Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • How Meditation Can Help Us Heal from Trauma, Pain, and Loss

    How Meditation Can Help Us Heal from Trauma, Pain, and Loss

    Man Meditating

    “In the midst of conscious suffering, there is already the transmutation. The fire of suffering becomes the light of consciousness.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    I still remember the first day I met her.

    I was running a bodywork clinic from home at the time, and she came to me one day for a treatment. Let’s call her Miranda.

    Miranda had something about her that I noticed immediately, a palpable sense of peace and clarity that shone through her eyes and radiated out from her very core.

    She seemed to be the most spiritually grounded person I had ever come across. I conveyed these impressions to her and asked if she had some sort of spiritual practice.

    Indeed she did; in fact, she was what I would call a hardcore meditator.

    For more than twenty years she had seated herself on her meditation cushion for three hours every morning from 4:00 to 7:00. I was incredibly impressed with her commitment to her practice, seeing as I had dabbled on and off in meditation for some years, but found it hard to commit to a regular habit.

    After chatting about her practice for a while, I asked her to share the biggest benefit that regular meditation brought into her life. I saw a hint of sadness appear in her eyes as she proceeded to tell me her tragic story.

    A few years earlier, her daughter, who was about eleven at the time, was diagnosed with a type of leukemia.

    The prognosis was not good, and as a last resort, her doctors wanted to try an aggressive treatment that on the one hand could save her life, or on the other, could potentially result in severe side effects, perhaps even death.

    It was up to Miranda and her husband to make the agonizing decision to go ahead with the treatment or not. Her daughter had been raised within a very healthy lifestyle, with mostly organic food and little exposure to chemicals, so Miranda felt worried about exposing her daughter to this intense therapy.

    Eventually, Miranda and her husband came to the difficult conclusion that without the treatment she may die anyway, and so decided to go ahead with it. Sadly, her daughter did pass away after the treatment.

    Miranda and her husband were overcome with unspeakable grief, but also a sense of guilt at having chosen a treatment that ultimately proved too much for her daughter’s body to bear.

    Of course, it was no one’s fault that she passed, just a sad consequence, but nevertheless they were both riddled with guilt.

    For some people, this kind of deep emotional trauma has the potential to destroy their lives forever.

    Some people break in this kind of crisis never to feel whole again. And while Miranda spent most of her days after her daughter’s death consumed with pain and loss, she had the fortitude to continue with her daily meditation practice.

    In those hours of stillness, she let herself surrender.

    She surrendered to her pain, she embraced her grief and guilt fully, riding the waves of her deep emotions until her consciousness was able to drop even deeper, to that still, silent place within that is ever-present, but often obscured by the constant river of thoughts and feelings.

    Those three hours of peace were Miranda’s lifeline and path to healing. They kept her sane, and they kept her strong for the rest of the family.

    Of course, Miranda will always experience a sense of loss and sadness after losing her precious daughter, so please don’t think I am implying that meditation takes away the emotional pain in our lives or helps us to escape our feelings or problems. It doesn’t. But it does help us to get in contact with that part of ourselves that is beyond them.

    Our lives are a series of changing experiences and external conditions that we deem “good” or “bad.” In order to avoid being at the mercy of this seeming chaos, it is essential that we understand the transient nature of our existence. As the Buddha famously said, “All of life is suffering.”

    In other words, all things we hold dear will eventually disappear.

    We look for happiness in our loved ones, our jobs, our possessions, our health and well-being, and our material wealth, but the great truth is that each of these things can and will be taken away from us eventually. Nothing is permanent in our world of form.

    For this reason many of the great spiritual seekers that walked the Earth searched for what is real, or permanent, in our existence.

    They discovered that beyond form, there is an awareness that we all possess that is spacious, calm, and still, and central to our true nature.

    When we learn to access and live from this place within us, we are not so easily thrown around by the changing external conditions of our lives. We are able to meet life’s challenges with a sense of grace rather than resistance.

    Miranda’s story and her palpable sense of peace left a lasting impression on me. I too wanted to search for the eternal, ever-present stillness that lies beneath the petty thoughts, feelings, and dramas of my conscious mind.

    Thanks to her inspiring dedication, I made meditation a regular part of my life also. While I know that loss and emotional pain is as much a part of my human life as joy and happiness is, I have within me now an anchor at the center of my being that keeps me steady throughout life’s rough waters.

    Man meditating image via Shutterstock

  • Be Fully Present with Your Loved Ones While You Have the Chance

    Be Fully Present with Your Loved Ones While You Have the Chance

    Friends Holding Hands

    “Before someone’s tomorrow has been taken away, cherish those you love, appreciate them today.” ~Michelle C. Ustaszeski

    One day after being on a spiritual path for many years, I stood in my art studio, happy to be creating a new painting. Content in my life, I was married to a great guy and raising two young boys that brought me so much joy.

    My life was perfect. Well, not exactly, but I definitely had moments of thinking it was, and this happened to be one of those moments.

    I had come a long way. Gone were the constant “what if’s” and the fear that I was going to get that phone call that someone got hurt, or worse. I could now put things into a larger framework. I was no longer stuck in my own jail with my fear and self-limiting thoughts. I had risen above all of that.

    Dusk no longer brought me down, even Sunday nights were fine. I used to get melancholy every Sunday evening. I had figured out that I was the problem. I learned to allow more good into my life, and had many revelations that changed my energy into a more positive one. I reinvented myself.

    A few years prior, my dad had a heart attack, and he vowed to take better care of himself so he would be here for many more years with his family. The doctor gave him twelve years with his new valves, and we like to think all our prayers gave him five more.

    Those five extra years were truly a gift, as he and my mom moved to Henderson and spent time with my brother and sisters who lived nearby with their families. My twin sister and I would drive from Los Angeles at least once a month with our families, and he enjoyed his grandchildren and loved that we all saw each other as often as we did.

    He especially loved Christmas. Every Christmas Eve we would make our traditional fish and pasta dinner. I always looked forward to spending the day together shopping for the food and then preparing it for that very special evening.

    Hands down the most important day of the year was Christmas Eve, and when the whole family came together, it was magical.

    My Dad had a pretty tough exterior. His nickname was Muggy, and boy did he live up to it. He was a handsome man with Italian dark skin and beautiful green eyes, a flash of white teeth, when he threw you that half smile. He was a pretty tough guy with a quick to anger demeanor.

    I was one of four girls that were all of dating age, and he made any boys who would come to pick us up really uneasy. I always felt uncomfortable introducing them, as there would be some sort of Godfather music playing in my mind through the awkward moments till I could flee the house to freedom and breathe again.

    A friend of mine referred to him as Al Capone and I had to give him that, as I would watch him drive down the street, his fedora tilted the way he always wore it, a cigarette dangling off his lower lip.

    I, however, was not intimidated by him, because I knew the real man, the interior that was kind and gentle and as soft as a teddy bear.

    As I became a young adult, and went out on my own, our relationship stayed strong.

    My father was one of my best friends. He was on speed-dial, and my go-to person when I needed someone to talk to. He was there for me financially when things weren’t that great. He was my rock and my safety net and I would share everything with him, the good news and the bad.

    He would yell for my mom to pick up the other line if it was important (and then get annoyed that he couldn’t hear me, because she talked over him). He would ask me are you gonna make me laugh, or are you gonna make me cry? I guess I was always calling to either complain or share a funny story.

    My father called me every morning, and no matter what I was doing I picked up and spoke to him. I cherished our morning talks and worried about one day losing him.

    A horrible divorce from my first husband led me to a new life path that would take me on a journey that, well, I’m still on.

    I read The Language of Letting Go, by Melody Beattie, then I read every spiritual book I could get my hands on. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, and The Power of Now blew me away, as it was all I needed to finally escape my dark fears about death and the worry about my dad.

    When I married again, my dad was there to support me along with my beautiful mom, and they were there for the birth of both of my sons.

    So, back to the moment in the art studio…

    After hanging up from my morning call from my dad, I reflected on the idea that with all I read, and all that I now understand, I would be okay if something happened to him. That my spiritual journey had guided me to this very moment in time.

    I repeated the sentence in my head: I would be okay if something happened to him.

    As I stood there in that sunlit room, I could hear the words ringing in my head, ringing with the power of truth that this truly was the gift.

    The gift of emotional and spiritual maturity to handle what was soon to be my dad’s last Christmas with us.

    A few weeks later, on Christmas night, after we all had dinner together. My dad wasn’t feeling well and went home earlier than usual.

    That’s the night we got the phone call, the call that I spent my whole adult life worrying about. My last Christmas with Dad, my last morning call from my best friend.

    The loss of my father was beyond words for me, but if we can live in each moment, we can stay strong and realize that we are okay when loved ones leave this earth.

    I was gifted precious years with him and enjoyed every phone call, every visit, and celebrated all of the time I shared with him.

    Of course I grieved, and I still miss him every day, but what I realized was that we do have the strength needed to carry on with our happy lives. That we were blessed to have them while they were here and that we are better for having known them, for their memories live forever in our hearts.

    We never know when we will lose someone so dear to us; it’s easier to accept the inevitability of loss when we can look back without regrets. Be fully present with your loved ones while you have the chance. Not everyone gets the gift of five more years, even if you pray for them.

    Happy people image via Shutterstock

  • You Have a Choice: Your Future Can Be Better Than Your Past

    You Have a Choice: Your Future Can Be Better Than Your Past

    “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.” ~Mary Oliver

    On the January 17, 2000, I was in a car crash. I was living in France at the time. I don’t remember much about the crash. I know that we all walked out of the car relatively unscathed. Shocked, scared, and confused, yes. Injured, no.

    I remember thinking that I should probably call my mum and dad back in England. Tell them what happened. What I didn’t know in that moment was that back in the UK, I didn’t have a mum to call anymore.

    That same afternoon, on the 17th January 2000, was also the day my mum had decided to take her own life.

    I found out about my mum’s death standing in the reception of the hotel we had walked into after the crash.

    “Liz, she’s gone.”

    That’s all I heard at the other end of the phone. It’s all I had to hear. I knew. It was my sister’s voice. She’d managed to track me down in the hotel.

    It’s weird because I remember thinking in that moment, “Okay, my mum has just died and I now have to tell some people I don’t know that my mum has died, and I don’t want to put them out or get them all upset, so I’ll just be matter of fact and straight up and not cry.”

    Matter of fact. Straight up. I won’t cry. And that’s how I chose to deal with the aftermath of my mum’s death.

    While everyone fell apart around me, or grieved, I was the one who was totally okay. I was so together and dealing with it quietly, like I was totally fine.

    I remember one day, standing at the checkout of a supermarket, I stood next to my dad as he fell apart while we were packing cans of baked beans into the carrier bag.

    I looked at him, the giant pillar of a man I had always known—wracked with the most intense grief for his wife—and thought, “I am alone in this. I’ve got to be strong because no-one else will be.”

    I returned to France three weeks after my mum’s death. I couldn’t wait. I spoke to no one of her death. People knew, of course, but death is weird, isn’t it? It shuts people down. Especially suicide.

    “How did your mum die?”

    “She killed herself.”

    Oh. No more questions.

    Back in France, I got drunk a lot. I was the first person at the party and the last one to leave. If there was something stupid to do, I was there, the life and soul, but if anyone got too close I’d push them away.

    I was the master pretender. The chameleon. Always fun and happy and having the best time, yet on the inside it was ugly and dark and I was wracked with grief that was so painful, the only way I could cope with it was to numb it out. To not allow myself to feel anything.

    I started developing strange behaviors about seven years after my mum died. The grief that had been locked in the box in my head for so long finally exploded, and it manifested itself not by crying and grieving, but in horrific anxiety and OCD and really weird thoughts that freaked me out.

    I also started to wonder what it would be like to not be alive anymore. To not have to walk around and be the girl whose mum killed herself and deal with all the crap that came along with it.

    I remember walking past a huge wall one day and wondering what it would be like to climb to the top and jump off it. I wondered whether the impact would kill me.

    It was in that moment, staring up at that wall, that I actually felt something for the first time. And that feeling was relief. Relief that I had a choice. A choice of whether I lived or died. A choice in my future.

    As numb and as twisted as I felt right there in that moment, I remember smiling. Because it was up to me what happened next. I chose to walk away from that wall. To start living again even if I didn’t know what that meant exactly at the time.

    I decided to not let my mum’s death, which had dogged me for some many years, become a reason to end my life too.

    And I don’t just mean end my life by suicide, but to end my life emotionally, to shut down, to numb out, to allow what happened to become my story—the story of someone who shirked away from her own life because her mum killed herself and the world now owed her something for taking her away.

    But guess what? The world didn’t owe me anything, and the world doesn’t owe you anything either.

    We are all victims of something that has happened in our lives. We ruminate and torture ourselves with things that were said or not said, and about what happened or didn’t happen or things that haven’t even happened yet.

    We react to things like a tightly coiled spring, red raw from experiences and situations that lie well in the past. And yet most of us allow our past to build our future.

    It’s the reason why you can’t commit to men, because your dad walked out when you were five, or you don’t make friends easily because of that one moment in the playground, aged eleven, when the popular girls made fun of your glasses.

    It’s the reason you go to work to a job you hate every day, because you decided early on in life that you weren’t good enough and that you’d just settle for less than.

    It’s the reason we make so much meaning out of things. You receive a text message and they don’t end it with a kiss, or someone signs off their email with “regards,” and your immediate thought is, “What did I do?”

    You see your boss walking toward you in the corridor at work and you say hello to him, but he keeps his head down and doesn’t respond. “Oh my god, why did he not say hello? Maybe I’m one of the ones who’ll be made redundant?”

    We attach so much meaning to everything, don’t we? And yet here’s the thing. There’s what happened and our story about what happened, and assuming the two things to be the same is the source of much pain and unnecessary self-suffering.

    Some people just don’t like leaving kisses at the end of text messages, and your boss just found out his wife has cancer and didn’t notice you walking toward him in the corridor, and Barry in accounts doesn’t think that “regards” at the end of an email sounds rude because Barry is more interested in getting the email written and sent so he can leave at 5pm, and fifteen years ago my mum died.

    You’re not five anymore. You’re not eleven and I am not the eighteen-year-old girl whose mum blew out the candle without saying goodbye.

    You have a choice. Today, right here, right now, you have a choice in how you’re going to show up, not just while you’re reading this, but right here in your life.

    You only have one life. And yet you always have lots of choices. About how you respond to what has happened to you in your life and what you do with it as a result.

    We can become wrapped up in darkness and negativity, blaming everyone and everything, or we can take from what has happened and learn something about ourselves.

    My favorite poet, Mary Oliver, wrote in her Thirst collection, “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.”

    And now, writing this, fifteen years after my mum’s death, I feel grateful, not that she died, but that amidst the heartache and the grief and the intense loss, I found out who I was.

    And I did so because I made a choice. To show up. To live the life that I wanted to. To take responsibility. To rewrite my story. To not just be the girl whose mum killed herself. But to be the woman who chose to decide that my future is bigger and better than my past.

    And I invite you to do the same.

    Change image via Shutterstock

  • “Toxic” People Often Need Compassion the Most

    “Toxic” People Often Need Compassion the Most

    “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” ~Plato

    By all standard definitions, I used to be an energy vampire. I lived in my own self-created drama, prone to rages, complaints, and self-pity. I exhausted the people around me and played games of control, superiority, and victimhood.

    I’ve heard this bundle of behaviors called a “personality type,” and I think that is as obscene as saying that a hungry person has a “Hungry Personality Type.”

    An energy vampire, by definition, is someone who cannot create or sustain their own positive energy, so they take it from others. An energy vampire, by my own experience of that definition, is someone lacking in self-love and trying to pull that love out of others.

    Such a person is simply hungry, not inherently flawed.

    I’ve been there.

    A few years ago, I began hearing voices and feeling suicidal. I had drained the people around me dry and I was all alone. I was trying to drain myself, but I had nothing left to give. I had to choose: change or die.

    When I started to change, I realized just how much I hated myself, how much I judged myself, how many impossible standards I set for my own acceptance. I began to work on accepting and loving myself just as I was.

    Bit by bit, I opened up to the beauty of my face, the beauty of nature, the beauty of the human smile.

    I began to fall deeply in love with everything and everyone. After years of hunger, years of being a love vampire, biting others to get it, I realized that I could feed myself. I didn’t have to hurt myself or anyone else.

    In that awareness, I remembered the people who had accepted me when I was “toxic.” These people became my teachers. Their kindness and love, which was invisible to me in a state of desperate love hunger, suddenly became crystal clear in my newfound self-awareness.

    It hurts me to confess that some of these people never got to see me get better. All they knew was my darkness and they gave as much as they could before they left. And they are still my greatest teachers.

    After I healed my mind and replenished my self-love tank, I began to reach out to others on the same journey.

    I’ve met so many people who have been abandoned by everyone around them, because they’re “energy vampires.” I found these people in my family. I found them in my old circles of friends.

    It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve really tried to give back what was given to me. I’ve tried my best to be loving and supportive to people who only know how to take (at least, right now).

    And it’s been worth it.

    A few years ago, I kept meeting up with one person that everyone around me told me was toxic. I was always exhausted after hanging around her and I knew that, deep down, she resented me. She treated me just like I used to treat people.

    I didn’t “cut ties” or “protect myself” from her as all the articles say. I gave her some of my time—not all of it, but some of it. I took care of myself enough that I could heal from any emotional pain I got in our meetings.

    Eventually, she stopped talking to me. We didn’t speak for close to five months and, the other day, she suddenly called me to ask if we could meet up.

    When I saw her, her eyes were sparkling and her smile shone for miles. She couldn’t stop talking about all the epiphanies she’d had and all the ways she’d healed. She had stumbled across some powerful lessons in a program she enrolled in and it changed her life.

    She kept saying, “Now, I understand.” Everything I would talk about that she eyed suspiciously—now, she understood.

    After a long conversation about her new, joyful life, she paused, looked away, and said, “I hated you, you know. I couldn’t believe anything you said and I just didn’t understand that happiness like this was possible. I thought you were lying. I was such a jerk to you. Why did you keep talking to me?”

    I smiled and said the words that I’d used to defend her behind her back when others would interrogate me with the same question: “You deserve it. I saw myself in you. You weren’t a jerk. You were hungry. I knew you’d wake up one day and, when you did, you’d remember this, remember me. And, one day, you’d be that person for someone else.”

    And, now, she is.

    I’m not saying we should all surround ourselves with people who make us feel bad. I’m not saying that we should spend all our time giving compassion to others at our own demise.

    What I am saying is this: Oftentimes the “toxic” people are the ones that need compassion the most.

    And although you probably won’t get a “Thank You” from them in that moment, being kind, seeing them from a compassionate perspective, and refusing to resort to negative adjectives, that could really change a person’s life.

    Your acts of kindness, though they may not be immediately rewarded, are never wasted. They will sit inside the recipient’s mind, outside the walls of their self-imposed limiting beliefs, awaiting their awakening.

    And, if they do awaken, they will remember you and they will learn from you. And your acts will have contributed to a more loving world with fewer “energy vampires” and more people who love themselves and love others.

  • In a Rut? Your Second-Grade Self Knows What to Do

    In a Rut? Your Second-Grade Self Knows What to Do

    Little Girl Meditating

    “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” ~Pablo Picasso

    It amazes me how often our personalities, habits, and interests as adults resemble the same ones that we had as elementary-aged kids. In fact, I’m convinced that when we are feeling lost, in a rut, or at a crossroads, we should consider the wisdom we had as eight-year-olds.

    I first became aware of my love for writing when I was in second grade. When my teacher created a class newspaper, giving each student an individual piece of paper on which to write stories of our choosing, I was in Heaven.

    She then arranged each story like a jigsaw puzzle onto multiple pages in order to make copies for each of us. Seeing my handwritten stories “published” onto paper for the entire class left me practically swooning.

    It was during this same time that my infatuation with music developed, and I first started using music to express myself.

    When my neighborhood boyfriend and I broke up, I did what any second-grade, romantically-inclined and musically-obsessed child would do. I danced and sang “Don’t Turn Around” by Ace of Base in my driveway.

    Imagining I was singing, “Don’t turn around, ‘cause you’re gonna see my heart breaking. Don’t turn around, I don’t want you seeing me cry,” to my long-lost/four-houses-down love interest felt like the best possible way of expressing my feelings. Plus, I felt like a rock star—which, I can report back, is a great way to boost spirits.

    While my elementary-school boyfriend choices never lasted and I have yet to become a famous Ace of Base cover singer, I still consider music and writing to be my deepest passions. Whether I’m writing articles, sending emails to friends, or merely jotting thoughts in a journal, I feel like I’m in the flow.

    Similarly, going to concerts, listening to music, writing music, singing along to my iPod in the car, and playing musical instruments fills me with such joy that it’s hard to contain all that passion without it giving me goosebumps.

    Nobody ever told me to like music and writing. For whatever reason, it just became something that I was passionate about. Yet, I still went through many years of racking my brain for clues about what I should do “when I grow up” before I started to take seriously my interests back in the second grade.

    When I stopped trying to ignore those deep-seated passions, that same bliss from my days of writing for my classroom newspaper or singing in the driveway came right back.

    If you, likewise, are currently in a position of trying to imagine your future without much luck, try looking backward first. What were you passionate about in elementary school? What were the hobbies that you chose for yourself that nobody told you to do?

    Did you have a serious rock collection? Perhaps you’d enjoy geology. Couldn’t keep your hands out of the dirt? Maybe you’d love being a horticulturist or a farmer.

    Were you never able to walk past a dog or a cat in your neighborhood without stopping to pet them? I bet you’d thrive at being a veterinarian or an animal trainer.

    Of course, we probably all went through phases of being interested in something as kids that we have no desire to do anymore. Despite my interest in Pogs, Boondoggles, and Giga Pets circa the sixth grade, I’m not about to deplete my savings to start my very own Pog-Boondoggle-Giga Pet Emporium (though I have to admit, that does sound pretty tempting).

    Still, there may be pieces of your history that have been forgotten; if you uncovered them now, implementing them even in small ways, they may be just the ticket to bring you a renewed sense of enthusiasm or creativity.

    If you loved art more than anything else as a kid but are not in a position to leave your desk job, then maybe you could see if there are community art classes you could sign up for on the weekend, or you could create a weekly craft night with your friends.

    If animals always made your heart skip a beat but your landlord won’t allow pets, perhaps volunteering at an animal shelter would satiate that need for four-legged friendship.

    If you were the class clown growing up but feel like you aren’t laughing as much anymore, maybe you’d enjoy catching some comedians at the local comedy club. Or even doing some stand-up yourself.

    As we all continue to age and expand our ever-growing knowledge, I believe it would be smart to remind ourselves every once in a while of the innate wisdom we had as kids, when we were free to play and explore our interests without wondering what they said about us or how prestigious they seemed to others.

    There may be hidden truths about your passions buried in your childhood that needs rediscovering, and digging them out may be just the thing you need to create an exciting new path for yourself. (Or at the very least, you can remind yourself and be proud of how impressive that Pog collection was.)

    Girl meditating image via Shutterstock

  • Bounce Back and Thrive: The Secret to Turning Adversity into Opportunity

    Bounce Back and Thrive: The Secret to Turning Adversity into Opportunity

    Man with Arms Up

    “Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.” ~William Shakespeare                                                                        

    It’s hard for me to write about this. I suppose it stems from being a mutt of Italian and Irish ancestry, two cultures famous for intense pride and keeping personal things “in the family.”

    I wonder if my parents ever loved each other.

    By the time I was eight years old, it was clear they did not get along. I never witnessed them getting along, or even being affectionate toward one another. But I always felt loved.

    My parents told my younger brother and me that they loved us every day, most days multiple times. We never struggled for anything.

    My father had sold his garage door business years earlier, but that money seemed to be drying up. We lived in a 3,000 square foot house that my father had built six years prior. Six years later, it was in foreclosure.

    I’m sure the pressure was tough on them. My mother was not herself either. She was acting erratically. Inconsistent.

    One minute she was playful and full of life, the other she was angry and depressed. We soon found out that she was battling bipolar disorder, and she was forced to spend time in the hospital for evaluation and recovery.

    Shortly thereafter, my parents officially separated, we lost the house, and my brother and I split time between my grandparents’ house (where my dad was crashing) and the apartment where my mom was placed after her treatment.

    Memories of the apartment are vivid. Maybe it was because of the impact it had on me, or maybe it was because, at eight years old, I was beginning to have a strong sense for my environment. Maybe it was both.

    The house was daunting from the street. It was big and blue with white trim. It looked like an old New England colonial that was turned into an apartment building. At the time, it had about eight or nine units.

    Our unit was one room, about 400 square feet, with one bed. When my brother and I stayed with Mom, we didn’t have enough room for all of us to sleep on the bed. I would volunteer to sleep on the floor, so that my mom and Jesse could get a comfortable night sleep.

    There was no kitchen in any of the units. The kitchen was downstairs on the first floor, in a common area, of which all the tenants would share. At dinnertime, it would become crowded, noisy, and often overwhelming for our family…and I am willing to guess most of the other families, too.

    I remember, at eight years old, thinking to myself, “This can’t be all we deserve. There must be something more to our lives than this.”

    It was an intense time, and it would turn out to be one of the key moments of impact in my life. A moment in time that would serve as a reminder, and beacon, for the person I strive to become every day.

    I don’t share this story to gain pity. Nor do I share it as something to compare to your life, and the situations you’ve encountered. I share it to demonstrate how this moment in time is one of a series of moments that I choose to use to my advantage. Without it, I would argue that I would be less full as a human being.

    My adversity is my advantage. The story I tell myself about the adversity I face is that advantage.

    Why? Perspective and practice.

    Think about the first time you tried to hit a baseball. You didn’t know what to expect. You hadn’t developed any muscle memory. No hand/eye coordination. The first pitch you tried to hit was most likely a miss. You failed.

    However, there was something that came along with that miss. You began to get perspective. You tried out skills that you never used before, like self-awareness. Did you swing too late? How about rotating your hips?

    Next time, you made an adjustment. You may have failed again, but each time you did, you were gaining experience that, with the right mental skillset and approach, would better prepare you for the next pitch.

    The same approach applies to adversity. I was able to get early “at bats” with adversity.

    Those early “at bats” were failures, but I was beginning to develop the right mindset to deal with the next pitch. We never become perfect at this, but what you must control is taking advantage of as many “at bats” with adversity as it reveals itself.

    Why Adversity is Critical To Growth

    “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” ~Benjamin Franklin

    Benjamin Franklin was wrong. There is one other certainty: adversity.

    We all face adversity in our lives. Adversity does not just show itself in dramatic ways, like cancer and car accidents. It also shows itself each day, in small ways, through highway traffic or arguments with our significant others.

    Each adversity moment is a learning moment in its own right. We miss countless opportunities to grow because we don’t know how to appreciate and identify these moments.

    Call it what you want: adversity, failure, struggle, obstacles, or barriers. Many of us are taught, at a young age, to avoid these things. Why? Because they are hard. Because our parents, and people who care about us, are hardwired to protect us from harm.

    However, by avoiding these situations we are being harmed in other ways.

    A multiyear study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, surveyed 2,400 subjects who experienced negative life events.

    These events included serious illness, violence, natural disasters, and other major moments. The study found that “those who experienced negative life events reported better mental and overall well-being than those who did not.” This is significant.

    There is also a downside to adversity. Without the right supports or mental skillsets, adversity can cause stress, affecting decision-making and physical health.

    Dr. Nadine Harris, founder of the Center for Youth Wellness in San Francisco, found that adults who were exposed to high levels of stress as children had higher rates of cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and significantly higher suicide rates.

    We can control our response to adverse situations. We can turn them into opportunities. We just need the right set of principles to turn adversity into opportunity.

    Building a Growth Mindset

    Mindset is the cornerstone—the keystone habit—to using adversity to your advantage. Mindset allows you the mental flexibility to find the seeds of growth within the (badly packaged) fruit.

    Mindset is the first step—and the most important one—in getting everything right. Your mind sets you up for action. The right mindset is the infrastructure for sustainable growth through adversity. Without it, we are approaching struggle like a house of cards: Success can happen, but over time, it won’t last.

    One can find the best case for mindset in Carol Dweck’s research. Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, had a simple question: Why did some kids crash and burn in response to failure when others embraced it and thrived?

    Her evidence suggested that students who responded negatively to failure believed they just weren’t meant to succeed at the challenge. Students who responded positively believed that the failure was a learning moment: an opportunity to understand what caused the failure and how to improve for the next try.

    Consequently, it was the beliefs that the students held about their intelligence that informed how well they actually did—more so than their intelligence alone. Some students felt that their intelligence was a fixed constant. Others rightfully believed that their intelligence had room to grow.

    What Dweck carefully clarified was that there were two distinct mindsets that set students apart—a fixed mindset and a growth mindset—and the research was conclusive: A growth mindset was seminal in facilitating personal growth, while a fixed mindset hindered potential.

    The students with a fixed mindset didn’t believe they could do better. Each failure was devastating and demoralizing. And for learners, this becomes a problem.

    On the other hand, a growth mindset actively encourages students to enjoy challenges and seek improvement.

    This research reveals an amazing opportunity for us as human beings. In the face of failure, challenge, and adversity, a growth mindset gives us the ability to build and act on resilience. We can build mental strength to break through walls in pursuit of what excites us.

    How to Take Action

    Right now, you may be saying to yourself, “Sounds great Nick, but I don’t know the first thing about how to apply this in my life.”

    I understand. Application is often the most important, but most difficult aspect to skill development.

    Let’s focus on the power of “small wins,” thanks to Charles Duhigg in the The Power of Habit. This theory can help us reduce overwhelm and improve our confidence one step at a time. Here is one action step you could take today to start building or strengthening your growth mindset:

    Finding Your Fixed Mindset “Voice”

    What does a fixed mindset thought sound like? Thoughts such as “What if I fail?”, “I’ll be a failure,” and “It’s not my fault; it’s someone else’s” are fixed mindset questions and statements.

    The goal is to achieve consistency. With time, you’ll be able to develop the ability to catch yourself during a fixed mindset thought, reset, and apply a growth mindset perspective. Here is an exercise to identify your fixed mindset voice: record yourself for a day.

    This may sound extreme. However, think about if you were trying to improve your finances. Your accountant or financial advisor would tell you to record your expenses over the course of a day, week, or even a month.

    By performing this exercise, you are providing an unbiased record of all activities—some that you would remember anecdotally and others you wouldn’t believe you spent money on. Doing this inventory with your self-talk provides a sometimes scary but accurate look at how you respond to events during a day in the life.

    Steps:

    • Every hour, put together a minute-long recording of the events of that hour and your feelings. NOTE: For iPhone users, you can use the “voice memo” app on the device. For Android users, you can download Smart Voice Recorder right from the Google Play store. Here is the link.
    • Work to be honest with yourself. Some hours may not include anything exceptional, but building the habit consists of doing the task consistently.
    • When you have a moment at the end of the day or in the morning, listen to your recordings. Try to identify fixed mind-set and growth mind-set “voices.”
    • Then, ask yourself, “How can I improve this reaction?”
    • Write it down.

    Even if you do this exercise for a day, the goal is to start to develop an awareness of what your “voice” is. This provides us the opportunity to revise this inner voice with growth mindset thoughts, which then turn into positive actions.

    Over time, you’ll hone this muscle, which becomes the foundation of approaching adversity when it shows itself.

    —

    No one’s perfect. I still struggle every day with applying the right principles. I try to remind myself that each day, and each step in our journey, is a chance to get a little better.

    Best of luck with the next step in your journey!

    Man with arms up image via Shutterstock

  • Having Too Much to Do Isn’t the Problem

    Having Too Much to Do Isn’t the Problem

    Lengthy To Do List

    “As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care and love—even the most simple action.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    As a young girl I danced a lot. I really loved it and so learned every style of dancing available at my dance school (and took up more and more of my mom’s time driving me back and forth to class and making untold numbers of dance costumes for me).

    Around my fifteenth birthday, all of that practice and enthusiasm came into its own and I was featured in seventeen of the dances being performed in the annual concert.

    There were less than thirty dances in the entire production, so the logistics around making it all happen was pretty intense. (We’re talking side of stage costume changes and Mom planning every move with military precision.)

    There are two things I remember simultaneously from that time: I loved it, and that any fear I had about being able to pull it off was squashed deep in my subconscious. I simply didn’t allow myself to feel the fear.

    This combination meant that the entire experience was a great success.

    It wasn’t, however, a healthy success.

    With the benefit of twenty-five years worth of hindsight, I’m able to look back on that time now and see the overwhelm I suppressed.

    It wasn’t the number of dances that was overwhelming. My body danced as naturally as it walked, and as soon as the music played, it knew what to do. I also knew that if I wasn’t entirely present on stage I would lose the attention of the audience.

    Even at that age, I intuitively knew that the power of the performance was in my ability to be entirely present. In that regard, I could have danced for double or triple the time I did on that day and felt completely invigorated at the end of it.

    That didn’t happen, though, because between each performance I was unconsciously draining my energy.

    You see; I didn’t know how to carry that stage presence into the rest of my life. And so the minute the music stopped, my mind resumed its constant barrage of self-criticism.

    I was afraid of disappointing people, I was afraid of not being perfect, I was afraid of making a mistake.

    If I’d been able to drop all of that inner dialogue, I would have performed those seventeen dances with ease. It wouldn’t have felt too much.

    I wouldn’t have had any overwhelm to suppress. I would have been able to experience the exhilaration fully.

    Instead, my exhilaration was stunted. Kept in check by fear.

    The thing about fear is that it dissipates in the face of presence. There’s simply no space for it when you bring your full self to a task.

    I didn’t feel the fear while dancing because I was present. During some of the quicker costume changes I didn’t feel any fear because I absolutely had to be present in order to get back on that stage immediately, fully dressed without a sequin out of place.

    When I did have the luxury of a full dance or two to prepare for the next performance, I’d get critical; “My hair’s not right,” “Can I really remember what I’m supposed to be doing next?,” “I’m just not happy with the way I approached that last sequence…”

    Each time, before I stepped back onto the stage I knew I had to stop. Become still. Find my presence again. Thankfully I did. But wouldn’t it have been nice if I been able to maintain a steady, mindful presence through the entirety of the two hours and not just when I was on stage?

    Sometimes quantity isn’t the problem. We’re all constantly complaining about too many emails, too many items on our to do list, too many social commitments.

    Sometimes it’s simply about the presence and mental quietude you bring to the myriad tasks that make up your day.

    Perhaps rather than learning how to manage our tasks more efficiently or to say no to every opportunity that comes our way (which are useful things to learn, of course) we’d all benefit from starting first with the mental clutter of our minds.

    With clearing the stories, the judgments, the criticisms we’re repeating over and over like broken records.

    Perhaps rather than suppressing them, we start to acknowledge them. We send love to our fears. We recognize their role in trying to keep us safe and then act from there.

    There’s a vast difference between acting from compassion and understanding, and acting from a reservoir of suppressed fear. You may well still achieve your goals by suppressing your fear, but at what cost?

    After all, our goals are never really all we want, are they? We want to feel good, great, amazing, exhilarated when we achieve them.

    And that, friends, is only made possible through our constant willingness to bring ourselves completely into the present moment. To drop the assessment of what is and what isn’t, and to simply allow all to be, without thought of what’s coming next or memory of what came before.

    Just here. Just now. Being and allowing.

    To-do list image via Shutterstock

  • A Powerful Guide for People-Pleasers (and a Giveaway!)

    A Powerful Guide for People-Pleasers (and a Giveaway!)

    You Can't Please Everyone

    Update: The winners for this giveaway are Galit Erez and Granny Nate.

    I’ve often wondered if I suppressed my tears when I was born, in fear of upsetting the doctor and my parents.

    I wouldn’t be surprised to learn this about myself, as many of my childhood memories involve a fear of causing trouble, and an even greater fear of the consequences.

    As I grew older, I began to shape-shift to please the people around me. It was exhausting, but I frequently tried to control their perception of me so I could feel confident I was likely to receive their approval.

    I was always hyper-vigilant in a group dynamic, monitoring the room for signs that someone may be angry, annoyed, or otherwise bothered by me.

    Since I was highly empathetic, and paranoid—and I couldn’t read people’s minds—I often recognized emotions in others and attributed them to something I said or did “wrong.”

    Thus began the draining dance of trying to win them over again. But because they were likely feeling something that had nothing to do with me, I’d ultimately feel even worse after trying to earn some type of validation and failing.

    Very few people knew the real me—and I wasn’t sure I did, either—which meant I felt incredibly alone.

    It’s taken me years to understand the roots of my people-pleasing instincts, and to challenge them so I can form authentic relationships based not on fear and need, but rather love and mutual respect.

    Since I still struggle with this from time to time, I was eager to read Micki Fine’s book The Need to Please: Mindfulness Skills to Gain Freedom from People Pleasing and Approval Seeking.

    A certified mindfulness teacher, Micki Fine has written an insightful book that delves into the causes of people-pleasing, and offers tools to overcome it with non-judgment and self-compassion.

    If you’re tired of worrying about what people think of you, and beating yourself up when you fear you’ve lost their approval, The Need to Please could be life-changing for you.

    I’m grateful that Micki took the time to answer some questions about her book and people-pleasing, and that she’s offered two free copies to Tiny Buddha readers.

    The Need to Please

    The Giveaway

    To enter to win one of two free copies of The Need to Please:

    • Leave a comment below
    • For an extra entry, tweet: Enter the @tinybuddha giveaway to win a free copy of The Need to Please http://bit.ly/1CQUh66

    You can enter until midnight, PST, on Friday, July 24th. 

    The Interview

    1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to write this book.

    My childhood taught me in many ways to be a people pleaser, and I lived it unconsciously for a long time.

    In my mid-thirties a series of events helped me wake up a bit. As a result, I decided to follow my own path and went back to school to become a psychotherapist after being a CPA for many years. I also started meditating.

    In 1994, when I saw Jon Kabat-Zinn on the PBS series, Healing and the Mind, I had a deep sense of knowing that I wanted to teach mindfulness and eventually became a certified MBSR teacher.

    The idea for the book came during meditation. I ignored that idea for some time but at a certain point I simply had to pay attention.

    2. What causes some people to become people-pleasers and others to feel less dependent on external validation?

    When our parents reflect our goodness back to us appropriately and accept us as we are, we can grow to trust our own experience and feel worthwhile. The greater the love and acceptance, the less we feel the need to look outside ourselves.

    When love and acceptance is inadequately shown, our hearts are wounded. (We all share some level of this wounding.) Because of this treatment, we can grow up feeling insignificant, unworthy, and fearful and then look to others for the love and acceptance we didn’t get enough of as children.

    The experience of abuse, neglect, and abandonment are obvious indicators that we have not been treasured as children. Other experiences affect us too: having parents make all decisions for us as if we don’t matter, being told we need to be different than we are, and having love withheld if certain conditions are not met.

    3. How can mindfulness help us overcome the need to please?

    Mindfulness is the awareness that arises when you bring open-hearted, non-judgmental awareness to the present moment. Mindfulness helps you wake up to life.

    When you know you have only this moment to live, you might be moved to live life as if it matters. This helps you get off autopilot, like when you’re in the shower but thinking about someone’s opinion of you.

    If you decide to be present, you might catch your mind wandering to worry and intentionally decide to experience the pleasant sensations of the shower.

    Mindfulness can be practiced at any time, whether you set time aside from your daily activities to meditate or intentionally experience the present moment as it is.

    Through mindfulness practice we come home to ourselves after having our focus on others and what we think they want from us. We gain an intimacy with the body, our thoughts, and emotions instead of running away from ourselves.

    As we come to know ourselves better, mindfulness asks us to let go of judgment and allow things to be as they are, instead of struggling to make things different.

    This attitude helps us to relate to life and ourselves with kindness and compassion, making it possible to befriend our lives. We develop the capacity to relate to things in a radically different way: less reactivity and more lovingly.

    A wondrous thing that can happen through this allowing, kind-hearted, present-moment attention is that we come home to our inner loveliness through which we begin to trust ourselves instead of relying on others.

    Mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation can help us value ourselves after spending years thinking we are not okay. When we know our true nature of love we can truly feel at home.

    4. What do you think is the key difference between generosity and unhealthy self-sacrifice?

    I think a big difference is whether a caretaker behavior is motivated out of love or fear. Of course there can be a mix of motivations; our lives are complex. With mindfulness we can help discern more skillfully our feelings and motivations.

    I think it’s important to say that sometimes we do have to and want to make sacrifices for others. But, once again, is the behavior motivated out of love or fear?

    5. What are some of the most common people-pleasing behaviors, and how do these negatively impact our lives?

    The main behavior is doing whatever others want you to do even to the detriment of your well-being. In addition to the behavior, there is constant worry and hyper-vigilance to determine others’ imagined needs and what we should do.

    Another behavior is the inability to say no when you want or need to. A particularly sad behavior is not following your own path.

    The people pleasing cycle fuels feelings of anxiety, shame, and resentment. It is exhausting, as we focus almost completely outside ourselves, making it difficult to know our inner loveliness and wisdom, which in turn keeps us from valuing and trusting ourselves in order to act of our own volition. It is a self- perpetuating cycle.

    There are two important ideas here.

    One is that people pleasing is, at its core, an attempt to find love and to be free. To remind ourselves of that deep loving intention when we get caught up in people pleasing can help us to have compassion for ourselves and not be so self-critical.

    Another important thing is that our attempts to please others can never yield the experience of unconditional love precisely because our effort involves doing something to earn love. But since it is a self perpetuating cycle we keep trying in vain to earn love.

    6. I found the section on “the unspoken contract,” in Chapter 4, particularly eye-opening. Can you tell us a little about this and how people-pleasing creates an imbalance in relationships?

    One might think that being the partner on the receiving end of people pleasing would be great. You get everything done for you! However, the “unspoken contract” is that the receiver of all the caretaking is obliged to love the people pleaser unconditionally and never abandon him or her in return for all the caretaking.

    This is an impossible task because both partners have human hearts that are wounded and thus rarely capable of giving and receiving perfect love. Not only is this contract unspoken but it is unconscious and creates resentment, anger and disappointment for both partners due to the untenable expectations.

    7. In Chapter 6, there’s a heading that reads, “It’s not the thoughts that drive us crazy.” Can you expand on this?

    Two things come to mind. One is that a thought is simply an event in the mind (even the one that tells you it’s not). As we meditate we begin to find that thoughts simply come and go without our bidding and most of them are not true. The mind simply has a mind of its own. In other words, thoughts are not our fault.

    The other idea is that what we resist persists. We struggle with our thoughts, either trying to think “good” or “happy” thoughts or get rid of difficult thoughts. This can elicit a fair amount of discontent because the mind is like a two-year old who is having a tantrum.

    The harder you try to control the child having the tantrum, the more he or she kicks and screams.

    Taking our thoughts personally and struggling with them only serves to make the mind more agitated. So it is not the thought itself that makes us suffer, but how we relate to the thought.

    Through the active process of mindfulness, we practice kind, accepting observation of our thoughts so we can see thought as events in the mind that are not you.

    8. What’s one simple thing we can do to ground ourselves and get out of our head when we feel overwhelmed by people-pleasing thoughts?

    When you feel overwhelmed with thoughts, give yourself a chance to regroup by grounding your awareness in sensate experiences. Precisely notice your moment-to-moment physical experience.

    For example, if you’re taking a sip of water, notice your arm muscles moving as you reach for the glass, the feel of the glass as you touch it, the temperature of the glass on your lips, the feel of the water in your mouth, and the sensations of swallowing and the water flowing down your esophagus.

    Notice how you feel afterward. You may be more grounded and able to access a more independent perspective.

    9. In the chapter on befriending your emotions, you shared a helpful acronym, RAIN, from mindfulness teacher Michele McDonald. Can you share a little about this and how it can help us deal with difficult feelings?

    RAIN is a non-linear process of Recognizing, Allowing, Investigating, and Non-Identifying.

    To work skillfully with our emotions we first need to release ourselves from autopilot by taking a conscious breath and bringing awareness to the present-moment experience of the emotion.

    We recognize the emotion is present perhaps by silently saying “anxiety is here.” Allowing the emotion means that we let go of struggling with the emotion. Most of the time we try to make difficult emotions go away and hang on to the pleasant ones. Instead we cultivate a kind, friendly attitude toward the emotion.

    Then we investigate the emotion by dropping into the body to explore the sensations with compassionate curiosity. We non-identify when we remember that everyone suffers and that we are not alone. This can help us feel comforted because it helps us take the emotion less personally.

    Practiced together we can bring a friendlier attitude toward our emotions.

    It is important to practice RAIN with patience, kindness, and non-striving. For example, sometimes it is not possible to allow an emotion to be present, but we can allow the resistance. We need to be charitable with ourselves.

    10. What’s one thing we can do daily to develop self-compassion so we can give ourselves the approval we’ve so desperately sought from others?

    Offering ourselves compassion can be a beautiful thing. It can interrupt the harshness with which we treat ourselves and provide an opportunity to choose more wisely what comes next.

    For those of us experiencing people pleasing difficulties, it is important to do things that focus us inward, recognize perfectionism at work, and give kind understanding and compassion to our humanity.

    Here is one such practice. When you notice a people pleasing or other stressful moment, stop and take a breath. Then speak to yourself in a way that recognizes the moment as being difficult and also offers kind words toward you.

    Using a pet name that reminds you of your goodness can add a touch of kindness. Also, adding a physical gesture such has putting your hand on your heart or cheek can help foster gentleness.

    For example, with hand on heart, you could tell yourself “Dearest, this is really hard. How can I take care of you now?” My book has many suggestions about self-compassion.

    You can learn more about The Need to Please on Amazon here.

    FTC Disclosure: I receive complimentary books for reviews and interviews on tinybuddha.com, but I am not compensated for writing or obligated to write anything specific. I am an Amazon affiliate, meaning I earn a percentage of all books purchased through the links I provide on this site. 

  • How To Stop Giving Up On Yourself And Reach Your Full Potential

    How To Stop Giving Up On Yourself And Reach Your Full Potential

    Unlock Your Potential

    “Live up to your potential, not down to other people’s expectations.” 

    “Are you okay?” asked one of my editors.

    “Yeah,” I said. But I wasn’t.

    It was 11.30pm and I had just returned from a lengthy press conference where a major political announcement had just been made. My article was due in the next twenty minutes.

    A panic attack was quietly tightening its grip on me.

    Although I didn’t want to admit it, work was beginning to feel like Groundhog Day.

    I wanted to write, but in the fast-paced newsroom where I worked as a junior reporter close to fourteen hours a day, delving deep into subjects I was truly passionate about wasn’t something I was able to do.

    Every day was chase, report, repeat. I wanted so much more than that.

    But I refused to quit because I wasn’t a quitter, so I held on.

    Six months later and a year-and-a-half into my job, waking up and going to work was leaving me feeling inadequate and empty. Every assignment I got felt like a massive struggle.

    I was still adamant about not giving up, but I also knew that going on this way wasn’t a healthy option, so reluctantly, I chose to walk away from the newsroom.

    Giving up made me feel like a failure at the time, but now as I look back, I see my decision for what it was: my instincts telling me what was a good fit for me and what wasn’t, and me, honoring it.

    The one regret that I have is not realizing this and making the change sooner.

    What happened when I subsequently went after the things that really called to me?

    Excitement.

    I looked forward to challenges, not dread them.

    I gave 150% and never gave up.

    Success!

    If you constantly find yourself unable to finish what you start, jumping from one job, relationship, or diet to another without seeing progress, or feeling as if you’re a failure at everything you do, here are three things you need to do:

    Stop trying to fix yourself and forcing yourself to do things you don’t really want to do.

    Break the chain of moving from one thing to the next and trying to fit into a role that’s not right for you by taking some time out to figure out: What do you find meaningful and joyful, and how can you pursue that in your life instead of following your (or someone else’s) ‘shoulds’?

    What can you do to feel purposeful, in control, and good about yourself, and see results, rather than constantly feel exhausted, empty, and as if you need to be fixed?

    To get momentum going, try this simple exercise, which will help you get to the core of why you want something: Ask yourself “What do I want to accomplish?” When you’ve got the answer to this question, ask “Why?” Then, with whatever answer you come up with, ask why to that, and so on, five times.

    Not sure how to begin? Here’s how it worked for me when I was struggling with my weight:

    Q: What do you want to accomplish?
    A: I want to stop binge eating.

    Q: Why do you want to stop binge eating?
    A:  Because I want to feel in control of my body.

    Q: Why do you want to feel in control of your body?
    A: So I can feel confident.

    Q: Why do you want to feel confident?
    A: So I can stop avoiding social situations and feeling self-conscious about being overweight.

    Q: Why do you want to stop avoiding social situations and feeling self-conscious about being overweight?
    A: Because I want to start living again.

    Q: Why do you want to start living again?
    A: So I can get the most out of my life without wasting time hating how I look and feel.

    This final answer put me in touch with a painful situation I never wanted to relive again. I wanted so much more out of life than that.

    Yours, like mine did, will serve as a compelling reason to put in the work needed to accomplish what you set out to do, in congruence with your deepest-held values. It’ll pull you up and forward, not down.

    Work with who you want to be—you’ll find yourself feeling whole instead of constantly struggling to connect the missing dots.

    Focus on things you can control instead of focusing on outcomes.

    There are a million things that are out of your control: the weather, natural disasters, what other people think of your presentation, and your colleague’s insensitive comment about your weight.

    There are, however, a million other things that you can control.

    These include the little habits you can nurture to help get you to where you want to be:

    Waking up thirty minutes earlier to plan your day, parking a little further to get your daily 10,000 steps in, making a beeline for your colleague’s desk for a stress-relieving chat instead of to the pantry (where the donuts are), or responding to emails at fixed times during your day so you can work more efficiently and leave the office at 5pm to be with your kids.

    Once a week, ask yourself: “How am I doing?”

    If something isn’t working, find out why and focus on doing what you can do to change the outcome. You’re the captain of your ship—chart your course, do your best to be equipped with the skills that will help you weather storms that come your way, and let go of the rest.

    Get out of the race—life’s not a competition.

    You know the grind: Go, go, go! Deadlines are close. Time is money. Got to keep up with the Joneses. The clock’s ticking. That promotion is up for grabs. The thinner you are, the more popular you’ll be.

    But what if this rush for bigger, better, faster, and thinner keeps leaving you burnt out, unhealthy, depressed, and frustrated?

    Consider tweaking your priorities: Wouldn’t digging deep, zeroing on your deepest desires, and taking careful, methodical steps toward them leave you feeling calmer, happier, in your best shape ever, and focused on what matters to you in the long run?

    The less you focus on competing with others, the more time you’ll have to spend on nurturing your own happiness and reaching your full potential.

    So guess what? It’s time you gave up giving up on yourself.

    If you’re ready to throw in the towel and walk away (again), what can you do to break this cycle to head in the right direction?

    Unlock your potential image via Shutterstock

  • We Have to Love Ourselves Enough to Say No Sometimes

    We Have to Love Ourselves Enough to Say No Sometimes

    Hands in Heart Shape

    “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire Universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

    I’m a people pleaser. I know so many of us are. We want to see everyone around us happy and do our best to make this happen. This can mean anything from being kind, to offering favors, to lending a helping hand, or simply just being there, being supportive.

    But, it can also mean not knowing how to say no, apologizing incessantly, spending money when we’d rather not, reaching beyond our emotional means, and stretching ourselves so thin we barely have any energy left over for ourselves.

    Disappointing the people we love is one of the worst feelings in the world. I know nothing makes me feel more despondent than realizing I have hurt or let someone down in any way. So I’m conscious of doing my best to give as much of myself as I can in the ways that matter most.

    There’s no better feeling than giving love to others. It makes us feel alive to share in a loving spirit with those around us. It creates feelings of happiness, gratitude, and affection when we see the ones we care about content.

    That’s a wonderful thing. Human connections and sharing love are two of the most essential experiences we can have in life.

    But so often we are so busy giving love to others, we forget to give love to ourselves.

    We hate the idea of denying people the things they want of us, but we don’t think twice when it comes to being honest about our wants and desires, and rejecting them in some way.

    One reason for this is the line of what we genuinely want to do gets blurred with the line of what we feel we should do or have to do. This can be harmful because eventually we may lose sight of what matters most to us.

    By not loving ourselves enough—or at all—we are actually self-sabotaging our lives. We aren’t giving ourselves the permission to live fully, live proudly, and live our destiny.

    I was recently talking to a friend who has spent her life giving all she has to everyone and everything around her—her parents, her husband, her children, her work. She neglected her passions and didn’t listen when the voice inside kept telling her to make different choices.

    Subduing her wants, her desires, and her dreams has taken an emotional toll on her, one that has forced her to make some serious changes.

    Now she’s at a turning point in her life, where she is finally trying to attend to her own needs too. This means going through a divorce, and raising teenagers on her own. It means changing careers, changing habits, and starting fresh.

    At times, she finds this new way of being difficult. She even confided she feels resentful toward the people closest to her because they still expect her to be a certain way since they don’t understand her new behaviors and choices. She’s struggling with finding that balance of being loving to others without losing herself again.

    Love matters. It might be the thing that matters most.

    But we must remember to start with loving ourselves first. We have to love ourselves enough to say no when necessary, to make time for the things that bring us joy, and to live the life we’re dreaming of.

    That certainly doesn’t mean being selfish, self-centered, and self-absorbed. Not at all. What it does suggest is being self-aware and doing self-check-ins.

    “Love yourself not in some egocentric, self-serving sense but love yourself the way you would love your friend in the sense of taking care of yourself, nourishing yourself, trying to understand, comfort, and strengthen yourself.” ~Frederick Buechner

    We have to love ourselves enough to know that sometimes being a little selfish can help us be more selfless.

    We must practice being kind and patient with ourselves so we can have that same feeling with others.

    We must realize the simple act of listening to our needs and wants, and acknowledging them in an authentic manner, can better help us be that way with the people around us.

    Putting it simply: giving love to ourselves first can help us give more love to others.

    We will be less drained and more energized. We will give in a loving spirit, not a bitter one.

    I gave my friend this same advice. After listening to her, I realized she is still not loving herself enough.

    She feels resentful because while she has made changes in her life, she still is not allowing herself that time and space to breathe and recharge her soul. She feels guilty over some of the changes she’s fought so hard for, instead of embracing and honoring them.

    I understand her struggle since self-love can feel selfish, but when done with the best of intentions for yourself and those around you, there’s nothing wrong with it. In fact, it’s necessary.

    Love can be the greatest gift we give. Love can uplift, inspire, give hope, and change someone’s entire life, including our own. So yes, spread love in as many ways as possible. Show people love in as many ways as you can.

    But in doing that, don’t forget to start with the most important person of all—yourself.

    Hands in heart shape image via Shutterstock

  • When You’ve Fallen for Someone Who Isn’t Right for You Right Now

    When You’ve Fallen for Someone Who Isn’t Right for You Right Now

    “You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.” ~Nina Simone

    I completely fell for someone.

    It was one of those instantaneous connections, the kind that movies are made of. That’s how it was in my head, at least.

    But it didn’t matter, as I was moving to another city, traveling, and exploring by this point. There was no way anything was going to happen, because there was no space in either of our lives for it.

    Almost a year later, we found our way back to each other. It was fireworks. Long conversations, physical connection, honesty. We carved out places for ourselves. I found that I didn’t have to play games, that I could be completely open with him.

    I decided to make space for him in my life, no matter what.

    There came a point when I asked him whether we were working toward anything more substantial, and though he admitted to feelings for me, he said that he didn’t have the capacity for anything serious.

    It stung, yet how could I let go of someone who made me feel this way? The highs were so high.

    We tiptoed around a relationship that stemmed from something real, yet became based on addiction and longing. It was a dangerous cycle of feeling broken when he left and high when he re-entered my life.

    I knew he was working through his demons, too, and though I believe he cared for me on some level, he didn’t have the ability or desire to give me what I needed—his consistent presence, and the foundation for something healthy and meaningful outside of the honeymoon and infatuation stages.

    I was taking what was offered to me, even though it wasn’t enough.

    Whenever he’d come back into my life, I’d cling to him emotionally and our connection would be as strong as ever, yet I’d return home in tears, knowing that it would be a long time between ‘hits.’

    I felt myself shatter and became prickly toward him when we saw each other, unwilling to properly communicate my discontent, since it came at the risk of one of us finally walking away.

    We could both see I was getting hurt and that he felt stifled by expectation, yet neither of us had the capacity to shift our desires or leave, so we’d find our way back to each other again.

    It was the perfect storm. Eventually, we had to hit a wall.

    When we ended, it was not because I’d stopped caring, but because we were unwilling to shift what we wanted or could offer one another.

    There was no drama of hurtful words—he had not lied to me or cheated, and I hadn’t been anything but upfront about how I felt or what I wanted. We just weren’t on the same page.

    Even though the split felt counter-intuitive, we were in an uncomfortable stalemate. The only option was to walk away. I learned some important lessons, however.

    Remember what you are willing to accept, and be honest with yourself about it.

    At first, I merely wanted to know he had space for me in his life. I thought I could accept our off/on dynamic because I was in a place in my life where I was focusing on what I wanted to achieve outside of intimate relationships. But the more I was around him, the more I wanted something meaningful.

    I began to strongly believe that we could be in a healthy and functional relationship; however, my belief didn’t change the present reality, which was only hurting me.

    While it’s good to see how things unfold, if someone doesn’t treat you the way you want to be treated and the whole situation is bringing you down, you are doing a disservice to yourself by staying.

    You need to take care of yourself before you allow anyone else in your life. No one is there to ‘fix’ you.

    Because we had such an intense connection, I lit up around him. I felt like I was the best version of myself. Though he was someone I genuinely cared about, he inadvertently became an easy way for me to feel better and worthwhile, and I came to rely on that validation.

    We were on shaky ground already, and my dependence on his fluctuating presence made the way I perceived myself even more tumultuous.

    It’s difficult to have a healthy relationship if someone is filling a void instead of just adding to the great person that you are. The first step, however, is to believe you’re worthy outside of that connection.

    I needed to learn to be happy with myself and my decisions without someone reassuring me. For me, that occurred by exploring the things I craved to my core: writing, traveling, reading, and meeting new people.

    I committed myself to nourishing experiences, recognizing my own thoughts and habits, and behaving in a way that was kind to myself.

    You can’t pry someone’s heart open, nor might you be enough to change them.

    If someone doesn’t want to be with you, or doesn’t have the capacity to be with you, then there is nothing left for you to do but respect that decision and try to reassemble your life without them.

    Both people need to be willing to make an effort and come to the table with open hearts and open minds. You can’t fight for something if it’s not on offer.

    If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen. But if it can’t now, you have to move forward.

    There is a time to fight and sometimes, a time when you need to walk away. Instead of frantically searching for a resolution, sometimes we just need to get off the emotional roller coaster.

    Whether that means taking time apart or splitting for good, there is opportunity in learning to live your life as best you can outside of your relationship. You never know what might happen down the line, but unless a shift occurs for the both of you, it is impractical to entertain the possibility of a reunion.

    I’d love to say that my feelings have subsided completely, that I don’t feel a sting in my chest when I think of him, but that isn’t the case. However, I have enough self-awareness to know that we couldn’t continue that cycle, that I needed someone to be on the same page as me, and that I needed to grow and heal before I could be in a relationship—with him or anyone else.

    Everything in our life is a reflection of the choices we have made, and once we’ve exhausted all possibilities, we need to start making new decisions.

    Though it can feel counterintuitive, letting go of a love that isn’t good for you right now is an act of kindness to yourself.

  • Thanking the Thankless: A Little Praise Can Go a Long Way

    Thanking the Thankless: A Little Praise Can Go a Long Way

    Thank You

    “The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.” ~Dalai Lama

    The school bus driver that I had throughout elementary and middle school was invariably grouchy. She was gruff and intimidating; she had a look affixed to her face that could best be described as a perma-scowl. As far as I could tell, all of the kids on the bus were afraid of her.

    And so it perplexed me each year on the last day before Christmas break when my mom handed me a box of chocolates for me to give to my bus driver as a gift. But she’s so mean, I’d think to myself. Still, I followed my mom’s directions.

    The first time I handed the bus driver those chocolates, she was totally surprised by my mom’s thoughtfulness, and I was left awestruck by the unfamiliar grin on her face. Her hardened exterior seemed to melt right in front of me.

    Each year after that, I came to look forward to the occasion when I could see my bus driver transformed into a smiling, grateful, pleasant person—and to know that my mom’s kindness sparked that reaction in her.

    Over the years, I began to understand what my mom already knew—that this bus driver wasn’t really a mean person. She was just somebody under a lot of stress from working a difficult and thankless job.

    In college, I worked briefly as a customer service representative at a call center for a popular television provider. Never before had I realized how degrading people can be when they are frustrated, and how they may take it out on the first person they speak to.

    My boyfriend, who also worked at the call center, was once called a terrorist by a guy who was unhappy with his bill. But no matter how irate any given customer was, when the conversation ended we had only a few seconds before the next call came in and we’d go through the process again with somebody else.

    Stressful as they were to me back then, I know that the jobs I’ve held barely register on the scale of difficult work done by a multitude of employees with thankless jobs. I couldn’t last longer than a few months at the call center, though I knew workers who were there for years, working hard to provide for their families.

    When we stop to think about it, it’s easy to see how many people work to make our lives better and easier. Just think about buying your groceries, as an example. There are farmers that grow our food, truck drivers who haul our food to the store, stockers who arrange the food on shelves, and cashiers who ring it up.

    Once you get started, it’s difficult to stop thinking of people who work to improve our lives.

    The teachers who taught us to look at life in a new way. The librarian who introduced us to our favorite books—the books we turn to when we need insight or a little pick-me-up. The mail carrier who delivers the birthday card from your grandmother.

    The nurse who calls you back with the test results. The musician who wrote the song that pumps you up with enough swagger to nail that job interview or to ask out that guy. The booth attendant who sells you cotton candy at the fair (because, hey, it’s cotton candy!).

    The bus driver who made sure you got to elementary school safely.

    One day a few years ago, while reading Deepak Chopra’s The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, I was reminded of my mom’s empathy towards my former bus driver.

    Chopra writes that when he was a child, he was taught to never go to anyone’s house without bringing them a gift—even if the gift was simply a note, a compliment, a smile, or words of thanks.

    Chopra expands upon his childhood lesson, encouraging readers to “make a decision that any time you come into contact with anyone” that we should give them something.

    Later that day while waiting in line at the grocery store, I began to think about how many people that grocery cashier sees on any given day. Some customers are friendly while others don’t seem to even acknowledge that the person behind the cash register is an actual human being.

    Then I thought about how this particular cashier seemed to go above and beyond. He was always helpful and friendly. He asked if people needed assistance to their car.

    Once I even saw him at the store without his uniform, seemingly on his off-day, adjusting the mats in the doorway so that they were easier for others to walk on.

    I remembered Deepak Chopra’s advice to give to everyone we meet. I smiled and thanked this cashier, then went home and wrote a letter to the store manager detailing what a good worker this particular cashier was, and strongly recommended giving the guy a raise.

    I hoped, at the least, that my letter would give the cashier some much-deserved recognition.

    The more I thought of people to thank, the more people I realized I was thankful for. Suddenly I felt indebted to so many people.

    I wrote a thank you letter to an old high school teacher. I wrote to my mail carrier. It was so gratifying that it verged on addicting.

    Aside from writing thank you letters or expressing gratitude, another way of showing appreciation for those who serve you is to compliment them. Start paying attention to whether your restaurant server, taxi driver, or laundromat attendant has or is doing something that is worthy of some admiration.

    Calling your attention to this will most likely evoke a smile and make them feel humanized.

    You are letting them know that you don’t just view them as some background object crunching numbers, reading scripts, or scanning barcodes. They are human beings who are servicing you, and you appreciate it.

    When we thank those that are often engaged in thankless work, we not only help them feel appreciated and respected; we also connect with that which is more human and compassionate within us.

    A 2012 study from the University of Kentucky showed that people who practice gratitude are more sensitive and empathetic, and less likely to respond aggressively toward others.

    We know how nice it feels to have our own work acknowledged. We know how it feels to be thanked, or to receive a compliment. And we know how delightful it feels to catch somebody off-guard with kindness.

    Because, really, who wants to be the guy on the phone yelling at the college-age kid and calling him a terrorist because your bill (which he didn’t make for you) is higher than you want it to be?

    It’s so much more satisfying to be the considerate person who thinks to give a box of chocolates to a bus driver. And, thankfully for us, there are so many people around, working behind the scenes to make our lives better, that are worthy of thanks.

    Thank you image via Shutterstock

  • How to Show Your Friends You Appreciate Them

    How to Show Your Friends You Appreciate Them

    “Life without friendship is like the sky without the sun.” ~Unknown

    You love your friends. They’ve been with you through good times and bad. They are the rare breed of humans that accept your weirdness, accept your authentic self, and even love you for it.

    You wholeheartedly appreciate them. When you’re with them, you get an overwhelming sense of thankfulness that you have this wonderful human being in your life.

    Sometimes, however, you get a sense that you wish you could let that person know just how much they truly mean to you.

    Offering to buy a cup of coffee, giving a sincere compliment, and praising them to others just doesn’t feel like it’s doing them justice.

    Trust me, I’ve been there.

    I’ve felt like the luckiest man on Earth for many years because of the people I’ve been fortunate enough to be surrounded by.

    Some time ago, however, I had the same feeling we all get on occasion—a desire to do more. To appreciate them in a way that will make them truly feel appreciated.

    As a student of happiness, I’ve also known for years the positive impact my friendships have had on my health and mental well-being.

    It’s no surprise that the director of one of the longest studies ever done on human happiness, the Harvard Grant Study, George Vaillant, concluded:

    “Happiness is love. Full stop.”

    The research has confirmed many times over what we’ve all known intuitively for years: our relationships are the biggest contributors to our own long-term happiness.

    For this reason alone, our friends are worthy of more than a simple thank you. Use the following six powerful and simple ways to show your friends you truly appreciate them.

    1. Prioritize them.

    To show your friends you love them, show them that their well-being is a higher priority to you than other things in your life.

    For example, a friend in distress who is in the middle of a big life decision calls you, in tears, and asks for your help. She calls, however, right as you’re about to leave for dinner.

    You must ask yourself which one is truly more important. A true friend deserves to have your attention in this scenario. You don’t have to mention you sacrificed a night out to help them. In time, they may come to learn of the sacrifice you made, and it’ll continue to deepen your relationship.

    2. Communicate like a real human being.

    One of the most concerning sights I’ve seen in the past few years is a group of friends at a restaurant all talking … to people who are not at the restaurant … on their phones, via text.

    If you are physically spending time with a friend, the least they deserve is your very existence. Being lost in your phone or other technologies brings no joy to a meeting, and you might as well not be there at all.

    When I first noticed this pattern emerging in groups, I began to encourage my friends to play a game that I read about online:

    Everyone at the table must put their phones in the middle of the table. The first person to give into the urge to check their phone must then pay the bill for the meal.

    People never want to spend more than necessary, and this game works like a charm.

    3. Believe in your friends and stay by their sides.

    We all have one or two friends with massive goals. As a friend, you can be the one who believes in them, even when most others won’t.

    You can be the one encouraging them to persist in the face of defeat, to reiterate how much of a truly golden heart they have and why they deserve success in whatever venture they may be pursuing.

    For example, I have some friends who are extraordinary artists. Over the years, their journeys of making their passions their careers have been difficult, seeing as we still live in a culture than incorrectly undervalues the importance of art in society.

    I decided a long time ago to always give them a small psychological nudge every time I see them, just to ensure their optimism is maintained.

    I would remark upon their talent, ask them how business was going, and give any advice I was capable of giving, without being intrusive.

    You never know how much resistance and rejection friends are receiving in their desire to live a meaningful and impactful life, and they often highly regard the opinions of friends.

    You can be that friend who never gives up on them.

    Objectivity, of course, is still necessary. It would not be wise, for example, to continue encouraging a friend who is on a clear path to suffering.

    In this instance, you can still be by their side when they decide the doors must close.

    4. Personalize gifts.

    We’re sometimes tempted to get the nicest and newest shiny object when gifting to friends.

    But remember that personalized gifts have always, and will always, be more welcomed than any new object on the marketplace.

    Personalizing gifts shows your friend that you remember the unique things about them and that you value and notice their wonderful wackiness.

    Receiving a gift like this, on every occasion, will open the floodgates of appreciation.

    I once brought a friend a portable smartphone charger for his birthday. This particular friend was notorious for never having sufficient battery left on his phone to make or receive phone calls.

    He greeted the gift with much laughter and gratitude, and it was also the most required and necessary thing he needed at the time.

    A gift like this is simple, inexpensive, and easy to purchase, but most importantly, it’s thoughtful, and that’s what counts.

    5. Ask if your friends need help before they ask you.

    I’m not suggesting that you nag your friends with dozens emails a day with the subject line LET ME CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

    That would be more suited for an article entitled “How to Lose Your Friends in 24 Hours or Less.”

    What does work is being proactive in your desire to be a better friend.

    Whenever you think your friends may be in need of some assistance or guidance, you can casually ask them if they would like a hand, before they realize they might need it.

    This is a wonderful way to show your friends they are in your thoughts outside of the time you see each other in person.

    6. Avoid the trap of required reciprocity.

    This is one of the biggest traps in friendships.

    The belief states the following: If I’m doing this great thing for you, you are required to do something equally great for me.

    It’s a dangerous way of thinking.

    Instead, do great things for your friends simply because they are great.

    Expect nothing in return, and you’ll be surprised what actually comes back to you.

    Yet you may be thinking, what about the ones who will just take advantage of my good nature?

    Well, let them. You’d rather find out they behave this way now rather than later, right?

    When you notice this tendency in another, be strong enough to leave that relationship respectfully and rapidly.

    Going the Extra Mile

    We’ve discussed several ways you can show your friends you love them so they will feel truly appreciated.

    The theme among them all is the importance of putting in that extra effort to value the people who have stuck by you over the years.

    Your friends deserve your time, presence, and companionship, and you are perfectly suited to be the shoulder they may need to lean on in times of distress and despair.

    So enjoy the wonder of relationships in all their emotional color and spiritual zest.

    You are special in your own right, and no one else can provide the love that you do, in your own unique way.

  • 5 Limiting Beliefs That Sabotage Your Dreams

    5 Limiting Beliefs That Sabotage Your Dreams

    “Remember your dreams and fight for them.” ~Paulo Coelho

    You have a dream. Something that you’ve wanted for a long time. But that dream continues to elude you.

    You blame circumstances—your daily responsibilities, lack of time, finances—or perhaps your family for holding you back.

    What if none of the above is to blame for your dreams not coming true?

    What if it’s something else?

    Madison Square Garden, New York, 18,000 people 

    Four of us performing. Our band’s name—Oracle. Thousands of fans singing along with us.

    That was my dream. Our dream. And it never happened!

    In the year 2000, we recorded a demo album and sent it to a few of the biggest recording labels.

    But not a single company signed us up.

    I was nineteen, arrogant, and thought the world of our music. Not getting a contract anywhere was the last thing I had expected.

    I could have kept trying to build a career in music. But I was devastated, so I gave up. The band also dispersed, and we went our separate ways.

    I decided to forget about music for the time being, continue my education, and get a job.

    A New Dream

    After beginning to work in the corporate world, I realized that I truly enjoyed working with people. I had always been passionate about psychology, meditation, and learning more about the mind. So I started working on a new dream—to build my own training firm.

    After a long time, I finally had found a career path in something that I was truly passionate about!

    A New Journey

    Things weren’t easy when I quit my job to follow my dreams again. But this time, I was determined not to quit, no matter how much hard work or sacrifices success would entail. I am incredibly lucky to have a wife who has supported me and encouraged me every day.

    Over the years, my perseverance paid off. I am now doing well and growing.

    But here’s the funny thing…

    I now realize that if I had invested the same amount of time and effort toward music as I had done in my company, I could have become a successful musician.

    How do I know this?

    Because the fourth member of our band went on to become a professional musician. He now works in movies with some of the most eminent names in the industry.

    So why did I fail?

    Was it because I didn’t have the talent, the time, or a network of people in the music industry who could support me?

    No. I never lacked any of the above.

    I failed because of my limiting beliefs.

    Our beliefs create our reality.

    Our beliefs create our thoughts. Our thoughts determine what we do—our decisions, our everyday actions, and the way we work toward our dreams.

    Most of the time, the only things holding you back are your limiting beliefs.

    The following are five limiting beliefs that sabotage your dreams.

    Belief 1: It’s too difficult.

    How difficult does your dream seem to you? Do you feel that you don’t have the necessary talent, money, time, education, network, or other resources?

    That’s what I felt like when our demo album got rejected.

    If you feel that your dream is too difficult, just ask yourself: What small steps can I take that will take me closer to my dream?

    If you want to run a marathon, start running for five minutes every day.

    If you want to start your own business, start networking with people in that industry.

    If you want to be a world traveler, look for jobs that will allow you to travel.

    But why do dreams seem so difficult and so distant?

    Usually because of the next belief.

    Belief 2: I have to become successful quickly.

    How quickly do you want your dream to come true? Definitely sooner than ten years, right?

    In the year 2000, I was nineteen years old, and even two years seemed like a lifetime then.

    I lacked the patience to work hard consistently. On the contrary, my friend carried on—learning, singing in other bands, and consistently working toward his dreams.

    It took him thirteen years to get there after our band broke up.

    If that sounds like infinity to you, just ask yourself:

    “Would you rather get there late? Or would you rather not arrive at all?”

    Belief 3: Either I’m famous or I’m a failure.

    I can hear you asking, “Your friend might be working in the music industry, but is he a star? Has he played at Madison Square Garden? Isn’t that what the dream was?”

    No, he isn’t a rock star, but does he really need to be one?

    He’s doing excellent work in one of the most challenging industries on earth, making good money, and most importantly, having a great time.

    Maybe you have a specific dream in mind. Does it mean that you have failed if you have only achieved a fraction of that dream?

    You might never become a New York Times Best Seller or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Does that mean that any achievements short of those goals is a waste of your time?

    Belief 4: It’s too late for me.

    Do you feel that your time has passed?

    Maybe if you were younger, it might have been possible, but aren’t you too old now?

    I felt the same—when I was nineteen years old!

    In a world where people become stars in their teens or billionaires in their twenties, no wonder we feel that we are too late.

    I have a friend who has won three National Geographic contests and traveled to four continents, photographing polar bears in Alaska as part of his expeditions.

    He did all that after he retired.

    What’s admirable is that he never abandoned his dream of becoming a successful photographer.

    If he can live his dream, why can’t you?

    Belief 5: It’s too risky. I might fail.

    What if you don’t make it? Despite all your efforts, what if your dream remains unfulfilled?

    You might end up damaging your career, losing money, and alienating people.

    You are right; you might fail. But here’s what you must ask yourself: Are you completely happy with your life right now?

    In your twilight years, when you look back, will you regret not trying hard enough?

    But hold on. What about your responsibilities toward your family? Isn’t it selfish to pursue your dreams if you have to neglect them?

    A woman I know who has built a thriving organic food business once told me, “I had to sacrifice a lot to follow my passion. But if I didn’t pursue my own dreams, how would I have proved to my children that they can succeed at their dreams too?”

    Don’t you think that’s a risk worth taking?

    Question Your Limiting Beliefs

    I have been held back by every single one of these limiting beliefs. But I didn’t let them stop me from fulfilling my second dream of building my own firm.

    If you have a dream, you have a duty and responsibility to make it come true—not only to yourself but also to those who love you.

    Examine your thoughts and question your beliefs. Your dreams are closer than you think.

    What small steps will you take today to make your dreams come true?

  • Letting Go of Anger: Forgiveness Is a Choice and a Process

    Letting Go of Anger: Forgiveness Is a Choice and a Process

    Forgive on Stones

    “Forgiving someone doesn’t mean condoning their behavior. It doesn’t mean forgetting how they hurt you or giving that person room to hurt you again. Forgiving someone means making peace with what happened. It means acknowledging your wound, giving yourself permission to feel the pain, and recognizing why that pain no longer serves you. It means letting go of the hurt and resentment so that you can heal and move on. ~Daniell Koepke

    My father leaned back in his overstuffed recliner, eating the double-chocolate raspberry gelato I had just bought for him as he stared entranced at the television.

    His feeble body was bent over in pain and his feet were as swollen as sausages. A wave of sadness mixed with acceptance rolled through me and I felt peaceful.

    My father is slowly deteriorating from Parkinson’s disease, and at the age of eighteen, it’s a difficult experience for me to go through. Heck, going through death at any age is difficult.

    For years, my relationship has been very tense with my father. I used to have major “daddy issues” and held onto a lot of pain from my childhood.

    When I was younger, he wasn’t always the nicest man, especially when it came to disciplining. I can remember him screaming at me to get on the ground and do push-ups for back-talking my mother.

    His eyes were full of hate and anger, and for the next ten years I would hold a deep resentment for him centered around memories such as those.

    This past May, I graduated from high school and was faced with the path of choosing a school. I’m a very serious musician, so I auditioned at eight schools all over the country, and got accepted to six.

    It was a major accomplishment. But, as my anger continued to brew for my father and his health deteriorated, I realized that he wouldn’t be here much longer. If I wanted to make things right and receive closure, I had to act now.

    I decided to take a gap year to spend time with my father and take some much needed time for myself. Most importantly I wanted to learn about ultimate forgiveness.

    Giving up all those schools and scholarships was difficult, but what I realized would be more difficult was giving up the healing process I could go through right now regarding my past relationship with my dad.

    So here are three lessons I have learned from going through this process with my father. I’m sure I will learn much more in the year to come, but I believe I have learned some valuable lessons thus far.

    1. Life is too short to hold onto regrets.

    When a life or death situation happens, you soon realize that some things really don’t matter. I could easily hold onto resentment for my father’s actions, but you know what? I don’t want to be thirty-five or sixty-two regretting that I never made peace with him while he was still alive.

    I could wait, because forgiveness doesn’t require his participation, but why prolong my unhappiness? An added bonus has been my ability to enjoy getting to know him a bit from a loving perspective.

    2. Forgiveness is a process; it’s not magic.

    This is a common misconception. Saying, “I’m sorry,” and expecting everything to fade away and be sunshine and roses is ridiculous. You will be angry and feel those resentful feelings again and again. But, you have a choice.

    When you have those feelings, you can question them. Is it really worth it? Can you see it another way? Are these hurtful thoughts bringing you peace? I choose peace.

    3. Real forgiveness does not require two people.

    My father has no clue that I am going through this process or even that I have held some major resentment. If I felt sharing with him would help the forgiveness process, I would share. But in my opinion, it all has to do with me giving up blame.

    My, father, like many people, had a very hard life and abusive parents as role models. He honestly did the best he could.

    This is not excusing his behavior. However, I realize that holding blame just eats me up in the inside. I would rather forgive his behavior and look at how it has benefited me than hold resentment.

    I appreciate the sacrifices he has made for me and realize he was the exact father I needed for my self-growth process. If it weren’t for him, I probably would not have developed such a positive, meaningful relationship with my mother.

    I know his sickness will only get worse from here and I’m at peace with that. I’m happy that my sweet father is transitioning to a better place and am thankful for all of the life lessons he has taught me.

    Remember that life has an expiration date, which should push you to live the fullest every day. And it should be an even greater reminder to love deeply and always, always forgive.

    Forgive on stones image via Shutterstock

  • 40 Ways to Let Go of Anger Right Now

    40 Ways to Let Go of Anger Right Now

    “You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.” ~Buddha

    Anger is merciless.

    It leaves you feeling torn up inside.

    Your head pounds. Your jaw locks. And your muscles scream. Every inch reels in pain with the electric shock that shoots through you.

    You can’t eat, or sleep, or function like a rational human being.

    You’ve good reason to be afraid of unleashing that screaming monster of rage lurking inside you. You’ll likely lose control, lash out, and retaliate.

    Even though you have been wronged, you’ll end up feeling guilty, ashamed, even horrified by your reaction. That’s one more regret your peace of mind wouldn’t stand.

    But sometimes the person you’re enraged with is yourself. That’s a doubly painful blow of anger and self-disgust.

    Being angry is exhausting . . . and yet you’ve found the energy to keep it alive for months, even years.

    I have too. Oh sure.

    I devoted the first half of my life to being angry, silently seething, and ever resentful. I’d periodically explode in rage and then be consumed with shame for losing control and screaming words I could never retract.

    I lived on nerves that felt like they were constantly fried with 40,000 volts. That was a hideous way to be.

    And for the longest time, that burning fury that raged inside me seemed totally justified. All that bitter resentment, well, “what else should I feel?” my thoughts screamed. No chance to be a kid, no carefree years, blissfully unaware of some of the bad things that could happen in life. They were right there, every day. They stole my childhood.

    Growing up in an unpredictable, unhappy environment was the pits. I hated it, hated not being able to escape, and hated everyone involved because they were old enough to know better. They denied me my childhood.

    My anger was borne out of having had no control of those events; my resentment grew out of a sense of loss. Oh boy, bitterness is so corrosive.

    All that anger, all that resentment had to go for me to have any chance of happiness.

    So with a newfound rationality, I learned to listen to my angry thoughts. I heard the pain and sadness wrapped in every one. I recognized the self-harm my anger was inflicting. I realized I’d been the one keeping alive those events and people that had hurt me, and I alone had the power to decide their time was over.

    And that feels incredible.

    I very much want that for you too. To be free. To let go of all that resentment, anger, and rage.

    How? With one small anger-conquering action at a time.

    40 Ways to Let Go of Anger

    1. Look at your rulebook.

    If you never explained your rules to the person who angered you, how can you be upset that they broke them? Maybe their rules are different.

    2. Use aromatherapy to create a calm environment.

    Candles and diffusers alleviate stress and anxiety. Or try a couple of calming drops of essential lavender oil on your pillow.

    3. Buy a recordable alarm clock.

    Wake up to a soothing self-recorded message. Alternatively, use an app.

    4. Recognize that others say and do harsh things out of jealousy.

    Change your anger to compassion because they are obviously struggling with their own negative emotions.

    5. Personalize a keep-calm mug.

    Choose some anger-defeating text for your mug. Use it at work or home.

    6. Let your anger fizzle out with a bath-bomb.

    Relax in a warm bath as you watch the bath-bomb and your anger fizzle away.

    7. Quiet your anger.

    If you’re likely to fall into a rage when speaking up, say nothing at all. “Silence is sometimes the best answer.” ~Dalai Lama

    8. Visualize your anger as a drop of water.

    Close your eyes and see your mind as a crystal-blue ocean of calm. See your anger as a single drop of water falling into your calm ocean, barely causing a ripple before being absorbed.

    9. Create a universe of peace in your bedroom.

    Make a night sky with luminous stars and planets. Lie on your bed with the lights off, and pick a star to project your anger onto. Now re-focus to see the whole galaxy with your anger as a tiny dot among a universe of peace.

    10. Put your anger to bed.

    Anxiety and irritability are instigated by lack of sleep. More sleep can be as effective as conscious meditation. “Sleep is the best meditation.” ~Dalai Lama

    11. Take responsibility for your anger.

    Someone can influence your anger response, but only you control it.

    12. See your anger as a boiling kettle.

    Flick the switch to off as if you were turning off your anger. Let your temper cool down like the kettle.

    13. Look at who you’ve become.

    See how letting go will allow you to be true to yourself and finally at peace.

    14. Paint an angry mouth on an hourglass egg timer.

    Now paint a happy mouth on the other half. Turn your angry mouth upside down and watch the happy mouth fill.

    15. Understand that you are only hurting yourself.

    “Holding onto anger is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” ~Unknown

    16. Recognize their inner angst.

    This is the real reason they acted like they did. Heal your anger by setting out to help them feel better about themselves.

    17. Blow up a dozen balloons.

    Write an angry thought on each one and step on them until they pop, leaving only the shredded remnants of your deflated anger.

    18. See your anger as a runaway horse.

    Imagine it trying to break out of your “mind paddock.” Rein it in.

    19. Use wise words to halt angry words.

    In confrontational situations, remember: “Speak in anger and you will have made the best speech you will regret.” ~Dr. Laurence J. Peter

    20. Wear a calming color.

    Avoid confrontational colors like red and black. Instead wear calming blue or soothing green.

    21. Have a calming message engraved on a ring.

    Avoid anger by playing with your ring and thinking of those soothing words.

    22. Use a mirror for self-reflection.

    Look in the mirror and let your anger out. “The more you hide your feelings, the more they show. The more you deny your feelings, the more they grow.” ~Unknown

    23. Shred a physical representation of your anger.

    Take those hurtful letters, print off those emails, or write out your angry thoughts. Push the pages through a shredder, and reduce your anger to tatters.

    24. Record yourself describing your anger.

    Capture your angry thoughts on your phone or computer. Listen back to this as if it were a good friend telling you theirs. Offer yourself the empathetic advice you would give a friend.

    25. Repeat a happy mantra.

    Regain control of your emotions by repeating, “I’m a happy person who does not see the benefit of staying angry.”

    26. Choose a positive, healthy outlet.

    Use feel-good endorphins to dispel anger by going for a run or singing loudly and dancing energetically.

    27. Express your anger to a friend.

    A supportive environment can be hugely beneficial in getting your emotions out safely.

    28. Use a self-hypnosis video.

    Hypnosis can help you get your anger under control. Alternatively, try a registered hypnotherapist.

    29. Shift your perspective.

    If you cannot change the events that have made you angry, change your perspective for the sake of your peace of mind.

    30. Take a soothing shower.

    Wash away your anger with calming ylang ylang or chamomile shower gel.

    31. Personify your anger.

    Imagine it as a fiery-tempered troll in your path. Push it away.

    32. Remind yourself that you have a choice.

    “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” ~Viktor E. Frankl. Decide that your response will not be anger.

    33. Keep this quote on you at all times:

    “He who angers you, conquers you.” ~Elizabeth Kenny. Repeat it to yourself when you feel anger rising, or pull it out and read if possible.

    34. Take a step back.

    In a confrontational situation, physically take a step back.

    35. Be honest with yourself.

    What are you achieving by holding on to anger? Is it a case of injured pride that you would really love to swap for forgiveness?

    36. Picture angry thoughts as bitter, poisonous seeds.

    Stop these from taking root in your mind. Instead, raise a happy, forgiving “mind garden” by populating your thoughts with anger-defeating quotes.

     37. Plant a garden of compassion.

    Take the idea above a step further with a flower border or window box. For your own well-being, plant a flower for anyone who has angered you to signify your wish to forgive them.

    38. Weed out your anger.

    When you tend your Garden of Compassion, picture each weed you root out as further uprooting your anger.

    39. Seek help to defeat your anger.

    If you feel stuck in a cycle of resentment and anger, consider taking a course.

    40. Laugh at your anger.

    “People are too serious. All the time, too serious.” ~Dalai Lama. Anger is sometimes just injured self-pride. It’s not easy, but try not taking yourself so seriously.

    Beat Your Inner Anger Monster for Good

    Being angry has stolen your happiness for too long.

    It’s eaten you up from the inside and shattered your peace of mind.

    It’s even affected your health.

    But worse still, it’s allowed the person or events that caused your anger to have power over you.

    Just imagine getting through a whole day without losing your temper.

    Imagine that seething resentment disappearing, leaving you feeling liberated of all those toxic thoughts.

    Imagine being able to react with forgiveness instead of rage and being able to respond by letting go rather than clinging on to old hurts and wrongs.

    By taking small, simple actions, you can take great leaps in beating your anger monster for good.

    Try to be open-minded in letting these ideas speak to you. Pick the ones that shout loudest.

    Put yourself back in charge of your emotions, your life, and your happiness.

    Happy woman image via Shutterstock

  • Ending the Cycle of Breaking Up and Getting Back Together

    Ending the Cycle of Breaking Up and Getting Back Together

    Breaking Up

    “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    Almost all of my romantic relationships have had some kind of long ending. At some point I’ve gained clarity on the relationship, I’ve acknowledged the truth that it’s not working out, and then I’ve ended it.

    I would like to say that was the end of the story, that I moved on each time with peace and ease. But the reality is that I second-guessed myself and ended up excusing all of my partners’ faults to justify giving them another chance.

    There have been significant studies that show that our brains literally become addicted to our partners. But our relationships also have an emotional attachment. Oftentimes our partner fulfills some kind of void for us, particularly from childhood.

    Maybe we want to know that our partner will put us first or will never leave us, or maybe we want to feel that we are worthy of being loved unconditionally. These wants make it difficult to go through with a breakup — even when it’s for our own good.

    To have a healthy separation, we have to understand that breakups are huge obstacles to overcome, and have compassion for ourselves as we navigate the intense emotions.

    It’s important to know yourself and what you need to do to move forward. Even then, it can prove difficult to remain steadfast. Breakups can re-open deep wounds that evoke powerful emotion.

    Flip-flopping in relationships is a sign that we aren’t clear on what is best for us or how to give ourselves what we need.

    We’re dealing with the intensity of feelings and the brain’s addiction, so we have to learn how to gain and maintain clarity for ourselves. The back and forth shows that there is doubt and uncertainty. It shows us that we aren’t abiding by our own truth. 

    I was once in a relationship for about eight months. It was a deeply powerful and transformative relationship for me. But we broke up because something was fundamentally off.

    Two months later (and in a depression), I convinced myself I had made a mistake—that I just needed to accept him as he was and we would be fine—and I asked for him back.

    That lasted maybe a month. Then two more months passed, and we got together to exchange belongings. Feelings opened back up, and we spent another month or two together. It ended again.

    Four months apart. I was doing great. I was strong. Then it was my birthday, and he popped up. Two more months together. And then reality hit me.

    The truth was that the relationship had depleted me completely. I had no energy for myself. I had no ability to be truly happy when we were together because I was giving all of myself to him. He was pulling on me to fill his voids, and I was depleting myself in an attempt to acquire his love.

    The back and forth was exhausting and a little embarrassing.

    I could never wish those encounters didn’t happen, because I learned tremendously from each one of them. But now I’ve learned the lesson, and moving forward I know how to stand by my own side and cultivate relationships that are balancing and harmonious. 

    This particular ex recently popped back into my life, and this time I was prepared. I’d done deep work on myself since our last communication. I understood the root of my attachment to him, and I realized that I was punishing myself for “messing up.”

    I had wanted his love back, at any expense to my own well-being. I also had a deep realization that I am worthy of a healthy partner, someone who can have an equal exchange of depth and intimacy with me.

    Recognizing these truths and putting my happiness before his allowed me to put up firm boundaries so we could have healthy communication.

    Having boundaries is an act of respect for yourself. It shows you and the person you’re in communication with that you value yourself first and foremost.

    I was very clear within myself (and later with him) that I was not willing to open up any door that would lead down a road that was unhealthy for either of us.

    I was no longer willing to put myself out for him, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t willing to give him some of my time. I was able to show him compassion and still be true to myself.

    I also know that I am where I need to be—without him as a romantic partner. And I have faith in my own path. I know the only thing I need to do is to connect with the deeper part of myself and allow it to guide me.

    We all know what is best for ourselves, even in the times when we feel most confused. Trusting our inner voice, even when it may sound tiny and muffled, is the key to ending the cycle of breaking up and getting back together—and the path to a healthier, happier relationship.

    Breaking up image via Shutterstock

  • Lost Love: How to Survive Heartbreak and Seize the Future

    Lost Love: How to Survive Heartbreak and Seize the Future

    Love

    “We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” ~Joseph Campbell

    On top of the world at twenty-two.

    That’s how I felt. I was twenty-two years old and in love for the first time. I couldn’t believe it.

    I had come out of a lonely childhood and was beginning to find confidence as a young adult. I landed a secure job, bought my first car, and experienced a freedom I never felt before. Then this beautiful girl came along and took me to another level.

    Little did I realize that just around the corner lay the numbness of loss, the feeling of helplessness, and sleepless nights as something magical just slipped away.

    Love Found

    When we met, we hit it off straight away. She was kind, sincere, and very attractive. We laughed at the same things, and as we grew closer, stronger feelings soon developed.

    Falling in love was exciting. We had great times and lots of laughs. It’s hard to describe, but we clicked immediately. After about six months, I plucked up the courage and proposed. She said yes, and suddenly marriage was on the horizon.

    Wow!

    I spent all my savings on a ring, and we made plans for the future. People’s generosity overwhelmed us as we were adorned with engagement presents.

    But as we organized the wedding, hints at secrets began to emerge. With little warning, plans crumbled. I spent night after night driving around in my car wondering what to do and how to cope.

    Why did it go wrong?

    It’s said that when you meet the “right person,” you’ll know. And we did … just know, or so we thought.

    Love Lost

    The catalyst turned out to be a friend of my fiancé. When the friend came from England on a visit, the tone of our relationship changed. I discovered that a marital affair had occurred between my fiancé and her friend’s husband long before I came on the scene.

    Rather than lose her husband, my fiancé’s friend, with no knowledge of me, had come over to see if they could agree on an arrangement to live with the same man!

    Now, I’m not old fashioned, but I was shocked. The offer didn’t attract my fiancé either, but it did change the atmosphere. For some reason I’ll never understand, my fiancé seemed to change. She became colder, and I obviously wondered if she still had feelings for this other man. We tried a few times to keep the relationship going, but it didn’t work.

    It was a dark time of bitter recriminations and rumors.

    Love Heals

    Today I realize that the experience strengthened me. After a difficult eighteen months, I started developing a more positive sense that happier times could be ahead and that the future, the undiscovered country, could still hold excitement and happiness. We all have a choice to hold onto that belief or dwell in the past.

    Love can cause pain, but it can heal pain too.

    What we let it do is up to us. The following steps helped me through this painful period.

    Surviving and Seizing The Future

    1. Stay friendly, but give friendship time.

    A split often results in one person hurting more than the other. Emotions are strong, and you’re feeling fragile, so it’s vital to avoid angry confrontations. Don’t try to convert the relationship into something else overnight. I tried a few times to rekindle a friendship with no success. It was obvious we needed to give each other space.

    2. Don’t hide from favorite haunts.

    As a couple, you probably frequented some places, and you’re avoiding those now to avoid the memories. Avoiding favorite places only creates conscious reminders and heightens the sense of loss.

    Although difficult at the start, if you enjoyed particular cafes, cinemas, or beaches, don’t avoid them. Enjoy them, and create new memories. Although hard in the beginning, I continued to enjoy walking at a nearby lake, and eventually the reminiscing stopped.

    3. Enjoy being a solo artist.

    Separation can make you aware of how much you’re looking for happiness in other people. Take some time without a serious relationship and you’ll find yourself becoming more able to enjoy your own company.

    As your self-confidence grows, your reliance on having a partner to enjoy good times diminishes. I enjoyed being single for over a year afterward, and this helped me in my recovery. It was better to let life unfold.

    4. Keep the memories secure.

    I regret destroying photographs from the time. Things happened, and burning pictures doesn’t change that. Store the photos away but somewhere safe (perhaps easier in the digital age—mind you they’re also easier to delete). When the time is right, go ahead and look because these were important times in your life, and you’ll want to revisit them sometime.

    5. Let nature work.

    As time passes, the hurt subsides naturally. You don’t need to do anything. No effort. No timetable. Just let nature take its course, and be sure in the knowledge that you will recover. Cry when you need too. (Yes, even if you’re a man!)

    6. Keep an honest perspective.

    It sounds like a harsh reality check, but if a relationship is not right for you, it’s not right for the other person, or vice versa. This realization will help you to come to terms with the situation and help you think about how the other person feels. Putting my fiancé first helped me realize she no longer wanted us to continue, and I came to terms with that.

    7. Accept judgment.

    People might judge you as you come out of a relationship. Don’t let people taking sides trouble you, and don’t feel you have to correct what they think. There will always be people who judge, but judgments only hurt us if we judge ourselves in response.

    Instead of dwelling on what other people think, focus on finding peace within yourself and you will become stronger and more positive as a result.

    8. Forgive and forget.

    Never hold grudges or judge your ex-partner harshly if they were at fault. Nobody makes perfect decisions. It will be easier to forgive if you try to empathize with their situation.

    My ex-fiancé came from a broken home, missing her father during her teen years. Perhaps she looked to others for love which led her to relationships that ultimately weren’t right for her. Most importantly though, when it comes to forgiving, start with yourself. Beating myself up only slowed down my recovery. It was only when I began showing compassion for myself that I could fully heal.

    9. Look Into the future.

    Think of all the possibilities that still await—new steps in your career, and new friends and experiences in life to enjoy. You often hear advice about focusing on the present moment. This is good advice, but during a relationship break-up, know that the present moment will pass. We both moved on and made a fresh start.

    Love Now

    The above was a rollercoaster ride with emotions on a high and then an all-time low. You can continually cross-examine yourself and feel emotionally drained. Could I have handled things better? Was there another way?

    Four years after my story, I met a truly wonderful person. My wife and soul mate. It put everything into perspective, and after eighteen happy years, we’re still madly in love.

    As for my ex-fiancé, all I know is she is married with children and I hope very happy. You see, the end of one relationship might just mean moving closer to the beginning of a new one, and the right one. You never know when love strikes, so if you have lost recently, don’t give up, believe in yourself, and take each day one at a time.

    Your soul mate is out there looking for you right now.

    Broken heart image via Shutterstock

  • How Losing All Hope Can Be Freedom

    How Losing All Hope Can Be Freedom

    Kneeling Silhouette

    “Losing all hope was freedom.” ~Edward Norton in Fight Club

    We naturally think of hope as a positive thing, as we do freedom, but this quote says that losing hope brings freedom. It may seem contradictory, but losing hope has been my most unexpected lifesaver.

    My Mental Breakdown

    I struggled with severe anxiety four years ago. The onset was abrupt.

    Until I was twenty-five, I was the healthiest person I knew. I never got sick, would play basketball six hours straight, and always felt great. That changed suddenly in 2011.

    I woke up one morning with an itchy spot on my chest; I looked down and saw two small fang marks. A spider bite. After a few more minutes, the toxins set in and I started convulsing a little bit, so my dad took me to the ER.

    At the ER, they gave me a steroid shot in the butt and antibiotics to prevent infection (such wonderful memories).

    Long story short, the whole experience shook me, and I developed severe health anxiety, constantly worrying about what would happen next. I feared going asleep because I couldn’t protect myself. I could be seen visibly shaking upright in my bed.

    Spider bites are rare, right? I shouldn’t have worried about it, right? I thought so too until another spider bit me a few days after the first one did! Luckily, my body didn’t react so… emphatically to the second bite, but it still made me even more paranoid.

    In this short period of time, I went from being calm to only knowing how to be really anxious. It was a strange and unexpected slippery slope of worrying, not getting enough sleep, being scared to sleep, and freaking out because I was freaking out. Meanwhile, I hoped for it all to go back to the way it was. I had never hoped for something so much in my life.

    Hope’s Dark Side

    Hope has a dark side in the way that it impacts the mind.

    It’s an intense yearning for something to happen: You hope to conquer anxiety or depression. You hope to get into your favorite college. You hope to find love one day. You hope to overcome the pesky problem that’s weighing you down. You hope the Detroit Lions will (please) just win one Super Bowl.

    Hope can become an ironic mental prison by its mere intensity and dominance of your thoughts.

    “Letting Go”

    I’ve studied the self-help book market quite a bit, and one of the most popular, best-selling topics I’ve noticed is that of “letting go.” Last I checked, several of the top 20 self-help books were about letting go of one thing or another.

    Letting go of whatever dominates your mind (including hope) instantly frees it to think of other things such as warm breezes, the beauty of friendship, and the simplicity of enjoying a meal. We lose out on these small joys of life when our big problems take more than their deserved mindshare.

    But there’s still the issue of hope. Why would letting go of hope—something seen as positive—bring freedom and not darkness?

    How Is Losing Hope Helpful?

    I beat my downward spiral because I lost hope. Nothing else worked.

    When I was in the worst part of the struggle, I hoped so much for things to just go back to normal. The worse it got, the more I hoped. Why can’t this nightmare end? I hoped that my next breath would be drawn out and deep and relaxing, but it never was. I hoped to go back in time and punch that spider’s fangs out. I hoped and tried to change without success.

    Hoping is like a weaker form of expecting something. When you expect something, you’re almost sure it will happen. When you hope for something, you don’t know it will happen, but you’d like it to happen.

    Hope is dangerous when it compels you fight a battle you can’t win. 

    For example, in my situation, I could theoretically relax and “beat this,” so I did what people instinctively do: I threw the gauntlet at the problem. For example, I tried adjusting my breathing, but it backfired because I became hyperconscious about it; it made things worse.

    My hope kept me fighting so hard. But fighting is not what I needed to do.

    In life, like in war, we must know when to attack, and equally important, when to retreat. Not all enemies can be defeated in a straightforward conventional way.

    I remember the very day I purposefully lost hope and “gave up.” I was in the kitchen, being really anxious for no reason, and I was fed up with this fight, so I decided to quit. I gave up hope in winning this fight. I was surprised when, over time, the enemy walked away!

    Here’s specifically how I changed my behavior when I lost hope: I stopped trying (and hoping) to not get butterflies in my stomach for no reason. I stopped caring about my breathing frequency and depth. I even began to be playful with my problem, showing that I didn’t care: “Only five butterflies this time? That’s it? Give me a few more!”

    Losing hope meant I stopped trying to fight the battles. And that’s how I won the war and regained my mental freedom!

    I know, it’s a story as inspiring as Braveheart. But did you know this concept has been shown elsewhere?

    One day, novelist Leo Tolstoy’s brother told him to sit in a corner until he stopped thinking about a white bear. Much later that day, Tolstoy remained in the corner, his mind fixated on the white bear he needed to stop thinking about. He was finally able to stop thinking about the white bear when his brother gave him permission to think about it.

    This experiment has been replicated, and the result is always the same: when people forbid themselves or attempt to rid their mind of something, it boomerangs back to them with alarming consistency and persistency.

    “Studies show that the more you try to suppress negative thoughts, the more likely you are to become depressed.” ~Kelly McGonigal, PhD. (The Willpower Instinct)

    Hope drives persistence, which is why losing hope in an area that requires retreat is so often freedom. 

    More effort does not always bring greater results. Smarter strategies always bring greater results.

    Think of an area in your life in which you are trying, fighting, and hoping without making progress. What would losing hope and letting go look like?

    This is most helpful with areas like anxiety, worry, fear, and depression. When you accept them and stop hoping they go away, they lose a considerable amount of their power over you.

    For me, losing hope was freedom. Maybe it will be for you too.

    Kneeling silhouette via Shutterstock

  • How to Cope and Keep Going When Times Get Tough

    How to Cope and Keep Going When Times Get Tough

    Man in a Storm

    “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” ~Winston Churchill

    The day started out beautifully. My friends Shaun, Tina, and I decided to take advantage of a sunny Saturday afternoon with a hike along Ontario’s Bruce Trail. We parked our cars at the trail access, laced up our boots, and headed out for a day of wandering through sun-dappled fields and forests.

    A couple hours later, we agreed we had probably gone far enough and turned around to head back.

    That’s when the weather changed. Fast. Ominous clouds rolled in, blotting out the blue skies we had been enjoying. The trees started to creak and sway as the wind whipped up. We picked up our pace, but even before the first thunderclap, we knew we wouldn’t be outrunning this storm.

    It was a doozey.

    We felt the first drops of rain as the trail ran along the grassy edge of a farmer’s field. A moment later, we were drenched as the sky opened up and the torrential downpour began.

    Soaked to the bone, miles from our vehicles, we pressed on through the howling wind. There was no sanctuary from the storm—nowhere to hide and no sense trying to wait it out, sopping wet as we already were.

    The only option was to keep going. To put one squelchy foot in front of the other and hope the lightning bolts around us didn’t get any closer. As we made our way in single file along the now-muddied trail, my mind flashed back to a few years earlier, when I was navigating a much different kind of storm.

    It was October 2008, and I was in isolation at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto after the bone marrow transplant I received to treat my leukemia.

    The incredibly complex medical procedure boiled down to the doctors decimating my defective blood-producing cells with heavy-duty chemo and radiation. Once the crappy stuff was destroyed, they transplanted new stem cells from a healthy donor.

    There were some risky and unpleasant consequences of the transplant. Until my new transplanted stem cells engrafted, I was left with virtually no immune system and prone to all manner of infection. Hence the isolation. A simple sneeze from someone in the room could spell disaster.

    With no immune system, the usually harmless bacteria in my mouth were able to take hold and do some damage.

    Large sores formed on my tongue that filled me with excruciating pain with every breath I took. I couldn’t eat. I had a hard time talking. The nurses made me sleep with the head of the bed raised up so I wouldn’t choke on my massively swollen tongue.

    When I saw Dr. Galal the next day, I begged him to do something about the mouth sores. He was, of course. I was being treated with antibiotics and a mouth rinse to speed recovery along, and they had my morphine jacked as high as they safely could.

    A warm and compassionate man, Dr. Galal looked at me and assured me that they were doing everything humanly possible. “The only thing I can do,” he said, “is promise you that you’ll be feeling much better when I see you again next week.”

    In the midst of the hurt the pain meds barely seemed to touch, “tough it out” wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. But sure enough, in a few days time, the swelling went down and the sores started to shrink in response to the treatment. Slowly but surely, day by day, I eased off the morphine.

    And when I saw Dr. Galal the next week during his rotation, I smiled at him and thanked him for keeping his promise.

    Like our walk through the woods or my mangled mouth, there are times in life when the only thing we can do is keep going.

    Caught in that thunderstorm with our cars still miles away, we just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Stuck in the hospital with a mouth full of sores, I just had to endure and wait for the medications to work their magic.

    But I’ve found that there are always things we can do to help us along as we attempt to get through the storms in our lives. Here are some that have helped me.

    1. Lean on your friends.

    No one is an island. There is strength in numbers. Two heads are better than one.

    Whatever your preferred cliché, having the right people by your side makes a world of difference. No matter who you are, there will be times when your motivation flags, when everything that needs doing overwhelms you or when a way out seems impossible.

    At those times, you’ll need to lean on the strengths and support of others. Who do you know who can provide you with motivation? Expertise? Distraction? A listening ear? On the flip side, who’s getting in your way of achieving your goals? Be mindful of negative people who might be draining your mojo.

    2. Surround yourself with the good stuff.

    Related to the point above, using little techniques to keep your spirits up can help a lot. Whether it’s a silly song you’re belting out while hiking through a rainstorm, a copy of Robert Service’s inspirational poem “The Quitter” taped to your hospital room wall or a list you’ve made of all the awesome things life has to offer, find ways to keep yourself motivated.

    3. Break it down and celebrate the little milestones.

    My journey from cancer diagnosis to recovery seemed to stretch on forever, with no end in sight. When you’re faced with an absurdly large problem, breaking it down into manageable chunks can keep it from overwhelming you.

    Set milestones for yourself along the way and celebrate your successes. Making a point to acknowledge the little achievements along the way—getting through the first phase of chemo, remission, finding a donor, being able to do a push up or walk up a flight of stairs—helped me see that I really was making progress.

    4. Be flexible.

    Also, be flexible. Plans change, things happen, projects get derailed. Acknowledge that setbacks are inevitable so you won’t be too discouraged when they do happen.

    Sometimes whatever storm you’re traveling through can put you on an entirely different course. Adapting to a new reality means letting go of the past. There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of nostalgia and reminiscing about “the good old days.” But when that devolves into whining and fixating on how things used to be, then you probably need to refocus and get back to the business at hand.

    5. Come up for air.

    At one point, Shaun, Tina, and I found a good spot to take cover from the driving rains for a few minutes. Breaks allow you to regroup and recharge your mental, emotional and physical batteries. They’re an opportunity to check the map and think strategically. Stepping back lets you take stock of the bigger picture and remind yourself that you will get through this.

    Where possible, take breaks. Whether it’s meditating, taking a little vacation or just turning off your brain for a couple hours to watch a mindless movie, balancing the “one-foot-in-front-of-the-other” grind with beneficial pause is crucial.

    —

    Life is full of unexpected rainstorms. But the trick isn’t to avoid or try to hide from them. There are some you simply won’t be able to outrun. No, the trick is to find ways to cope—to bring the right umbrella, so you’re equipped to deal with the storm when it inevitably rolls in.

    Man in a storm image via Shutterstock