Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • Why You May Feel Crushed by Criticism (And What to Do About It)

    Why You May Feel Crushed by Criticism (And What to Do About It)

    “If you keep your feathers well oiled the water of criticism will run off as from a duck’s back.” ~Ellen Swallow Richards

    We all seek love, approval, and appreciation, don’t we? We sometimes obsess over what people think of us. When we receive feedback that seems less than favorable, we speculate for days about what it might mean.

    Usually we attach the wrong meaning to it, and this drains our energy and might even cause us to withdraw and quit what we are doing.

    Is there a way to avoid this? How can we keep our feathers well oiled?

    Here is what happened to me and what I learned from it.

    I was working in HR in a big institution with more than 7,000 employees and hundreds of different departments. I was asked by my hierarchy to coordinate with several departments to accommodate the varied needs of colleagues with disabilities, as it required special workplace adaptation and much more.

    With more than ten different departments involved in the project, there was a clear need for coordination, but not a clear mandate in my job description. But it didn’t seem to be a problem, and the departments involved were happy that somebody took the role.

    Until one evening, after work, I opened my inbox and there it was, an email from a colleague, sent out to the entire mailing list of colleagues and departments involved in the project.

    It was the head of one of the departments telling me that with the coordination work I’d done, I’d cause problems for him (without providing further specification). He instructed me to stop, and in an ironic tone he wrote that my talents and help would surely be better used in other projects.

    I responded immediately, “Sorry. Okay, then I will not do the coordination.” I felt crushed, small, and incredibly hurt.

    But was it really the criticism that stopped me?

    Probably not, since there were three other supportive emails sent out to the entire list, from people working on the project, who happened to be high in the hierarchy.

    When I looked inside myself, some months after the incident happened, I discovered that it wasn’t the criticism but my own interpretation of it that stopped me.

    The criticism was feeding my own limiting beliefs.

    How often do we receive criticism and it doesn’t touch us, sometimes we don’t even notice it? When there are no self-beliefs for the insult to hook into, it rolls off like a raindrop on our raincoat. But when deep down we hold limiting beliefs, the criticism arouses them.

    “Criticism is something you can easily avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” ~Aristotle

    If we do something we will be criticized, and we cannot do anything about it.

    Thinking “he shouldn’t criticize me” will stop the other person. It is hopeless. All it does is it harms us.

    Instead of blaming the one who is criticizing us, it is better to focus on the one person we do have control over: ourselves.

    Look inside, discover the beliefs that caused the criticism to stick, and begin to undo them. So the next time when we receive similar criticism it rolls right off, like the raindrop on our raincoat.

    Not sure how to discover your own limiting beliefs? Here’s how:

    Finish the following statement: “Someone has criticized me, and that means…”

    What came up for me was: “I am inadequate; I do not fit in; I am not fit for the institutional power games.”

    I was quite surprised to be confronted with these limiting beliefs.

    What is it for you? What beliefs did you discover?

    The next step is to question those thoughts with the help of The Work by Byron Katie. It consists of four questions and turnarounds, which are the opposite of the initial thought.

    1. Is it true?
    2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
    3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
    4. Who would you be without the thought?

    Let’s question the thought “I am inadequate.”

    It is important to do this inquiry having a concrete situation in mind. So my situation is: I’m reading the email, which states that I caused problems and it would be better for me to use my talents and help in other projects.

    If you like you can question the belief about yourself that you just discovered. Answer these questions along with me, keeping in mind your situation.

    1. I am inadequate. Is it true?

    Yes.

    2. Can I absolutely know that it is true?

    No.

    Just notice how it feels to express an honest “yes” or a “no” as an answer to these two questions. There are no right or wrong answers here; it’s about discovering what is true for us. And just notice how your mind wanders: “Yes, because…“ or “No, but…“

    3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

    There I am reading the email that states that I caused problems and I would better use my talents and help in other projects. How do I react, what happens when I believe the thought that I am inadequate?

    I make myself small. I hit reply and I answer, “Sorry. Okay, then I will not do the coordination.” I feel crushed and incredibly hurt. I am afraid what others who read that email will say. I picture a catastrophe.

    4. Who would you be without the thought?

    Who would I be without the thought that I am inadequate? What would I do, feel, or say if I could not think the thought that I am inadequate?

    I would be curious what makes my colleague think that I am causing his problems. I would ask him to meet me so that I could understand. I would entertain the possibility that there was just a misunderstanding. I would not disregard the supportive emails I received from others. In fact, I would give much more credit to them. I would be much calmer. I would be genuinely curious about what went wrong without blaming myself.

    The turnaround would be: I am very capable at my job.

    The turnaround opens us up to the possibility that the opposite of our thought feels as true or even truer than the initial one. Examples to the turnaround statement broaden our vision and help us see reality in its complexity.

    So how can that it be true that I am very capable at my job?

    – The three supportive emails I received from colleagues confirm that I am very capable at my job.

    – My work has always been appreciated in the previous years.

    So what was the problem in the first place? The criticism, or my deeply rooted belief that I am inadequate?

    It was the belief, wasn’t it?

    “If you keep your feathers well oiled the water of criticism will run off as from a duck’s back.” ~Ellen Swallow Richards

    The next time you feel hurt by criticism, look for the underlying limiting belief and question it with the help of The Work. This is how we keep our feathers well oiled.

    One day you might even find yourself grateful for criticism and the opportunity it presents to look inside, and better yourself.

    Crushed by criticism image via Shutterstock

  • 6 Ways to Free Yourself from Social Anxiety and Shyness

    6 Ways to Free Yourself from Social Anxiety and Shyness

    “Don’t hide yourself. Stand up, keep your head high, and show them what you got!” ~ Joe Mari Fadrigalan

    Do you struggle with social anxiety or shyness?

    Is this anxiety affecting multiple areas of your life?

    Are you yearning to break free from feeling isolated?

    Like many people, I was shy as a kid. But I wasn’t just shy—I was painfully shy. I would avoid social situations like the plague. And I barely spoke because I stuttered.

    My shyness followed me well into adulthood. I stayed away from social situations, fearing the embarrassment of stumbling in my speech. But even as my speech improved, I was always on guard and still felt awkward in social settings.

    Then, I met a man who helped me change how I approached my fears. Tom had a stutter much more severe than mine, but it did not stop him from interacting with people. I was amazed by his courage and seeming lack of self-concern as he introduced himself to me.

    We chatted for a bit, and he left an impression on me that I would never forget. He couldn’t stop his stutter, but he wouldn’t let it stop him from talking.

    Reflecting on this experience taught me some valuable lessons about how to overcome shyness. These can work for you too (even if you don’t stutter):

    1. Acknowledge the fear.

    A common fear for shy people is the fear of what others may think about them. For me, my concern was the way I spoke. But it could be something else, such as a concern over your physical features or intelligence.

    Tom could have easily been afraid of how he appeared to me as he introduced himself. If he was, it didn’t stop him from engaging me in conversation. I knew that to follow his example, I would first need to acknowledge my own fears of how I appeared to others when I spoke.

    You may be tempted to discount your feelings or try to ignore them. But the more you try, the more the anxiety grows. The first step to freedom is to acknowledge the fear, as silly or inconsequential as that seems.

    When you do, something interesting will happen; you’ll realize that you’re likely more concerned about your own quirks than other people are. This will give you the strength and courage to begin moving past them.

    2. Accept embarrassment.

    Yes, it’s painful. Nobody likes to embarrass themselves in public, but it will happen.

    As a stutterer, I’ve felt incredibly embarrassed because of my speech on many occasions. I would be flowing along as I spoke only to be hit with blocked speech. Some episodes were so bad that I would appear to be suffering from convulsions.

    Needless to say, this made me wary of speaking in public; I was too afraid of embarrassing myself. But Tom didn’t seem to have this problem at all. It made me wonder, “What if I accepted the potential for embarrassment rather than hide from it?”

    The more I opened up myself to potentially embarrassing situations, the more courageous and resilient I felt.

    This can happen to you too if you are willing to experience the greatest fear holding you back from interacting with other people.

    Think about the worst-case scenario. Is it a life or death situation? If not, you will recover, and you’ll be stronger for it. You’ll more easily enter conversations rather than sit on the sidelines.

    3. Challenge your perceptions.

    We place many unreasonable expectations on ourselves when entering social interactions. Somehow, we believe that social conventions call for a person to be highly intelligent, witty, and entertaining in all their conversations.

    I tried to be all these things to all people in the past—and I failed miserably because I was not being myself. I was trying to be what I thought others wanted me to be. Instead of choosing to be fluent or silent, Tom chose to be himself.

    His powerful example caused me to ask myself, “Would I hold others to the same ridiculous standards I was holding myself to?” Probably not.

    Do you believe you need to be intelligent, witty, and entertaining in all your social interactions? Challenge those perceptions.

    Most people can see right through fake encounters. Just be yourself. People will appreciate you for who you are. And if they don’t, you’ll likely never see them again (or won’t see them for a long time). So, don’t worry about it.

    4. Focus on others.

    As I chatted with Tom, I noticed how much he encouraged me to talk about myself. I got the impression that he was sincerely interested in me and my story.

    He helped me realize how hyper-focused I was on myself and on what others might (or might not) think about me. To break the spell of self-absorption, I needed to focus on helping others.

    When I stepped outside of my own world, I could see that other people had similar fears about what others thought of them. This caused a big shift in my thinking.

    Rather than struggling to put myself at ease, I focused on helping others feel at ease with welcoming words and a warm smile. I learned to listen to them attentively and be genuinely interested in what they had to say.

    The next time you’re tempted to withdraw from conversation, remember this sage advice from Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People:

    “So if you aspire to be a good conversationalist, be an attentive listener. To be interesting, be interested. Ask questions that other persons will enjoy answering. Encourage them to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.”

    This step is almost guaranteed to put them, and you, at ease.

    5. Start small.

    Sometimes, we think that to overcome our shyness, we need to do big things—like speak in front of hundreds of people or start a conversation with every person we meet.

    Tom didn’t try to make long speeches. His sentences were brief and to the point. I began to model his behavior by using fewer and simpler words. Over time, I became more comfortable with speaking at greater length.

    You can start to overcome shyness by taking action in small ways. If groups of three or more seem too daunting, try introducing yourself to a person who may be looking for some company. If making eye contact seems too hard right now, try focusing on another area close to their eyes rather than looking down.

    You’ll begin to make progress, and before you know it, you’ll become more confident in larger social settings.

    6. Practice self-compassion.

    Overcoming social anxiety will not be easy, and you’ll have times when you’ll slip back into old habits. My stutter has greatly lessened over the years. But sometimes it comes back with a vengeance whenever I’m anxious or tired. Or sometimes it just happens randomly.

    Sometimes I avoid social situations when my confidence is low. When I am tempted to get angry with myself for falling short, I remember how patient Tom was with himself as he struggled to speak. He didn’t get angry. He simply took a minute to regain his composure and try again.

    I remember that I, too, can become more kind and patient with myself when my fear of social interaction returns.

    If you’re struggling with setbacks also, practice self-compassion. Be patient and kind with yourself on your journey to freedom. Don’t be tempted to give in when you’re feeling down.

    You Have More Courage Than You Think

    Until now, you may have allowed your shyness to hold you back from meeting people in social settings.

    You mistakenly thought you weren’t interesting enough, important enough, or courageous enough to be in the company of others.

    You’ve been in a state of self-imposed exile.

    But you have more courage than you think.

    It’s time to step outside your shell. It’s time to exercise your courage. It’s time to stand up so others can know and appreciate you for who you are.

    The sheer power of your presence may make someone’s day or even change their life (and yours) for the better.

    Anxious man image via Shutterstock

  • Choose to Forgive and Grow from Your Pain, Because You Deserve to Be Happy

    Choose to Forgive and Grow from Your Pain, Because You Deserve to Be Happy

    Sad Man

    “Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have—life itself.” ~Walter Anderson

    “Are you really okay?” I lost count of how many times my immediate family and friends asked me this question.

    My positive, light-hearted attitude seemed to be difficult for people to comprehend, but for me it was the only option and means for survival.

    I remember the situation like it just happened yesterday.

    I was driving home during a holiday weekend after hanging out with a couple of friends and received a text message stating, “This is his girlfriend.”

    At that precise moment, it felt like my heart stopped beating for a minute.

    I had to pull over at a gas station to catch my breath and allow the tears to flow down my cheeks so that the road could be visible again.

    I responded to the text and told her to call me. I spent over an hour listening to another woman cry and try to understand what was happening.

    The man that I had been dating for over a year had been with this woman for over five years and to put the icing on the cake, they live together.

    Fact vs. Fiction

    Imagine meeting your dream guy at a wedding party mixer. He was handsome, ambitious, athletic, family-oriented, fun, and the list goes on.

    He was the epitome of a typical “perfect mate” list so many people draft hoping to find that person.

    We had amazing chemistry, always laughing and enjoying good conversations. We spent a lot of time talking about our dreams, ambitions, family, and personal obstacles. It just seemed so easy, perfect in a sense.

    He and I both lived in different states, so we made travel arrangements to see each other.

    I would complain about us not seeing each other as often as I would have liked to, but his gentle reminder about the nature of his demanding job would quickly stroke my compassionate, understanding side.

    It was not until I moved closer that I began to question his behaviors.

    Originally, we lived over ten hours apart, but after I relocated due to a job promotion, we were now three hours apart. The excuses about not being able to travel due to his work schedule were a tad irrelevant at this point.

    His stories about his car being in the shop, which restricted his travel, and the story about his coworker moving in with him temporarily due to some personal problems did not seem to make sense after a while, but sometimes you want to believe the best in a person despite what your instincts are telling you.

    It was not until my hour-long conversation with his live in girlfriend of five years that I realized the extent of the lies he’d told. This dream guy was not the person I thought he was. I had been awakened from the dream.

    You Have a Choice

    It was at this moment, I had to make a decision. Did I want to react from an emotional, hurt place and focus on my pain? Or did I want to help this woman who had plans to marry this man, who lives with him, who has made many more sacrifices than I ever did to be with him?

    See, this woman had been with him to aid him while he transitioned careers, when his family disowned him, when he had nothing. Listening to her story tugged at my heartstrings and made me for a brief minute forget about my feelings.

    So many times in life we get so focused on ourselves and do not lend ourselves to be in the moment and hear others. Yes, what happened to me was like a scene out of your favorite Lifetime movie, but my situation was nothing in comparison to hers.

    I had the option to easily remove myself from the situation and allow time to heal the wound, while she had to literally undergo a complete lifestyle change.

    Life is about choices.

    You can choose to stay in bad circumstances.

    You can choose to listen to your instincts and your gut feelings that tell you something is not right.

    You can choose to support a complete stranger and be the listening ear during their time of need.

    You can choose to release a situation—the pain, the hurt, the sadness, the anger.

    And more importantly, you can choose to forgive someone you never received an apology from. Forgiving an individual who you feel may have hurt you initiates the healing process.

    The first step in the healing process was being able to truly address how I felt about the situation. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to speak to this person to get an explanation or an apology, and I had to learn how to process my feelings without internalizing them.

    Using techniques such as journaling and exercising, as well as speaking to close friends and family about the situation, really helped with getting my thoughts out.

    However, I believe allowing myself to learn and grow from the experience is what helped me to move forward.

    It’s so easy for us to embrace the victim mentality and place blame on other people for their wrongdoing, but this is the very type of mentality that keeps us angry, bitter, and hurt.

    There is healing in accepting your role in each situation, and for me that was accepting the fact that I chose to avoid the signs.

    I wanted to believe that this person truly loved and cared about me and would never hurt me, so I chose to look the other way, and that is not a demonstration of self-love.

    Over the course of time, I was able to embrace the fact that every being is flawed and we all make mistakes. By no means was I or am I perfect, so who am I to hold this grudge and anger toward another being?

    At times, I thought to myself this man is delusional and absolutely crazy for trying to live a double life. However, for a brief moment, I realized he was probably miserable and seeking an escape from his reality and at that moment, I felt bad for him.

    For me, forgiving this man was pivotal for my life and well-being, because I was able to learn the value of self-love again.

    I found strength, joy, overwhelming gratitude, and peace. I also learned one bad relationship is not an indication that every relationship will be horrible.

    Choose to grow from your pain and learn to forgive, because you deserve to be happy.

    Sad man image via Shutterstock

  • You Don’t Need Anyone’s Permission to Do What You Want to Do

    You Don’t Need Anyone’s Permission to Do What You Want to Do

    “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” ~Steve Jobs

    Two weeks ago, I pulled a muscle in my back. It was really scary in the moment, and initially I thought I was much more badly hurt—though it ended up healing miraculously quickly, after a couple days of intense pain and a couple more of moderate pain.

    The morning that it happened, I sobbed on the bed as I laid motionless, telling my husband I couldn’t believe I’d hurt myself and that I maybe had a herniated disk or whatever it is people talk about, and I’d probably need surgery or at the very least, weeks of physical therapy, and how the hell was I supposed to drive to work that day, and then oh my God, the medical bills?!

    After a little while, I calmed down after I realized I could move a little, as long as I didn’t move or rotate my spine, and my husband said it sounded like a pulled muscle rather than something skeletal.

    After a little while, I drove in to work, in a lot of pain, and apologized to my co-workers in advance about the whining.

    That night, sleeping on it made the pain even worse, and the next morning I bemoaned, “I can’t belieeeeeve I’m going to work. I’m in so much pain, how am I supposed to be present with a client? But I have to go.”

    Normally, I’d have stayed home without too much of a fuss, but we were flying out to Texas that night to visit my family, and I hated the thought of missing an extra day when I was going on vacation for the next three workdays.

    It also meant that I might not get to say goodbye to one of my clients who was discharging, which I felt sad and guilty about.

    My husband has learned better than to tell me what to do, so he encouraged me to do what I thought I needed to. What I was subconsciously thinking in that moment was that I wanted him to give me permission to stay home, dammit, so I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about it!

    I started driving into work and then called one of my colleagues (my Work Wife) and told her what was going on.

    She thought of another solution where I may still be able to see the discharging client, and told me in no uncertain terms that I should stay home. I immediately turned around and drove home.

    She had given me permission. I was relieved.

    When I got home and my husband seemed surprised to see me, I got angry. He went about his regular day (as a teacher, he’s home for the summer) while I fumed on the couch, silent and in pain.

    Finally, I broke the silence: “I’m upset because I wanted you to give me permission to stay home, and you didn’t, and then when I came home you looked surprised, which makes me feel like you think I should be at work even though I’m in a lot of pain, and it makes me think you don’t think it’s that painful, and IT IS!”

    Of course, he did the patient husband thing where he says no, that’s not what he was thinking, and of course I’m in a lot of pain but he doesn’t want to tell me what to do.

    So I continued to sit, slowly cooling down (it so helps me to articulate the story in my head like that) reflecting on this issue of “permission.”

    It happened again today on a conference call with a couple peers in my industry, when I told them about a training I thought I needed to do to.

    In talking it out with them, it became clear to me that I was just dealing with classic Imposter Syndrome, and was looking at an expensive and unnecessary training to try to alleviate that by making me “more legitimate.”

    They gave me permission.

    I was able to acknowledge that’s what I had been looking for, even though I hadn’t consciously realized it at first, and we laughed about it on the call.

    One of the other women—further along in her business than me, with a booming, successful practice—shared that even with where she is in her business, she still struggles with this stuff, too, and still wants permission until she eventually circles around and realizes that it needs to come from herself.

    I never would have thought of permission as something I struggle with, because I don’t hesitate for a moment to give myself permission for dessert or a new shirt or book. But it shows up in other ways—subtly, quietly, and then all the sudden I look up and it’s waving its arms going, “You’d better pay attention to me!”

    The biggest is the permission to let myself slow down. To not be “productive” all the time. (And, news flash, this actually ends up working against me, because it turns out when you try to work on fifteen things at once, not much gets done!)

    I am grateful for the people in my life who have given me permission when I was not in a place to give it to myself, and to other people who remind me that giving it to myself is possible, too.

    If you’re like me, sometimes you need life to put an issue right smack in the middle of your path a few times before you really take notice.

    The signs I got, courtesy of my injury and obsessing over feeling “legitimate,” helped me to see that I was struggling with an issue I didn’t even think I struggled with!

    So if anything in my story resonated with you, consider this your sign: Whatever that thing is that you feel pulled to do, try, quit, or let go of, you don’t have to wait for permission from someone else.

  • How a Pause Can Help You Say No and Avoid Regret

    How a Pause Can Help You Say No and Avoid Regret

    Say No

    “No is a full sentence.” – Unknown

    I like to help. I like to be kind. I like to join in.

    Usually, these things happen as a result of saying yes. Generally it makes me feel good inside. Better about myself.

    But what happens when helping, kindness, and joining in ends up being a burden with too many negative repercussions? Do we continue on the same path? Should we continue to say yes?

    Throughout my life, I have had a good relationship with the word yes. Yes has led me to unexpected, beautiful, memorable experiences. Yes has brought me to my beautiful partner and family. Yes has allowed me to approach life with open intention and a limitless heart.

    But the light and wonder of the word yes also has a darker side.

    Yes has led me to regret, yes has led me to boring and bitter moments, and yes has had me suffering.

    Many people I know (me included) burn out in the process of agreeing to things that maybe we shouldn’t. We nurture, we soothe, and we offer companionship—oftentimes to others before ourselves because we say yes.

    We are often quick to say yes and dive into tasks, parties, and relationships when sometimes we should be saying no.

    This is no mean feat for a person conditioned to play certain roles to please. The transition to kindly, firmly, and confidently say no has been a long time coming for me.

    Having experienced one too many moments agreeing to things that deep down I didn’t really want to do, I found it helpful to practice saying no. That tiny word with so much power. That tiny word that has mostly liberated me from the clutches of others’ approval.

    It was hard at first. Often I would say no, followed by a long line of excuses, and then I would even offer an alternative arrangement, for fear of offending the other person.

    Sometimes I would ruminate about saying no for a long time after the event, beating myself up about it and wondering if the person might ever speak to me again.

    Then as I got older I guess, or finally had enough, or maybe it was a natural transition, I started a tentative relationship with the word no.

    I danced with the word by creating more space between requests and answers and stopping to feel whether yes felt right. I listened to what I really wanted to do.

    There is a beautiful tale told by Clarissa Pinkola Estés about intuition.

    In a nutshell, a mother is dying and she wants to ensure her daughter learns to trust her own intuition after she is gone. She hands her daughter a miniature doll, which looks much like the little daughter.

    The dying mother tells her daughter to keep the doll in her pocket at all times, feed it, and listen to it whenever she is lost or unsure. These are the last words the mother speaks and the little girl is left holding her doll—a miniature version of herself.

    The tale goes on to follow the little orphan as she navigates her way through a difficult time. Every corner she turns, she touches the doll in her pocket and listens for the answers.

    Of course the little doll is not actually giving her the answers. The little doll is her. And through the process, she reaches deep within, to listen to her true self and guide her to safety and to love.

    According to Estés, the doll represents the inner consciousness of all of us.

    If we were to pause momentarily every time we are faced with a difficult decision, we might actually hear the answer from within. Intuition, like many things, needs to be practiced and developed.

    Therefore, the best practice for strengthening my relationship with the word no is to pause and feel in that moment. The present. Listening to the doll in my pocket.

    It has been liberating to create space between. These days we are really quick to formulate responses in conversation, write hurried emails back to people, voice our opposition to something… It’s jarring and sometimes leads to regrettable outcomes.

    In building a better relationship with the word no, space can be created. Stillness. The space between feeling okay and not feeling okay.

    All these years, I jumped to yes automatically. I jumped to yes because I was brought up to say yes first. I said yes because I was (and still am in many ways) eager for approval.

    Please don’t get me wrong—I am not breaking up with the word yes for good. That is not healthy either. But yes and I are making a ‘conscious uncoupling’ for a while, in order for me to find my inner voice.

    I am doing this to hopefully have a better long-term, balanced relationship with the word no, and ultimately those around me. I value both words and the opportunities they bring (and release) for me, and I hope to support my child to learn to do the same.

    Life feels so much lighter when we practice finding the space to stop, feel, and listen to the doll in our pocket.

    Woman saying no image via Shutterstock

  • How to Maintain Peace and Joy Despite Your Everyday Struggles

    How to Maintain Peace and Joy Despite Your Everyday Struggles

    Floating Man

    “In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.” ~Deepak Chopra

    For years I allowed everyday struggles, like slight disturbances from schedule, to steal my happiness, peace, and energy. Whenever something disrupted my plan, I got negative and started complaining.

    When I realized this, I began taking steps to accept the daily chaos. I shifted my focus to how I percieve my daily life and how I spend the twenty-four hours I get.

    I started asking questions, like: Am I being positive? Am I spending my hours in a way that’s productive yet joyful?

    And I began working on changes that enabled me to be at my happiest, most optimal self.

    Gradually, I was able to regain my lost calm and restore my lost energy.

    If you’d also like to experience more peace and joy in your days, these steps may help.

    1. Add fun to your daily chores.

    What are the most boring tasks in your daily routine? How can you make them more enjoyable?

    Minor changes like this can make a large difference in your day.

    One idea is to couple boring chores with more pleasurable activities. My favorite way to do this is by turning on some music while doing tedious tasks.

    Another idea is to plan fun-time as a reward for after work. Or, do a task that makes you feel accomplished just before you handle a mundane one so you’re in a better mental space when you tackle it.

    Completing your tasks in a more exciting manner enables you to have fun, while staying more productive as well.

    2. Be grateful.

    Once we start complaining, we keep listing everything, small or big, that frustrates us.

    Meanwhile, we ignore the good altogether, as if it does not exists.

    Recently, I was planning to meet with an old friend after not seeing her for a long time. But she cancelled the day before and said she was going out of town, so we wouldn’t be able to get together for at least a month.

    Because I was so frustrated, and fixated on this one thing that went wrong, I couldn’t enjoy the movie I watched with my family that day. I kept dwelling on how upset I was, which pulled me out of the moment.

    If you want more peace, stop getting into this vicious cycle of dwelling and complaining.

    The next time you find yourself counting the bad, stop to count some good as well. The good things you find might seem ridiculously tiny—like a shared movie with someone you love—but so are the complaints, if you think about it.

    Staying grateful keeps the negative balanced with the positive, thus preventing you from taking a glum view on life.

    3. Go slightly out of routine.

    When someone asks you what you are doing today, do you say, “Oh, the usual,” with a sigh? Or, do you feel excited as you count off things on your fingers?

    If you do the former, then maybe following the same routine has become too monotonous, and you could benefit from some unpredictabilty.

    Take a different route to your office, do something on the spur of the moment, or pick up a task that’s scheduled for later and finish it beforehand.

    When you voluntarily break your timetable, you can adapt better to the sudden changes that happen.

    Besides, If you finish an important chore, it will give you a sense of early achievement!

    4. Set aside compulsory “me time.”

    In our busy life, it’s easy to forget to take breaks. But working around the clock doesn’t necessarily make you more productive.

    Instead, it ends up making you more negative and reluctant to work.

    On the other hand, having something refreshing to look forward to makes it easier to get through even the worst of days.

    What makes you happy instantly? Include it in your compulsory to-do list.

    Enjoy some music, read a book, go for a morning stroll, or savor a cup of coffee. Anything that helps you relax can qualify as your “me time.”

    5. Take care of your mind and body.

    If we are not in our top form, mentally or physically, we get exhausted easily. We are also unable to deliver our best.

    You don’t need to spend hours in a gym, follow a strict diet, or be an expert in meditation.

    Here are quick examples of activities for a healthy body, wise mind, and contented spirit:

    Body: Go for a walk, eat fruit daily, and ensure that you get enough sleep.

    Mind: Indulge in quick mental exercises—solve a puzzle, do easy math, or memorize a number without your phone’s help!

    Spirit: Spend a few quiet moments with yourself—focus on your thoughts, think of the minor goals you accomplished, or recall a moment that made you happy.

    6. Cut down the negative sources.

    Spend more time with the friends who encourage you instead of the ones that make you feel low.

    Limit the activities that unnecessarily stress you out.

    When you need to face something negative, decide in advance that you won’t allow that negativity to leak into your entire day.

    I have a friend who used to put me on the defensive. I couldn’t understand why; she had a nice manner, after all.

    I eventually realized it was because she’s the kind of person who expects everyone to conform to the society’s views.

    She was actually being judgmental and criticizing, but with a disguised exterior. She was also coercing me into being like her.

    I used to get drained because I was constantly making excuses or giving explanations for my differences.

    When I understood this, I started spending less time with her and kept conversations general.

    Now, when we do meet, and she finds something to criticize, I simply leave it at “Oh, that’s just the way I like it” instead of wasting my energy trying to justify my views.

    7. Remove extra clutter.

    One of the reasons we feel so drained is because we focus our attention on too many things.

    Clutter doesn’t necessarily mean your posessions. Your clutter can be material, digital, or even emotional.

    Whatever it is, take a while to understand what’s occupying your space, time, and thoughts.

    Think deeply about what you really need and get rid of what you are uselessly holding on to.

    Go ahead and do the house/office cleaning that you’ve been putting off for so long.

    Limit your time on social media and utilize that time reading useful sites/watching informative videos instead.

    Or go even deeper—let go of the grudges and negativity and focus your thoughts in a direction that benefits you.

    8. Stop looking at the ideal things that could be.

    We all have things we don’t like and situations we want to be different. But if we can’t change them, it only ends up making us unhappy.

    Quit giving these external circumstances the power to affect your joy.

    Appreciate what is present, use the resources you have, and accept the few things that are not the way you want.

    I felt very lonely during the first year of college. I’d had to leave old friends behind and start afresh. I was okay with that—I’d always considered the possibility that we might go our separate ways.

    But I believed that I would make new friends—ones who were totally like me—to share my dreams and passions with.

    That was not what happened. I couldn’t find anyone I truly connected with, and I became hyperaware of how different I was. As a result, I felt shy and vulnerable, which further prevented me from getting close to people.

    Eventually, I got tired of being aloof. I decided to focus on the fact that I had good people around me instead of comparing everyone to the ‘ideal friend’ image I had.

    Accepting my situation didn’t change it, but it helped me appreciate others and gain true friends in spite of our differences.

    Utilize any opportunity you get, even if it doesn’t looks perfect, or you don’t feel ready to use it.

    Don’t expect things to be better; take steps to make them so. And when they are beyond your control, channel your thoughts into what you can appreciate about how things are and what you can improve.

    —

    A busy life doesn’t have to be a stressful life. By adding, subtracting, and modifying a few of our daily tasks, we can prevent the day from stealing our energy. Similarly, by fine-tuning our thoughts, we can find more peace in our days, months, and years.

    Floating businessman image via Shutterstock

  • How to Heal from Buried Pain: You Must Go Through It

    How to Heal from Buried Pain: You Must Go Through It

    “Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” ~Robert Frost

    When I was a child my friends and I often played a game called “Going on a Bear Hunt.” Each of the verses told of a different challenge, but offered the same advice—that you must go through it. One of the verses went like this:

    “We’re goin’ on a bear hunt. We’re going to catch a big one. I’m not scared. What a beautiful day! Uh-uh! A cave! A narrow gloomy cave. We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. We’ve got to go through it!”

    I had forgotten the concept of this game that we played as kids until much later in life, when I developed stress, anxiety, and depression due to Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD).

    My C-PTSD resulted from a youth of constant bullying—which is now seen as a form of child abuse—and this song came back to me in my lessons to recover.

    By the time my anxiety and depression took full hold of me, I had spent five years trying to help others suffering with the long-term effects of bullying, but I had not yet confronted my own demons.

    It was much like the concept of “physician, heal thyself”—I was helping others without helping myself first.

    I found myself in a constant state of anxiety, and then depression set in. I could no longer sleep, focus, or even find a moment of enjoyment in life. For me, it might have been over.

    But I made an important decision that so many don’t make: While I felt completely alone and lost, thinking I was crazy, I contacted trusted mentors. They led me to mental health specialists who knew how to put me on the path to recovery.

    It was not quick, as it would take two years to feel “back to normal,” or at least was the new normal for me.

    In my sessions with mental health specialists and in the many books I read about the issues I was having, there was one common theme: In order to get better, you have to face and go through your problems, not avoid them, as many people who have suffered from child abuse do.

    We all believe that we can bury or forget these things that happened to us as children, but in truth they are always with us. We must find a way to accept that which we cannot change and move forward without the past haunting us forever.

    I found that to begin the healing process, you have to first let go of the pain of the past. You cannot heal without this crucial first step. Here’s what helped me “go through it” so I could let go and heal.

    Remember and face what you’d prefer to avoid.

    You can’t go over your problem, you can’t go around your problem; you will need to go through it. This means that you will have to face and in many cases relive the issues that you have suppressed for so long.

    For me, it was having to deal with the low self-esteem I had developed from my C-PTSD and relive all of these events again. Yes, it was painful, but far less painful than a lifetime of burying my feelings would be.

    Talk to someone you trust.

    I went the professional route, and I found “talk therapy” to be the most helpful part of my healing process. At first it hurt terribly to dredge up these stories, and I would cry as I relived the hurt. But after a while of telling it, it became just a story.

    You might also find it helpful to see a psychologist or therapist, or it might be sufficient to lean on a friend or relevant. The important thing is that you share all the details you’ve buried inside so you’re no longer hiding them in shame.

    Focus on the good in the bad.

    I learned that, while people can be cruel, others can be loving and supportive—like my family and true friends. As I’ve opened up to them, they’ve shown me sympathy and empathy. I wouldn’t have chosen to be bullied, but I appreciate that the difficult times in life allow us to see how much others care.

    It is easy to forget the good parts of your life when you are going through a difficult time. Remember that there is both good and bad in your story, and you too may feel differently about the pain you’ve endured.

    Find a lesson in your pain.

    It helped me to find a lesson in this painful period in my life—something that I could use to help myself and others going forward.

    I learned that many people hurt others when they’re hurting. They’re dealing with their own pain and they take it out on others through displaced aggression.

    Understanding this can help me be compassionate to others, so I can be there for the people who are hurting as my loved ones have been there for me.

    Remember that life is not one journey, but many journeys.

    Previously, I saw my life as one big journey with a beginning (birth), middle (mid-life), and end (death). But then I changed my thinking to see my life as many little journeys.

    By doing this and allowing this one period of time to be just one journey that had a conclusion, I was able to let it go and put it behind me.

    I found as I wrote out each of my mini-journeys that I had so many good ones, but each had an ending. It’s like the saying “this too shall pass.” You’ll note that it neither says that what will pass is good or bad, just that it will pass.

    —

    So this was the beginning of my hunt for me again. With the above in mind, I was able to take the next steps in recovery, to truly work toward self-acceptance.

    I know many people that don’t confront their past and continue to try to go around or over their problems. They cannot, and they end up frustrated with the world and those around them. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

    My wife gave me a quote in a frame to keep at my desk at work. It shares a simple thought:

    “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

    I go to bed now thankful for the day I had and wake up thankful for the day ahead. Each day I go on a bear hunt and each daily challenge I deal with, I go through it, grateful for the opportunity to try another day.

  • When Your Mind Feels Like a Prison and You Zone Out to Escape

    When Your Mind Feels Like a Prison and You Zone Out to Escape

    Mental Prison

    “All the suffering, stress, and addiction comes from not realizing you already are what you are looking for.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

    I’m currently obsessed with Orange is the New Black. As a binge TV watcher, I find dramas at least three seasons long and watch them like a prisoner eating a box of contraband donuts. I’m glued to the iPad in every spare moment, while I cook, exercise, or eat.

    Then it’s over. And all I have left are wasted hours and a tidal wave of guilt. I always make the same promise to myself—no more binge watching.

    I punish myself. I cook and eat in silence, avoiding the TV. I put myself into the mental equivalent of solitary confinement, criticizing and shaming myself.

    But always after the punishment, I’m overwhelmed with the most powerful desire to rebel. I inevitably find myself again lost in the beautiful bliss of screen time, obsessed with yet another show.

    I watched the entire 144 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in a month and a half during one of my worst rebellions.

    Whether it’s TV, alcohol, drugs, or food, most of us use something to escape. We take the edge off, relax, and zone out.

    But at some point, all of this zoning out can start to become hazardous to our mental and physical health.

    I’m addicted to zoning out. Zoning out has trapped me in my own personal mental prison.

    And I want out.

    My Iron Mind

    We get addicted to escaping and zoning out because we create minds worth escaping from. My mental prison is a foggy and grey place.

    The leader of my mind runs a very tight ship, full of strict and unrealistic rules. When I inevitably fail, I punish myself.

    In my former life as a lawyer I remember not letting myself pee until I finished an email, in punishment for surfing the Internet and wasting 0.2 of a billable hour.

    All of this constant punishment and self-criticism then puts me in such a bad place emotionally that the only way out is an escape route. I binge-watch TV, have too many glasses of wine, pot, or an entire German chocolate cake.

    The War on Binge TV

    The war on drugs tried to teach us that the drugs are the problem. We were told that drugs hijack our brain and force addiction.

    But research now proves that it’s actually not the drug’s fault at all. Two different people exposed to the same drug don’t get addicted the same way.

    In other words, your propensity to addiction to anything is directly related to the circumstances you are in—your life.

    When you live in a mental prison full of punishment and internal criticism, for example, you escape to survive. You escape to not go crazy.

    So if you want to stop escaping with food, drugs, alcohol, or OITNB, you must work to make your mind a happier place.

    I must find a way to dissolve my internal prison.

    Your Inner Bubble Wrap

    Now I’m no expert here, obviously. But I have to think that if I created this mental prison, I can let myself out of it.

    First, I have to stop doing what I’m doing—stop this never-ending pattern of punish-rebel-punish-rebel.

    Whatever your pattern is, try this:

    Stop engaging in it. Just accept what has already happened and then cover the whole thing in compassion.

    So when I watch too much TV, for example, engaging with my pattern is to punish myself with a crap ton of guilt and shame, and then escape that criticism by watching more TV.

    Another way to engage with your pattern is to fight with it. Like for me, arguing with my inner critic to plead my case actually gives it more power.

    Inner criticism is particularly mean and tricky. Try too hard to stop criticizing yourself and you will start criticizing yourself for criticizing yourself.

    Instead of fleeing or fighting, just accept what happened and accept yourself in spite of what happened. Like, if you drew a circle around all of the behavior that you accept for yourself, draw a bigger one.

    I like to look right at my inner critic (in my head) and say, “Yea, so what? So what if I watched too much TV?”

    This opens you up to self-compassion. When you accept yourself no matter what you did, you can start to dissolve even the most powerful mental prison-y pattern.

    Next, you need to replace the negative pattern with a positive one. Plant a garden of positive feelings in your mind, like gratitude and joy.

    I like a “grow” analogy because new thoughts and patterns are like little seeds. At first they may seem small, but if we continue to water them and feed them with our attention, they will grow.

    So start finding ways to create a feeling of gratitude and joy.

    Every time you can remember to do it, find something you love about your life and acknowledge it. Most of us think of gratitude as “I’m thankful for mommy and the dog.”

    But gratitude is so much bigger and more powerful than that. Your mission is to cultivate the ability to find gratitude in any given situation.

    Even if the only gratitude you can find is in your breath, find it. Gratitude is about the feeling state that it creates. Gratitude is inextricably tied to joy.

    This process won’t necessarily free you overnight. But it will start to wrap you in mental bubble wrap, protecting you from the guilt, punishment, and shame that lead to your pattern.

    Strive to become the softest place for you to land. Dream of becoming your own most supportive and accepting friend.

    When you can let go of the way you think you must run your mind, you can embrace what is already a perfect system.

    Mental prison image via Shutterstock

  • What to Do When Things Go Wrong and You Feel Sorry for Yourself

    What to Do When Things Go Wrong and You Feel Sorry for Yourself

    Sad Woman

    “We can always choose to perceive things differently. We can focus on what’s wrong in our life, or we can focus on what’s right.” ~Marianne Williamson

    I was down in the dumps the other day and was feeling sorry for myself.

    For some reason everything was just off. You know when you have one of those days when nothing seems to go right? And you get easily irritated and extra sensitive with everything?

    It all began the night before. I was expecting a call from a guy who I’ve been getting to know. He said he was going to call but never did. I woke up the next morning feeling disgruntled.

    My day proceeded with me stubbing my toe against the bed post, burning my toast, and then receiving a call from the bank to inform me that my debit card had been tampered with and someone had withdrawn over $1,000 from my account. (Luckily, my bank will be filing a fraud claim and I’ll get my money back, which is a blessing!)

    After breakfast, I went to check out a health shop owned by a friend of a friend. We were introduced to each other via Facebook. On the way, I ran into every single red light possible, making me late.

    When I got there I was enthusiastic to pass on a heartfelt hug from my friend, but it seemed her friend was surprised and a bit taken aback, as she leaned in for a lukewarm hug.

    From there things felt awkward to me. Perhaps it was because I’d envisioned a different type of reception and expected my friend’s friend to be equally warm and enthusiastic. Instead, I felt like I was in an intense interview.

    My ego started to stir, criticizing me because I was not prepared to respond to what seemed like 21 questions.

    Feeling flustered over the visit, I was looking forward to meeting up with a friend whom I hadn’t seen in a long time for a catch up. To my dismay, I received a text saying she had to cancel and reschedule because something came up, but she promised she would make it up to me.

    I then got lost in myself. The voices in my head got louder, debating about my worthiness. I felt like a loser that day, and my ego felt deflated. 

    My emotions got the best of me over the most trivial things. And as much as I’d like to blame it on my hormones being out of whack because of jetlag, the truth is I was acting like a child. I was focused on all the “wrong” things that were happening to me, and I was consumed with myself.

    I knew I needed to purge what was on my mind, so I opened my laptop and started to type away. After about fifteen minutes, I felt better. My inner critic stopped and was under control.

    I decided then to check my Facebook page with a strict intention to find an inspirational post or article.

    Soon, I saw a post from a friend of mine who is one of the happiest people I know. She’s on a mission to make people smile and to change the world, one hug at a time.

    In her Facebook post, she revealed that she recently learned she has a rare form of cancer. And although she was shaken by the news, she realized it’s just an unfortunate part of her life’s journey.

    Instead of letting the news get her down, she is choosing not to feel sorry for herself, but to accept it and make the best of it. Or as she wrote, “laugh with cancer.” Because why live in misery, if she knows her time may be up soon? She might as well have fun and go out with a bang.

    Reading her post brought me to tears. It made me realize how self-absorbed I was that day, and how I wasn’t able to appreciate the good things around me because of it. I also realized I’d closed my mind to different ways of seeing things. It was all about me. My expectations.

    When my unspoken expectations weren’t met, I made up stories of what had happened, which led me to my self-pity party.

    It was a great reminder for me to:

    • Not sweat the small stuff
    • Pivot my thoughts to what feels good
    • Change my perspective on the things that happen
    • Refocus my energy on what can I do to serve others instead of being consumed with my own thoughts and feelings

    Once I shifted my attention, the world expanded. I stopped feeling sorry for myself. 

    I realized everything that happened to me within the last twenty-four hours was not just about me. There is more than what meets the eye, and it’s important to not be so quick to judge and form a conclusion about a situation.

    Often the stories we create in our mind are just figments of our imagination, and they do not represent a holistic picture of reality.

    For example, my friend’s friend was probably asking me a lot of questions because she was interested in getting to know me. But for some reason, because I was emotionally off that day, I interpreted her curiosity as interrogation.

    So the next time you are feeling sorry for yourself, turn your focus away from yourself, put yourself in someone else’s shoes, or look at the situation from a third person’s perspective.

    You’ll be amazed by how changing your focus and your thoughts will help soothe your mind and get you to a better feeling place.

    Sad woman silhouette via Shutterstock

  • How to Keep Your Spirits Up When You’re Bombarded With Negativity All Day

    How to Keep Your Spirits Up When You’re Bombarded With Negativity All Day

    Negative and Positive

    “In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.” ~Tony Robbins

    Do you ever have to deal with negative people?

    Do you ever have days where everybody seems to want to bark at you all day long?

    Under those circumstances, you struggle to keep your spirits up, don’t you?

    Well, I know the feeling—all too well, unfortunately.

    Years ago, I worked in a collection department for an insurance company collecting the unpaid debts of policyholders. Trying to obtain debt was like pulling teeth. But both the customer and I equally felt the pain for one undeniable reason …

    People hate debt collectors, period.

    Representing the company, I politely answered calls from those who questioned their outstanding balances. No matter how or what I said to appease the masses, they would retaliate. They’d yell my ear off and curse at me. And boy, did it take its toll on me.

    By evening, I was mentally exhausted and drained and repeatedly asked myself, “How do I cope with the stress but more importantly the negativity?”

    It was like clockwork; my mind was battered and bruised daily. I’d arrive home feeling the ill effects from the entire workweek. I didn’t go out or do anything on the weekends. Depression would engulf me, and I would hit a record low once Sunday afternoon arose.

    Anticipating work was like approaching the apex of a roller coaster. You know there’s no going back and there’s only one way out … and it’s down this big drop whether I liked it or not.

    Back then, my plan still was to move up the company’s career ladder, so as much as I loathed the job, leaving it to find something more fulfilling never even occurred to me. Instead, I tried to find ways to cope with all the negativity.

    Eventually, I succeeded. I developed a safeguard. And even though the work experience wasn’t the best, it did have one positive effect.

    I developed a shield against negativity, and to this day, I feel much better equipped to deal with negative people in my life without letting them get me down. Here’s how you can do the same:

    1. Arm yourself with positives.

    Prime yourself before walking out the door. Load up with whatever positives you can get before you tackle a new week. Watch inspirational or funny movies, laugh at jokes, read enriching and influential books, listen to uplifting music, or learn from motivational speakers and teachers.

    Stock up as much positivity as you can, because everyday life can sap you of your precious energy. Your commute, job, unexpected challenges, personal problems, and friend and family issues can take their toll if you’re not prepared.

    2. Choose not to mirror others.

    Sometimes, others’ negative vibes subconsciously influence us. It’s not our fault we’re human. If someone is rude toward us, our defenses go up, and we’ll dish out the same in return. We’ll unknowingly become trapped and mirror their negative energy exactly.

    If someone’s being negative toward you, and you realize it’s influencing you for the worst, make a conscious effort to get back in the driver’s seat and be in control.

    Instead of mirroring their energy, try to help them mirror yours. Be glad that you’re in a more positive state, and reflect the desired positive outcome back at them.

    If they raise their voice, you speak calmly. If they’re rude, you act politely. That’s the name of the game. Now it’s just a matter of who caves in first.

    Maintain your energy, and stay the course no matter what. You’ll know you’ve got them when they start matching your tone.

    3. Allow others to talk your ear off without ruffling your feathers.

    Let me first preface this by saying it is not healthy to always listen to someone vent.

    You’ll need to set boundaries and not let people treat you like a punching bag, but when you’re dealing with clients or customers, you can’t exactly ignore them. In those cases, just let them vent their frustrations without taking it personally.

    Realize their problems are probably not with you specifically but with other issues that caused them torment.

    Perhaps they need to vent their frustrations about the company you work for.

    Whatever it is, taking it personally would be fruitless. Don’t stand in their way and take the brunt of the onslaught. Just step aside and let them attack the problem head-on to redirect the negativity away from you. That’s how you should visualize it in your head.

    Remember, they’re not really attacking you. They’re attacking the problem. The problem itself is not a part of you; it’s a separate entity.

    If they’re angry with you personally because you made an error, put your ego away, be honest about it, apologize, and move forward. Never hide anything. It’ll just make the situation and your feelings worse off than before.

    Create the least amount of friction as possible by shifting the negativity away from you.

    4. Kindly compliment others whom you dislike.

    If you do find yourself disagreeing with someone, make the best of it by trying to find a point they thought of that you actually agree with. Then genuinely take the time to compliment them for their idea.

    Doing so will subconsciously create a small bond. Believe it or not, this micro-connection is a tiny foundation that you can build upon for a better relationship in the future.

    It’s always best to come out of a conversation on a good note rather than leave any potential seed of negativity.

    5. Treat yourself when you feel the negativity getting to you.

    A gift to yourself (it doesn’t necessarily have to be material) is the perfect distraction to help shift your mindset and lift your spirits when you’re down.

    You should give yourself a reward, even a small one, at the end of the day or week. For example, it could be as simple as pre-ordering a book that’s piqued your curiosity or perhaps scheduling a dinner with someone you’ve wanted to be closer to.

    Whatever it is, it gives you something mentally positive to hold onto and think about to make it through a tough day.

    Your Positive Actions Make You Your Own Leader, Not a Follower

    You’ll have to deal with a certain amount of negativity in your life. You can’t really change that. Negative people exist, and even the positive ones can succumb to negativity on a bad day.

    But you can change how you deal with it … if you allow yourself to. You can change how you react. Is it easy? It can be. Is it challenging? It can be. The real answer is actually up to you. At its very core, negativity is how you perceive it.

    You can choose to keep your spirits up no matter what negative people throw at you. And maybe you can even change their moods while you’re at it.

    Is it worth the effort? Unequivocally yes. I gained this valuable life skill that I undoubtedly couldn’t get anywhere else, and I use this skill to this day.

    Take control of your life, and lead it where we want to go. Don’t allow others to dictate how you should feel. That’s something you can do for yourself.

    Negative and positive image via Shutterstock

  • Lashing Out is Losing Control; Calmness Is Strength and Power

    Lashing Out is Losing Control; Calmness Is Strength and Power

    Calm Man

    “Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power.” ~James Allen

    I would like to share something personal with you. It’s the story of how I first glimpsed what true strength and power is and where they come from. I hope this story helps to further illuminate your journey through life.

    I remember one day when I was in the back seat of my parents’ car. I was probably about thirteen years old. We were parked in a hotel driveway, waiting, though I can’t recall why.

    After a few minutes, another car pulled up behind ours and the driver began to impatiently honk at us. Soon he began to scream and curse as well. I turned and saw a man whose face was bright red, scarred deeply by wrinkles of rage and bitterness.

    The driver had obviously lost control of his emotions, as it was impossible for us to go anywhere with his car blocking us in. It was as clear as day that we were stuck until he moved. What on earth did he want us to do?

    My father sat in the driver’s seat, gazing into the rearview mirror. His face was strained with confusion, trying to figure out how to process what was happening.

    My father is a great man, always striving to do what is right, strictly honest and keen to help others. Finally, somewhat frustrated, my father opened the door so he could go and speak with the impatient man in the car behind us.

    I remember feeling afraid when he stood up because I knew that the other person was really angry.

    I watched my father begin to walk toward the other car. As the car horn continued to blow, my father abruptly stopped and paused. He seemed to be contemplating something, and it appeared as if his entire being softened.

    Slowly, he returned to the car and sat back down. My father’s expression was one that I had never seen before on him: a look of straining and struggle with a hint of shame. Eventually, the other man drove off and that was the end of the incident.

    The image of my father’s face profoundly affected me and was forever tattooed in my memory. I was just a young child and, in my mind, my father was perfect. He was my hero and I idolized him.

    He is not a large man and I have never known him to fight; yet I felt a tinge of disappointment that he hadn’t stood his ground and confronted the other man. I felt that he had retreated. And my impression was that he felt the same way.

    A few days later my father shared with me a dream that he had the night before. In his dream, I had beaten up the man who was honking the horn.

    At the time, despite being young, I was a black belt in Taekwondo. I remember wishing that I really had beaten him up. I wanted to get even with the man who had embarrassed my father.

    I became full of anger. I imagined myself beating him up again and again yelling, “This is for my father!”

    I was angry, partly because he had hurt my father, but mostly because he had hurt me. He revealed to me a flaw in my father’s character: he was afraid and perhaps not strong enough to fight back. It left me bewildered and, for the first time, I realized that my hero wasn’t perfect.

    Something deep inside me was forever changed.

    Years later, as a college student, a friend and I went out for a meal. While eating, an acquaintance of ours lost his temper and began yelling at my friend. My friend listened silently, showing no change in his demeanor.

    Eventually, the man finished yelling and my friend quietly stood up and walked away without saying a word. I was so impressed by how calm he was.

    Later, I asked him how he managed to keep his cool. He smiled and told me, “A strong person is not one who knocks other people down; it is one who does not let his anger get the better of him.”

    I was stunned. I knew that he was completely right. Who demonstrated more strength: the person who had lost control of his temper or my friend who had kept his?

    These words touched my soul and aroused in me an understanding of where true power comes from: it comes from within. And inner strength dwarfs physical strength.

    That night, this realization lingered in my mind. As I was digesting this lesson, suddenly I remembered the incident with my father and the horn-honker, many years before.

    A voice within me asked, “Who was the stronger man?” and chills slowly crept up my spine as I realized that it was, in fact, my father. While the other man had allowed his rage to overcome him, my father had controlled himself.

    The other man had lost; he lost to himself when he allowed his emotions to take over. My father, on the other hand, had stood victorious over himself, conquering his own emotions, commanding them down. The other man was a slave to his passions; my father was the master of his.

    It was then that I saw my father for the truly strong and courageous man that he is. The weak and easy path would have been to return anger with anger, yelling with yelling. But my father had the strength to resist this; he had the power to calm his mind while a tempest raged about him.

    It was in this moment, that my own path became a bit clearer. I realized that I must embark on a journey of conquering myself, because I now knew that I did not want to be a slave. The only other option was to master myself, to command the hidden forces within.

    When you feel negative emotions rising, threatening to overcome you and make you into their puppet, remember that the strength and power needed to maintain calmness lie forever within you.

    Calm man image via Shutterstock

  • If It’s Hard to Say Goodbye, Your Life’s Been Truly Blessed

    If It’s Hard to Say Goodbye, Your Life’s Been Truly Blessed

    “You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.” ~Unknown

    On the evening of my high school graduation it hit me—the familiar faces and places I’d grown so accustomed to over the last twelve years would soon be changing.

    The anxiety of that reality had started to creep into my psyche weeks ago, when I was being fitted for my cap and gown. Standing there looking in the mirror, I remember thinking to myself, “How did I get here?”

    Somehow I had gone from a seven-year-old schoolboy to an eighteen-year-old teenager, and I wasn’t quite sure where my youth had gone.

    Sitting at the ceremony, one thought continued to occupy my mind.

    I knew at the conclusion of our graduation party early the next morning, I would be closing a chapter in my life—one filled with exploration, development, struggles, and growth.

    For so many of my fellow classmates, we had been together since kindergarten. We journeyed together, watching each other grow through the innocence of childhood, to the prejudices that develop as young adults.

    We went from adorable five year olds without a care in the world, to the awkwardness of puberty and the struggles to live up to societal stereotypes.

    In a way they were like family—comfortable like an old sweater; grounding me when I needed a reminder that I belonged to something greater than myself.

    It was a bittersweet moment in my life.

    While I understood that life didn’t end after graduation, and opportunities were certainly before me, it also meant leaving the safety and security I’d come to rely on over the last twelve years.

    As I tossed my cap high into the air I realized it would soon be time to say goodbye.

    —

    When my aunt called me that summer morning, I wasn’t completely surprised by the news that my grandmother had passed away.

    My wife and I had just visited her the night before, and each of us felt as though her silent stares were her way of telling us goodbye.

    My relationship with her was invaluable—a profound part of my existence from a rambunctious child to a young married adult. She was a constant source of joy, love, and support, one I came not only to rely on, but also cherish.

    A few years prior, she gave me a photo album she began compiling on the day I was born. A photo album dedicated to my life, featuring photographs, recital programs, and other mementos she religiously collected and safely stored behind a clear sheet of plastic film.

    Flipping through the pages after her passing, I felt as though a part of my heart had died along with her.  

    I never questioned her love for me; it was incredibly evident each and every time I was in her presence. And while that was a comforting reminder, the loss was intense.

    Throughout the memorial service, I was surprised by my complete composure on what was an incredibly sad occasion. But as the church organ began to play and they wheeled her coffin down the center aisle, tears began flowing uncontrollably.

    It was a bittersweet moment in my life.

    While I knew deep down she was tired of being a prisoner to her physical ailments, accepting that I would never see her again in this earthly life was difficult to acknowledge.

    As I wiped the tears from my eyes and headed to the cemetery, I realized it would soon be time to say goodbye.

    —

    With the last box loaded on to the moving truck, our house appeared just as it did when we first moved in—empty.

    As we meandered from one room to the next greeted by the sound of a faint echo, my wife and I tried our best to hold back the tears to no avail.

    We remembered how we first felt as young homeowners.

    There was an air of excitement and a feeling of accomplishment swirling around the empty rooms of our new home.

    It was there we would host family and friends on cherished holidays or for simple Sunday dinners; where we’d tackle DIY projects together, going from frustrating to entertaining by its completion; where our bodies would grow twelve years older, and our hearts infinitely stronger still.

    It had become a place of solace from the harsh world outside our front door. Filled with warmth and overflowing with unforgettable memories, which now seemed to replay in our minds like a documentary chronicling our time there.

    It was a bittersweet moment in my life.

    While moving our lives across the country provided us with new opportunities both personally and professionally, it also meant leaving a house that had become our home for over a decade.

    As the two of us made our way down the stairs of our side hall colonial for the very last time, I realized it would soon be time to say goodbye.

    —

    I think we all can agree that saying goodbye is never easy.

    And while the word “goodbye” has garnered a rather negative emotional connotation in society, there is another way, a more positive way to perceive it.

    Author A.A. Milne, who is perhaps best known for his books about a teddy bear named Winnie-the-Pooh, once wrote:

    “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

    While saying goodbye does mean accepting that a part of our life is now over, it also provides us with a chance to realize just how blessed our lives have been.

    To look back and reflect on the journeys we’ve shared with some wonderful people, while being exposed to amazing and invaluable experiences we often take for granted.

    Regardless of how long someone has been a part of our lives, whether it’s five minutes, five years, or five decades, their impact will always remain with us—even after we utter that simple, yet hard to say two-syllable word.

    My stories above are but a small snapshot of the many times during my personal journey when I’ve struggled to utter the word “goodbye.” Regardless of the circumstances, saying goodbye means change, and change rarely comes along with immediate acceptance.

    The finality associated with saying goodbye is challenging. Yet it’s an empowering word, enabling us to achieve closure and ultimately move on with our lives.

    The quote below, from Walt Disney, has continually provided me comfort on days when I’m feeling sad and lonely and need a little reminder of the blessings I’ve been bestowed, which no one can ever take away.

    “Goodbye may seem forever. Farewell is like the end, but in my heart is the memory and there you will always be.”

  • Help Instead of Judging; They May Be Blinded by Pain

    Help Instead of Judging; They May Be Blinded by Pain

    Compassion

    “We can judge others or we can love others, but we can’t do both at the same time.” ~Unknown

    When I was eighteen, my father took his own life. I was just a baby, really, a mere freshman working on my Bachelors Degree at UMF.

    There are times when I feel lost in the pain of missing him, stuck with this empty hole inside. Hovering in between confusion and anger, where the feelings consume me.

    Losing my father in such a traumatic way has shown me just how deeply I can feel, how hard I can fall, how grief can overcome my entire being at times, how forgiveness can heal—and also how I can help others so they don’t need to suffer as my father did.

    A military man who dealt with severe depression and PTSD, he desperately tried to find his place in this world. He tried to find comfort through his adopted family, he tried to find courage through joining the military, and he tried to find understanding by becoming a father.

    He was a quiet soul who was sociably awkward in a sweet, innocent way. He radiated beams of sadness from his eyes and tried desperately to express his love to his family without actually having to verbalize it.

    Monday, February 19, would become the date that measures time in my book. Time would be measured before this date and after this date.

    I awoke that morning, traveled south to a friend’s home, and fell asleep on her couch after arriving.

    Around 9:00pm, there was a knock on the door. There stood a Maine State Trooper and a priest. As I sat up on the couch, they walked into the living room. My heart pounded so hard I felt as if it were outside of my chest.

    As they sat down, I screamed, “What’s happened? Why are you looking at me like that?”

    The state trooper said, “I’m sorry to tell you this Jessica, but your father has died.”

    The priest quickly intervened, “He died quietly, in his sleep, with his cat next to him. He took his own life, dear, by overdosing on medication, but he’s at peace now…”

    Time stopped. My heart stopped. The pounding noise in my ears stopped. I cannot recall what they said next. I don’t remember what I even did next. I remember faintly hearing questions like, “Did you know he was ill?”, “Maybe this is a good thing considering the circumstances?”, and “Do you want to go see your mom now?”

    It was all a blur. We rushed back to my family home, I ran into my mother’s arms, and suddenly the funeral planning began. Life would never be the same.

    I remember feeling awkward and out of control. I worried about the stigma attached to the way he died, along with the potential judgment, the unknown pain, and the unknown future.

    What looks will I get upon returning to the University? How will people act around me? Am I a statistic? Am I a survivor? My mind raced. My feelings cycled through anger, resentment, betrayal, confusion, and hurt.

    How could he do this to me and our family? Didn’t he want to see me graduate college, get married, and have children? Why leave me with all these questions? This guilt? This pain? Why would he do such a thing, take the easy way out and refuse any help? He was such a great father, a strict Catholic, a military man…why would he do this?

    Then I realized that all of my pain and all of my questions were centered around me, not him. My inner victim was loud and self-pitying. And that’s part of the problem. People who are in such pain from deep depression or mental illness aren’t thinking rationally.

    My dad wasn’t thinking about my wedding in the future or the grandkids he would have or his next vacation; he was in pain. Period. Unbearable pain that he just couldn’t escape. He needed help. But people turned away because it can be uncomfortable to reach out, or perhaps because they thought it wasn’t their problem, or that he was just mean.

    We all have the power to recognize pain in others and offer compassion instead of judgment. In doing so, we can help those in need instead of forming mistaken conclusions about them and writing them off.

    Let go of the assumption that the man talking to himself on the street or the person in the straight jacket are the only ones “crazy” enough to take their own life—and that those people aren’t also worthy of compassion.

    Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. And everyone processes loss and hardship in different ways. How much you can handle will vastly differ than what someone else can handle.

    We’re all hurting in some way, perhaps damaged due to tragedy, and yet in spite of everything, many of us rise out of bed in the morning and put a smile on our face.

    Many people appear composed or happy to give the impression to the outside world that they have it all together, only to return home to feel sad and alone.

    When you encounter someone in distress or look into a stranger’s eyes and see sadness, offer kindness. Don’t wait for others to be kind to you, show them how to be kind. Don’t prejudge or assume something about anyone; allow them to tell their own story—and believe them.

    Listen, be present, and give others the space to be themselves.

    This is what I learned from my father’s loss—that you never know who’s completely blinded by the depth of their pain, and you never know how much you could help by offering kindness and compassion.

    Compassion image via Shutterstock

  • Stop Trying to Fit In and Start Embracing Your True Self

    Stop Trying to Fit In and Start Embracing Your True Self

    Stand Out from the Crowd

    “Don’t change so people will like you; be yourself and the right people will love you.” ~Unknown

    I’ve always felt the pressure to fit in. There’s always been a gap between what I want to be and what I think the world thinks I should be.

    I was a tomboy growing up. I climbed trees when other girls played with dolls, I played soccer in my teenage years when other girls wore dresses and went to parties, and even as an adult I preferred to watch the Saturday afternoon game rather than go shopping.

    But the pressure to fit in and be liked turned me into a social chameleon. I tried to be the person I felt I should be so I’d blend in with those around me, whether that meant spending a Friday night at the pub or attending a corporate meeting at the head office.

    Psychologist William James said, “A man has as many social selves as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares. He generally shows a different side of himself to each of these different groups.”

    I’ve spent my life trying to fit in. I’ve always wanted to please people, to make my parents proud, and to receive approval from anyone and everyone—my family, friends, partners, bosses, and teachers.

    So without even realizing it I would change myself, my desires, and sometimes even my opinions to fit into whatever mold was required at the time. But if you’re constantly trying to prove your worth to people, it may be true that you’ve already forgotten your value.

    Last year I quit my corporate career to pursue my dream of being a writer and yoga teacher, but it took many years to get to that point. For so long I’d had these dreams in my heart, but the logic of my head overruled.

    There was always a difference between what I wanted and what I thought I should want—my opinion and the norm of society somehow differed—and I’d always assumed I must be the one off beam.

    This leads to a life of sacrificing ourselves to please others, living their dreams at the expense of our own.

    I found the more I listened to, abided by, and fuelled these stereotypes, the more I was defined by them—defined by my career, the clothes I wore, where I was from, how much money I had, and what kind of car I drove. But none of this was really me, so why was I letting it define me?

    We live in a world where we are surrounded by ideals. The media presents us with better versions of just about everything, creating a mindset that we should be striving for more. There’s no wonder so many of us feel like we’re not enough.

    We need to be richer, slimmer, fitter, happier, nicer, different in some way. The point is, we are all different and there is no right or wrong.

    To find true happiness we must be true to ourselves, live our own dreams, and be proud of what makes us unique instead of feeling the pressure to follow the crowd.

    It’s easier said than done, I know. It helped me to ask myself: What makes life worth living? How would you like to be remembered? What do you admire about others?

    It may also help to reflect on what you wanted to do when you were a kid. Often this holds the key to what we held dear before we were influenced by what other people think.

    Take a moment to consider what your strengths are and be clear on your core values. It also helps to seek out like-minded people. Not only do we feel at ease with them, they also help us grow and flourish in accordance with our true selves.

    Remember, everyone has their own version of ‘normal,’ and none of us are right or wrong. We should not expect ourselves to all be alike, but rather respect our differences and value our skills despite them being different.

    When we are comfortable in our own skin, we are not fighting against or with anyone, as we’ve discovered our own true nature and are living in accordance with it. We are courageous enough to live our own truth.

    Unfortunately, there will always be someone more beautiful, clever, talented, or stronger than you, but the reverse is also true. There will always be people less than you in all of these areas.

    So instead of comparing yourself to others, look to see if you’re fulfilling your own potential to the best of your ability. As a nation we seem obsessed with comparing ourselves, but rather than thinking about what you should be like, try just being you. Simply be—as you are.

    You don’t see a sparrow comparing itself with a pigeon, and although we put different prices on timber, none of the trees feel inferior or superior.

    In nature everything is needed and it all has its place. It all fits together and is equal. Whether you’re a blade of grass or a mighty oak tree. it doesn’t matter; you are needed and you have your place in the world.

    The ancient meaning of the word courage is “tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.”

    It is all about being true to yourself.

    Let go of who you think you should be and be who you are. Everyone is coming out of their own closet, emerging to be the person they really are, their true self, and worried about what others may think and if they’ll be accepted.

    That’s why it’s so important to connect with authenticity and compassion, but you can’t be compassionate to others without being compassionate to yourself first. Don’t change so people will like you, be yourself and the right people will love you.

    Stand out from the crowd image via Shutterstock

  • How Obsessing About Your Body Gets in the Way of What Matters

    How Obsessing About Your Body Gets in the Way of What Matters

    Woman Exercising

    “Focus on what you want your life to look like—not just your body.” ~Sarah Failla

    Growing up I never had much concern for the shape or size of my body. Perhaps once in a while the idea of losing weight or beginning an exercise routine crossed my mind, but it was always fleeting and I was quickly back to gossiping with my best friend or writing a note to my boyfriend.

    Once I entered college I gained some weight, what with the unlimited access to Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch (something that never, ever crossed the threshold of my childhood home) and no fewer than five local pizza joints that delivered to the dorms.

    Still, though, I didn’t spend much time worrying about my health or what was going on with my body.

    In my last year or two at school, I began going to the gym along with my roommates, and by the time graduation rolled around I decided I should try to go on a diet and lose the weight I’d gained in the last few years.

    My attempt at slimming down worked, as a combination of restricting calories and increasing exercise will do, and soon I was off on my next set of adventures, which included working at a ski lodge in Vermont, traveling cross country, living for a summer in Montana, and traveling around the southern US, often living in a tent.

    During that time thoughts about my body didn’t occupy much space in my mind, though at times there was a fear of weight gain. For the most part, though, I was living my life and enjoying my travels.

    A few years down the line, though, things had taken a turn. I was uncertain about the future of both my romantic relationship and my career, and focusing on the health, size, and shape of my body became a very time-consuming diversion.

    I began waking at 5:30 most mornings in order to fit in a workout, sometimes completing another when I got home from work. I began feeling a bit uncertain and afraid around certain foods, and felt the need to cut back on the amount I ate. I felt consumed with losing weight and changing the shape of my body.

    Though many praised me for what they assumed was my healthy lifestyle, I was increasingly miserable. It didn’t matter that I was losing weight, I still thought my body looked wrong.

    I spent more and more of my time, energy, and attention thinking about my body. I was never, ever in the present moment with myself. I felt paralyzed when it came to many life decisions.

    When I look back now, I see clearly what was going on. I see that I was afraid, and that obsessing about the way my body looked gave me an outlet, gave me something else to focus on. I was trying to avoid my fear.

    I wanted to do something big and bold and amazing with my life, but I was afraid I never would. I was unsatisfied in my relationship, but afraid of being alone. I wanted to do and be so much more, but the thought of change and fear of failure were too much.

    Focusing on the food I put on my mouth, the size on the tag in my jeans, and the number on the scale made it possible to avoiding facing up to my deepest uncertainties.

    Eventually, with much time spent in self-reflection, coaching, and counseling, I was able to move past my body woes. I was able to stop letting worries about my body stand in the way of taking big, important steps toward living a life I could be proud of and present in.

    Today my life and focus is very different. I am very happily married, a mother, and a business owner. I am proud of myself for getting here.

    I can’t wish away the years I spent dieting and overly worrying about my physical appearance, because doing so actually helped me cope with things I wasn’t yet ready to face. I wouldn’t have wanted to live that way long term, but at the time it provided me with a valuable escape.

    The experience also gave me something I never expected: the ability to help others struggling with the same thing. For that, I am so thankful, because I have found a passion I didn’t know existed, one that wouldn’t even exist, had I not been through all of that.

    If you find that you are putting excessive energy into worrying about your weight, size, or other aspects of your body, to the point where you are unable to live life in such a way that is satisfying to you, here are my suggestions for getting back to a place of balance:

    Acknowledge that your worries have gotten out of hand.

    Sometimes just realizing that something bigger is going on can be the key to getting back to a centered place.

    Realize they’re just thoughts, and you can, with practice, make them kinder or even ignore them.

    Just because the thought “I’m need to lose weight” crosses your mind doesn’t mean you need to believe it. You can shift it to “I would prefer to focus on what I like about my body” or even let the thought float by and not attach to it.

    Learn to value, appreciate, and respect your body for what it is.

    Your body does amazing things no matter what your size, shape, or weight. For instance, if you can see these words, it means your eyes work, and finding more positive things about your body is easy once you get started thinking about it.

    Practice something that brings you to the present moment.

    Being in the present helps you remove yourself from too much worry about your body and focus on what matters most to you. Maybe meditation isn’t your thing, but perhaps stretching, practicing yoga, journaling, praying, or even watching the leaves sway in the breeze will work for you.

    Check in to see what you’re trying to avoid.

    As I said, I used my body focus as a way to avoid what I was afraid of, so if you’re doing the same, try taking a peak at what’s scaring you in small, incremental sessions. You don’t have to solve everything right now, just begin to open your awareness.

    Get professional help if necessary.

    Food and body image issues are no joke, and if you’re suffering in a way that is negatively impacting your life, seek counseling from someone who is trained to provide the help you need.

    To be clear, there is nothing wrong with making an effort to eat healthfully and move your body in a way that feels good to you, it really all comes down to the energy behind your actions.

    If you are choosing to exercise because it makes you feel strong and alive or helps you shake off the stresses of the day, that is very different from choosing to exercise because you are full of fear about your life or what would happen if you gained weight.

    The same goes for your eating habits. If you are filling your body with healthy, whole foods because you enjoy them and love preparing them, that is very different from forcing yourself to eat a certain way because you are afraid of what will happen to your body if you do not.

    Your body is a gift, and it deserves the best care. However, if your focus on it starts to get out of hand and prevents you from existing and inhabiting your life, or consumes your thoughts, it’s time to take a step back and shift your focus to what truly matters to you.

    Woman exercising image via Shutterstock

  • 6 Reasons Why We Can’t Give Up

    6 Reasons Why We Can’t Give Up

    Dont Give Up

    “The minute you think of giving up, think of the reason why you held on so long.” ~Unknown

    I was a serial “giver upper” for so much of my youth.

    I tried gymnastics when I was about six until I discovered the teacher smoked. I’m not sure why I had an aversion to smoking at the time, but I can remember frowning and stamping my foot a lot about it.

    I tried tap and ballet until I realized that the teacher was some kind of Roald Dahl headmistress. She would thump around the classroom scaring the crap out of us, and as a result none of us looked elegant and poised.

    I tried horse riding until the horse turned psycho and kept throwing me off, including throwing me into a fence. It was a very big horse, at least for a little girl.

    I’d write plays and novels until another idea distracted me and floated out the window, and I saw it as my destiny to run after it until I got lost.

    I’d become passionate about causes until I realized that fighting the cause would involve too much sacrifice. Sacrifice for a cause? Who would have thought?

    If things became too hard I would give up and move on. But the older I got, the more I regretted giving up on some of these things.

    By now I could have been touring my play, “Horse Lake – One Woman, Sixteen Horses, and a lot of Ballet and Tap.” Intriguing, huh?

    Seriously, though, I was becoming more and more aware that my lack of capacity for sticking with things meant that I was missing out on experiences and ways of being that were deeper, more beautiful, and more satisfying that were just over the mountain if I decided to keep climbing.

    I also saw terrible and sad things that needed to be righted, that needed dedicated and brave people to fight and to not give up until things changed.

    I saw people that had lost too much, that were worn out, that were on the edge of giving up every day who needed hope.

    I saw a world that was turning more and more toward quick stimulation and transient passions. That was turning away from long-term endeavors and stickability. That was in need of a call to keep going, to go deeper.

    So I decided to change. Little by little, I decided daily that I was going to stick with the things that mattered to me.

    I still gave up on things that didn’t matter, but I decided I was going to hold true to what did. I’ve seen a slow change and experienced a deepening and a wonder that I didn’t know existed.

    I wrote this for all of us that are on the edge of giving up to remind us that there is beauty if we can just keep going. We can change the world. So here are six reasons why we can’t give up. Can you think of any more?

    1. We are unique.

    We’ve heard this so much we’ve forgotten what it really means.

    The American poet, Walt Whitman, once wrote, “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

    We have hundreds of layers. These layers shift and blend. They form new permutations every day.

    We like this and we don’t like that. We are good at this and we are bad at that. We’ve been here and not there. We know this and we don’t know that.

    For this reason, and this reason alone, we can’t give up. The complexity of our character means there will never be another us. Ever. That’s incredibly precious.

    What are we going to create from us?

    2. Some things are worth fighting for.

    Isn’t that what we said when we started this journey? There’s an imbalance and we wanted to right it. There’s beauty that’s yet to be explored. There’s a breakthrough that hasn’t broken through.

    Guess what? This hasn’t happened yet.

    We can’t give up because it’s up to us to change the world. There are misguided or ignorant or arrogant people who are doing things to hurt. There are dear people in need of beauty, kindness, and revelation.

    There’s also us.

    We wanted to make our lives better. If we give up things won’t change.

    The unique beauty will be lost. The imbalance will remain. We won’t be able to see the ripples of our actions because we took our hands out of the water.

    3. We are part of a beautiful world.

    Yes, there is suffering. There are those that hurt. But there is also a beautiful world.

    Profound valleys. Rain on our fingers. Cloud creatures. Kind gestures.

    It’s worth saving, protecting, enjoying.

    If we keep going we can touch others. Touch the sky. Rescue the earth. Explore for the rest of our lives. So let’s not give up.

    4. It will pass.

    Whatever block we are coming up against, whatever pain we are feeling, whatever swamps us and threatens to destroy us—it will pass. Eventually, it will pass.

    When we persevere we get to know ourselves better. We have the opportunity to work with our challenges. We can speak to them. Spend time with them. Until eventually, on a glorious day, we bid them farewell and walk on. So much wiser and deeper than before.

    5. We have to start again.

    If we give up we have to start again. It’s okay to start again. Sometimes it’s a part of going deeper. Of rising again in another form.

    But if we truly still believe, if all roads lead to this, let’s not think about starting again. Just the thought of it is exhausting. It feels hopeless.

    Let’s remember how good it felt when we began. Let’s make a decision to keep going. Let’s keep our focus on hope.

    We don’t want to repeat and repeat. We want to move forward.

    6. We are worthy.

    We are amazing for trying.

    We are imperfect, but it’s so admirable and brave that we are doing everything we can to grow.

    We are talented and have the capacity to completely honor our talents.

    Our passion for spreading more love and care will help people in ways we can’t even imagine.

    We are still loved if we give up. But right here, right now, we can remember how passionate we felt when we began this journey.

    We don’t want to regret things. We want to grow, to fight, and to shine.

    We are worthy.

    The world has a rhythm. It is one of resistance and overcoming. It is the wave holding itself before it breaks into foam.

    If we move against the winds we must expect resistance. We can also expect a new world that greets us.

    There will be days of soft sunlight and tears of delight. Whatever the journey, we must keep walking the road. We can’t give up.

    Don’t give up image via Shutterstock

  • How to Let Go of the Pain of Anger and Blame

    How to Let Go of the Pain of Anger and Blame

    Sad Woman Crying

    “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” ~Nelson Mandela

    Has anger ever filled you up so completely that you felt you’d explode?

    Two months after I had a baby I suddenly found myself inextricably angry. Yes, I felt the joy and happy stuff that everyone tells you about.

    But having a daughter also triggered a flash flood of buried anger, blame, and resentment. And it was all directed to one person—my mother.

    A therapist told me once that my mother had “verbally abused” me. That launched a fifteen-year process of rehashing and blaming my plethora of emotional issues on my mother.

    But no matter how many therapists or coaches told me that she “didn’t form a proper attachment” or whatever, I always defended her. That is, until I became a mother myself.

    When my own nurturing instinct kicked in, I realized what I’d missed out on as a child. I was overwhelmed by “how coulds.” How could anyone treat a little girl that way?

    The anger overtook me. It was like a well of blame had opened up and I had fallen in. Something had to shift.

    In truth, it happened fast. You might think it would take years to let go of anger and blame so strong it feels like it’s coming out of your eyeballs.

    But once I realized how to let it go, all at once, poof, I was free. Now years later, I’ve never looked back.

    How did I do it? I discovered the profound meaning of two words: perspective and compassion.

    Life is Like a Box of Hair Dye

    My mother grew up in the South in the sixties. I’ve watched enough Mad Men to know that life for women in my mother’s generation was very different.

    Women’s value was heavily dependent on their looks and the look of their houses. Combine that world-view with a heaping helping of stress from an overwhelming job and you get a picture of my mother.

    Think of an uber stressed-out Betty Draper. At thirteen, when my blonde hair started fading to light brown, she started dying it. “Boys won’t like you with brown hair,” she said.

    Yelling was the norm and more I cried the more she yelled. I was an only child, lost in a world where my looks and image were tantamount to survival and nothing I did was enough.

    The Blame-Spin Cycle

    Getting stuck in blame feels like walking through an endless maze, looking for cheese that doesn’t exist. That’s what therapy felt like.

    The more I re-counted the past, the madder I became and the more hopeless I felt. I was spinning in an endless cycle of blame, anger, and resentment.

    What is the end game? What do I do with the fact that my mother’s behavior may have caused me pain later in life?

    It was a well-meaning friend who finally cracked the code, over wine and panic one afternoon. I had called her over because I felt too emotionally unstable to be alone with my infant daughter.

    “Why don’t you just ask her why she did it?” she asked.

    That had never occurred to me.

    I’d Like Perspective with a Side of Compassion Please

    “It was the only way I knew…” she explained, after I found the courage to ask her why she had treated me so harshly.

    My mother then went on to recount tales of her childhood. You know the beginning of Cinderella, when she spends her hours cleaning endlessly at the whim of a demanding mother?

    That’s the image that came to mind as my mom recounted years of cleaning and re-cleaning my grandmother’s house. The family was not allowed to leave the house to do any activities until the house was spotless.

    And of course, the cleaning always took up the entire day, disappointing my mom and her sister every time. My grandmother, it turned out, had been an even stronger product of her environment.

    Why are people the way they are? If you can ask yourself that question before passing judgment, you can save yourself tremendous mental energy.

    When I started understanding the world for my mother and grandmother, I was flooded with intense compassion. Think of Biff in any Back to the Future movie, when manure was inevitably dumped on his head—that was what happened to me with compassion.

    Suddenly I realized that no one is to blame. If I blame my mother for my problems, then I have to blame my grandmother for my mother’s problems. And then I’d have to blame the Great Depression and society for my grandmother’s problems.

    I just don’t have enough space for all of that anger.

    Getting perspective on a situation and fully understanding the whole story is like pulling back the curtain and finding the little man with the booming voice in The Wizard of Oz. It loses its power over you.

    Could my mother have made different choices? Of course she could have. Did she do the best she could with who she was back then? Yes, I believe she did.

    Setting Yourself Free

    What happened happened. No amount of blame, resentment, or anger at my mother will make it not have happened. It is just what happened.

    We can let what happened control us and we can live in blame and anger, or we can let it go and free ourselves. When you hold on to anger, it’s you who suffers. You’re the one who has to live in your head.

    Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person. You don’t have to tell him that you forgive him, or even talk to her again if you don’t want to.

    This process is simply about changing the way you see someone so that you can stop wasting valuable emotional energy. If you are holding onto resentment or anger, today is the day to set yourself free.

    Right now, think of one person who isn’t safe to walk down the streets of your mind without being attacked.

    Picture your story about that person. Then try to tell the story again from her perspective.

    What is the back-story? Think about her childhood; when did she get hurt?

    Find some way to see the story that allows you to feel compassion. It may not be easy at first, but there is always an answer.

    The forgiveness journey is worth taking 1,000 times over. I can’t even begin to describe how much this idea shifted my experience in life.

    Letting go of the anger feels like flying. By getting perspective on the story and uncovering compassion, you have the power to set yourself free.

    Sad woman image via Shutterstock

  • Why You Might Feel Like You’re Always the Victim in Relationships

    Why You Might Feel Like You’re Always the Victim in Relationships

    Angry Couple

    “Your relationship to yourself is and always will be directly reflected in all your relationships with others.” ~Vironika Tugaleva

    Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t know why this is happening to me?” or, “My ex is really crazy”? I have said myself, “It’s not my fault he’s a jerk.”

    It can be so easy to play the victim. Surely some of us are indeed victimized, but being a victim is a whole new ball game. Pointing the finger was an art for me. Thing is, one finger was pointing at you and three were pointing back at me.

    I wasn’t aware that all the things in my life were about me. Any friend, relationship, or job I landed was a direct result of how I viewed myself.

    How I interacted with others and the dynamics of my romantic encounters were directly correlated to the deep wounds I developed in childhood. All my core beliefs were distorted, and I had no idea.

    I believed that being in a relationship, no matter how painful, made me connected, alive, and whole.

    I believed I had little self-worth and value, because my father taught me I just didn’t matter. I thought my sole purpose in life was having a man to love—showering him with admiration and adoration.  

    I didn’t love myself. I lacked a sense of self and I had no purpose or meaning outside of a cure-all relationship.

    I subconsciously attracted into my life exactly what I believed I deserved. I didn’t know I was picking what I was picking.

    I had a fear of abandonment, so I attracted a man who would leave me because the belief that I’d be abandoned had to be confirmed.

    I believed I was in charge and all knowing, so I attracted friends who I could dominate and teach.

    I thought men were not trustworthy and abusive, so I found jobs where my direct managers were men who were unjust and tyrannical.

    I assumed my value, love, and worth were tied into someone else loving me, so I attracted someone who felt the same way about himself, and a toxic dance ensued. Neither of us met our own needs, but looked to the other to mask the wound.

    I had no sense of self, so I enmeshed with you, and I adopted your life so I didn’t have to build my own.

    These old beliefs were extremely difficult to unravel and rebuild. I suffered greatly in so doing.

    The only way up and out was to shatter my old self, work to change distorted beliefs, and to begin living life in the darkness.

    I felt like a child locked in a dark hallway, and all doors leading out were shut. I stood there all alone and threw temper tantrums, not knowing how to unlock the door. Slowly, gradually, the door began to creek open.

    What I projected was simple. I projected all my feelings about myself onto you. I attracted into my life whatever I believed about myself, and because I suffered great internal pain growing up, I drew in painful relationships and circumstances as an adult.

    We don’t have to suffer and stay in unhealthy relationships. There is a way out.

    After recognizing my unhealthy cycle, I contacted a well known cognitive behavioral therapist that a dear mentor recommended to me and made an appointment.

    Through our work together and my willingness to get better, I began to change behaviors and old distorted beliefs. I extricated myself from that tumultuous relationship, but not before embarking on another one. They both ended in 2013.

    A bottom came, and the real work began. Learning to be with myself and not attaching to someone who would love me was the key to beginning to heal. Processing my childhood was also an integral part of my growth.

    Today, I have a new sense of self. I have value and self-worth. I have a relationship with myself.

    Nothing outside of me is filling the hole. I am meeting all my own needs. I am not living out of codependence and fear. I don’t believe today that I can be abandoned. Children can be abandoned, but adults can take care of themselves.

    I know now that some men are trustworthy and have my best interests in mind.

    I am creative and learning to build a life of my own around my likes and interests. Some days are difficult still, but I try to remember that anyone I picked to make me happy in the past had the opposite effect. I wasn’t happy to begin with, so I didn’t pick partners who could contribute to my happiness.

    As adults, we choose people and relationships that are familiar, in that they reflect our experience within our family of origin.

    The people and events in your life bring with them lessons. My greatest lessons involved great pain. But my darkest days have brought me the brightest light. My soul mates were not men I was meant to marry or have children with, but were men who helped me see how I had to change.

    No matter how many men cheated on me, left me, or somehow wronged me, I played a part. Sometimes it was simply participating in the dance.

    As I changed my inner self, developed new beliefs, and found courage to stand on my own, I discovered that without these experiences that brought me to my knees, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I am better; I am more whole and more aware of what I want simply by experiencing what I don’t want.

    If you too have found yourself in a pattern of dysfunctional, unhealthy relationships, ask yourself: What’s my part? Why am I drawn to these same relationships over and over again? What’s the lesson? And how can I use these experiences to heal and make myself whole?

    Angry couple image via Shutterstock

  • Fear Can Only Hurt Us If We Let It

    Fear Can Only Hurt Us If We Let It

    Scared Boy

    “Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    I lay in bed staring into the darkness feeling physically ill with an acute sense of anxiety the like of which I hadn’t experienced in quite some time.

    It felt like I had a soccer ball sized, black, dense object consuming the entire center of my stomach, causing nausea to ripple up into my throat uninvited.

    I knew it wasn’t that hot, with the air conditioning on full, yet my legs were sweating, as was the back of my head. I could feel the damp pillow under me and the bed sheets sticking to me whenever I moved.

    I cursed my own stupidity and replayed the previous week’s events over and over again in my mind as though under some illusion that the more I did this the easier things would become. As a coping strategy it wasn’t one of my proudest moments.

    You may think I’m describing some event from my dim and distant past. When the high stress of working in big-ticket sales would cause me endless sleepless nights as I fretted over deals missed and even deals made that may go wrong.

    But this was last month.

    Wind back in time to April with tax day looming. After I forgot to send some bank statements to my accountant she had to file for an extension to help avoid a fine from the IRS.

    I had put aside some money based upon what my tax bill was last year with a little bit extra. I called my accountant a few weeks later and asked her if she could estimate the amount I would owe.

    In fairness to her she was reluctant to do so, but the figure she gave me after much prompting had me punching the air in delight, imaginary high-fiving my dogs, and grinning like a demented Cheshire Cat. It was way lower than I anticipated.

    Shortly after, we got the confirmation that our best friends were coming over to stay for two weeks later on in the year. It was going to be the first time they’d visited in almost five years and to celebrate I suggested we go on a five-day Caribbean cruise.

    They agreed and shortly after everything was booked and I was chilled and thrilled. Then it all went wrong. Horribly wrong.

    No more than forty-eight hours later I got an e-mail from my accountant saying the final tax bill wasn’t what she had advised, but eight times higher.

    How could that be? I called her and she apologized profusely, but it was what it was and there was nothing more she could do.

    As I lay in bed that night I was cursing myself for rushing to book the cruise and for not making higher regular payments to the IRS as I had been advised.

    I have said many times, “I have no sympathy with people complaining about their tax bill, as they can’t charge you for what you haven’t earned.” In the early hours of the morning this was the biggest stick I had to beat myself with, and trust me, it was a very big stick.

    Stress, fear, and anxiety are all much the same thing. They all stem from a feeling that we’re not in control of life’s events. This stimulates the fight, flight, or freeze reaction triggered by the sympathetic nervous system, courtesy of the Limbic System in the brain.

    There was no way I could fight the IRS and I’m not sure where I would fly to, so I lay in bed frozen with anxiety.

    After several hours lying there listening to my own self-recrimination, I remembered to tell myself that it was okay to feel anxious under such circumstances. That it was a perfectly natural response to a negative event, and it was just a feeling.

    And fear is only a feeling, albeit a powerful one. There is no thing called “fear.” You cannot touch it, smell it, see it, or taste it. As with any emotion, you can only feel it.

    Also, we cannot experience fear if we are truly and congruently living in the present moment. Fear is always the mind projecting an inability to cope with a future event or situation.

    It’s not real per se. Fear itself cannot hurt you. It’s how you respond to the perceived threat that hurts you.

    Fear has a valuable evolutionary purpose in the survival of the human species because (for the most part) it stops us doing things that can threaten our health, safety, and well-being.

    However, the worst strategy in dealing with fear is to fight it by resisting. Or to feed it by seeking out the worst possible scenarios to relatively benign situations.

    I was doing both. I was feeding it by dragging myself through an imaginary court of stupidity in my own mind. At the same time I was also resisting it by telling myself I was being stupid to worry about such a thing.

    Finally common sense kicked in and I decided to observe it, to be curious about it and to drop the futile resistance that was only giving it more strength.

    I thanked it for its concern and reminded it that between the two of us we had dealt with every single-issue life has thrown at us for over half a century, and that we would deal with this also.

    I could feel the black ball start to slowly melt and the nausea subside.

    You too have dealt with everything life has thrown at you to date otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this post.

    There is nothing in your life you haven’t coped with and there is nothing you won’t cope with. Sure, there will be times when it doesn’t feel like that, when the fear demon is whispering in your ear that things won’t be okay and you start to let it take control.

    But, he is mistaken and the only power he has is the power you give him. Just hug him (or her) and say with sincerity, “Thank you for looking out for me. I know you have the best intentions, but everything will be okay. I promise.”

    Scared boy image via Shutterstock

  • 4 Powerful Mantras to Help You Deal with Fear and Anxiety

    4 Powerful Mantras to Help You Deal with Fear and Anxiety

    Peaceful Woman

    “Trust that, when you are not holding yourself together so tightly, you will not fall apart. Trust that it is more important to fulfill your authentic desires than listen to your fears. Trust that your intuition is leading you somewhere. Trust that the flow of life contains you, is bigger than you, and will take care of you—if you let it.” ~Vironika Tugaleva

    Anxiety has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. But a year ago marked my first full-blown panic attack.

    As is common with first-time panic attacks, I had no idea what was happening to me, landing myself in the emergency room several times and visiting numerous doctors before a diagnosis of panic disorder was offered.

    Anxiety can cause you to feel like you are dying. Rapid heartbeat, shaking, confusion, shortness of breath, a feeling of impending doom, and a sense of unreality are just a few of the horrifying symptoms of intense fear.

    Continually worried about when the next attack would present itself, I lived in a state of constant anxiety.

    I started avoiding all the places that could possibly trigger an attack, including grocery stores, social gatherings, and even my place of work. My life went from being filled with adventure to being very, very confined.

    Anxiety was literally trapping me inside myself.

    As my life spiraled out of control, I realized that I was doing anything and everything to avoid the fear. I was afraid of the fear. Instead of riding through the sensations, allowing them to be in my body, I was pushing and squirming against them.

    I knew I had to find a way to ride the attacks through.

    I started adopting mantras, words, or phrases that carry spiritual significance, to repeat to myself during intense moments of anxiety, and I found that my ability to handle the attacks grew. The mantras served as a vessel to carry me through the stormy waters.

    Here are some of the mantras I found most effective in leading me through fear and anxiety.

    1. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

    This phrase, originally coined by author Susan Jeffers, was a beautiful lesson for me in allowing the sensations of fear to live in my body.

    Whenever I would finally convince myself to venture out to the grocery store, I would immediately find my heart quickening, my throat tightening, and my vision getting blurry. As I walked down the aisles, all I wanted to do was bolt to the car and drive home to “safety.”

    But I just kept repeating, feel the fear and do it anyway.

    In other words, let fear be here. You can still do whatever it is you need to do with fear present.

    This mantra can apply not only to panic attacks, but any situation where anxiety may limit us, like starting a new job or moving on from an unhealthy relationship or talking to a stranger. Our initial tendency is to avoid these situations where fear arises. It’s so much easier to not accept the new job because we’re scared.

    But if we can learn to allow the sensations of fear to be what they are, we can do it anyway. We can do anything we desire, because we aren’t giving fear permission to stop us anymore.

    2. Other people feel this too.

    Often, I found myself feeling isolated and alone in my emotions and struggles. Here I was struggling to drive myself down the street without panicking, when the people around me seemed so at ease.

    But after adopting this mantra, I started realizing that whatever it is fear makes us feel—whether it be sadness, jealousy, guilt, hopelessness, anger, distrust, unworthiness—other people feel this too. Even when I am in the midst of a panic attack, certain that I am going crazy or about to die, I tell myself that other people feel this too. I am not alone.

    This mantra also evoked compassion and empathy. Instead of focusing solely on my own struggles, I began shifting my attention to all the people who feel this pain, too. My thoughts then morphed from Why am I suffering? to May all beings be free from this suffering.

    3. Commit to love.

    Fear is a very powerful emotion, especially as it overtakes your body and mind at unrelenting speeds. But love is even more powerful than all the fear of the world combined.

    When an attack threatened to push me over the edge, I reminded myself over and over to commit to love. I can’t love myself fully when I am focused on fear. I can’t love others fully when I am focused on fear.

    Often, I was so preoccupied with my fear that I couldn’t hear what anyone around me was saying.

    Committing to love meant being present when my loved ones spoke instead of silently planning my escape routes from the restaurant. It meant forgiving myself when I couldn’t drive as far that day instead of increasing my fear with worries of having a set back.

    If I can come back to love, over and over, the fear just doesn’t have as much power. Yes, it is scary and yes, it seems so very real, but we’re not meant to live lives filled with fear. If we can commit to love, however often we might need to remind ourselves, fear doesn’t stand a chance.

    4. This too shall pass.

    This a phrase I’m sure we’ve all heard a million times. But it is one of the most powerful mantras I adopted for dealing with panic and anxiety.

    Anxiety has a way of making us feel like it will last forever, especially during the intense moments of an attack. The fearful thoughts swirling around in my head—What if this lasts forever? I can’t handle this if it doesn’t end—only added fuel to the fire.

    By reminding myself that this too shall pass, no matter how awful it may seem, I was able to allow more space for the fear to live.

    This too shall pass, so I can handle it while it is here.

    Even during the worst attacks of my life, when I absolutely thought I was a goner, the whisper of this too shall pass echoed in the background. Every attack ends. Anxiety may linger but it changes. It morphs from one second to the next, which means that we can handle each second as it comes because it will all be different in another.

    Ultimately, a mantra is most powerful when it is a phrase that truly speaks to your heart. Maybe it comes from a book you happened to open, or a close friend’s advice, or a relaxing yoga class.

    Anxiety is not easy to deal with, but we can take some of the power into our own hands by shifting our thoughts from fear to love and light. Many blessings.

    Peaceful woman image via Shutterstock