Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • 7 Things to Realize When You Think You Don’t Matter

    7 Things to Realize When You Think You Don’t Matter

    Woman in a Ski Jacket

    “I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.” ~Hafiz of Shiraz

    Have you ever felt like you didn’t matter?

    Were you ever held back from pursuing something because the voice in your head said, “Why bother?”

    You’re not alone.

    I once felt that way too, but I discovered a way out of that dark time.

    In my early twenties, fresh out of college, I had my first professional job interview. I had the blissful optimism and naiveté characteristic of most college grads seeing a world full of infinite possibilities.

    And although optimistic, I was understandably apprehensive because it was relatively difficult for a first-time interview.

    It consisted of the following:

    • An interview lasting one to two hours conducted by a panel of eight to ten people.
    • Answering questions in Spanish since being bilingual was a requirement.

    I prepared for a week and hoped for the best.

    In the beginning, the situation was quite unnerving with everyone watching and analyzing me, but then it got relatively easier. Yet, just when I started to feel somewhat comfortable, someone asked me a question in Spanish (my big weakness).

    I wasn’t confident speaking conversational Spanish, so when I answered the question, I completely choked, and my Spanish sounded like I was a toddler learning how to talk. All of a sudden one of the other interviewers belted out raucous laughter, and the humiliation poured over me like a waterfall.

    After ten seconds of awkward silence, the rest of the interview didn’t matter because I felt more insignificant than a speck of dust.

    And, not only did I not get the job, but the resulting humiliation also destroyed my self-worth and bruised my youthful, inexperienced ego.

    I didn’t bother interviewing for another job for almost a year.

    Not until I had some clarity one day looking into my daughter’s eyes did I realize how I had allowed someone to control my life like an invisible bully.

    I wanted to take back control, move on, and not live life feeling so small.

    I had to be strong for my daughter and regain my self-worth.

    I realized seven things we should remember when we think we don’t matter:

    1. We all have the same emotional pain points: insecurity, self-doubt, and fear of not belonging.

    As different as we all are outwardly, we feel the same emotional pain. Some of us hide it or mask it with anger, mean-spiritedness, and insensitivity, while a minority can clearly communicate that pain in a healthy way. In the end, we all want the comfort of belonging to a group and the feeling of sincere acceptance.

    Stop feeding your pain by comparing yourself with others.

    Whether it’s a lack of success in relationships, financial issues, or being insecure about your body, focus on the emotional indirect connection with others instead, and feel less alone by knowing you share this pain with everyone

    2. You were blessed with a “super power.”

    You may not know it, but you can do something so easily that you take it for granted. If you are unsure what that super power is, take the time to deeply reflect on the possibilities: intuitive, artistic, empathic, talented dancer or musician, skilled cook, caring, organized, etc.

    This is your super power or skill you are blessed with. No matter what you think, this blessing is significant, so recognize you have a gift, use it, and share it with the world.

    3. Confidence can be learned.

    You may think that people are born confident, but this isn’t true; confidence can be learned. It also can be rebuilt. For me, the difficult first step of doing another job interview began the process of rebuilding my confidence, and steadily my confidence grew with each interview I tackled afterward.

    Know it’s possible and don’t get shut down by the myth that you either have confidence or you don’t. Learning to be confident will test your comfort levels, but building confidence is a process that even the most timid can achieve.

    4. Look at low points in your life without self-judgment.

    Just like we take care of a physical injury, emotional pain also must be taken care of in deeply caring ways.

    The most important thing to do when you are at a low point in your life is don’t judge or self-blame. Punishing yourself by going through that mental loop of I deserve this, or I’m worthless is like walking on a broken leg; you won’t heal.

    Be gentle to yourself, give yourself time, and rebuild your strength—you’ll get through.

    5. Of all the voices in the world, the loudest and most insidious is your inner voice.

    The inner critic wants you to believe the lie that you must be perfect. Trying to be perfect all the time strips the joy out of life.

    If you don’t accomplish goals, don’t know what you want yet, and make numerous mistakes, that’s okay because life is about discovery.

    The only obligation you have is to be true to yourself. Don’t empower that inner critic by listening. Instead, drown out that voice by talking to yourself in more encouraging ways; you’ll live your life with more joy this way

    6. You don’t need to know what others think. In other words, nobody will please and be liked by everyone.

    Stop obsessing about what others think. You can’t control their thoughts because it isn’t within your control. So let go of that forever.

    Free yourself and know that you can’t possibly please everyone. The greatest creators, dreamers, and innovators faced the worse kind of adversity and were hated by many people. Just be the real you and nothing more.

    Don’t allow others to validate your worth; all you need to know is you are doing the best that you can do, and that’s enough.

    Throughout your life, gather the ideas, thoughts, and opinions of others, but always look within and live your truth. We all want acceptance, but if you never live your truth, you will always be imprisoned by other people’s opinions.

    7. Rejection is not failure; it means something better that you deserve is coming.

    That rejection by a love interest or that HR Manager for the job opportunity you really wanted is not a failure. You are simply in the process of getting what you deserve and what is right for you.

    The doors that slam in your face may be many, but soon you’ll realize they were secret blessings that you will look back on fondly. When people say, “No,” keep trying and eventually you’ll find that one proverbial door that will finally be the one meant just for you.

    Rejection is better than doing nothing because you’re at least trying and building momentum, regardless of how crappy you may feel.

    If you want something, momentum begins when you take the first step, even if it is the tiniest step.

    Make Your Inner Light Burn Brighter

    Regardless of all the curveballs that life throws at you, know that you completely matter.

    You may feel your self-worth has been lost, but don’t lose hope.

    Focus on what connects you with others (both flaws and strengths), embrace your superpower and not your weaknesses, strengthen your confidence one step at a time, and be empowered to accomplish your dreams.

    Know that everyone endures the ebb and flow of life in different ways.

    Before you know it, the bounce will return to your step, and your confidence will radiate the room.

    It’s only a matter of time.

    Let me know which of these points you’ll embrace today.

    Woman in a ski jacket image via Shutterstock

  • You Don’t Need Other People to Validate Your Feelings

    You Don’t Need Other People to Validate Your Feelings

    “When you give another person the power to define you, then you also give them the power to control you.” ~Leslie Vernick

    It’s coming up on the anniversary of when I left a relationship that was both my unhealthiest and my greatest catalyst for growth.

    While I’m able to see that he was a spiritual assignment I needed in order to evolve, I can’t help but feel resentful. But what surprises me isn’t my anger at him; it’s my anger at myself. Let me explain.

    Disastrous relationships are nothing new for me. My past is riddled with complicated, codependent, and crazy encounters. To cope, I’ve blamed my partners, I’ve blamed myself, and for a brief period of time, I thought I found the answer in couples therapy. Never before have I been more wrong.

    Like any self-help junkie, I made it my business to learn everything I could about the philosophy behind what I hoped would save my relationship. I attended a lecture by Harville Hendrix, founder of Imago Therapy. He spoke on how we can change the world by changing our relationships.

    That sounded interesting, so I kept listening.

    He went on to explain how we strive to connect with others in order to experience a taste of the joy and love we once received from our primary caregivers. This connection is our deepest desire and losing it is our greatest fear.

    And then it hit me. It’s counter-intuitive to look to relationships to fix wounds from our past. Did I really want to continue that pattern?

    The belief that I might find joy in a relationship because it might temporarily quell a deeper abandonment issue is the exact reason I remained codependent for most of my life. I’d been searching for a Band-Aid to cover a hemorrhage.

    Like most people, I crave the feeling of safety. Whether through touch or through words, validation that I’m worthy was like a drug. And boy, was I an addict!

    So it was no surprise in couples therapy, when our therapist explained to my then boyfriend that he needed to say that he “heard” me and that my feelings were “legitimate” and “made sense” that I felt like I had finally won.

    But that victory was brief. In fact, it depressed me even more. Because none of it was real.

    Why? Because in the midst of a heated battle about whether he was actually going to follow through on a promise he made, a light bulb went off:

    I really don’t need him to validate that my feelings are okay. The fact that I need him to tell me I have a right to feel this way is exactly what’s keeping me in a relationship that’s wrong for both of us. Whether or not another person sees it, I have a right to feel the way I feel.

    It turns out there is a fine line between wanting your partner to understand you and wanting your partner to validate your feelings. For years, I wanted others to confirm that my feelings were okay to have.

    And ultimately, the belief that feelings need to be validated to be valid was the cause of my codependency.

    Here’s what it comes down to: If you don’t believe your feelings are genuine, real, and legitimate, nothing your partner says will make a difference. Whether or not your partner gets you is secondary to honoring your own feelings.

    And while I loved pathologizing what was wrong with my ex, what you give your attention to only grows.

    Taking inventory and focusing on your partner’s inability to understand you will only create a deeper void to fill. All that negativity creates anxiety, blocking your inner guidance, strength, and resilience.

    After all, your partner isn’t going to fix your old wounds. You are.

    For the record, I’m not saying couples therapy is bad or that it wasn’t helpful for me. One just needs a strong sense of self and a clear picture of what they want to achieve.

    So here’s the solution: Give it to yourself. Heal your core fears and wounds and stop thinking that someone else will fix it for you. You can spend the rest of your life craving a connection with others when what you’re really searching for is a connection with yourself.

  • How to Tell When Someone Needs a Friend

    How to Tell When Someone Needs a Friend

    Two Friends Laughing

    “Don’t wait for people to be friendly. Show them how.” ~Unknown

    When I was in high school I was shy, to say the least. I guess a more accurate description would be to say that I was insecure. Painfully insecure.

    Looking back, I don’t know why I cared so much. But I did. I was too insecure to ever say hi to anyone in any of my classes, or to try to sit with anyone new at lunch.

    There were even some days when I went through the entire school day without speaking a word. I felt utterly alone and certainly friendless.

    One day, though, for no discernible reason whatsoever, a kid on my school bus started talking to me. He lived a few houses down the road from me, and his sister went to the same elementary school where mine did.

    We didn’t really talk about anything all that significant, but he seemed to actually be listening to what I had to say, and I felt like someone really cared about what I had to talk about—even if it was nothing at all.

    I’ve tried to model myself after this guy since then. To be a genuinely good listener and to go out of my way to help someone who looks like he or she is having a bad day. It’s a great feeling—feeling like someone wants to hear your thoughts.

    But it can be pretty easy to get caught up in the on-goings of our daily lives. So much so, that we may not notice when others around us need someone to talk to.

    Being able to recognize the signs of someone in need of a friend is important. It’s important to that person because loneliness not only makes you feel bad, but it has also been linked to health problems like higher stress, a negative life outlook, and a less-healthy immune system.

    However, being able to recognize when someone is in need of a friend can be important for you, too.

    The more people you reach out to and form meaningful relationships with, the more friends you will have. This helps fulfill your biological need to be social and can give you extended support systems and greater life happiness.

    So often, though, we don’t want to reach out to others in need of a friend because we’re “too busy” with what we’re doing at the moment or because we simply don’t notice the signs that they need someone to talk to.

    But we need to notice, and we need to care enough to do something about it when we notice.

    More than 800,000 people worldwide commit suicide each year, according to the World Health Organization. And while my purpose in writing this is not to focus on suicide and its prevention, I think it is worth mentioning that having a friend to talk to could do a lot for a potentially suicidal person. It can do a lot for any person.

    Here are some subtle signs that someone might be in need of a friend. Take a few minutes of your day to ask them how they’re doing, offer a smile, or just shoot the breeze with them. 

    They often do things by themselves.

    This could just be shyness, or it could be a sign that someone is uncomfortable reaching out to others.

    If you know someone who tends to stay removed from groups and conversations, they might simply need someone else to take the initiative. Many people want to talk to their coworkers and peers more—they just don’t know how to start.

    They try really hard to make small talk.

    Pay attention to acquaintances who regularly ask what you’re doing for the evening, what you think of the weather, and if you saw the latest episode of whatever show you both watch.

    True, sometimes such small talk is just polite conversation made to ease an awkward silence, but it can also be a sign that someone needs a little human interaction. Try to ask them a few questions about their plans now and then, too.

    Their hobbies are their entire lives.

    A 2011 study published in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that lonely people sometimes form attachments with their possessions or hobbies because they don’t have enough social connections to feel fulfilled.

    So yeah, you may find it kind of odd that your coworker collects and names various kinds of plants, but that person might just need a friend to offer their company instead. Take the initiative to ask the person about their hobbies and establish some things you have in common with them.

    They spend way too much time on social media.

    To some extent, we all spend a little more time on Pinterest and Facebook than we should. But if you know someone who is not only on social media all the time, but is also talking about it all the time, that person may simply not have enough real life friends to put their social friends in perspective.

    They ruminate on negative things.

    According to research published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, lonely people tend to spend more time focusing on stressful experiences. People who tend to dwell on their negative experiences—even the seemingly small ones—are likely spending too much time alone.

    That driver who cut your coworker off in traffic last week? Still an issue. However, it might only be an issue because that person isn’t getting the external social stimuli he or she needs.

    While one of these signs could warrant taking a few minutes out of your day to ask how someone is doing, someone who displays several of these behaviors might really need a friend to hang out with. Make yourself available for a movie and some drinks, or suggest getting together over the weekend to check out that hiking trail you’ve been eyeing up.

    Granted, you won’t be able to help everyone. People suffering from a serious medical condition like depression or a bipolar disorder may be less receptive to your “Hey, man, how’s it going?” But that’s no reason not to try.

    And as far as that kid on my school bus who spoke to me way back when, I still remember him and think about him often. Granted, I did end up marrying him, but that’s another story for another day.

    Friends talking image via Shutterstock

  • 4 Tips to Live a Balanced, Happy Life with Fewer Regrets

    4 Tips to Live a Balanced, Happy Life with Fewer Regrets

    Life Balance

    “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.” ~Thomas Merton

    Balance has become an ever-elusive thing these days. The onslaught of technological breakthroughs, aimed at making life easier, has given way to a societal expectation that we are available around the clock.

    This has bled into our careers, where our employers have ever increasing expectations that we can do more in less time. We have 168 hours in our week to sleep, work, rest, be with our loved ones, and pursue personal interests.

    Unfortunately, the majority of people in the world today complain that they aren’t able to keep up with the competing commitments that steal much of their precious time.

    It’s no longer enough to contemplate how this happened and talk about the “good ole days” when life was easier and the days were longer.

    We need to identify what balance looks like for us (as it differs from person to person), work on regaining some of our time, and find more balance so we can truly show up and be present in all the different areas of our lives.

    My wake-up call about my imbalanced life came when I lost my best friend to suicide a few years ago.

    When you experience a sudden loss of this magnitude, you most certainly find yourself in a place of deep contemplation and restructuring. I recognized my own mortality in a way I hadn’t before.

    As a result, I had to do some housekeeping in order to get my life “up to snuff,” so I took an honest and meaningful inventory of all the different parts of my life.

    I looked at the people I was spending my time with, the activities I engaged in, and the places I dwelled. I asked myself if these people, activities, and places were feeding my soul, supporting my journey, and providing love and support.

    It was through this inventory I realized how out of balance my life was. It’s also how I came up with the action plan I am sharing with you now

    1. Start with a values inventory.

    You want to sit down, grab a pen and a piece of paper, and list all of the values that are important to you. You’ll also want to put them in order of importance.

    Some of my top life values include happiness, love, fellowship, integrity, and spirituality. It’s important to note that your top values are defined only by you and carry their own power and placement in your life.

    For example, I define spirituality as my connection to, and relationship with, the source of all things. I honor that value through daily meditation, prayer, and my efforts to make the world a better place through my work and my charity fund. I also honor that value by ensuring I live a life full of generosity, gratitude, respect, and compassion.

    2. Look at your life domains and identify the imbalances present in each area.

    When I speak about life domains, I’m talking about self, career, relationships, and community.

    Self: This domain includes you, your time, your interests, and your self-care.

    Career: This domain speaks to your current job and your employer.

    Relationships: This domain speaks to your loved ones, both friends and family.

    Community: This domain speaks to your participation in your local community (volunteer work, belonging to a religious or spiritual institution, coaching your child’s little league team, etc.)

    Again, you want to grab a pen and a piece of paper. For each of your four life domains, identify what the ideal balance would be. Be detailed in your description of each life domain.

    For example, in the relationships domain, identify those people you would want to see on a regular basis. What frequency would you like to see them and under what circumstances? What would you need to do in order to make that happen?

    You should also weave in your top values to better understand how they should support your efforts in each life domain.

    For example, I would talk about the importance of my value around love and how it plays out in the relationship domain. I would write about my choice to surround myself only with kind, loving people who support me and I support in return.

    The goal here is to create an ideal vision of balance in each domain.

    3. Write about the current status of each life domain.

    If your life domains are imbalanced, write down the details surrounding the imbalances and what you’ll need to do to get them in alignment.

    For example, if your career domain is imbalanced because you’re working too many hours for a demanding supervisor, think about the steps you’ll need to take to regain your balance.

    Maybe it’s talking to your boss about getting you some help or working fewer hours. If your work environment isn’t conducive with this type of dialogue, maybe looking for a better job is a consideration.

    If some of your life domains are in balance, write about the steps you are committing to in order to prevent them from being compromised. It’s important to be clear on your approach to living, and maintaining, a balanced life.

    4. Begin implementing the changes you want to see in a realistic and bite size manner.

    You want to focus on one domain at a time, and tackle one change at time. Pick a domain and implement your first change.

    Once you have grown comfortable with this change and it is now part of your “new normal,” you can move on to the next change.

    When you have implemented all of the changes in your first domain, and reached the balance you desire, you can move to the next domain. I would suggest starting with the easiest changes first.

    Start to build momentum with the changes that will help you create more balance right away. Maybe that’s turning off your work computer at 8:00 every night so you can be with your family, eating healthier, or committing to visiting your parents every Sunday morning.

    These are small changes that can have a big impact on your life!

    —

    At the end of the day, this is all about you living a regret-free existence. Later in life, you don’t want to look back and feel regret for neglecting certain parts of your life (children, health, career aspirations, etc.) because you didn’t take the steps necessary to make things better.

    Balance isn’t easy to achieve, but it is well worth the effort. Make a commitment to find your balance today!

    Life balance image via Shutterstock

  • How to Change Your Life by Changing the Stories You Tell Yourself

    How to Change Your Life by Changing the Stories You Tell Yourself

    Jumping Happy Woman

    “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” ~Norman Vincent Peale

    I used to watch people on the streets and in restaurants and think that their boisterous conversations and broad smiles were evidence that they lived a life much better than mine.

    I assumed that they were happier than me, smarter than me, and worth more than me. All around me was evidence that this was true: my meager bank account, my junky car, my thrift store clothes.

    I would sit in my apartment and try to imagine what it would be like to be someone else.

    I wondered what it would be like to be someone who could afford to go to the movies and go out to eat, someone who bought new clothes and shoes, or someone who had a good job. Even imagining this seemed too hard. I felt as if life was stacked against me.

    Have you ever felt like everyone else was doing better than you? Have you ever felt like the deck was so stacked against you that you would never catch up? I understand that feeling. I had it for much of my adult life.

    I was always a dreamer with big ideas and ridiculous plans, but I was unable to make those plans a reality because the story I told myself was that I wasn’t enough. As long as I continued to tell myself that story, I would continue to be not enough.

    The current state of your life is a direct result of the stories you tell yourself, and what you really believe is possible—not what you say is possible, but what you believe deep down in your core.

    My story about not being good enough showed itself in every aspect of my life—my job, my family, my social life.

    Until I was able to open my eyes and change my story, these aspects of my life were not getting better. You receive what you are telling your subconscious mind you deserve. I was telling my mind that I wasn’t good enough and that’s what I saw all around me.

    If you change the limiting stories you tell yourself, you will be able to change your life.

    I realized this one day when I was watching a Tony Robbins video on YouTube. Yes, I’d heard it plenty of times before, but for some reason on that day, at that time, it really clicked. You will learn the lessons you most need when you are ready for them, and I was finally ready.

    Identifying Your Story

    The first step in changing a limiting belief is identifying it.

    Identifying my story about not being good enough was surprisingly difficult for me initially because I told myself that story for so long that I didn’t think of it as a story at all. I thought of it as true and that was, at its heart, quite ridiculous. It took a lot of thought before I even realized that this was the story I was telling myself.

    What limiting story are you telling yourself? Maybe it’s that you’ll never find love or that you’ll never earn over a certain amount of money. Maybe it’s that you are too shy to speak in public or that you are terrible at small talk. Maybe you think you’ll never make a living doing what you love or that you are not smart enough to succeed.

    All of these things are stories. The difference between you and the people doing the thing that you’ve always wanted to do is the stories you tell yourselves. Changing that story is one of the most important steps to changing your life.

    Shifting Your Story

    Now that you’ve identified your story, you have to make a new one for yourself.

    For me, it was simply deciding that I was just as good as anyone else and I deserved just as much as anyone else. It’s a really simple non-specific story, but it countered my previous limiting one. Think about your limiting story. How can you change that story to make it empowering?

    Supporting a New Story

    A new story in itself is not always enough. That story needs to be rooted in something. You have to believe it, and changing your beliefs can be the most difficult thing of all. When I decided to change my story about myself, I looked around at my life for evidence that the new story was true.

    For example, I knew I had friends and family who loved me and certainly thought I was good enough to receive that love.

    When I looked at my life objectively I realized that I’d actually accomplished quite a bit. I’d always done well in school. I’d written quite a large body of work that I enjoyed and liked. I always went out of my way to be kind and helpful to others. These are all things that, in my eyes, made me just as good as anyone else.

    As I started to look at my situation more, I realized that one of my core problems was “the anyone else” part of my story. I was comparing myself to others, and that will lead to unhappiness most of the time.

    Instead of thinking of myself as just as good as anyone else, I started to change my story again to simply say that I am good.

    Can you find evidence around you that can support your new story? Does looking at that evidence make you realize that you need to make any changes to your new story?

    Emotions Are Key

    Supporting your new story with facts will help you believe it, but what really anchors it into your life is associating it with positive emotions.

    I started meditating every morning and every evening for twenty minutes. Once my meditation was over, before I got up, I’d visualize something that is connected to my new story. Because my story was so broad, that visualization could include any number of things.

    I’d imagine myself having relaxed conversations with people at a social event where I was contributing equally to the conversation. I’d imagine myself working at a job that I loved and doing really well at it.

    I’d imagine these things very concretely. I’d really get into the visualization and wouldn’t get up until I felt the joy that these activities would bring me deep inside.

    I am a writer and am prone to imagination, so this was quite easy for me. We all have the capability to imagine, so give it a shot and see what happens.

    Nothing Happens Without Action

    Sitting around visualizing isn’t enough to make change happen in your life. I’m a strong believer in action. That’s where you really start to see the change happen.

    Now that you have a new story about your life, you’ll be able to see opportunities in places you’ve never noticed them before. You’ll also have the courage to try things that you never did before.

    I immediately started challenging myself. I started making a conscious effort to speak up in social situations and to express my opinion. I started asserted my needs more. I was able to see things for a more positive perspective.

    I’m not saying that I am always successful. I most certainly am not. Sometimes I fall back into old habits, but I remember that simply making the effort gets me a step closer to my ideal than I was before.

    Be Kind to Yourself

    The physical circumstances around you won’t change overnight. You won’t change your story to being abundant and then suddenly have millions of dollars in your bank account the next morning. What will happen, though, is that you will recognize the opportunities that will get you there.

    Don’t be angry with yourself or the universe if it doesn’t happen fast enough for you, or if you fail to make the changes you want all once. Taking small steps in the right direction every day will get you were you need to be. It’s important to be consistent.

    Don’t beat yourself up if you fall back into old habits. We are often our biggest critics. Just pick yourself up and start again. It’s the ability to continue moving forward that will get you to your goal.

    Happy woman jumping image via Shutterstock

  • How to Intentionally Embrace Change in the New Year

    How to Intentionally Embrace Change in the New Year

    Woman and Sunset

    “Change is inevitable. Growth is intentional.” ~Glenda Cloud

    What do you do when you come to the end of a calendar year as it approaches the start of another one? Do you get caught up in the festive season hype and then, as you roll into the new year, find it all a bit anticlimactic? Or, are you a bit like me and prefer to keep it a quieter, reflective time?

    We know that calendar time is really artificial, for true time is simply an infinite and continuous cycle of day and night, seasons, birth and death, and change.

    When I used to trek the mountains of the Himalayas, I loved the prayer wheels at the Tibetan temples. I would happily spend hours walking around the Boudhanath, spinning the prayer wheels with my hand, engrossed in a meditative state.

    It always reminded me of how change turns the wheel of time and life. Without change, life is static, stale, and limited. Without change, there isn’t growth. Like everything in nature, a flower doesn’t remain forever regardless of how beautiful it is.

    So, each year when the calendar slips into its last pages, as people rush around in a frenzy of spending, I prefer to retreat into a silent space of reflection. I write my gratitude list for the year gone and set my intentions for the year to come.

    In doing so, I get a deep sense of the energy for the coming year, then prepare my mind, body, and soul to flow with it. This has become my ritual every New Year’s Eve.

    Babies grow into children, children into adults, adults now have children of their own, and the mature become aged. New lives are born as we say goodbye to those who have passed on. Relationships end, new ones begin; some people fall in love and others out of love.

    Every year we are bestowed more gifts and joys, while also confronted with more challenges and turbulences.

    One particular year was especially tumultuous for me. Usually when I write in my Gratitude Book on New Year’s Eve, my pen won’t stop moving and I end up with pages of blessings that I’m grateful for.

    However, that one particular New Year’s Eve, I just sat there, stared at the blank page, and thought. “Wow, how do I begin?”

    Then, without thinking, my heart immediately whispered, “I am grateful for making it through this year.” And then it flowed again, “I am grateful for making through this year a wiser, more evolved and compassionate soul.”

    That was the year I nearly killed someone (random unintentional freak accident, of course), thought I had lawn-mowed my pet tortoise, saw a friend suffer through severe burns in a freak accident, ended a relationship that I thought was true love, had conflicts with my children, experienced extensive damages to my home and car from a major thunderstorm in my city, and the list went on.

    Globally, wars and riots ran rife, topped by natural disasters, like earthquakes, and human caused disasters, like major oil spills into pristine oceans. It was a year of chaos, so sitting down to reflect and journal into my Gratitude Book was most interesting.

    As the saying goes, through chaos emerges a new order.Through chaos, I saw that I have indeed grown, expanded, and matured. Through adversities, I’d learned to trust more in my true and higher reality.

    Through challenges, I’d come to turn inward and listen to the wisdom and voice of my higher self.

    Over time, change continued to sweep through, and the world shifted into renewal and recovery. So the pages of my Gratitude Book continued to fill.

    Now that I’ve come to the end of another year, again I bear gratitude. At the start of this year I’d sensed a very strong wind of change blowing through and knew I had to be ready for restructuring. Sure enough, everything regrouped itself in my life.

    Transition wasn’t easy. It was tiring, and it required trust in stepping into the unknown. It summoned my courage in welcoming the new and acceptance in letting go of what was. My kids changed, one moved out of home, another fell in love, and another stepped into a newfound life path.

    I’m grateful as I celebrate their independence, growth, and expansion into their own world, as much as I miss them. My home and divorce settlement came to a final closure. Our family home was sold and I moved into a small rental home that I love.

    My work changed, evolved, and restructured as I stepped into a new role. Overall, it was simply a year of change and transitions.

    So, in line with embarking into a new year, here are some suggestions for setting your purest intentions for moving forward into the sea of change. Incidentally, they are contained in the acronym CHANGE.

    Choice

    At every point in time, and especially when confronted with imminent change, you have a choice of whether to embrace or to resist.

    Embracing change requires courage and trust because it’s always unnerving to step outside your comfort zone. But when you trust and embrace, change can bring you excitement, growth, and infinite new possibilities.

    Happiness

    Step into the New Year with the intention of choosing happiness for yourself and those around you.

    Happiness is a choice that comes from within. Regardless of your external circumstances, your perception determines your emotions.

    Choose to look on the bright side of everything; for example, ask yourself, “What can I learn from this?” Or, count your blessings with heart filled gratitude, and happiness will abound.

    Anchor

    Continue to anchor in your higher reality and wisdom, for there’s more to you than just this physical and transient existence.

    This brief life, with all its ups and downs, is merely a myriad of experiences for the growth of your soul. Staying anchored, you will ride and surf the storms and waves of life with skill and ease.

    New

    Time and change involve flow and movement. Along with these are borne new experiences, people, places, and ideas. Be open to receiving and bringing forth the new and nourishing, and let go of the old if they no longer serve you.

    Growth

    When you flow with the movement of time and change, and embrace the new while anchoring and trusting in the greater you, growth is the natural result. Like the sun enables a plant to sprout from a seed, the happiness that you soak in and project will allow you to grow and thrive.

    Emergence

    Out of that strength and solidly grounded foundation, new creations will emerge.

    You will find yourself forging new fulfilling friendships, relationships, successes, and joys. New ideas will emerge into manifestations. Imagination and dreams will become a reality. A new phase will continue and take you forward with the flow.

    What are your intentions for this New Year ahead? May you flow with the energies of change and embrace this wondrous gift of life, along with its mystery and excitement, into the unknown.

    Woman and sunset image via Shutterstock

  • Your Worth Is Not Dependent on What You Do or Accomplish

    Your Worth Is Not Dependent on What You Do or Accomplish

    Carefree Man

    “A life’s worth, in the end, isn’t measured in hours or money. It’s measured by the amount of love exchanged along the way.” ~Unknown

    I’ve had a go-go-go personality for as long as I can remember. I think I was born with it.

    Both of my parents were small business owners who truly believed that with enough hard work and heart-and-soul dedication, you can accomplish anything.

    By the age of three, I was a gymnast; by early elementary school, a competitive one, with a coach who was constantly (and sometimes aggressively) pushing me to the next level.

    Therein began the scheduling of every minute of my time: from school, to two-hour practices, to homework on the road, to weekend competitions, to girls’ slumber and birthday parties.

    I wanted to do it all, and to be the best at all I did. I hadn’t even reached high school and had already joined the universal struggle for work/life balance!

    The especially vicious part of this cycle was that, when I found myself falling short in any one area (for example, not being quite “good enough” for the popular group of girls in school), I would drive my energy fiercely into other areas, such as academic success, which my teachers noticed and encouraged.

    I graduated from high school at the top of my class, and Suma Cum Laude in my Bachelors and Masters degrees. (Both programs were in Psychology, by the way—even then, I tried to understand and connect more deeply with myself and others).

    Following grad school, I continued the fast-paced life and entered my first corporate career as a wellness facilitator.

    I traveled all over the U.S. and internationally too, to deliver a workshop that was, ironically, based in self-care and listening to your body. I certainly wasn’t practicing either of those things, but I was receiving praise from my bosses and respected colleagues.

    One of my more memorable breakdowns came toward the end of the first year on the job. Sitting in yet another airport, for yet another delayed flight home, I’d just had it. I was chronically stressed and exhausted; pale, thin, and fragile; and physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually spent.

    It terrified me to imagine living life another year at this pace; it was equally terrifying to listen to what my heart was and had been calling for, for some time: to slow down.

    The Universe had been gently coaxing me toward this moment for a few years by introducing a yoga practice, essential oil use, acupuncture, and many healing modalities and healers into my life. But rather than embracing the healing fully, I turned each experience into an opportunity to do yet another thing.

    Yoga? I became an instructor. Essential oil use? I became a distributor. Acupuncture? I turned it into a working relationship and an opportunity to build my network for my healing business.

    It’s as if my ego simply wouldn’t accept or allow such radical acts of self-care without some sort of business case outside of my being.

    Deep, deep down, at my very core, I didn’t believe I was worthy of slowing down, of being taken care of, of feeling good.

    I, by myself, unattached from all the things that I did, wasn’t good enough. And how could I be? I’d built my life, my whole identity, on doing a lot, being good at all that I did, and looking for approval outside of myself.

    I was the one that took on the world, the one that could clean, cook, be a great girlfriend, friend, sister, daughter, and thrive in a successful career. And to anyone outside of myself, that is what it looked like—that I had it all, and had it all together.

    According to my boss and the corporate world, I was a “high potential”; according to societal standards, I should’ve been on top of the world happy.

    But guess what? I was massively broken, empty, and unhappy. And that’s part of what kept me looped in, continually striving for the next thing; unfortunately, because I’d learned to search solely outside of myself, that is where my worth delicately hung as well.

    Throughout life, I’d also caught glimpses of my true and inherent worth.

    I saw it in giving—sharing a special connection with a yogi during one of my classes; hearing feedback from a participant in one of my workshops that they would finally commit to taking care of themselves. And I also found it in receiving—hugs and thoughtful gestures from my boyfriend (now fiancé, whom I rarely saw at the time); an especially connected meditation or journaling session; a deeply meaningful conversation.

    And the connection that exists within each of those acts is embracing love, wholeheartedly. Believing that what we have to offer is enough, without condition, and that we are worthy of receiving such love the same way that we give it—freely.

    The truth is, our worthiness doesn’t reside in doing; it lies within our very being. It’s unchanging, unwavering, and infinite. But we can certainly convince ourselves of the former and spend our lives hustling for the worthiness that we’ll never find in doing.

    So how do we get there? How do we shift from identifying ourselves with what we do to who we are?

    For me, understanding this truth didn’t come with one massive blow to the ego; it happened in gradual shifts. Here are the practices that help me remember my unconditional worth and live a beautifully fulfilled and blessed life:

    1. Openness.

    Be willing to accept and embrace what comes, believing that it is for your own and the collective highest good.

    This really helped me release my urge to control, to come back to my inner truth, and to focus on being versus doing.

    2. Choice/perspective.

    Remember that in any given situation or experience, you have the choice to see through the eyes of fear or love.

    We are often faced with this one when we are putting our full selves out there in our careers, our relationships, and even our passions and hobbies.

    A fear mindset might keep us stuck in self-limiting beliefs, such as:

    • I really want the job, but there’s no way I’m qualified.
    • He/she is so great, but would never notice me.
    • I love to paint/sing/dance, but there’s no way I could ever do anything with it.

    A loving mindset encourages us to remain open and curious, without attaching our worth to the outcome:

    • I can’t ignore this job opportunity; I’m smart, experienced, and I owe it to myself to explore the possibility.
    • I really feel a connection with him/her; I should at least explore a conversation and see where it takes us.
    • I really feel the best of my energy comes out when I paint/sing/dance, and I’d like to share that energy with the world in a way that makes sense for me.

    3. Asking for what you need.

    Know that it is okay and necessary to say “no” sometimes, and to ask for help! And know that this doesn’t make you any less of a person; in fact, it creates space for you to keep your light shining and for others to step into their own light, as well. (This one is still an ongoing struggle for me).

    4. Surrender vs. striving.

    We are creatures of habit, and though I am totally and intentionally committed to slowing down and embracing self-care, I still find myself unnecessarily filling my time and getting dragged back into the worthiness hustle.

    Rather than beating yourself up further and digging the hole deeper, take a deep breath and surrender. Ask for guidance from the Universe and then listen and try to honor and trust what comes.

    When I fully commit to this, I usually feel a wave of calm wash over me almost instantly.

    So please, stop the chaotic and fruitless search for worthiness outside of yourself. Slow down, listen, and honor your body and soul’s cravings. Commit to embracing all that you are, and come back to your true nature—peace and happiness.

    Carefree man image via Shutterstock

  • 4 Simple Ways to Slow Down So You Don’t Rush Through Life

    4 Simple Ways to Slow Down So You Don’t Rush Through Life

    Woman Drinking Coffee

    “If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.” ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

    Throughout my life, a deep voice within has constantly asked me to slow down.

    Don’t get me wrong; I thrive when I have deadlines, when I have to push myself to get somewhere. I love being quick in what I do.

    However, over the last ten years of living like a workaholic and then having to find a semblance of quiet after the birth of two adorable babies, I have begun to realize that being quick in what we do is in itself not worrisome; feeling rushed is.

    I began experimenting with slowing down after several episodes of sickness that resulted from the stress I accumulated in my rushed life.

    The struggle between being in ten places at once and being in just one place at one time was immense.

    Even today, I still feel the urge to check my mobile and send out a quick email as I walk my little ones to the park. Yet I cannot stand to miss the little tumble walk of my toddler and my big talking kindergartner as I walk with them.

    Slowing down just a little has taught me the power of pausing and gathering perspective.

    This is an invitation from my deeper self to yours to slow down, just for a few moments, to pause and breathe. Here are four simple ways to do that.

    1. Morning drink.

    For most of us, the morning tea or coffee has become somewhat of ritual that we rush through. Just for today, allow the morning drink to wake you gently. Sit with it as if you were participating in loving yourself.

    Eventually, allow your morning beverage to help you set an intention for your day, gently and with care.

    Set an intention about how you want to feel during the day, and after you finish your morning drink, intentionally rise and take good care of the cup that helped you slow down and gather perspective.

    2. Write/journal.

    Experiment with writing. When you take a few moments of your day to write, you allow for space to pause and reflect. You slow down the speeding thoughts of what is to be and what should have been to accept what is now.

    Write about the sense of feeling rushed in your everyday life and how you struggle to balance. Write then about how you yearn to feel and how that life you yearn for can begin now.

    3. Pause to observe.

    In this moment, pause and look around you.

    On the surface of things there might be chaos—the tooting of horns from the street, your children screaming for you, or your coworkers having an argument. Take a deep breath anyway, look around, and see how there is stillness in the objects around you.

    The earth that is bearing us; the furniture, still and sturdy; the air, present and quiet. Observe the nature of stillness around you and allow your thoughts and actions to slow down just a little.

    4. Embrace now.

    In any given moment there are one or more things around us that we like, be it the color of the blinds or people around us that we love. And yet, we are often overwhelmed by the things that happened to us or the things that didn’t happen.

    In this moment, identify three things you like. Once you identify them, allow the realization to sink in and enjoy it for a few seconds before you move on. Hence starts the experience of slowing down to embrace now.

    Experimenting with slowing down is an invitation to try out living in the now, because honestly, it is a pain to live in the past and too scary to think about the future.

    Now is all we’ve got. And experimenting with these practices helps us be everything we want to be in a more quiet, peaceful, and joyful way—in a more present way, with deep intention.

    There is utter beauty in taking refuge in our senses, in opening up to the small miracles that we always rush through. Take a day or more to experiment with slowing down and, as difficult as it may be, you’ll find it expands the time that we often think we lack.

    Woman drinking coffee image via Shutterstock

  • How to Know If You’re with the Right Person

    How to Know If You’re with the Right Person

    Couple Silhouette

    “Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” ~Walter Anderson

    I’m not actually interested in telling you if you’re with the right person. I’m interested in you discovering who you really are. If you’re not in the right relationship, you probably shouldn’t try so hard to make it “work.” Sometimes the right thing to do is walk away.

    But the big gap here is in the knowing. The knowing if it’s right or not. The truth is that you don’t actually need somebody else to tell you what the truth is. In fact, that’s the last thing you need.

    What you really need is to uncover your own truth so you can live according to it.

    If you’re not sure if your partner is for you, then you’re living in your head. You’re ignoring your truth—the deep part of yourself that is screaming at you to leave or to stop fighting or to open your heart. Whatever your truth is, it’s inside you and it’s dying to be heard.

    Relationships are tough. I totally get it. The songs of heartbreak tell the stories of our human weakness, and I’ve cried to many of them.

    The deeper untold story is that we’ve lost ourselves. We don’t live in a world where we’re taught to look inward to resolve ourselves. We look outward to fulfill ourselves, a feat that leaves us defeated time after time.

    I have discovered that when you live according to the deeper truth within yourself, you become happy in circumstances you never thought you would have been happy in.

    Maybe you’re single or divorced or childless or on a new career path or living in a new town; you’re somewhere, and you thought you’d be somewhere else.

    You thought that trying to control the outcome would result in your happiness. The irony is that the things we think are right for ourselves are often the things that are holding us back from discovering what is actually right for ourselves.

    I once shared a depth of love with a man in a way I’d never experienced before. Circumstances beyond our control ended the relationship. We did a back and forth thing—a few times. Then we really let it go; we both believed it was over.

    After months without words we reconnected and discovered that the profound love between us still remained. But there was a deeper truth we each recognized within ourselves. Even though we shared this beautiful connection, love, and respect for one another, we wanted different things.

    I wanted to experience depths of intimacy that he didn’t feel capable of at that time. So we parted ways once again. Respectfully. Gracefully. With love. And it doesn’t mean it was easy. But it was right, and we weren’t confused about it because we both knew ourselves.

    You see, the love that we’ve become accustomed to is not actually love. Our desire to possess another doesn’t come from love; it comes from fear. And that fear comes from a lack of confidence, a lack of self-love. 

    The desire to control things and manipulate them to satisfy our ideal outcome does not come from love. It comes from the fear of letting go, the fear that things aren’t going to turn out the way you want them to.

    Maybe you’ve misinterpreted your fear for love. You give it to your other in desperation. It’s missing the genuine gift of heart, the fully embracing warmth of love that is timeless and boundless.

    Love knows you do not own another, and rooted in this love you do not want another to ever be your possession. What you want for them is the greatest life offers up to us. You want for them to be whole, to feel love, to be honored by themselves.

    True love wants movement. It wants to share and rejoice. It expresses diversely. We don’t all mesh in the same way. We’re not all for each other.

    So how do you know if you’re with the right person? The answer is that you have to know yourself. Sorry, but this is the hard work of love. 

    It starts with you. This is your job: Know yourself. Be happy with yourself. Love yourself.

    It’s not your job to give what you don’t have or to take on the impossible burden of fixing someone else.

    When you lose yourself in another, when you confuse their problems for your own, when you deny another the freedom of pursuing their soul’s journey, you do a great disservice to two incredible human beings.

    Only when you know yourself will you be able to know if someone else is right for you.

    When you know what it feels like to be in tune with your core, your essence, your spirit, your whatever-you-want-to-call-it, your soul will scream out YES! or NO! when you’re with another person.

    Your soul will respond ferociously.

    It’s already screaming now.

    The question is: Are you listening?

    Couple silhouette via Shutterstock

  • 9 Things to Tell Yourself When You’re Afraid to End a Relationship

    9 Things to Tell Yourself When You’re Afraid to End a Relationship

    “F-E-A-R has two meanings: ‘Forget Everything And Run’ or ‘Face Everything And Rise.’ The choice is yours.” ~Zig Ziglar

    No matter how old I get, no matter how experienced I become, ending a relationship is agonizing.

    It represents a loss, and losses hurt.

    Deep down, I know if I go through with it, I’ll feel freer—well, not right away, but in a little while anyway—but I’d rather crawl under a rock and ignore the whole thing.

    When I was a teen, I went out with a guy who had a major crush on me, although I wasn’t attracted to him. After four months I wanted out, so I completely disappeared! I ignored all of his phone calls, and that was the end of it.

    Another time, I hoped that my boyfriend would cheat on me and get caught so I could find a good enough reason to end things, which eventually happened. And in my twenties, since I lived with my boyfriends, I would just keep quiet, letting things drag on. Cowardly thing to do, huh? Yeah, I know.

    Later, I realized that I disliked conflict. I was afraid of it. I was afraid of the disappointment it would cause in them and in myself. And most of all, I was afraid of failure.

    Today, I’m no breakup wizard. Trust me. It’ll always be hard. But with time, I developed a few thoughts to give me strength to truly voice my unhappiness in my relationships, and they should help you too.

    1. One day these painful moments will be a distant memory.

    Think about your past relationships—the one you had fifteen years ago, the one you had ten years ago, or the one you had five years ago. They aren’t your current reality.

    Whatever current reality you’re living in will also become a memory five, ten, or fifteen years down the road. Thinking this way helped me lessen the importance of constantly keeping them in my mind.

    2. We’ll both be thankful I took action instead of regretful I didn’t.

    When I projected myself into the future without the other person, I imagined an alternate life where both of us were with the right person. I imagined us being happy. And then I’d think: How could we hate each other for meeting the real loves of our lives?

    Of course in the present moment, we’d be regretful, but in a different time of our lives, we surely would be thankful that someone decided to end things so we could be happier. Why not let that someone be you?

    3. Losing someone who makes me unhappy is actually not a loss; it’s a gain.

    Losing someone might make you feel like a loser. But if you think of the action of losing someone who makes you unhappy and wonder what it would feel like, it changes your perspective on things.

    When I did this, I felt strong. Because I then had the willingness to move, correct, and change the course of my life.

    And that’s an achievement in itself. Getting away from someone who brings you torment is the biggest relief. It makes you regain your freedom, your energy, and your life.

    4. Maybe we were meant to cross paths with each other, not meant to walk our paths together.

    Don Miguel Ruiz, the author of The Four Agreements, teaches us that we’re all messengers. We receive messages, or teachings, from people all around us.

    And we receive them at certain moments in our lives. Just as teachers came and went in school, other people will also come and go as life, or the school of life, goes on.

    And if you have nothing else to learn from someone, it’s simply time to take the other person’s lessons gratefully and continue to walk your path.

    5. A relationship is a chapter in my life, not my life’s entire story.

    Imagine being the author of your own adventure book. Picture yourself reading it and finishing a chapter. Then ask yourself: What will happen in the next chapter?

    And since you’re the writer of your own book, you can add as many chapters as you want. This approach really helped me get excited for my next adventure—which I admit, might be a little scary too.

    6. The moments we shared aren’t destroyed; they’re my opportunity to grow.

    We always think that when we break up, we kill everything else that was created from it. You can learn so many things about yourself from your previous relationships. In my case, I learned to be more present, more attentive, and more thoughtful. I learned that I had to give myself emotionally if I wanted to have a stronger relationship.

    Meditating on your past relationships makes you grow, and learning from them improves future relationships.

    7. A relationship isn’t real if I’m not real with myself.

    A relationship is about true communication and intimacy. Whenever you’re not honest with yourself, whenever you’re not true to your feelings, you can’t strengthen your bond with your loved one.

    Having an honest relationship with yourself might be difficult, but it’s critical.

    8. Leaving will hurt, but staying will hurt even more.

    If you can’t stop thinking that you’d destroy your loved one if you left, think about how you’d destroy yourself if you stayed. Bring the focus back to yourself and picture yourself in a distant future being in this exact situation. Do you like what you see?

    This vision made me see a dark portrait of my life. So I understood that I should only worry about how I feel about myself in the present and that I needed to stop worrying about others so much.

    9. I can break free because I trust myself.

    You possess a profound inner voice—an all-encompassing, nurturing, and loving voice. Its purpose isn’t to bring you down, but to elevate you and make you accomplish things that are so great and unimaginable that you can feel gratified beyond belief.

    Your inner voice will never lie to you. It will always express your deepest truth and guide you with the most precise discernment of what will serve your highest good—even if that means getting out of your comfort zone and taking risks.

    It has never let me down, and it won’t let you down either.

    Find the Courage to Break Free

    Sure, it takes courage to break the news to your soon-to-be-ex that you no longer want to go on. I can attest that you’ll doubt yourself. I can attest that you’ll procrastinate. I can attest that you’ll over-think things, wondering if you’ll make a horrible mistake.

    But you’ll feel invigorated once you free your mind and use your intuition as your guide. Know that:

    You are able.

    You are amazing.

    You are strong.

    And you deserve happiness. Whenever you feel stuck and unable to break free, bring up one of the above thoughts to give you strength.

    Then imagine your new course, as if you were walking on air.

  • Releasing Labels: Be What You Love, Not What You Do

    Releasing Labels: Be What You Love, Not What You Do

    Happy and free

    “Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.” ~Brené Brown

    I thought I was supposed to have a shiny job, the kind that makes people envious at cocktail parties.

    We had moved with my husband’s job again. I think it was move number six out of nine and we were over at a friend’s house. There were people I didn’t know there, and I could feel myself avoiding them in case they asked “the question.”

    The question was “So,” (pause to look at drink), “what do you do?” My brain used to do flips when people asked this. I thought it translated into something like “Is speaking to you of any value, or are you nothing very important?”

    I spent the party around the edges of the room, feeling shy and apologetic that I didn’t have a job, a title, a label.

    I was paying a penance for my new status, which seemed to be “wife of my husband” rather than a person in my own right. I was worried that they would judge me for my lack of label and think the highlights of my day were a spot of light dusting and some mindless daytime T.V.

    “I am a teacher in a prep school” was a totally respectable, “yes, I have a pay packet and meetings on my online calendar” answer. Then the other person would usually exchange their respectable answer.

    I cried in the car on my way home from the party. The pressure of having no label made me feel that all the others were bottles of fine wine (like champagne) and I was a bargain basement vino with a lot of sediment.

    I could see that we wouldn’t really learn very much about each other. So I am now wondering what questions I could ask to, you know, actually get to know someone.

    Here goes:

    What is most fun in the world for you?

    What song sings your tune?

    Oh no, they’re already sounding like chat-up lines, aren’t they? Do we only let people really know who we are in casual flirtatious situations? Is there no place for this in the everyday?

    I need to try again to suggest a way around this so you don’t get to the end of this post thinking, “Oh no, Tiny Buddha is not about cheesy chat-up lines; it’s about eternal truth. What’s up with this writer?”

    Right, new way of getting to know people, part two, or getting to know people 2.0. Okay. So we’re at a party and I have never met you, and that’s a shame, because you read Tiny Buddha and we could talk about all sorts of Tiny Buddha stuff.

    I’m brave. I am not hiding in the corner. I am ready to meet you (best unfreaky smile). Hi, I’m Deborah. I don’t think we have met before. (Oh no, the smile was freaky after all!)

    Then we start a revolution of introduction. The new rule is: (please pass this on so everyone gets to know the rule) you say a list of things you love and that you are crazy excited about, and you let that beautiful, joyous, unapologetic list circle around your essence.

    Yes, you are right, it still won’t fully express your utter fabulousness, but it is a better start than “I am a prep school teacher/lion tamer/accountant.”

    So do your bit, share the revolution of introduction. Then you get to be what you love rather than what your HR manager/business title says you are—and you get to meet people who are a whole lot more interesting.

    Happy and free image via Shutterstock

  • 6 Things to Do Instead of Comparing Yourself to Others

    6 Things to Do Instead of Comparing Yourself to Others

    Woman Thinking

    “Do not judge by appearances; a rich heart may be under a poor coat.” ~Scottish Proverb

    I grew up believing I was never enough. Ever. Not when I got all A’s in school. Not when I was in the talented and gifted program. Not when my father made more than enough money for me to buy whatever I wanted.

    I became an adult who compared herself to others too, always wondering why I didn’t have what they had or why I wasn’t as pretty or as cool.

    I brought this behavior into my relationships and my business. I would get super jealous to the point of stalking when it came to my romantic partners. I was controlling and pushy because I thought they would leave me for someone better.

    In my business, I would obsess over other entrepreneurs and wonder how they “had it all,” convincing myself that no one cared what little ole me had to say. I played the victim all too well. And it kept me stuck, alone, and broke.

    After a series of dramatic events, including a baby, a layoff, and a divorce—in one year—I hit rock bottom. It sucked, but that’s what it took for me to realize how terribly I was treating myself.

    I committed to making changes in my life, my behavior, and my attitude. I had to embrace who I was and who I was going to become. I had to risk becoming nothing to become something.

    If you catch yourself playing the comparison game often, it’s important to remember one thing: you don’t know anyone else’s story. You can only base your assumptions on what you see, and that’s a pretty shaky foundation to put all your bets on.

    A complete shift in focus and mindset around these behaviors needs to happen. Here are some things I learned to do instead of comparing myself to others.

    1. Compliment them.

    Most of the time, when you are jealous or comparing yourself to others, it’s because you think they have something you don’t. The natural instinct for most of us is to criticize them. We try to pump ourselves up in by putting them down.

    It’s a terrible practice and it puts you at a low vibration, feeling even worse. Instead, find something you really admire about them and compliment them.

    If it’s someone you know personally, send them a message or a note. If it’s someone you don’t know or someone with celebrity status, send a tweet or leave a nice comment on the blog. I guarantee you will brighten up their day and feel good about it.

    2. Believe in yourself.

    You are a beautiful, amazing human being. You were put on this Earth to do something unique. We all are. Unfortunately for some, they never embrace it and end up living unhappily.

    Believe you have a purpose and a mission in this life, whether it’s big or small. If you don’t believe it, then no one else will either. There are few people who will love you unconditionally. You should strive to be one of them.

    3. Embrace your journey.

    The comparison game is a sneaky trick. It makes you think you are on the same path as everyone else. Though some paths may be similar, every person has a different journey. Embrace yours.

    Stop comparing your beginning to someone else’s middle. You have no idea how much this person struggled or how hard they worked to get where they are. Stay focused on your own path and forge ahead.

    4. Find your awesome.

    Along with comparison comes a whole lot of negativity. We start beating ourselves up and talking badly about ourselves for not being as pretty, as smart, or as successful.

    Remember, you are unique and awesome. You have talents, traits, and accomplishments that make you who you are. Write a list of amazing things about yourself and put it somewhere you can see it daily. Make it the background of your phone or computer and read it to yourself all the time.

    5. Feel the fear.

    Most negativity comes from a place of fear. Fear of failure, success, looking silly, or being judged.

    Fear is something that never goes away entirely. The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is their ability to see the fear and continue anyway.

    What are you afraid of? Identify it. Then ask yourself what’s the worse that could happen. Chances are, it’s not as bad as you think.

    6. Live in alignment.

    When I was going through my personal struggles, most of it came because I wasn’t in tune with who I was. I didn’t know what I wanted. I was frazzled. Something felt off.

    I had an insane work ethic, but I didn’t work on my relationships. I was preaching self-care, but I was overweight. When your life is not in alignment, it will always feel like something is missing.

    Take a look at how you’re living. Are you in tune across the board? If not, examine the areas you need to focus on.

    Comparison comes from a place of lack. If you find yourself doing this often, figure out what’s missing and where you can improve.

    Chances are, the person you’re comparing yourself to is reflecting something back that needs expansion. Pay attention and trust yourself. There’s always a deeper meaning. Figure out what it is, so you can move forward.

  • Happiness Always Looks Small When…

    Happiness Always Looks Small When…

    Happiness Always Looks Small

    Source

  • 70 Ways to Make Others Feel Special

    70 Ways to Make Others Feel Special

    Finger Art

    “Be the person that makes others feel special. Be known for your kindness and grace.” ~Unknown

    There is someone in my life that has an extraordinary talent for making people feel special. I would call him out by name, but he’s a fairly private person, so we’ll just call him “E.”

    It’s not that E makes people feel that they are somehow greater than others. He recognizes what’s special about everyone he encounters, and through his attention, kindness, and generosity, brings out the best in them.

    He doesn’t do this through grand gestures, and not with expectations of receiving anything specific in return.

    He does it because he enjoys making people feel good, and because he sees the good in them, he knows that they deserve it.

    In a world where it’s easy to focus on ourselves—our goals, our desires, and our plans—there’s something inspiring and, well, downright special about anyone who makes it a priority to truly see and acknowledge the people around them.

    I haven’t always done this well. Sometimes I’ve been too self-involved to shift my focus outside myself.

    But with help from some special people who’ve seen the best in me, I now know that every day—no, every moment—I have a new opportunity to do the same for someone else. And you do too. 

    How do you make someone feel special? 

    Pay Attention

    1. Stop what you’re doing and look directly into their eyes when they’re talking.

    2. Make a note of their likes and preferences so you can recommend joint activities you know they’ll enjoy.

    3. Recognize when they’re feeling down on themselves and say, “I think you’re awesome, and I hope you know it!”

    4. Compliment them on their appearance, especially if it’s something others might not recognize (like a small weight loss).

    5. Praise them for a job well done—especially if it’s a tiny victory that others might not think to acknowledge.

    6. Let them know what you find interesting, rare, or admirable about them.

    7. Take an interest in their hobbies and passions, and give them a chance to light up in sharing why they enjoy them.

    8. Compliment them on their skills as a parent or their thoughtfulness as a son, daughter, brother, or sister.

    9. Start a conversation with, “It’s really amazing how you…”

    10. Say, “I want you to know you make a difference in my life. Thank you for being you.”

    See Potential

    11. Tell them you believe they can achieve their dream—and why.

    12. If they don’t have a clear dream, recognize and acknowledge their skills and talents.

    13. Ask them questions to help them uncover how they can leverage their strengths to make a difference in the world.

    14. Encourage them to go for something they want but are scared to pursue.

    15. Comfort them after a failure or misstep and let them know it isn’t representative of who they are or what they’re capable of.

    16. Ask them to teach you how to do something to reinforce that this is something they excel at.

    17. Offer to teach them something you know they’ve wanted to try, and let them know why you think they’d be good at this.

    18. Give them something to help them get started on their dream—like a journal for an aspiring writer, or a design book for someone interested in fashion.

    19. Tell them you want to be the first one to buy their product or service when they inevitably start making a living off their passion.

    20. Give them a hand-made card and write inside what you see in them.

    Give Generously

    21. Give your time—to listen, to support, or to just enjoy each other’s company.

    22. Give them a job referral and say, “You’re the first person I thought of when I saw this—no one could do this job as well as you!”

    23. Give an introduction to someone they’d enjoy knowing—and introduce them with a compliment (i.e.: This is my good friend Avery, who’s a fantastic chef and one of the funniest people I know).

    24. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Instead of assuming they’ve done something thoughtful or insensitive, remember their goodness, and let them know.

    25. Give them your approval—nod your head when they’re talking and commend their thoughts and ideas.

    26. Give them space to work through thoughts and ideas out loud, even if you’re tempted to bring the conversation back to yourself.

    27. Give them credit for something they were right about.

    28. Give them the opportunity to shine in front of others when you’re tempted to dominate the conversation.

    29. Give compassion when you’re tempted to judge, and let them know what you admire about the challenges they’ve overcome.

    30. Give them your honest opinion and say, “I value you too much to tell you anything but the truth.”

    Be Affectionate

    31. Give them a hug when they’re feeling down, and hold it just a little longer than usual.

    32. Give them a playful nudge when joking around to show you’re tight like that.

    33. Literally pat them on the back when offering praise.

    34. Squeeze their hand when they’re anxious.

    35. Cuddle up to you partner instead of maintaining distance on the couch.

    36. Offer to give a massage to someone you know would be comfortable receiving it.

    37. Actually kiss someone on the cheek instead of giving an air kiss.

    38. Hold hands with your partner when walking outside (or, if you have friends who enjoy holding hands, go for it!)

    39. Sit comfortably close together to show you’re not avoiding physical connection at all costs.

    30. If you know they don’t enjoy too much affection, give them a handshake when greeting them to show you understand and respect their preferences.

    Share Yourself

    41. Share your fears with them to let them know you’re not afraid to be vulnerable with them.

    42. Share your feelings with them and let them know you value their guidance and support.

    43. Share your honest opinions instead of censoring yourself to show them you’re comfortable enough to be authentic with them.

    44. Share your dreams with them and let them know you appreciate their advice and encouragement.

    45. Share your resources with them—especially if they’re scarce—to show they’re worth the sacrifice.

    46. Share something you cooked for them to show them they’re worth the effort.

    47. Share your spirituality with them, and invite them to join you in practicing yoga or going to church.

    48. Share a secret with them to show them your trust.

    49. Share something that will become an inside joke between just the two of you.

    50. Share something you value with them to show them you value them more.

    Do Together

    51. Invite them to join you in doing something important, like picking out something for your partner’s birthday.

    52. Ask if you can help with something important they’re planning to do.

    53. Plan a surprise event for them, either to celebrate a tiny victory or just because you care.

    54. Invite them to something that will be a bonding experience, like a spa day or a sporting event.

    55. Buy an extra ticket to something you know they’d enjoy, and offer it to them.

    56. Ask them to join you in doing something regularly, like joining a bowling league, and let them know why it would be way more fun with them there.

    57. Include them in a group event to show you consider them part of the gang.

    58. Ask for their input in planning a group event to let them know you value their thoughts and ideas.

    59. Devote a weekend day or night (or both) to spending time together instead of squeezing them in for a quick lunch.

    60. When you’ve been busy, say, “I haven’t had much time lately, but I miss you! When can we get together and catch up?”

    Be Together

    61. Invite them to sit around with you, just to relax and enjoy each other’s company.

    62. Ask them if they’d like to enjoy the outdoors with you, whether that means lying in the beach in the summer, or drinking hot chocolate near a snow-covered window in the winter.

    63. Ask them if they want company when they feel drained after a long week, to show you don’t need a formal plan to be there for and with them.

    64. Offer to come over, while they’re home, so you can be an extra set of eyes to watch their kids.

    65. Sit in comfortable silence instead of needing to fill the air to show you’re comfortable enough to do this.

    66. Offer to stay with them when they’re sick, just in case they need anything.

    67. Invite them to join you in a technology free day—one without any distractions from simply being, together.

    68. Ask them to share their favorite way to relax on a day off, and then ask if they want to do this together.

    69. Invite them to join you in meditating. (If you don’t meditate, invite them to try it with you, at home or in a group environment.)

    70.

    I left the last one intentionally blank for you to fill in. What do you do to make others feel special, and what makes you feel special when others do it for you?

    Finger art image via Shutterstock

  • Practicing Loving-Kindness Even When (Especially When) You Are Hurting

    Practicing Loving-Kindness Even When (Especially When) You Are Hurting

    Hand Heart

    “Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.” ~Charles Dickens   

    All of us have been hurt or angered by someone’s words at some point. Some words are blatantly cruel, and others are deceptive, appearing to be in our best interest but only ever leading us astray. These are the messages that leave us questioning who we are or how we should be.

    I’ve been labeled timid and stuck-up. Speak up more, but stop interrupting. Be more assertive, but don’t complain. Be more outgoing, but be authentic.

    I’ve been called careless and a lousy role model and then questioned about why I am such a perfectionist. Lighten up. Don’t apologize so much.

    And my all-time favorite: your voice is off-putting and might scare the children.

    These are painful messages, and historically I’ve taken them to heart.

    When we’ve been hurt, we might try to get rid of the feelings by distancing ourselves or fighting back. It can be hard to regard these feelings as reflecting our desire for connection.

    We also try our hand at shapeshifting, becoming who we think we ought to be. This approach to connection can actually backfire. While we could feel more connected in the short term, we’ve also reinforced the message that who we are isn’t enough. Any guesses about what that does to us over time?

    Lashing out, hiding away, or conforming do not bring us any closer to connection nor do they leave us feeling validated or loved.

    For me, this is a big lesson in loving-kindness. Loving-kindness is a sense of benevolent affection, unwavering connection, and compassion for ourselves and others, even the difficult people in our lives.

    This lesson has taken a while and is admittedly still a work in progress, but it is powerful nonetheless.

    Loving-kindness does not leave us immune to negative emotions, but it is most potent when called upon in our less than loving or kind moments. Loving-kindness also does not leave us impervious to hurtful messages, though it can lessen their impact.

    When we are hurting or angry, loving-kindness can be especially challenging. It is therefore empowering to practice loving-kindness not simply in spite of feeling hurt but because we have been hurt.

    Finding loving-kindness relies on three things: our ability to love and be loved, maintaining our composure, and acting with good will.

    Have a heart that never hardens.

    Loving-kindness involves wishing peace, joy, and tenderness for others. It means celebrating successes, easing suffering, and cultivating feelings of friendliness and affection.

    We cannot do this with a hardened heart.

    A hardened heart is closed or blocked off. It may expect the worst or interpret hostile intent. A hardened heart is surrounded by not merely a wall but by a fortress of steal.

    With a heart that never hardens, there is ample room for warmth, forgiveness, patience, and compassion. Having a heart that never hardens also reflects our ability to love and be loved.

    Yes, being loved is actually an ability. Let me be clear. By ability to be loved, I don’t mean lovability or worthiness of love. I mean being able to allow others to love you.

    We make decisions about vulnerability, trust, and love when we’ve been hurt. We protect against vulnerability or we try again, decide that people are or are not to be trusted, and either open ourselves up to or block ourselves off from love.

    The key to having a heart that never hardens is to remember that your heart is strengthened, not scarred, by heartache. When words sting, know that this pain reveals an open heart.

    Trust in yourself to be able to handle it if and when you are hurt. Treat yourself with compassion in life’s painful moments, and take a healthy risk on vulnerability even when you’ve been hurt in the past. Allow yourself to be at peace when you are hurting or angry, and cultivate benevolence and goodwill rather than stewing in bitterness or breeding ill-will.

    Have a temper that never tires.

    Composure is another major component of loving-kindness. We all vary in our natural ability to keep a level head in the face of pain or anger.

    Anger is normal and natural, and it is even helpful when understood. Anger lets us know when something is amiss. It alerts us to threat or injustice.

    In truth, you will probably get ruffled from time to time. That’s just part of being human. However, this does not mean that you need to lose your temper.

    When we lose our tempers, we say and do things that we don’t mean. We can lash out, blame, and deny. This usually leads us to do anything but communicate.

    Acting without thinking often makes a bad situation worse. Not only do we still have the triggering event to contend with, but we now have the fallout from whatever we said or did when we lost our temper. It can become difficult to resolve the situation, and rather than cultivating peace, we create a crisis.

    Losing our temper doesn’t just harm those around us but also ourselves. We can experience regret and shame after losing our temper, and we ruminate about it later and work ourselves up further.

    Loving-kindness allows us to recognize our anger and breathe warmth and peace into it. It gives us a bit of extra reaction time and reminds us of our connection to this person pushing our buttons.

    To have a temper that never tires, know your triggers. Common triggers for anger are feeling threatened or vulnerable, having our goals blocked, and feeling mistreated.

    Also pay attention to the times when you are more susceptible to losing your temper. It may be when you are feeling overworked, overtired, and underfed, or you may be under the pressure of high expectations or demands.

    To keep your temper, knowledge is power, and knowledge plus acceptance is even more powerful. Acceptance doesn’t mean agreement, simply acknowledgement. Acceptance that it is what it is can go a long way toward defusing your anger and redirecting that energy toward positive action or loving-kindness.

    Have a touch that never hurts.

    Acting with tenderness and good will is the third component of loving-kindness. You can’t have a touch that never hurts if you have a hardened heart or a quick temper.

    A harmful touch can have two main functions: getting rid of pain and inflicting pain.

    Quite often, anger is secondary to pain. Somehow it seems easier to be angry than to be hurting. When we’re angry, we can place blame on someone other than ourselves and act out accordingly.

    When we are hurting, we can also turn our anger inward. We can inflict pain on ourselves in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons.

    In contrast to this, loving-kindness is benevolent and gentle. It is approaching others with sympathy and care and using your touch to heal and comfort yourself and others.

    Having a touch that never hurts refers to both physical and emotional harm. Certainly, our hands can be used as weapons, but so can our words and our actions.

    When you are hurting, resist the temptation to hurt someone back through name-calling, gossip, or blame. Put revenge aside and focus on moving forward.

    Use your touch for healing, not hurting. Reach out to hold the hand of someone you care about. Scratch their back, give a massage, or high five. Extend a loving gesture toward yourself by putting your hands over your heart and simply breathing.

    Using your hands to build or create can also help you cultivate loving-kindness. Try writing a caring note to a friend, pitching in through volunteering, or simply creating something for your own enjoyment.

    Hand heart image via Shutterstock

  • Transforming Shame Into Love, One Good Deed At A Time

    Transforming Shame Into Love, One Good Deed At A Time

    Friends Laughing

    “No one is useless in the world who lightens the burdens of another.” ~Charles Dickens

    A few years back, I saw a sticker that read, “Be the change you wish to see in the world. –Gandhi.”

    My knee-jerk reaction was annoyance because the sticker was affixed to the bumper of a car that turned left in front of me. I was in the middle of a long stretch of bad days, so pretty much anything would have set me off.

    My search for happiness during that bleak period seemed fruitless, most likely because I didn’t know that happiness is not a destination where, upon arrival, we get to unpack our bags and stay forever. Happiness is just one of many “rest stops” on the highway of life.

    Just as rest stops are meant to come and go, so is happiness. We recognize a feeling in our conscious field, stretch into that feeling for as long as needed, and eventually, get back in the car and “drive” until the next one comes along. 

    Of course, there are other stops along the highway as well: loneliness, excitement, hope, anger, longing, etc.

    Eight months after ending a toxic relationship, I was spending an inordinate amount of time at the rest stop of shame.

    Not only had I allowed myself to stay in a relationship with someone who treated me poorly, I felt like a failure when the relationship ended. Seems I had special talent for beating myself up, both coming and going.

    Each one of our feelings speaks to us in its own unique voice. For me, shame sounded like, “You’re a loser!” or “You’re boring!” or, my personal favorite, “No one will ever love you!” The voices of our feelings can tell us things that feel true but, in fact, are not true. 

    When I heard the voice of shame, it took everything in my power to fight the urge to isolate from a world I was convinced I didn’t deserve to be part of.

    The world seemed pretty dark at the time and I worried I would never find the light again. (This is what hopelessness sounds like, by the way.)

    It was at precisely this time that Gandhi’s words came along, disguised as an obstacle in my path. Seeing those words reminded me that we cannot control how we feel; we can only control what we do with how we feel.  

    While I could not control shame, I could control how small I allowed it to make my world.

    I had no idea how to “make” myself happy, but I was desperate to try anything. I decided to conduct a little social experiment to test Gandhi’s words. Because I wanted to transform shame into happiness, despair into love, it was up to me to sprinkle happiness and love into the world.

    I called the experiment “The Mizvah Project” and challenged myself to perform at least one good deed per week. The good deed could be any action, small or large, as long as the net result would put more positive energy into the world.

    I wasn’t feeling too positively energetic at the time, so a week seemed plenty of time to do at least one small thing. (After all, starting from ground zero, there was nowhere to go but upward.)

    Once the goal was set, I noticed a slight positive shift in perspective. I was no longer wondering what in the world could make the pain stop, I was asking myself what I could do to bring more love into the world.

    The experiment began.

    If I appreciated something about someone, I went out of my way to tell them.

    If I knew someone who was struggling and needed a sympathetic ear, I called and listened.

    If I saw a piece of trash on the sidewalk, I picked it up.

    A friend needed help redesigning her office, so I did it.

    If my son was having a bad day, I surprised him at school with takeout from his favorite restaurant.

    Momentum didn’t take long to build, so I quickly bumped the target up to three mitzvahs per week. Augmenting the goal brought with it another noticeable shift in my worldview: a significant uptick in the compassion.  This was encouraging.

    If a car turned left in front of me, I told myself the driver was probably lost and needed help; if someone was rude at the grocery store, I assumed they were having a bad day and needed extra patience; if I screwed something up, I spoke nicely and encouragingly to myself.

    I began to believe—I mean in-my-core believe—that all human beings, even those who hurt us, are deserving of love and compassion.

    It’s been almost two years since The Mitzvah Project started. I am happy to report the shame that once felt like a constant companion has given way to greater connectedness with the people around me (whether they are trusted friends or complete strangers) and with myself. Overall, thankfully, I spend less time in despair and more time in contentment.

    It hasn’t been all wine and roses since I started the project—shame still shows up on the highway from time to time. The difference is, where I once would have addressed the voice of shame with harshness and criticism, I now speak to it in a kinder, gentler voice; as if I were a child in pain.

    Approaching our shame with loving curiosity eventually reduces shame’s need to manifest itself in ways that don’t serve us.

    Inside each of us is a deep well of love, patiently awaiting our own recognition. Mindful acts of kindness and compassion, however large or small, are the portals to this love. 

    If you have been spending more than your fair share of time at the rest stops of shame and despair, I urge you to consider asking yourself how you can bring to the world the change you wish to see.

    The voice of shame may try to convince you that you cannot do it. Shame lies; don’t believe it.

    It is easy to overlook the gifts we can offer the world, just by showing up and giving of ourselves.

    Perhaps there is someone in your life who could benefit from a pair of good ears and strong shoulders; a park in your neighborhood that could use a little clean sweep; an overdue birthday card that needs a stamp.  Start small and, if you feel inspired, work your way up from there.

    Shame can be stubborn and may stick around for a while, and that is okay. It is when we are visiting the rest stop of shame that we are most worthy of our own loving support. 

    When you feel the darkness, gently remind yourself that this is where you are right now; it is not who you are for always.

    Feelings are temporary—the next one will come along eventually. In the meantime, remind yourself that you are doing everything in your power to put loving energy into the world; this is enough.

    Healing can be found in unexpected places when we embody the change we hope to see.

    Acting in service of bringing love and light into the world helps us find the love and light within ourselves. One good deed at a time, today’s despair slowly transforms itself into tomorrow’s hope.

    Friends laughing image via Shutterstock

  • How To Be The Best Version Of You A Lot More Often

    How To Be The Best Version Of You A Lot More Often

    Happy Woman

    “In chaos, there is fertility.” ~Anaïs Nin

    Are you a calm creature in your yoga class, then you get home and yell at your kids?

    Do you ever read a really inspirational book or blog and think, “Yes! That makes total sense, and I’m going to start doing that!” Then life gets busy and it never quite happens?

    Do you ever feel like you’re two different people living in the same body? Saying one thing, doing another?

    Me too.

    For the past fifteen years I’ve been a self-development junkie.

    I’ve read tons of books and I’ve attended courses and loads of amazing workshops. These covered everything from parenting to time management, relationships to getting organized, healthy eating to setting up a business, plus anything to do with spirituality and personal growth.

    All of these have inspired me with an array of fantastic ideas—but often they remained just ideas, floating around in my head without any action plan behind them.

    On the mat at my local yoga center I was the calm, peaceful, positive soul I craved to be. Yet, when I got home and re-entered my chaotic reality, it felt like just a temporary illusion.

    I was straight back to my grumpy, irritable, impatient “other self.”

    What was wrong with me? How could I be so Jekyll and Hyde?

    How could I more consistently be the “me” I loved being around?

    I was writing in my journal one day when I began to list the qualities I show when I’m being my best version of me.

    • Kind
    • Lighthearted
    • Playful
    • Calm
    • Relaxed
    • Positive
    • Present

    I knew what brought out the best in me—yoga, inspiring workshops, running in nature, laughing with friends, dancing my socks off, getting stuck in an amazing book.

    Then I listed what the poor version of me looks like.

    • Irritable
    • Impatient
    • Snappy
    • Short-fused
    • Negative
    • Mind spinning in overdrive!

    I asked myself, “What brings out the poor version of me?”

    • Feeling overwhelmed, with a lot on my plate
    • Too much on my mind, trying to figure things out in my head
    • Rushed, running late
    • Tired
    • Not enough “me” time

    And it occurred to me that, since I know what brings out the worst in me, why not look at each of these things and find ways to make them happen less often?

    I realized that I needed to get a handle on the day-to-day “running the show” stuff.

    To tackle overwhelm and having too much on my plate, I began to take a deep look at my time management. I learned how to say “no,” to delegate, and to structure my days better.

    I began to prepare for success by meal planning, laying clothes out for myself and the kids the night before, and always thinking one step ahead about what I’d need to take with me before going out the door, so I could feel calm and confident that I wasn’t forgetting anything.

    I began to feel less rushed. I was on time.

    Then I got back into a regular journal writing habit. I also had weekly scheduled brain-dumps to get things out of my head and onto paper so I could figure things. I crafted step-by-step action plans to get organized and on top of everything that needed doing.

    Instead of spending my evenings slumped in front of the TV or scrolling mindlessly on my phone, I started having regular candlelit baths and getting into bed earlier, curled up with a good book.

    It was the “me” time I always craved but never thought I had space in my day for. And I was consistent with it. I was finally implementing a lot of the great things I’d read about (hurrah!), and I felt the best version of me coming out more often.

    Once I got on top of the logistics, I felt less stressed and overwhelmed. It was easier to be more mindful and present. I began a daily practice of checking in with myself, asking, “How am I feeling?” listening to the answers and using them to guide me.

    After a lifetime of telling myself “I’m not a morning person,” I began to wake fifteen minutes before the children and used this quiet time to write in a gratitude journal or meditate using an app on my phone.

    It’s helped me stop being so cranky at breakfast and send my kids off to school peacefully, and with love.

    It took recognizing what brings out the worst in me to turn things around. It didn’t happen overnight, but by taking baby steps in the right direction I got there.

    Now I’m able to be my best version of me in my everyday life—not just on the yoga mat.

    If you want to be your best version of you more often, write your answers to the following questions:

    I feel like my best version of me when…

    How I feel about myself when I’m the best version of me…

    It’s easier to be my best version of me when…

    I’m a poor version of me when… 

    What can I learn from these insights? What new habits can I create to make it easier to be my best version of me?

    Inspired actions I will take this week:

    1.

    2.

    3.

    Share in the comments below: What brings out your best and worst you? What can you do to bring out your best self more often?

    Happy woman image via Shutterstock

  • How to Love Your Life at Every Age

    How to Love Your Life at Every Age

    Family Running

    “The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment.” ~Pema Chodron

    When I was twenty-seven, a wave of dread swept over my life.

    As I looked to the future, all I could see was the beginning of the end. Pretty soon, it would all be downhill.

    Why the doom and gloom? I was approaching thirty!

    Like many young people in their teens and twenties, I regarded “The Big 3-0” as the end of the party.

    I would become uncool (or perhaps more accurately, even less cool than I already was). I feared turning into my parents.

    One day, I was expressing my anxiety to an older friend of mine (she was all of thirty-three).

    She put her arm around me, looked at me with one of those oh-you-poor-clueless-thing expressions, and said, “Your thirties will beat your twenties hands down! You’ll have your act together more, earn more money, but still be youthful enough to do all the things you want to do.”

    She was right, of course.

    Soon after I turned thirty, I met the partner with whom I would share my life for the next twelve years. My career took off, I bought a house, and I was able to afford some vacations. Most important, I gained some maturity and focus on my life.

    My thirties were terrific. They did, in fact, beat my twenties hands down.

    Since then, I have never dreaded the approach of a “milestone” birthday—or any birthday, for that matter. Each passing year, and each stage of life, brings its own joys and its own opportunities to grow and adapt.

    My forties brought plenty of opportunities to grow and adapt. I went through a break-up and numerous dating misadventures, my career took off in new directions, and I met my current husband. In spite of (or probably because of) all the change, adaptation, and growth, my forties were terrific.

    We’re often reminded that we should live in the present moment, and that we shouldn’t worry about tomorrow or hold on to regrets from yesterday.

    That’s great advice, but I also believe that we need to maintain a positive focus on the future.

    To me, this is not a contradiction. We can fully live in the present and plan for the future. To live only for today is to risk wandering without direction.

    Our dreams, hopes, and goals keep us growing and moving forward. We are happiest when we are on our journey to reach a destination we have envisioned and are excited about.

    I’m now fifty-seven and embarking upon a slightly early retirement. I’ve had challenges and adjustments, but that’s okay. So far, my fifties are terrific.

    I’ve decided that it’s time to retire the word “retirement.” I prefer to think of my remaining decades as my “Renaissance”—a time for redefining, rebuilding, and rebranding myself.

    You can embark upon your own personal Renaissance at any point in your life.

    Regardless of whether your horizon is your thirties, forties, fifties, or retirement, here are some steps you can take to bring more meaning and enjoyment to your life today, while setting the stage for a terrific tomorrow:

    1. Pursue things you don’t think you have time for.

    Write down the things that truly make your heart sing. Include pursuits you don’t have time for now. Think about activities from your youth that have fallen aside due to the demands of adulthood.

    You should find that one or two of these items will resonate with you more than anything else. Try to find at least one or two hours a week to devote to your passion.

    I love jazz and playing my trombone. For much of my adult life, I’ve played in a band that rehearses one night a week. Sometimes I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had time to play any more than that, but at least I played once a week.

    Now, I have time to play in more ensembles and practice as often as I like. If I had abandoned playing my trombone entirely throughout my working years, it would have been much harder for me to pick it up again. And I would have deprived myself of enjoyment for all those years.

    2. Define your legacy. What do you want to leave behind?

    What do you want to be remembered for? How do you want to make a lasting contribution to the world? It could be a book, artwork, music, a service organization you establish or contribute your time and talent toward, or perhaps the impact you have on the lives of others through coaching, mentoring, or leadership.

    Even if you an hour or two is all you can devote to your true passion today, you’ll still be making a difference, and you’ll be setting yourself up for more fulfillment in your coming years.

    3. Decide where you truly want to live, and make plans to move there.

    Where would you live if you didn’t care where your job is located? Write down the possibilities that excite you the most.

    Many people wait until they retire to move to where they truly want to live. Maybe it’s not practical to move now, especially if you like your job but not where you live. Can you shape your future to live where you belong?

    As I approached forty, I decided that I had had enough of cold winters, heavy traffic, and the high cost of living in the Washington, D.C. area, so I decided to move to Arizona.

    It was the smartest move I’ve ever made. I’m glad I didn’t wait twenty years to move to the warmth and sunshine I so enjoy now.

    4. Travel to the places you’ve always wanted to visit.

    While I try to live my life with no regrets, I wish I had traveled more in my twenties and thirties. I now know that exploring new lands and cultures is one of the richest and most memorable experiences you can have.

    In addition to beholding the breathtaking beauty of our planet, seeing how other people live will enrich your understanding of humanity and expand your worldview.

    You’ll also expand your range of possibilities for where you might like to live.

    5. Re-examine your perceptions about aging.

    When you think about reaching your next milestone birthday, what sort of feelings does that trigger?

    If I could write a letter to my twenty-seven-year-old self, I would tell him that worrying about how miserable my life would be after I turned thirty only served to make me unhappy when I was twenty-seven.

    If my friend hadn’t shared her wisdom and changed my view, my thirties probably would have been miserable—because that’s what I would have expected.

    Replace your anxieties about getting older with an appreciation for all the possibilities you can create.

    —

    Is it time for you to embark upon your Renaissance?

    That may mean making that career change you’ve been contemplating. It may mean eliminating unfulfilling activities to free up time to truly follow your passion. Maybe it means moving to that place you know you belong.

    Whatever your Renaissance looks like, defining it and making it happen won’t occur overnight. It’s a process that will unfold over time.

    Envisioning a brighter future and embarking upon the journey to make that happen will bring focus and happiness to your life today.

    Running family image via Shutterstock

  • How to Stop Feeling Inadequate and Let Go of Heavy Expectations

    How to Stop Feeling Inadequate and Let Go of Heavy Expectations

    “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” ~Charles Dickens

    When I was seven years old, my parents had me take an IQ test for an application to a private school near our new home.

    I vaguely remember sitting with the proctor, answering question after question about vocabulary and spatial recognition. To seven-year-old me, the test was nothing more than a fun logic puzzle, and I delighted at each question I knew the answer to, bright eyed and enthusiastic.

    While I don’t recall my exact score, the numbers were unusually high—in fact, so high that the proctor expressed her surprise to my parents that I was not suffering from some form of high-functioning autism.

    From age seven on, I was placed in the most gifted classes in both public and private school. I enjoyed the challenge, and the attention I received, until I became a teenager.

    In my transition to adolescence, I became aware of the incredible teenagers around the world writing novels, promoting peace, and inventing the types of machinery and technology that change the world.

    These individuals inspired me, but secretly implanted a deep sense of fear and angst in my mind.

    For as long as I could remember, people had been telling me, “Avery, you are going to do amazing things with your life,” while I spent my life like any other teenager: school, sports practice, homework, food, bed, repeat. I was not accomplishing any great feats.

    I slowly began to feel like I was failing to fulfill my full potential as a human being.

    Being exceptionally gifted, once a joy and privilege, had become a toxin to my emotional well-being. I was all consumed by my ego telling me that I should be more—or I was wasting my intellect.

    This led me to sporadically start novels, blogs, articles, anything to prove myself worthy of my intelligence. I would give up on each one quickly and move on to my next idea, as unsuccessful as the first.

    No matter what I tried, the world still did not know my name—the only thing, I thought, that could make feel adequate.

    About a year ago, it dawned on me that my pattern of self-dissatisfaction and disappointment was unsustainable.

    No matter what I did, no matter how many people knew my name, it made no difference. I always craved more, and anything less than becoming the next Einstein was a personal failure.

    So, with that in mind, I began the arduous process of redefining success in my life. The only way I could do this, I learned, was to help others realize their own goodness.

    I began with my personal mantra:

    “It is better to change one person’s life than to have 1,000 know your name.”

    I stumbled upon this realization somewhat suddenly, after taking a two-week long trip with my grade. I invested myself in helping my friends with sickness and fear, and I came away changed; I finally felt like I’d accomplished something permanent and meaningful.

    Instead of living for recognition from the world, I began to look for satisfaction through my personal relationships. I no longer needed to change the world to be successful; I just needed to know that I had changed someone’s life for the better.

    Surprisingly, this is a relatively easy task to accomplish with discipline. By investing myself in relationships with my friends, acquaintances, and partner, I began to receive incredible feedback.

    People genuinely began to thank me—not for being kind, but for literally changing their lives.

    The key for me was genuinely listening to others, and caring about their needs and opinions. Helping people came naturally to me, and remains the best gift I can give to others; not some profound piece of writing or technological advancement.

    Typically, the people around me who I listened to had similar issues of inadequacy. I was not alone. They too believed themselves to be failures, unable achieve their potential, whether that potential was straight A’s or a sports scholarship or being kind.

    I could see the innate goodness of the people around me shining through, and it pained me to see them suffer from feelings of inadequacy. I knew, deep down, that everyone around me was good and pure and beautiful, as all children of this earth are.

    As a result, I realized through time that if the people around me were all beautiful and good, as all people are, then I must be good too—just the way I am and always will be.

    By loving others, I had already achieved my purpose on this earth: to be the inherently sympathetic and kind creature that all human beings are.

    I now actively seek people around me who need my care, and indulge them when necessary. Love has taken precedence in my life over material accomplishment, as it truly should. I have closer, more meaningful relationships, more acquaintances, and an exponentially higher self esteem.

    The beauty is, people reciprocate genuine love: the people you help will be there for you in your times of need, too. Love is a self-fulfilling prophecy that can only be positive for all parties involved.

    At the end of the day, people simply want to receive love and attention; and through giving others these things, I not only improved their lives but also my own perception of myself.

    I was able to focus on the immediate positive impact my life was making on that of others, and I finally felt purposeful and that I was leading a meaningful life.

    The truth is, not everyone can change the entire world, and not everyone needs to. All we can do is give as much love in our lives as possible, treat ourselves kindly, and leave the world a more positive place than we entered it.

    That is all I can ask of myself, and I try to leave all other expectations of myself behind—the ones of impermanent success that can only bring me dissatisfaction and suffering.

    Maybe thousands do not know your name, but you have the power to completely change the lives of those around you with love; and that, I’ve learned, is far more gratifying and important.

  • Why People Who Embrace Their Imperfections Go Far

    Why People Who Embrace Their Imperfections Go Far

    Man with raised arms

    “A beautiful thing is never perfect.” ~Proverb

    I was having a conversation with a group of friends that I meet up with occasionally, and my friend—let’s call her Sarah—started talking about perfectionism.

    She said that people used to describe her as a perfectionist and she’d wonder what they were talking about because, according to Sarah, she couldn’t do anything right.

    And then one day it dawned on her that her perfectionism was rooted within the idea that if she couldn’t do something perfectly, she wasn’t doing it right. So she had best not do it at all.

    I can relate to Sarah. I spent the majority of my childhood and many of my adult years running away from my gifts for complete and utter fear of failure.

    And the fear of failure seemed so physically debilitating that I would just quit doing stuff before even giving myself a chance to get really good at it.

    Generally, it was the stuff I loved that I would quit doing, too. Because I equated loving doing something with huge risk of failure, leading to me not being able to do that thing—that thing, so to speak, that I loved.

    And ultimately this would lead to self-doubt, embarrassment, and low self-esteem. The horror, right? I genuinely thought that the insecurity came from not being able to do things well.

    I never considered the possibility that insecurity was the culprit, leading me to make decisions not to do things that I couldn’t do perfectly. Which meant that at the end of it all, I didn’t really do anything of interest for many years.

    I started playing the piano when I was three years old. I’m classically trained and I wanted to be a concert pianist. My parents gave me lessons, bought me a beautiful baby grand piano, and encouraged me to keep playing.

    I played, and I played well for years. But then eventually when I was a teenager, I gave it up because I felt like there were so many other pianists my age who were so much better than I was.

    Of course this was all in my head—musical ability is entirely subjective, but it didn’t matter. It was enough to make me stop playing.

    I did the same with drawing, painting, writing, sewing, etc. I even started my own jewelry line in elementary school using macramé, beads, and inexpensive knick-knacks from the hardware store.

    My peers loved my jewelry and I actually sold my stuff at school. You know, for candy money and Choose Your Own Adventure books. I gave that up, too.

    I wasn’t good enough. An aspiring jewelry designer who, at eight years old, just was never going to make it in the fashion world. Oh, what a dark and dreary future. Sigh.

    And when I was done surrendering all of my talents in an effort to be, I don’t know, perfect, I found myself completely aimless and miserable. But I ran with it. After all, now that I had nothing that I needed to be perfect at, I couldn’t disappoint anyone, right?

    Such freedom in that! Except what I failed to recognize at the time was that I was disappointing the only person that mattered, and that was myself.

    About four years ago and some change, I decided to give up some bad habits. Some of these included drinking and partying. But most of what I was determined to give up was the “perfectionism.”

    And it’s funny because that’s not what I would have called it prior to that conversation with Sarah, but that’s precisely what I was giving up. So that I could go on with my bad, imperfect self.

    The moment I made the decision to give up the perfectionist mindset is the moment that I started to follow my dreams. I traveled to Bali, Indonesia, and started my own jewelry line—an island-inspired line that’s overflowing with meaning. It’s beautiful, and it’s me.

    I began writing about things that I feel passionately about, I picked drawing and sewing back up and I started playing the piano again. This time I’m learning how to play jazz and it’s so much fun.

    These are all things that nourish my soul. How absurd that I would deny myself these pleasures—these gifts of mine.

    I spent obscene amounts of time partying, took a very slapdash approach to college, worked dead end jobs that I had no genuine interest in, remained in bad relationships for way too long, and the list goes on and on.

    The idea that life could actually be fun while doing the things that I love, and not doing them perfectly, was just unfathomable. And yet here I am on this brand new pursuit of anti-perfectionism, thoroughly enjoying it.

    And on this journey, I’ve learned a few very critical things that have profoundly altered the way I approach my life.

    Try not to compare yourself to others. I wish someone had drilled this into my head when I was younger. Or maybe they did and I just wasn’t paying attention. Drilling averted.

    Still, it’s suicide for your dreams. Keep in mind that no two painters will ever paint the same, no two pianists will play Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words the same, and no two entrepreneurs will build the same business, no matter how similar.

    The finished product is always going to be perfectly imperfect and entirely unique. And beautiful.

    Even if you think you’ve failed at the things you’ve set out to accomplish, I challenge you to look at those “failures” from a different perspective. You’ve created something—something where there was nothing. Maybe that supposed “failed” something taught you how to do that thing a little differently the next time.

    Or maybe you just had to try that thing one time to know whether or not it was the thing for you. And maybe, just maybe, that thing that you think you failed at was a source of inspiration for somebody else.

    So, you see, there’s really no such thing as perfection, as it were. It’s simply about having new experiences that enhance our lives and make us feel good.

    Embrace your imperfections and you will go far. You’ll probably enjoy yourself a whole lot more in the process, too.

    Man with raised arms image via Shutterstock