Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • How to Get Through Hard Times by Throwing Yourself into a Hobby

    How to Get Through Hard Times by Throwing Yourself into a Hobby

    “Almost everything comes from nothing.” ~Henri F. Amiel

    There are uncountable ways to deal with difficult times in life. Some people turn to prayer or meditation, others open their hearts in therapy or to friends, and many choose to hide from the pain by eating their weight in chocolate or purchasing expensive bags; to each their own. I have a different approach: crafting.

    When I’ve gone through difficult times in life—depression, unemployment, relationship problems—I have often turned to craft projects. For a long time, I didn’t think much about it, but eventually I realized how much it has honestly helped me.

    When I went through a serious bout of depression, combined with unemployment, I started to participate in craft swaps on an Internet forum.

    Part of what helped was certainly the communication and fellowship with my swap partners. Isolation breeds unhappiness, and making things to another person’s tastes requires getting to know them, which is an effective antidote to isolation.

    But a lot of what helped was the crafting itself—making things with my own two hands, planning projects, and so on.

    When I was at my lowest and most frustrated, when I was writing yet another cover letter for a job I wasn’t quite sure I even wanted, the promise and plans of creation got me out of bed and into my day. It was something to look forward to when I did not have much else going for me.

    But honestly, that’s something I could have gotten from almost any hobby or activity. Hell, a television show with eight seasons on Netflix can give me something to look forward to. Crafting gave me something more: healing.

    How the heck did crafting heal me?

    It gave me something else to think about. Rather than focusing on my own feelings and situation, I focused on picking patterns, selecting supplies from my stash, and then making things.

    It was productive. There is something healing about creating something from raw materials—wool into felt, yarn into crochet, fabric into quilted bags.

    It brought a confidence boost. When I felt like crap, it was easy to feel like I had no control over anything, but making something proves that, at the very least, I have control over craft supplies. It may not sound like much, but it’s a start.

    It’s a sort of movement meditation. The repetitive actions of certain crafts can bring about a sort of clarity and calm, which is certainly helpful under any stressful circumstances.

    It got creativity going again. When I was going through a crappy patch, I needed out of the box thinking in order to get through it. That means creativity, and crocheting vampires and embroidering pumpkins can be the first step to loosening the neural pathways.

    So how can this help you?

    Is there anything you enjoy doing with your hands? Whether it’s painting, sewing, crochet, embroidery, fishing, origami, woodworking, painting miniatures, or any other handicraft, it’s worth re-introducing it into your life.

    If you’ve never had a hands-on hobby like that, pick something interesting and try it out. Wander around a craft store until you see something you like, or search for how-to kits on Etsy. Ask that friend who’s obsessed with Robin Hood to take you with next time he goes to the archery range, or see if your local community center offers a shop class.

    Learning something new can be even more absorbing than doing something you already know. The only limit I suggest is that you find something with a physical component. While I adore cerebral activities like writing, they have a different set of benefits.

    Let yourself be absorbed by it. It’s okay to become obsessed, to spend your lunch breaks and your after-work time pondering and planning for the next time you can pick up your project. In fact, that is part of the point.

    If you’re fixated on making a sweater or tying a fishing lure, then you are not obsessing over everything that is wrong with your life.

    Chasing those same thoughts around in circles will not help you solve anything, but breaking out of them to do something else can provide a much needed change of perspective. That change of perspective may well show you the way out (and even if it doesn’t, it’s less time that you’ve spent being miserable).

    As coping mechanisms go, hobbies are a healthy one. They are inherently creative, never destructive (even fishing creates something: dinner). When you’re in a tough spot, you need to build a new life, not tear yourself down.

  • Rekindle Your Joy by Harnessing the Power of Play

    Rekindle Your Joy by Harnessing the Power of Play

    Kids Playing

    “It is a happy talent to know how to play.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

    It was one of those weeks that felt like I was dragging my feet through mud. Everything seemed like an effort and nothing seemed to be flowing.

    I was caught up in conflicts from the past—a miscommunication with my boyfriend, which resulted in hurt feelings on both sides, and a professional crisis that plunged me into fear and self-doubt.

    In an attempt to calm my mind and become more present, I meditated and chanted mantras, but the tape of negative self-talk continued to play in my head. It berated me for not handling both situations better and made me feel like I was not measuring up.

    A cloud of depression began to hover at the edges of my psyche, threatening to block me from the sunlight of the spirit. I was a captive to thoughts of inferiority. Self-compassion seemed like a far off destination I would never reach.

    I live in a beautiful part of Mexico, but even the warm tropical air wasn’t enough to bring me out of my mental slump.

    Then, my sister came to visit from the states, having taken a long weekend off from work. It was a great diversion and I knew just the place to take her. We drove to a secluded beach on the Pacific coast to spend the day.

    When we arrived, we saw that the usually calm ocean had been churned up by a distant storm. Waves crashed violently upon the shore and a steady wind whipped against our cheeks.

    I took to the water anyway. I wasn’t brave enough to tackle the hulking waves but waded into the shallow white wash. It swirled around me like a natural Jacuzzi. The changing tides threatened to destabilize my footing, so I crouched down to avoid toppling over like a bowling pin.

    Releasing control, I was moved by the push and pull of the current. At one point, a large wave hit further out, sending the tide rushing in. It spun me around like laundry in a machine. A hearty laugh escaped from my lungs as I tumbled around in nature’s whirlpool, completely present in the moment.

    It washed me up on the shore like a happy seal and I whooped with the simple joy of it. My hair was tangled with sand and salt and my swimsuit twisted around me. My sister sat calmly on the shore and, seeing my dishevelled state, laughed along with me before joining me in the water.

    We giggled heartily as we played in the shallows like children. I bodysurfed the whitewash of the waves with my arms outstretched, allowing the water to carry me like a twig. In that moment, nothing existed except the water and the shrieks of joy that erupted from within me.

    The joy that had eluded me for the last week had been inadvertently tapped into by the power of play.

    Sometimes even the most disciplined spiritual practice is not enough to provide the shift we need, and that’s where play becomes an important part of our lives.

    We need only look at a young child playing in mud or a puppy fetching a stick to recognize the power of play. It is a healing practice that returns us to our innocence and brings us into the present moment; no chanting required.

    As children we relished the power of playfulness and saw life as one big game to participate in. We threw our whole selves into tumbling down grassy hillsides or playing tag rather than spending time in our heads worrying and planning.

    As adults we often forget that play still needs to be part of our lives. No matter how old we are, it is possible to return to that place of pure joy that exists within us.

    It may require some extra effort on our part to make time for play, but it is worth it for the mental and physical benefits.

    Here are five simple ways to harness the power of play in your daily life and rekindle your joy:

    1. Get into the woods.

    The woods make a wonderful playground, and spending time in nature is hugely therapeutic. Stomp through piles of crisp fall leaves and throw them into the air like natural confetti. Climb a tree and re-ignite your child-like wonderment.

    If you really want to access your joy, play a game of “hide and go seek” among the trees with a friend. You will be surprised how much fun this game can be as an adult.

    2. Play ball.

    Play ball, any kind of ball! Whether a game of tennis, soccer, or shooting hoops, the mind-body connection required for ball sports is sure to relieve stress and shift negative thought patterns. Visit your local driving range to hit golf balls. Even if you’ve never golfed before, this can be super fun.

    3. Dance up a storm.

    One of my favorite ways to play is to put on music and dance around my house. Dance in your bedroom, in the kitchen, or in the backyard, with or without other people around. In fact, dancing alone like no one is watching provides a massive release of endorphins which is great for the mind, body and spirit.

    4. Host a game night.

    Next time your friends want to get together, why not host a game night instead of going to a bar or restaurant? Games like charades Pictionary or even the classic Twister bring out the playful side of even the most serious adults.

    5. Visit your local park.

    Visiting your local park is one of the simplest pathways to play. Swing on a swing, slide down a slide, and if there is a grassy hill that takes your interest, roll down it! Just because you are an adult doesn’t mean you have to give up your favorite childhood activities.

    —

    We can all harness the power of play to access the ever-present joy within us. Making time for play in our lives between work, relationships, and other commitments can relieve stress, transform negative thinking into spontaneous laughter, and may just be the greatest gift we ever give ourselves.

    Kids running image via Shutterstock

  • We Are All People Who Need People

    We Are All People Who Need People

    Man Behind Curtain

    “But first be a person who needs people. People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.” ~Bob Merrill, lyricist, Barbra Streisand, artist

    Act 1: Babs and Me

    Barbra Streisand and I could be twins.

    For starters, we were born on the same day.

    Sure, she got here a couple of decades earlier, but except the part where she’s a rich, famous, writer-director-actress married to James Brolin, and oh, that singing thing, we could have been separated at birth.

    We both have blue eyes and chemically enhanced blonde hair. We speak the same language; in Brooklyn or Philly, you say, tuh-may-duh, I say tuh-may-duh.

    Our cultural heritages are similarly steeped in neuroses and commandments, thus our identical self-confidence issues. A small sampling of the insecurities we share:

    • We are overly concerned with our appearances (but complain about getting dressed and combing our hair.)
    • We have stage fright and always will.
    • We suffer from PTCSD (post-traumatic-childhood self-worth disorder).
    • We only remember our bad reviews.
    • We photograph better from the left, we believe.
    • We want people to like us, mostly so they don’t hate us.
    • We prefer dark rooms filled with people we don’t know to small rooms of people we are supposed to.
    • We worry about money, me a little more than she.
    • We are people who need people.

    “People” was Babs’s first Top 10 hit. When my mom sang along with the “Funny Girl” in the sixties, I thought “People” was a love song. You too?

    Lyricist Bob Merrill’s original hook was “one very special person,” because “Funny Girl” is the story of how singer Fanny Brice found the half that made her whole in gambler Nick Arnestein.

    Lucky her.

    Except, there are two kinds of luck, as Nick learns, and Fanny ends up hungry and thirsty again.

    So Merrill put the kibosh on only lovers being very special in favor of, first, an emotional connection with people. Plural. The new focus reflected a key plotline in the movie: the need for people to be vulnerable enough to ask for help and have more than one person to ask.

    Barbra gave us a glimpse of Fanny’s vulnerability when she sang “People.”

    The audience connected to Fanny when she performed because they saw a real person with self-doubt and sorrows, despite her success. Fanny needed the audience to give her the confidence to come back after she lost everything.

    At the time, Barbra told reporters she too connected with the audience by being authentic. Thus, putting on a show made her vulnerable, to her emotions and to criticism, the worst of which came from herself. Her constant internal refrain was:

    “What if they don’t like me?”

    That’s it, isn’t it? The real feeling deep in our souls? What if they don’t like you?

    And we aren’t acting more like children than children.

    We crave inclusion so much that admitting we want a connection with another person—not even a lover, a fellow human—is as frightening as a death threat. Grown-up pride can’t hide the need to belong.

    So we hid, Babs and me. From the world, for years, for the same reasons, on fraternal twin timelines.

    I went underground a little later than Barbra. At thirty-three, I walked away from public office after seven successful years because I couldn’t live in the spotlight. Despite building playgrounds and guarding the treasury to the acclaim of voters and editorial cartoonists, I drew the curtains on 10,000 constituents.

    Fast-forward to forty and still single, my remaining confidence was shredded like a New York Times review. “One of these things is not like the others, one of these things does not belong” was my hit song. The words are forever imprinted in my brain.

    Stage fright seized Barbra’s confidence at twenty-five, when she forgot the words to a song, in front of 135,000 “voters,” under a literal death threat. Spotlight size is relative, though, so it was essentially the same situation as mine, and so Babs walked away from public performance too.

    What’s more, by her early forties, the great and powerful Ms. Streisand shared my Sadie envy. We had similar spinsterly reactions: we blamed ourselves and then spent years and thousands trying to fix ourselves.

    Working from home aided and abetted my self-imposed isolation for seven years. Barbra tightly controlled, well, everything, for twenty-seven years.

    Lucky her.

    While hiding from paying customers, Barbra used her talent to make the world a better place in performances for protecting the environment and civil rights. I try to make the world a better place by protecting animals and writing about single life. I hope I’m talented.

    We were happy during that time, B & me. Fear was barely an impediment. Life was a Greta Garbo bio-pic. We were content cocooning. Searching deep in our souls, we discovered we were already whole.

    Then we remembered we need people.

    Act 2: Babs and Me, Reprise.

    And people needed us.

    Were we ready for our comebacks? Seems so.

    Barbra hit the trail partly because her calendar was open: two films were serendipitously postponed. She also wanted to secure her financial future. Lucky her, she required only two performances to be set for life.

    A secure financial future is on my trail too, though right now I need two jobs to be set for the year. That said, I’m just about the age when Babs went public again. Give me another twenty years to achieve international fame and fortune.

    Time and money are powerful incentives, but as Barbra declared, “Opening your heart is the goal of the quest.” Ultimately, what brought us both back was the need for connection, with people.

    Despite stage fright and a black hole of confidence, we needed to belong, where we belong.

    So what did we do?

    Like twins, we did the same thing. Babs went back on tour. I went back East.

    While I moved home to Philadelphia, Barbra brought her home to the stage. The set for her first comeback concert looked like a living room, albeit Louis XIV’s living room.

    On her seven-month tour, Barbra had family on hand. On my return, I stayed with my sister for seven months. Needing people and living with them entail completely different kinds of vulnerability. And restraint.

    Barbra managed any word-related worries with Teleprompters. I prompted myself to exchange kind words with neighbors and to meet new friends—no worries.

    Babs had something to do with her hands, and visual aids. Me too—a puppy.

    She told stories, which is my real talent. Amusing anecdotes are mood-stabilizers for me.

    Speaking of drugs, we are both honest about it. Barbra and I benefitted from advances in psychopharmacology. A beta blocker here, an SSRI there, and we can face our mutual under-abundance of confidence.

    Medicine aside, maturity helped. By fifty, we understood that some losses are forever; some things cannot be changed. We realized we are each, first, a person who needs people, and that’s okay.

    Gambling with our vulnerability continues to pay confidence dividends.

    Barbra is able to do public shows whenever she wishes. She re-connects with her audience; she belongs on stage. Going solo in a duo society gives me the confidence to connect with people and to show up, for myself and my friends. This is where I belong.

    Barbra still retreats, hiding in Malibu, with James Brolin. I still hide at home, in Philadelphia, with yet another puppy.

    What’s really funny, girls and boys, is how many of us think hiding behind the curtain or in our bedrooms is riskier than opening night or opening a door. We might feel safe but we won’t ever feel secure without emotional connections. Poets, playwrights, and psychiatrists agree: people really do need people to survive.

    Maybe you have stage fright, and all the world is a stage. Maybe you are shy, or ‘new around here.’ Maybe you made a bad bet at work or love and lost your confidence.

    Take it from Fanny, Babs, and me, be vulnerable. Maybe for the first time, let yourself be a person who needs people and your luck will change.

    Are you ready for your Act 2?

    Man behind curtain image via Shutterstock

  • When the People We Love No Longer Exist

    When the People We Love No Longer Exist

    “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” ~Steve Jobs

    A week ago a woman I loved died. She was a member of my family and had been dying for a while from bone cancer, so her death did not come as a surprise.

    I was traveling when I got the email, and I sat in Abu Dhabi airport surrounded by the banging and steps of people and grieved.

    Yes, I knew her death was imminent, but at a deeper level I found the news confusing. When I last visited her in her hospital room, her eyes were open and her breath constant; we chatted, she laughed, and we talked about seeing each other again.

    What was deeply confusing, and still is, is the fact that she will never exist again—not in the same form. Some believe she has gone to another world, some believe she now exists as particles, but the reality is that her shape, the twinkle in her eyes, the way she held my hand will never exist again.

    All of us who have gone through loss will understand this deep confusion. How can something no longer exist? How can one not call or talk to or hug a person anymore within the space of a day?

    My husband and I sat on the pews in the small suburban church and listened to beautiful things said about her.

    People spoke of her struggles with self-doubt and loss, as well as her ability to inspire and support women to find their own path. She could be conflicted and generous at the same time—she was human.

    A friend of mine once said that light on fractured glass is more arresting than glass that is robust and flat. I couldn’t have agreed more, as the words in the church about the woman we had lost recreated her and we could feel her living, just for that moment, in all her light and shade.

    From everything I’ve read coping with grief, it’s all about letting it out, about not having expectations about when the grief will end, about communicating about it with family and friends who understand.

    I let it out yesterday; I couldn’t help myself. The real rain came, though, when I looked over at the coffin and knew there was a woman inside, and her lack of life, of existence, overwhelmed me.

    So, how do we process the confusion that occurs when people that are special to us are no longer in our lives? Death is just one way these people can disappear; they can also disappear through relationship breakups, geographical separation, or they can simply vanish.

    The overwhelming feeling I get is one of too much space. It becomes very obvious that that person occupied some space within my existence and the vacuum is very hard to bear.

    In practical terms, it may be that I saw that person once a week, once a month, once a year, and now my dance card is not as full because they are no longer on the floor. Even if they had a negative impact on my life, I miss them, some parts of them.

    I guess the comforting thing I’ve learned from experience is that eventually others will come onto the floor, that the vacuum is not permanent, that each person who comes and goes brings more and more to my life and my understanding of existence.

    As Salman Rushdie writes in Midnight’s Children, “I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’m gone which would not have happened if I had not come.”

    When the people I care about no longer exist, I have the perfect opportunity to reflect on how I can integrate the best parts of them into my life.

    The woman I loved and lost was passionate about empowering women. I have carried the same flame, and her death inspires me to work even harder to encapsulate women’s voices into my writing.

    As a counselor, teacher, and friend, she also cared a lot about people and always wanted to help. When she spent the last year in and out of hospital, the love that she gave came back in spades with the constant stream of visitors and helpers by her bedside.

    Watching this really taught me the value of giving, not only to help others but also to develop relationships that were more about creation than destruction.

    We also have a choice to address the question of existence more broadly when people we were close to no longer exist in our lives.

    The older I get, the more I understand that existence really is very temporary. It makes sense, then, that the temporary nature of existence means that existence is, in itself, quite extraordinary.

    As science writer Lewis Thomas wrote, “Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that the mere fact of our existence should keep us all in a state of contented dazzlement.”

    We can choose to ignore just how temporary our lives are, or, we can choose to say, “Well, I’m only here for a bit so I’d better get on with it and work out how I want to live and give.”

    Steve Jobs said, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”

    Steve’s understanding of the temporary nature of existence motivated him to create an extraordinary life, and, ironically enough, he will live on through his creations for years to come.

    It’s the day following the funeral. There’s a bunch of bright purple, pink, white, and yellow flowers on my desk. Someone left them at the front of the church because they wanted to do something tangible that indicated just how much they appreciated the woman’s life.

    In writing this I’m also doing the same. My gift of flowers, of words, for the woman who no longer exists, but who is now a part of this temporary life that is extraordinary just because it is.

  • Learning to Let Go and Trusting That We Will Be Okay

    Learning to Let Go and Trusting That We Will Be Okay

    Man Jumping

    “You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.” ~Steve Maraboli

    While going through some major life changes, I am finally learning to let go. I am learning to relinquish control. And I am learning that everything will be okay in the end.

    I am in the middle of my first pregnancy. I thought I could control my body. I thought I could control my outcome.

    Something I regularly preach to anyone who will listen is that we can’t control the outcome of any situation. We can only control our actions.

    That means we can aim for a particular outcome, and do everything in our power to achieve it, but we cannot control what actually happens.

    We can’t control other people, the weather, bureaucracy, or anything else that is outside of ourselves. Obstacles will always get in our way, and we have no power over them.

    I have always considered myself a fairly fit and active person. I’ve competed in many ultramarathons and powerlifting competitions. I like to go hiking in technically challenging and precarious locations. But pregnancy took this all away from me.

    Working in the fitness industry, I am bombarded with what perfect fitness professionals look like and do. I see fabulously fit pregnant females lifting weights, running marathons, and doing all the things I enjoy doing. But my body just doesn’t want to cooperate.

    I only recently realized that I need to let go.

    I thought I could climb one more mountain before my body had enough, so I chose what I thought would be a relatively short and easy mountain to climb.

    Unfortunately, I completely forgot that my heart rate is now much higher, so I was getting puffed much earlier and had to walk much slower than usual.

    The mountain was very steep toward the top, and I was crawling up on feet and hands, with my awkward belly getting in the way. There were huge fallen trees strewn across my path, and I did my best to climb around, over, or through them.

    But 500 meters from the top of the mountain I got stuck. I was too short to climb over one fallen tree, and too big to climb through the gap where it had split.

    In ordinary circumstances, I would have climbed through and kept pushing until I reached the top. But this time I sat down and realized that the further up I went, the more difficult and uncomfortable sliding down I’d have to do on the return journey.

    My body was no longer the right shape for this sort of activity.

    I sat down and realized I no longer have complete control over my body. My body has control over me. I had to let something go.

    I let go of control over my body. I let go my ability to cover tough terrain. I let go of challenging adventures in the near future.

    I simply let go.

    And I realized that letting go is not so bad. Everything would be okay in the end.

    Later, I would be able to try these things again. I would try to teach my child about the great outdoors. One way or another, everything would be okay. I would be okay.

    I am also in the middle of renovating our house and looking for a new one. Again, I thought I could control the situation and the outcome.

    I thought that we would have a new house and have sold our current one by now. I even thought we would have a nursery set up by now.

    I have searched for houses, I have helped pack up and de-clutter our house, and my husband has done a lot of renovations. But I did not count on finding multiple faults in our house that need repairing. And I did not count on our dream house not showing up yet.

    I have controlled my own actions, and I did my best to control the outcome, but I discovered that I could not.

    So I sat down and I realized that it doesn’t matter where we live or when we move. The baby will come when it is ready, whether we are ready or not.

    Again, I had to let go. And I was set free. Free of control. Free of being perfect. And free of the future. All I can do is live in the present.

    There are so many things in life that we strive to control. We strive to control our future, our finances, our career, our relationships, and our lifestyle.

    We get stressed when obstacles prevent our complete control and things don’t work out as planned.

    Stress causes unhappiness, and no one wants to be unhappy.

    We can only control our actions and be happy and satisfied that our actions have taken us closer to our dream outcome. But in the end, the exact outcome may be slightly different, or not come to us as soon as we’d like.

    If we relinquish complete control over everything and everyone, then we can set ourselves free.

    We gain the ability to live in the present. And when we live in the present, we are able to think clearly. We can realize that we will be okay no matter what happens.

    If we don’t get our desired outcome, we can learn from the experience. We can try something different, and still aim toward a brighter future. There is always hope for us.

    I know that I can no longer physically challenge my body as much as I used to. But in a few months, or maybe even a few years, I can try again.

    I have also learned that although we have not found our next house yet, we can make do where we are now until we are able to move. It’s not our ideal situation, but we will continue to do what we can to move toward that.

    We keep learning, we keep growing, and we can be happy knowing that everything is okay, no matter how our journey pans out. It is quite liberating now knowing that we do not have to stress about losing control of the situation.

    We can only control our own actions, and by doing that, we can rest easy, knowing that in the end, we will be just fine. In the end, we will be better off for our experiences. In the end, everything will be okay.

    Man jumping image via Shutterstock

  • Keeping Your Eyes on the Prize When Your Goal Seems Far Off

    Keeping Your Eyes on the Prize When Your Goal Seems Far Off

    Woman Looking into the Distance

    “Doing your best means never stop trying.” ~Unknown

    As a teacher, the summer season is special, sacred time when I recover from a busy school year and prepare for the next one. The bonus is that I also use the time as a personal blank slate to be as productive as I can be in the other areas of my life that got neglected when all of my energy went into teaching.

    June began with a long list of goals and a meticulously planned schedule for every day and hour of the week. I had big eyes and high hopes about what I’d accomplish. I thought I would definitely finish that novel I had been working on for ages.

    And then I became pregnant and none of it materialized as I sank into a pit of nausea and chronic fatigue. I couldn’t believe all of my plans were falling apart.

    In my “normal” state I’m a productive person who extracts a great deal of personal self-worth (for better or worse) based on the progress of my to-do list. Once I was pregnant I wasn’t able to continue at the same speed.

    I couldn’t believe the injustice of it all. I felt like a complete loser, and it was a difficult, never-ending process trying to forgive myself.

    In life, we inevitably encounter obstacles that are discouraging and make our goals feel unattainable. It doesn’t have to be pregnancy—it could be illness, a new job, a relationship, unexpected stress, an overextended schedule—anything that diverts our attention away from a goal.

    Often the obstacles in our path can be temporary, momentary glitches. Other times they are more complex and formidable and can threaten to delay us indefinitely.

    We have to be able to objectively assess the roadblocks and step away from our emotions in order to identify a new route and keep moving forward. We must always, always move forward, even if it’s at a snail’s pace. It’s a lot easier said than done.

    After months of hating myself for not writing, not exercising, not doing the chores I used to do with efficiency, I had to sit back and strategize. I got tired bemoaning the failure of my plans. There came a point in time when I realized I just couldn’t accept defeat.

    The first step was to embrace the idea that it’s okay to have a change in our path as long as the destination is the same.

    We can all start off with the best-intentioned plans, but inevitably life gets in the way. When that happens we have to be able to go back to the drawing board and think of new ideas to keep moving forward.

    I’m back to writing. It’s not much, but in light of the fact that I feel like a giant slug, work full time, serve on three different committees, and oh yeah, I already have two small children, I feel okay with the progress I’m making. I feel confident that when the time comes for me to re-calculate a new route that will take me to my destination faster, I’ll be able to do it.

    Many people mistakenly think the path to achieving our goals is supposed to be direct and easy, and consequently when they encounter the inevitable detour they don’t know what to do, and their unanticipated disappointment undermines their momentum.

    In reality, achieving our goals has more to do with our determination precisely in those moments when the universe gives us every sign that we should give up. Those are the times when we have to force ourselves to keep moving forward.

    We have to calibrate our expectations and become creative with our strategy, embracing the inevitable ebb and flow of productivity. In a world where nothing is ever perfect, we have to settle for fighting for our very best and turning challenges into unforeseen opportunities.

    When I have to re-think my strategy, this is what I do:

    1. Nurture your desire.

    It’s easy to lose focus of our end-goal, especially when something unexpected is thrown our way. Despite any obstacles, it’s important to keep your desire alive and well. If you’re spending your time criticizing yourself, try to re-frame the situation and channel your energy into something positive that will move you forward.

    If you find yourself losing enthusiasm, do something to rekindle your desire. Sometimes something as simple as reviewing your goals on a regular basis is enough to spark a renewed sense of interest.

    2. Take time for yourself.

    I’m the worst at this, but at the height of my morning sickness I tried really hard to embrace the idea of kicking back with my feet up and indulging in something relaxing. I did a lot of reading, plowing through several Stephen King books that I never usually have time for. Now that I’m back in “work” mode, I appreciate the time I had to read for pleasure.

    We will always have the valleys and peaks in our lives, and although we want to be on top, it’s important to take the time when you are stuck in the valley to relax, rejuvenate, and strategize your next move. It will only make your journey back to the top more successful.

    3. Re-evaluate your goals.

    Halfway through my summer of disappointment and after a lot of denial, I finally realized my list of goals weren’t going to materialize. They were unrealistic for me at that moment. It’s difficult to admit to yourself that you can’t do something.

    When I was ready to embrace the reality of the situation, I sat down and listed what I knew I could handle. I reminded myself that something was better than nothing as long as I was doing my best. Then, I added a little bit more to the list to challenge myself but at the same time make it manageable.

    4. Chunking.

    As a teacher I love to teach my students the concept of chunking. When confronted with a large task or assignment, an effective strategy is to “chunk” the assignment, doing a little bit at a time. This will increase your chances of successfully completing the task and also doing a good job at it.

    Prior to my disappointing summer, I was writing 1,500 words a day. I had hoped to write 2,500 words a day. Today, I don’t have time for either of those goals and settled for a manageable 500.

    As I find myself able to handle more, I know I can always move up or down in my personal quota, but for right now my “chunks” are a realistic measure of something I can reasonably accomplish. While challenging yourself is never a bad idea, you shouldn’t set yourself up to fail.

    5. Log your efforts.

    One way to help yourself see the “big picture” is to keep track of what you do. I have a small journal where I log my effort each day on a particular project. By the end of the month I can see on paper what I’ve accomplished and it serves as a reminder that I am moving forward even when it feels like I’m not.

    6. Celebrate.

    Taking the time to celebrate means you are taking care of yourself. You are the most important vehicle in accomplishing your goals and as such you should treat yourself with love and respect. When you’re making progress, big or small, never forget to take the time to celebrate your efforts.

    At the end of the day you must be your biggest fan. Put one foot in front of the other and keep walking forward, but don’t forget to pause and celebrate the small victories throughout the journey.

    Woman looking into the distance image via Shutterstock

  • How a Major Crisis Can Sometimes Be a Blessing in Disguise

    How a Major Crisis Can Sometimes Be a Blessing in Disguise

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

    Ten years ago my life changed in a dramatic way. What I experienced in 2004 seemed like a major disaster at first, but it turns out that sometimes what seems like the worst life experience can actually be one of our biggest blessings.

    In 2004, I was in graduate school, working toward a PhD in history. When I graduated from college in 2001, I wanted to be a professor. Well, that’s what I thought I wanted, but the truth was I was scared to “grow up” and get a real job, and graduate school seemed like a less scary option.

    When I got to grad school in the fall of 2001, I immediately felt like a fish out of water. While in college, I thrived and loved learning about history and doing primary source research. Graduate school was different.

    I remember feeling out of place in classes where everyone read books written by other historians and argued about what they thought of the book instead of diving right into research.

    In addition, I didn’t click with my advisor; we couldn’t communicate with each other, and that frustrated me. I was also a teaching assistant and realized that most of my students couldn’t care less about studying history. I quickly became disillusioned and unhappy.

    When I would talk to my family about how unhappy I was, my parents kept saying, “Well, what do you want to do?” I had no answer to that question. I just knew in my heart that this was not it, but I was too scared to face the unknown.

    Fast forward three years to 2004 when I was planning to have elective surgery that summer only to discover through the pre-op blood work that something was majorly wrong with me.

    After several weeks of tests and a long hospital stay, I finally had a diagnosis (which turned out to be a misdiagnosis, but that’s another story). I was told that I had Chronic Mylogeous Leukemia (CML). The diagnosis terrified me.

    While I was very deeply shaken by this, I attempted to continue with my graduate school program, only to feel more and more dissatisfied with what I was doing.

    Then, in September of 2005, my best friend from college passed away suddenly. Her death rocked me to the core and was the final wake-up call that I needed to change my life.

    After several months of grief and deep depression, I came to realize that life is way too short to be so incredibly miserable.

    Since I didn’t know how long my life would last because of this medical diagnosis, and because I was well aware that twenty-five year olds do just die, it was time to make some major changes. Even though I didn’t know my path forward, I knew to my very core that the one I was on was not for me.

    It took a major health crisis and the death of my friend to get me to admit that it was okay to not know what my next step was, but I needed to give up the path that was so clearly not mine.

    I got a job because I needed health insurance, and I started to work on healing my body, mind, and spirit. I spent hours each week going to therapy and exploring other healing modalities.

    It was through this healing process that I came to realize in a relatively short time what I did want to do. I was sitting in a biofeedback session and I had a moment where I actually saw myself in the practitioner’s chair, doing what she was doing.

    The lightning bolt of inspiration hit and I knew my next path was becoming clear.

    I went back to school, this time pursuing a master’s in psychology. I knew that what I had gone through was a wake-up call and a very statement of what my purpose in life was.

    I knew that I hadn’t gone to hell and back to just work for someone else in a job that didn’t feel deeply meaningful and fulfilling to me.

    I knew, to my very core, that I was here to help others along the healing path.

    If you had told me in 2005 that I would say that what I went through in those two years was on many levels some of the best things that ever happened to me, I would have looked at you like you had two heads.

    But ten years later, I know deep in my heart that without those huge wake-up calls, I might still be pursuing a path that isn’t truly mine because I was too scared to take a big leap.

    If you are currently going through a tough time, allow yourself to feel and express your feelings and, as you do so, practice self-compassion.

    It is okay to feel sadness, anger, frustration, grief, fear, and a whole host of other emotions. By allowing yourself to feel those feelings and letting them move through you, without being self-critical in the process, you allow the energy to shift instead of getting stuck and bottled up.

    Spend some time reflecting on whether there’s some kind of hidden opportunity in what you are experiencing.

    For example, if you have been laid off, perhaps you are being given the opportunity to find more meaningful work. Getting sick can be the opportunity to take a break, rest, and to heal yourself on deeper levels. A breakdown can be the chance to heal pain from your past that hasn’t been fully resolved.

    Lastly, remember that you are not your tough time. For me, not identifying as a “cancer patient” was crucial because if I identified that way, then my whole life was seen through that filter. Don’t attach to any labels that don’t feel right to you.

    Sometimes an experience that seems incredibly horrible can actually have hidden gifts inside it. Just be patient with the path you are on, take it one day at a time, and know that sometime in the future, you will likely gain incredible insight on the gifts of what you are going through.

  • 8 Draining Habits to Let Go if You Want to Be Happy

    8 Draining Habits to Let Go if You Want to Be Happy

    “We first make our habits, then our habits make us.” ~John Dryden

    This may look good, sound good, and maybe even feel good at first, but it’s not serving you well in the end!

    I’d hear this thought in my head over and over and still not believe it. But it had persisted ever since I started questioning the status quo in my life. And I don’t mean a loud, in-your-face, obnoxious line of questioning, but rather, a gentle curious whisper that asks: Well, why does it have to be this way, if I may ask?

    Questioning the status quo is not a novelty in our modern society, but here’s the thing: I was questioning the good stuff, like great habits that I grew up with and ideals that are the foundation of my value system.

    In a sad way, the thought made sense. Every time I’d finish going through the motions of one of my “great habits,” I’d feel drained, in a funk, out of sorts, exhausted, but not in an accomplished kind of way.

    So I started adjusting my autopilot habits and I’m already feeling a shift toward serenity. I suppose this is the counter-intuitive inner work that makes self-discovery so much fun, right?

    So, ready to question some of your great habits too? Check to see if you fall in the trap of a great habit that may not be serving you.

    1. The habit of working hard at the exclusion of all else.

    For the first six years of my corporate job, I was a complete workaholic. Those first years were also the least rewarding, financially and emotionally, because I neglected the more essential aspects of building a career, such as creating relationships and building trust.

    Most of us are hard workers and we identify a sense of pride with it too. It’s how we were brought up; it’s what society expects and rewards.

    Just beware the trap of hard work, especially if you’re using it as a Band-Aid on something that hasn’t given you results, such as working even harder to get ahead at work or to please someone in a relationship.

    What to do instead: Pause long enough to examine the big picture and the situation at hand, and question your current approach. Is more work going really to give you the results you need?

    2. The habit of taking care of everyone and everything else first.

    I watched my mom make a lot of sacrifices for us over the years, but even as a kid I could see that a lot of them were at the expense of her own livelihood. I noticed that this made her bitter. While everyone around her was grateful, she did not need to go that far. She could be self-nurturing and caring to the rest of her family.

    You may be a loving mother (or father or sibling), caring and giving, but to a fault.

    You take care of everyone and everything else—even the laundry and the dishes!—before taking care of yourself. Sometimes at the expense of it. You’re sacrificing your own well-being because you don’t want to seem selfish.

    What to do instead: Know that sacrifice does not earn the respect or gratitude of others. Being a good role model does. Take care of yourself so you’re strong and healthy for the important people in your life. It’s not selfish. It’s self-nurturing, it’s necessary, and you’re allowed.

    3. The habit of listening to everyone’s problems without boundaries.

    As an immigrant to the US, I was so hungry for making friends that I was over the moon if someone confided in me.

    This habit grew into a habit of listening without any boundaries, and so I became the place my friends deposited all their problems. When I saw that it wasn’t helping them and it was wearing me down, I had to draw the line.

    Listening is a gift, and if a friend needs to be heard, if a parent needs to voice concerns, if a spouse needs to vent about work, if a co-worker needs to complain, who better than a great listener?

    Just watch out because being the bank where everyone deposits their complaints, outrage, sorrow, and pity can have its negative consequences and take its toll on you.

    What to do instead: Listen enough to hear the initial problem, then gently move the conversation toward finding solutions, being optimistic, and focusing on the positive. If they still need a professional therapist, remember: it’s not your job to be one!

    4. The habit of responding to every call to attention—email, phone, text—right away.

    It’s wonderful to be responsive. I love responsive people, and I do my absolute best to get back to people. But this constant distraction can ruin your focus, disrupt your routine, and cause problems when running a business.

    What to do instead: Be more stingy with your time and set aside dedicated slots to respond to texts, emails, and phone calls. Unless it’s an emergency, it can wait. Because this one’s deeply ingrained, train yourself little by little to master this one.

    5. The habit of offering your expertise, products, or services free or cheap to friends and family.

    My sister-in-law is a doctor and her generosity toward my family’s health questions knows no end. Sometimes, I feel that we abuse her medical expertise.

    Whatever side of the situation you may be on—giving or receiving the deed—going too far can have an adverse short- or long-term effect on the relationship.

    What to do instead: Set clear boundaries; give and ask for respect in this regard. It’s totally fine if you don’t want to offer your services or products at a discount or free just because people are related to you. It makes you a professional, that’s all.

    6. The habit of getting straight A’s in every class in your life.

    Ah, the A student dilemma! Every culture and society praises the A student and frowns on the C student. As a straight-A student my entire life, I can clearly see that it robbed so much happiness and fun out of my life.

    If I could go back, I’d settle for B- and more fresh air and yoga, thank you!

    What to do instead: Decide first if you even want to go to university or graduate school. Then define your own measure of success and stick to it. Learning and applying the knowledge is way more important than the final grade from your teacher so focus on that.

    7. The habit of doing everything for your kids or students or elderly parents.

    My mom has an aunt who still cooks and cleans for her thirty-five-year-old daughter, who’s a perfectly capable woman.

    Do you do everything for others instead of showing them how to do it? Sometimes people need help, but if you condition them to having you do it all the time, they never become self-sufficient. You do them and yourself a disservice.

    What to do instead: Before doing the next task for the person you’re helping, ask them if they’d like to learn how to do it. Start teaching and showing more and doing less.

    8. The habit of pleasing others at the expense of your own dreams and desires.

    The hardest part of quitting my job and starting my business was that I was going against my parents’ wishes for me. It was hard but absolutely and positively the only right path for me.

    We are conditioned to say “yes” to please our family and loved ones. This can be detrimental to your happiness if you happen to want something else.

    What to do instead: Be true to yourself. You can still be kind and gentle toward others, but you get one life, and your dreams and desires are your business, and they deserve your best shot.

    —

    Your turn now: Do any of these great habits make you pause and think? What other good habits have you found to get in the way of happy living?

  • How to Stop Fearing the Worst and Worrying About “What Ifs”

    How to Stop Fearing the Worst and Worrying About “What Ifs”

    “Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths.” ~Charles H. Spurgeon

    There’s nothing like a real health emergency for putting insignificant worries into perspective.

    By the time I was pregnant the second time, I had left my struggles with anxiety largely behind me. Having been to therapy years earlier to find coping mechanisms for managing my ever-present phobias, I was in a fairly good place when I learned I’d been given a second chance at having a child.

    But worry is as much as part of me as breathing, and having lost a pregnancy the year prior, I spent the first eight to ten weeks of the second one constantly preoccupied with the what-ifs that tend to haunt anxiety sufferers, even reformed ones like me.

    One day in week forty, after many hours of irregular contractions, something told me I needed to check myself into the hospital. It was a different feeling than the one I’d experienced during my panic attacks, which was always induced by the fight or flight response.

    It was calmer, and felt more peaceful. So I listened.

    Once I got there, the midwives discovered my blood pressure was 200/110 (stroke territory). I was in the middle of a hypertensive crisis caused by undiagnosed pre-eclampsia—a dangerous condition that affects a small percentage of pregnant women worldwide.

    They admitted me immediately, and a scene from an emergency room TV drama ensued. Machines screamed. Nurses ran. Doctors were paged. IV’s were administered.

    Between waves of doctors and nurses I learned that if they didn’t succeed in getting my blood pressure down soon, I could seize, stroke out, or suffer irreparable damage to my liver and kidneys.

    To further complicate matters, my son was starting to show some signs of distress, and I got the sense from the folks in scrubs around my bedside that they weren’t quite sure how to manage it.

    Through it all I remained surprisingly calm, somehow at peace with what was happening around me, despite the many hours I’d spent worrying about just such an event in the past. I felt saddened by the possibility of dying—or worse, losing my son—but not panicked or afraid.

    When my son was born, healthy and strong by emergency C-section, then I truly understood the futility of my past concern.

    Having survived the incident unscathed, I spent the next six years of my life working on building the skills that keep the time-suck that is anxiety from ever coming back.

    If I had to tell my past self something I’ve learned to prevent unnecessary suffering, it would go something like this:

    Don’t argue with a fool. (People may not know the difference).

    One piece of advice for anxiety sufferers I read and hear often is to take a deep breath and reassure yourself that you are safe, your anxiety can’t hurt you, and your fears are all in your head.

    Anxiety is irrational, and no amount of rational thinking will banish unnecessary worry or anxious thoughts. In fact, trying to fight irrational thinking with logic can be counterproductive and lead you down the rabbit hole of self-doubt.

    Instead, respond to irrational fears by accepting that there is a (however remote) possibility that what you fear may come to pass, but also trust that if it does, you will have the tools to manage it.

    Don’t ask others to argue with a fool.

    Mental illness is tough, and having support from friends and family is key to making it through unscathed to the other side.

    Asking your friends and families to tell you why your fears are unfounded and your worries are irrational is not asking for help—it’s asking for validation.

    Many of us suffering through anxiety believe that if we can’t trust our own logical arguments for why everything is going to be okay, maybe someone else can make it okay for us.

    This kind of behavior often serves to undermine your self-confidence and create codependent tendencies, since you’re relying (most often very ineffectively) on others to manage your anxiety for you.

    Find a more productive focal point.

    A few years before my pregnancy, when I was first treated for anxiety, my therapist taught me a trick I carry with me to this day.

    Anxiety needs a focal point, but with a little sleight of hand you can find one that is less disturbing than your worry.

    When embarking on a trip to Cabo for my friend’s wedding (I’m afraid to fly), she told me to wear the most uncomfortable outfit I could tolerate for the flight. I chose a tight, itchy strapless corset, and spent a good nine hours trying to fight the garment’s pinch.

    Guess what I wasn’t doing, though, while cursing my existence? Worrying about plane crashes.

    Over time, I’ve found many other tools to help me stay present and banish unnecessary concerns. If I have a legitimate worry, I take action to mitigate risks and try to move on with my life.

    If there’s nothing I can do, I occupy my mind with something else. I practice yoga. I wear itchy underwear. Most of all I trust. I trust that I can deal with any unexpected hurdles life might throw my way.

    And if for some reason I encounter one I can’t manage, it simply was meant to be, whether it’s what I want for my life or not.

    And then I move on and enjoy the moment. Or at least I try, anyway.

  • 7 Ways to Live a Less Fearful, More Peaceful Life

    7 Ways to Live a Less Fearful, More Peaceful Life

    Peaceful Man

    “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when adults are afraid of the light.” ~Adapted from Plato

    I was digging in my half-empty refrigerator one day, searching for leftovers, when my phone rang. I glared at it wondering who the hell had the nerve to interrupt my hunt for sustenance.

    I grabbed the phone with pure agitation and put it to my ear. On the other end of the line I heard a faint voice mutter the three most unforgettable words I had ever heard: “Dad is gone.”

    The faint voice belonged to my stepmom Rose. She told me that dad was headed for surgery that morning when he had a massive heart attack. She said that he sprang up in bed and reached out to her with his eyes stretched open in terror. And that was it. He was gone.

    As an anxious twenty-two-year-old, suffering wasn’t new to me, but this was different. It wasn’t long after my dad died that I spiraled into daily panic attacks and became a whimpering victim of anxiety.

    We all encounter fear sometimes—it’s normal. But I did it all wrong. I let it control my life. After my dad passed away, my days were usually filled with uncertainty, self-doubt, and misery.

    I later wondered if the same fate awaited me, to the point where I developed all kinds of phobias: health phobia, social phobia, and a crushing fear of death. I was truly lost.

    Fear became my new normal. I allowed my negative thoughts to shape my reality. I stopped believing in myself, in other people, in the future; all of it seemed meaningless.

    Over the years I struggled to tame my fears, and if I’m being totally honest, on some days I still struggle. The good news is that I don’t stay stuck like I used to.

    I’ve learned to understand my fears for what they really are, rather than what I imagine them to be. And I live with less fear every day because of seven rock solid tips that I learned after losing my dad.

    1. Relax.

    When we are fearful, we get tense without even knowing it. Learning how to let go of tension was a key factor in my recovery from fear and anxiety.

    I learned progressive muscle relaxation exercises and practiced daily. I learned that making peace with your body is a great way to make peace with your mind.

    2. Find your inner observer.

    I had no idea that I had one, but there is a part of the mind that is able to observe thoughts without judgment or expectation. Getting in touch with your inner observer weakens the power of fear and reduces “what if” thinking.

    Meditation is hands down one of the best ways to train yourself to identify and strengthen this part of your mind.

    3. Reframe.

    Words are powerful. The ones you use to describe life and all its challenges will not change what happens to you, but it can change how you feel about it.

    Instead of obsessing over my “palpitations,” I reframed this as “I’m nervous.” Reframing helped me to form positive perspectives about all kinds of stuff.

    4. Be mindful.

    When I was really anxious I lived in the past or the future. I totally forgot about living my life in the present. Take the time to enjoy today.

    5. Connect.

    Fear has a way of isolating us from ourselves and others. But it’s important to remember that connecting with other people is a vital part of a healthy life. Reach out!

    6. Challenge your fears.

    Do you want to know how absurd fear can be? I used to fear soft drinks! Well, actually, I was afraid of caffeine, but seriously. Challenging your fears builds self-confidence and over time ensures that you get to live the full version of your life.

    7. Be kind to yourself.

    There is a 100% chance that things won’t always go your way, including being afraid when you don’t want to be. Don’t punish yourself for being “stupid” or “weak,” though. It’s okay to be afraid sometimes. The question is: What are you going to do when fear comes to your doorstep?

    When I’d get anxious, it was because I didn’t believe that I had what I needed to be okay. But the truth is that we all do—somehow, someway, we always do.

    And therein lies the “secret” to living with less fear: the realization that you do have the means to weather any storm. That you are stronger than you give yourself credit for.

    Peaceful man image via Shutterstock

  • How to Give Yourself and Others the Gift of Happiness

    How to Give Yourself and Others the Gift of Happiness

    People holding hands

    “It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.” ~Albert Einstein

    My son recently returned home from college with a new demeanor.

    He was helpful, considerate, interested in others, and genuinely happy. The change was a far cry from the boy who had left for college just a few short months before.

    Don’t get me wrong, he has always been a good kid, but up until now he’s been a typical teenager. He was a bit messy, a bit lazy, and if it wasn’t part of his video game he was mostly uninterested.

    So what changed?

    My husband and I began discussing it over dinner. I told him I thought it had a lot to do with the philanthropic efforts of the fraternity he joined. Now instead of playing video games all weekend, he was volunteering at animal shelters and helping the less fortunate by providing physical labor.

    My husband was intrigued. He had always associated philanthropy with money. After all, it’s a word often associated with wealth or large foundations; was it possible for an average person to be philanthropic?

    We began doing research on philanthropy and found that anyone can be philanthropic.

    The word philanthropy actually means “love of humanity.” To be philanthropic means to care, nourish, develop and enhance the human experience.

    Philanthropy is different than charity. The easiest way to explain the difference is that charity takes care of an immediate need, where philanthropy tries to solve a problem.

    Think of it as you can give someone money so that they may buy a meal (charity), or you can teach the person a skill so that they may make a wage and pay for their own meal (philanthropy).

    Research suggests one of the keys to happiness is the act of helping others. It is known as the “helper’s high.” This would explain the change in my son’s personality.

    Medical research into the “helper’s high” phenomenon has shown people who volunteer experience feelings of euphoria. They also found this “high” has possible health benefits that far outreach the act of giving.

    Research suggests people who regularly participate in charities have less pain, sleep better, and have a personal sense of reward and fulfillment.Giving leads to a happier life.

    Philanthropy goes beyond the basics of giving time or money to a cause. It is a foundation that when regularly practiced builds relationships and strengthens self-worth. It is a circular action that builds momentum. We give because it makes us feel good. We feel good because we give.

    Like anything worthwhile in life, there has to be balance. Sometimes too much of a good thing can cause harm. In order to maximize the benefits of philanthropy it’s important to understand how to be a healthy giver.

    Here are five things you should know in order to maximize the benefits of happiness from philanthropy.

    1. Understand philanthropy is selfish.

    Some people find fault in giving to receive, but how else can you give? It’s like eating without satisfying hunger. Yes. We receive and emotional high when we give, but the happiness experienced from giving is natural.

    Some research suggests that you cannot fulfill happiness without giving. Philanthropy is a route to give happiness away in exchange for our own new recharged happiness.

    2. You cannot save the world.

    Some get discouraged because they think too big and their efforts become unrealistic. This can actually have the adverse effect and brings unhappiness. You cannot change the world by yourself, but your efforts, in conjunction with others, can change a life.

    Concentrate on the smaller benefits of giving to maximize the cycle of happiness.

    3. Don’t give to the greatest need unless your heart is in it.

    Only choose causes that speak to your heart. If you love animals, volunteer in a shelter or become a foster home for a kill shelter. If you love children, become a mentor to a high-risk child. The closer your heart is to the cause, the more benefit for your natural cycle of happiness.

    4. Make giving a regular part of your routine.

    Not being consistent in giving your time or money will not increase your happiness. It’s like diet and exercise. If you don’t practice the change consistently, you cannot maximize the benefits.

    Benefits come when relationships form and strengthen over a time of regular giving. This is the best way to see your efforts at work and receive the valuable feedback regarding the difference your efforts make.

    5. Never give too much of yourself to help others.

    Balance is a key in giving just like in all things in life. Never sacrifice your own needs for the needs of others. It’s just like the flight attendant tells you before the plane takes off. Secure your own oxygen before assisting others.

    After seeing the difference giving has made in my son’s life, I’m ready to begin incorporating regular giving into my own life. I hope you join me.

    Do you have a cause that’s close to your heart where you give regularly? How has it made a difference in your life?

    People holding hands image via Shutterstock

  • Releasing Expectations: It’s Okay to Be Right Where You Are

    Releasing Expectations: It’s Okay to Be Right Where You Are

    “The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.” ~Shunryu Suzuki

    When I was younger, I am sure I was a little bit arrogant. I had high expectations for my life. They haven’t come to pass. I haven’t achieved whatever I thought I would achieve. It turns out that I’m an ordinary human being struggling with ordinary things.

    Now that I’m in my forties, I have experienced disappointment, failure, and confusion. Many times I have lost sight of the path, and sometimes it’s felt like there never was one.

    I expected I would be a writer. I did not expect to be a secretary. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it just wasn’t what I dreamed of.

    I didn’t expect to have periods of unemployment, loneliness, or despair. I didn’t expect to be just like everyone else. Maybe I thought I was special, different, exempt. Maybe we all think that when we’re younger.

    It’s not like I had it easy in my early life, but by my twenties I’m sure I thought it would all go to plan. It never went to plan. I’m not sure there ever was a plan.

    And yet, maybe it has gone to plan, just not my plan. If some higher power is running the show, maybe this is part of the plan.

    If I want to express the highs and lows of being human, then I need to have lived them. That’s what being a writer is. It’s not just being bulletproof and full of ideals. It’s making the dream right there in the gritty groundedness of everyday life.

    I also realize that what I have achieved is not that important. What’s more important is what I’ve learned, and much of that didn’t come from success. Often my lessons came from the struggle of being human—wanting, trying, failing, and wanting and trying some more.

    So at this stage, with my dreams still tugging at my heart and a lot of struggle behind me, I finally understand something about self-acceptance.

    Here I am, right now. This is where I am and it’s okay.

    Right here, right now.

    I am where I am right now. That’s my starting point. I might wish I were further along, but I am where I am. I have to accept where I am or I can’t move anywhere, let alone forward.

    Where are you now? Why is that okay?

    This is my life and it’s good.

    When I come back to gratitude, everything gets better. My expectations may be higher than my reality, but really, I have so much. Many people lack the basics: good food, clean water, access to healthcare, literacy. Even at the simplest level, my life is blessed.

    What do you give thanks for?

    A divine plan.

    It does seem that life isn’t running according to my plan. Maybe there is a bigger plan. I may not always like it, but maybe it’s perfect after all. I don’t know what the Universe has in mind. It would be very arrogant to think I did.

    How could this be part of a higher plan?

    Being very human.

    Experiencing disappointment, struggle, and failure is part of being human. It helps us feel for each other. I am fairly idealistic, but at this age I know that I am pretty human. I am full of faults and mistakes, and a few brilliant moments too.

    How do you feel most human in your challenges? Why is that good?

    No better or worse.

    In my twenties I went to acting school. When you act, you explore the potential to be many different selves. We all have the potential to be an angel or a devil. Most of us are in between, but it might have worked out differently.

    Why are you no better or worse than anyone else?

    Favorite faults.

    Honestly, sometimes our faults are simply our characteristics. Maybe you’re bossy but a great organizer, or a natural leader. Maybe you are a rebel who challenges the way we think and act. Maybe you channel your anger and make others laugh at your daring. Great comedians do that.

    What is your favorite fault? How could you use it?

    How it looks to the world.

    We are often much harder on ourselves than anyone else would ever be. You may think you’ve achieved nothing while, to the next person, you have everything. It’s all relative and it’s all perspective. None of us have an unbiased lens.

    There is no point wishing you were more than you are. It may all be happening this way for a reason. Even if there is no reason, the meaning you choose will make the difference.

    At the end of our lives, it won’t really matter how many toys we have or even what we have achieved. It will matter that we appreciated this one precious life. It will matter that we enjoyed and explored being human. Love and experience; that’s it.

    Let’s not give up on our dreams. Let’s keep moving toward them. Just play the game lightly with little attention to the score.

  • How to KISS Your Way to A Less Stressful, Overwhelming Life

    How to KISS Your Way to A Less Stressful, Overwhelming Life

    Zen Woman

    “Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.” ~John Maeda

    The past few months of my life were a myriad of things, to say the least: busy, chaotic, overwhelming, exhausting, frustrating, and stressful. I felt like my fuel tank was on zero, but I had to get up and do it all over again the next day.

    I wasn’t stopping to take it all in and check in with myself to see how I was doing. It took catching up with a friend in town on a whirlwind trip to give me a big, smack-bang wake-up call. I was filling her in on everything I was currently juggling (which looked like this):

    • Studying twenty hours per week
    • Working two part-time jobs
    • Running my little love bomb of a website
    • Packing our life into boxes as our rental was being sold (and dealing with open houses and constant intrusions to our physical space)
    • Being Mum to a four-year-old and six-year-old and everything that comes with running a family life (when the workweek entails solo parenting, as my hubby works long hours)
    • Having no family support to help with any of the above

    She looked at me like I was crazy, and asked with kindness, concern, and a little bit of disbelief, “How are you managing all that?”

    The fact of the matter was, I wasn’t. I wasn’t at all. And trying to answer her stumped me a little bit, because I hadn’t stopped to ask myself the same thing.

    I was so caught up in doing that I wasn’t being. I felt like I was constantly tired, stressed, and unhappy. And that’s not fun for me or anyone I love.

    I had to stop. Something had to give, and I needed to make the right kind of changes. I needed to start listening to my inner voice—because she was talking loud and clear, giving me all the signs and telling me how she was feeling, but I wasn’t listening.

    So I said “sorry” and poured as much loving compassion and self-kindness as I could into me.

    I started with resigning from the part-time job that I was struggling with the most. The days were long, my kids were finding it hard with a full day of school and daycare around my working hours, and I didn’t have weekends off to spend time with my family.

    I loved the people I worked with, but I knew that I wasn’t going to work a minimum wage job for the rest of my life, because I wanted to dedicate time to my dreams.

    It was scary to take that plunge from safety because I was comfortable. And I felt guilty and bad—like I should just be able to get on with it and make things work—but I had to shut down that mean girl voice stat and crank up the volume on the loving, kind, Oprah’s-got-your-back voice, pronto.

    Once I pressed send on my resignation email—sitting, eyes squeezed shut, and trepidation running through my veins—I checked in with my feelings.

    My authentic feelings, which I started to pluck from the weeds of guilt and doubt, began to surface. This felt good. This felt really good. I knew I was on a winning track and I wanted more.

    One by one, I started to make changes that were more in line with simplifying my life.

    I’d had a taste of authenticity and tuning in to my inner frequency, and it was amazing.

    Some things in life are non-negotiable, but it’s okay to work with the things that are flexible and be kind to ourselves with the things that aren’t as easy to maneuver.

    We have a choice, all the time, in everything we do. Was I choosing to do all of the crazy, hectic nonsense my life was filled with? I sure was. But I needed to make some different choices because they weren’t working out so well for me.

    So began my journey to getting a little extra loving in my life. I got busy KISSing. Anywhere and everywhere I could, I learned to K.I.S.S.

    How do you do that?

    Keep. It. Simple. Sweetheart.

    When things are getting too complicated for you, stop. And K.I.S.S.

    When things are getting out of control and you’re not sure where your head is at or what’s going on where and when and next and OH MY GOD! Just stop. Breathe. And then K.I.S.S.

    When you’re starting to feel like a rag doll being pulled in a million different directions and all your stitches are about to come undone, and your cute, mismatched buttons are ready to pop, just stop. Slow down. Give yourself the most loving, kindest gift of all. And that’s to K.I.S.S.

    We need to start checking in with ourselves more and listening to our inner voice. What is it saying? What does it want? What needs to give/stop/surrender/be put on pause in order to simplify and feel free?

    How are you coping with things, and what is in your power and in your choice to change?

    You have so much more strength and authority than you probably give yourself credit for to make choices that benefit you. And you’re allowed to make those choices.

    When I thought about leaving one of my jobs, I considered what my options were. I would have less income but the trade off for me was also less stress and more time with my family (and doing other things I enjoyed). That, for me, was priceless.

    I still had one job to help pay the bills and had to stick to a tighter budget, but my schedule became more manageable to do this. By far, the most important change was that I felt happier. That was how I really knew it was worth doing.

    It can be daunting at first, but learning how to simplify your life can start by simply being aware of the changes you want to make.

    Practice saying “no” when you feel you are overextending yourself. Start asking for help more often when you feel overwhelmed. Outsource anything someone else is capable of doing for you instead, and downsize or upgrade whatever it is that would make your life less complicated.

    As much as we love everyone in our lives and care about not letting others down, who is going to take care of you in the best way possible? You got it, sweetheart. You.

    You are the most qualified and most entitled to do just that, nobody else. And you can K.I.S.S. away anything you need, whether it’s in your relationships, work, or parenting.

    Where do you need a loving K.I.S.S. right now? Plant those babies everywhere and start feeling more aligned, more in tune, and way more freakin’ happy with what you’re doing in this lovely life of yours.

    Zen woman image via Shutterstock

  • Stop Keeping Score in Relationships and Start Taking Care of Each Other

    Stop Keeping Score in Relationships and Start Taking Care of Each Other

    Loving Couple

    “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” ~Desmond Tutu

    I was recently at the grocery store, and not once, but twice, I encountered couples practically duking it out in the aisles. I mean, full on snit-fits happening here. One pair was so mad, the woman actually walked in the opposite direction down the aisle, her five- or six-year-old in tow.

    Totally productive, right?

    The other pair was fighting because the husband couldn’t decide which milk to get. His wife was trying to hurry him up, and finally he said, in the most frustrated voice ever, “Can’t I take a minute to decide??” Needless to say, she got upset, while he stood in front of the milk case, fuming.

    This is what frequently happens in grocery stores.

    I used to drag my husband to the store with me on the weekends, thinking that it was some sort of household couple karma—I wash the dishes/you pay the bills; I do the laundry/you feed the dog every day; we both hit the grocery store once a week. One for one. Tit for tat. A leveling of the scales, and, if I’m honest, a somewhat misdirected homage to feminism in the household.

    But what I found is that not every chore is equal, and that’s okay. What I feel to be a difficult chore may be easy for my husband, and what I find to be fun or at least tolerable, he would rather walk across hot coals than do. So it is with grocery shopping.

    Every time we went together, it required hours of mental preparation:

    “When do you want to go to the grocery store?” My mantra. Every weekend.

    “Never.”

    “That’s not an option. How about in an hour?”

    “Fine,” said in a somewhat snarky twelve-year-old voice.

    Every time, this conversation. And every time, an hour would come and go, and I’d be waiting around, ready to go, while he was sitting on pins and needles waiting for me to come and nag about it.

    Not pretty. Not good for our relationship. So I decided if he really doesn’t want to go, then I really don’t want to make him.

    The grocery store is already a high stimulus environment—BUY THIS! LOW FAT! NATURAL! HONEST! The shelves are practically screaming and my synapses are firing on full-blast as I try to navigate between product displays and random children.

    I’m already apologizing to people every time I almost run someone over turning the corner; do I need to be feeling bad about dragging my husband along as well?

    To be fair, we never actually had a full-on fight in (or about) the grocery store—thank goodness. But it was never an easy, comfortable time. There was always mutual resentment, and who needs that?

    Not me. Not my husband. Not anyone.

    Besides, when he’s not there, I get to linger. I spend time looking at the ingredient lists and nutrition labels. I come up with ideas, make plans, and buy special snacks. It becomes an adventure, not a chore.

    Sometimes it isn’t about equality. Sometimes it’s about taking care of each other. I do what my husband doesn’t like to do, and vice versa, so that when we’re together, it’s about us, and not about how many chores the other person has completed.

    There’s no scoreboard, only gratitude.

    Divide and conquer. And save your marriage, relationship, friendship, or partnership. Serve the other by doing what they hate to do. Take out the trash. Go by the bank. Do the dishes.

    It isn’t a favor to cash in at a later date (though it’s always nice when it’s reciprocated). It’s an honest-to-goodness foot-washing of the 21st century.

    To be clear, I’m not advocating for you to do everything for your partner. That would be unfair. There should still be a feeling of balanced support in any relationship. But at the end of the day, caring for one another in a balanced way is not the same thing as keeping score.  

    We want to feel that we can lean on our partners when we need to, as much as they can lean on us. And that makes for one powerful relationship.

    Of course, if you and your partner love to shop together, by all means, keep it up! Even when it’s just folding laundry, it feels good to do things together. Even though we no longer grocery shop as a couple, my husband and I do a lot of other chores together—not because we’re made to, but because we want to.

    And more power to every couple who can work side by side. Just remember that it’s not the only way to get things done. I swear to all things delicious, I don’t totally love going to the grocery store. I probably never will.

    But I do love doing something kind for my husband every week. It’s that simple.

    Loving couple image via Shutterstock

  • A Simple 5-Minute Habit That Can Make You Happier

    A Simple 5-Minute Habit That Can Make You Happier

    Smiling Woman

    “Gratitude creates joy—not vice versa.” ~Dr. Brené Brown

    To be blunt, my summer of 2013 sucked. In a matter of months, a tidal wave of stressful events happened and it completely shattered my sense of safety. I was on the verge of a serious depression.

    The summer began with a broken heart. The love of my life, the man I planned to marry, broke up with me and admitted he had wanted to leave for the past year.

    In a matter of minutes, my dreams of starting a family and living happily ever after were crushed. It caught me so off guard I could barely breathe. I quickly moved out of our New York City apartment, crashed on friends’ couches, and started hunting for a second job.

    After a month of couch surfing, I found a small studio to sublet in Brooklyn. Things were starting to look up until I severely sprained my foot two days before moving into the fifth floor walk-up building. In the city where you must walk and climb stairs to get anywhere, it royally sucked.

    The frustrations kept rolling in. My studio apartment had no air conditioning for a couple weeks, two of my credit cards were stolen, and my office job started delivering rounds of layoffs. I started having panic attacks at night and my eye was twitching non-stop.

    Things got worse when my dad got sick. He passed away in July.

    Hanging on by shreds, I turned thirty at the end of the summer. Part of me wanted to throw a tantrum, kick and scream, and give up on life. But I was so exhausted, I just felt numb. So, I busied myself with work and exercise. I’ve always been stubborn, and I refused to fall apart.

    Even though I felt lonely, broken, and disappointed, I had to wonder if the universe was up to something. As tough as it all was, I knew it was up to me to make it better, no matter how “unfair” the circumstances. If I learned one thing while living in NYC, it was 100% up to me to fix my life.

    In perfect timing, I saw a re-run of Oprah’s Lifeclass on TV in September. The episode featured a panel of experts discussing how practicing gratitude offers life-changing relief from emotional pain.

    As if someone dumped a cold glass of water over my head, the show gave me a major wake-up call. I realized I desperately needed to change my story.

    That afternoon I wrote my first daily gratitude list and promised to write ten things I was grateful for every single day moving forward.

    Each day I rode the subway to work and typed up gratitude lists on my smartphone. At first, it was difficult to force my brain to stop complaining and noticing everything that was wrong. So, I started off listing small and simple blessings like air-conditioned trains and a clean bed to sleep in every night.

    It didn’t take more than a few days to realize I was incredibly lucky. I was up to my ears in blessings.

    My gratitude practice deepened over time, with thanks for the loving support of friends, and appreciation for every single lesson I was forced to learn that summer.

    For every loss, I had a gain. I had my health, I was never hungry, and I felt stronger than ever. Those are blessings that millions of people in the world will never have.

    But here’s the part I didn’t expect. The moment I started making gratitude lists, life just got easier. As each day passed, I felt better and, dare I say, blissfully optimistic.

    It got easier to put my life back together because I knew I was surrounded by support. Instead of wallowing in what was wrong, I made the daily intention to focus on all the people who made me smile at work, to seek out new things to be grateful for, and to take comfort in simple pleasures like candles, hot baths, sunsets, healthy homemade food, and journaling.

    I started smiling and laughing again, and everyone around me noticed. The new me was grateful to be alive, unapologetic, and full of wonder about where my life was headed next.

    Bursting with positive energy, I encouraged friends to let go of their sob stories and give thanks for everything they already had. The joy I’ve experienced since starting this habit feels absolutely miraculous.

    Shawn Anchor, Research Psychologist and CEO of Good Think Inc., says that gratitude listing “rewire[s] your brain, allowing [it] to actually work more optimistically and more successfully…to retain a pattern of scanning the world, not for the negative, but for the positive first.” I couldn’t agree more.

    Our lives are typically full of expectations, but we often can’t predict how our weeks, months, or years will turn out. I’ve learned that no matter what your current circumstances are, you have the power to change your perspective.

    Gratitude listing is a simple five-minute habit anyone can adopt that has an enormous positive impact on how you view your life. It simply makes you a happier person, and happier people attract the best of everything life has to offer.

    Smiling woman image via Shutterstock

  • 3 Things You Can Start Doing Today to Improve Your Life

    3 Things You Can Start Doing Today to Improve Your Life

    Man Jumping

    “The grass is always greener where you water it.” ~Unknown

    Have you noticed that when we’re unhappy we often spend our time focusing on those very things that are making us unhappy?

    My life has had its ups and downs, like anyone, but one of the lowest lows was back when I had a graduate job at a big four accounting firm.

    I was completely stuck in a rut: I’d drag myself out of bed in the morning, commute to work, spend the day in an office full of people I didn’t like, doing work I found mind-numbingly boring and unfulfilling, go out and drink too much in the evening, often with those same colleagues that I didn’t much like, get a late bus home, and then do it all again.

    I was bored, unhealthy, and unhappy.

    I spent all my energy doing things I didn’t enjoy with people who weren’t my tribe, and then drowning it all with a bottle of wine.

    But it hasn’t always been like that, and I’ve worked out my own tools to turn life on its head and spend my time being happy.

    Now I focus on making every day joyful, and living a life filled with fun, happiness, and adventure.

    As Seth Godin says, “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”

    And that, my friends, is where I come in.

    There are three small but impactful shifts any can make to start improving their life. They may feel daunting initially, but these three shifts will start to make your life different—and better—day by day.

    1. Make some space.

    “Busy” is the new buzzword. Lots of us rush around cramming our day full of unfulfilling activities, and when someone asks how we are, we sigh, “Busy…”

    Have a look at your calendar and see how much time you’re spending doing things that don’t rock your world.

    Do you always say “yes” to meeting up with your husband’s brother’s wife even though you leave feeling drained and unhappy?

    Do you say “yes” to meetings at work that you know beforehand are just going to waste time and cause you to stay late to finish off your real work?

    Do you find yourself out with friends at expensive restaurants where the cost means you spend the night worrying about the bill and not having fun?

    All these things are negotiable! Start saying “no” to events and people that drain you. No need to provide excuses or justification, just politely bow out.

    The more you say “no” to the things that don’t fill you with joy, the more time you have available to do said joyful tasks.

    It can feel scary to begin with—you may end up with free time in your calendar, and lots of us worry that people won’t like us for saying “no.” That’s normal! But are you willing to face those fears to open your life up to make you happy every day?

    2. Do something that scares you.

    Maybe making space in your schedule is already pushing you out of your comfort zone. Great! But I bet there are plenty of things that you’d love to do to fill the space that make you feel jussstttt a little bit nervous.

    These things help expand us, and doing things that start from a place of fear helps free us of the fear and expand our comfort zone. So scare yourself today, and you’ll be less scared tomorrow.

    These scary activities don’t have to be earth shattering. My first list of scary tasks included calling a girl I wanted to be friends with, answering my phone every time it rang (I’d gotten into the habit of screening almost all my calls, even though I love chatting with people!), and joining a dance class.

    See, they’re all simple, but each of them had the effect of improving my life when I did them.

    As you start living from your growing edge and consciously pushing yourself to do things outside your comfort zone, the zone will expand and you will find a renewed confidence in yourself and your abilities.

    3. Do something you love.

    I love to read; I always have. When I was a kid, my dad described it as voracious.

    I’d read all the time—when I went to bed, when I woke up on the weekends, in the afternoon after school. Still, one of my favorite indulgences is when I have time on the weekends to wake up without an alarm and just read in bed until I’m too hungry and have to get up and eat some eggs.

    But when I’m busy, tired, and stressed, it’s one of the first things to go. Huge error! I find myself zonking on the couch in front of TV, getting more and more drained and tired. But I noticed the pattern, and I consciously make time to read now. I love getting lost in a beautiful novel.

    What’s your “thing”? What are a few things you love to do? Read, chat on the phone with friends, go for walks in nature? Write down a list of a few of these things and do one of them every day.

    Maybe pick small things for weekdays and something bigger for the weekends so you don’t overwhelm yourself, but focus on the things you love to do and make it a priority to spend your time doing things that make you happy.

    —

    Once we’ve made some space, written down things we love to do, and started recognizing the things that we’re holding off doing because they’re scary, it’s time to do!

    Take your calendar and book it in. Cross out that thing you’re going to say “no” to, and write in something scary and something you love.

    Make it happen, make the commitment to improve your life in a small way every day. A little bit of daily action will get you further than one huge burst of energy every month.

    It’s your life. Choose to make it amazing.

    Man jumping image via Shutterstock

  • Giving the Benefit of the Doubt to Rude or Annoying People

    Giving the Benefit of the Doubt to Rude or Annoying People

    “Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” ~Henry James

    Some lessons you learn once, and they last a lifetime.

    I loved to bake as a child, and one day I put a bowl of batter in the microwave with the metal whisk I was using to stir it. A minute later, I pulled the bowl out of the microwave and grabbed the hot metal whisk with my bare hand.

    When I think about it, I can still feel the burn from the metal that took several weeks to heal.

    Some lessons last a lifetime.

    And some don’t.

    When I was a little girl, we had a housekeeper for about a month. We came home one day to find that she had stolen several things from our home.

    “Mom! Can you believe Lupe stole these things?! How could she?!”

    My mom barely reacted to this news. “She must have needed them more than we did.”

    I was outraged. “How can you say that? What she did was wrong!”

    My mom calmly replied, “Melanie, you never know what someone else is going through.”

    I wish I’d remembered that lesson many years later when I was the unit coordinator of an emergency room.

    Patients, medical staff, family members, paramedics, and the intercom created a cacophony of voices. People were shouting and running, beeps and buzzers were going off, and the phones were ringing constantly.

    There was a separate phone used for patient calls. Its distinctive ring was as welcome as a hammer to my skull on this frenetic day. Just my luck, I was at the desk next to the room of a patient who called every five minutes.

    BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

    First, she called for ice chips. She needed her bed raised; she needed her bed lowered. She needed the phone, and then she needed the phone hung up.

    Every request she had was heralded by that awful BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

    I could have handled it if she asked for what she needed in a normal voice. Instead, she whined each request, as if she was at death’s door, which I’m sure she was not.

    “Ooh,” she whined, “I need the TV remote.”

    Anyone whose biggest problem is not being able to reach the TV remote has it good in the emergency room, wouldn’t you say?

    I mean, we were in a major trauma center. There were people getting CPR, coming in with gunshot wounds, or rushing to surgery as soon as they came through the door, at the same time this woman was whining about not being able to reach the TV remote.

    I thought this was my chance to help her get a new perspective and realize that really, she had it good. It kind of felt like my duty. Like I’d be doing her a favor.

    So I said, “Well, at least it’s just an issue with your TV remote. There are plenty of people here who won’t survive the night, so you’re doing well to be concerned about watching TV.”

    Her eyes grew wide with shock. Her voice softened with the awe of someone who had just been given great wisdom.

    “Wow. You’re so right. I should be thankful I’m here and doing okay.”

    I sauntered out of her room, feeling great about myself. I really did a good thing. I was like a divine messenger.

    When I got back to the nurses’ station, I decided for kicks to look and see why the woman was in the emergency room in the first place. Probably a stubbed toe or something lame like that. I looked at her chart. Heart transplant recipient, renal failure, blood transfusions.

    She was only thirty-five years old.

    I felt like I’d been hit with a brick.

    And there she was, thanking me for helping her see that her situation wasn’t that bad. That just made it worse.

    I wanted to walk in there and say, “You know what? Your situation is bad! You want some more ice chips?”

    I may not have a physical scar to show, but the shock and shame I felt after reading that woman’s chart went far deeper than the burn from the metal whisk.

    Some lessons last a lifetime.

    I still judge people. Who doesn’t? It’s like my brain receives information and immediately makes a decision about it.

    But I know enough now to remind myself that I’m only seeing part of the picture. Maybe the woman in the hospital called me into her room because she didn’t want to be alone. Maybe she was scared. I don’t know.

    And that’s the point. We never know what someone else is going through, whether it’s a housekeeper stealing from her employer, a woman in the hospital incessantly using her call button, or someone who cuts you off on the highway.

    We never know what someone else is going through.

    What we can do is give other people the benefit of the doubt and choose to show them kindness and compassion.

    I know it’s hard sometimes to feel compassion for someone who is really rude or annoying. That’s when I create a story to explain their behavior.

    The guy who was rude to me at the grocery store—did you know he just got diagnosed with gonorrhea? From his mistress? And his wife is pregnant with another man’s baby?

    No wonder he’s in such a bad mood.

    Making up silly stories helps me lighten up. It helps me remember that I’m only seeing one snippet of this person’s life. They could be longing for a breath of kindness, a modicum of compassion.

    And that’s something I can give.

  • 8 Secrets To Developing Confidence (So Self-Doubt Never Sabotages You Again)

    8 Secrets To Developing Confidence (So Self-Doubt Never Sabotages You Again)

    “What you think of yourself is much more important than what people think of you.” ~Seneca

    I can still remember it like it happened yesterday.

    There I was. Ten years old. It was my first day back at school.

    I walked past the enormous church that marked the entrance of the school compound. I passed under this huge tree as it towered over me. I was in a crowd of other screaming school kids. They laughed and cackled loudly.

    Me?

    I just felt overwhelmed.

    See, I was always an anxious kid. Scared. Worried that I hadn’t done my homework properly. Terrified I’d be punished. That was the world I lived in.

    For many years, my fears tainted my vision like prison bars that impose a life sentence on inmates who have long forgotten the bars even exist.

    As I reached adolescence, my fears manifested as a series of failures. My unshakeable belief in my ineptitude stopped me from truly trying to succeed. Unwittingly, I was conforming to a self-fulfilling prophecy I’d set for myself.

    Many years later, I married an amazing woman who truly believed in me—often when I didn’t believe in myself. Her confidence in my abilities forced me to re-examine my limiting beliefs.

    She’d repeatedly tell me that I could achieve my goals, provided I put in the effort.

    Eventually, I did.

    That was over ten years ago. Today, I’m a confident man who stands tall and is comfortable in his own skin.

    You can develop this confidence too.

    Here are the eight secrets to confidence I learned along the way.

    1. Let the dancer become the dance.

    Do you ever feel disconnected from what you’re doing because of that little voice telling you you’re not good enough?

    Does your mental chatter derail your sincere efforts? If so, you’re not alone. We all experience this from time to time.

    The solution?

    Make a decision to lose yourself completely in your work. Get so absorbed in it that you enter a state of flow. Let the dancer become the dance.

    When the dancer becomes the dance, there is no dancer, and therefore no one to suffer from lack of confidence.

    There’s just the dance. The flow.

    2. Choose an emotional state of success.

    Building self-efficacy is a great way to develop confidence.

    Reflect on your past successes. They don’t have to be related to what you’re trying to achieve right now. They just have to be your successes.

    The point here is to reconnect with those feelings and emotions. They’ll set you up for success in your current endeavor.

    When I face self-doubt as a writer, I quietly reflect on the feeling of success I experienced when my mentor (Jon Morrow) sent me an email saying he was proud of me.

    I often go back to that email to reconnect with the feeling of success it evokes. Seeing this evidence of my abilities as a writer drives away the self-doubt every single time.

    3. Empower yourself with visualizations.

    Visualizing yourself succeeding is another powerful approach.

    Have you watched an elite athlete just before a hundred-meter sprint? She looks intensely at the finish line and visualizes herself sprinting down the track faster than anybody else in the field.

    In fact, she’s visualized herself winning the race hundreds and thousands of times to prepare. That’s how she prepares to give her very best over those hundred meters.

    Repeatedly visualizing success can actually rewire your brain. It creates positive neural pathways that restore the natural confidence you had as a child.

    Not only does this stop you from thinking negative thoughts, but it actually replaces negative thinking with (confidence boosting) positive images.

    4. Use your past failures to vanquish self-doubt.

    A large amount of self-doubt arises from our past failures. Each time we fail at something, we develop self-limiting beliefs, which get embedded in our psyche and our thinking.

    Fortunately, we can use these past failures—think the trail of breadcrumbs in the story Hansel and Gretel—to lead us back to these self-limiting beliefs. And once they’re out in the open, we can then challenge them.

    Imagine this: You have this belief that you’re no good at athletics. Maybe the seeds were sown when you did poorly in track and field in high school. And since then you’ve always made a halfhearted effort at athletics because you thought, “Why bother? I’m no good at athletics anyway.”

    See the (self-defeating) belief here? That (one) poor performance early in life created a belief that you’re not good at athletics. And that belief led to a halfhearted approach, which in turn stopped you from getting good at athletics.

    See the vicious cycle?

    Challenge that belief that you’re no good at athletics, and you stop making a halfhearted effort. And that’s how you get good and break out of the cycle.

    Here’s the thing: The past is not a predictor of your future performance, if you make a conscious effort to improve.

    So, examine your past failures and use them to challenge your self-limiting beliefs.

    It’ll do wonders for your confidence!

    5. Edit those sentences in your head.

    Do you think in sentences? Most of us do.

    Imagine this. You’re about to give a talk to a roomful of people.

    If you lacked confidence, the sentences in your head would sound something like this: “Ummm…. Hopefully this talk will be okay. I think I’ll be fine. But what if I crash and burn? No I’ll be okay. Geez I hope I’ll be okay.”

    Do you see the vacillation in that self-talk? One second you’re thinking you’ll be okay and the next second you’re terrified that you’ll crash and burn.

    The good news?

    All you need to do is edit the sentences in your head.

    The sentences you want to hear in your head sound something like this: “This talk is going to go well. Sure, it won’t be perfect. Nothing ever is. But I’m going to absolutely enjoy this and I’ll successfully get my message across.”

    Notice the words absolutely and successfully?

    See the tone in those sentences? There’s no vacillation.

    It’s almost as if you made a decision to be successful. And that’s reflected in your self-talk.

    Of course, this isn’t going to happen overnight. Like anything, it takes conscious effort and consistent practice.

    Is it worth the effort?

    You bet.

    6. Train your body to manipulate your mind.

    Think of the times when you felt a bit low. Most likely, you were slouching, your breath was shallow, and you were staring at the ground.

    Guess what?

    You can use your body language to build your confidence. You get your body to fake it till your mind makes it. The body informs the mind about how to feel, as much as the mind influences the body.

    Start with your posture. Stand tall.

    Breathe deeply.

    Speak purposefully and slowly.

    And then watch the magic happen.

    Don’t believe me? Try it.

    7. Cultivate a positive opinion of yourself and learn to value it over others’.

    We all look to authority figures for approval during our developmental years. In fact, this feedback is essential for our social development.

    But as you grow older and gather life experiences, you must scale this back.

    Now, I’m not suggesting other people’s opinions don’t matter, they do—up to a point.

    You’ve got to recognize that we all have unfounded prejudices based on our individual life experiences—this includes those authority figures.

    It’s one thing to learn from constructive criticism and use it to better yourself.

    But, to get overwhelmed by others’ opinions of you? That’s an unskillful approach.

    There is no expert on you.

    Instead, work on cultivating a positive opinion of yourself.

    Here’s a great way to start. Next time you feel undermined by someone’s opinion of you, make a conscious choice not to get overwhelmed. Take on what’s constructive and discard the rest.

    Now here’s the important part.

    Ready?

    Bring your attention back to your own opinion of yourself. Understand that your opinion of yourself matters as much as anyone else’s because you know yourself better than anyone.

    There’s no reason to be overwhelmed by others’ opinions of you.

    8. Use external stimuli to leverage your way to confidence.

    What’s your favorite song that truly gets you going?

    Several athletes listen to music just before a race to put themselves into a certain state (of confidence) just before a race so they can perform at their best. They get in the zone.

    Another great way to get in the zone is to use external stimuli. Hold a trophy or a certificate of achievement that you may have won in the past.

    Physically connecting with a tangible memento of past successes is a great way to send a concrete message of success to your mind.

    You’ve got this.

    It’s never easy to get started on a new path. But once you develop the habit of confidence, you’ll never look back.

    See, we all have our own vulnerable inner child that feels overwhelmed like I did on my first day of school.

    But over time, I learned to embrace that inner child, acknowledge his fears, and then make a conscious choice not to get overwhelmed. Much like a father reassures his son.

    And I can honestly say I’ve never felt stronger.

    You, too, can acknowledge your inner child’s fears and comfort him or her with love and acceptance.

    And before long, you’ll be the confident person you were always meant to be. Self-doubt will never darken your (mental) doorway again.

  • Letting Go of Guilt About What You “Should” Be Doing

    Letting Go of Guilt About What You “Should” Be Doing

    “Beware the bareness of a busy life.” ~Socrates

    It was December 26th. The day after Christmas. Ten days after my daughter’s first birthday. I was sitting on the floor coiling Christmas lights when I began to try to stand up. Almost immediately, I sunk back down to the floor.

    I was tired. I was physically tired. I was emotionally tired. Even my soul felt tired.

    In that moment, I couldn’t help but wonder, how did I get here? Sitting on the family room floor after two beautiful family events—my daughter’s birthday and Christmas—and my bones, heart, and soul ached so much that I considered whether I would be able to stand up again.

    Six weeks after the birth of my daughter, I chose to get back on a plane and continue building my consulting business. I spent the entire first year of her life haunted by my ego as I frantically tried to build my business, serve clients, and prove that I was needed and valuable.

    The image of a successful woman that I’ve always carried with me is that of a woman who is smart, driven, professionally accomplished. She is also a Mary Poppins mom, a loving wife, and a leader in the community. And she is someone who makes it all look effortless with her calm, impeccable style.

    That superwoman was the gold standard I’d spent years, and especially the last year, trying to live up to.

    But now, on December 26th, I’d awakened only to realize that as much as I was chasing the dream of the superwoman, I wasn’t living my life.

    I came crashing headfirst into my so called life.

    The words of Socrates, beware the bareness of a busy life, were suddenly eerily real.

    I knew it was time for me to make some significant changes in my life.

    As I reflected back on that year, I realized that I had been driven by guilt and its close cousin, the “shoulds.” Together, they ignited a fire in me that drove me, ultimately filling my hours and days with busyness.

    Guilt would rear its ugly head with questions like, “Am I working too much and not spending enough time with my family?” Or “Am I undermining my health and my family’s health because a significant majority of the food consumed in the household comes from a takeout box?” Perhaps, “Am I letting down my client because I did not immediately reply to their email?”

    All I needed to do was to spend a few minutes pondering questions like these, and I was deep in the black hole of guilt—insecure, confused, miserable, tired.

    But, when I paused on December 26th, I realized that it was my fears and anxieties that were driving me. My guilt was the manifestation of both. So, I decided it was time to face my fears by asking myself, “What is the worst thing that could happen? Is it real? Is it true?”

    As I looked at my fears—really looked at them—I realized that I had created elaborate, worst case scenarios that had no actual grounding in reality. They were neither real nor true.

    I did not know a business owner who had lost a client because they did not immediately respond to an email. And, upon reflection, if I did lose a client because of this, they probably weren’t an ideal client for me.

    Once I realized that fear and anxiety had been driving my guilt, it was time for me to take an honest look at its close cousin, the “shoulds.” The “should” are those voices in your head—and you know the ones—saying “You should be doing this,” “You should like that,” “You should spend time on this,” “You should stop doing that,” and so on and so forth—endlessly.

    There were numerous unspoken “shoulds” that had contributed to my busy, barren, exhausted life.

    The problem with the “shoulds” is that they can easily become a runaway train, completely derailing your ability to get clear and focused on what you need and desire.

    I realized that I needed to start saying “no.” Saying “no” to the voices inside my head, and maybe externally as well, and doing it in a new way—a way that I developed and like to call the “P.O.W.E.R. No.”

    Here’s how I use it:

    • Priorities: When that voice in your head tells you that should complete this task, lead another project, attend another meeting, or make cupcakes from scratch, evaluate the priority of that message. How does this “should” align to your priorities, the company’s strategic priorities, and/or your family’s priorities?
    • Opportunities: Explore the opportunities. What opportunities does this “should” create for you? Is there something that does actually need additional attention in your life? This “should” could be shining a light on something that you need to address.
    • Who: Who or what triggered this “should”? Was it an old script from childhood? Was it an ad in a magazine? Was it your colleague?
    • Expectations: Whose expectations are these really? Your manager? Your mother? Your spouse? Your child? Society’s?
    • Real: Get real.What is this “should” really about? Are there real priorities that are driving this “should”? Or are you taking on societal expectations that are not in alignment with your priorities?

    The P.O.W.E.R. No enables me to think carefully and critically about all of the “shoulds” so that I can consciously and thoughtfully respond. It has helped me get back in the driver’s seat of my life—conscious, intentional, and awake.

    I am so grateful that I crashed headfirst into my life on December 26th. In that moment of crisis and confusion, I was able to see clearly what drove me to such a barren, lifeless existence—and to know that I was capable of fixing it to restore personal and professional order for myself.

    Today, I have created a life that keeps me connected to my husband and daughter, laughing, running in the mornings, building my dream business, working simply and living fully.

    With that said though, I keep Socrates’ quote posted inside my desk drawer. It serves as a as a simple reminder of not only what’s at stake, but also, and more importantly, how far I’ve come to build a life I love.

  • 5 Childhood Mantras That Are Poisoning Your Happiness

    5 Childhood Mantras That Are Poisoning Your Happiness

    Unhappy Little Girl

    “So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us.” ~Gaston Bachelard

    I woke up to the sun peeking through the bedroom curtains and I cautiously opened one eye to check if my little brother was still asleep on the other side of our room.

    I was excited about the day. The sun was shining and we were meeting up with some family friends for a picnic in the park later that day. All I cared about was we would be having lots of treats at that picnic and the park we were going to had a giant swing set. This was going to be a good day.

    An hour later, my brother and I were in our parents’ bedroom, with my mom gently explaining that Daddy had left and he wouldn’t be coming back home.

    I was only six. I had thought everything was okay, but it wasn’t. I wasn’t expecting this.

    I felt sucker-punched. I promised myself, “I won’t let my guard down like this again.”

    Fast-forward twenty-five years…

    I stretched out beneath the shade of a huge umbrella, wiggling my toes in the white sand and watching my husband snorkel in the bathtub warmth of the ocean. There was nothing to do but sit and soak in the paradise of a tiny island in Malaysia.

    This was my dream vacation—one that I had waited years for.

    This should have been one of the happiest moments in my life. But I wasn’t happy.

    I remember at one point that day telling my husband that I should have brought my laptop with me so I could do some work while I was at the beach.

    I was genuinely struggling to relax and embrace an experience that could have offered me pure joy. I couldn’t just let go.

    Perhaps something similar has happened to you.

    Let me save you a few hundred dollars in therapy.

    This vacation made me realize that this was only one of many times in my life that I had gleefully anticipated an activity, but when I was actually in the moment I wasn’t able to feel very happy.

    I wish I could tell you that after I recognized this pattern, I immediately began a journey toward emotional wholeness. It wasn’t until years after that vacation, when I was finally brave enough to start digging into things that were holding me back.

    I started to see a therapist regularly, but I have a hunch that you might relate to what I discovered.

    So what did I figure out?

    I should have been paying more attention to what I was telling myself—mantras from my childhood were heavily influencing my adult life.

    I realized the childhood mantras or “tapes” I was playing inside my head had a significant impact on my ability to feel happiness—ones that were formed in my early years and may sound familiar to you.

    Do you recognize any of these mantras that you’ve told yourself for years, therefore diminishing your own potential happiness?

    Mantra #1: I won’t ever do that again.

    Earth-shattering events happen when you are younger. There may have been major traumas or minor events that felt traumatic to your younger self.

    As kids we often react to such events by making a vow or promise to ourselves. We do this to protect ourselves, but as we grow older we don’t stop to re-examine if this vow is helping us or holding us back.

    I wanted to avoid the unexpected pain I felt when I was abandoned as a child, so I had promised myself that I wouldn’t let my guard down again.

    Could a vow to stay guarded at all times affect the ability to feel true happiness? Most definitely.

    Mantra #2: This can’t last.

    Brené Brown identifies a major limitation to our happiness in her chapter about joy and scarcity in The Gifts of Imperfection (a book recommended by my therapist).

    She explains, “We think to ourselves: I’m not going to allow myself to feel this joy because I know it won’t last…I’d rather not be joyful than have to wait for the other shoe to drop.”

    Does this resonate with you?

    Unforeseen trauma when we were younger can create a sense of dread—we start to expect something bad is going to happen, especially in the times we are feeling most happy, or vulnerable.

    Did events from your childhood create a fear that good things happening were an invitation for something bad to happen?

    Mantra #3: It’s not okay to do that.

    Oh, the complexities of the rules within each family!

    Whether spoken outright or implied through reactions to certain behaviors, each family has a code of conduct with a profound influence on us, well into our adult lives.

    Maybe emotional expression was frowned upon in your family? Or perhaps there was an unspoken rule about how you should conduct yourself in stressful situations.

    I can remember the implied rules about money in my family. In the wake of my father leaving, money was tight and I quickly learned to stop asking for any treats. I had determined that it’s not okay to spend money on non-essentials.

    There can be so many facets to the family culture of your early childhood—some good and some not so good. Are there rules from your younger years that restrict your ability to feel happy?

    Mantra #4: This actually means that.

    Assumptions we make as kids, about the way the world works, can deeply influence our thoughts as adults. We become aware that the world does not consist of just ourselves and we start forming a framework of decisions about how life works.

    Is it possible that, back in your childhood, you decided that relaxing meant you were being lazy? Alternately, you may have assumed achievements meant love from your parents, so if you stopped achieving you would lose that affection.

    Can these childhood assumptions inhibit our ability to enjoy the moment? Absolutely.

    Mantra #5: I’m no good at that.

    Neglected dreams or passions that you had as a young child can be an amazing compass toward rediscovering your happiness.

    Is there an activity that you used to love doing as a child that you no longer do? Perhaps due to someone’s criticism, you decided you weren’t good enough to keep doing it?

    I had an embarrassing incident in gymnastics class when I was younger. (Let’s just say that the balance beam won). I refused to go back to class, resulting in an abandoned passion that I didn’t reconnect with until just this year.

    Was there a dream you had that you forced yourself to let go of, in an effort to be more practical or realistic as you grew up?

    These buried passions offer us an opportunity to remember what used to truly bring us joy. It is an invitation to welcome happiness back into your life.

    The Next Brave Step in Banishing Your Childhood Mantras

    I’m guessing that at least one of these mantras jumped out at you. We all have a default “tape” that is worth examining, to understand if it is suppressing our happiness.

    Be brave. Recognize this impulse and decide to make a change.

    Now what?

    It’s actually pretty simple—not easy, but simple.

    You need to start playing a new “tape” inside your head instead of the ones that are diminishing your ability to be joyful.

    I chose to start telling myself that it is okay to let my guard down. This involved literally chanting inside my head that the world would not fall apart if I allowed myself to enjoy the moment.

    I had to constantly reassure myself that even if something bad did happen, bracing myself for it would not make it hurt any less and was actually robbing me of joy.

    It actually didn’t take too long before I started to believe this. Surprisingly, this removed a huge obstacle to giving myself permission to feel happy.

    How to Amplify Your Happiness

    The good news?

    You’ve already taken the first step: pausing to ask what you are actually telling yourself.

    How about some more good news?

    You can choose one thing that you are going to start saying differently to yourself and you will be amazed at how quickly you can change the narration.

    It is tempting to cling to the voices of our past, but wouldn’t it feel amazing to be able to truly embrace your happiness?

    Try out your new script today and congratulate yourself on moving toward a happier life!

    Unhappy little girl image via Shutterstock