Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • Accepting Imperfection and Making Peace with Our “Piece in Progress”

    Accepting Imperfection and Making Peace with Our “Piece in Progress”

    The Traveler

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

    I’m back in New York City after touring for the last five years as a global musical scientist.

    My international and domestic sonic experiments took me all over the world to exotic lands and faraway locales.

    I climbed the Inca Trail for four days straight while combating altitude sickness, learning how to speak at low capacity oxygen levels (imagine Darth Vader), and hemoglobin adaptation became my mantra.

    I also wrote and recorded a number one single in Copenhagen, Denmark. Likewise, I traveled to France, Finland, Russia, and Spain, as well as several national stops: Austin, Texas, DC, Boston, California (twice), and Hawaii, to name a few.

    I even lived with a Costa Rican family and became a real ‘tico’ in San Ramon. Furthermore, I discovered a floating village in Cambodia, talked art science shop in Singapore, and had the backs of my knees lit on fire with moxibustion in Koh Samui, Thailand.

    Sounds glamorous, but in all that life spice the one consistency was myself, and let me tell you, you can really get to you.  

    As wonderfully liberating and bohemian as it was to pick up and play from country to country, from foreign foods, cultures and languages, to random rules, regulations, and rites of passages, it also became a constant struggle to perfect the adventures.

    Naturally, practical fears ensued: How would I finance myself on the road from tour to tour? What would happen if I couldn’t understand the language? How would I be able to reach anyone in the middle of the Amazon?

    But the worst mind chatter came from my own self-doubt: How is this record manifesting given the fact that I have a unfamiliar, makeshift studio instead of my usual recording space? Is this one gigantic failure?

    Does anyone understand what I’m doing or what I mean? Can anyone hear those ambient birds behind the vocal and piano line? Is there even a piano at the next stop? Wait, why am I doing this again? What is a musical scientist?

    I was obsessed with perfection, particularly as it related to my work, and it was starting to take the fun out of my experience.  

    As an artist/scientist hybrid, I usually feel balanced between the creative and logistical, but the need to perfect my experiments started to weigh on the childlike, free, and non-judgmental parts of myself.

    I was striving for my work to be a huge success upon initial conception instead of letting the manifestations of failures become the real magic in process.

    It was during my time in Singapore while visiting a friend that I developed a perspective change to help me combat this uber desire to micromanage my situations.

    With eighteen hours on the plane to think, I began to imagine that we all have a life pie with slices representing certain parts of our life. For instance, each sector could be divided into finance, love, health, relationships, career, and so forth.

    It dawned on me that the majority of the folks I met and had deep conversations with on my travels shared stories of their imperfect piece(s): “I lost my job,” or “She dumped me,” or “I come from a messed up family.”

    It was often easier for people, myself included, to dwell on the missing segment, the piece that didn’t match the others, and focus on trying to tweak the weak.  

    The pattern I recognized was that no soul’s life pie was ever completely maximized, at least not at the same time. There’s always a “piece in progress.” Maybe one, two, perhaps even half the pie didn’t look like the rest.

    I visualized a life pie like a leaky faucet. As soon as you fix one of the spouts, the pressure adjusts to the other side, and pretty soon you’re exhausted trying to Band-Aid all these pressure points.

    I’m reminded of my favorite tale, “The Story of The Golden Buddha,” by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen.

    To paraphrase, approximately 300 years ago, the Burmese army planned to invade Thailand.

    Thai monks had an incredibly gorgeous golden Buddha statue within their monastery and wanted to protect their treasured possession during the attack, so they covered the statue with dirt, clay, and sticks.

    As the Burmese pressed into Thailand, they killed all the monks, but left the precious Buddha be, as it was disguised.

    During the mid 1950s, the monastery was relocated to make way for city developments, and as the monks began moving the Buddha, the clay began to crack and fall to the floor. Only then, after all that time, did the gold underneath begin to shine.

    To me, the tale’s a constant reminder that we, like the golden Buddha, spend too much precious time cloaking ourselves with mud in the form of societal coding, personal pressures, and expectations deeply fixed in fear.  

    But, by accepting these self-perceived shortcomings as part of the bigger picture, we realize that we each have our own labyrinth as we go through life. This is how we learn life’s lessons, slowly revealing more of our golden uniqueness.

    If we obsess about perfection, we’ll just stay stagnant and idle instead of moving forward with our pieces in progress, allowing them to be part of the journey toward self-realization.

    Even the gravitationally bound system consisting of stars, dust, and matter that constitutes our universe has endless imperfections, such as windstorms, black holes, and galactic hurricanes.

    If we, as humans, are living in this totality of existence rooted in chaos, we can only expect to mirror it. Understanding that there’s nothing wrong with us for having imperfect life pies can help us make peace with our piece in progress—and ourselves.

    Photo by Matteo.Mazzoni

  • Releasing Negative Beliefs: How Letting Go Sets Us Free

    Releasing Negative Beliefs: How Letting Go Sets Us Free

    Free

    “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” ~Andre Gide

    I have walked on water.

    The frozen wasteland known as Chicago had kept me inside, wary of the intense cold that was breaking records that particularly frigid winter. But after interminable snow days, I began to feel like a caged animal that needed to break free.

    I woke early one morning, overcome with the urgent need to connect to something living, something wild. I wrapped myself in countless layers like the kid in The Christmas Story and ventured out into the urban tundra. I felt compelled to walk to the beach that was a few miles from my house.

    An eerie, otherworldly feeling washed over me as I walked, achingly aware of the stark, endless whiteness all around me. The world itself felt as it was hung in frozen suspension and apprehension. Everything seemed to be hushed in reverence.

    When I reached the shore, I was hyper aware of the need to maintain a safe distance from the water, but I felt compelled to get as close as possible.

    As I moved forward across the frozen sand, I tried to gauge exactly where the land ended by using various items as points of reference—a fence, a wooden bench, a recycling bin. I inched my way toward the lake until there were no more reference points, and then became as still as the land beneath me. Or what I thought was land.

    I looked down at my feet and realized I was standing on a frozen wave, not a snow covered sand dune as I originally thought. I had walked out too far. I could both hear and feel the movement of the wave beneath my feet.

    I felt a juxtaposition of fear, exhilaration, and an overwhelming sense of weightlessness. My first instinct was to run, but I wasn’t sure of my footing. I was terrified that if I shifted my weight too quickly, I might fall through. I had no idea how deep the water was where I stood.

    At that moment I zeroed in on my true purpose for coming to the water. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a little bag filled with small strips of paper like confetti. On each one I had written something I wished to release from my life.

    • The fear that I will never find the type of love I want and need.
    • The commitment to being alone.

    I opened the bag to the wind, letting the belief-covered papers flutter out over the frozen lake. I did this quickly because I sensed the danger to my body on that unstable surface, and the danger to my heart if I held onto those stories a moment longer.

    With my task completed, I gingerly walked back to solid land. I let out a deep breath and knew so much had been released with those papers still floating on the wind.

    That moment on a frozen lake taught me a few very important things about surrender.

    • Surrender is about vulnerability and receptivity.
    • The opposite of surrender is resistance and control.
    • And it all comes down to fear and trust.

    I realized that my heart had become like that lake. A living thing that is supposed to flow, constricted by a lack of warmth and space into a frozen and dangerous place.

    One of the ways we keep our hearts frozen is by holding on to negative beliefs. These beliefs may be seem like they are about others or life in general. Usually, however, they are based on our perceptions. Negative beliefs are born from our wounds and stories.

    Eventually, every life experience becomes colored by these beliefs. Everything we see, say, do, and even feel is filtered through these limitations, judgment, patterns, conditionings, and doubt. The sad and scary part is that these beliefs tend to hide themselves in our subconscious, making us think that we are acting from free will.

    We may not even be conscious that we are holding on to negative beliefs.

    Unconsciously, we begin to nurture our negative beliefs without even being aware that we are doing so. We feed them and help them grow by giving them energy. We affirm them by attracting experiences that validate their existence. This becomes a vicious cycle. Holding on to negative beliefs justifies our need to be right.

    Many of us hold on to our grievances and emotional scars with fierce protection. They become like badges of honor.

    We think that without our constant vigilance, the memory of our wounds or broken hearts will be forgotten. We believe that we are some how “honoring our personal story” by holding on. If we do not act as the constant “keeper of our wounds,” our suffering will have been in vain.

    But spring must come if life is to flourish again.

    We must allow our hearts to thaw. We need to frequently evaluate our belief structures and release the stories that no longer serve us.

    Releasing our attachment to our personal histories doesn’t invalidate the emotional pain we suffered. It doesn’t mean that the defenses and barriers we erected to protect ourselves weren’t based on a real need for self-preservation at those times. Instead, it means that we assimilate the lessons we have gained from the experience while loosening its ability to control our lives.

    Just like the coldness and bareness of winter allows the Earth to rejuvenate, and ultimately makes everything stronger, so too do our personal winters allow us to access our depths. Every wound makes us stronger as we heal it, and gives us greater access to our power.

    Letting go of beliefs puts a great responsibility on us. If we connect with our personal power we must give up the illusion that we are victims. We can longer view ourselves as passively vulnerable to the whims of others. We now must take responsibility for how our life unfolds.

    This realization is a lot scarier than standing on a frozen lake.

    To truly open our hearts, to truly wield our power, we must be willing to participate in life.

    This requires both owning our part in situations and allowing experiences to unfold as they will. Accepting others’ actions and emotions without making them fit into some box as a hero or demon. And especially releasing our mental constructs about how life should be, what we should or should not be doing, and how other people should interact with us.

    Releasing expectations and resistance is one of the most empowering acts of life. Resisting what is can be emotionally, spiritually, and physically exhausting. We get stuck in patterns that begin to define how we interact with the world. And even though they are painful, because they are familiar and usually hidden, we can stay stuck for years.

    I had developed many of my beliefs to protect myself after a series of breakups and broken hearts.

    I convinced myself that believing I wasn’t worthy of love was safer than opening myself up to the possibility of love. If I never opened my heart to anyone, I would never be disappointed or have to experience the excruciating pain of heartache.

    I was keeping myself lonely and cut off from life. Trying to protect myself from pain, I was actually constantly hurting myself more.

    When I finally relaxed enough to let go of my old beliefs, my life began to flow with greater ease and grace.

    I walked out onto that frozen water because I needed to have a close encounter with life. I needed to let the primal elements cleanse me of my outmoded ways of being.

    I went beyond the fear and conditioning because, finally, being alive mattered more than being comfortable. Now I recognize that I must trust that life will always provide the situations and experiences required for my evolution. And that surrender is the only way to be free.

    Photo by Andi_Graf

  • Stop Waiting for Tomorrow: 3 Ways to Love Your Life Now

    Stop Waiting for Tomorrow: 3 Ways to Love Your Life Now

    “Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.” ~Paul Coelho

    My husband had been unemployed for more than two years before it hit me that I was dealing with it all wrong. During that time, I kept thinking that any day he would find a new job. And every day that went by I was disappointed, frustrated, unhappy, and even angry at times.

    For two years I felt like we were in limbo. I was always thinking, “We’ll do this or that after he finds a job.” Everything seemed to be put on hold.

    But the thing was, it wasn’t on hold. That was my life, and I needed to accept it as it was.

    I finally realized that my life was going on every day, no matter what was happening at any particular moment. My life was not waiting for my husband to get a new job or until our finances were in better shape. Time was marching on.

    Besides just accepting my life as it was, I wanted more. I also wanted to embrace and celebrate my life and be truly happy.

    But how do you that when you feel like you are just barely hanging on? Our biggest problem was financial, and we honestly struggled to pay our bills and sometimes to buy groceries. It was an extremely stressful time. I felt sorry for my kids, my husband, and myself.

    I knew I needed to get away from thinking about money all the time. And I knew I needed to focus on my life as it was in the present, not as I thought it might be in the future. I longed to be happy within the reality of our situation.

    Three steps helped me to rethink my attitude and create a life I loved in that moment, as it was right then and there, instead of always hoping for a better future.

    If you’re also resisting what is, these steps may help you make peace with it and find happiness again:

    1. Take stock of what you have instead of what’s missing.

    When I made lists of what I had and what was missing, it became clear immediately that I had so much! My list included two beautiful daughters, wonderful friends, a roof over my head, a supportive family, a career that I loved, a cute cat, and much more.

    Two things really stood out about my lists. First, my “what I had” list was much longer than my “what was missing” list. And second, I noticed how different the things were on each list.

    The things on my “what I had” list were much more important than what was missing. What was missing tended to be centered on material things. For example, vacations I wanted to take that we couldn’t afford or buying new furniture.

    But what I had was about the things that really mattered in life. Taking stock made me realize that I needed to shift my attention.

    Looking at the list of what I had made me feel like my life was abundant, and I suddenly felt a sense of gratitude.

    Taking stock of where you are and what you have at this very moment can be eye-opening. Chances are you’ll find, like I did, that your “what I have” list is not only longer but also more meaningful than your “what is missing” list.

    2. Focus on what really matters.

    All my attention on our financial problems made me lose focus of what is the most important part of my life: my relationships with family and friends.

    It doesn’t cost any money to cultivate our relationships with others. Cultivating relationships comes down in large part to communicating authentically, engaging in conversations that really mean something and are marked by deep listening and honesty.

    With my daughters, who were both nearing their teens, this meant slowing down and listening to whatever they felt like telling me. Each little morsel of news about friends or school or how they were feeling was a gift that I treasured. And I discovered that the more I slowed down and listened, the more they talked to me.

    I am also fortunate to have a very tight circle of friends who mean the world to me. They cheer me on, listen when I need to talk, and make me laugh. I realized what a precious gift that laughter is. To laugh so hard I cry was another thing to treasure.

    3. Enjoy life’s simple pleasures.

    Instead of thinking about the vacations that I couldn’t go on, I thought about the morning walk I took around a nearby lake where I saw two bald eagles, a crane, and the mountains reflected in the water.

    I focused on my creativity—I played my guitar more and I started a new creative endeavor, collaging, which I absolutely loved. I continued to write and to experiment with painting. Through these creative outlets, I started embracing my life.

    Shifting your attention to simple yet joyful activities is another way to gain a whole new perspective on what you have in your life. Being creative and enjoying nature are two great places to start exploring life’s simple pleasures.

    Once I started thinking about how to live my life to its fullest in the present moment before it completely passes me by, my attitude changed.

    That’s not to say I don’t still have stressful financial moments or a longing to take a family vacation to a distant place, but I am no longer missing out on what is happening in my life. I am embracing the life I have and I am genuinely happy!

    It is possible to embrace your life and find happiness in the midst of crisis.

    When we look at our life with a wide lens, instead of just focusing on financial and career success, we can see opportunities to embrace all of life’s abundance. These can be opportunities to slow down and think about what really matters, what we value most in our life.

    Appreciating the most meaningful gifts in your life may just be the surest path to authentic happiness, no matter what your circumstances are at this moment.

  • 3 Tips to Get Out of Your Head and Start Expressing Yourself

    3 Tips to Get Out of Your Head and Start Expressing Yourself

    Get Out of Your Head

    “Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” ~Bruce Lee

    I have always been timid when it comes to expressing myself, speaking my mind, and standing up for something. This stems from being raised in a culture where showing emotions is frowned upon.

    Nothing I ever did seemed good enough. There was constant criticism that I could do better, and be better. I was raised to never to talk back to my seniors and not to say anything when I had nothing nice to say.

    So I’ve always played it safe and stood by the sideline, and I never wanted to rock the boat. And sometimes, when I’ve felt like saying something, I’ve wondered if people would even care.

    Because, frankly, sometimes people talk just for the sake of talking or because they want attention, and that bothered me. However, I also envied those who could just say what they think and speak their truth, even though I may or may not have agreed with them.

    Nonetheless, as years passed, the more I stayed mummed, the more horrible my body and mind felt.

    I eventually became depressed. I felt like no one cared, I didn’t know who I should be, and I felt lost. Not wanting to blame the past anymore, I knew I needed to find something to take me away from this darkness.

    Along the way I found Bodytalk and yoga, and these were the things that helped me get out of my depression and helped shift my mindset. As I became more engaged with these activities, my inner voice grew stronger and stronger, and it wanted to come out and express itself.

    I began to accept myself for who I am, and soon, much like Katy Perry, I was ready for the world to hear me “roar.”

    The Problem

    It took me forever to express myself in both writing and speaking because I felt like I had to craft the perfect message to sound smart, funny, and diplomatic. By the time I was ready to share my thoughts, the conversation topic had gone and the moment had passed.

    Yes, it’s great to be thoughtful but Come on! I would tell myself. Stop bottling up your thoughts and start expressing yourself without care.

    I’ve learned to nurture my voice and not spend so much time crafting my message and worrying about what others think.

    These are the three philosophies that have helped me get out of my head, let go, and start expressing myself.

    1. The only person you need to impress is yourself.

    Yes, it’s scary to put yourself out there to potentially have people judge you. But if you know who you are and what you stand for, does it matter what others think, when you know your truth and what it means to you?

    The truth is, if you are comfortable in your own skin, what others think of you probably won’t bother you that much. After all, you will always have people who will be for you or against you, so why not stand for something and just be you? What’s the worst thing that could happen?

    “In the end people will judge you anyway, don’t live your life impressing others. Live your life impressing yourself.” ~from Raw for Beauty

    2. Stand for something.

    This is important. It allows you to let your personality shine. It’s also the foundation of your values, which help shape your identity, allowing people to connect with you and enabling you to surround yourself with like-minded people for support.

    Remember, no man is an island, as John Donne wrote. We, as human beings, need to interact with another and need each other to find fulfillment in our lives. So stand for something to build your world of lovers and ‘haters,’ instead of having no supporters or challengers to help you grow.

    3. Let go of the outcome.

    Sometimes we say things or do things because we want to get a certain reaction or action out of people. However, keeping in mind we have no control over anything in life (except for our actions and our responses), why not speak your truth?

    Your body and mind will be grateful because you are being honest with yourself. In the end, whatever happens, you’ve got nothing to lose because you have honored your truth. No regrets.

    “Say what you wanna say, and let the words fall out. I wanna see you be brave.” ~Sara Bareilles, Brave

    Have you ever felt like you were holding back from speaking your truth? What helped you?

    Photo by Leland Francisco

  • Avoid the Pain of Emotional Eating and Transform Your Mood

    Avoid the Pain of Emotional Eating and Transform Your Mood

    Eating Ice Cream

    “To ensure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life.” ~William Londen

    In essence, interconnectedness refers to the linkages between all things. Some even take it a step further and say that not only is everything linked, but in actuality, there are no real distinctions between you and me, between thought and behavior, or between past, present, and future.

    On the surface, the concept of interconnectedness seems simple—everything is linked to everything else, and everyone is linked to everyone else. However, in practice, applying the concept of interconnectedness to the way I live has been anything but simple.

    After much contemplation, I came to the conclusion that if I were going to truly live interconnectedness, and not just think or read about it, I would need to fully grasp the fact that my thoughts, actions (or inactions), and outcomes were fundamentally intertwined.

    This not only impacted the ways I engaged with others, but also shaped the ways in which I engaged with myself, particularly with respect to what, when, and how I eat.

    Interconnectedness Eating 

    You see, for me, preparing and eating colorful, veg-centric dishes are beautiful, almost spiritual acts. Unfortunately, though, when negative emotions or stress creep into my life, my philosophy on the transcendent nature of food and eating gets replaced by hurried preparations and scarfing down faux-food.

    It was during one of my particularly busy weeks that I found myself mindlessly eating cookie dough ice cream for dinner, and thought, “How could interconnectedness help insulate me from this cycle of soothing my negative emotions with poor eating habits?”

    First, I tried to document my patterns.

    Upon doing so, I realized that when I am sad or angry, I actually don’t eat. I just totally lose my appetite. I also realized, however, that by not eating, I am essentially robbing my body of its ability function and, of course, to regulate my emotions.

    Moreover, deprivation also meant that I was not cooking—the one activity, in addition to dancing, that’s a surefire way to turn my negative mood around.

    So here it was, interconnectedness working oh so clearly: sadness and anger connected to deprivation, deprivation connected to physiological deterioration, and both of those phenomena connected to me cutting out the very thing that makes me feel better—cooking.

    When caught in this cycle, my energy wanes, negative emotions persist, and deprivation runs rampant. It was clear: My feelings, my behaviors, and my body were interconnected.

    Going back to stress, rather than not eating at all, I tend to eat a lot when I’m stressed, a lot of sweets, that is. While not total deprivation per se, consuming a bunch of processed sugar leads to similar ends—feeling undernourished, prolonged negative emotions, and negative physical outcomes, as well.

    All of this to say, the first part of interconnectedness eating is noticing. Noticing the linkages between our emotions, our thoughts, and our food choices and eating behaviors.

    Some folks eat a lot; some do not eat at all. Some folks prefer sweets; some salty or fatty foods. For some people, stress, sadness, and anger elicit the same eating behaviors; for others, there are nuances between the three. The point is, it’s important to ask yourself what are your specific patterns?

    Then what? What do you do once discovered your patterns?

    Set a Mood of Joy By Creating a Nourishment Ritual

    Stop.

    Now, when I’m sad, angry, or stressed, I stop. I stop, I note what I am feeling, and then I think about what role I have played, either through my actions or through my appraisals of the situation, in whatever has led me to feeling negative. I remember that I am interconnected with whatever it seems like on the surface is causing my negative mood.

    Importantly, just as I help to create my own sadness, anger, or stress, I can also transform my sadness, anger, or stress into my joy.

    Again, how you may ask? By going into full on nourishment mode.

    I put on a frilly apron, which makes me feel cute, and turn up some Latin or Brazilian music, which soothes my soul. In short, I start by setting a mood of joy, even I do not feel joyful yet. By starting the ritual of nourishment before food ever touches my tongue, I’m on track to a better mood and healthy actions.

    Next, I think about a dish to make, one with aromas that tantalize my nose and with colors that intrigue my eyes. Then, I start to prepare the dish. I cut, stir, whip, and sauté with care. In this way, cooking becomes a calming, nourishing act of mindfulness in and of itself.

    Once my dish is prepared, I set the table. Then, I serve myself, give thanks, and taste my culinary creation. With each bite, I’m reminded of just how lucky I am to have access to food, and with each moment of gratitude, a little bit of my sadness, or anger, or stress dissipates.

    Even when I do not have time to cook, I do this last set of actions—setting a place at the table, savoring my food, and evoking gratitude because I’ve found that just the act of slowing down can be realigning.

    I Still Have Far to Go

    Although I still have a lot of progress to make before I completely stop reaching for ice cream after a stressful day, I can see the difference in my eating after recognizing that my emotional, physical, spiritual, and social selves all benefit when I embrace their interconnectedness.

    We all owe it to ourselves to be conscientious about our eating patterns, but with so many demands, it can be exhausting to do so consistently.

    I truly believe though when we recognize interconnectedness and embrace the power we all have to create joy in our lives, we liberate ourselves. Why not use this power in the context of something we do each and every day—eat.

    Photo by Masha Kushnir

  • 3 Self-Honoring Ways to Deal with Low-Energy Days

    3 Self-Honoring Ways to Deal with Low-Energy Days

    Low Energy

    “Being who you are is another way of accepting yourself.” ~Unknown

    A few months ago I woke up with what my good friend and I call “the rage.” I was automatically annoyed by the tone of people’s emails in my inbox. I was frustrated by the lack of response from others. My tea tasted too strong. I felt cooped up in the house. Need I go on?

    So I went to the gym to increase my endorphins. I figured that a good workout would be the perfect cure-all.

    It wasn’t. I left my HIIT (high intensity interval training) pleasantly exhausted but still agitated.

    Then I sat down to get into a Zen-like state with my life coach. I trusted that together we could get to the bottom of whatever this wonky energy was all about.

    I cried, releasing beautiful misunderstandings about current business relationships. It was an incredibly healing session, and I hung up the phone thinking it was such a relief to know where this negative energy was coming from. But the lightness I usually experienced at the end of a session was nowhere to be found.

    Instead, I felt sad and lonely.

    It was in that moment, hanging up the phone from my coach, that I realized I needed to stop trying to fix my low-energy day. There was no one reason I was feeling this way. It wasn’t anything I did or didn’t do; it just was, and it was time for me to be okay with that.

    The only place I had heard of such acceptance was within my Human Design studies, so I picked up a book.

    According to Human Design, most of us have what is considered to be an “emotional authority.”

    This means that we tend to let our emotions rule our decisions, and we can easily make rash decisions just to end the emotional turmoil we feel. Or, to the opposite extreme, we can say yes in an effort to hold onto an exciting expectation.

    Most notably, our emotional authority is an energy that constantly moves through us in a wave pattern. Sometimes the wave is up and we feel great, and sometimes the wave is down and we feel off or have low energy.

    I’ve learned that the key is not to focus solely on our high-energy feelings, or to get rid of our low energy. The key as Buddha says, is for us to find “the middle way.”

    Release attachment to either end of the spectrum and find the still point. That is where emotional clarity lies.

    Thus, on that day a few months back, I asked myself to stop pushing. I stopped pushing the negative emotions away and I stopped pushing myself into a more positive high.

    Instead, I honored and acknowledged my wonky feelings in these three ways.

    1. Self-pampering.

    I hugged myself. I sat on the floor in my living room and circled my arms around my knees. Then, when I was ready, I went out to get a hot yummy drink at the coffee shop down the street.

    I let my to-do list fly out the window, and I gave my body and my mind my full attention. I did a lot of journal writing that day. I like journaling when I can, and it helped me explore areas where I could really stand up for myself in my business and in my relationships.

    2. The twenty-four-hour rule.

    I released myself from making any big decisions. I knew my energy was all over the place, and the key was to wait for clarity. Thus, I gave myself a twenty-four-hour rule. I wouldn’t make any big decisions until 9:00AM the next day, at the earliest.

    This wonky, negative energy was here for me to explore and learn from. It was still too early to start sharing a new truth. I couldn’t expect myself to grasp my learnings well enough to articulate them to others, nor could I expect myself to be in a place to take feedback neutrally. Not yet, anyway.

    This rule gave me the freedom to explore what I really wanted.

    3. Judgment-free space.

    I deemed my home, my body, and the three-foot bubble around me wherever I went to be my judgment-free space. There was nothing good or bad, right or wrong about my low-energy day. It was here for me, as an amazingly imperfect human being, to experience.

    This allowed me to embrace it and learn from it. It was no one’s fault. There was nothing wrong with me for feeling this way. It wasn’t going to last forever, and everyone would still love me in the morning.

    When I woke up at 7:00AM the next day, I felt refreshed. The rage and negative energy were gone, and I could also see clearly how I wanted to proceed in my business relationships.

    A huge sigh escaped my lips. I had allowed myself to be a part of the day’s adventure. Instead of fighting it or allowing it to take over my life for who knows how long, I had loved my low energy.

    Which of these three self-honoring actions will you try when you have a low-energy, “rage” day?

    Photo by rklopfer

  • Why Fulfillment Comes from Being Yourself, and How to Be Okay with That

    Why Fulfillment Comes from Being Yourself, and How to Be Okay with That

    Happy with Yourself

    “To wish you are someone else is to waste the person you are.”  ~Sven Goran Eriksson

    I have been studying business and marketing for quite some time now, watching the most successful men and women very carefully and picking apart how they’ve achieved what they’ve achieved.

    I’ve read every book I can get my paws on and thought long and hard about why they have managed it and others just haven’t.

    I’ve also seen many businesses and online brands mimicking exactly what those super successful people are doing, and I’ve wondered why they are a mere shadow on the wall in comparison.

    I’ve realized one thing: The super-successful people are doing exactly the same things as the not so successful people.

    They use the same tools, blog about the same topics, and have the same personal development techniques. But they still do way better; they have more followers and fans that rave about their work and share it with everyone they know.

    And it’s purely because they are rocking it in their own way. They are being their honest selves.

    But how do they do that?!

    I have been tormented with being myself all my life, struggling with the idea of liking myself and who I am.

    I’ve been on a merry-go-round of trying to be someone or something that everyone will like. But I know that not everyone will like everything, so I’ve set myself an impossible task.

    I also know that self-love and acceptance is the key to everything I want. Not just success, but to be happy with who I am, at last.

    I often have this conversation with myself:

    Hey, I’m weird. I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere. I feel as if people will always judge me for doing what I want and being me and only me.

    What’s wrong with being me? I’m no good at being anyone else, so what’s the big deal? Well, maybe there isn’t a big deal?

    Am I making a big deal?

    Right, that’s it, I’m stopping this nonsense. I’m just going to be me…

    But who the hell is “me”?!

    Can I determine that by what I like? Or by my interests?

    Or is it pure and simple my mannerisms, the way I look and the things I say?

    Maybe it’s the way I think…?

    Then I’m looping. On that never ending cycle of question after question.

    And those questions never get answered.

    The problem is, it’s very difficult to know who you are and why you do things and where your crazy thought processes come from.

    It’s impossible to put yourself into a category, but even so, we’re constantly trying to categorize ourselves. Think of subcultures like goths or punks, and blogging tribes, and football teams. Everyone is trying to belong.

    You see, I don’t have the dialogue above with myself in an attempt to understand who I am, but to try to understand how I fit into this world.

    I want to understand how I can offer something to the world, make a difference, be liked by the people I meet and, ultimately, belong. Just like those super successful people, but not them—just myself.

    I’m not sure if human beings can ever really know themselves. We’re constantly evolving, growing, changing, especially people like us who are into personal development and enlightenment.

    We’re on fast-forward compared to people who don’t take much notice of developing themselves. So every few months we become a different person, who is the same person, with a lot more knowledge and different way of looking at the world.

    It’s actually pretty mind-blowing!

    We know that the beauty of ourselves is our individualism, our differences, and the quirks that only we have. But at the same time, we know that people are drawn to familiarity and like-mindedness. And this is where I personally get confused, because half the time I’m trying to be myself and the other half of the time I’m trying to fit in—or even worse, be someone who I’d like to be like!

    But it doesn’t serve us to be torn like this, and I find that the temptation of trying to fit in is actually my own insecurities sabotaging the possibilities of me being completely myself. Completely free of the constraints of conforming, free of being a reflection of someone else, free of acting out someone else’s story.

    Next time you look at someone successful or beautiful or passionate, and you have those inspired feelings of “Maybe I could be like that too?”, always remember that, yes, you can do what they do, but you can never be like them.

    You can do it all too. But you need to just keep being you.

    I’m reminding myself of this on a daily basis, trying my utmost to convince my pesky brain that it’s safe to be me. In fact, it’s the only way to be if I ever want to be truly happy.

    These are the things I am doing to keep on track with being me. They might not work for you, because you are you, but they could change everything:

    1. Get the Universe in on the plan.

    The first thing I did was stop asking the Universe what my life purpose was, whether I should go traveling or start saving for a mortgage, or if this business idea was the right one. And instead, I started asking it to let me know if I wasn’t being myself.

    I started to get little signs that reminded me that I wasn’t on the right path. And also big ones, like when my last business crumbled into nothingness. Yes, the Universe was serious about me being myself and not something I thought I should be!

    2. Be kinder to yourself.

    You may have heard this a million times, but honestly, it’s working. When my mind chatter goes spinning off into some cruel dialogue along the lines of “I’m not good enough,” I ask myself, “Would I say that to someone I love?’

    The answer is no, I would never say that to someone I love. I would say, “Darling, you’re doing just fine, you deserve happiness and love, and you are perfect just the way you are.”

    And all of sudden I chill out, I stop fretting, knowing that I have my own support in this.

    3. Remind yourself that someone is relying on you.

    There’s nothing like a bit of guilt to motivate you! But really, imagine just one person that needs you to just be you. One person that needs your talent so desperately that it will change their life, move them out of poverty into comfort or sadness into joy.

    By not being you, you won’t be on purpose, you won’t be sharing your gift, you won’t be changing those lives. This makes me dig deep and get real with myself, because someone is relying on me to be me!

    You don’t have to know who you are to be who you are; just do what makes you feel alive, live how you want to live, and don’t let the constraints of other people’s stories hinder you in any way.

    Today, and every day, I’m choosing to be myself. And I’m getting better at it.

    Photo by Scarleth Marie

  • Making Your Passion Your Career (Despite the Naysayers)

    Making Your Passion Your Career (Despite the Naysayers)

    Painter

    “Don’t let life randomly kick you into the adult you don’t want to become.” ~Chris Hadfield, astronaut

    As a kid, you put zero thought into doing what you loved.

    You simply played, not knowing that your future self wouldn’t play that much at all. Work was serious business.

    When I was in kindergarten, our classroom had a block center, a board game shelf, a home center with dolls and a play stove, a drawing center, and a sand table.

    We naturally gravitated to the area that was most fun, with no thought about what would look good on our future resumes or college applications.

    As far back as I can remember, making up stories, writing them down, and telling them to anyone that would listen were my favorite activities.

    Fast forward to high school, then college.

    It’s Time to be an Adult

    Others told me that writing and art were lovely little hobbies, but I needed to choose a real career, something that would make money. I looked around to see what the other kids would do, trying to spark an idea. If it wasn’t writing, I was clueless.

    I never thought of asking, “Why not?” Why couldn’t writing be a career? I just accepted that a job or career had to be something you made a realistic, intellectual choice about, and not one that came from your heart.

    And I wasn’t the only one who received messages like this. I heard Oprah say that as a child she was asked what she thought she would do as a career.

    She said, “Well, I like talking to people.”

    The person responded, “Well, you can’t make money doing that.”

    7 Failed Careers Later

    Years later, after I was told I couldn’t make a career out of writing, I ended up with a resume that was four pages long and days that were like a yearlong run-on sentence.

    I plowed through job after job, staring out the windows and riding the trains I hated to jobs I hated even more. I did a good job at most of them and earned a nice income.

    I was a school secretary, lifeguard, pre-school assistant, mortgage processor, office manager, dance teacher, and a few others I can’t remember. I taught sewing classes and even started two businesses thinking that being my own boss would solve my empty feelings.

    It didn’t.

    A Return to Love

    Then I reached a turning point and realized I needed to go back to doing what I loved and make it work somehow.

    I had a week off work and found myself writing from morning to night. I felt my headaches lifting and a sense of peacefulness developing. I submitted an essay to a local newspaper. The publication didn’t accept it, but I didn’t care.

    I knew it was time to make my passion my day job, and here is what I did.

    The next time I was asked what type of work I did, for the first time in my life, I answered, “I’m a writer.”

    I began to read everything I could about writers and bloggers who wrote for a living, how they did it, and how they transitioned from other jobs. I wrote daily because I loved it.

    No worries about publication or earning money from my passion, just pure unadulterated love. I decided not to lose hope no matter what.

    I responded to an online ad for writing work and got the gig. Though I was only writing a few blog posts for $25 each, it felt like a million dollars.

    So my kids started wearing their cousins’ hand-me-down clothes. I held my breath as I tightened my belt until I could barely breathe. The fridge had the bare basics, the electricity got shut off once, and the car got towed and it was a pain to get it back. But I managed.

    I took a course on writing, joined a business mastermind group, and worked with a mentor on writing during the mornings. I worked evenings and weekends to support myself.

    I was writing at last.

    Do you recognize your passion? Not hobbies or things you like doing for fun sometimes—the one thing that rises above all. Think back to what you loved to do as a child, what you gravitated toward for no reason other than fun, and you will find it.

    Are you ready to say yes? Turn your passion into a career one step at a time with the following tips.

    1. Tell one stranger.

    Even before you’re working at making your passion your day job or income source, go ahead and tell someone that you’re a _______. (Fill in the blank). At any chance you get, do it again.

    2. Obsess over it.

    Move your passion from the back burner of your mind to the front. Think about it every chance you get if you’re not already doing so. Read about people who have successfully transitioned into the work you want to be doing.

    3. Do it for love.

    Whatever your passion, forget about making it into a career until you spend enough time reveling in the absolute joy of doing it. Paint, write, dance, take photos, carve wood, whatever it may be for love and only love.

    4. Hope above all.

    Decide that you will never give up hope.

    5. Shout it out loud.

    Put an ad out or tell people that you are willing to do some work in your field of passion for pay or for free.

    6. Wear the tightest belt ever.

    Pull. Tight, if you must (if funds are an issue). I hate this part, but there’s no getting around this. See where you could take some funds from one budget and put it toward a course or mentor so you are not doing this alone.

    One person inspires another. If you are already pulled tight, reach out for a mentor or learn from free resources and YouTube videos.

    7. Forget “Easy does it.”

    Easy doesn’t do it. Period. You’ll face challenges, and resistance from yourself and others. Do it anyway.

    Goodbye Naysayers

    Whoever told you that you couldn’t turn your passion into a career had better sit down, because you may be on your way to doing just that. The girl with the pretty voice from the Bronx, the English writer on the train on welfare, the guy with the alcoholic step dad that became President.

    And now you.

    Stop Looking at the Odds of Failing

    The odds against successfully turning your passion into a career and making money from it seem so overwhelming. So stop looking at the odds.

    The longing of not doing what you are meant to do catches up to you, and it becomes like a faraway lover that you dream of, that will never return.

    The power is in your hands to make it happen day by day, and to blow the naysayers a kiss from the podium. Every moment of the journey is, in fact, an end result in itself.

    You will glow from internal approval, even if the money doesn’t come as fast and as much as you would like.

    Reclaim the act of doing your passionate work as your career, as if happiness depended upon it.

    Because it does.

    Photo by Garry Knight

  • The Real Reason Some People Always Seem to Push Your Buttons

    The Real Reason Some People Always Seem to Push Your Buttons

    “Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion.” ~Buddha

    I always felt invisible whenever my husband and I got together with a certain couple.

    Every time we saw them, it triggered feelings of rejection because they would go on and on about themselves and never ask about how I was doing or feeling. I went home feeling ignored and sad every time.

    Finally, after putting up with this non-reciprocal relationship for a number of years, I decided that it was best for us to break free from it. 

    For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why this self-absorbed behavior bothered me so much.

    Eventually, the light bulb went off and I realized I kept hoping that one day this couple would validate me, in the same way that I kept hoping and hoping that one day my father would validate me.

    You see, my biggest negative childhood trauma was feeling invisible and unworthy of my father’s love. So anytime someone, like this couple, ignores me and I feel invisible, the little girl inside me feels pain.

    You may have people that trigger the young vulnerable parts of you, leading you to feel unloved, unworthy, and invisible.

    This little girl that is frozen in time in my psyche felt worthless and not enough.

    She eventually had had enough of me ignoring her, and she sought redemption by making me have a two-year battle with depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.

    Antidepressants and therapy took the edge off, but they didn’t heal the source of the hurt.

    I was searching for answers on how to permanently get rid of emotional scars, like a gardener looking for a way to dig up and discard the roots of stubborn weeds. My search ended when I discovered a little known powerful, rapid, and different method of healing emotional scars through self-led re-parenting and unburdening young parts of toxic memories.

    The young parts of you that hold negative emotions of shame, guilt, rejection, abandonment, and unworthiness need the love and reassurance from you that they never got when they first experienced negative events.

    I went back into the old toxic experiences that created the faulty beliefs that I was unlovable, unworthy, and not enough. I “re-parented” that little girl by telling her she is lovable, worthy, and enough.

    I explained to her that Dad didn’t know how to show his love. He was acting from his wounded parts, and that’s why she grew up in an environment that was filled with emotional misery.

    The little girl now understands what happened, and she’s able to believe that she is worthy, enough, and lovable because I told her she was. She is no longer frozen in time and has come into the present with me, where she resides in my heart.

    As a result of loving this young part, I recovered from depression, anxiety, and panic attacks for good.

    I also stepped into my father’s shoes and now know that validating me is something he was not capable of, because of his upbringing. I have forgiven him and now have compassion for him instead of anger.

    I am so thankful that this couple was in my life. They gave me the gift of identifying my most painful emotional wound.

    Who pushes your buttons? What is the gift they are giving you to help you identify your most painful wounds?

    This re-parenting technique that resulted in unconditionally loving myself has positively and permanently shifted my happiness set point and boosted my self-esteem and confidence.

    Nothing is holding me back from being happy now and in the journey to living to my potential and making a difference.

    My wounded part showed up as depression. Your wounded parts may show up as health and weight challenges; addictions such as eating too much, drinking too much, shopping too much, and procrastination; self-sabotage; anger; perfectionism; or overachievement.

    The following steps will help you heal your emotional scars at their source, delete the limiting beliefs that keep you stuck, and reprogram your brain with positive beliefs.

    1. Identify who triggers you.

    Which feelings do they trigger? Who is the parent, teacher, sibling, or old boyfriend/girlfriend with whom you originally felt this way?

    2. Step into this person’s shoes.

    Understand how much pain they are in from their own past. This will help you have compassion for them and forgive them.

    3. Access the young part of you that acquired the faulty beliefs as a result of interactions with this person.

    Examples of faulty negative core beliefs are: “I’m not lovable,” “I’m not enough,” “I’m not worthy,” and “I’ll never amount to anything.”

    4. Recall a scene that made you believe you were bad.

    Be with that part and give it the love and reassurance that it never got when that event happened. Tell it that it is lovable, worthy, and enough. Soak in the image of your loving self of today kissing, loving, and hugging this young part.

    5. Unburden yourself of the original negative feelings and beliefs.

    Imagine the ocean washing away the faulty beliefs of “I’m not lovable,” “I’m not worthy,” and “I’m not enough.” This energetically releases the bad memories and beliefs from your body.

    6. Bring that young part into the present.

    Have it be part of your team to move you forward and be happy.

    Healing myself through this technique has allowed me to create a new narrative for my life story. I now believe the Universe purposely gave me negative experiences for the evolution of my soul.

    These events gave me the gift of finding my life’s calling. 

    You too can figure out your life’s mission by healing your emotional scars first. Then you can figure out the new narrative that helps you make lemonade out of your lemons. As a result, you can live fully with joy and purpose before you die. 

    When you heal the emotional scars that keep you unhappy, you can significantly improve your happiness set point and positively change the course of your life.

    So, if you have people that push your buttons, thank them for being in your life. They are a gift because they help you find the source of your deepest wounds, which hold you back from being shameless and confidently showing up as the happiest version of you.

    Do you have emotional scars that are triggered by certain people?

  • What to Do When People in Your Life Don’t Want to Change

    What to Do When People in Your Life Don’t Want to Change

    Arguing

    “If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” ~Mary Engelbreit

    We all know at least one person who we think needs a self-help course or book more than we do. They’re the “wrong” ones, at least in our minds.

    I once was in a relationship with a man who seemed to have placed me at the bottom of his priority list. He would always be too busy playing sports or going out with his coworkers to spend time with me.

    I found myself modifying my weekend schedule to match his and becoming anxious when I wasn’t successful. Finding time to be with him had become a source of stress. I used to think that if he changed, our relationship would be perfect and my worry would disappear.

    So I did what many of us do: I suggested he read books about how to be a good partner.

    I expressed that I was feeling neglected in the relationship and assumed he would do something to make me feel better.

    I tried to find solutions so he would be able to continue doing the activities he seemed to love so much and still have time to be with me.

    In short, I placed all my attention on changing what he was or wasn’t doing. I blamed him for my dissatisfaction with the relationship.

    Those were my big mistakes, because I’ve learned that the key isn’t to attempt to control other people’s attitudes or behaviors. The key isn’t to believe that they’re at fault for our negative emotions.

    The key is to assume responsibility for our life circumstances.

    I’ve developed a four-step approach that has helped me let go of the need to change other people: 

    Step 1. Awareness.

    In a universe in which all of us are connected, your conscious and subconscious actions contributed the current state of your relationship.

    You might have acted in ways that conveyed to the other person that he or she could treat you in disrespectful ways, or that you weren’t worthy of love and caring.

    Becoming consciously aware of your thoughts and actions will allow you to ensure that everything you say and do (and let others do) is aligned with your values.

    In my case, if I had become aware that being the last priority in a relationship was unacceptable, I would have exited the relationship before it negatively affected my emotional state.

    Step 2. Growth.

    Even if you think your contribution to the dire state of the relationship is only 10 percent, there is room for learning and growth.

    What have you learned about your way of communicating with others? Are you assertive, or do you usually choose the easiest path of passive aggression, or even blatant aggression?

    What have you learned about your way to react to unacceptable behavior? Do you express your boundaries, or do you seethe in silence hoping that the other person finally “gets it”?

    What have you learned about authenticity and vulnerability? Do you honestly express your feelings, or instead complain about your situation to other people, but pretend everything is great when you are with the person who is the source of your complaints?

    I learned that for me to be satisfied in a romantic relationship, honesty, commitment, and respect are paramount.

    Step 3. Control.

    After you’ve learned from a relationship, you must take ownership for your feelings about the other person’s behavior. It’s your choice whether to let the other person’s actions dictate whether you’re happy or not.

    External occurrences are random and difficult or impossible to control, but your thoughts about your situation are your personal choice.

    Now I know that when someone behaves in unpleasant ways, I have the power to continue enjoying every second of my life.

    Step 4. Trust.

    All human beings have access to the same fountain of wisdom, or human consciousness. This means that you need to trust that those around you will learn their life lessons at their own pace, whenever they are ready.

    You need to remind yourself that it’s not your responsibility to show anyone what he or she needs to learn or to understand. As an innate teacher, this step was one of the hardest for me to take, but once I took it, I gained an amazing sense of peace that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

    Being conscious of our own magnificence includes being conscious of the magnificence of those around you. 

    When people in our life don’t want to change, we change ourselves.

    Photo by Michael Coghlan

  • Saying Goodbye to One Adventure Is Saying Hello to Another

    Saying Goodbye to One Adventure Is Saying Hello to Another

    Dawn of a New Day

    “If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.” ~Paulo Coelho

    When I was born, the nurse lifted me from the bed, placed me on a cold metal operating table, and prepped my umbilical cord to be severed. As my parents put it, I “screamed bloody murder” when she attended to me, then grabbed ahold of the index finger of her latex glove and pulled it clean off.

    “You just wouldn’t let go,” my dad recalls, chuckling.

    That often-told family tale has risen to consciousness many times during the last few months, especially when I’ve found myself overwhelmed, fearful, and grief-stricken at the task of saying goodbye.

    Goodbye to my first love, each of my beloved college friends, my wonderful university and creative writing program, to the Pacific Northwest, and more importantly to a time of my life that had a big role in bearing me into the woman I am today.

    Goodbye, because I picked up and moved to Berkeley, CA to explore, to live, to find new joy. As the move became more real, every “so long” brought with it the coldness of surgical steel at my back, a wet cry, an unwavering grip on those places and people I love.

    The thing about letting go is that it’s unnatural to most and must be learned with great patience and persistence.

    Perhaps it’s difficult because we need attachment to survive—babies need their mothers and the rest of the “village” to thrive physically and emotionally, to adjust to life beyond the womb.

    But letting go is worth learning, because it means risk, and with risk comes growth.

    I crave growth. I crave new experience. I crave adventure. And as much as I loved Bellingham, it wasn’t supplying me with the tools to be happy.

    I want to be a well-known writer, I want to see the world, I want to learn new stories and sing songs with strangers. I just couldn’t do that in a small, bayside city of people I know well. But the inevitability (even predictability) of this goodbye couldn’t make it any easier.

    Intentionally letting go is not any less excruciating than doing so subconsciously, and I would be remiss if I told you so. It requires we savor not only sweet beginnings, but also bitter endings. It requires we face fear and grief in the face, rather than burying them deep.

    The day I left Bellingham, I sat in the middle of the floor of my empty apartment bawling. Whereas we are taught to stay strong, to hold tears in, to look forward with no impulse to go back, I allowed myself a moment to be achingly present in the memories and attachment I have to that place.

    I remembered drinking wine on floor with my roommates until the wee hours; writing story after story on my bedroom carpet; lying in bed and talking most the night with the first boy I’ve ever really loved.

    Okay, so maybe I’m a sap. Or perhaps even a masochist. But I’ve found that if you give fear and grief the time of day, gratefulness and joy greet you on the other side.

    Endings just want to be acknowledged, just want you to pause and remember how beautiful life can be. In that way, how you deal with endings can become a litmus test for how mindfully you are living.

    So, I challenge you to see change not with dread, but as a chance to remember how beautiful your life has been, is, and will continue to be. And whenever you say “so long,” keep an eye out for that new hello. It will come.

    I know it’s true as I sit in a sunny Berkeley coffee shop writing, musing on the courage it took to get me here and watching a little boy in denim overalls holding tight to the hand of his “Papa!” To all this new adventure, joy and love, I say hello, hello, hello.

    Photo by nevena kukoljac

  • 5 Ways to Let Go of Worries So You Can Be Light and Free

    5 Ways to Let Go of Worries So You Can Be Light and Free

    Man Flying

    “I vow to let go of all worries and anxiety in order to be light and free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Our daughter is seeing a counselor to help her deal with anxiety. She’s only ten. Cue mother guilt.

    There are a whole lot of (mostly crazy) worries running around her little head, some that even I can’t wrap my head around. So I wrap my arms around her and reassure her that things will be okay.

    I give her permission to be anxious, but try to instill resilience so she won’t worry so much. I try to teach her mindfulness and meditation and positive thinking. And I worry, about her and too many things—some role model I am!

    Mostly, my daughter worries about something happening to her dad or me.

    Separation anxiety is the crux of her problem. She’d been avoiding sleepovers with friends and even her grandparents, and it all came to a head when her school camp loomed large.

    The good news is she got through camp, thanks to her resilience, mindfulness, her first counseling session, and our pep talks—and despite my worry, which was wasted, as it always is!

    Getting through camp was a big achievement for our daughter in her journey to overcoming anxiety, but she has a road ahead as she deals with her fears about losing us, embedded as they are in processing her feelings about being adopted and the loss of her birthparents in her life.

    She has a lot to deal with, yet she is brave, strong, resilient.

    She’s only ten, but she’s already demonstrating ways to take worry out of her life. I’m beyond proud.

    I gained my own painful insights into the futility of worry through a long journey of infertility and an equally long wait for adoption. Loss of control was the only certainty. Yet, I’ve gained the most clarity through my children’s eyes.

    Children teach us lessons every day, if we are open to learning them. And they open our closed minds to lessons we learned as kids but have forgotten.

    There was a time when worry didn’t exist, as hard as it is for us adults to imagine. It was all about the present; the future wasn’t to be feared.

    The key to taking worry out of life, I think, is to reconnect with that sense of child-like wonder, while bringing to each moment the adult wisdom of knowing that worry will never change what happens. That “this too shall pass.”

    Here are five ways to overcome worry that I’ve learned and assimilated from what my daughter has so courageously demonstrated.

    1. Accept that some worry is good for you.

    This sounds counterintuitive, but if you stop worrying about worrying, it’s a really great place to start!

    For starters, you need to have some fear in your life for when you are being chased by a lion and need adrenaline to kick in in order to flee (great idea), or when you are confronted and the only choice is to fight.

    A bit of worry is normal—good news for anxious people who worry even more about being abnormal. Some stress about consequences keeps us motivated. It keeps us alert to possibilities and shows that we care.

    A little bit of worry is natural, normal, and human. Use it wisely.

    2. Move through worry.

    Can you imagine dancing and being worried at the same time?

    Of course, even a prima donna ballerina will have at least a hint of stage nerves (for adrenaline, and because she cares). But the dancers we admire so much, who hold us in thrall, they go to a place where worry cannot exist.

    It’s a magical place where their bodies meld with the music and become one, and there’s no time, only rhythm and movement and wonder that we humans are even capable of such beauty.

    I’ve watched my ten-year-old dance like this, and I watch her all the time, flipping, cartwheeling, hand standing and doing walkovers, pirouettes etcetera, over and over. She quite literally moves through her anxiety.

    She’s not worried at all about dance (other than a few stage nerves), and she loses all other anxious thoughts when she’s lost in the beauty of it.

    Movement—be it dance, yoga, running, walking, swimming, or whatever sport or exercise—provides the opportunity to distract yourself from worry, to be lost in the wonder of being able to move your body for its own sake. Little by little, anxiety fades.

    3. Sit with worry.

    When we stop physical activity, we make room for more thoughts, and that can be scary.

    This is when we need mindfulness to simply witness those thoughts—not to judge them, not to feed them so they multiply, but to simply observe them as waves rolling in and out.

    If you can separate yourself from your worries and focus on your breath, then you can breathe in fresh air and calm and exhale worry. You create both a physical and mental means of release.

    You can open the space for stillness, a place where peace replaces worry.

    4. Talk back to worry.

    Anxious thoughts are as persistent as they usually are irrational. When they take over our self-talk, it can feel like we can’t change the script. But they’re just lines in a script we run through our heads—a fiction.

    Children, with their abundance of imagination, find it harder to separate fact from fiction, and one of the skills my daughter is learning is to think rationally about her anxieties.

    For example, I tell her that it’s no more likely something bad will happen to her father and me when she isn’t with us than when she’s tucked up in bed in the next room. She sees the logic.

    She worries about us being older parents and not being around for her, and while I can’t change the facts, I can point out that if she does the math her fears of our imminent deaths are unfounded if you look rationally at the figures (we are not that old).

    Anxiety cowers in the face of rationality. Arguing back with forceful reason is a way to change your self-talk over time, literally starving your worries of oxygen.

    5. Cultivate resilience.

    Resilience, along with empathy, is the key quality we are trying to instill in our children. If they never have to cope with failure or disappointment, today’s mollycoddled generation risks falling apart in the face of a crisis.

    Resilience is your armor against anxiety. When you cultivate resilience, you have a ready reminder of what you’ve already survived (and often thrived through) in the past. You are shielded by the strength you’ve built up and safe in the knowledge that you can prevail, that things will get better.

    Resilience is so much more powerful than blind faith that things will be okay, because with resilience you will be okay regardless.

    Worry can’t triumph against such resolve.

    —

    I wish I could say that getting over anxiety is easy because even a child can do it, but it’s not. It’s hard for our daughter, but we want to try stop anxiety becoming a painful pattern she takes into adulthood.

    For us adults, I think we can only work with and through worry—put it in its place, put ourselves in control. Take the lead in this universal dance through life.

  • Create New Opportunities by Challenging Your Judgments and Reactions

    Create New Opportunities by Challenging Your Judgments and Reactions

    New Day

    “Taking responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change them.” ~Byron Katie

    “Alright, it’s time to break into groups,” said the professor.

    Immediately, I thought, “I hate group work. I can’t trust other students.” Before even meeting the other members of the group, I was sabotaging the opportunity with negativity.

    How often do you do this?

    The six of us waited, looking at each other with blank faces.

    “Okay, now it’s time to pick a group leader,” said the professor. “Each group will be assigned a psychologist to present his or her major contributions to psychology. You all have ten minutes to present, no more. AND NO READING OFF POWERPOINT OR NOTECARDS,” he screamed. “We present in four weeks. Be prepared.”

    Without even realizing it, I let out a huge sigh and dug my face into my hands. “Finals, papers, work, and now this?” The moment I realized what I was doing, I was embarrassed, because what kind of body language was I signaling? How automatic was that?

    I took a breath. I thought, “Is this how you want to lead by example? How ridiculous are you acting right now? Look back on your principles and follow them.” And so I did: one of my principles in life is learning how to flip negative situations into positive.

    Adversity is really a challenge in disguise. And challenges build character, facilitate growth, and teach us important lessons in life.

    My professor also said something that motivated me: “Out of all my years of teaching, I have never given a group a 100.”

    Challenge accepted.

    Be Mindful Of Your Default Setting

    David Foster Wallace talked about our “default settings” in his “This Is Water” Kenyon Commencement speech.

    Our default setting is how we react to the events in our lives. When we’re bored, we find solace in our phones. When someone cuts us off on the road, we drive up next to their window to see what they look like. And for me, when told that there is group work, I let out huge sighs and roll my eyes.

    This is, however, something we ought to overcome; we decide what has meaning in our lives or what doesn’t.

    I went home really thinking about this assignment—is this really about getting an A, or is it something more meaningful, like practicing organization, leadership, communication, teamwork, and, most of all, public speaking?

    Throughout our lives we will meet people that we don’t like right away or may be in a situation where we feel uncomfortable

    Instead of reveling in this negativity, it would be infinitely more rewarding to take a step back and realize what we’re telling ourselves about this particular situation or person. Is this how we really want to look at it or perhaps is there another way?

    1. Pause and focus on being mindful.

    Take a breath. What are you telling yourself? What do you feel? Getting to the bottom of your feelings, becoming self-aware, is step one; making the conscious decision to change your mind will be tough but necessary.

    Once you become aware of what you’re telling yourself, only then can you start changing the inner dialogue.

    2. Let go.

    Okay, so there was no way of getting out of this presentation, not unless I was okay with failing the class. So now I accept what I cannot change. What can I do to make this moment better? Keep dancing in my discomfort and insecurities or step up and lead?

    Our default setting is to complain and whine, but we’ve all done this so many times in our lives that it’s obvious it doesn’t lead to anything fruitful. Probably best to do the more difficult task instead.

    Negative Judgment Into Compassion & Humility

    We all, to an extent, judge people automatically. We look at their clothing, body language, skin color, and age. This isn’t necessarily bad; this is just how our minds work. We process and organize information in categories to save mental energy, process new information, avoid danger, or approach new friends.

    But this automatic prejudging could be self-defeating at times. I automatically judged one of my group members to be the least active because of her demanding medical job and being a mother of two.

    And I was dead wrong. They were passionate, organized, and although tired after a long day of work, attentive and committed. I was humbled.

    1. Give chances.

    This is where empathy plays a big role: How would you want to be treated? Would you want strangers to give you a chance or not? From a leadership standpoint, I had no choice but to remove my negative judgments and exercise compassion and humility.

    You will have expectations, sure, but don’t let it cloud your judgment so deeply that you forget you’re working with human beings.

    2. Teamwork is also about compassion and humility.

    Depending on the way you are, working with others is difficult because your ideas get challenged. People may not agree with you, and the very feeling of friction against what you contribute is enough to put you on the defensive.

    The idiosyncratic and often deluded belief that we are the most important and knowledgeable person is something we have to let go. Once I truly embraced the suggestions and feedback from my group members, the presentation evolved in ways I couldn’t have previously imagined.

    Choose What Has Meaning

    After many weeks of rehearsal, I’ve never felt more confident in my group. I reflected on how I was thinking, feeling, and behaving just weeks ago, and I realized how foolish I acted and how I nearly sabotaged a great opportunity to exercise important, fundamental skills in life.

    I learned how to work with other people, how to listen, how to give and take feedback, and how to turn strangers into friends.

    We were the last group to present. One by one groups would go up and follow very similar routines, read off their notecards, and hide behind the podium.

    “Is this what you were so afraid of?” I thought to myself. My group, during our rehearsal, was the complete opposite: strong eye contact, no words on the PowerPoint, barely any notecards, and lots of engagement. How? A lot of practice.

    When it was our turn to present, of course, the fear crept right in; I even saw it in the eyes of my group members. Before we all walked up, I looked at each of them. We didn’t even have to say anything. We all gave each other a little nod, smiled, and walked up to the front of the room.

    One by one, each of us presented our section, and by the end the class roared with applause, even a few murmurs like, “That was the best one.”

    At the end of the class the professor walked up to us and said, “I have a problem with your presentation. You didn’t read off notecards, you didn’t read off the PowerPoint slide, and you didn’t have blocks of text on it either. I’m going to have to give you all a 100.”

    My group jumped with joy, hugging one another and congratulating each other. As I was soaking in the moment I thought, “See? What were you afraid of? Why those negative judgments? Look at what was accomplished and how it was done. Now apply this in other areas of your life.”

    To me, this wasn’t so much about the grade, although I originally believed it to be. No, the real joy was the experience of overcoming my fear of public speaking, turning strangers into friends, exercising teamwork, leadership, humility, and compassion.

    The challenge, of course, is applying this same mindset to new and upcoming endeavors. It’s easy to fall back on our default setting without being aware of it, but the more we practice mindfulness, the more likely it will become our new default setting.

    Just imagine if I stuck to my default setting? Imagine if I let negativity overwhelm me and guide my actions? This experience, this story, would have ceased to exist. So would the lessons that I’ve shared.

    Photo by Alejandra Mavroski

  • Focus on Yourself Instead of Trying to Change Someone Else

    Focus on Yourself Instead of Trying to Change Someone Else

    “If you can’t change the circumstances, change your perspective.” ~Unknown

    I was the one who was the designated driver in high school and college. I wanted to be in control of how I arrived and left a party. Besides, the taste of alcohol did not please, so it was a win-win situation in my mind.

    Then, a decade later, I found myself dating someone who was addicted to drugs. I thought if he could just hang around me, see how I found joy without being altered by substances and bask in my love, then he could stay sober.

    In the midst of it, I didn’t see that I wanted to have control over him.

    I didn’t see that my annoyance with his victim mentality, blaming external relationships and circumstances for his situation, reflected my own victim mentality and judgment.

    And the joy I wanted him to emulate from me was really just tears of the clown, because I wasn’t aligned with my true self.

    Pain is a Mirror Image

    The pain I felt was a mirror to his pain. He felt shame and judged himself harshly for using; I felt shame and judged myself harshly for not being where I thought I should be in my career, and for the way I looked as I packed on the pounds of responsibility he never asked me to take.

    It wasn’t until I gave up on wanting him to change that I found peace. I realized I wasn’t in pain because I loved this person. I was in pain because he wasn’t acting how I wanted him to act. I was in pain because I deemed a specific path to joy and expansion, and he wasn’t taking it.

    Accept the Other, Accept Yourself

    After I realized that I could be at peace by accepting who he was and his choices, I could finally accept my responsibility for our relationship and for bringing him into my life. I decided to love him for the being he was, and most importantly, to love myself.

    My relief was astounding. I started meditating daily and allowed myself to listen to my truth. I let go of the weight of trying to be his savior, and that translated into inches off of my body. It was like dense matter had seamlessly transformed into light.

    When I began to love myself, I empowered myself to make healthy choices. Since I knew I couldn’t change him, I figured out that it was my preference to no longer be around that environment. So I decided to leave it.

    I understood that he used drugs to obtain relief and to be soothed from his troubles, which is what we all try to do in different forms when we experience that contrast from where we are and where we want to be.

    But I was closing that contrast gap for myself, and where I was and where he was energetically could not be in the same space for too long. I was still there for him as a friend, but as I grew one way our phone conversations became less and less.

    This man has been one of my greatest teachers. He recently passed away, and ever since I learned of this, I have been hearing one of his favorite songs consistently on the radio, Levon, written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

    This teacher of mine used to sit in his favorite chair and laugh and cry to that song. The protagonist, Levon, was a man seeped in tradition. He was born poor, and once he started making money, he became attached to it.

    My ex saw himself as Levon’s son, who would blow up balloons all day (how his father made money) and watch them fly away. The son was a dreamer who wanted to go to Venus.

    My friend, my love, did fly away in his physical form. I don’t know the circumstances that surrounded his death. I think he finally found in the non-physical what I learned to do in the physical—to love himself and find relief.

    Getting to That Better Feeling Place

    If you too are waiting on someone else, hoping they’ll change and realize their “potential,” and you’re feeling miserable as a result, it may help to do the following:

    1. Realize that the only person you can change is yourself.

    You can be a guide and an example, but ultimately change comes from within.

    2. Accept the situation didn’t “just happen to you.”

    You made a choice to enter this situation. When you accept responsibility for your part, thoughts, and reactions, you will be empowered to transform.

    3. Accept the person for who they are and where they are.

    By doing this, you will be living in the present moment and not putting blame for what happened yesterday and creating stories about what could happen in the future.

    4. Connect with the feeling of relief.

    Realize that underneath it all, the person is just trying to feel better, even though it might be in a harmful way, and you don’t approve of their choices.

    5. Write down your dreams and preferences.

    Focus on your inner world and what thoughts bring you to a place of joy. Decide how you choose to live and what’s healthy for you.

    6. Be consistent.

    And after you make this a consistent practice, the situation must change—either the person will start moving to where you are, or you will exit each other’s lives.

    —

    I certainly needed to take these steps and learn these lessons. I learned from him to go to Venus and dream. To listen to my true self and to follow a path that was aligned with thoughts of joy and smiles of inspiration.

    When I became clear on my dreams and aligned with them, that gave me the motivation to move by the ocean and to take the first steps to leaving a legal career behind. I finally accepted myself. I finally felt like I knew who I was.

    I am so grateful for where I am now, and I thank him for nudging me out of my comfort zone and for helping me learn acceptance, allowance, and awareness of who I really am. And now when I find myself thinking thoughts of those opposites, I can now blow up balloons, put those thoughts in them, and watch them fly away—with a smile, in my favorite chair.

  • The Secret to Getting Along With Your Parents

    The Secret to Getting Along With Your Parents

    Family

    “My experience is that the teachers we need most are the people we’re living with right now.” ~Byron Katie

    Nothing hurts like being misunderstood, and there is no place that this feeling runs rampant quite like it does with family.

    I used to think I was the only one.

    For years after I moved out, each visit back home would be preceded by careful, specific preparation. I would try to brace myself for whatever would be coming my way.

    I would spend the entire two-hour bus ride turning all of the possible criticisms and probable arguments over and over in my head. I would rehearse ways I could react to various imagined scenarios.

    I thought preparing myself would soften the blows. It didn’t.

    Ram Dass once said, “If you think you are enlightened, go and spend a week with your parents.”

    Imagine my embarrassment and hopelessness at thinking I’d finally cracked the secrets of peace and happiness, only to find myself welling up with the same old anger and resentment each time I faced my closest relatives.

    Even after I began a journey of personal and spiritual growth, visits back home were toxic.

    I would prepare. I’d show up. They would judge me. I’d react. Then, I would judge myself for letting their judgment get to me. Then, they’d judge me for letting it get to me. Then, I’d judge them for judging me. It would be a giant, exhausting mess.

    Each time I returned home, I would be exhausted and wondering how I’d ever lived with these people in the first place.

    One day, in the midst of recovering from such a visit, I found myself in an intimate conversation with a friend about beauty. She shared with me how she sometimes felt so disgusted by her reflection that she could hardly function.

    I empathized, letting her know that I had suffered with that severity of self-hatred for close to ten years.

    I said, “You know what I’ve learned? It wasn’t my reflection that was hurting me. It was my expectation that, every time I looked in the mirror, I would discover someone else, some other person who wasn’t me. Jennifer Aniston maybe? But Jennifer Aniston never showed up. It was always just same, old me. That was what really hurt—the expectation that was never met.”

    Immediately after the words poured out of my mouth, my mind lit on fire.

    I realized, with stark clarity, that the same relationship I used to have with my reflection, I was having with my parents. I kept showing up, time after time, expecting different people to magically appear.

    I kept expecting that they would change.

    When I told my partner about my epiphany later that evening, he looked amused. I asked him why he was smiling like that.

    He told me, “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’ve definitely said this to you. Many times! You’ve said it to me too!”

    I was surprised, but not for long. I thought about my relationship with myself and how I’d heard messages of self-love, self-acceptance, and self-forgiveness, but it took me years to truly internalize them. Maybe that’s how it was with my parents. It wasn’t that I didn’t know the answer. I just had to be ready to experience it.

    The next time I went home, it was like a whole new world. I didn’t brace myself for criticism, nor did I plan my words. I just showed up with the assumption that, maybe, they would never change.

    This simple belief completely transformed my relationship with them. Suddenly, I could see them for who they were. They were, and always will be, flawed and beautiful, just like me.

    I could suddenly smile at their criticism and laugh at their judgment. I could embrace them even if they didn’t feel like embracing me. I could understand them even if they misunderstood me.

    I used to think that people who had good relationships with their parents had perfect parents.

    That’s just not true.

    People who get along with their parents have just as many family conflicts as anyone else. They just choose to accept those conflicts as part of life, and love their kin anyway.

    For me, learning to accept my family, just as they are, opened up new doors of opportunity.

    Right after I started practicing understanding and acceptance toward them, I got the inspiration to work on a book. I got the passion to start my own business. I got the courage to speak my message loudly.

    All these things happened within a few months of my epiphany, and I can’t pretend that the timing was a coincidence.

    I honestly believe that our expectations of our families, our own judgments about them, hold us back in ways we can’t even imagine. I honestly believe that, if you can learn to love your parents, just as they are, you’ll unlock boundless potential within you. I truly believe that this is the one missing piece that most people don’t realize is missing.

    Of course, it’s not easy. Nothing worth having is easy, but it’s always simple.

    And this is my simple message, today and forever: accept and allow. That is the path toward peace, love, and serenity.

    Photo by pilostic

  • What Babies Teach Us About Self-Image and Letting Go

    What Babies Teach Us About Self-Image and Letting Go

    Baby

    “The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    The nurse found me slumped behind the soda machine.

    “Honey, are you okay?” she asked, brow crinkled in nervous response to my (apparently louder than I’d realized) sobs.

    I nodded, answering in messy sniffles. The nurse, not entirely convinced, assured me that if I needed anything, she’d be at the desk just around the corner.

    I remained crouched in my not-so-perfect hiding place a while longer, waiting until my breaths no longer shook to trudge back to my mom’s hospital room. The news was not going to be fun to break.

    I was officially a deadbeat.

    For context, I’ve lived most of my life as a success junkie. I was the token overachiever during every year of education, at every job, in every hobby; being impressive was my forte.

    My general mindset was that success is good, so those who succeed are worthy, while failure is bad, so those who fail are unworthy.

    This mindset fueled plenty of remarkable endeavors—some thrilling and fun, some terrifying and painful—all of which were tied to my own self-image.

    I’d just left a dream job in music marketing, which had only developed after years of radio programming and slow, meticulous relationship-building with industry contacts.

    I’d worked my butt off at that position, trading unlimited access to up-and-coming music and a constantly revolving social life of shows, happy hours, festivals, hangouts with bands, and client dinners for adequate sleep/nutrition/self-care. (This workaholic behavior made me worthy.)

    After ultimately deciding that music marketing wasn’t the core around which I wanted to build my life, I’d begun revisiting my previously abandoned plans to live and work abroad.

    I’d applied, applied, and applied for jobs throughout Asia, finally accepting a position in South Korea. (Quitters are unworthy; a next step in place kept me safe and still worthy.)

    I’d somehow worked up the courage to notify my bosses, go public with the decision, and pack up the life I’d built from scratch over the past five years. (This made me crazy, but with a next step firmly in place, I stillremained “worthy.”)

    Then, during my final week in the office, I’d received the news that my mom had cancer. And so I quickly found myself on a plane back to the Midwest, where, thankfully, I was able to support her through the surgery and recovery process.

    Now, however, here I was mere hours after her operation: crumpled behind a soda machine, trying to process the phone call with the Korean Consulate that had just shattered my worthiness in a span of about five minutes.

    “Miss Suellentrop, there is a problem with your paperwork. You’ll have to mail us XYZ additional forms if you want to apply for a work visa. We’ll have them processed by next month.”

    But my start date is in two weeks—I can’t miss it!

    “Then I’m sorry, but you won’t be able to take the job.”

    And that was that. A handful of sentences had taken away my employment, my painstakingly laid plans for the next twelve months—and my fragile self-image right along with them.

    You willingly abandoned your edgy, cool life on the East Coast, I told myself. You are a failure. 

    You quit your secure, impressive job. You are a failure.

    Everyone will know you’re a deadbeat stuck in a suburban town. You are a failure.

    You’re balled up behind a soda machine and haven’t showered since Monday. YOU ARE A FAILURE.

    I shuffled back to the room to share the update with my family, voice choked with embarrassment—both from the fact that I now had no job in place, and from the fact that while I was suffering an identity crisis based on outward appearances, Mom was recovering from major invasive surgery. In the spectrum of tough-to-handle circumstances, cancer tends to trump most other things.

    After a few moments of quiet, my beloved, endlessly wise, still heavily medicated mother said, “Claire, when babies fart, they don’t freak out or worry that they aren’t good babies. They feel it, they let it happen, and then they let it go.”

    They let it go.

    When circumstances beyond our control make life smelly, we don’t need to hold onto them any longer than a baby holds on to its farts.

    Rather than allowing those circumstances to define who we are, all we need to do is acknowledge the thoughts and emotions they trigger, accept that they’re happening, and let them go.

    Stifling the emotions that spring forth won’t ease the situation—when is holding gas in ever the more comfortable option?

    Emotions are nothing more than the results of the thoughts you’re having about the circumstance. Like gas, they’re just noise passing through. Feel them, as fully as you can, and then they’ll be able to fade.

    Pretending the circumstance isn’t happening is equally as fruitless. You can pretend all you want that you didn’t let one rip, but the room will still reek. It’s just an event that occurred—something totally neutral and temporary. It doesn’t mean a thing.

    Why try to label yourself by something ethereal, something brief?

    Feeling bad does not make you a bad person, and receiving embarrassing news or an unexpected result from a long-held plan does not mean you are unworthy.

    You are not the air escaping from your body, you are not the job you no longer have, you are not the possessions you do or do not own. You are just you, and only you. Let the rest of it go.

    If you find yourself reeling from an outside event or rushing to block out an unwanted wave of emotion, pause for a second.

    Identify whether you’re trying to hold something in, pretend it doesn’t exist, or let it define you.

    Once you’ve got that down, revert back to your baby self:

    Feel it. Let it happen. And let it go.

    Photo by didi8

  • Why Self-Pity is Harmful and How to Let It Go

    Why Self-Pity is Harmful and How to Let It Go

    Letting Go of Self Pity

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

    Some of us experience more adversity and painful events in our lives than others. We wonder why our difficulties don’t happen to the “bad” people out there instead of us. Unfortunately, life is not fair.

    Awful things happen. Dreadful circumstances or tragedies will affect most of our lives at some point. It’s okay to cry and feel sorry for yourself and your circumstances, mope around, or get angry. But at some point you must shake it off, let go of the past, and choose to not let it consume you entirely. Otherwise, you won’t be able to learn from the experience and move forward in a constructive way.

    Now, I am not addressing true clinical depression here. I am talking about self-pity, defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as “a self-indulgent dwelling on your own sorrows or misfortunes.”

    My Own Pity Party

    When I was young, I moved from Florida to Minnesota for a new job. I met a guy there and thought I was in love.

    Then the guy got a new job across the country in Oregon and asked me to move there with him. Thinking I was in love, I got a job transfer as close as possible to his new city (two-and-a-half-hour drive each way) to live with him in his new house. I thought we would get married.

    A few months later, we broke up. (I bet you saw that coming, right?) I had nowhere to live, no friends in that state, and I was stuck all the way across the country from anyone else I knew. I felt alone, abandoned, and unloved. I was also trapped with no money, as I’d put everything I had into his house.

    I was a hapless victim of love, and I played my part like Shakespeare had written it for me. I gave in completely to self-pity. I cried in public for the poor cashier at the grocery store. I wore my swollen eyes like a badge of honor.

    Kind and compassionate coworkers found me a roommate with a twenty-minute commute instead of two and a half hours. They gave me solid proof that I was not alone, not abandoned, and not unloved, yet I refused to be consoled. I allowed self-pity to consume me and held tightly to my belief of being alone and unloved. Poor me, UGH!

    I’m sure there were other people around me who were also in pain, struggling with homelessness, sickness, financial difficulties, bereavement, worries over children. But I didn’t see them or notice them. I didn’t care about them. I only cared about myself and my broken heart. I fed on my own misery.

    When I look back on that time, I see how fortunate I was that I didn’t marry that guy, and I am amazed that I didn’t give more consideration to the kind people who helped me. Self-pity also made me less gracious toward my friends.

    Self-Pity is a Choice

    When we fall into the depression of self-pity, we allow it to take control of our lives. We become completely self-absorbed. It is destructive to dwell on negative events and carry that bitterness and resentment forward. When we keep our focus on the hurt, we aren’t focused on taking control of our lives.

    If we blame negative circumstances for our place in life, we are giving up responsibility and control.

    We whine and feel sorry for ourselves. We can choose to spread our misery, or we can choose to rise above our circumstances.

    Self-pity is a form of selfishness. It makes us less aware of the needs and suffering of others. Our own suffering is all we think or care about in our self-absorbed state.

    The Story of Tony Melendez

    Tony Melendez

    Tony Melendez was born with no arms and a clubfoot. Despite his misfortune, Tony chose to control his own life and happiness. He improved his circumstances as far as he could control them. He made positive choices and took responsibility for his own future.

    As stated in the biography page of his website, Tony is “a man who has spent his life putting personal confidence above his handicap.” How? By learning to play the guitar with his toes!

    He began his career in Los Angeles. Tony is a musician and vocalist with several successful albums. He is also a composer, motivational speaker, and writer.

    In 1987 Tony played for Pope John Paul II in Los Angeles. The Holy Father was so moved that he approached Tony on the stage and commissioned him “to give hope to all the people.”

    Tony took the pope’s words to heart. Tony Melendez Ministries is a non-profit organization that helps people throughout the world, bringing them hope, compassion, scholarships, and other funding.

    Tony Melendez and the Toe Jam Band have a busy tour schedule. There is no room for self-pity in Tony’s busy life because he does not focus on himself. He unselfishly gives to others he feels are less fortunate.

    But don’t expect Tony to play at your pity party. He will give you an example to overcome self-pity and inspire you to achieve a wonderful life.

    You can choose to lift yourself up and enjoy life! You are in charge of your own happiness. It is your personal responsibility.

    So go ahead and cry and mope and feel sorry for yourself and stay in bed all day. Feel the pain and the hurt. Live your reality and misery. It’s okay and even healthy to do that. But then let it go!

    Don’t let it consume your life. You are not alone or unloved. Remember there are other people in your life who need you. There are people you haven’t even met yet who need you! You can’t help anyone else if you only see yourself.

    You cannot change the past, but you can change your future.

    Photo by jeronimo sanz

  • Finding Our Inner Child and Having More Fun in Life

    Finding Our Inner Child and Having More Fun in Life

    Happy Kids

    “A healthy attitude is contagious but don’t wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.” ~Tom Stoppard

    Just the other day, I was at my daughter’s school to watch her participate in a spelling bee. As the kids came into the room, I took notice of their manner and their faces.

    They looked excited, frightened, and some, decidedly uninterested. The teacher led them over to their area and promptly told them to sit on the floor, in two straight lines, and no talking please. They complied.

    Some kids pushed at the others to “move over!” Some held their fingers to their lips, loudly shhhhhshing the others. Some opened their notebooks and began to draw or write. Some spoke quietly to the friend next door.

    I smiled as I watched them; some caught my grin and smiled back. I wondered if adults would have fulfilled the teacher’s request so quickly, and with relatively little complaint.

    I pondered how many adults, after being told to sit on the floor, would have protested “I don’t want to sit on the floor,” or “the floor, are you kidding?!”

    How many would have continued talking, ignoring anyone imploring them to quiet down? How many of them would have busied themselves instead of complaining, “This floor is hard, how long is this going to take anyway?!”

    And I wondered how many of them would have spoken to the people next to them as if they were their best friends instead of judging, sizing up.

    Once the spelling bee was under way, I paid close attention to the children in the room. There were four classes participating, with what must have been around 100 kids on that cold, hard floor.

    The children on stage were doing great.

    Some of them struggled with a word here and there but managed to put all the letters in the right order. And when they did, their relief and pride in themselves was more than evident. They slapped their foreheads, dramatically wiped their brows, knees buckling as they pretended to faint punctuated by laughter and camaraderie. They cheered each other, congratulated each other, consoled each other.

    What of those adults? Would they be willing to slap their foreheads? Pretend to faint? Laugh and shrug their shoulders when they messed up?

    What about that camaraderie? Those kids all cheered each other. It didn’t matter whose class they were in, how good or bad a speller they were. It just didn’t matter. Adults won’t speak to you if you’re on a different team.

    Maybe I’m being too hard on the adults. I’m sure there are some of them who’ll stand up on life’s stage, give it their very best shot, and maybe win—then pretend to faint, or jump up and down arms waving yelling, “I did it!” Or lose and shrug their shoulders, knowing there will be another chance, or run into the arms of a friend for consolation. But I think they are few and far between.

    Composure—looking the part for the other eyes—that’s the important thing.

    Take all that sadness or elation and put it away now, my goodness; how old are you? Don’t you know that when you win you’re supposed to look sheepish, uninterested?

    When you lose you’re supposed to pull your shoulders back, steel your face, nod your head, and say, “That’s okay, I’m fine.” When you dance you’re supposed to have “the moves,” do it well or don’t get on the dance floor; people are watching.

    I stayed with my daughter for the better part of that afternoon, following the children as they headed out the door for Physical Education. Once there, they were told to sit down, this time on the concrete. They did.

    I sat down right there on the concrete with them, and they looked at me a little strangely. Then they listened intently while the coach explained the rules of the game they were about to play.

    When he was finished, arms shot up in the air, shaking crazily, bursting with the fire of the questions. What if…? When does…? Who goes…?”

    They asked all their questions until satisfied that they understood. The game was underway. I watched. Some cheated; most played fair. They came back off the court to their spots on the ground exhausted, sweaty, giddy.

    For about a second, some were angry their team didn’t win. But they didn’t dwell. I laughed with them, told them they did really well, and asked if they had fun. They responded with a resounding “yes!” I sat cross-legged, just like them, absorbed the energy, and contemplated the attitude.

    How would I have participated, I wondered. Would I have raised my arm and asked questions? Would I have given it all I had and collapsed on the ground afterward? What, as adults, do we do to get exhausted and giddy?

    After that day I looked around at the adults I encountered. This is what I saw:

    Some were well dressed, on their way to work or a lunch break, talking intently on the phone or rummaging through purses and wallets.

    Some were driving, staring through the windshield, maybe thinking about the mortgage payment or the kids or Mom and Dad or how much it’s going to cost to fix the hot water heater.

    Some were standing in line, checking their watches, rolling their eyes, seemingly counting the number of items the person in front of them had.

    Some were at the park, watching their kids play soccer, looking stressed and yelling, “Kick it! Move up! Go! Go! Go!”

    Where did our little kids go, I wondered? Where did that elated, excited, play the game because it’s fun, run in the rain, catch the drops on my tongue, ask all the questions I need to, hug my best friend and tell them I’m sad person go? Can it be I’ve grown up too much? Have all of us?

    What would happen if the next time we do something well, we ran around in circles and screamed? What would happen if the next time we don’t understand something, we raised our hand, shook it mightily, and asked a question?

    If the next time we’re sad, we grabbed a friend and sobbed into her shoulders? If the next time we sit next to someone we don’t know, we asked them what their favorite color is? What would happen if we danced any way we wanted?

    So what am I going to do the next time? I hope I’ll be able to find the inner child I raised into an adult and give her a voice, an arm to wave, and a song to dance to.

    But for now, I’m going to sit on the floor and color.

    Photo by David Robert Bilwas

  • Letting Go of Yesterday and Using the Gift of the Present

    Letting Go of Yesterday and Using the Gift of the Present

    Be Present

    “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.” ~Alice Morse Earle

    Did you make a mistake yesterday? Or did something bad happen to you a few weeks ago? Are you still dwelling on it, doing all you can to move on? Then this post is for you.

    Why? Because I want you to know that you’re not alone.

    Just like you, my past wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. No one in this world has a past that is sparkling clean and error-free. We’ve all made mistakes. That’s life. And that’s what makes us human.

    About eight weeks ago I received an offer to study for my diploma in fitness in Melbourne. Having lived in Sydney for ten years, receiving the offer was a dream come true, but not because I got accepted for the course. It’s because I’ve always wanted to live in Melbourne ever since I was a teenager.

    I accepted the offer thinking it was a great opportunity. I did not consult anyone; I merely did it for myself. I didn’t even have the slightest clue of what the course was about, where I was going to stay, and if it made sense financially.

    This turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

    A day after I accepted the offer, I told my parents. They’ve never tried to talk me out of doing anything I wanted to, but this time Mum was a little hesitant.

    She wondered why it was last minute and stressed how I hadn’t even arranged anything. I, on the other hand, justified my decisions by telling her and everyone else around me that it was a good opportunity, although I knew I probably couldn’t afford the move.

    A week later, with a few hundred dollars in savings and slight credit card debt, I made the trip down to Melbourne with my selfless parents, who decided to help me find an apartment and settle in.

    Things went well. I found a nice place and generally liked Melbourne, but something felt off. As hours turned to days, I felt more and more restless and knew something wasn’t right. My finances backfired on me and soon enough, everything went down.

    After living a few days in denial, I allowed myself to let go of anger about what I’d done and replace it with self-compassion.

    I then did something I should’ve done even before I decided to move—I spoke to my mother and told her I wasn’t in a great financial position and it wasn’t the right decision for me at that point in time.

    A day after, I turned the apartment down, rejected the offer, and drove 540 miles home, with an added financial stress that was completely unnecessary.

    You may have experienced something similar. Perhaps you were as silly as I was to do things without thinking. Or perhaps things were worse for you. We make mistakes. Everyone does, and I want you to know that it is okay.

    The clock ticks forward, and soon enough the mistake that you made a second ago is history. It might take days, months, or years to learn and address the consequences of the mistake, but every day forward is an opportunity to make things right.

    Worrying about it does not get you anywhere. Thinking about how to learn from the experience and make things better is a good start. But actually doing things to learn from the mistake is the fundamental part of really moving forward.

    If you’re having a hard time letting go of yesterday and seizing today, remember:

    Yesterday is History

    Yesterday is history.

    It’s done. Record it into your history book and close it.

    Yesterday could have been the best day of your life.

    Your long-term partner proposed, or you landed a raise at work. Maybe you met someone who you feel is good for you. Remember it fondly but don’t live in the past. Instead, let your happy memories push you forward when times get tough.

    Yesterday could have been the worst day of your life.

    You might’ve lost your savings or someone you held close to your heart. Although it might take some time to move on from any tragedies you faced yesterday, every day forward will get better.

    Yesterday you made decisions; they may now seem good, they may seem bad.

    But that was yesterday. If you stay positive, you can choose to make the best of your decision today.

    Yesterday cannot be changed.

    It is indeed too late to change the things you did in the past, but it’s not too late to change the things you’re planning to do today. Learn from your mistakes and act on what you’ve learned.

    Tomorrow is a Mystery

    Tomorrow is a mystery.

    It hasn’t happened yet, so don’t sweat the small things. Be kind to yourself; it has the power to make you happy.

    Tomorrow depends on the choices you make today.

    Dream and start doing things to work toward that dream right now. 

    Tomorrow is not certain.

    Life can make a 180-degree change in less than a day, and we cannot control them. We can make plans, but plans change. Anticipate and remember that.

    Tomorrow is an opportunity.

    If you did something great today, you have the opportunity tomorrow to create something better. If you did something that seems bad, you have the opportunity tomorrow to make it good. It’s your choice.

    Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

    So don’t waste today worrying about what will happen then. Life’s too short to dwell on things that are uncertain.

    Today is a Gift

    Today is a certain opportunity.

    You can use it to decide where you want to go in life. If you don’t love what you’re doing, use this opportunity to change something.

    Today can be the first day of the rest of your life.

    Create new habits, surprise yourself, and put a smile on your own face by doing things you love.

    Today you can be better than you were yesterday.

    And you know you can be better than you were yesterday.

    Today you have the power to make great choices for your health, body and mind.

    You are strong enough today to say no to that can of soda. You are strong enough today to remove yourself from negative people. You are strong enough, period.

    Today is your only chance to experience this present moment.

    It will never come again

    Don’t beat yourself up for what has happened in the past. We’ve all made mistakes; failure is imperative to leading a successful life. Learn from yesterday by doing things today that have the power to make tomorrow great. I know you can.

    What are you doing today to make full use of the gift given to you?

    Photo by Eddi van W

  • How to Strengthen Relationships by Releasing Fear and Control

    How to Strengthen Relationships by Releasing Fear and Control

    “To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is: a dissatisfaction with self.” ~Joan Didion

    When I was a young man I had an issue with relationships. Looking back now, it is easy to see that I had low self-esteem, though I could not see it at the time. Because of my low self-image and my neediness, many relationships that could have had a decent chance went by the way side.

    I developed a low-level anxiety about how much any girlfriend cared for me, which, in turn, became outright jealousy and resulted in controlling behavior.

    I would worry that my girlfriend was going to leave me for another man, and would then become aggressive, starting arguments. I would act out when she wanted to go out with her friends. If we went out together, I would fly into a rage when we got home if she had so much as glanced at other men.

    Of course, all of this behavior was about demanding, without explicitly saying it, that she demonstrated how much she loved me. This was because, despite all the evidence to the contrary, I believed she did not.

    Ironically, the more she showed me she loved me, the less I believed her.

    So I became more controlling. I decided I was the victim and became moody, sulky, withdrawn, and passive-aggressive, yet again manipulating my environment to get the attention I craved.

    Negative attention was better than nothing. Yet if I lost all attention because of my behavior, I was okay with that. I would have preferred be alone and know I was right than be in a relationship and live with the fear that I was not good enough. But once I was alone again, I wanted a relationship to prove that I was lovable.

    My Fear

    I tried to control the fear that I was unlovable by controlling the person I loved. I even took to confronting men who I saw as a threat to us as couple.

    By threatening and controlling other men, I could control my girlfriend and thus control my own fear. It seemed logical at the time.

    As you may have guessed, it had the opposite effect. My attempts to control the women I dated ended up driving them away. Either they would end the relationship, or I would before they did. (It felt better to end it before they had the chance, proving the very thing I was trying to disprove.)

    Sometimes my behavior drove them toward other men. I made them feel so unsafe that the only safe way to leave me was to have some protection in the form of another man. Thus was fulfilled the ultimate in self-fulfilling prophecies.

    Then one day, after a lengthy period of learning and reflecting on the repetitive patterns in my relationships, I decided to grow up.

    I realized that I could not control my girlfriends and that trying to control them had the opposite effect. I also realized:

    • We have no control over others. In fact, control is often an illusion.
    • We can’t make someone love us by fearing that they won’t.
    • Fearing that someone may be unfaithful will not ensure that they won’t be.

    I realized that letting go of control was the safest option, for me and for everyone else. I also recognized that my fear was often greater than the things I worried about, and that I needed to deal with it.

    Lastly, I realized that I needed to learn to love myself and stop expecting others to do something I wasn’t doing for myself.

    As a result of some intense personal development work, I started to love myself. I started to acknowledge and appreciate my strengths and validate myself in the way I’d hoped others would; in turn, my fear subsided and has all but left.

    Now I choose to trust my girlfriend. I have no more control over her than if I chose to be suspicious, needy, and fearful. In essence, I am choosing to be happy. By choosing to trust her I remove the fear, let go of control, and start to enjoy the relationship for what it is.

    We can choose to live in fear or not—that’s something we can control. And we can also control if we choose to be miserable or happy. I chose happy.

    Photo by Emiliano Horcada