Tiny Buddha

Tag: Happiness

  • How Our Addiction to Struggle Holds Us Back

    How Our Addiction to Struggle Holds Us Back

    Held Back

    “Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.” ~Chuang Tzu

    Do you feel, on some level, that your life is hard work? That you need to struggle in order to improve things in your world? Do you feel that you even need to struggle to reach a desired goal, to overcome adversity before achieving something worthy?

    Our addiction to struggle is an impediment to us feeling the joy of quiet and the now, the place from which subtle and natural development can occur.

    This addiction to struggling—the addiction to striving, always trying to achieve—used to hold me back from experiencing the whole of life.

    My awareness dawned slowly. Once an over-achieving lawyer working sixty-hour weeks (and then ducking off to volunteer my time for another cause), I am now much more relaxed, and able to give from a place of increased abundance and energy. But hey, it’s taken time, and it’s still a work in progress.

    I’ve dabbled in meditation for years and had a daily practice for three years. But it’s not just all about the cushion—getting out and having fun, dancing, enjoying life is what helped me see that I was actually trapped in a pattern of thinking that I had to work hard and reach (and overcome) a crisis point to be successful.

    The more I meditate, the more present I am, even off the cushion. I can even catch the moment at which I start being run by my own subconscious beliefs that life involves struggle.

    Some mornings, in the liminal state between sleeping and waking, I can catch an almost imperceptible shift, where my mind switches from the ease of a sweet dream to a battle with consciousness and being awake.

    Oh really, do I have to get up now?

    (And the deeper revelation: how subtly and consistently I struggle with reality itself.)

    The point at which I am able to accept my current reality is the point at which I surrender to that experience.

    Funnily enough, this is usually the point at which life becomes easier. Not because I have won a battle against my mind, but because I have allowed myself to stop resisting what just is.

    I get up. I go about my day. No big deal; in fact, I enjoy it.

    So, how is this addiction to struggle holding us back? After all, I’ll be the first to put my hand up to say how much I’ve learned from those with the strength of character, creativity, and resilience to overcome the most trying of times. Survivors inspire us and bring us hope when we can only see darkness.

    Yet, it seems that overcoming adversity has become the primary narrative arc in some corners of the spirituality and personal development online worlds.

    Our relationship with mind and ego are often phrased in ‘battle’ terms, and having a gruelling experience has become the necessary precondition to success.

    This is so subtle. But this preoccupation with overcoming struggle holds us back in many ways. It conceals other paths to growth. It even may cause us to devalue presence and surrender.

    Overcoming struggle is only one way to grow and to learn.

    Some of my most significant advancements in my thinking and changes in my life have been the result of product of gentle, consistent effort. In this way, old holding patterns have dissolved quite naturally.

    My decision not to drink alcohol is one example. Upon finding out that I’m a teetotaller, people often assume that my self-destruction precipitated a crisis with booze, followed by hard-won sobriety.

    Of course, I celebrate those who have overcome alcoholism, but I don’t have a victory-over-struggle story with alcohol. Once upon a time, I enjoyed a drink. Years of enjoyable meditation changed my brain, and I now happily don’t drink alcohol because I don’t feel a desire to drink. (And as it turns out, the benefits are innumerable!)

    Accepting that it’s possible to be ripe when you are ripe, that you may not be following a familiar path of overcoming adversity, doesn’t make a riveting story in the manner to which we’ve become accustomed.

    Perhaps we can track the predominance of the struggle trope back to the popularity of the hero’s journey: the tale of the swashbuckling hero confronting and triumphing over symbolic dragons and ogres on the transformational journey.

    To be clear: the hero’s journey is, of course, inspirational. We all have periods of darkness. We all love to win our battles. We all love to be inspired by others who can lead the way.

    My point is that only some journeys are punctuated by ordeals. On other paths, there is no dragon. There may just be a path to walk—even a playground in which to frolic!

    Moreover, we definitely do not need to manufacture a challenging transformation if there was no such ordeal. Our experience is not less worthy or true as a result.

    Noticing my own addiction to struggle has been humbling and revealing. Releasing my own tendency to slip into struggle means that I am more present. (And I have more fun!)

    Our addiction to struggle can lead us to devalue the gentle and humble evolution that can accompany development without drama. It can lead us to miss the happiness that can be found in the here and now, regardless of the circumstances.

    My question for you is: where in your life are you struggling? How are you playing out this subconscious script yourself?

    And what would your life be like if you were able to notice and celebrate your consistent and gentle evolution?

    Would this, in fact, be a quiet liberation?

    Photo by Daniel Lee

  • Why Life Is More Joyful When We Let Go of “Good” and “Bad”

    Why Life Is More Joyful When We Let Go of “Good” and “Bad”

    Happy

    “Love is the absence of judgment.” ~Dalai Lama

    If judgment is the act of labeling something as good or bad, then it seems we humans do it thousands of times a day. Those of us on a spiritual path even label judgment as a bad thing. We know that pain comes from judgment, but it’s such a part of our culture that there seems to be no way around it.

    The Dalai Lama says, “Love is the absence of judgment.” And if that’s true, how do we get there?

    From the time I wake up and ask myself if I slept too late to my nightly inquiry hoping that I made the best use of my day, I am in constant analysis of my choices. Did I eat enough, did I say the right thing, did I steer my client in the right direction?

    It would seem that this constant judgment is the opposite of living in the moment—and I’m a pretty Zen person!

    One of the problems of judgment is how it’s hidden in our society and labeled as responsibility. We are supposed to use metrics to track our progress, income, and effectiveness. We are supposed to learn new strategies and always be striving to be better.

    When we judge ourselves as being “not there yet” or as a work in progress, then we’re missing the joy and perfection that exists in the moment. 

    I think that’s what the Dalai Lama had in mind with his statement that I referenced above.

    I often catch myself doing the opposite of that in shower. I’ll notice that my shoulders are up to my ears and then ask myself, what is causing this? The answer always turns out to be a judgment. When I take a conscious breath and release the thoughts I have already projected on to the day, I naturally relax.

    When I started noticing how insidious this natural reaction to judge is, and how it is linked to being responsible, I started asking some serious questions about what it means to let this go.

    Would I be a bad person if I started planning my days from a feeling of curiosity and excitement instead of right and wrong? Why do I always think I know what the best answer is anyway?

    I knew that I would be more effective, have more energy, and be a happier person if I let go of all this labeling. How would I do it, you ask? Simple.

    The pain came from labeling something as good or bad. To rectify my anxiety producing ways, I just pulled into the neutral lane.

    I stopped analyzing whether what I was experiencing was good or bad. I just let whatever came into my life exist.

    I dealt with circumstances as they arose, and even if slow traffic or an unexpected bill threw me off, I did my best to observe and not to label. Who is to say that the person slowing me down wasn’t doing me a favor anyway?

    After several weeks of conscious no-judgment, I was actually feeling more creative. I had a lot more mental energy to use in fun and productive ways. I could even see a difference in the way my friends and clients interacted with me.

    Getting through my to-do list was easier, too. Instead of dreading certain tasks, I breezed through most of my list in the morning without much hesitation. I realized how unfairly I had treated certain things like returning emails and phone calls. Taking the emotion and labels off of these tasks actually made them go smoother and get better results.

    Looking back on my experiment in non-judgment, I can wholeheartedly say that it was worth the effort.  Besides, all I did was:

    1. Notice where I was making a judgment. (What was I labeling as either good or bad?)

    2. Stay neutral instead of applying one of those two labels. 

    And it may seem that this only benefited things that I had previously labeled as bad. That’s not entirely the case. I actually ended up receiving more “good” when I stopped judging.

    For example, if I signed up two new clients in one week I may have stopped my marketing for the entire month. Now, I just keep going, as I’m inspired to do so. I also willingly accept more praise and affection.

    It’s silly to think about how much we deny ourselves because we feel we’ve had “enough.” Letting life happen truly does reveal more love.

    There are some moments in life when we are thrown to our limits. You have to decide for yourself how far to take this in the case of death, illness, layoff, or other life changing events. Some people find their brightest clarity when faced with the worst circumstances, but it’s truly a personal thing.

    If you are used to using judgment at work or to make important decisions in your life, you may find it easier to start your experiment slowly. It can feel irresponsible to jump into this way of looking at things, and this isn’t about knocking you off balance.

    To do that, simply bring awareness to where you are placing labels. Then decide if you’d like to keep doing so. There is no wrong way to go about this.

    Just remember, when you’re not labeling something as good or bad, there simply “is.” Life is filled with truly awesome moments that we can enjoy when we’re using our energy to observe instead of analyze.

    Photo by Vladimir Yaitskiy

  • We Have the Power to Choose

    We Have the Power to Choose

    Man watching the sun

    “Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” ~Wayne Dyer

    When I was twelve years old I returned from a weekend at my aunt’s house, with my mom, to find my father dead in bed. I remember my mom’s screams causing many of our neighbors to come over to see what had happened.

    The experience shut me down. I don’t know how else to put it. My father was young: fifty-three years old. It was a huge shock to everyone.

    Apparently, he was too proud to get a pacemaker. He died of a heart attack.

    My oldest sister was on her honeymoon. She had just gotten married a week before. My other sister was away at college. When they came home they were hysterical, just like my mom and the rest of the family.

    I felt like I had to be the strong one because I was the man of the house now. I was very quiet and reserved about the whole thing. This gave the impression that I was handling it well.

    Things were not well, though. I never dealt with it in a proper way. I never received therapy or any other kind of help. I buried the experience deep down—so deep that I can barely remember him.

    I rarely even spoke about it with anyone. I may have had only a handful of conversations about it by the age of thirty.

    I thought I was okay with it, but I was damaged. (more…)

  • Why Self-Compassion Is the Key to Being Our Authentic Selves

    Why Self-Compassion Is the Key to Being Our Authentic Selves

    Arms Outstretched

    “To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    I was raised in a family where outward appearance and reputation were important. Standing out was only encouraged if it was within the bounds of what was considered “normal.”

    No one ever explicitly told me, “What other people think of you is more important than being your true self,” yet that’s what I learned to believe. It became my mission to be accepted by others, because I thought that only then would I be worthy of love.

    I spent most of my middle school and high school years pretending to be somebody that I wasn’t. I would “chameleon” to blend in with people around me.

    I suspect that due to my less-than-stellar acting skills, a lot of people could tell that I was being phony and didn’t want to hang out with me. This only increased my hunger for external validation and acceptance.

    At the age of thirteen, I attended my first personal development seminar.

    It was an incredible experience for me, and when I was in the seminar room, something inside of me came alive. Being in that space awakened my passion for personal development, a passion that has only grown over the last fifteen years.

    In the next decade that followed, I’d spent more than 350 hours participating in personal development seminars, and in July 2009, I finally received the honest feedback that would change my life forever:

    I showed up as arrogant, selfish, self-righteous, superior, and judgmental.

    The feedback hit me like a ton of bricks. I was simultaneously composed and totally shocked.

    I was composed because I knew that people experienced me in those ways: I was a condescending know-it-all with judgment by the boatload, and little tolerance for people “doing it the wrong way” (not my way). My demeanor was often cold and closed off, and I could easily insult people where I knew it would hurt.

    I was shocked, because when I received that feedback from somebody that I’d met less than six hours earlier, I felt completely vulnerable. I didn’t know what to do with myself in that moment of being completely exposed.

    The walls that I’d created to “protect” my authentic self were only pushing (or rather, shoving) everyone else away. I finally decided to make a change. And thus began my journey of rediscovering my true self.

    To say that it was a battle would be a grave understatement. The little voice inside my head had gotten really good at convincing me of “truths” that were actually just thoughts based in my false beliefs about reputation and acceptance.

    Lying to myself had become such a subconscious process for me that bringing it into my consciousness on a daily basis was a struggle.

    Right after receiving the feedback, I’d keep “be authentic” on the forefront of my mind for a few days at a time. But more often than not, my commitment to being authentic would slowly fade behind my decades of pretending to be somebody else, and I often wouldn’t even notice the shift.

    When I’d realize that I wasn’t being perfectly authentic, every moment of every day, I’d go into beat-up mode and would berate myself for being a failure.

    My new awareness seemed like a game of lose-lose: if I ventured out into authentic living and slipped back into my old ways, I’d go into beat-up mode; if I acted like I was okay with being my pretending old self, I’d feel sick to my stomach about who I was pretending to be. I didn’t know how to win that game.

    I spent a couple of years on the rollercoaster ride of stepping out and being authentic, slipping back into my old ways, and beating myself up about it; it was exhausting. But then I learned that personal development isn’t a switch, it’s a journey.

    I couldn’t just turn off my old behaviors and turn on some new authentic behaviors.

    Creating lasting change would take commitment, practice, and most importantly self-compassion.

    Commitment meant truly committing myself to being authentic, and doing it for nobody else but me. And practice meant making conscious choices to set my authentic self free instead of staying in the box I’d built for myself.

    The self-compassion piece was the most important because it determined whether or not I wanted to pick myself back up, dust myself off, and give it another go.

    If making a mistake was only going to end in me beating myself up about it, then I’d rather not have even attempted it. But if making a mistake was met with a desire to learn, and then re-approach my ways of being in a new way, it was a much easier choice to make.

    Throughout my journey of discovering and living as my authentic self, I have experienced moments of immense joy and freedom, which have encouraged me to continue moving forward.

    One of my most impactful experiences of letting my authentic self shine took place at the end of November 2013, when I shaved half my head.

    One of my friends shaved part of her head in mid-2013, and I loved how it looked. I thought it was a perfect combination of sexy and tough. I immediately wanted to shave my own head, but hesitated…for six months.

    I thought, “What are other people going to think when they see you? Everyone is going to judge you. People are going to think that you’re weird.”

    The little voice in my head was going crazy. My head and my heart weren’t coming to an agreement because that little voice was repeating phrases I’d heard my entire life.

    But one day—and I can’t remember exactly when it happened—I just decided to do it. I knew that deep down in my heart I wanted to, so I refused to let that little voice stop me anymore. If people were going to think that being my authentic self was “weird” then so be it!

    I wish I could say “and then I shut the little voice up forevermore and lived happily ever after,” but that wouldn’t be true. My little voice was screaming when I finally sat down to get my head shaved. But I just chose to acknowledge the screaming and shave it anyways.

    After it was all done and I looked in the mirror, I fell in love. I fell in love with me! For the first time in my life, I felt completely aligned in my outward appearance and my inner authentic self. I felt free.

    Sure, people stare at me in public. But I just smile and walk on by. Everyone has an opinion about my hairstyle, but there’s only one opinion that matters—mine. And I love it!

    That was one of the biggest and most tangible steps that I’ve taken toward letting my authentic self truly shine. Now, if I start letting to the voice inside my head get to me, I can just look in the mirror or touch the shaved part of my head to remind myself of who I really am.

    One of my biggest lessons throughout my head-shaving experience was this: when I limit myself because of my fear of what others might think of me, I’m limiting what I think of me. When I truly embrace my authentic self, I am free.

    Abraham Maslow said, “What is life for? It is for you.” I’m finally living my life for me, and I’ve never felt more empowered, joyful, or authentic.

    How are you holding yourself back?

    Would you be making different choices in your life if you weren’t worried about the acceptance of others?

    How different do you think your life would be if you stepped outside of your comfort zone one time every day?

    I encourage you to get uncomfortable and to let your authentic self shine. You might be surprised at how freeing it can be.

    I certainly was.

    Photo by AJ Leon

  • Simple Ways to Improve Our Relationships, Starting Today

    Simple Ways to Improve Our Relationships, Starting Today

    Holding Hands

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

    I never had a good relationship with my father when I was younger.

    Sometimes he expressed his opinions in a rude way, sounding more like an attack than advice.

    Many times he apologized after being rude, but I was too cold to forgive or listen.

    The years passed, and I never made an effort to improve our relationship. It felt easier to deal with my mother. She was the one I always went to when I needed something, had a question, and wanted permission to do something. My dad was always the last to know things about me, good and bad.

    In 2013, my mother had an intense asthma attack and went into a coma. I have no brothers and not many close relatives. It was just me and my father, experiencing a totally unexpected, tragic situation.

    I never had patience or an open heart to stop and listen to him, but then I had no choice. We needed to stay together and help each other.

    Love is not the end result but in the effort to reach it. If someone is trying to improve, we should recognize this effort, even if the result has not yet been reached.

    I had lived with my father for twenty-five years and never knew him because I was not humble enough to see his effort to improve our relationship every day. But when we are broken, we finally get real and open.

    I had focused only the negative—his insensitivity in expressing himself—but I had not recognized the love he expressed in many actions, every day. I also disregarded all the times he had forgiven me for the harsh things I’d said to him. If he’d forgiven me, why did he not deserve to be forgiven?

    When people need to come together for a common goal, for something they consider more valuable than pride, they become open to miracles.

    I believe there is a reason why we are born in a certain family, in a certain country.

    All the people who cross our paths have important lessons to teach us. Even the people who we consider the most negative are our teachers and are doing a service for our own evolution.

    The sooner we learn, the sooner the turbulence ends.

    I decided I would carry that feeling through the remainder of my days with my father. What did I learn in those days?

    The Importance of Tolerance

    Why do we develop the habit of having an instant response to everything that someone tells us? Is it always worth discussing? In the first seconds of anger, we commit the biggest mistakes. It is better to step away, breathe, and then talk calmly.

    People can have different opinions about things, but this is not a reason to argue.

    People have different difficulties, and everyone has their own flaws to overcome.

    Instead of focusing on the negative and arguing, we must recognize everyone’s positive qualities. When we focus on the best in people, we generally inspire it.

    What Really Matters

    Sometimes we want to be right when it pertains to small things that won’t matter in an hour. And what really matters when we’re talking about co-existence with the people we love?

    What matters are the good times and memories.

    What matters is the respect and support.

    What matters is knowing that the person is on your side when you need them.

    The Power of Listening

    I realized that I often responded not to what I had heard, but to what I thought the person intended to say—and I often responded in anger.

    Because I was so often angry, I couldn’t see when my father changed. He had, but I had not.

    If we listen carefully, we will recognize far fewer offenses, because many of them are in our heads.

    If we feel this isn’t the case and decide to speak up, we can share our thoughts in a more delicate way, especially if we care about the listener’s heart.

    How to Love

    In those days, we hugged every morning. We both showed love for each other and for my mother.

    We prayed together, wiped each other’s tears away, consulted with each other, asked how the other was feeling, and really listened to what the other had to say.

    We often forget these gestures with the people who are closest to us. We forget how important is to say “Good morning” with a smile upon our face, give a hug, and sit for ten minutes to ask the other person how their day’s going.

    Love allows us to be a lighthouse for each other, but we have to consciously choose to shine our light.

    My mother is finally better, and our relationship has improved greatly as a family. I cherish every day because of the chance I received, and I make an effort to remember to feel as open I was in the days when I was broken.

    We don’t have to wait to feel broken to improve our relationships. We can start being more tolerant, focusing on what matters, listening more, and loving better on any day we choose.

    What can you do today to improve your relationships?

    Photo by slightly-less-random

  • 4 Lessons on Conquering Fear and Living the Life You Want to Live

    4 Lessons on Conquering Fear and Living the Life You Want to Live

    Happiness

    “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?” ~Marianne Williamson

    After lying on my apartment floor for an hour, I walked over to the mirror, leaned in, and looked into my eyes.  This was the moment I came face to face with the truth: I was afraid to stand up and be who I wanted to be in this life.

    It was not the fact that I was so rock bottom that scared me. It was the belief that I am capable of so much more.

    Five years ago, I was in a banking job that demanded more of me than I could give. I remember one day a customer standing at the edge of my desk, yelling at me, and all I could do was get up from my chair and run away as my first panic attack took hold of me.

    It was during this time that I began my relationship with food. Every evening was the same: I would leave work, get Mexican take out, return home, turn my cell phone on silent, and watch reruns of Sex and the City.

    I lived vicariously through Carrie and struggled with her through her journey. It was in these few hours that I felt connected to something. I did not have to work hard, try, or fake anything; I just observed. This ritual got me through the year of 2008.     

    On New Year’s Eve, I sat waiting for my date to celebrate a new year, looking down on the pile of clothes on my floor. Not one shirt or pair of pants fit me. The last thing I wanted to do was celebrate anything as I wondered how it all added up to this one evening.

    The truth was, I had let myself go and weighed the most I have ever weighed in my entire life.

    The next morning, after a long evening of questioning and self-loathing, I woke up and started sifting through the pictures of myself from the evening before. Something in me wanted to fully acknowledge the truth of my reality; I lay down on my apartment floor, began accepting how far I had let myself go, and let it all out.

    An hour later, I peeled myself off the floor, walked to the bathroom mirror, leaned in, and declared that I did not recognize the girl in the mirror. That moment of recognition, or a lack of recognition for that matter, was my turning point.

    I had been hiding behind clothes, food, and Sex and the City reruns for far too long, and as painful as it was to face this reality, it was my awakening. This was my life, and there was no other option but to stop hiding behind food, face my fears, and move forward, fiercely. 

    This is exactly what I did. I left my job as a personal banker, lost forty pounds in the first year, became a certified personal trainer, and eventually started my own company to inspire and empower others to move fiercely forward in their lives. I became a warrior!

    Over the next four years, I learned four lessons that empowered me to live the life I wanted to live.

    1. Moving forward is the only option.

    That day, I did not know much about how I was going to change; I just knew why I needed to change.

    So I started somewhere; I dusted myself off, wiped my tears, and began emptying my kitchen cupboards. Day by day, action by action, I began moving in a new direction, and it felt different. I began seeing changes, both physically and mentally, soon thereafter and felt a sense of pride in myself that I had never felt before.

    It’s easy to overcomplicate the path to what you want, but it is very simple: take one small step forward each day.

    2. Walk through the fear, you warrior.

    When I first began my journey of moving forward in my life, I was excited, empowered, and motivated by all the positive changes that were taking place, but with this also came fear.

    What I feared most was having the courage to hold my own and be the best version of me. I envisioned the woman I wanted to be; she was empowered, confident, sexy, strong, and capable of anything she set her mind to! Then suddenly the fear crept in as I wondered how I would walk in this woman’s shoes and pull it off.

    Fear is an interesting thing; it can paralyze you or catapult you. If you let it paralyze you, you will continue doing what you have always done and shy away from the courage you have within you, your light. If you let it catapult you, you turn your fear into fuel and use it as a tool to conquer whatever stands in your way.

    It was the day I created my personal mantra, Fierce Forward, that I came face to face with my biggest fear that first year: stepping foot in the weight room.

    Walking into a room full of grunting men who have been doing this for years was extremely intimidating, but I would not allow my fear to paralyze me. I began running faster, brewing up the courage as I envisioned myself walking tall toward the weight room, stepping over the line that divides my past endeavors from my future endeavors.

    I knew I had to put a fierce face on, and ten minutes later, I was lifting weights amongst the men I once feared.  Little did I know at that time that lifting would become my passion and be the activity that empowers me most. Choosing to face my fear that day paid off ten fold, as lifting inspired me to become a personal trainer.

    The more experience I had with facing my fears, the more of a warrior I became.

    Fear should be walked through, not around. When you walk through it, you are choosing to face what you are afraid of and overcome it. That day in the gym, I walked through my fear!

    3. You hold the key.

    It was in one of my favorite movies, Sucker Punch, that these words, whispered by Sweat Pea, awoke something powerful within me: “Who chains us? And who holds the key that can set us free… It’s you. You have all the weapons you need. Now fight!”

    These words impacted me in a way nothing has before. I had been trudging through most of my life, reacting and living like a zombie. When I heard this quote, I was four years into my journey.  Through all the trials and tribulations I faced in those four years, I realized that I had already learned this lesson; I hold the key, and I always have.

    We are the only ones that can change our lives by taking responsibility for those changes. Just as I chose to take responsibility for my unhappiness, to move forward, to walk through my fears and to live the life I imagined for myself, so can you.

    4. Practice loving you.

    I knew that I had to believe in myself wholeheartedly to move forward in my life. I made it a mission to tell myself every day that I am beautiful, strong, confident, and powerful. Even if I did not completely believe it yet, I knew I had to “fake it until I make it,” and so I did.

    It was only through practice and intention that I began learning the art of self-love. As I began reaching for the woman I wanted to be, I realized that I deserve to shine.

    To this day, I focus on my self-talk and alter each negative thought with its positive scenario, I write myself love letters, lipstick “you are beautiful and fierce” on my bathroom mirror, and wear intention bracelets that give me the courage and strength I need to believe in myself.

    You are here to be powerful, fierce, and uniquely you. Do not fear this power, but run to it and embrace it with open arms.

    Remember, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?”

    Go get ‘em, you warrior!

    Photo by Camdiluv

  • Rediscover The Beauty Of Life Instead of Just Getting By

    Rediscover The Beauty Of Life Instead of Just Getting By

    Peaceful

    “If we look at the world with a love of life, the world will reveal its beauty to us.” ~Daisaku Ikeda

    As kids, we are beings of wonder. Spending hours inspecting blades of grass, hoping to discover lady beetles, rocking fairy wings or a cape at the shops because we feel like it, laughing for the silliest reasons, and finding unadulterated happiness in special treats, our favorite cartoon, or a game of hide and seek.

    As teenagers, we often become too cool to find joy in the simplest things but still manage it hanging out with friends, falling in love with celebrities, and listening to that one song over and over again.

    But, by the time we reach full-blown adulthood, those whimsical childhood traits may be as forgotten as an invisible friend.

    As grown ups we’re allowed to do all the fun things we spent high school wishing we could do, and yet, we get caught up in jobs we hate, paying bills, sitting in traffic, and sometimes ‘just getting by.’

    I know this feeling, because I’ve been there.

    And then, one day, I decided it was time to stop for a second and find a way to get back to a time when life was more joy-filled. Rediscovering the beauty of life, instead of focusing on the ugliness, the negativity, or the laborious pains of just getting by.

    The Beginning Of Change

    Since I was fifteen, I wanted to work in film and television. I did my high school work experience at a post-production company and decided I would work there one day.

    I graduated top of my class studying film and TV in high school, I was (and still am) a total film geek, I studied it at university. And then landed by dream job at the company I’d experienced five years earlier.

    I could not believe it.

    From that point onward, I went from contract to contract working some crazy hours (like 2PM to 2AM shifts for an entire month).

    I went through periods of no work between contracts (and, as a result no money), being morally torn between staying true to myself and doing what it takes to butter people up for the good jobs, working on shows I hated, working with people who made my skin crawl, getting praised by my superiors but being ignored by those doing the promoting, and continuing to strive for a dream job that felt like it was never going to happen.

    Of course, the perks of the job were fantastic—working with some great people, every day being interesting and unexpected, traveling, and working in what I still consider to be a really fun industry.

    But when something stops serving you, it becomes so much harder to see the good from the downright terrible.

    This all culminated when I landed the producing job I’d been working toward. Oh, what an achievement! You can imagine my excitement after so many years of working my way up to the job I’d always wanted. The celebration that followed the promotion was…non-existent.

    I was earning good money. I had the job title. I was finally getting somewhere. And I didn’t even stop to acknowledge it because all I could see was that I still wasn’t happy.

    A friend rang to congratulate me and I didn’t even notice.

    I was so overwhelmed by the anticlimax of it all. And that’s when I knew something needed to change.

    It’s Time To Do More of What Makes Me (and You) Happy

    It may seem like a ridiculous notion to some, but I honestly and truly believe that when you see these habits of what feels like never ending complaining, whining, and frustration then it’s time to make some changes.

    Some people are totally cool to accept that this is all there is, but not me. (And maybe not you, either).

    When I realized that too much of my time was spent unhappy, I decided to do whatever I could to change that.

    I changed jobs as soon as possible. I started working with people who meant the world to me in a role that was much better suited to me. This gave me room to breathe and come up for air after ten years on a career path that I decided I hated.

    I started to see what I loved again.

    And even if I was still trying to decide what to do, this made it easier to finally be happy. And I became aware of how I could do more of this on an everyday basis.

    I set dinner dates with friends on Monday nights to make the beginning of the week oh-so-enjoyable. I took advantage of coffee runs at work and turned them into glorious sun walks. I found joy in the simple pleasure of sitting in the park on the weekend just chatting or reading.

    I noticed I was changing. Sure sometimes stress still popped it’s head up and challenges arose, but I was becoming better equipped to handle the unknown because I had simply brought more joy into my life. The unexpected inconveniences became less frustrating, and the simplest pleasures became more obvious.

    The power of needing to change allowed me to find ways of doing more of what made me happy.

    Rediscover the Beauty of Life

    I’ll be completely honest with you: this is not something that just happened to me overnight. I’m still working toward my new career path and finding what I really want out of life. I still get frustrated or upset sometimes, and I still have a lot of work to do.

    But something changed the day I decided to take life into my own hands and seek out the beauty of life.

    I became more aware.

    I started attracting more happy moments and wonderful people to me because I actively sought them out, and what I put out came back to me tenfold.

    I seek out the good stuff instead of dwelling on the not-so-good.

    And, through this, I’ve learned that the more we search for beauty of life, the more we invite it in. As kids we noticed it with ease, exploring to our heart’s content but, as adults, we sometimes forget to pay attention.

    We get caught up with the mundane, we focus on the negative, and we love joining in on a mutual whine-fest with others. But imagine how much we could gain from our day if we took a moment to soak in the bliss of being alive.

    Lying in the grass, laughing with a loved one, being recognized at work for doing a great job, swapping out things we don’t like with things we love, acknowledging someone else and seeing their joy, and just embracing the moments that make up our day-to-day lives is the key to finding the extraordinary in each day.

    It may not always seem that simple but, I promise, if you’re willing to give it a shot, try it out, and be intentional when seeking out wondrous moments, it will make a significant difference to your life. And, the more you practice, the easier it will be to see.

    I invite you to be aware of what you might need to change and seek out possibilities for joy in the coming week.

    Find ways to bring the fun in and keep your eyes wide open for special moments or people that can make your life even more beautiful. Or, even better, take time to be grateful for what you’ve already got.

    Try it out, see how you go, and then leave me a comment and tell me how it went!

    Photo by deveion acker

  • 5 Ways to Get Energized and Motivated When You Feel Lazy

    5 Ways to Get Energized and Motivated When You Feel Lazy

    “Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” ~Benjamin Disraeli

    Although laziness is common and a natural part of life, it has the potential to completely consume us.

    I personally have times where laziness causes me to feel trapped. No matter what I do, I cannot seem to shake it off. I feel tired, fall asleep constantly during the day, sit around a lot and feel unable to be active, avoid doing anything productive, and put on hold things that I want to accomplish.

    I believe there are two kinds of laziness. First, there’s the kind where you have been working your butt off for weeks and finally, after all your hard work, all you want to do is be lazy and do nothing.

    But then there’s the kind of laziness where you struggle to find motivation. Every time you think of something you would like to do or achieve, you cannot find the energy or drive to work toward it. This is the kind of laziness that I am talking about.

    Being lazy is actually quite draining and depressing. I know because I regularly find myself feeling so lethargic that even the simplest task seems like a challenge. I’m sure I’m not alone in this struggle.

    I have found five effective ways to overcome my laziness that I want to share with you so you can win your personal battle too.

    1. Focus on just a few things at a time.

    We often create a big list of things that we want to do and achieve. Focusing on two or three things at a time will allow you to feel less overwhelmed. Instead, you will feel motivated, as your goals will now seem so much more achievable.

    Out of the two sets of six-month goals below, which set gets you more motivated?

    Learn to play guitar, do well at work, and get fit.

    Learn to play guitar, do well at work, get fit, build big muscles, get better at singing, get top marks at school, learn how to draw better, and write a book.

    When I see the second list, I feel overwhelmed. When my life looks a bit like this, I usually don’t know where to start or if I can succeed at anything I’ve set out to do.

    People feel motivated when they feel they have a good chance of success.

    This has been a big learning curve for me. When success seems like it is just around the corner, suddenly I get an amazing rush of energy where I feel liberated and excited to achieve bigger things.

    Set yourself two or three easy to achieve goals at a time and you will notice that you will naturally gain inspiration and motivation.

    2. Exercise.

    Exercise is the simplest way to overcome laziness. A lot of the time, we feel lazy because completing a task seems too difficult. With exercising, you don’t have to figure anything out. You just have to make that one big decision to literally start moving your body (jump up and down, go for a run, or start doing lunges in your living room).

    This has been a big revelation for me. Sometimes I get so fed up with feeling lazy and lethargic that I literally just start running. I have learned that if you can overcome physical laziness, your mind will naturally follow.

    You will find that you will become more willing to think about complicated things, such as working on a project or doing something that you have been avoiding. Exercise will help you break through that barrier of inertia and will help you feel motivated and more willing to put in effort.

    3. Allow yourself time to relax and do the things you enjoy.

    Sound’s ironic, doesn’t it? Overcoming laziness by relaxing! But it works.

    Often, we become lazy because a task seems too difficult. By relaxing and doing the things we enjoy, we allow ourselves to feel satisfied. When we are satisfied, we are more willing to take on bigger tasks and achieve bigger things.

    By relaxing and enjoying yourself, you also allow yourself to think about things, reflect, and feel inspired.

    For example, I often feel uninspired to write articles. I get a mental block. Writing and researching becomes an overwhelming task, so I retreat to laziness. I completely block out anything that requires hard work.

    I have learned that as I relax and do things I enjoy, my mind is encouraged to reflect again. It is not scared of becoming overwhelmed because it knows that I am not going to push it to do something productive if it does not want to.

    This is how I gain inspiration again. When I relax, I suddenly find myself thinking of all these great ideas and I regain inspiration and motivation.

    4. Get organized.

    Your physical surroundings have a big impact on how you feel. If your house is a mess, you are likely to feel even more overwhelmed—both because clutter creates a sense of chaos and because having to clean your house adds to your giant list of things to do in a ridiculously short amount of time.

    Clean your house and organize your physical surroundings and you will naturally feel motivated to be more productive and active.

    You will be making life simpler and easier to manage.

    Once you’ve organized your home, you may feel motivated to get organized in other areas of your life and tackle tasks you’ve neglected.

    As I mentioned earlier, laziness is often our attempt to avoid difficult or unpleasant tasks. Ironically, once you start tackling them, it will all feel less difficult and overwhelming and you’ll likely feel a lot less tense.

    5. Be aware of and monitor your internal dialogue.

    Our internal dialogue (the way we speak to ourselves) has such a big impact on how we feel and what we do.

    Anthony Robins, world famous motivational speaker, explains that if we want to feel ecstatic, all we need to do is adopt a point of view that creates that emotion.

    For example, picturing in your mind the things that make you feel that way, change the tone and content of your internal dialogue and change your posture and breathing to create that state in your body.

    This has become my personal motto, and I am genuinely amazed at how much more positive I feel just by choosing to have a positive outlook.

    Every time I have a negative thought, such as “today is going to be a long, hard day at work,” I immediately challenge that thought by telling myself something like this: “I have so much to be grateful for and today is going to be fun and enjoyable!”

    I then make a choice to get rid of my slouchy posture and tell myself that I have lots of energy.

    Just thinking that way makes me feel excited and gives me a big boost of energy.

    I once learned that we have over 50,000 thoughts a day. Even if only 10% of them are negative, it equals a total of 5,000 negative thoughts a day. When I heard this, I realized that we have way too many negative thoughts and it helped make sense of why so many of us struggle to feel motivated.

    Being aware of and monitoring your internal dialogue is so important, and will inevitably impact on how lazy you feel and how easy it will be for you to overcome that laziness.

    These methods have helped me incredibly and continue to help me everyday. I am sure that if you apply them too, you will experience a big boost of energy and motivation in your daily life.

  • Keep Your Eye on the Prize to Find the Courage to Keep Going

    Keep Your Eye on the Prize to Find the Courage to Keep Going

    Red Sunset

    “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt 

    I will never forget June 20, 1999.

    I experienced many firsts on that day: leaving my family behind, traveling by plane, and being surrounded by people talking a different language.

    But that day wasn’t exceptional for those reasons alone; it also put me on a path of independence and self-discovery that has treated me well ever since.

    My dream was simple in my teens: to live abroad and speak a foreign language.

    I wanted this because of the hardships of my childhood in Hungary and my desire for a better life. I picked up the philosophy early on around me—put up with what you have because things won’t get better, and you may as well accept that.

    I did that mostly, but something pulled me back to my dream.

    So after I left school, I saved up and contacted an employment agent who found a placement for me with an English family.

    I was happy, but my friends thought differently. They asked, “Why would you want to go on your own, being so naïve, socially awkward, and barely understanding the language? What if there was a problem?”

    I knew they were right. I had those exact fears.

    But my mind was made up; I could not entertain the idea that something might go wrong. I was raring to go.

    Saying goodbye to my father at the airport was the toughest part. He faithfully carried my suitcase to check in, but we were both uncertain what would happen after our parting.

    Whatever awaited me at the other end, I knew I had to face it.

    After landing in London, I travelled 200 miles by coach to a sleepy little village to meet the new family. My mind kept switching back and forth between anxiety and excitement. I couldn’t wait to start out on a new adventure, but I was equally aware I’d just left behind everything familiar.

    I was counting down the minutes.

    What would they be like? Would they have a sign with my name on like in the movies? Will they like my gifts?

    By the time the coach rolled into the station, it was already dark.

    I grabbed my worldly possessions, scanned the waiting area to see if a family vaguely resembling the description I was given was there. But nobody was there. No boards with my name or curious children and a happy mother pleased to meet me.

    The agent specifically said they would be there. I just had to arrive and everything would be taken care of. Perhaps they were held up?

    I waited. And waited. Where were they?

    Then reality struck—no one was coming.

    The time was close to midnight by then; I had to do something, as the station was closing.

    I plucked up the courage and approached an attendant explaining in my limited English what I was doing there. I showed him the letter from the family, which showed their phone number and address.

    He dialed the number but to no avail. Then he suggested I try a taxi instead, as I could not stay there. I was on the move again. I could see some relief now. Whatever their reason for not picking me up, everything would be resolved soon.

    We reached our destination, a quaint suburban house. The driver helped me with my suitcase (after duly pocketing the taxi fare—leaving me with very little money) and rang the bell.

    No answer. I tried again by knocking on the door. Nothing. He found a stick and banged on one of the windows, but still, no sign of life from the house.

    He was getting agitated. He wanted to go home; he’d done his duty. I was not his responsibility, and so he left me there, without a solution.

    My mind was racing. What am I to do now? And where are these people? They are the only link I have to this country, and I cannot even so much as find them?

    I felt truly stranded, terrified, and alone like never before.

    I went around back to their garden and the only thing I could think of was to sleep on the garden bench. It was summer but I shivered like a leaf.

    As the sun came up, I decided to call home and speak to my father. He was in utter disbelief, demanding I come home immediately.

    Then I contacted the agent whose frosty reply cut through me: “I’m sorry but I cannot help you from here!”

    I returned to the house as the sun was breaking. This time I heard noises from inside. I was banging on the door like my life depended on it. Finally it opened up.

    And there she was, looking at me surprised. I trembled as I showed her the letter, and she said they were not expecting me for another week! To this day, I have no idea why she never opened the door the day before. I slept ten hours straight that afternoon.

    At long last I felt some kind of beginning to my new life. I had a roof over my head and people to look out for me.

    Or so I thought.

    We didn’t connect from the start. Without knowing the language, I sensed our moral ground was a galaxy apart. She was barely in the house, and when she was, she gave curt orders without kindness or structure. She also completely forgot about feeding me and paying my wages.

    I wanted to get away as quickly as I could. I had to spend another four weeks in that household before I was placed with a new family. 

    What a contrast from the previous place! The family lived in a spacious home in a nice area of London. The three children were under five, and we got along well from the start. And learning English from them was easier, having similar levels of comprehension.

    For the first time ever, I was introduced to a formal routine where I knew exactly what to do each day. Looking back, this was an unexpected bonus; I learned the value of having a daily structure. This one habit still saves my skin each day.

    They took me to all sorts of places—posh weddings and foreign holidays. I also had this amazing city at my fingertips waiting to be discovered.

    World famous sights—sights I’d always wanted to see—were now an underground trip away. I also met people from many different backgrounds, which allowed me to gain a glimpse into other cultures—something I never would have experienced had I stayed at home.

    My English adventure had begun.

    From then on, everything fell into place and I gradually achieved all the goals I set myself before I left home.

    Nowadays, I dream in English. I keep studying and improving myself not only professionally but also personally. I could have very well turned back during those first few weeks, but without that I wouldn’t be who, or where, I am today.

    I truly believe I needed to go through that trial by fire to prove to myself what I was capable of under my own steam. Yes, it was painful and emotionally trying, but isn’t that all part of learning and growing to be a better person?

    How to Keep Going (When All You Want to Do is Turn Back)

    Sometimes we must put up with uncomfortable parts of our lives, because what we label as “problems” might be opportunities in disguise—opportunities that help us get over the darkest of times.

    Even when we feel like fleeing and giving up at the first hurdle, doing so would be unwise.

    Sure, we may get knocked down a hundred times, but if something is worth achieving in life, we must endure some bitterness—not least because we owe it to the younger versions of ourselves who were so determined at the beginning. To them, anything was possible.

    Continuing on is easier if we have the rewards in sight and recognize the hiccups as a part of the journey. They are signs we are heading in the right direction.

    Sadly, dreams only remains dreams to most, but if we have the courage to begin and see them through tough times, they become reality.

    So jump in with both feet and don’t worry what might happen next. The answers are within you.

    Photo by gizelle rivera

  • Practice, Persevere, and Trust That You’re Making Progress

    Practice, Persevere, and Trust That You’re Making Progress

    Progress

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

    I am on a journey of trust. It’s been about trusting my body, knowing that it can take care of itself without the control of my mind.

    For three and a half years, my body and mind have been enemies and I have been trying so hard, and knowingly, too hard, to get back to where I was at seventeen.

    It all began when I had an episode of hyperventilation in January 2010, when I heard that my Granny, who was terminally ill, had just suffered a heart attack.

    She survived it, but I knew she was going to go soon and I had never lost anyone before. It scared me and caused this anxious reaction. I feared the same thing would happen to me. My parents told me otherwise, and I believed them.

    My Granny died that April, and my reaction to it all was very delayed. It took me several weeks to let it all out.

    I was fine then until that August, when my parents and I stayed in a rented apartment that resembled a home of an elderly couple. It reminded me of my Granny, and that was the trigger.

    I hyperventilated again. This time, rather than breathing and relaxing, I thought the best way through was to tense up.

    I didn’t realize that this would be my automatic reaction whenever I got stressed for the next three and a half years.

    It felt like my body had an invisible belt that tightened, no matter how I tried to relax.

    Even if I didn’t feel stressed about anything in particular, this tension polluted events that I had looked forward to because I was trying so hard to enjoy myself, which made it all the more frustrating.

    Over time, it began to worry me. I would wake up, hoping it would disappear, and ask for a day where I could just breathe in a relaxed, normal way again. When I wouldn’t, I thought of the consequences of chronic tension and worry and what it would mean to my health.

    Living away from home in my second year of university, I experienced severe anxiety and mild depression.

    I had been suffering inside alone until January 2013, when I told family and friends, hoping that they would understand and give me some support. Still struggling, I went to my doctor and asked about therapy.

    For four months, starting in June, I did cognitive behavioral therapy to help improve my thought patterns so I could learn to react to stress in a more rational way. I also received modules to help me through hypochondria, which was the key problem.

    Mid-way through my therapy, I had an emergency kidney operation. While recovering in the hospital, I found that my mind trusted my body to breathe, simply as a survival instinct. I knew then that I could do it and hoped that I would be able to continue to breathe easily once I was better.

    I recovered at home for most of the summer and found that, as I got healthier, my mind got busier. Old controlling patterns returned and my anxiety was back.

    I saw improvements, though, as I continued with therapy. When the four months were up, my therapist was pleased with how well I had done, bringing my severe anxiety and mild depression down to the sub-clinical, everyday range.

    She reminded me that I had done all the work myself, and that she had only be there to listen, which I think is something to remember if you want to get counseling.

    After I was discharged I had a couple of wobbly months. I described it as being like a child who has had their training wheels taken off their bike. I wondered, though, when that period would end so I could start living the life I wanted.

    I realized that my therapy work had gone out of the window and that I had to continue practicing what I had learned in those four months for the rest of my life.

    For the last year I have been reading the articles on Tiny Buddha. I have been motivated and inspired by the stories from people who also dealt with anxiety, depression, and loss. Sometimes just reading a post would make me feel better.

    However, just reading their tips only took me so far. I needed to try them out for myself, to see if they worked for me. It’s that word, practice, that I have been struggling with, and patience and perseverance. These are my words that help me through, and now I can add trust.

    Practice, Patience, Perseverance, and Trust

    I find knitting is a great representation of all these things.

    Without practice, you won’t expect those uneven stiches to improve and or the projects to be completed. Without patience, you won’t accept your flaws and will be extremely angry with yourself. Without perseverance, you won’t be able to see your improvements being made, and without trust, you will be deprived of the belief that you can achieve great things.

    I find knitting is a great way to relax, and scientifically proven to slow the heart rate and calm the mind.

    Another thing that helps me is my stress journal. Writing is an effective way of logging of your thoughts, processes, and achievements. It is also scientifically proven that writing relaxes the mind.

    Music, such as instrumental tracks, have also been effective for me. There are plenty on YouTube such as “relaxdaily,” who creates beautiful New Age music. Other types of relaxing music come in meditation form, such as PMR (Progressive Muscle Relaxation), which loosens tense muscles all over the body.

    It can take a long time to see progress when you’re using these kinds of tools, and I often need to remind myself of that. But I now trust that I will get better at this.

    I have been making good progress and I have tense days every so often, but only the other day, when I was having a mild panic attack, did I realize that it’s about perspective.

    I had been so tight inside because I thought I had to be relaxed all the time, and I wasn’t. I felt I had to breathe slower so I wouldn’t be susceptible to high blood pressure and my mind wouldn’t take control, preventing me from just being.

    But I’ve come to realize I don’t need to try so hard. Recently I’ve started trusting my body, telling myself that I am healthy and I am living a healthy lifestyle. I’ve begun to trust that I can breathe freely if I allow myself to.

    We all experience stress, anxiety, and depression in different ways, and we all recover in our own unique ways too. However, it’s not about finding a cure. It’s about taking power back from our thoughts so we don’t allow stress and fear to control us.

    We all want to enjoy our lives, and we can: by being patient with our progress, persevering with our progress, and trusting that we are making progress.  

    Eventually, you will see that progress. Just keep practicing.

    Photo by Hartwig HKD

  • Live by Your Values and Everything Else Will Fall into Place

    Live by Your Values and Everything Else Will Fall into Place

    Smiling Woman

    “Until you make peace with who you are, you will never be content with what you have.” ~Doris Mortman

    As I sit here writing this, I am still in the middle of a huge shift in my life, a shift that has seen me move from living by other people’s values and expectations to identifying and living by my own.

    The catalyst for change was a health scare when, on my thirtieth birthday, my doctor told me that I may have cervical cancer. Luckily, I got the all clear, but something had shifted and I realized how dissatisfied with my life I was. I felt like I was swimming against the tide; everything was a struggle.

    At the time I was well on my way to achieving what I wanted: money, a high-status job, and the ability to buy lots of stuff.

    I owned my own house and a car and I was out of the house twelve to thirteen hours a day working. For me, that was success. However, my ambition just seemed to disappear overnight and I went into freefall.

    I felt exhausted, I was ill all the time, drinking and eating too much, and it was all I could do to drag myself out of bed in the morning to go to work. (I was doing a daily four-hour commute.) To quote Julie Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love, “You know what I felt this morning? Nothing. No passion, no spark, no faith, no heat, no nothing!”

    I didn’t realize it at the time, but as soon as I started to question my life, I subconsciously communicated to the universe that I wanted—needed—to change things.

    I started taking on freelance work to see if I could reignite my passion for my career. I found that people wanted my services, which increased my confidence and made me realize just how low I felt after working for years in a macho and competitive environment that was never going to nourish me.

    I suddenly thought, I can earn money as a freelancer, I should start my own business. I decided to keep going at my current job for another six months and build the business in what little spare time I had.

    An hour after making that decision, I had yet another confrontational email from a colleague based on a lie told by another. I resigned that day. I already felt lighter.

    I went into business for myself and I hated it. Now I know that it was because I wasn’t ready, plus I went into business as a marketing consultant, which I wasn’t passionate about.

    Working on my own at home didn’t suit me, and the income instability meant I hit rock bottom. There were panic attacks, more illness, and I am certain I was fast heading to the stage where I would be needing antidepressants.

    As I hit rock bottom, I had an epiphany and realized that two of the main things I need in life are:

    1. Human interaction on an almost daily basis

    2. A certain level of security—that’s why I was so keen to buy a house, when most twenty-five-year-olds are renting and moving around. I am a homebody to my core.

    If a base level of security and being alone all the time are my life ‘deal breakers,’ then why had I been trying to build a life that didn’t incorporate them? I needed to get in touch with my real values.

    I began reading books and articles, anything I could get my hands on, about personal values and how to identify them.

    I identified the values I had been living by for the past thirty years, the values that had been the basis of every major life decision I had ever made. I have listed the top ten below:

    Status achieved through career

    • Money and wealth
    • Advancement — This is great for me if advancement is personal or spiritual, but in this case it was centered on career and money.
    • Affluence
    • Ambition
    • Recognition
    • Leadership
    • Materialism
    • Perfection
    • Achievement — I still want to achieve and I still have goals, but it’s different when it is a goal you have set based on your core values.

    The values that I had been living by were not mine but a close family member’s. They are not bad values, but they are not my values; they are not the things that are most important to me and how I live my life.

    So who was I? What were my values? I had no idea.

    At this point I had been trying to carry on with my business to earn money to pay the bills while ‘finding myself’ and interviewing for jobs. I got the first role I applied for as the marketing manager for a lifestyle business and a much more suitable environment for me as a person. It has allowed me to carry on with my voyage of self-discovery.

    My ten core values, the values that I now live by, are:

    • Security
    • Positive/fulfilling relationships with friends and family
    • Contentment — I love the simple things; they make me feel at my most content.
    • Peace — I can’t handle confrontation, drama, loud environments, or unnecessary competition; that’s why my previous job in a busy and noisy city for a company with a loud and competitive environment didn’t suit me.
    • Fun  — Since I started living by my values, life has become so much more fun.
    • Laughter — I love a good laugh; my friends, family, a lighter outlook on life, and the odd funny film or stand-up comedy routine provide this for me.
    • Loyalty — I am loyal to my family, friends, colleagues, and community.
    • Financial freedom — This doesn’t mean earning lots of money to me, but actually keeping life simple and living within my means.
    • Passion — Since writing this article I have moved forward and decided that my true passion lies in writing, so I have recently set up as a freelance copywriter and blogger. This will mean a lot of changes and new challenges, but I am very excited about the future.
    • Simplicity — This for me goes hand in hand with most of the other nine values; a simple life suits me.

    So what wisdom can I pass on after my journey?

    1. Your core values play a huge part in how you decide to live your life.

    If you are unhappy with parts of your life—if you are suffering from stress, illnesses, and feel generally uneasy in the living of everyday life—then it might be time to go inside yourself and answer honestly the questions “What is important to me?” and “How do I want to live my life?”

    You need to spend time identifying your values; it’s well worth the effort.

    2. Don’t live by someone else’s values.

    This makes life hard because you are never being true to yourself. It is so easy to do this because so many people, parents, family members, and teachers have a say in how we should be living our lives, and this can mean that we develop their values and not our own.

    3. Once you start living by your values, life shifts in the most beautiful of ways.

    You don’t hold on to the things that no longer serve you because you have everything you need within yourself. For example, I realized that although I was a good marketing manager, it wasn’t my passion.

    I’ve taken the leap and decided to try writing full time. This may mean many more life changes and it’s scary, but I need to follow my heart.

    Photo by Elade Manu

  • Conscious Choices We Need to Make to Attract Healthy Relationships

    Conscious Choices We Need to Make to Attract Healthy Relationships

    Couple Holding Hands

    “When you have a choice to make and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.” ~William James

    I have been single for most of my life; sometimes it would seem by choice, and sometimes not. In that time, I have learned and experienced a lot. Some of the things I had thought I wanted changed, and some of the things I thought I didn’t want have become things I do.

    Over the years I have tried various forms of meeting people, including the “bar method,” online dating, and approaching random strangers in public places. It’s not that I was desperate to find someone; I just find dating interesting and meeting new people thrilling. Nothing is really off limits these days, and no one really knows a concrete method for meeting “the right one.”

    While I don’t think there’s any “right” way to meet people, I can say this about relationships: our consciousness is everything.

    It is so complex and profound that science can’t even measure it. Think about that. The one thing we use to experience and create every aspect of our lives is not remotely understood or measured.

    As someone who has been exploring his own conscious potential for years now, I am simply blown away by what we as humans are actually capable of, and I am learning more every day—not by reading, or hearing from others, but by experiencing.

    Our thoughts influence our emotions, and our emotions affect the health of our body. If everything is connected and influenced internally by how we think and feel, why is it such a stretch to think the “outside” world—the world made up of the same atoms we are each made up of—isn’t just as influenced by these thoughts and feelings?

    This is not about The Secret or simply attracting what you want. It is about consciousness, free will, and choices in this life.

    In my experience with dating, I have learned that:

    1. Like attracts like.

    As human beings, we are here to learn. We attract people with the consciousness that closely matches ours at a given time, but most importantly, people that will bring about the greatest lesson—mainly because both need to learn the same one, though sometimes in opposite ways.

    Simply put, the more you work on bettering yourself and raising your consciousness level, the more likely you are to attract someone who is healthier, and healthier for you.

    If you are living out of your inauthentic self, you are going to attract someone who mirrors that. We have all been there.

    Understanding this concept and applying it to your life really helps you make sense of relationships and move forward positively, if you choose to. Once I realized there were lessons to be learned from the people around me, I could find them, learn them, and let those people go when it was time to move on.

    2. Understand who you really are.

    To get to this place of clarity and understanding, you need to recognize which of your regular choices contribute to what you decided you don’t want.

    When you understand who you really are behind all of the fears, addictions, and ego, you begin to understand what you really want and need in your life. When you understand this, you can put yourself in situations with people who closely align with your real interests and level of consciousness. It might sound like common sense, but it isn’t.

    For example: Drinking heavily or doing drugs aren’t healthy or genuine soul interests. So trying to meet people while drinking to excess at bars is not likely to lead to a healthy relationship.

    As soon as I stopped putting myself in situations that contributed to an addiction process and started spending more time doing the things that were healthier for me, I found I began losing touch with certain people and meeting new, healthier ones.

    Put yourself in more situations with people who like the same healthy things you like, and that make you a better person, not less of one.

    3. Decide what you really want.

    If you have commitment issues, then that probably means you bounce back and forth between wanting love and fearing it. If you—the consciously empowered, self-authoritative, and free human being—won’t decide what you really want, how can you expect to attain it?

    I found that no matter what I tried, when I wasn’t sure what I actually wanted, my results were confusing and disappointing. It’s not just about where or how you meet; it’s about knowing yourself and what you really want and then making the conscious choice to open up to it.

    When you make this choice, firmly and consciously, your subconscious can stop resisting. It is important to affirm the intention of what you do want, not what you don’t want.

    Soon after I decided firmly and consciously that I wanted something real, something long-term, and as soon as I began healing my “unworthiness,” I opened myself up to a new relationship that reflected this new-found consciousness, but only after years of confusion about what I wanted and deserved.

    I recommend getting a journal and writing your goals. It not only puts that energy out there and sets your intention, it also helps you understand what you really do and don’t want in your life at that moment.

    4. Know you are worthy, and love yourself.

    Do whatever you need to do to heal negative energy, emotions, and thoughts that are holding you back from moving on and loving yourself for who you really are—not who someone made you think you are.

    Before you can have a healthy relationship, you have to first remove old stuck energy from situations where people have treated you poorly or led you to feel unworthy of self-love, happiness, or respect.

    Unfortunately, you cannot think, rationalize, or talk these blocks away. There are many ways to heal: meditation, energetic healing, therapy, and so on. Do whatever resonates best for you. Sometimes a simple daily affirmation, like “I am worthy of love, I am worthy of a healthy relationship” is enough to spark a healing journey within.

    If you don’t feel worthy, then find the source of that feeling. If you spend some time and do some hard “me work,” you will uncover the people and situations tied to those emotions and thoughts holding you back.

    We have all heard the saying, and it is true: you have to love yourself before someone else can. The only way to do this is to clear other people’s voices from your mind and emotions.

    I, like many, have spent years dealing with worth issues: I felt unworthy of love, success, happiness, and so on. If you struggle with the same thing, consciously choose to work through it.

    Working on these issues frees us to attract healthy, loving relationships—and know that we deserve them.

    Photo by Christopher Michel

  • You Don’t Have to Let Your Anxious Thoughts Control You

    You Don’t Have to Let Your Anxious Thoughts Control You

    “Don’t wait for your feelings to change to take the action. Take the action and your feelings will change.” ~Barbara Baron

    As a child, anxious thoughts stopped me from doing a lot of stuff, so I missed out on sleepovers, parties, and scout camps some of the time.

    Anxiety whispered in my ear that it was always better to avoid, and so it became easy to convince myself I didn’t really want to do whatever was on offer. I now recognize those thoughts and don’t let them influence my choices.

    I remember as a teenager I went to a carvery with my friends, and when I queued up for my food I didn’t see the roasted potatoes. When I sat down I saw all my friends had roasted potatoes, and they were surprised I had none.

    The restaurant was full, and I felt too anxious to queue up again because I thought that people would look at me, which sounds crazy to me now, but I remember it very clearly.

    In reality, no one would have cared or even noticed had I got up and got some potatoes! My anxious thoughts forced me to go without.

    Making decisions has always made me feel anxious, as I constantly worried about what other people would think, and always allowed my anxiety about doing stuff to influence my decisions.

    Anxiety for me brings up feelings of helplessness, dread, and resistance. Helpless, as my anxious thoughts lead me to avoid what I want to do. Dread, as anxiety often makes things seem a lot worse than they really are. Anxiety has led me to resist many things I wanted to do and also to do many things I didn’t want to do.

    Dealing with Anxiety

    When I was eighteen I had the lead role in a play in a local theatre. I had never performed in front of many people before, so this was a huge deal for me. To my surprise, when the first night came I was not anxious but really excited and happy.

    This was a major turning point for me, and I realized it was because we had rehearsed and practiced so much that I was totally convinced it was going to be a success.

    At university, presentations made me feel highly anxious. People would often comment that as I had done some acting, presentations should be easy for me. That definitely wasn’t true.

    Public speaking is a very common fear and is something that I tried to avoid at all costs. After I finished university I did a master’s degree, and it was around this time I started to get interested in personal development. My book collection grew as I discovered the vast number of books that could help you with issues like anxiety.

    I began to realize that, even though I often had anxious thoughts, they didn’t have to control my choices and behavior.

    Now when I have anxious thoughts they often make me laugh, because I recognize them for what they are: just random thoughts from a part of my brain that never wants to do anything challenging or move out of my comfort zone.

    In the past, I was always worried about the future and never really focused on the present moment. Being mindful of what’s going on right now, and recognizing that thoughts are natural occurrences that you can choose to focus on or not, has really helped me to let go of my anxious thoughts and negative predictions about the future.

    As I studied personal development, I learned that you can change your mental state through your physiology, your body language, breathing, and speech.

    Making sure I stand up straight, control my breathing, speak clearly, and say positive phrases with real intensity changes my state. I do this when I am mindful that I have become worked up by some situation, and the anxiety of it is starting to affect me.

    Being aware of my thoughts and feelings, being mindful, and living in the present moment helps me live with my anxious thoughts. Changing my state has enabled me to get back to that feeling I had before going on stage, prior to activities which would have made me feel anxious in the past.

    After I finished my Master’s degree, I was astonished when my tutor invited me back to do some lecturing on the course I had just completed. I realized how far I had progressed in terms of dealing with anxious thoughts. And even though I immediately experienced some anxiety, I was able to realize that this was a wonderful opportunity for me, and that I would accept.

    During the following months, there were many times when I thought about the lectures and began to feel anxious. Each time I focused on how grateful I was to have the opportunity and what an amazing learning experience it would be. When I accepted that it would be a wonderful experience whether it went according to plan or not, I felt even more enthusiastic about it.

    “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” ~Samuel Beckett

    It seems to me that, like many others, much of my anxiety is born out of a fear of failing and being judged by other people.

    Since I started studying self-development and reading about people like Honda and Edison who failed over and over again, and attributed those failures to their success, I have become less afraid of failing. Failure is an important step toward being successful and the best way to learn valuable lessons.

    Another of the most important outcomes of coping with anxious thoughts has been that the more often I deal with them, the less afraid of them I become and the fewer I experience.

    That doesn’t mean I still don’t experience anxious thoughts from time to time, but if anxiety starts to build up, I address the cause of it straight away and do something positive to help the situation rather than avoiding. For example, before my first lecture I joined Toastmasters and made some speeches there, which helped prepare me and gave me confidence in my own ability.

    The most important lesson I’ve learned is that it is possible to experience anxiety without letting it play a major role in our lives. We can have anxious thoughts without letting anxiety control us.

    Photo by lian xiaoxiao

  • Go Do: Let Go of the Past and Future and Live in the Present

    Go Do: Let Go of the Past and Future and Live in the Present

    “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” ~Einstein

    “Go do, you’ll learn to just let yourself fall into landslide. Go do, you’ll learn to just let yourself give into low tide. Go do!”~Jonsi

    I recently heard from a friend whom I had not heard from in over two years. He sent me an email just to check in and see how I was doing, congratulate me on my recent marriage, which he had heard about, and let me know that he had faced some hardship over the past couple of years.

    He had been, simply put, stuck. To my surprise, he also mentioned that some words I had sent him in an email, many moons ago, had stayed with him and encouraged him over the years.

    What were those words? “Don’t even talk about dreams. Think of it as actually the moment, the doing.”

    At the time, my friend was facing a very common fear: what to do with his life. He had dreams like we all do. He had goals he wanted to accomplish.

    This is something we all face at some point in our adulthood and with my friend, that fear of what’s to come, what may be, was holding him back from simply doing anything. In that way, he found himself feeling so stagnant that depression was taking hold.

    Funny, I had not remembered ever saying that. Nor did I recall our correspondence, but upon reading the words, I thought, Wow, I still say that to myself now! Keep doing… cause it’s all about the journey.

    These are all things we’ve heard before. I had said nothing new.

    The thing is, we all have dreams and goals. But when we get caught up in the small things around us, we forget the big things. At the same time, when there are so many big things to potentially bog us down, we forget to enjoy the small things in life.

    So how do we find the balance and keep moving? How do we have big dreams, and still obtain them? How do we experience the day to day? How do we go do?

    In my early twenties I was briefly married to a man who was one person before marriage and another person after. During our marriage he was extremely abusive, dangerous, and to be frank, downright selfish and mean.

    During that time, despite everything else going on in my life—the day-to-day stresses, hopes, demands, and needs—I was still in fear for my very own life, whether it was at stake in reality or not.

    At the time, I didn’t realize this fear.

    I spent three dreadful years married to this person and trying to do anything and everything I could to avoid being exactly where I was.

    I would come up with excuses to be out of the house or out of town. I was telling myself I would leave or that I could change my husband, and in the worst way, I was not allowing myself to emotionally recognize the true danger of the situation I was in.

    Why? Because I was terrified. Terrified my marriage would fall apart, terrified to tell my friends or family, terrified I would be looked at as the ‘poor victimized wife,’ and even more so, terrified to confront my husband for fear of what he might do.

    Had I known then how important living in the present was, I likely would not have stuck around in that marriage for so long.

    When we are in crisis situations, even stressful situations at work or school or at home, our bodies tell us to fight or fly. Mine did both while I was being abused. But more importantly, and on a conscious level, I was denying myself the one thing I needed most—to see where I was and accept it.

    I would not allow myself to see the danger and weight of the situation I was in. I feared the abuse and would not allow myself to face it because of my fear.

    Now, let’s take this example and move it into something perhaps a bit more relatable.

    Consider the stresses of a demanding job. Consider monetary problems—too many bills and too little cash. Consider a fight with a loved one or confusion on where to go in life or what to choose for your career.

    In any stressful situation, of the many and hundreds of situations that abound our lives, there is truly only one answer that I’m aware of that applies to all these open ended questions. That is: go and do.

    When times are tough it is easy to get caught up in the toughness and remain there.

    Whether that means you stick to your guns in an argument or ponder your dreams rather than take action, either way you’re stuck. You’re stagnant. But, if you remind yourself to go and do, then you move.

    I won’t say forward because I don’t know if we are ever moving forward; perhaps we are just swarming around in an eternal grain of sand. Perhaps life is just a string of present moments, neither past nor future. In any case, the movement, the doing, is the living.

    Had I allowed myself to be in the dangerous moments of my marriage, mentally accepted that my life was in a situation of abuse, and at stake lay my happiness, my well-being, my peace of mind, I would have not stayed stagnant in that marriage for so long. I would have made a change. I would have gone.

    Had my friend not spent so many years questioning what he should be doing, he would have just done.

    The key is to recognize every moment and keep moving.

    It is an oxymoron to be in the moment and always moving from the moment, but such is life and it is a truth that cannot be denied if we are in search of peace.

    The world is ever moving. Ever changing.

    Living in the moment means doing or feeling or seeing or recognizing what’s right in front of you. The important thing is to let yourself experience everything—the good and the bad—and once you experience it, then you let it pass.

    We get caught up in our pasts because we did not allow ourselves to live those pasts when they were present.

    Take my example. After finally extraditing myself from an abusive environment, I lived with PTSD for the following six years, reliving over and over everything that had happened to me once before.

    Take my friend; had he been doing and changing and living rather than pondering what’s to come, he would have done what he is finally doing now.

    Now he is just, simply put, exploring life. He is not setting ultimatums saying, “I must be here and have xyz by this point.” Rather, he is in the moment and recently took some time for himself, volunteering at a Buddhist retreat in California.

    Instead of worrying so much about where he would be, he is taking time to be now, living and relishing in his current situation.

    You have to live in the moment so that it can pass. You have to face your fears, so they too can pass. And since it must pass, we must feel its presence, good or bad, while it actually is present, for it too will haunt us, for better or for worse.

    Whether you are fighting abuse, fearing your future, worried about school or a test or a meeting at work, stressed about money, losing sleep over love, no matter what is on your mind at any given moment, the point is to be aware of what you’re feeling, what’s around you, and in all cases, to continue to go do.

    We so often get caught up in the stress, the worry, and in some cases, so caught up in avoiding the danger or real fear in front of us, that we forget to just live. So try to balance and stay on your bike. Remember to live each moment, let it pass, but keep moving and enjoy the next. As Jonsi said, just “go do.”

  • Sharing Yourself Without Worrying About Being Accepted

    Sharing Yourself Without Worrying About Being Accepted

    Hiding

    “Happiness is really a deep harmonious inner satisfaction and approval.” ~Francis Wilshire

    Acceptance.

    This is a word we often toss around, but what does it truly mean? Perhaps the meaning of it ultimately resides within its beholder. I know I have certainly achieved my own understanding of what acceptance means to me and for me, and so far, this definition is ever evolving.

    On November 6, 2013, I returned to the United States after having lived in Australia for two and a half years. I spent the majority of my time there studying and practicing yoga and teaching yoga and meditation.

    As a teacher, I had to face my attachment to the experience my students had or did not have. I feared that I would not be good enough, that somehow they would find fault in my delivery, and that I would ultimately not be accepted.

    Now, let’s be clear, this fear was no new fear. It had haunted me all my life. Becoming a yoga and meditation teacher was just one of the divine blessings that brought this fear to the surface for me to clear and overcome, like nothing had been able to before it.

    At the end of last year, I traveled to the Oneness University in India. For thirty-one days we went through many classes, ancient rituals, and ceremonies, and had an abundance of time and opportunity to see ourselves clearly.

    The monks lovingly guided us to look at our unconscious fear, pain, suffering, and inauthentic actions.

    This was extremely confronting, because most of us had no idea we were operating on a level of such fear.

    After that, I went back to Australia and spent the next five months falling apart as I became aware of so much inner dissatisfaction and disapproval. Holy Moly! I sometimes wondered if I’d ever come through it.

    During this time, I did some coaching with a woman named Jaxin Brooke. In our initial consultation, it became clear how much I longed to feel like I fit somewhere, like I belonged, like I was completely accepted.

    She helped me see how I had been going about this with external efforts; I thought if I could up my career game, or perhaps if I moved back to America, or got married, then maybe I would “fit in.”

    The truth was, I suffered from internal rejection and an inability to feel like what I was offering, who I was, and where I was at in my life were good enough.

    Awareness is the most effective tool for helping me shift from fear to love, from criticism to compassion, and from conditional to unconditional love.

    Awakening begins with seeing.

    Once I become aware of the way I am currently operating—meaning I can see the inner critic, the judgments, the fear, and the stories—the awareness alone brings light to the darkness or consciousness to the unconscious. This brings about an automatic shift in perception. So for me, inner satisfaction and approval depend on my level of inner awareness.

    Between working with Jaxin and watching a TED talk by Brené Brown on vulnerability, I began to experience a profound shift. There was a specific message that I received, and that message was this:

    “Acceptance comes as a result of sharing what’s in our hearts, regardless of the outcome.”

    It clicked. I understood that acceptance was no one else’s responsibility. It was my own. The first step toward it was vulnerability. Vulnerability is courageous. Courage comes from the Latin word cor, which means heart.

    I began to share what was in my heart, regardless of the outcome, in my classes, with my boyfriend, with my clients, with my friends, in my articles, and I began to experience something beautiful.

    Showing up and sharing was no longer about the feedback or responses I got from others. It was about me doing my part. It was about showing up as the best version of myself, without hiding the things I assumed other people wouldn’t love.

    I began to apply this into my daily life as a spiritual practice. I began to give fully, to speak my truth openly, to share what was in my heart each day, regardless of the outcome, and I experienced the joy of connecting with people like never before.

    I was no longer trying to be perfect, but rather letting them see me exactly the way I was.

    I was finally able to see my boyfriend through loving eyes, becoming aware of everything that was awesome about him instead of picking out what was wrong about him.

    I was able to share, personally and professionally, from a place of authenticity and vulnerability. I was no longer taking responsibility for what others did or did not get from my sharing, because I knew my only job was to generously and unconditionally give what sat in my heart and to surrender the rest.

    As a result, my relationships became even more powerful, even more mutually nourishing, and even more effective.

    Everything began to flow in abundant ways after this awareness blossomed within me, which has been a huge help for me now that I am back in the U.S. and spending time with family.

    Our loved ones have the ability to show us our deepest, darkest corners of insecurity, self-judgments, and inner disapproval.

    As a result, we typically end up pointing the finger at them and complaining about how imperfect they are. This trip home has been different for me than trips in the past.

    I have always assumed my family thinks certain things, that they judge me, or are disappointed in me for not being what they may have wanted me to be.

    Now, however, when I see myself in conversations with them and the old programs come up, telling these stories of their disapproval of me, in that moment I can soften. I can recognize the pain that is present in us all in that moment. I can have compassion for them and myself.

    I can reaffirm that I know who I am, I know what I’ve achieved in my life, and I know what amazing things I am up to; and therefore, I don’t have to demand their approval.

    I can consciously choose to let go of the old stories, the boxes I have put us in, the need to prove anything, and instead I can re-examine things with fresh eyes that have only one goal: to love myself and them.

    Even if my assumptions about my family were right, which is unlikely, with inner satisfaction and approval, I can still be happy and okay in the face of other people who may think, feel, and see things differently than I do.

    Awareness is what opens the pair of internal eyes that we need to see what is going on onside of us. Awareness will shine the inner flashlight on the internal fear and criticism. It will show us where we are currently operating and offer us the opportunity to upgrade.

    I am not inviting you to fix or change yourself. I simply invite you to turn on the flashlight within and see what happens. I invite you to become willing to surrender to the process that will follow such awareness, and to stay committed to your intention to accept yourself and others.

    Photo by Jennifer Graevell

  • You Are Good Enough and You Have Nothing to Prove

    You Are Good Enough and You Have Nothing to Prove

    Boy Sunset

    “You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anyone.” ~Maya Angelou

    I sat on a big, cold stone on the beach next to Lake Ontario and watched as the waves lapped upon the shore.

    To my right, there were swans and ducks floating on the water. The swans were graceful and beautiful as they glided along the shoreline, and the ducks were being their usual kooky selves.

    It always made me laugh to watch them dive underwater, kick their webbed feet in the air, and wag their feathered bums back and forth. They were so natural, so unaware of my presence, so carefree.

    I admired them for their untroubled lives and yearned for what they had—the complete and total lack of care for what I thought of them.

    To my left in the distance, I saw the CN tower and the surrounding high rises of Toronto. I was in college studying acting for film and television, which had always been my dream.

    But now, sitting next to the vast open water under the clear skies and watching as the waves slowly rolled up and receded, breathing in the fresh air, I realized this was the most content and peaceful I’d felt in weeks.

    All of my life, I wanted to be an actress. I wanted to see my face on the big screen, my name credited in large, bold letters; to be a guest on talk shows and able to meet all of the successful actors I admired.

    I wanted to be someone who was noticed, praised, respected, and looked up to. I wanted to be special.

    I also loved the craft of acting itself and thought that connecting with other people was so beautiful. But since coming to college four months ago, all I’d really felt was judged.

    Rosalind Russell said, “Acting is standing up naked and turning around very slowly.” That’s exactly how I felt in my program, every day.

    Day after day, I would pour my heart and soul into a performance for my professor and my classmates. I’d receive some small praise but buckets and buckets of criticism on top of that—what I could have done better and what was wrong with what I did or how I looked.

    Deep inside, I knew that that was how I’d learn, grow, and become better, but the constant flow of negative feedback was really taking its toll on me. Most days I would go back to my small residence room and cry about how terrible I was.

    I never felt good enough. I hadn’t yet realized that I was so afraid of judgment from other people because I was constantly judging myself.

    Flash forward to exam week and I was sitting on the beach. To my left was the city. The hustle and bustle, the crowds, the competition, and the never ending flow of judgment and criticism.

    To my right was the gentle blue waves, the soft stones and pebbles strewn along the sand, the ducks in all their carefree and content splendor, the swans with their heads held high, floating peacefully along the shoreline.

    I knew in that moment that I would have to make a choice.

    I either had to dedicate myself wholeheartedly to this profession, with all its criticism, or walk away and find something new. Both choices were equally daunting.

    I always loved nature, and being immersed in it made me feel so calm. Life became simple and easy in those moments and it was okay to be me.

    But I also loved performing—the sound of applause and the times when the light shone on me and I was approved. The brief moments when what I did was good enough.

    The ducks didn’t need anyone to tell them that they were good enough. They didn’t have to memorize a script, work on it for hours, find the perfect costume, and perform their guts out to earn a single head nod.

    The ducks were simply themselves. They didn’t care that there was someone on the beach. They didn’t instantly attempt to straighten their feathers or worry about whether or not I liked how they were swimming. They were completely at ease. Free.

    I knew that if I continued down the path an actor takes, judgment was going to be with me every step of the way. It would be there for every performance, every agent I met, and every audition room I entered. What everyone else thought would always matter.

    I decided that I would much rather be a duck with ruffled feathers and happy with myself than someone constantly striving and working toward validation from others, which was how I felt as an actress.

    I had also started to hide behind the characters I was playing as a way to avoid being myself. That day, I resolved to find a different path, one I could walk down as me.

    I gathered up my courage and withdrew from my program, which was terrifying. Dropping out meant letting go of the image I had of myself, and the image everyone else had of Stacey, the actor.

    I had to let go of the idea of me, the idea I loved, the idea of who I wanted to be, in order to accept who I really was as a person.

    Just as I was judged when acting, I knew I could also be judged for leaving it behind. But that simply didn’t matter anymore. 

    The best and most fulfilling realization came to me that day on the beach. I didn’t have to earn the right to be deemed good enough. I didn’t have to work for it. I didn’t have to do a song and dance to prove I was worthy.

    The truth is there will always be judgment in life. There will always be someone to tell you that you aren’t smart enough, thin enough, or successful enough. You can’t change what people think. The good news is you don’t have to. If you believe in yourself, nothing else matters.

    Sitting on that rock alone, appreciating the breeze in my hair and smiling at the ducks, I finally embraced the truth. I was already good enough. And it was in that moment of acceptance that I was truly free.

    You can’t change people but you can change how you respond to them, which is what I did. Now, I acknowledge the criticism when it comes and immediately let it go. When someone offers support, encouragement, and love, I bring it in and allow it to raise me up higher.

    The wonderful part of self-love is that once you know you are good enough already, there’s no way to go but up. The negativity fades and the positivity grows. Embrace the security, contentment, and inner peace that come with accepting yourself.

    How can you accept yourself today? My best advice is in three small words: be a duck!

    Let the judgment and criticism from others slide off your beak like water, swim how you want to swim, look goofy with your bum in the air, make silly sounds, do whatever makes you happy without caring what anyone else thinks, knowing you are wonderful exactly as you are right now.

    Shout it from the rooftops and let the whole world know.

    “I am good enough!”

    Because you really are. So, give yourself permission to be you. Accept, believe in, and love yourself knowing you are already enough and you don’t need anyone else to tell you that. It is only once you accept yourself that you’ll be free to live the life you’ve imagined.

    “Be who you want to be, not what others want to see.”

    I learned that lesson from the ducks. And for that, I’ll be forever grateful.

    Photo by ikon

  • How to Know What You’re Really Feeling So You Can Feel Better

    How to Know What You’re Really Feeling So You Can Feel Better

    Thinking Woman

    “The more you hide your feelings, the more they show. The more you deny your feelings, the more they grow.” ~Unknown

    Throughout my life, I thought of myself as someone who felt too much. I was very gregarious and could easily be consumed by moments of joy and celebration. But when I was alone, I could be overtaken by angry, self-destructive voices that would dominate my mind.

    By senior year of high school, I was spending many hours of the day crying, and had taken to pinching and punching myself until I was black and blue.

    I felt I needed to gain more control over my emotional state, be more rational, have more perspective. Those were the kinds of things I was looking for when I first called my therapist, Marc Bregman, who invented a unique method of Archetypal Dreamwork.

    Instead of learning how to manage my feelings, though, Marc taught me something totally different: how to feel them at all.

    Normally, it’s taken for granted that we feel our feelings and know how we feel. We even believe we know how others are feeling. And yet, we can accept that how we actually feel in any given moment is often extremely complex, confusing, and difficult to communicate.

    In fact, I would contend that we are usually in an avoidance reaction to our feelings rather than truly feeling them.

    Why? Namely because feeling our feelings means allowing states of experience that are truly difficult: pain, fear, despair, or vulnerability. So we cling to our assumptions about our feelings and often confuse these ideas with how we truly feel.

    We can spend our whole life cycling on this level of feeling, never letting ourselves be conscious of what is driving our emotional states underneath.

    Yet, just as matter cannot be created or destroyed, the energy carried by these deeper feeling states do not leave our psyche simply because we want to deny they are there.

    Instead, they fuel the myriad of negative behaviors that we are often trying to fix—totally numbing out, projecting our feelings onto others, blaming others for our feelings, or engaging in compulsive and self-destructive behaviors.

    Furthermore, by keeping our deepest pains at bay, we also lose access to the sweetest and most joyful aspects of our hearts. 

    More than where you are from, how much money you have, what your family is like, or what knowledge you’ve gained, I believe that it is what you feel, what stirs you, what you love and what causes you pain that makes you you.

    I believe that every human is connected to an eternal, infinite source, and it is our deepest feelings that connect us to this source. Through seeking the deepest parts of our hearts, we can learn what it means to manifest our true selves into the world.

    To begin the journey of feeling of your feelings, try these steps:

    Be open, be humble, and allow.

    We often rely on our mind to interpret our inner feelings. Understand that our ideas about our feelings aren’t usually the whole story. Be curious and ask, what could be underneath this current emotional state?

    Center your emotional experience in your body.

    At the core, your feeling state is a physical experience happening in your body. Bringing your attention to where in your body you’re experiencing a feeling is a great way to deepen your visceral experience of it.

    Don’t think about it too much.

    It’s easy to get tangled trying to figure out what we feel by weighing various judgments, ideas, and experiences to determine what we should be feeling. What you feel doesn’t need any supporting evidence. It just is. Let it be.

    Pay attention to your dreams.

    Dreams, on a fundamental level, are felt experiences. They can be a tremendous help in mapping out your internal emotional landscape, especially the places we’d rather avoid. Try writing down your dreams and feeling into them rather than interpreting them. You may be surprised by what you uncover.

    —

    When I began following these steps, I had a number of dreams that showed me immersed in guilt for things, like being late to a meeting. By closing my eyes and concentrating on the image in the dream, I was able to attach the word guilt to a sinking, constricting feeling in my stomach.

    This allowed me to become more aware of when I was feeling guilt in waking life. I didn’t realize it, but it was almost all the time. When I brought curiosity to those moments of guilt and understood there was probably a deeper feeling underneath, I began to feel fear, and eventually, desire.

    In the past, being late to meet someone was my worst nightmare. The idea that someone might be agitated by something I did was excruciating.

    I realized that all of this pressure I put on myself to please others was really driven by the deeper fear I had of truly being myself, regardless of what others thought of me. Once I was able to feel this fear, the guilt did not have as strong of a hold. 

    When I let myself feel how scary it would be to not be concerned with what others thought of me, I also began to feel how much I wanted this for myself. I’ve learned that feelings of desire, excitement, and exhilaration are often intertwined with feelings of fear.

    Perhaps it sounds counterintuitive, but it is that same combination of feelings that prompts us to ride life-threatening rollercoasters or write soul-bearing love letters to the ones who have stolen our hearts.

    We fear what we desire because we know how vulnerable we’d be if we actually got it. But until we let ourselves access the fear, we don’t have the opportunity to be courageous.

    Now when I feel guilt come up I don’t get stuck there for hours but am instead able to access my fear much more quickly. I can let the fear run through my body and let it take the time it needs to transform into feelings of excitement or desire.

    Through letting myself feel these things, it’s become much easier for me to decide what I want to do. Instead of making decisions based on what I think others may or may not like, I’m able to choose the things that scare me, and thus exhilarate me.

    This is just a single example of a myriad of surface feelings I have learned to relate to deeper feelings within me. While I am very far from living out these lessons all the time, just knowing what these deeper states feel like has made a tremendous difference in my life.

    I wake up everyday with curiosity as to what aspects of my felt experienced could be revealed next, and gratitude at the amazing journey that is exploring my inner self.

    And it can all start with a simple exploration—what does it truly feel like to be you, in your body, in this place, right now?

    Photo by Clay Junell

  • Dealing and Healing After Loss: 9 Tips to Help You Get Through the Day

    Dealing and Healing After Loss: 9 Tips to Help You Get Through the Day

    Woman Silhouette

    “Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

    If you don’t know where to start, start anywhere. I keep telling myself that every time I am stuck.

    Well, I’ve been a widow for year and a half, and I am twenty-four years old. Maybe that’s the way to start here.

    My husband had cancer. We tried to enjoy the time before his passing as best we could, so he would die with memories, not dreams. And I guess that the fact that he died content is quite an accomplishment in our relationship.

    But it doesn’t change anything in my sorrow. People keep telling me that I am young, I have my life ahead of me, I should forget, move on, stop mourning, take anti-depressants, and usually they add that I will find somebody else and be happy again.

    This advice makes me sad because I am struggling to live “here and now,” not in the future. I want to live every minute of my life in fulfilling way. And to be honest, I’m kind of scared of the future and I don’t have the possibility to live in the past.

    My whole life changed. There is no way to prepare for loss of the loved one. But I had to be functioning in this world, even when my soul was screaming for help.

    I didn’t let myself break down. I was wearing a mask of a strong, independent woman that deals with everything. I work, study for my master’s degree, have hobbies, and take care of my family. I seem “normal.”

    But deep down, I was broken to pieces. I still am. But that’s okay. I just build myself again like a puzzle. I see those puzzle pieces more clearly now—who my real friends are, what really matters, and what I care about in my life. I have my priorities straight and now I have to build myself up.

    I was searching in books and on the Internet, talking with my friends, other widows, and in therapy, trying to discover what I should do to get through the day more happily. I was looking for help creating peace—just for me, not for the mask I put on for others.

    Here are some tips that help me keep going and be peaceful with myself, beyond the mask.

    1. Write about your feelings.

    I keep writing in my journal about my life. I am introverted and I don’t like sharing my sadness with everyone around me. Occasionally, I let my brother-in-law read it. I write about my husband, how I miss him, and what makes me smile or cry in my day. It’s a way to organize the stuff in my head.

    When you make time to explore your feelings in writing, it’s easier to process them.

    2. Make acceptance your goal.

    Keeping a journal helped me move toward acceptance. I stopped asking, “Why him, why me, why us?” I wrote it down so many times that I lost interest in searching for an answer that I couldn’t figure out. I just accepted it. And the same thing happened with many things I repeatedly wrote down or said out loud; I just sorted them in myself and could focus on other things I had to process.

    You may not feel you can accept what happened right now, but keep it as a goal in your mind and you will slowly move toward acceptance and inner peace.

    3. Find your “flow” activity.

    Music describes how I feel and it makes me comfortable just to listen to the emotions of other people. I keep singing, too. I’m not so good, but for three or five minutes, I am myself.

    I sing the emotions with my mind, heart, and body and it makes me feel alive and whole again. It’s possible to find this state of mind in other activities—sewing, painting, cooking, composing music, or creating anything else.

    Fully immerse yourself in an activity or task that makes you feel whole.

    4. Stay physically active.

    I started jogging/running every day. I prefer night runs, where I clear my head. I never liked running, but my challenge is to put on my running shoes and go outside every day. I don’t mind the weather or if I run 600 m or 15 kilometers—it’s about me, my thoughts, and my body.

    Aside from this, I do martial arts, but yoga has also helped me to stay focused and relaxed within my body and mind.

    Exercise in the way that feels good to you. It helps in your fight against sadness and depression.

    5. Keep your balance and take care of yourself.

    Usually my life deals with extremes. To work it out, it’s about learning time-management and putting everything in balance—time for myself (relaxation, reading), for school/work, time for nourishment (keep eating properly), for exercise and hobbies, time to socialize so I don’t isolate myself (meeting friends and family, volunteer work), and time devoted to my health (doctor’s appointments, for body and mind).

    Balancing your assorted needs can have a huge impact on your life. Balance isn’t always easy, so don’t stress about it. Just keep trying.

    6. Seek uplifting information.

    I don’t watch/read bad news, or at least I try to avoid them. I look for entertainment in my low moments (videos with cats help). I also used to read books about widowhood just to know that I am “normal” in my behavior, in my feelings.

    I needed confirmation because I thought I was going crazy. Now I prefer to look for the positive instead of focusing on the depressing things in my life. I search for humanity and beauty in life and focus on my appreciation for those things.

    Nurturing a sense of gratitude can help you survive some of the sadder days.

    7. Give yourself permission not to be okay.

    I had to figure it out by myself. Nobody else could tell me. I now know that I don’t have to put on a mask, to pretend and be strong. I just have to let myself experience my feelings and accept that I am not okay. I have to let myself cry for days. I know I will always climb up again after I am done. I always find a reason to keep going.

    Sometimes we are our own worst enemy. Don’t be hard on yourself for feeling down. Give yourself a break.

    8. Keep your mind, senses, heart, and soul open.

    Every day, every minute of my “here and now” world, I try to keep open to experiences and people. I have learned how to sew on a sewing machine and do sign language. I’ve started conversations with sad strangers just because I want to cheer them up for a while.

    Little everyday tasks like these get me out of my comfort zone. And I try to be grateful for things I haven’t seen before.

    Appreciate the beauty of the ordinary, because you already know that nothing lasts forever.

    9. Let other people be there for you.

    Widowhood and grieving are not contagious, but some people act that way and distance themselves. Mostly, they just don’t know how to respond, to help, to exist nearby.

    Of all the things that have helped me, I am most thankful for people that have supported me with their presence (face-to-face, through e-mail, or on the phone). I am grateful for the ones that took me to dinner/coffee and let me talk about what I miss the most about my husband. Or just gave me a hug.

    I wish for everyone who is going through something like this somebody who understands. Who is there for you, even when you say “I am okay” but tears are falling down. You are doing okay. In your own unique way.

    Photo by mrhayata

  • Finding the Strength to Leave: Run Toward, Not Away

    Finding the Strength to Leave: Run Toward, Not Away

    Running Toward

    “You don’t need strength to let go of something. What you really need is understanding.” ~Guy Finley

    It was 11pm on a Monday night and yet again I was chatting online with my friend about the woes of my failing marriage. “I just need a knight in shining armor to take me away from all of this,” I said.

    “Not real life,” she said, “but you’re bright and strong, and you’ll be fine.”

    I didn’t feel strong. All I could see was a mountain of practical reasons why I had to stay in this relationship: our two-year-old twins, the expensive rented house with ten months remaining on the lease, marital obligation, family expectation…

    The fact that I was no longer in love with him, very unhappy, and at times even scared of him didn’t seem to register as important in the face of money worries and how I would cope as a single parent. My weakness was finding ways of keeping me stuck. I was hiding from the inevitable.

    I wanted the knight to bring me money and emotional support so that I didn’t have to be strong. I could bypass my own lack of strength if I could rely on someone else’s.

    Every day I felt the acute pain of ignoring my inner voice and carrying on with a marriage, and a life, that was sucking the energy and what little strength I had left out of me.

    I looked for reasons to stay. For reasons I could hold up as fact and persuade myself that staying was the best thing to do. Anything but face up to the huge upheaval that leaving would cause.

    No matter how bad his behavior got, and how many times I considered I’d hit rock bottom, I convinced myself that happiness wasn’t for everyone. And I stayed.

    My inner voice continued to scream at me that this was all wrong. I went round and round in circles. I found problems and obstacles to leaving him everywhere I looked. And I stayed.

    I found reasons to leave too, good reasons. But I couldn’t summon up the strength to act on them.

    Then I started writing. Every day. Pages and pages about how I felt and what I wanted out of life and in a partner.

    Some days I wrote fiction—short stories featuring protagonists remarkably similar to me. Other days I wrote non-fiction, describing my hopes and dreams in detail. Like a diary entry from a life I didn’t really have.

    Fiction or fact, the themes were the same. Ideas recurred. My real desires became clearer to me.

    I wanted a happy family. A husband who was present more than he was absent. Someone who preferred spending time with our children and me to his friends and work colleagues.

    Yet I had no intention of doing anything about it. They were just words—dreams, wishes, unattainable nonsense. That took the pressure off finding the strength to make any of it happen.

    But now I understood what I was looking for out of life and in a partner. I longed for a man who loved and respected me, and the realization that wasn’t what I currently had started gnawing away at me.

    All the bad things that had happened, and which were still happening, were not enough to make me leave him. But seeing a glimpse of how my life could be if I left him was starting to give me the strength I had been missing up until then.

    I couldn’t run away, but I could run toward.

    It took time. But my inner voice became less desperate and more encouraging. I found myself using my writing to run through real practical options about where I would live and what work I could realistically do instead of focusing purely on the unlikely and improbable.

    At some point I found the strength to talk to him. I told him I wanted to leave. He took it well; he seemed to understand what I was saying. He too was unhappy with the way things were.

    But he still tried to talk me out of it. All my steps forward and I had to take some back now. It knocked me for a while, but I kept focusing on what I could have.

    I kept writing about it every day.

    It actually didn’t matter that some of what I wanted might never happen. Meeting someone else—particularly someone resembling a knight in shining armor—could happen, but probably wouldn’t.

    But that didn’t matter. All I needed was the possibility. The vision of what my life could be. A dream to hold onto.

    For the first time in years I could see what I wanted and was able to make a rational decision to go in search of it. It didn’t really boil down to strength after all—more an unshakeable conviction that there was something better out there, and an unwillingness to ignore that knowledge.

    All that took months. The ten months remaining of our joint lease ran out and with it so did I, taking our children with me.

    No knight has since turned up with money or emotional support. One day he might, and he’d find that I didn’t really need him after all. In the end I managed just fine on my own.

    I found the strength to leave my marriage by writing every day until I understood what I wanted in a partner. In the end it turned out to be quite simply someone who will love and respect me, and be a caring father to my children. I haven’t found him yet, but I’m happier now that I’ve left the person who definitely wasn’t him.

    You might find your strength to leave another situation—your job, a toxic friendship—by writing as well. It’s about finding clarity on what you want instead. Giving you something to go toward rather than run away from.

    And I hope when you find your clarity, you’ll find your strength, like I did.

    Photo by geralt

  • We Need to Give People the Freedom to Choose What’s Right for Them

    We Need to Give People the Freedom to Choose What’s Right for Them

    Flying Free

    “You must love in such a way that the other person feels free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    I’ve read a lot of articles about loving without attachment and respecting other people’s choices, but it wasn’t until one day that I truly got it. And I will tell you what happened to me that day.

    My boss and I have a very special relationship. He’s the boss everyone would want to have. He appreciates me for my work and for everything I do. He thinks that I’m a great kid. Every time he has the chance, he praises my results and he shows his confidence in me and my work.

    One day, I decided to go to a job interview at another company. I wasn’t planning to leave; I only wanted to see what other companies have to offer. And I told him about it.

    His reaction was a complete surprise for me: instead of thinking of himself and offering me everything just so that I wouldn’t leave, he told me, “Andrei, go to the interview, and if you think that’s better for you, then go.”

    It was obvious for me that he wasn’t okay with me leaving. He loved my work and he wanted me to stay, but he understood something: the most important thing is for me to be happy. And that made the difference.

    He was thinking of me instead of thinking of himself. It was a breakthrough. Instead of forcing me to stay and granting everything so that I don’t leave, he offered me a choice. And choice means freedom.

    It meant that I got to compare. I got to see what others have to offer and then choose what is right for me. And of course, when I get to choose, I choose what makes me happy. So I went to the interview, realized that my current project was better than the new one, and returned to work with new forces.

    A few days after this I was at home, remembering the whole scene when my girlfriend called and told me that she was thinking of going on a trip for the weekend.

    We hadn’t seen each other for a while, and I had made some plans for us for the weekend. But she was thinking of leaving and she wanted to know what I thought about it.

    The first thing that popped into my mind when she told me this was: “No! Tell her not to go! We have plans!” But then I remembered how my boss had reacted. I wanted her to be happy.

    I wanted her to be able to choose what was right for her. I wanted her to have a choice, as I had, because I understood that choice means freedom. So I told her to go despite the fact that I was a little sad that I wouldn’t be able to be with her.

    There are two things that I learned from these experiences.

    Letting go gives people a choice.

    My boss taught me an important lesson: think about what other people want and need instead of only thinking about yourself.

    When someone wants a thing that is in contrast with what you want, there are two choices of action. The first is convincing the other to do the thing you want. This path empowers you. You will be satisfied, but the other will not necessarily be happy with it. By following this path, you take a risk by thinking that you know what is right for the other one. And you might fail.

    But there is another path: presenting your choice, but supporting the other’s choice. This path is more beautiful and more powerful because it empowers the other. You may or may not get what you want, but either way there is no way to failing.

    Choice means freedom.

    Freedom is a thing that we all desire because ultimately freedom brings happiness. Freedom means being able to compare the situations—the benefits and the drawbacks—and choosing what is best for you.

    As much as we all want to be free, we have to understand that others have the right to be free, as well.

    They say birds are a symbol of freedom. If you look at the sky and watch their flight, you will understand why. I’ve never seen a bird dragging another one around the sky. Yes, they might fly one near the other, they might eat and sleep near each other, but that’s it. If they choose to drag one another, neither of them will be able to fly and they will both fall down to the ground.

    It can sometimes be difficult to respect other people’s choices because it conflicts with our ego. But we all want the freedom to choose what is right for us. And everyone benefits when we all choose to give it to each other.

    Photo by Cornelia Kopp