset… Wow, I’m feeling overwhelmed just writing about it!

    The world demands our constant attention, and we willingly give it. But what about attention to ourselves?

    Underneath every hood is an engine, behind any piece of artwork is the artist, and beneath your ability to respond to the world is your mental and physical energy stores.

    Have you ever said or heard someone say that you just “don’t have the energy”? Well, it may not be as metaphorical as you think. Giving attention to the ‘noise’ in your daily life takes energy, and unless you devote time to a restorative practice, such as meditation, your energy stores run low.

    So, if you’re like me and have nurtured the compulsive desire to cast the majority of your attention outward rather than inward, what happened? What was the result of your mental energy running low?

    After focusing most of my energy outward for years, I developed a series of self-destructive traits.

    I became short-tempered and negative, lost hope and mental drive, became ungrateful, introverted, and moody, lacked energy, and was in an unhappy and unproductive state for much of my day.

    All this changed when I discovered meditation. It was the dose of self-love and attention that I needed to recharge my emotional tank so I could determine what was important, get the most out of my day, and achieve the success that I wanted, not what others wanted from me.

    Aside from a mental recharge, there are plenty of other benefits that I’ve experienced from my practice, including:

    • Relief of anxiety
    • Providing clearer thoughts
    • Slowing down reaction to stimulation—being more patient
    • Increase recognition of compulsive behavior patterns
    • Gain in confidence and self-assurance
    • Increase in productivity
    • A happier, more positive outlook

    Meditation really is, in many ways, maintenance for the mind. Think of your mind as your car. You could put off changing the oil, thinking, “Well, if I just let it go another few weeks to save some money, it’ll be fine.”

    Yes, it could be fine, but chances are you’re going to keep putting it off again and again, since you’ve had no reason to worry so far.

    What you can’t see is that your oil accumulates carbon and wear particles, and undergoes degradation so that eventually, it causes a critical failure of your car. You haven’t given your car the attention it requires to serve you effectively, and as such, the poor oil quality has led to a ‘meltdown’ of the engine.

    Your mind requires similar attention—maintenance to keep it running effectively, efficiently, and without risk of a ‘meltdown’ (think depression or anxiety attack).

    How can you expect to access your true inner brilliance if you constantly have a mess bouncing around inside of your head? The key is to quiet the buzz with the attention your mind deserves through meditation, and let the quality thoughts roam free in the space that’s created.

    5 Foolproof Steps to Meditation

    There are many types of popular meditation practices, but the one that I use is a form of mindfulness and Zen meditation based on the book The 8-Minute Meditation, by Victor Davich. The following is a step-by-step guide that I use each and every morning, with excellent results.

    1. Clear your mind.

    As part of my morning routine, I like to perform stretching in the form of the yoga Sun Salutation sequence. This releases the tension in my body and enriches my blood with fresh flowing oxygen, which is essential for building strong neuron bonds in my brain. This assists in clearing my mind before my meditation practice.

     2. Get seated.

    You may think meditation is all about being cross-legged on pillows, surrounded by candles and the strong smell of burning incense. Not true.

    I find a comfortable, quiet place to sit normally and comfortably so that I don’t become overwhelmed with tingling in my legs, sore muscles, or anything else that may prove a distraction. My favorite places are either a flat chair or the edge of my bed.

    3. Set your goal.

    I use a stopwatch app on my phone to set the duration of my meditation practice at ten minutes. I’m busy, as I’m sure you are too, so I don’t like to sit and meditate for long periods of time. I’ve got stuff to do!

    I recommend starting out small at first. If you think you can meditate for five minutes, go for three instead. Picking a goal that lies below your expectations sets you up to win, which is important when building a new habit.

    After two years meditating, I find that ten minutes works well, and longer is even better (if you have time for it). You’ll achieve noticeable results at five minutes and above. TIP: Make sure your phone is on Airplane Mode to ensure you’re not interrupted.

    4. Relax into position.

    Once you’ve set your stopwatch, get seated and relax into position. Sit with a straight back, relaxed limbs, feet flat on the floor, palms face down resting on your knees. Part of meditation is creating a sense of grounding yourself with the here and now, so focus on the pressure applied through your buttocks and feet as they intercept the physical world.

    Do a few neck rotations and when you’re ready, start your stopwatch, gently close your eyes, and relax.

     5. Meditate. (Warning: Your mind will wander, and that’s perfectly fine.)

    In the early stages of developing your practice, be patient. You will likely encounter resistance from your busy mind as it rejects your attempts at finding peace. If you’re finding it hard to stay focused on your practice:

    • Pretend you’re cross-eyed and staring at the end of your nose. This is used in yoga as a point of focus, and it can help centralize your thinking, bringing it back to neutral.
    • Focus on your breath. Pretend you’re watching air enter your nostrils. Feel its cool, oxygen-rich presence as you inhale and exhale slowly and steadily.
    • Watch your pressure points. The pressure you’re applying to the physical world is another great focal point to centralize your thoughts. While you’re sitting, these might be the soles of your feet, the palms of your hands, and your buttocks. Notice how the pressure feels, and picture its integration with the earth to which you are intimately connected.
    • Picture yourself from above. If you find yourself caught up in a thought, practice pressing pause and then picturing yourself looking down from a high location, say from a hot air balloon. As you watch, place your thought inside a bubble, and watch it float up toward you, then pop it, making it disappear. In doing this you’re seeing yourself from an outside perspective, and removing yourself from the thought.

    You Need Self-Love and Attention; Meditation Is the Answer

    If you thought meditation was an airy-fairy thing that only spiritual people or monks do, think again. There are many successful people that have realized the power of a meditation practice in their daily lives, including Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs, and many more that attribute their success to this essential morning habit.

    Meditation will recharge your mental tank and give you the edge. It is a purposeful time in the day for you to focus on nothing in particular and in the process, give your mind some much needed time off.

    Above all, giving yourself attention through meditation is the only way to truly recharge your mental capacity and address the root cause of your destiny—your power of thought and decision.

    The silence will help you gain perspective on what’s truly important in the moment, and prioritize your time according to thoughts of success, not of mayhem.

  • Love Challenge #128: Listen Without Trying to Fix Things

    Love Challenge #128: Listen Without Trying to Fix Things

    Love Challenge 128

    From the upcoming book Tiny Buddha’s 365 Tiny Love Challenges. Pre-order before October 6th and get $300+ in free bonus gifts!