Tiny Buddha

Tag: happy

  • It’s More Important to Be Authentic Than Impressive

    It’s More Important to Be Authentic Than Impressive

    “The most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves is to remain ignorant by not having the courage to look at ourselves honestly and gently.” ~Pema Chödrön

    All my life I’ve chased after success, as I was encouraged to do from a very young age.

    When I was six, my father got me my first proper study desk as a gift for getting into a ‘good’ school. The type of desk that towered over a little six-year-old—complete with bookshelves and an in-built fluorescent light. In the middle of the shelf frame stuck a white sticky label inscribed with my father’s own handwriting in two languages. It read: “Work hard for better progress.”

    Little did I know those words would set the tone for me and my work ethic for the next twenty years—until I finally began to question them.

    Hard work became my ‘safe space’ whenever I felt insecure. When I struggled to make friends at a new school, felt rejected, or felt like I didn’t belong, I would put my head down and drown out my emotions out by working hard. It became my coping strategy.

    My younger self didn’t yet have the emotional resources to deal with moving around, changing schools, and facing social rejection. When it became too painful, it was much easier to stay in my head than to feel vulnerable with my heart.

    So, whenever I struggled to fit in at school, I just worked harder with the misguided belief that if I did well, then I would be celebrated. If I became impressive, then people would finally accept and like me.

    And of course, my parents encouraged this behavior. I was rewarded for my hard work and I got good results for it too.

    But outside of my home, nobody seemed to care about my results. I still wasn’t fitting in at school. I still didn’t have many friends. My strategy didn’t seem to be working.

    So I worked even harder.

    By the time I graduated from University, I had completely bought into society’s definition of being ‘impressive’ without even questioning it once. If it was a prize everyone wanted, I wanted it too.

    My definition of being ‘impressive’ expanded to include looking good, dressing well, staying fit, and making good money in a highly-competitive field, even if I had zero passion for that profession.

    By then, I’d long forgotten the reasons why I wanted to work hard to be impressive in the first place, other than “That’s just who I am.”

    I was drifting further and further away from my true self, and I didn’t even know it.

    For the next ten years, I spent a lot of my waking hours working as a financial analyst, studying for more degrees and certification, and chasing after the next shiny thing so I could sound even more impressive to others. Plus, I was making a decent income while doing so. Tick.

    While on the surface I ticked a lot of those “impressive” boxes I had set out for myself, on the inside I felt emptier than ever. On the outside I looked successful, but on the inside, I felt like a complete failure.

    What Happens When Your True Self Calls You to Come Back

    Cracks started to emerge both in my work and in myself. It became challenging to fully show up for work as I increasingly asked myself: “What am I doing here?”

    A soft inner voice whispered, “It’s time to get out of here, you’re not meant to be in finance. What are you doing here?” So I began questioning what I was doing with my life. I mean, if not that, what was I meant to do? I’d invested so much of my time and energy into my profession; I couldn’t just change directions. And who was this voice anyway? Where was it coming from?

    My fake enthusiasm became harder and harder to keep up. This sinking feeling became more visceral by the day, and the feeling of not belonging in my workplace became increasingly obvious.

    Yet I swallowed those feelings down with gritted teeth and kept pushing. Because what else was I meant to do if not keep persisting?

    When I suddenly got fired it was an abrupt wakeup call. I needed to challenge everything I believed in and confront those big questions I’d put off answering for so long: “Who am I really?” and “What am I really about?”

    What I Learned Through My Four-Year Journey of Self-Discovery

    I spent the next couple of years immersing myself in a whole range of subjects that covered different angles on self-knowledge, in an attempt to answer the question “Who am I?”

    For most of my seeking, I was still trying to find answers as if they resided outside of me. I was still trying to find where I belonged professionally.

    But what started as a business journey quickly morphed into an inner-transformational journey that became deeply personal.

    This deep inner work allowed me to reconnect to my internal guidance system and my true self once more.

    Through this process I was able to take a good look at myself, confront my shadow side, heal my wounds of rejection, and forgive everyone involved, including myself.

    As I’ve come home to my true self, I’ve realized a few things about the cost of chasing impressiveness:

    When we chase after something external, we lose self-connection.

    When I heard that soft, loving voice inside my head, it was a small glimpse of spiritual awakening. It was a momentary connection to my inner mentor’s light that seeped through my deep dark fog of disconnection.

    We all have our own inner mentor, but we have choose to listen to it instead of trying to be who we think we’re supposed to be.

    When we trust others more than we trust ourselves, we can end up giving our personal power away.

    If we believe that the answers we seek lie outside of ourselves, we can forget to check in to see what’s true for us each individually. The more weight we put on other people’s opinions, the less we trust our own inner knowing.

    People can only speak to what they know based on their own perspective, background, and life experiences. When we allow other people’s opinions to overpower the choices our true selves would otherwise make, we end up giving away our personal power.

    I’ve found that it doesn’t matter how many well-meaning opinions we get; we need to find what resonates with us the most by checking in with our inner authority—which means going against what we learned growing up, when we were trained to ignore our inner voice and do what we were told.

    The pursuit of ‘impressiveness’ is a hunger that can never be satisfied.

    When we keep chasing after ‘impressiveness,’ we are in fact on a hedonic treadmill of always wanting more. As soon as we achieve one thing, we fixate on the next. We keep wanting bigger, better, and more.

    As soon as we attain or do something, suddenly what we have isn’t good enough anymore, and so we must now keep up. We fall into the comparison trap. The external goalpost keeps moving. We keep looking over our shoulders to see how we’re tracking against everyone, and it becomes a tireless pursuit of keeping up with the Joneses with no real end in sight.

    Every ‘win’ is temporary.

    We mistakenly see ‘impressiveness’ as proof that we’re worthy of love.

    When we chase after ‘impressiveness’ we’re really chasing after validation, approval, and a sense of belonging. We think, “If I can be impressive then I can be accepted.” We want others to look up to us, praise us, and ultimately, love us.

    However, the pursuit gets dangerous when we buy into the false belief that we have to work hard in order to prove we are worthy of love; that we need to become ‘impressive’ through our accomplishments and produce tangible proof of our worthiness.

    I’ve noticed that a lot of high achievers, like myself, have bought into this belief, possibly due to the achievement-oriented upbringing we were exposed to from a very young age.

    The danger is that it can become an acquisition addiction, and an arms race to get more degrees, more cars, more houses, more shoes, more toys, and so on.

    We can become addicted to buying ‘cool’ things to impress other people, or work ourselves to the bone just to get those long lists of accolades instead of recognizing that we are inherently worthy of love. Regardless of what we have or have achieved.

    We risk losing our individuality.

    When we chase after external validation and approval, we compromise who we really are in exchange for more respect, more likes, more kudos from our peers. We showcase a more curated, ‘acceptable’ version of ourselves to the world, and we hide other parts of ourselves that we think might be rejected by others. Even worse, we end up chasing after things we don’t even really want.

    Some of us inherit strong beliefs about what ‘success’ means and some of us strive toward pre-approved categories of impressiveness as defined by society, without checking in once to see whether these pathways to ‘success’ fit in with our true selves.

    In the end, we lose our individuality—the essence of who we really are.

    It requires self-connection to recognize what is true for us versus what is conditioned into us. It requires even more courage to step outside of these pre-approved paths to ‘impressiveness’ and live a life that aligns with our true selves.

    How to Reclaim Your Authentic Self

    I’ve discovered that breaking free from the illusion of ‘impressiveness’ and reclaiming your true self is really a constant two-step dance between recognition and courage.

    1. Recognition

    To reclaim your authentic self you have to recognize that you have disconnected from who you really are in the first place. Your achievements, your accomplishments, all the cool stuff that you own, and even your toned physique—they’re not who you really are.

    2. Courage to be your true self

    We have to have courage to stand in our truth and be our authentic selves. Recognition alone is not enough. For many of us, it’s the fear of disapproval that holds us back from stepping out of those curated, pre-approved categories that we have created for ourselves, and fully owning who we are, in all our beautiful, strange glory.

    My wish is that this becomes your permission slip to fully step into who you really are and own it. Being your true self requires tremendous courage, but it’s worth it. And having the courage to fully embrace your true individuality in all its quirkiness? That’s impressive.

  • Never Forget That You Have the Power to Choose

    Never Forget That You Have the Power to Choose

    “If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Dedicate today to the power of choice. Your choice. You can’t choose everything that you experience in life, but what you can choose is mightier than any circumstance, outcome, or other person’s opinion.

    Where you focus your mind, how you use your words, and how you treat yourself and others are all up to you. One chapter at a time, you write your own story.

    We all have the power to choose what we absorb and what we release. We ultimately decide what we share, what we keep, and what we let go. How long we stay mad and how long we wait to reach for hope, when we say yes and when we say no, and how long we say only what others want to hear are all up to us. Whether we see the world with gratitude or resentment begins with a choice.

    It’s not that anyone chooses pain, though. I can’t think of a single person who’d choose despair or insecurity. No one elects shame to be their shadow. Not even boredom is a choice. We just forget our power sometimes or maybe underestimate the power of our intentions.

    For me, forgetting is a quick slide into control or fear. Every doubt, complaint, and fear leads me directly to more to doubt, complain about, and fear. The pressure builds. Tension rises. And even then, as much as I hate to admit it when I’m steeping in it, I have a choice.

    I can choose how closely I pay attention to my thoughts and how I respond to what I feel. Even if hours go by, days, years, it’s never too late to make a different choice. 

    My husband will be the first to tell you that I can hold on to things. I spent months holding on to a comment a friend made about my writing. I mentioned to her that I felt stuck on a project, and she told me, “It’s not it’s like real work. You don’t actually have to do it.”

    I was seething when she said this but didn’t say a word about it to her. I’d let the comment go for a few days, saying “it’s fine,” but as soon as her name came up? That was all I could think about.

    I can go even further back than that. When I was about six, a little boy on the bus called me a hag. It may seem like a small thing for first graders to tease each other, but I cannot tell you how many ways that one comment has worked its way into my self-image since then. At times I thought it was hopelessly stuck in my psyche. And still, thirty years later, I somehow made the choice to process and resolve that memory.

    It’s never too late to choose.

    When I remember the power of my intention, no matter how long it takes me, I come back home to myself with deepened perspective and goodwill. My choices soften the anger, fear, and sorrow I once felt. Remembering my power to choose restores the gentleness in my step and words. I see a completely new world around me. 

    From that place of remembering, all the positive, empowering choices available to me emerge from the mental fog. I can choose to ask a question, solve a problem, or call for help. I can choose to take a walk, meditate, have a snack, water the flowers, or count my blessings.

    Each positive step leads to more and more positive choices.

    So many things are out of my control, and I’m learning to let go of wanting it to be otherwise. I understand now that this only happens through my choice.

    I’ve historically wanted to follow a plan, not go with the flow. And I’ve depended on those plans going off without a hitch to feel safe.

    Here’s an example: When my husband mentioned finding a new job a few years back, I wanted to know all the details. No, I wanted more than that. I wanted to be so involved in the process that I knew exactly what was going on. When he didn’t get a new job, I wanted to know why and what this meant.

    Of course, life doesn’t work that way, and by hanging my security on details I couldn’t control, I gave away my own power.

    When I could acknowledge that pattern, I opened myself up to choosing differently. If I want more certainty, I can choose to look for the things I trust like my values, strengths, and the learning process rather than the things that could go wrong. If I want to feel more at peace, I can choose to speak to myself with more kindness not more criticism. Above all else, I can choose to have my own back no matter what.

    What I’m learning from this is there’s so much to be deliberate about and so many ways to choose.

    You can choose to set a small boundary when you’re exhausted from keeping the peace.

    I choose to be true to myself. May my honesty restore what’s been depleted.

    You can choose to broadcast loving-kindness when you see the images of suffering in the news.

    May all beings be safe from harm. May all beings return to peace. May all beings find freedom.

    You can choose to acknowledge our shared human experience when you feel most alone.

    In this moment, I remember that in my joy and suffering, I am connected to all of humankind. 

    And when you’re on top of the world, you can choose to bask in it.

    I dedicate this moment to the deep gratitude I feel. I choose to delight in this joy today. 

    There’s always something you can choose. So, choose soothing, however you’re able. Choose to look for things to feel good about. And if nothing else, choose to be as intentional as you can. Always with acceptance for the part of you that forgets. 

    Starting now, starting small, remind yourself of your power to choose. Here’s how:

    Begin with yourself. 

    Offer whatever you have on you right now—your beating heart, your breath, your hands, your eyes reading these words—to your power to choose. With that power, dedicate this moment in time to your health or happiness, to a new story, or anything that resonates with you.

    I dedicate this breath to my happiness. 

    I dedicate this day to my health. 

    With every word I read, may I remember my power to choose.

    From there, if you feel inspired, add on to it with another choice: Take a positive step that supports your health and happiness. Make plans to do the same tomorrow.

    If no step calls out to you, that’s okay. Smile and thank yourself for this choice all the same.

    Next, focus your power to choose on someone you love. 

    For just a moment, offer whatever is within reach to them. 

    I dedicate this hour to the people I love the most. May the beating of my heart bestow health, happiness, and security upon them.

    Again, build on this intention with a choice if it feels right. Pick up the phone, lend a helping hand, or send a quick text.

    If no action is needed or accessible now, that’s okay. Smile and imagine them receiving your dedication all the same.

    You can extend your power to choose as far out as you like. 

    Dedicate every step you take crossing the street to the well-being of all passersby. Then, add on as appropriate with another choice. Smile at them. Make eye contact. Mentally send them positive wishes for their day.

    Devote your commute today to bringing harmony to a challenging relationship. If it feels accessible, make another choice. List their positive traits. Name one way you could respond differently. Forgive if you’re able and willing. If nothing else, choose to be alert to how your attention feeds your internal experience of conflict and choose to nurture something new.

    With your power to choose, give a voice to your deepest wishes for the planet and all who inhabit it. Go as big as you like.

    I dedicate my words today to the message of love. May all who I encounter receive this message and help me spread it through their words. May this message proliferate and reach all beings.

    I send my love to the planet. May I aid in the purification of the air, the restoration of our oceans, and the health of all creatures in whatever way is available to me today.

    And then, take whatever action presents itself to you. If no action is available, that’s okay. Smile and know that you’ve strengthened your power to choose all the same.

    If a choice resonates with you, stay with it. Work with it for as long as it feels right. It could be a day, a week, a month, or more. Expand on it with more choices as is appropriate for you in your current situation.

    Pay attention to what happens as you practice this. Perhaps you’ll notice new ideas flowing more easily. Maybe you’ll feel motivated to take a positive step you’ve put off for a while. If all that happens is feeling more awake and empowered, then it’s well worth the effort!

    No matter what arises in your day or in your heart, remember there’s always something you can choose. May we all remember the power we have.

  • The Power of Saying No (Even to People You Love)

    The Power of Saying No (Even to People You Love)

    “When you say yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.” ~Paulo Coelho

    “Yes, of course.”

    “Yes, that’s no trouble at all.”

    “Yes, I can do that.”

    “Yes, I’d love to help.”

    Yes, yes, yes. “Yes” seemed to be the key word in my relationships with partners, family, friends, and colleagues.

    I wanted to be helpful, kind, and thoughtful; I wanted to be there when people needed me. I didn’t want to let them down or disappoint or displease them. I spent a lot of my time devoted to my self-image as a capable, nice person who could be relied on. As a people-pleaser, I held niceness close to my heart.

    Unsurprisingly, people always assumed I’d drop everything to help them or do what they wanted me to do. They were used to me giving up my time for them and putting their needs and wants before my own.

    This was especially the case in my close relationships, in which I found it hardest to say no.

    I grew up believing saying no to others was negative, unhelpful, and selfish.

    As a child, I was often told not to cause a fuss or bother anyone and to expect very little. As a result, I believed that others were worthier than me and that their needs and wishes should take precedence over mine. I felt guilty for saying what I wanted or how I felt, as if I had no right to do so.

    Unsurprisingly, I found it difficult to voice my opinions and needs, and I believed that what I thought, felt, and wanted wasn’t important.

    I was also fearful of confrontation and avoided it at all costs. Saying no risked provoking someone’s anger and making them think badly of me. It meant possible abandonment, the withdrawal of approval and love. So it seemed far safer and easier to say yes, even if I wanted to say no.

    My readiness to say yes certainly didn’t gain me other people’s respect or consideration. Even though I consistently gave a lot more than I received in return and often felt hurt, resentful, and unappreciated, I kept saying yes.

    My habit of people-pleasing attracted into my life the sort of people who disrespected and used me. This included a relationship with a guy who turned out to be a bully.

    Throughout our time together, I went along with whatever he wanted. I kept saying yes to the relationship despite the fact that he emotionally and psychologically mistreated me. I kept putting his needs and happiness before my own, and of course he had no respect for me. Why would he when it seemed I had no respect for myself?

    It was only when things became unbearable and I got sick that I knew I had to say no to the relationship and start saying yes to myself.

    My inability to say no had created a great deal of inner turmoil, which had obviously impacted my physical and emotional health. I realized I had to say no to a lot of things and a lot of people in order to heal myself and protect my well-being.

    The end of my dysfunctional relationship made me see that it’s often in our closest connections that we most need to practice saying no because we often maintain unclear or flexible boundaries with the people we’re closest to.

    Say No to a Lack of Boundaries

    Boundaries are essential for healthy connections and show that you respect yourself and your partner. It’s through boundaries and our ability to say no to each other that we come to know our partners better and also connect with them more deeply. When we can freely voice our opinions, we meet as equals.

    People-pleasers often have a hard time setting boundaries, and this was certainly the case for me. We can develop a blurred sense of where our boundaries lie, if we have bothered to give serious thought to them in the first place.

    I realized that I had to set boundaries before I embarked on another relationship.

    I had to build up my confidence and begin to trust myself. I needed to work out what I liked and disliked, what I wanted and didn’t want, and where exactly my line would be crossed.

    I knew that if I continued to have hazy boundaries, I would remain vulnerable to mistreatment and would continue to attract into my life people like my ex-boyfriend.

    Say No to Inauthenticity

    I had mistakenly thought going along with what other people wanted would mean less disagreement and conflict. I thought it was good for my relationships, but in fact the opposite was true.

    Whenever I said yes in a powerless way, I was being inauthentic to myself and the other person. There was little honesty in many of the yeses I said.

    My need to be liked and approved of and to please the other person overshadowed my need to be true to myself.

    Suppressing my wants and needs meant that my partner could not know the real me. None of us are mind readers, so they could only guess what they thought I wanted, and most of the time they assumed I wanted what they wanted because I never said otherwise.

    When we don’t feel able to voice our wants and needs in a relationship, our connection lacks true intimacy. If we cannot be open to our partner, how can we be closely connected? If we continually hold a part of ourselves back from our loved ones, either from fear of conflict or a reluctance to drop our mask of “niceness,” we create inauthentic connections that cannot grow into something deeper and stronger.

    Intimacy cannot flourish from pretense, only authenticity.

    Say No to Self-Sacrifice and Being a Martyr

    In the past, I sometimes said yes reluctantly and with little enthusiasm, which, of course, didn’t please the other person. This went against my intention to minimize any conflict.

    These yeses were tinged with martyrdom; I felt I was sacrificing my time and energy. I was often bored doing things I didn’t want to do, all of which took away time I could never get back.

    When you feel obligated to agree to do something you don’t want to do, it usually backfires on you. You end up feeling resentful of the person who asked you in the first place, and you resent yourself and your weakness. The help you offer will lack genuineness, and people will be able to sense your unhappiness and resentment.

    I learned that in every relationship there must be compromise rather than one partner’s continual self-sacrifice.

    Say No to Catastrophizing

    People who have a hard time saying no are often worried about other people’s reactions and feelings. They tend to build up in their imagination all sorts of negative scenarios resulting from saying no.

    Yet we are not responsible for others’ reactions to what we say or do; the only reactions and emotions we can control are our own. This was a revelation to me, taking into account my childhood conditioning.

    When we catastrophize a partner’s reaction to our “no,” we show a lack of faith in their ability to respond like a reasonable person, and it reveals that we don’t really know or trust them.

    Would your partner be so angry if you dared to voice your opinion that they would actually leave you or stop loving you? If so, what do these reactions say about them? Would you want to be with someone like that anyway? If they prefer you to be a doormat and always compliant, what does this say about their view of relationships?

    If you say yes out of fear, you need to look at what makes you fearful in your relationship. Fear is an indication of a power imbalance and therefore an unequal relationship. There is a big difference between being afraid of your partner and being afraid of their opinion of you if you say no. Their disappointment in your no is based on their expectations of hearing a yes.

    If your partner is so averse to you voicing your wants and needs, you should leave that relationship. You cannot stay with someone who thinks their needs and wants are more important than yours. It’s not good for your self-esteem and, as I discovered, your health.

    Say No to Draining Situations and People

    There is a lot of positive power in using no in the right way. You don’t say no to purposely hurt others; you say no to protect yourself from people and situations that can hurt you.

    When you say no to draining people and situations, you open up the space for positive energy and relationships to enter your life. It allows more worthwhile activities and opportunities to come your way.

    Your no creates the necessary boundaries that give you time for yourself, time to focus on your self-care and interests and what matters most to you. You’ll also have extra time and energy to help people you genuinely care about in a much more meaningful way.

    I had to cut ties with certain people, realizing they didn’t contribute anything but negativity to my life. I had to say no to these relationships.

    Saying no in these circumstances is a form of self-protection. You have the right to say no to situations and people that threaten your peace of mind or well-being.

    How to Use the Power of No

    We have obligations to our loved ones and should be there for them when they truly need us, but we also have obligations to ourselves.

    When we say no, it shouldn’t intentionally cause another person any real harm; it should always come from a place of consideration and compassion, but it also has to be assertive and come from a source of strength.

    I found that it helps to focus on the fact you are not saying no to the person but to their request. This separation makes it feel a lot less personal.

    It also helps to start small. Begin by saying no to acquaintances and colleagues and anyone else you feel safer saying no to. Once you have gained some confidence, you can say no to less significant matters in your close relationships—such as what to eat for dinner, which movie to see at the cinema, what to do with your free time, and so on.

    Most of my friends and family were initially surprised when I no longer just went along with what they wanted. But their reaction to my no wasn’t negative. In fact, many were relieved and pleased that I was finally being assertive.

    I then practiced saying no to more significant requests for help or bigger favors that would take more time and energy. In time, saying no became easier.

    Don’t be rushed or pressured into making a decision if you need time to think about someone’s request. Simply say, “Can I get back to you?” “I need to check my schedule first” or “I’ll let you know.” Any impatience on the other person’s part is their business, and there’s no need to get caught up in a discussion before you give your answer.

    It’s important to remain calm when you say no. You don’t need to give lots of reasons—doing so can weaken your no—but you can apologize for not being able to help, if you wish. It depends, of course, on the request. A simple “Sorry, but I don’t have the time right now” or “I’m sorry, I’m not able to help” will suffice. Always use “I” rather than “you” when you give a short explanation for your response.

    When you say no to certain people, they might react with anger, surprise, disappointment, coaxing, or guilt trips. It’s important to not be manipulated by their reactions or swayed into changing your mind.

    Their response to your no is often an accurate indicator of the health of your relationship with them. They have become used to your yeses, and this has shown them how to interact with and treat you. They’ve gotten used to you putting them first, but now you need to give them a different instruction, which involves changes they might not like.

    In time, unless they’re a bully, they’ll adapt and even prefer the more assured you. They will have more respect for you and your time.

    But if they refuse to accept the changes, you must say no to the relationship.

    Say Yes to Yourself

    Your no protects your personal power in your relationships. It enables you to be more honest with other people, yourself, and what you want. Your no allows you to say yes to things that are important to you.

    When I realized my no could be linked to a self-affirming yes, it was a powerful revelation to me. Saying no didn’t feel negative anymore; it was something that empowered me and allowed me to prioritize my time. After all, our time is limited, so we cannot say yes to everything.

    I began to focus on the positive aspects of saying no: yes to more time to do what I wanted, yes to more self-esteem, yes to good relationships, and yes to greater control over my life.

    Say Yes to Self-Empowerment

    Saying no and taking better care of myself made my yeses feel more powerful because they were authentic and came from a place of strength. The more honest I was about saying yes and no, the more people respected my time and boundaries and appreciated my help.

    I also learned I can live with others’ disappointment, and I cared less about their reaction to my no. I was no longer afraid of upsetting people.

    Saying no doesn’t stop you from being a nice and considerate person. Sometimes, the kindest thing you can do is say no to someone, including yourself.

    When you are self-empowered, you know you are enough, and you know you are worthy. You know you don’t need to exhaust yourself doing everything for everyone else in order to be liked and valued.

    Helping those in genuine need, if you are able, is always a good thing. However, you can’t help everyone, but you can help yourself.

  • The Number on the Scale Does Not Dictate Your Value

    The Number on the Scale Does Not Dictate Your Value

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

    We try to give our bodies value with numbers. We’re obsessed with the number on the scale and the circumference of our waist.

    We also think our value lies in labels. Words like “obese,” “fat,” and “overweight” are triggers for many, and we abhor them like coffee breath, because we’ve been immersed in pocrescophobia (the fear of getting fat) from before we can remember.

    But we are more than a category on a pie chart. We are more than our body shape. Magazines tell us we are shaped like a fruit, but we are shaped by the experiences that have made us the people we are today.

    Our bodies may not be light, but inside we are shrouded with light. We may be soft where we’ve been told we ought to be hard and toned, but it’s in our softness that others feel comforted in the midst of their problems. We may not have a thigh gap, but there’s space between our arms for those we love to seek shelter.

    We are more than just a body.

    Our bodies are amazing. They can do so much, for ourselves and for others. We are each beautiful in our own right.

    But that’s not all there is to us. We are the imprint we leave on the planet during our short life on Earth. We are the heart that beats within us for the things we are passionate about.

    We are the smile that radiates out of our eyes when we experience a moment of pure joy, and the serenity that pervades us when we are content. We are the words we exchange, the words we write down, the words we guard in our minds at all costs. We are the feelings that pass through us, exhilarate us, drive us, guide us.

    We are the thoughts and memories and unique set of DNA that set us apart from everyone else. We are special. We are needed. We are designed for a purpose.

    We have value that surpasses everything society and the media wants us to obsess over. We have value apart from how we look. We have value apart from our relationship status.

    We have value apart from our income. We have value apart from whether we own a house or not, or have kids or not. We. Have. Value. Unchanging, unequivocal, perfect value.

    I regret that I wasted this whole weekend feeling depressed about how much I weigh now compared to how much I weighed in my early twenties (I’m approaching thirty). It seems so silly when you think about it, a stone here or there. But I found myself giving in to that black hole, falling-to-the-floor kind of despair.

    I should weigh less. I should look slimmer. I should try harder.

    I should be something that isn’t me at this moment in time.

    It seems like everyone is dissatisfied with the way they look. We will pay money and give up all our free time to try and achieve the illusion of perfection. Snapchat filters, Instagram filters, even paying for apps that will help us to create the perfect selfie, because heaven forbid we look anything less than perfect online!

    This, in turn, feeds into other people’s insecurities, spreading the toxic message that our “just as I am” is not enough.

    The thing is, weight is just one small way to measure health. My weight suggests I’m quite overweight for my height. But when you look at my waist-to-hip and waist-to-height measurements, I’m in the “healthy” category for both of them, with little-to-no risk of developing heart disease or obesity.

    Things just don’t add up. I’m left feeling like something is wrong with me. Am I in the red, or in the green?

    Do I need to lose weight, or can I breathe a sigh or relief?

    The thing is, it’s these categories and labels that have got it all wrong. Health can’t always be measured by numbers. It’s how you live your life. 

    Being obsessive isn’t healthy. Talking negatively (even in your mind) about yourself isn’t healthy. Striving for perfection isn’t healthy.

    What is healthy? Loving yourself exactly the way you are. Making good choices for your physical and mental health.

    Being balanced in everything.

    Some days I feel like I’ve come so far, that I truly do love and accept myself as I am, wobbly bits and all. Other days I feel lost in a sea of self-pity and a strong dislike for what I see in the mirror. I compare myself to other girls.

    Why can’t I be naturally skinny? Why has nature been so unkind? Then I remember that nature has been kind.

    I’m uniquely myself with my own combination of curves and body fat. Why would I want to look like anyone else?

    My thoughts go round and round like this. It can be so tiring.

    My parents used to tell me I had a “feminine figure.” My partner loves the way I look and never ceases to remind me, even when I’m in one of my funks and in a loop of obsessing over my supposed flaws. If I could only see myself through the eyes of those who love me, my obsessing and self-loathing would all stop in an instant.

    The thing is, we have to see ourselves through the eyes of love. We have to accept. We are craving our own love and acceptance.

    We need our own kindness. We need to talk about ourselves like we would talk to our best friend. We need to look in the mirror and say, “You are beautiful, just the way you are.”

    See your own value. Yes, your body has value. Yes, it is beautiful, exactly as it is.

    Shout it out! Proclaim it to the rooftops!

    But you are more than that.

    You are so much more than a body.

  • How to Free Yourself from the Burden of Your Potential

    How to Free Yourself from the Burden of Your Potential

    “Changing directions in life is not tragic. Losing passion in life is.”

    We all have natural talents, and in some cases, we may have devoted years to honing our skills and turning them into a career. As we’re on the road to achieving our goal or fulfilling our potential, there may be this invisible weight that starts to bear down on us.

    That’s because there is a burden of potential. The burden is that fear that we’ll never reach our full potential, and the obligation and pressure we feel when we don’t want to continue on the path we’re on.

    Sometimes we tie our sense of self-worth to making this one dream come true, because we’ve told people that we’re trying, and we don’t want to seem like quitters or failures if we consider changing course. That fear can keep us glued to the track, even if we have a sense that we would be happier doing something else. It can be hard to believe there might be more than one way to reach our potential and live a satisfying life.

    My Own Struggle with The Burden

    I moved to Los Angeles to become a stand-up comedian.

    Once I got over my initial fears of getting on stage, the fear train just kept on coming. (This is one of the few forms of transportation that shows up with any consistency in LA.)

    The problem was that I was not a lost cause. I have memories of making packed rooms laugh and getting positive feedback from not only my friends but other comedians whose careers I had followed. I had potential.

    Did that mean I had to keep trying? Even on the days I bombed, or no one showed up because I was performing at an art gallery/coffee shop at 1am? Did I have an obligation to fulfill this potential?

    At the time I was getting into psychology and seriously considering changing tracks and becoming a therapist. I was afraid I was abandoning my dream and my potential. But my own therapist at the time reminded me that my own unfolding into my potential wasn’t done. I could be just as creative being a therapist as I could when I was doing stand-up.

    At the time I kind of rolled my eyes internally and prepared myself for the slow descent into mediocrity. I probably said, “Oh yeah, that’s a good way to look at it” while my doubts lingered. But now I know she was right.

    Though I still feel “in process” on my path, I’ve not only increased my creative output, I don’t feel that I’ve compromised on my dreams at all. Every day isn’t easy, and doubts still creep in, but I feel much more at peace with my choice.

    So how do you release the burden? Here are a few things to consider if the weight of your dream feels more like a shackle.

    1. Pick the path you won’t mind walking for a while.

    We all have heard the old adage “Life is about the journey and not the destination.” It’s frustrating but true. Nobody knows when their life might change or when they might reach their goal. Between the big achievements, there’s the slow meandering of everyday life. Pick the life you can love between the big achievements.

    What I loved about stand-up was the creativity, finding humorous ways to point to larger truths, and having a voice. What I didn’t like about stand-up was open mics, late nights in bars, drinking, most male comics (sorry, but there’s a lot to this for another article), and constant financial insecurity. So basically, most of it outside of being on stage. I didn’t like the day-to-day.

    You need to at least get some joy from the in-between stuff.

    These days, I like my day-to-day. Even on the days something “big” isn’t happening, I love that my day is filled with interesting conversations and making my own hours and being in bed by 10pm. Every day certainly isn’t perfect, and I still struggle some days but overall, I can do this for a while, in between accomplishments.

    2. Allow your dreams to evolve.

    Sometimes, we can get so attached to a certain idea of success that we don’t allow our vision to expand as we change and grow. If you play basketball, you might dream of playing in the NBA. If you are a dancer, it may be Julliard. But those aren’t the only ways to a happy life. In fact, there have been enough biopics to show that reaching the pinnacle of success isn’t always the path to happiness.

    In the Netflix show Losers, they show how a big upset or “loss” could lead to an even more successful outcome, one the athletes at the time couldn’t have imagined for themselves (like boxer Michael Bentt, who goes from defeat and despair to a successful Hollywood boxing coach for movies like Million Dollar Baby). “Success” seemed like a trophy, but it can morph into this whole wonderful life you couldn’t have predicted for yourself.

    3. Question why you have this dream.

    Sometimes a dream may not even be ours. It could be something our parents wanted to, but never did accomplish. It could be something we think society wants us to be, or we’re seeing someone else’s life and thinking, “If I could be like him/her/them, then I’d feel great about myself.”

    We need to investigate our chosen path and make sure we chose it for ourselves. Working with a mentor, coach, or therapist can help us look under the hood at our life path and see if it’s really where we want to go.

    Ultimately, it’s about learning to hang out between your ideas for your life and where you are now and understanding that how you feel now is the biggest indicator of how you will feel then. The accomplishment won’t be what makes you happy. The goal is to cultivate happiness wherever you are so it will be there wherever you end up

  • Why I Now Complain Less and Appreciate More

    Why I Now Complain Less and Appreciate More

     “It is not happy people who are thankful. It is thankful people who are happy.” ~Unknown

    I used to be a complainer, a fault-finder, a grumbler. I would grumble a hundred times a day about mundane issues, be it the weather, the traffic, or my husband.

    I complained when my husband didn’t help me around the house, and grumbled when he helped. It took me some time to realize that it was not him or his lack of housekeeping skills that made me unhappy. I was unhappy because I was turning into an ungrateful person.

    I have some fond and not so fond memories of my childhood. When I was a kid, my parents force-fed me green vegetables and limited my television and playtime. They wanted me to study and do my homework, and made me go to sleep every night at 8:30 PM. But all I wanted was freedom, freedom from homework and freedom to do whatever I wanted.

    I was nine years old when I first expressed my ingratitude to my parents. One day, after school, instead of boarding the school bus that would take me home I boarded the one that took me to my friend’s house. I thought this would be the end to the horrible veggies and boring homework. But things didn’t go as planned.

    My friend’s father got in touch with my dad, who drove down to take me back home. As I nervously watched my dad step out of the car I noticed worry etched on his face. He gently put his protective hands around my shoulders and said, “Come, let’s go home.” We drove home in silence, and gradually guilt found its way into my heart.

    When we approached home, I peered through the windows of the car and spotted a tired, lean figure standing by the gate of the house, my mom. I got down from the car and tentatively took one step toward her. Gazing into her moist eyes I gingerly called out, “Mummy.”

    She took me in her arms and hugged me tightly, while crying into my school shirt. As my tiny hands held her I realized my mistake.

    Today, when I look back to that incident, I realize now that as a child I took for granted all that my parents did for me.

    In a world where girls are denied education, at times buried alive, where orphanages are filled with children abandoned by their parents, here were my parents who catered to all my needs and prepared me for the future. In this unfair world, I was blessed with parents who gave me a fair chance at life, to grow and to prosper.

    My parents indeed planted the first seeds of gratitude when I was still a kid. But it wasn’t until I attained motherhood that I truly understood the importance of showing gratitude.

    Like every first-time mother, I went through anxious moments looking after and raising my baby. With my hyperactive daughter, things just seemed like a never-ending battle, with crayon painted walls, carrot juice stains on the carpet, moisturizers and lipsticks tested on every piece of furniture, and toys scattered around.

    I longed for peace, I longed for rest, and I longed for a clean house. I complained and cribbed about how being a mother was the toughest job in the world.

    Until one day, I visited a friend whose six-month-old son was admitted in the hospital, as he was diagnosed with Muscle Dystrophy, a genetic disorder that affects all the muscles including the muscles of the heart.

    That tiny baby lay on a bed motionless, strapped to a heart monitor. It was heartbreaking to watch the grieving mother coax and beg her frail baby to wake up, to cry, to whine, to do something, anything, while he did nothing. He just lay there, motionless.

    As I stood there, watching helplessly, an image of my little devil—my daughter—scribbling on the walls flashed through my mind.

    What had I been complaining about? An active child, a healthy child? Isn’t this what I had prayed for when expecting her? Surely, there would be plenty of women out there in this world who would give anything for my sleepless nights and messy house.

    From that day on, whenever my daughter was unable to go to sleep even at two in the morning, I didn’t complain. In fact, as I held her and kissed her forehead, I was thankful knowing I have such a wonderful gift.

    It’s human nature to forget our blessings and concentrate on our problems, but when we complain, our mind plunges into negativity, and like a domino effect everyone around us gets impacted by it.

    Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita would often finalize a candidate selection by asking his famous concluding question. “Do you think you have been lucky in your life?”

    The purpose of this question, according to him, was to comprehend if the candidate was thankful for the people who helped him in his life. He believed that this attitude of gratitude in employees leads to a happy work environment, which in turn boosts company productivity.

    Most of us tend to connect happiness to major events, like a promotion or winning the lottery. But these events don’t happen often. Gratitude is what makes our life richer, more beautiful, and a lot happier as we start to enjoy the little things in life.

    We often take people in our life for granted, or get caught up in complaining and grumbling. It’s true, my husband can be lazy sometimes, my parents keep nagging me, my teenage daughters never listen to me, and I have some crazy friends, but you know what? My life is incomplete without all of them.

    Life is a celebration. When we love everything we have, we have everything we need. So, let us make this journey of life worthwhile and take that huge leap from grumbling to gratitude.

  • My Life Will Be My Message

    My Life Will Be My Message

    “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” ~Gautama Buddha

    I have meditated for over half my life. It didn’t always look like meditation, and I didn’t always refer to it as such, but the driving need to introspectively understand my universe has been an ever-present presence,.

    For a long time, there was a certain guarded nature to my practice. It was intimate for me. I didn’t have words to explain what I was doing in a way that didn’t seem crazy. I didn’t realize that there were other people who were pursuing the same path. And so, I remained solitary.

    A series of fortunate events led me to spend the past fifteen years working in alternative education.

    I spent thirteen years working with adolescents living with the challenges of addiction. As a result, my practice began to take on new elements. Self-care became paramount, and I used the refuge of meditation to handle the day-to-day heartbreak.

    My introspection became a way to get a shore leave from the battle against addiction. And still, it was solitary.

    Then one of my coworkers, a wonderful mentor, took a course on mindfulness meditation and began using it with the students. Amazingly, many of them gravitated toward the practice and began to look forward to the time carved out during the day for relaxation and mindfulness.

    I stood on the outside, wanting to participate in a more active way but still feeling a sense of almost shame of the weirdness, the apartness that I had unconsciously associated with my meditation practice. When my mentor left he took that time with him. I didn’t feel qualified to continue it. So we let it lapse. I didn’t even offer.

    Over the next few years my practice continued to deepen and take on a central role in my personal development. I began to talk more openly about my meditation with my colleagues at first, and then with a few students who I felt close to and thought might be receptive. I invited them to come sit with me during lunch.

    Our cafeteria was often an incredibly negative place for both the students and the staff. I thought I would offer an alternative to that. We had recently built a space for teaching yoga that was being woefully underused that fit my needs exactly.

    I wish there was a happy ending. That the students came by the cartload and blossomed, and that my colleagues rushed to my side to begin meditating as they saw the infinite benefits of the practice.

    Instead, my colleagues politely declined citing their own classroom needs or lunchtime responsibilities, and other than a few students who took me up on my offer a few times and then returned to their regular lunch, I found myself alone… again.

    Strangely enough, or perhaps not, what seemed like defeat bore fruit. My solitary lunch became my moments to reach for my own compassion and to try to find the humanity that at times seemed so lost in both those suffering from and those trying to aid people in addiction.

    I began to see that not my words, but my life had to be the message. If I truly believed in what I was doing, the way that I comported myself would be far more profound than discussing the effects that meditation had for me.

    So I began to talk openly about my practice without reserve whenever it was appropriate. When a student would come to me for advice I would invite them to sit with me while we talked.

    I began to try to remain still during my staff meeting instead of squirming and joking with the people next to me. I learned how to try to give my single-pointed attention to those who were with me more often. I began to talk less and listen more to my colleagues.

    I began to try to see the middle way in the frequently passionate meetings we would have after school, finding compromises instead of pushing for my point of view. Especially as those meetings took on an increasing layer of gravity and an almost frantic quality as our students began to fall victim to the opiate epidemic. One death after another, sometimes within weeks of each other. Beautiful young lives ended.

    I learned about holding grief and sharing pain. I learned about being present in the moment because the blatant reality that the next day was no longer guaranteed was ever present.

    I left that job after ten years, with a heavy heart, amidst what felt like an interminable sea of personal troubles that had prompted my decision to leave a community I had quite literally grown up in.

    When I reached my new employer the next school year I set up my desk. I put my singing bowl out and hung up my banner with a quote from HH the Dalai Lama. My new students started to ask me about them. I told them quite openly about what they were for and about my meditation practice.

    I asked a few of my colleagues if they would let me do a short meditation before they started their class, and for the first few months of the school year I took five or seven minutes to try to teach some of the most basic elements of meditation: relaxation, finding the breath, body position.

    Once again, most of the students weren’t particularly interested, and my colleagues quickly reclaimed their “time on learning” for more important things. But I persisted.

    My openness brought other colleagues from other grades to me, and we began to have a small community of teachers who not only all had a practice, but all shared the hidden shame and frustration of knowing the impact of meditation but not knowing how to implement it, or how to even discuss it with our students. We found each other.

    We began to talk about how to bring this into the classroom and into the school community. I began to offer a short twenty-five-minute class on meditation during a recess on Friday.

    I expected maybe three or four students. Those who seemed receptive to our conversations over the course of the year and who would frequently request that I return to leading meditation before class. Instead, I got eight. And to my surprise it was not the students I expected. I had made my own poor judgments. Most of the students at my door that first day were not even on my radar. Over the next few months they became some of my best students.

    I left that first class with a deep gratitude. The students were hungry for this. For a time and a place that was unscheduled, safe, and without threat, where they could simply be.

    I saw what I had always believed, that these practices were powerful, useful, and practical for anyone who was willing to try, even a little.

    I’ll never forget the first time I had a meeting that ran into that time, and one of my sixth graders stomped up to me and demanded to know where I had been and informed me that I owed them a meditation!

    This small class turned into a bigger and longer class. I got an official class period once a week and told the specialist coordinator not to cap the number thinking, once again, that I wouldn’t need to. On the first day there were seventeen that came. By the end there were nineteen. I had planned for eight.

    I learned about a different kind of at-risk student: High drive for success, high socioeconomic status, high expectations. The achiever. The over-scheduled. The listless and bored. It was incredible to me how infrequently these children got to be children.

    The first time one of them relaxed enough to fall asleep during a class I felt like I had achieved something important. They were safe, they were calm, they were able to relax and for a few minutes experience the solace of not being asked to do anything. To be allowed to just be.

    What is the point of all this? For me, it was the realization that if I wanted to make an impact on my students, my community, my world, it required the courage of truth. It required me to be exactly who I was.

    I have no illusions that my students came to me to learn meditation. The novelty of the experience wears off fairly quickly. They came to me to learn meditation because they saw how I lived.

    I own who I am. Waking up doesn’t make you less human. It makes you intensely human. Emotions bloom like flowers and then fade and die. I enjoy the flower. I let the flower go. I live openly and it draws the openness out of others.

    I don’t know if meditation will have a place in my students’ lives in the future. I do know that my life has gently jostled theirs in that they now know, consciously or otherwise, that there is someone in the world who cultivates peace and serene silence.

    One of my favorite students commented that he had never seen me upset for more than a few minutes. He was a deeply anxious child with tendencies toward obsessive-compulsive disorder and ADHD.

    Without my saying anything he remarked, “That’s because you meditate right?” “Every day.” I replied. He smiled. I smiled. We were present, together for a moment.

  • How to Fight Well in Your Relationship

    How to Fight Well in Your Relationship

    “Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” ~Rumi

    I had one of those really intense arguments with my partner recently, and it made me realize the importance of knowing how to fight well in a relationship.

    That might sound like an oxymoron, but there isn’t a relationship I know of where the couple doesn’t fall out at one point or another. Fights can make or break a relationship. That’s why it’s important you know how to fight well—because the success of any relationship isn’t based on how well you manage the good times but on how well you can deal with the bad.

    Basically, it’s about how well you can learn to fight.

    Learning to fight well is important because it can help bring up lots of hidden stuff that’s been lying dormant for years; it enables you to be really honest with each other, which helps you develop deeper levels of trust; and studies have shown that learning to fight well can even improve the intimacy in your relationship.

    But back to our fight.

    It all started when I was out at friend’s house and lost track of the time. My partner and I had agreed to spend some quality time together that evening, and when I noticed the time, my heart sank. I knew she would be upset as I made the difficult call home, and yep, I was right. She was livid. We then descended into a really uncomfortable argument of blame and counter blame, with a bit of defensiveness thrown in for good measure.

    Criticism and defensiveness are two of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, as highlighted by renowned relationship experts Drs. John and Julie Gottman. They noticed these two traits are highly correlated to relationships that lead to breakup and divorce.

    Whenever my partner and I would have our worst arguments these two traits would always be present, and this time was no different.

    That’s why becoming more aware of how you fight can help you avoid relationship Armageddon and instead increase the trust, safety, and love in your relationship. To help with this here are seven key steps to follow when you feel as if you’re descending into another one of those earth shattering fights:

    1. Upgrade your language.

    Some arguments can help grow the relationship and develop greater levels of trust and intimacy between both parties. Other arguments are the opposite; they create a hierarchy and a power struggle, which diminishes respect, trust, and love.

    If we rewind to the start of our arguments we can predict to some extent their “success” by the language that started them and whether it was “hard” or “soft.”

    Hard language starts with generic hyperbole like “You always…” or “Why do you never…” or “I knew that you would…” Soft language uses “I” statements and focuses on the actions that took place, how they made us feel, and what we want to happen.

    My partner’s language that day was very “hard.” She criticized me and I immediately became defensive as the original story in my head started to change in response to her accusations. The firm agreement I knew we’d made became a tentative expectation in my mind. My lateness was no longer my responsibility but my friend’s, who had been delayed preparing food. Bit by bit I retold the story of what had happened and made myself into a victim of my circumstances instead of the owner that I really was.

    The language used at the start of our exchange influenced my response and how the subsequent argument progressed.

    The Gottman Institute reported that they can predict with 94% accuracy how a discussion will end based on the language used to start it. The softer and kinder our words, the less defensive we become, meaning we are more open to taking responsibility and creating connection instead of disconnection.

    A key principle to help with this is to use language to complain but don’t blame.

    2. Create space.

    Luckily, I had a one-hour drive home to work out what had happened and to get some perspective following our argument. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was a crucial period because I used it to work through what had happened, and there’s no way we could have achieved such a good outcome without the time this gave us.

    I’ve learned that it’s wise to agree in advance to call a “timeout” or “press pause” before arguments begin. In the past I’ve attempted to call a timeout to create the space to calm down, but this has only made matters worse.

    My partner and I now have an agreement that if either of us needs to call a timeout in an argument the other will respect the request. It can be infuriating at the time, but arguing when you are in a low mood or heightened sense of emotion is never going to assist your dialogue. Therefore, it’s important to create space as much as you can.

     3. Safely express your emotions.

    On that drive home the first thing I did was shout and scream about what had happened. My inner child had a field day as I moaned and complained to my imaginary passengers about what she’d said and how wrong she was. It was fantastic, and a very cathartic way to clear the negative energy and emotions I was holding on to around the conversation.

    When we had the initial phone call I went into a stress response as my body became flooded with cortisol, and my heart rate went through the roof. Expressing my emotions and doing lots of deep breathing on the way home helped me flush the cortisol out of my body and return it to its original state. Without doing this I would have taken those negative emotions and feelings into the resumption of the fight on my return home.

    The intense emotions we have during a fight form a negative filter through which we see the relationship. There’s not much our partners can say that we won’t interpret the wrong way when we come from this place. That’s why it’s so important to clear the filter and express your emotions as best you can.

    It’s important to make sure that you find somewhere safe to do this, however. Doing it next to your partner won’t go down well, so get out of the house and find somewhere to express your emotions as cleanly and safely as possible so you don’t take it into your next fight,

    4. What if…?

    Once I’d let go of the emotions I started to calm down, and it was only then that I realized I could let go of the story I’d been telling myself. It was at this point I decided to tell myself a new story that started with “What if…”

    “What if she had a point?”

    “What if I wasn’t being honest with myself?”

    “What if I wasn’t taking responsibility for something?”

    This provided a new lens through which to see the situation. With my strong emotions now expressed it was like a fog had been lifted, and I could see the situation from a new vantage point. This new perspective allowed me to completely shift my thinking on what had happened and relinquish my grip on the version of events I had concocted to help deal with my partner’s “hard” response.

    5. Take responsibility.

    From that simple question I realized that there was plenty I could take responsibility for, that I was ignoring based on my initial triggered response. I was shocked because once I found one thing, I found another, and another. By the end, I could take responsibility for almost all of what happened.

    It would have been easier to take responsibility for either nothing (be stubborn) or everything (be a people-pleaser). But the more honest I was with myself, the more I could distinguish between what was mine and what was not.

    For example, we had made a clear agreement about what time I would get back. I knew the food was going to be late, so I could have explained to my friends and left without eating. I knew I didn’t have a watch, so I could have checked on the time from somewhere else.

    Previously I’d been telling myself the story that I needed in order to ensure I wasn’t in the wrong and to protect the scared little boy inside myself that was upset at being made to feel bad.

    This also helped me to realize what I was not prepared to take responsibility for. I was being accused of some things that weren’t right. In fights we easily turn critiques about our actions into criticisms of our character. So, for example, in this scenario I was late home because I didn’t prioritize my partner. This is a critique (and is true); however, a criticism would be that this action makes me a selfish person (not true).

    Taking ownership for what was mine helped me release responsibility for what was not. This helped me to feel much stronger and clearer in owning my part in the situation and how I communicated it to my partner, as a result.

    6. Respect your partner’s process.

    When I arrived home I was excited to share what I’d learned with my partner and imagined us having a great conversation about it. That didn’t happen because she was still really annoyed with me. I came through the door with this great insight and awareness about the argument and how and why I’d behaved as I had. However, I was met with stonewalling.

    I’d used the journey home to vent and express my feelings, so the emotions in me had subsided. However, my partner had been sat at home the whole time stewing and making matters bigger and badder in her head, so we were in very different places. She still needed to express those emotions and get them out of her system before she was able to communicate with me in a productive way, and I needed to create space for her to do that.

    That was really tough because I realized I was in one place (emotionally and physically expressed, and now ready to take responsibility for what was mine), whereas she was somewhere else (still emotional and not ready for a rational conversation).

    7. Create the “container.”

    Fights often get out of control when you are both full of emotion and expressing it from a place of fear. The most important thing missing in most fights is a safe space within which to share and be heard

    When my partner and I fight we often fight for space to be heard as much as we argue about whatever the fight appeared to be about. Most fights are secret battles for power in the relationship and not really about whatever started them.

    To fight well requires one of you to have enough presence, away from your emotions, to create a safe space (or the “container”) within which to have the conversation.

    Once my partner’s emotions had calmed I asked if she was okay to have a conversation about what had happened because I wanted to share with her some things I wanted to take responsibility for. She agreed, and we were then able to have that conversation where I took responsibility for what was mine and we discussed what was not for me to take.

    I found that leading and taking responsibility for what was mine made her more trusting in me, which added to the safety we’d developed in creating the “container.” This made her much more understanding and able to take responsibility for what was hers.

    It really helped me when she said the simple words “I was wrong to say you were selfish.” I felt validated, which helped further develop the trust we had for each other.

    She would never have been able to admit that if we’d not created the sufficient safety for us both to be honest with each other.

    —

    This certainly wasn’t an easy conversation, but it would never have been possible if we hadn’t taken steps to create some space to express our emotions, take responsibility for what was ours, and then create a safe environment within which to discuss it.

    I learned that it’s not what we fight about but how we fight that’s most important.

  • Why Some Things Trigger You Emotionally and Others Don’t

    Why Some Things Trigger You Emotionally and Others Don’t

    “If you’re hysterical, it’s historical.” ~Anonymous

    I had been having problems with my email. I dreaded calling technical support, since my experience in the past involved sitting for a long time on hold and listening to someone reading from a script instead of thinking creatively about my problem. However, since I could not fix the problem myself and I felt I had no other options, I called my Internet service provider’s technical support line.

    True to form, after thirty minutes on the phone we had barely moved past the point where I had repeated my name and account number to four different people. Then, after another hour on the phone while attempting to solve my problem, the technical support representative actually lost some of my emails.

    I’m not going to sugarcoat this. I went ballistic.

    Like most people, I’ve spent many hours of my life on the phone with technical support representatives, attempting to fix something that is very important to my life and my livelihood—my computer, my Internet connection, my phone, etc. When they can’t fix the problem, I become completely hateful toward them. For some reason, it’s this one area that just turns me into the ugliest version of myself.

    I’m not proud, but I have said some of the most vile things to these people on the phone because I want them to feel as bad as they are making me feel with their robotic repetition of “I’m so sorry for the inconvenience” or their insistence that their software isn’t the source of the problem; it must be my hardware.

    I used to hide the fact that I went ballistic. It felt like an ugly secret that I would occasionally lose it with someone on the phone. I think it’s healthy to be embarrassed about completely losing your cool, but it’s also healthy to learn from the situation so you don’t lose your cool so easily the next time.

    I have always assumed that my level of anger during these situations is much greater than the general population’s, although recent recordings of profanity-laced customer service calls around the Internet is making me question this.

    When I mentioned to a friend that I was fighting with Comcast, she quickly replied, “That’s enraging.” Even my therapist described her own experiences with technical support calls as “crazymaking.” Hey, it’s from a therapist. That makes it official.

    I still knew that my particular reaction was overblown. How do I know this? I look to the people around me as a gauge. I pick those people who have a generally positive outlook on life, who are stable, content and able to meet life’s challenges with resilience. I observe their example. I don’t look to those people who have a generally negative outlook on life. Grumpalumps are not a good gauge for what is normal behavior.

    I wondered aloud to a friend one day about my overblown reaction to these situations. She knows me well and offered this piece of wise advice. She said, “When you’re hysterical, it’s historical.”

    Growing up, I had a pervasive sense that I was surrounded by incompetent people who could not help me when I clearly needed it. I sensed this because it was true. Trust me. That sense of frustration was something that sat, ever so close to the surface, ready to be triggered, well into my adulthood.

    Enter the incompetent technical support representative who knows less about my iPhone than I do. In that situation I am, in fact, surrounded by people who cannot help my when I clearly need it.

    Trigger. I flash back to feeling like that frustrated little kid who felt that my clear requests for help went unheeded. I wound up figuring everything out by myself, since the people around me were unable to recognize the needs of others and to be of help. That made me furious—and exhausted. It’s that part of me who freaks out at the technical support representative.

    We are all carrying around that kind of old, outdated baggage in our present-day lives. This is why what triggers one person is absolutely no big deal to another.

    I found it such a relief to connect the dots between my specific type of childhood angst and my extreme reaction to an ordinary technical support nightmare. Making that connection immediately diffused my emotions around it. I was still frustrated—may I remind you it was a technical support call—but I wasn’t “ballistic-frustrated.”

    Why does something attached to childhood carry so much force? Remember that children have very little control over their lives. They have limited ability to have experiences that test the worldview presented to them. They have little ability to communicate their needs. They have little power to resist the authority around them. Problems seem so big when children are so small.

    Not anymore! As adults, we have power, resources, experience, and a much broader perspective than we ever did as children. We’ve learned a thing or two.

    I’ve been around long enough to know that even if there isn’t an immediately obvious solution, I’ll probably figure it out, or find someone else who can. I’m no longer helpless, powerless, or incapable. The kid in me forgets that sometimes and throws a tantrum.

    Think about a situation that makes you crazy. What part of you is reacting to the situation? Is it the five-year-old in you that felt ignored and taken for granted? Is it the angry teenager who felt oppressed and smothered? Is it the scared ten-year-old who feels insecure and incapable?

    Am I ultimately saying that our negative emotions around those things that trigger us all are unjustified? Not at all. I’m saying our reactions to them can be overblown.

    When we are triggered emotionally it’s a signal that something from our past is surfacing. Once I was able to disconnect my past from my present, my emotions diffused and I was no longer able to be triggered. I had a clear enough head to be able to handle the problem with out all of the angst.

    I eventually found someone to help me with my e-mail. He was, in fact, a rare find. Now I’m thinking about getting rid of cable and moving to Internet-based television. I’ll tackle that when I feel I’m in the right state of mind and have some extra time on my hands. In the meantime, maybe I’ll create a national network of Technical Support Support Groups.

  • Why I’m at Peace with My Weight Gain

    Why I’m at Peace with My Weight Gain

    “Resistance keeps you stuck. Surrender immediately opens you to the greater intelligence that is vaster than the human mind, and it can then express itself through you. So through surrender often you find circumstances changing.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    I took a deep breath, feeling the recent change in my belly. I pinched at my belly rolls. They were familiar, I’d had them before, but recently I had gone through a period of over a year where I was in a smaller body. Now I was gaining weight again.

    I refuse to step on the scale, so I don’t actually know how much weight I’ve gained. I can just feel it in the extra belly rolls and the snugness in some of my clothes. In my mind, I have two choices: to wage war on my body or to surrender to the weight gain.

    Surrender is the ability to let go of the crushing weight of societal and personal expectations. It’s waving the white flag, signifying I’m giving up all the diet culture methods I’ve tried so hard to make work. I’m acknowledging that they actually never worked in the first place. This option isn’t always so easy, though.

    For some context, I’m a body positive and fat positive activist. I advocate for acceptance and health at every size. I tell others they’re worthwhile just as they are. Though when it comes time to put them into practice within myself, it’s very challenging.

    I still have days where I suck in my stomach, hoping to appear skinnier to the world and to myself. I try to shrink to become small enough. I feel as though my worth lies in the number on the scale (even though I’m a stranger to it now).

    I lie to myself and say that I’m never going to find a partner if I keep gaining weight. I beat myself up about the food I’ve consumed and I compare myself to other people.

    My body positive journey is far from perfect; I struggle with all of these things. One big reason is internalized weight stigma or fatphobia. It infests my mind and can take over if I’m not careful.

    I mean, look at the world: We fear and despise fat. People are bullied and discriminated against because of being in larger bodies. Fatphobia is very real. It’s ingrained subconsciously; our society trains us to be this way.

    The Body is not an Apology outlines some ways in which fatphobia rears its ugly head. In jobs, fat employees tend to be paid less for the same work. In dating, they often deal with people who fetishize them rather than seeing them as humans. In fashion, there are rarely sizes available beyond a size 16. In medicine, doctors see them as weak-willed and lazy.

    This is not surrender in our society. This is bullying and prejudice. No wonder it’s hard for people to accept their changing bodies—there are so many consequences for being fat.

    The irony of fat-shaming in the name of health is that it actually causes adverse health effects. According to a survey done by Esquire magazine, two-thirds of people report they’d rather be dead than fat. Can you imagine the damage this amount of stress does to one’s system?

    No wonder we’re terrified of gaining weight. We let those messages infiltrate our minds, and they drive us to pinch at our belly rolls as if we’re the worst people ever.

    On the other hand, being thin means being accepted, flying under the radar, even being complimented. It means that life is easier because you’re not oppressed in this way. Still, fatphobia manages to creep into all of our minds.

    When you’re scared to death of what other people are going to think of you, you’re carrying your own sense of internalized fatphobia. This phenomenon even impacts those who are in smaller bodies because of the negative feelings they have about themselves and the world.

    It makes sense, then, that my first reaction to my body admittedly isn’t always unconditional love. Rather, the old messages in my mind were saying, “You’re not good enough. You’re disgusting. No one will ever love you. You’re a failure.” They were loud and unrelenting. I was familiar with these messages.

    For many years I waged war with myself. I was stuck in cycles of binging and restricting that wreaked havoc on my body. I thought I was being “healthy,” but really I was very sick.

    I was obsessing over every little thing I consumed, making sure to track seventy-two calories of butter to my MyFitnessPal app and being hysterical when I gave into a Twix bar. Weight control owned me. I was constantly thinking about food.

    Binging and restricting create terrible health risks—getting physically sick from too much or not enough food and brittle hair, not to mention the emotional consequences that occur like stress, obsession, and the absence of joy.

    I loathed my very existence, and I definitely was fighting a war against my body and myself. I thought that there was something fundamentally wrong with me. It was utterly exhausting.

    I started to think that there had to be another way to relate to my body.

    When I was twenty-two, I discovered the body positivity movement. I began with a program called Bawdy Love, which was all about being a revolution to loudly declare that every body is worthy and no body is shameful.

    I began to follow body positive influencers online like Megan Jayne Crabbe, Tess Holiday, Roz the Diva, Jes Baker, and hashtags like #allbodiesaregoodbodies. Fat women filled my feed. They were beautiful and unapologetic. They taught me that fat isn’t bad and that people in larger bodies aren’t lazy, unhealthy, or unlovable.

    Now, I must say, I’m in a smaller body. I have privileges that many people do not. My level of weight gain so far is still keeping me in a body that’s relatively accepted by society. I don’t know what it’s like to face discrimination based on my size.

    I do, however, know what it’s like to hate your body and think that you’re broken. I know what it’s like to do the opposite of surrender. When I’m living this way I do things like workout until I’m ill, take my favorite foods out of my diet, and berate my body in front of other people. This is what waging war looks like.

    Instead of doing this, I chose to surrender to weight gain. I make this choice every single day. I try to let go of my expectations and preconceived notions. I’m throwing my hands up in the air.

    This isn’t a happily-ever-after story where everything is perfect. Rather, body acceptance takes rigorous work as well simply just letting myself be.

    I’m continuing to enjoy my food free from disordered eating. This means no restricting; every single food is available at any time. You won’t hear me talking poorly about my body or about anyone else’s. I refuse to diet and I refuse to indulge others in their diets.

    To counteract the voices that tell me I’m not good enough, refute them with “You’re worthy and lovable just as you are. Weight is just a number. You’re okay.”

    Eventually, I started to believe these thoughts are true. Part of me thinks that maybe, just maybe, my existence on this planet isn’t for nothing. In letting go of the self-pity, a beautiful sense of self begins to bloom.

    Surrendering is harder than you may believe. Internalized weight bias runs deep.

    I think at times I come off as someone who’s super-confident in myself and in my relationship with my body, but it takes a whole lot of work to get to the point of surrender. The point of being free from the grips of diet culture.

    I still poke at my belly, but mostly it’s with curiosity. If I feel disgust, I quickly try to turn my thoughts around to have compassion and confidence. I notice when my thighs are pressed against a bench. I smile, feeling thankful that my legs move me around.

    I don’t step on the scale because I know that it can’t tell me anything about my worth. The numbers are irrelevant. I open my arms to weight gain, though sometimes taking a deep breath first. Accepting it means healing from a disordered relationship with my body and food.

    Weight gain is an indicator that I’m living with joy in my life. I’m enjoying meals out with friends, snacking on treats at work, and taking seconds. I’m eating when I’m hungry, what a revelation.

    I’m taking deep care of myself, and that may not look like other people’s definitions of self-care. That’s okay.

    Fatphobia may say that I’m being stupid, but I choose surrender today. For me, that means throwing out lifelong conceptions that I’m not good enough. It means no longer running in circles chasing my tail, trying to lose weight. It’s opening up to the idea that there’s another way to go about this. It’s peace and joy.

  • How to Just Be: 5 Life Lessons I Learned from Watching Sunsets

    How to Just Be: 5 Life Lessons I Learned from Watching Sunsets

    “Never waste any amount of time doing anything important when there is a sunset outside that you should be sitting under!” ~C. JoyBell C.

    “You need to just be.”

    At the time I didn’t understand my teacher’s words. My identity entwined itself with my ambition.

    I fought inner emptiness by overloading my calendar.

    I fought loneliness by never leaving time to be with myself.

    I fought depression by trying to do more.

    None of it worked.

    And the answer repeated itself, quiet and strong, “You need to just be.”

    Fortunately, my teacher was too wise to only tell me to do less when she could see that I was clinging to busyness like a life preserver. Instead, she gently showed me where to look for more.

    These are some of the lessons I learned more than thirty years ago when my teacher challenged me to meet her in an empty lot, walking distance from my house, on the side of a busy suburban Phoenix road. Day after day, we watched the sunset there together.

    Lesson #1: Live deep.

    There were beautiful parks in the area where I lived. Most people would have chosen a professionally landscaped setting, complete with benches, and maybe even a fountain, to watch the sunset.

    But that was too much like my overly manicured life.

    Instead, we sat in the dirt. The only landscaping to speak of was the sagebrush that dotted that lot.

    And it was magical.

    Driving by that empty lot at fifteen miles per hour, it seemed desolate. Dry. Unforgiving. But moving through it step by step, I discovered life.

    I watched the birds and lizards. I discovered tiny desert flowers. The smell of sage permeated everything. Beneath the surface of what appeared dead was the beauty I had been searching for.

    My feet on the ground there took me, step by step, out of the insecurities and discouragement in my own head. Slowly, wordlessly, I began to believe in something alive and beautiful in myself too.

    Beneath the layers of busyness and loneliness and pain, I glimpsed happiness, and I was ready to live it again.

    Lesson #2: The best part of the day probably isn’t in the schedule.

    Life is a process, not an event.

    Yet our culture socializes us to function as though joy can be predicted, scheduled, and completed in orderly increments.

    Sunsets rebel against google calendar.

    The time of the sunset shifts from day to day as the season progresses. The only way to experience the sunset is to be mindful of what is happening in the natural world, and to adapt.

    It’s practice for life, when people need us at inconvenient times, and opportunities emerge when we least expect them.

    It’s an invitation to listen to our own overscheduled hearts. To notice the rhythms of our spirits—whether we need quiet or company, challenge or rest.

    Most of all, it’s a reminder to open to the happiness right in front of us.

    I had gone through life telling myself I would be happy once I reached the next milestone or achieved the next goal. Problem was, the finish line was constantly shifting. As soon as I reached one goal, I replaced it with another.

    Watching sunsets interrupted that pattern by literally interrupting whatever else I had scheduled and training me to stop, look around, and notice beauty.

    How much happiness are you missing because you don’t have time to notice it?

    Lesson #3: It’s about the unfolding.

    Let’s face it: No one cares whether you watch the sunset. It’s not an accomplishment to list on a resume, or even an item for a checklist.

    And that’s the point.

    The value in watching a sunset comes in being present through the process. And every part of that process is beautiful. Life is the same.

    Often, we want to skip ahead through the parts that are slow or painful or lonely, and to freeze at a single moment of achievement. Or ideally, consummate joy.

    But life keeps moving. And that’s okay.

    Until my teacher’s invitation, I don’t think I had ever taken the time to sit and watch an entire sunset from beginning to end. I certainly didn’t do it regularly.

    On a good day I might have glanced up and noticed a moment of beauty in the western sky. I might even have snapped a picture. But then I went back to whatever I was doing.

    Watching the whole process is different.

    I learned that there is no single moment. The evening horizon is a constantly shifting tapestry. And it’s the interplay of light and dark, of clear sky and clouds, that creates the beauty.

    So too in our lives. Joy unfolds in a mixture of light and darkness, and every part of the journey is beautiful.

    Lesson 4: Create memories.

    Many things about my teenage years are a blur. But not those evenings sitting under a sagebrush watching the sunset. Relationships are nourished and lessons transmitted when we intentionally create memories.

    My teacher was good at that.

    When I visited her home, she served me tea. That was because you can’t gulp hot drinks, she explained. And slowing down enough to gradually sip helps you to just be.

    We planted tomatoes together, and then sat in the grass, and watched birds and earthworms. In retrospect, I don’t think she gardened regularly besides that experience with me. But she wanted me to feel dirt on my hands. To smell sunshine. To remember feeling a connection with nature, and with myself.

    Once she turned up the air conditioning and lit a fire in her fireplace in the Phoenix summer heat. She did it because she thought I needed the meditative experience of sitting by a fire, regardless of the 120-degree temperature outside.

    And although I now choose to sit by a river or the ocean when I want a to feel meditative in the summer, in creating that experience for me she made a lasting impression.

    People matter. Our emotional well-being matters. The moments we create together matter.

    Years later, when I had moved several states away and was feeling lost and discouraged for different reasons, my teacher packaged a giant sagebrush in a huge oversize box and shipped it to me.

    For a reminder.

    Lesson #5: Ending are also beginnings.

    When you’re sitting in the desert, listening to the insects, watching the evolution of the evening sky, there is no ending. As the colors of the day fade, the stars begin to appear. And as the desert cools from the daytime sunshine, nocturnal animals bring increasing life and energy.

    I realized that even though I came to watch the close of day, there was never a final curtain. There was only a continuation.

    Life is like that too.

    Change happens.

    But even the changes that seem abrupt and complete—like the difference between day and night—also have strands of continuity and connection.

    She taught me, without saying it, to look for opportunities for growth in my challenges, and to trust the process.

    When my beloved teacher was diagnosed with cancer two decades later, she shared her hopes and reflections as she watched her own death approach. She was curious, open. In all of our conversations I didn’t hear her express fear about her future, although she was often concerned for me.

    She shouldn’t have been.

    She had given me the tools I needed twenty years earlier, in a dusty field, on the side of a road, in the fading light.

  • 7 Ways Running Helps Me Live My Best Life

    7 Ways Running Helps Me Live My Best Life

    “I don’t run to add days to my life, I run to add life to my days.” ~Ronald Rook

    Growing up, I was always a bit on the tubby side, or, as my mum would say, “stocky.”

    Old and grainy camcorder footage from the early nineties shows me at four years old, waddling sassily around the garden naked on a summer’s day. Watching the nostalgic home footage recently, I thought to myself, “Wow, I had a beer belly long before I began drinking beer.”

    Apart from a couple of years playing football in my teens, competitive sports and exercise were not a huge part of my life—unless we count the frequent visits to the Chinese buffets with friends, when things got competitive as we shovelled down plate after plate to see who could eat the most.

    Last year, however, after an inspiring conversation with a keen runner, my sedentary days were over.

    The man was in his forties and an ultra-runner—meaning he ran distances greater than a regular marathon (26.2 miles). I became curious as he told me about a recent 100-mile running event, and wondered to myself, why would you put yourself through that, by choice? What does one get out of this running malarkey?

    Having well and truly caught the running bug, I can now say I get it.

    It’s well known that running is beneficial to our health and fitness, but I get so much more from the experience. Here are seven ways running helps me live my best life.

    1. Through running, I take control from my mind.

    Wouldn’t you rather stay at home and watch Netflix?

    You’re not built for running!

    Who do you think you are, Forrest Gump?

    Ah, the mind.

    On days I normally run, I can guarantee thoughts like these will surface, luring me to stay in my comfort zone so they can try and shame me later on for not running.

    Don’t get me wrong, there are days where the kind thing to do is to cancel a run—if I’m hurting physically or it’s too hot—but that’s not usually why I encounter internal resistance before and while running.

    C’mon, that’s fair enough for today, my mind whispers.

    “No, we’re digging deeper and going further,” I reply.

    Our minds will always try to hold us back, but we don’t have to act on every thought. We can become more aware of when our mind is attempting to limit us, and, if we want to, dig deep and keep moving forward.

    2. Running reminds me that the hardest part of any worthy pursuit is just starting.

    Once I’m outside and running, the initial resistance disappears, and I just get on with it. I’ve never, after two minutes of running, turned around and headed home.

    This speaks to an interesting truth—so often in life, the hardest part of any worthy pursuit is just starting. If you want to write a book, the hardest part is sitting down to capture those first few words. If you need to initiate a difficult conversation, the hardest part is finding the courage to say, “Hey, we need to talk.”

    On days when my mind creates resistance and begins a battle, I gently remind myself the hardest part is putting my running shoes on and heading out the door. Once I’m through the door, I’ve won the battle—and I almost always enjoy myself.

    3. Running reminds me to keep my head up and keep moving forward.

    A few weeks ago while on a run, exhaustion suddenly hit me. My head dropped. My pace slowed, and my legs felt like they were stuffed full of lead. A feeling of dread slowly sunk through my body as I imagined the distance I was yet to cover.

    I knew, though, I was hitting “runner’s wall,” and remembered the Navy SEAL’s 40% rule—that even though I briefly felt exhausted, I’d only reached 40% of my potential.

    I took a deep breath before slowly raising my head up so my eyes were no longer looking at the ground. I was now looking straight ahead, my eyes fixed on where I wanted to go, the path ahead. Inside my head I repeated, “Left, right, left, right,” over and over again, commanding my feet. And then I ran.

    When life hits us hard, it’s normal for our heads to drop down, but we can’t let them stay down. Moving forward may seem impossible, but eventually there comes a day when we have to dig deep and find the courage to take a step forward, no matter how small.

    As Winston Churchill said, “When you’re going through hell, keep on going.”

    4. Running helps me appreciate my body.

    Sadly, the media pushes down our throats what a “perfect” body looks like, and most of us don’t have it. As a result, many people view exercise as a punishment. A punishment for being out of shape or for eating overeating the day before.

    Exercise of any form needn’t be a punishment. In fact, we can view it as a celebration of our body as it is.

    When I finish a run, I thank my body for a job well done. I’m fortunate enough to have good health and a functional body, a blessing not everyone has.

    A friend of mine suffers from a chronic health condition, and although his body is extremely limited compared to most, he’s chooses to live life being appreciative of what his body does enable him to do. For example, he can’t finish long hikes, but he’s grateful that he can walk at all—and that he has friends who’ll carry him the rest of the way when he has to stop.

    5. Running emphasizes the importance of rest and recovery.

    Since running, I’ve become kinder to myself and more accepting of my need to take time to rest and recover. Once home from a run, I normally do some light stretches before taking it easy for the rest of the day, because I’ve learned that I need to give my body a break or it will eventually break down.

    I used to believe rest and recovery made we weak and it was in someway honorable to keep myself busy all day, every day. I now believe there’s a time to push ourselves while in doing mode and a time for simply being, and both are equally important to our overall well-being.

    6. Running has taught me that what I consume makes a difference.

    Since starting to run, I’m now far more aware of what I’m consuming, both physically and mentally.

    I feel the difference when I’ve been eating well and am hydrated versus when I run on a belly full of junk food and dehydrated. What we put into our mouth really matters.

    I believe it also matters what we put into our heads—the types of media we consume. I once spent an entire forest run on high alert, looking over my shoulder ever second step. Why? Before leaving home, I’d read a local news item about a Puma that had escaped from a zoo 100 miles away. Although logically I knew it was highly unlikely I’d cross paths with this runaway Puma, it didn’t stop my mind from freaking out at every rustle in the bushes.

    On the hand, when I read or watch an inspiring story before leaving home, I notice a spring in my step and feel empowered as I run.

    If the media I consume affects my life (either positively or negatively) in the short-term, just imagine the affect is has in the long-term. What we consume matters.

    7. Running reminds me of what’s possible.

    Perhaps the biggest way running helps me to live my best life is through showing me what is possible. I can now run farther than I ever thought I could, way further than my doubtful inner critic would have predicted.

    I’ve gone from being someone who would rarely (and barely) run to someone who runs several times per week. Most of all, I’ve gone from being someone who hated even the thought of running to someone who looks forward to and, dare I say, loves, running. And if I can transform into a runner, just imagine what else I can do.

    Do I think running is for everyone? No.

    However, I do believe that everyone can benefit from my lessons. Don’t let your mind control you. If there’s something you want to do, just get started, even if you only take a tiny step. When things get tough, keep going. Appreciate what you can do instead of focusing on what you can’t. Take time to rest; it’s not lazy, it’s necessary. Be mindful of what you consume and how it affects you. And remember, you can do so much more than you think.

  • Don’t Waste Your Limited Time and Energy Regretting Your Past

    Don’t Waste Your Limited Time and Energy Regretting Your Past

    “It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.” ~Jackie Joyner-Kersee

    We as humans have an incredible ability to help each other in times of need. When things get rough and life gets hard, we tend to come together, step up to the challenge, and provide assistance. Our selflessness shows, and it’s amazing to see everyone work in harmony.

    Need proof? Just look at any natural or man-made disaster in this world, and you’ll see it. We are a species that shows calculated compassion, unlike any other living creature on Earth.

    But as much as we come to help one another, we rarely extend that same compassion toward ourselves. This is especially true when crisis hits us internally; we find it nearly impossible to show ourselves compassion.

    Why is that? Why do we have such a hard time with it? It’s a hard question to answer, but I believe it stems from one simple thing: We have really high expectations for ourselves, and it’s almost impossible to live up to them.

    When someone looks at us from the outside, they can only judge us on our actions. But from our own internal perspective, we judge ourselves based on our thoughts.

    There’s no better example of this than when you fail to take action on something you’ve been wanting to do for a long time. You let fear, uncertainty, comfort, and excuses talk you out of doing it. And looking back, it eats you up inside.

    And naturally, you get upset. I can already see the internal dialogue: “How could you let that happen? You idiot! Why didn’t you do it? Ugh, come on.”

    Then, and without fail, something else happens: Regret creeps in. This is the moment you start asking yourself hypothetical questions. “What if I had done that? Where would I be right now? What would my life look like?” I know what this is like because I’ve been there. And to this day, it can still be a struggle for me.

    I question my abilities at times, and my lack of action. At its worst, it feels like my life has been defined by my inability to take action. Almost like a chain reaction of missed opportunities, one after the other. As a result, I’ve wasted a lot of energy regretting a lot of things.

    Don’t Waste The Limited Energy You Have

    It’s not any kind of breaking news that time flies. We know this. There’s even a popular quote that conveys this sentiment: “The days are long but the years are short.”

    Yet we don’t really understand just how true it is, until the time’s gone. In fact, as I sit here right now, it’s crazy to think just how fast the last decade has flown by. Yes, even when most days seemed really long. Funny how that works. I’m sure you can agree with me here.

    So there you sit, thinking about the eighty-five things you regret not taking action on over the last twenty years of your life. Maybe it goes back even further. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you only regret some things you didn’t try in the last few years.

    Either way, you let the regret stew like a pot of beef that’s been slowly simmering in a Michelin star-rated chef’s kitchen. That’s the best way I can describe my regrets. Hey, if anyone needs a great recipe for regret, let me know: I’ve become a master in letting it stew in the crockpot for months, even years. You’re probably with me on that one.

    But here’s the problem: We only have so much energy every day to put toward our growth. In other words, it’s a finite amount. Every morning, we start with a defined energy level. A lot of it has to go toward running our daily lives; things like work, family, and daily responsibilities drain us of a large amount from our tank.

    After all of what daily life has to take, you’ve got just a bit of energy left. Unfortunately, some of the leftovers have to go toward unexpected things in life on occasion. Things like minor crises, a change of plans, a mild argument with someone, you name it. So now, you’ve got even less left in your tank. This is the crucial area where it can go one of two ways:

    1. We use that small amount of remaining energy fulfilling our passions and growth, or
    2. We use that small amount fighting things we can’t change.

    I’ve experienced extremes on both ends, and I can tell you right now the latter does you absolutely zero good.

    As I round into my mid thirties, I can tell you a number of occasions where I put myself in hot water with regret. I’ve said things I shouldn’t have. I’ve taken steps that, looking back, were obviously not good ones (but helped my growth). I’ve been in the wrong relationships, wasting time (but gaining invaluable insight into who I am).

    I’ve also regretted not making some things a reality. One of the biggest regrets was not moving to a different state when things were easier. What do I mean by “easier”? Well, I had my entire family residing in the same city I was in, including my parents. I had a good job, but one I could easily take elsewhere. I had a bunch of friends, but I had no big responsibilities tying me down.

    The problem? I was also scared, so I talked myself out of it. I was happy to be close to family, friends, and continue at my job. Time went on, and as much as I still thought about it, I didn’t make any big moves.

    Then, my dad passed away, leaving my mom, his partner of over fifty years, alone. And just like that, I suddenly became the only man around. I took on a bunch of responsibilities to help where I could, including being a rock for my mother. Am I glad I was able to provide that assistance? Of course. With absolutely no regrets.

    But did I regret not getting a chance to explore and live in a different city, years prior to him passing? You bet. But anytime it creeps up, I realize one important thing: the best time was twenty years ago, the next best time is now.

    It’s never too late to try something you’ve always wanted to. There’s never a perfect time for it, either. I foolishly tried to have 356 puzzle pieces all fitting together before I made any kind of step. Unfortunately, this is pretty normal. We as humans want to make sure things are lined up perfectly before we make any kind of bigger move.

    But I’m here to tell you it’ll never line up quite like how you want it. If things are in pretty good order in your life, take the action you’ve always wanted.

    Let Go Of Your Past

    More importantly, stop wasting your time regretting your past. Maybe you haven’t (yet) done something you’ve always wanted to do. Maybe you have done something you wanted, but it didn’t work out like you wanted and you wish you could go back and do things a little differently.

    In either case, it’s important to understand the past is just that, the past. There’s a reason your car windshield is so large in comparison to the rear view mirror. You have to be looking forward to drive, and only on occasion do you look backward, before focusing again on what’s in front of you.

    All of us, no matter what our backgrounds and our current situation, are here to learn. And learning happens through failures. Sometimes, failures are inaction. Sometimes, failures are action-gone-wrong. What’s more important than the result is learning from the situation and knowing things can always change going forward. Always.

    Remember, you have a finite amount of energy every day, and you want to use the little bit you have leftover on yourself, not others. This could go one of two ways: beating yourself up, or putting it toward your future and self-growth.

    I would personally choose the self-growth route. Getting mad at yourself is a fruitless endeavor. Instead, use that energy to make the moves you crave. The moves you know you want. The ones you know you need (hello, gut!).

    It’s never, ever too late to experience things and learn from your past. A new city. A new career. A new partner. A new outlook on life itself. Regret won’t get you there. But realization will.

  • How I Stopped Living a Sad, Frustrating, Disappointing Life

    How I Stopped Living a Sad, Frustrating, Disappointing Life

    “The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I’m not going to let myself pull me down anymore.” ~C. JoyBell C.

    There I was lying on my sister’s couch, which had doubled as my bed. I had hit my rock bottom. I felt depressed, anxious, and disappointed about my situation.

    I couldn’t understand where it all went so wrong. How did I end up here?

    I was thirty, single, and pretty much homeless. My life wasn’t supposed to end up here. By this age, I was supposed to be married with kids and have a successful career and a beautiful home. Well, that was the expectation anyway.

    This is where I found myself at a crossroad. Either I continued to wallow in my self-pity and blame the world for my situation, or I made a commitment to myself and started the journey to change.

    I started delving into my life—picking apart my upbringing, my platonic relationships, my failed romantic relationships, my lack of drive, and my social anxieties—and found that I was paralyzed by fear. The fear of failing, fear of being judged, and fear of not being accepted, which all culminated into a severe lack of self-belief and self-love.

    Why was I so afraid to believe in myself, and why was so afraid to fail?

    When I thought about these questions and reflected on the beginnings of my life, I realized that it had all started with belief and failures.

    I didn’t just give up on my first attempt to walk; instead, I continued to fall until I took those first few steps. And I didn’t just give up when I couldn’t string a sentence together; gibberish continued to flow out until I made sense.

    But why, as an adult, did I no longer have the ability to accept failure and believe in my ability to eventually succeed?

    “I should do this,” “I might do that,” or “I’ll see how I feel”… I was never able give definite terms. It was always could, should, and maybes. I always left the door open, giving myself a way out for when the inevitable non-follow through would happen.

    It wasn’t because I was just too lazy. No, it was giving myself an excuse so that if I did fail, it was because I hadn’t really tried, which made it less painful and less embarrassing.

    Somewhere along the lines I molded the belief that failing was tied to shame. Something I wasn’t ready to bring upon myself. So I floated through life, barely graduating school and only doing so to please my parents, then finding a “temporary” job that lasted eight unfulfilling years, all the while staying in a relationship that had run its course years before it ended.

    The common thread that ran through my life: I was comfortable, and so that’s where I stayed.

    I had programmed myself to believe I wasn’t capable of succeeding, achieving a fulfilling life, or finding a happy relationship. So instead I stayed on the sideline. Because on the sideline I was safe and nowhere near any situation that could lead me to fail.

    The more I reflected, the more my default behaviors became apparent, and so came my commitments to change my story.

    If you’ve also paralyzed yourself in fear and struggled to believe in yourself, perhaps my lessons will be helpful to you.

    How I Stopped Living a Sad, Frustrating, Disappointing Life

    1. I made myself 100% accountable.

    I was great at blaming my situation on everyone else, pointing the finger at my family, my girlfriends, my bosses, and well, just about everything under the sun. But I never turned the finger on myself.

    I came to the realization that I was 100% responsible for my situation, no one else. I had made my decisions without any gun pointed to my head, and even doing nothing was a choice.

    I accepted that I couldn’t control every situation that happened to me, especially those moments where life seemed to knock me down for no reason. But, I could control how I responded to those moments. I could either decide to stay down or decide to put in the effort to overcome the challenges.

     2. I stopped seeking validation.

    Instagram quotes telling me not to give a sh*t about people’s opinions were everywhere. I remember reading them, feeling empowered in that moment, and then carrying on with my day, worrying about what everyone thought of me.

    A classic pleaser, I put on different masks just so I could be accepted and fit in. I was incapable of giving my opinions, saying no, or even disappointing someone.

    The turning point came when I acknowledged that I was seeking validation and self-belief through others’ opinions, and that a big part of my life had been living out my family’s expectation of what my life should have been.

    I began to put myself first, not to be a jerk, but to give myself permission to be a priority instead of trying to please others. It wasn’t easy, but it got a lot easier the more I did it. I realized the world didn’t collapse when I put myself first, and doing this not only gave me more confidence but also a sense of self-respect that I’d never had.

     3. I got comfortable with being uncomfortable.

    I was an expert at avoiding situations where I could be judged and people who made me anxious. In order for me to overcome the avoidance, I had to do the opposite and learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

    So, I started to look for things to make me uncomfortable. I volunteered to take on more responsibilities, gave presentations at work, voiced my ideas in meetings, disagreed with others, and asked for help.

    The more I allowed myself to feel the discomfort and do it anyway, the easier it became and the more confidence I gained.

    It helped that I had listed down every significant moment, no matter how big or small, on the notepad app in my phone. Then each night I read through all my ‘wins’ that day and felt the empowerment flow through my body.

    4. I gave myself permission to be vulnerable.

    A lot of my issues stemmed from my fear of being vulnerable and not being able to see that it was courageous to try, even if I didn’t succeed.

    But it subdued my fears when I accepted that vulnerability doesn’t mean embarrassment, shame, and weakness; it means strength, courage, and confidence.

    Most importantly, vulnerability has allowed me create deeper relationships, since I’ve been able to share my thoughts and troubles with those close to me while stripping away the power my anxieties once had over me.

    5. I’m learning, and that’s okay.

    Before, I believed that I wasn’t good enough and would never be. I thought my abilities were fixed and that I didn’t have the qualities required to be successful.

    The list of ideas that never made it off the scrapbooks was endless, and every time I would get close to going through with an idea, the voice would play through my mind saying, “You’re not good enough to do it.” “Others will do it better than you.” “You’re going to fail.”

    It wasn’t until I became aware of the way I was talking to myself that I was able to change it. I made the commitment that I was going to be a lifelong learner. That my mind wasn’t fixed but instead was malleable.

    I have the ability to learn new skills, to develop myself and continue grow. I will fail, which comes with the territory of trying to achieve something new. But knowing that I will learn from each experience motivates me to go further, whereas it used to paralyze me before I would even begin.

    Since making these commitments to myself, I have left the unfulfilling job to forge a new career, purchased my first home on my own, and followed through with a goal to run three half marathons in a year. These achievements would never have been possible if I didn’t give myself permission to be seen, to be heard, and to believe in myself.

    —

    Change starts with what we believe about ourselves. If we believe we have the potential to learn and grow, and we’re willing to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations—even if we feel vulnerable and there’s a chance we might fail—almost anything is possible.

  • How My Gratitude Journal Has Made Life More Fulfilling and Fun

    How My Gratitude Journal Has Made Life More Fulfilling and Fun

    “Be kind. Be thoughtful. Be genuine. But most of all, be thankful.” ~Unknown

    Have you ever tried to keep a daily journal?

    How long did you last?

    I’ve tried to keep one many times in my life, and I have failed every time. The longest I’ve ever kept a journal was for a measly two weeks, in a Google Doc, with my college roommates as a way to keep in touch, before I got bored and stopped.

    For the last four months, though, I’ve managed to write in my journal every day. The trick, for me, has been to keep my updates short and sweet and to write less about my daily problems, which tends to make me feel hopeless and overwhelmed instead of relieved, and more about the things I love in daily life.

    I keep a gratitude journal, and it isn’t a drag, like my past diaries. It’s fun and makes me laugh because I limit myself to writing about only two types of things: moments of gratitude and moments of triumph, or wins, as I call them. Occasionally, and I mean only when something bothers me so much that I can’t sleep, I rant.

    Keeping the journal has changed my life, and it’s good value too! Doing it costs me less than five minutes and five dollars, depending on the brand of pen I buy (I’m a sucker for Pentel Energel pens).

    If you’re looking for ways to integrate more gratitude into your life, I can definitely recommend keeping a gratitude journal. I’ve benefited from it in five specific ways, probably more. Here’s how:

    1. I enjoy spending time with loved ones more and see our challenging moments differently.

    I recently realized that one of the impacts of losing my mom is a constant fear of losing other people I love. My mom died five years ago, and I feel anxious about eventually losing my dad all the time. It puts a lot of pressure on me to be fully present for every moment we spend together and to be the perfect daughter.

    Here’s an example: My dad and I see a movie together, and I’ll periodically say to myself throughout the film “This could be the last movie we see together. You need to appreciate every moment!”

    It’s a pressure that will always be part of me, but I write in my gratitude journal because I refuse to let it control my life.

    Writing things like, “I’m grateful that I got to see a movie with Dad today,” relaxes me. It’s like giving myself permission to enjoy the movie because I know that I’m not letting the moment mindlessly slip by.

    My gratitude journal also helps me reframe the challenging moments I have with my dad. For example, I recently wrote, “My win today was setting aside my ego and communicating with Dad after we got into an argument over cleaning out old things.”

    Now, instead of seeing confrontations as disasters to be avoided, I see them as opportunities for us to communicate and strengthen our relationship.

    2. I can find rest, even when I’m upset.

    When I was little, my mom predicted that I would become a sensitive person because I had a big forehead. I have yet to find scientific proof of the relationship between the two, but I’m definitely passionate and I can take certain things very personally.

    What bothers me most is when people don’t follow through on their work. “How can they not have told me that they’d send it to me late?” becomes, “It’s so easy! I would’ve done that for them,” which then becomes, “I don’t trust this person anymore.”

    When I hop onto this train of thought, it’s hard to hop off and it weighs me down as I struggle over how and when to express my frustration.

    Writing in my journal every day helps me deal with the disappointments of daily life. It’s a safe space to rant about whatever is upsetting me. I do a big release of built-up anger and frustration on paper, and then I think critically about a solution to the problem.

    Not too long ago, I furiously wrote about an especially frustrating day at work and, while writing, realized that I had been doing everything right; I just wasn’t receiving the support I needed. Moreover, I saw that it was my responsibility to ask for it. I never would have come to this realization without journaling about it first.

    When I finish ranting and raving, and regain some feeling of control over the situation, I say to myself, “Okay, are you ready to move on?” And I write down one thing, no matter how small, to be grateful for. For example, “I’m grateful to my heart, for pushing oxygen to the rest of my body,” or, “I”m grateful for that awesome chocolate chip cookie I ate for dessert.”

    It’s my way of ending each day on a good note, and it prepares me for sleep.

    3. I wholeheartedly accept joy.

    In her Netflix special, “The Call to Courage,” Brené Brown says, “…joy is the most vulnerable of all human emotions. We are terrified to feel joy. We are so afraid that if we let ourselves feel joy, something will come along and rip it away from us…” (00:45:49).

    I love traveling. I’ve been traveling since I was two and have since been to over twenty different countries. Every time I go somewhere, I’m so overjoyed that I fear something bad happening. I might worry about the plane crashing or an accident happening at home while I’m away, both of which I hope I never have to experience.

    Another example is when I brave unnecessary hardship and call it the price I have to pay for something else, which is often completely unrelated.

    Brown’s research says that we wait for the other shoe to drop to protect ourselves from joy, which is one of the most vulnerable emotions along with love and belonging.

    Writing in my gratitude journal enables me to feel joy without the sense of foreboding. If something good happens to me, I no longer see it as a foreshadowing event to disaster. I just see it as another item to be added to the list of wins or moments of gratitude in my journal, which I can (and should) enjoy.

    4. I am deepening my commitment to certain people and activities.

    My gratitude journal helps me cope with the uncontrollable outcomes I face in everyday life, but it also helps me make healthy decisions about the activities and people I engage with.

    For example, after keeping my journal for several months, I noticed I was often grateful for my yoga practice and my public speaking and leadership club, Boston Toastmasters.

    As a result, I decided to increase my commitment to both activities. Instead of practicing yoga weekly, I now practice daily. I also recently ran for (and won!) an officer position at my Toastmasters club.

    Certain family members and close friends also make regular appearances in my gratitude journal. It reminds me to maintain our relationship and actively update them about my life, even if they live in another state—or country!

    I like having a record of interactions, activities, and people that bring joy or wins; it brings some very important parts of my life into focus.

    5. I am more satisfied with myself and my accomplishments.

    Historically, I’ve been my own harshest critic. Some days, when I refuse to believe that I’ve done enough, I spread myself too thin and completely exhaust myself.

    I was recently awarded a scholarship to go to journalism school. But everyone I shared the news with said something like, “Oh, journalists don’t make much money, you know.” Gee, thanks!

    I started doubting myself, thinking, “How will I take care of myself? I can’t believe I decided to go for journalism. Who am I to think I can write, anyway? There’s no way I’ll be able to make a living on it.”

    By chance, I happened to see the win I’d recorded the day I’d received my acceptance letter: “Today, I won a scholarship to go to journalism school.”

    I may not make a stable living on my writing yet, but I won a lot of money for the one piece I submitted in my application. That’s a big win! And thank goodness I had my gratitude journal to remind me of that; otherwise, I would’ve continued to question my decision, even though I know that this program is exactly what I want to do.

    My wins remind me that I’ve done enough, and in most cases, more than enough. If I see proof that I’ve done at least one thing that day to achieve my goals, then I can relax. Recording wins transformed me from being my own toughest critic into one of my biggest cheerleaders.

    —

    I’ve written 142 entries, and I’m still going strong! In this short period, gratitude journaling has impacted my life in so many ways.

    It’s challenged me to cherish every moment with my family, good or bad. It’s helped me find rest and practice acceptance, especially on difficult days. It’s also become my way to methodically focus and deepen my commitment to certain areas of my life. Most importantly, it has reminded me to celebrate all of my wins, no matter how others see them. It’s changed my life, and it could change yours too.

  • You’re Not Behind; You’re Just On Your Own Path

    You’re Not Behind; You’re Just On Your Own Path

  • How to Trust That You’ll Be Okay No Matter What

    How to Trust That You’ll Be Okay No Matter What

    “The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.” ~Ursula K. Le Guin

    Did you play with cootie catchers as a kid?

    You picked a number and watched anxiously as your friend counted it out. Open. Close. Open. Close.

    You chose a color or picture or word and waited in anticipation as your friend unfolded the flap and read your destiny.

    Or how about that MASH game? Mansion, apartment, shack, house?

    I played these games with an insatiable desire for all the details.

    How is all of this going to play out?

    Where will I live?

    What will become of me?

    I was fascinated with details, and anyone who could supply them. Fortune cookies, horoscopes, and psychic phone readings all held the promise of telling me exactly what I yearned to know.

    Will I be okay? 

    With time, curiosity gave way to hard-core, type A planning. I’d plan everything out in excruciating detail and get my heart set on one specific outcome.

    I’d make a deal with the cosmos. Everything will be okay if it turns out just like this, okay? Okay.

    I craved certainty and the illusion of control.   

    The answer “surprise me,” made me uncomfortable. Playing it by ear was torturous. Penciling it in felt like the easy way out.

    I’ve made a lot of plans along the way: graduation plans, wedding plans, birth plans, career plans. Yet, no matter how painstakingly crafted these plans were, I was always a little surprised with where I ended up.

    My actual wedding dress was nothing like the pictures I collected with friends in high school.

    My thirty-eight-hour, two epidural labor was nothing like my 100% all natural birth plan.

    My house in Arizona is nothing like the one I’d dreamed of having in Northern California.

    And I’ve been okay.

    Okay, universe. I get the message.

    It’s not really about the details.

    We can make the best of difficult times, rising up after we’ve been dragged through the muck. We can surprise ourselves with what it turns out we actually want. And we can rain all over our own parades.

    The details are delicious, though.

    It’s so satisfying to make a list and check things off. It feels so good that sometimes we’ll even write down the things we’ve already done. And there’s something so soothing about having the who, what, when, and where sorted out.

    Best of all is knowing that the whole plan is exactly, perfectly the way you want it. It’s positively intoxicating.

    The only trouble is that the details hardly ever turn out as planned.

    This whole attachment to details thing is getting harder as time goes on. At a time when I most want to know if we’ll all be okay, I suddenly can’t figure the details out. Maybe I’ve lost my touch, or maybe the plans are getting more complicated.

    There are so many more variables and people involved now. Where it was once just me and my cats, there’s now me, my husband, my children, our families, old friends and new friends, employers, clients, school systems, licenses, and a mortgage to consider.

    With each new piece comes countless questions. So many, in fact, that I can’t even picture what all of this is going to look like.

    That’s got to be okay.

    I’m learning to accept that I’ll be okay if I don’t know the details because I know how I want to feel and what I want to leave room for in my life.

    As much as we’d like to take credit for them, the details are often things that just present themselves when they’re good and ready to be seen, anyway. They tend to sort themselves out in ways that we never could have planned.

    We take one step, then another. We prepare the best we can with what we know, knowing how we want to feel when it’s all said and done. Then we reassess along the way.

    Part of me really wants to fight that because it still believes that having all the answers now will guarantee that everything will be okay. Maybe it’s time to start having a little more trust that I’ll find a way to be okay no matter what happens.

    The more comfortable I get with letting the details reveal themselves when the time is right, the more aware I am of all the people who want to know the plan right now.

    They want to know when you’re visiting or moving back to your hometown or having your next child or finally graduating or asking for that raise.

    They ask all kinds of detailed questions about your plan, so much so that it can leave you feeling ashamed for not having figured it out.

    I get it, too.

    People want to feel closer to you or important or useful. They want to be heard.

    Maybe they’re kind of nosy. Or bossy. Or maybe they’re bored.

    Maybe they just really care and want to solve what they think is a problem for you.

    And maybe they also have a deal with the cosmos that everything will be okay if…

    I get it because I’ve been them. I’ve interrogated, and I’ve demanded answers. Even after understanding that I can’t have absolute certainty (or control), I’ve been that person squeezing out the details before it’s time.

    Understanding is different from knowing deep in your bones that you’ll be okay no matter what.

    When you know, you live and breathe it. Instead of seeking control, you seek clarity. Instead of certainty, you seek courage.

    When you know the truth, you also know that it’s supposed to be a little scary to look out into the uncertain future. It’s unnerving to say, “Here goes nothing.”

    It takes courage to walk into the future knowing that you don’t have all the details nailed down. Your next step may be right, it may be wrong, it may lead you nowhere, and people may think you’re crazy, but you have to take it at some point.

    The truth is, no one ever really knows how it’s all going to look, but you probably have a good idea of how you want to feel and what’s most important to you. And if you don’t, maybe that’s why the details are so elusive.

    (But all the same, you don’t need the details.)

    You don’t need to see the details to trust that you’ll figure them out when the time is right, and you don’t need to see your path to know in your heart that it’s there waiting for you to take that step.

    You don’t need to know exactly how every piece will play out to know what the most important pieces are.

    And you don’t need absolute certainty to know that you’ll find a way to be okay no matter what happens.

    I’m not saying, “Let’s all throw caution to the wind from now until forever.” Make plans, yes, but there’s no need to obsess over the details if the details aren’t clear. Meet planning with flexibility and trust. Be curious about what happens next, not controlling.

    So go ahead, daydream, plan, manifest, make a vision board, or whatever calls to you. Just remember to begin from living and breathing the truth: that you will find a way to be okay no matter what.    

    I have no idea where I’ll be working five years from now, what our house will look like, what we’ll do on the weekends, if I’ll have lost the baby weight, or if I’ll dye my greys, but I do trust myself to make the call when the time is right.

    I don’t know all the when’s, where’s, or even how’s, but I do know how I want to feel and what I hold nearest to my heart.

    I want to feel light, energized, and free.

    I want to find meaning in my work.

    I want to be home in time for dinner.

    I want to create space for contemplation and creativity.

    I think I’ve had enough of the heaviness that comes from dragging around a lifetime of plans. It’s too much pressure, and even the most carefully made plans might change in the end.

    I still make plans, and I’m not throwing my bullet journal away any time soon. I’m just not letting my fear that I won’t be okay or that I’ll choose wrong or that people will disapprove suck the life out of living any more.

    So go ahead, universe. Surprise me. I’ll be okay no matter what.

  • How Unhealed Childhood Wounds Wreak Havoc in Our Adult Lives

    How Unhealed Childhood Wounds Wreak Havoc in Our Adult Lives

    “The emotional wounds and negative patterns of childhood often manifest as mental conflicts, emotional drama, and unexplained pains in adulthood.” ~Unknown

    I am a firm believer in making the unconscious conscious. We cannot influence what we don’t know about. We cannot fix when we don’t know what’s wrong.

    I made many choices in my life that I wouldn’t have made had I recognized the unconscious motivation behind them, based on my childhood conditioning.

    In the past, I beat myself up over my decisions countless times. Now I feel that I needed to make these choices and have these experiences so that the consequences would help me become aware of what I wasn’t aware of. Maybe, after all, that was the exact way it had to be.

    In any case, I am now hugely aware of how we, unbeknownst to us, negatively impact our own lives.

    As children, we form unconscious beliefs that motivate our choices, and come up with strategies for keeping ourselves safe. They’re usually effective for us as children; as adults, however, applying our childhood strategies can cause drama, distress, and damage. They simply no longer work. Instead, they wreak havoc in our lives.

    One of my particular childhood wounds was that I felt alone. I felt too scared to talk to anyone in my family about my fears or my feelings. It didn’t seem like that was something anyone else did, and so I stayed quiet. There were times I feared I could no longer bear the crushing loneliness and would just die without anyone noticing.

    Sometimes the feeling of loneliness would strangle and threaten to suffocate me. I remember trying to hide my fear and panic. I remember screaming into my pillow late at night trying not to wake anyone. It was then that I decided that I never wanted anyone else to feel like me. This pain, I decided, was too much to bear, and I did not wish it on anyone.

    As an adult, I sought out, whom I perceived as, people in need. When I saw someone being excluded, I’d be by their side even if it meant that I would miss out in some way. I’d sit with them, talk to them, be with them. I knew nothing about rescuing in those days. It just felt like the right thing to do: see someone alone and be with them so they wouldn’t feel lonely or excluded.

    Looking back now, I was clearly trying to heal my childhood wound through other people. I tried to give them what I wish I’d had when I was younger: someone kind, encouraging, and supportive by my side. I tried to prevent them from feeling lonely. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing—it’s kind to recognize others in pain and try to be there for them.

    The problem with my strategy was that I chose people who were alone for a reason: they behaved badly and no one wanted to be around them. I chose people healthy people would not choose to be with. People who treated others poorly and did not respect themselves, or anyone else for that matter. That included me.

    And so I suffered. I suffered because I chose badly for myself. And I chose badly for myself because I followed unconscious motivations. I obediently followed my conditioning. I followed the rules I came up with as a child, but playing by those rules doesn’t work out very well in adulthood.

    I never understood why I suffered. I couldn’t see that I had actively welcomed people into my life who simply were not good for me. It didn’t matter where I went or what I changed; for one reason or another, I’d always end up in the same kind of cycle, the same difficult situation.

    At one point I realized that I was the common denominator. It then still took me years to figure out what was going on.

    Eventually, my increasing self-awareness moved me from my passive victim position into a proactive role of empowered creator. Life has never been the same since. Thankfully. But it wasn’t easy.

    I had to look deep within and see truths about myself that were, at first, difficult to bear. But once I was willing to face them and feel the harshness of the reality, the truth set me free. It no longer made sense to play by rules I had long outgrown. I didn’t realize that I had become the adult I had always craved as a child. But I was not responsible for rescuing other adults—that was their job.

    I have since witnessed the same issue with everyone I meet and work with. One particular person, who had endured terrible abuse growing up, was constantly giving people the protection he had craved but never received as a child. He gave what he did not receive. And yet, in his adult life it caused nothing but heartache for him.

    When he saw, what he perceived as, an injustice like someone being rude to someone else or a driver driving without consideration for others, he intervened. Unfortunately, he often got it wrong and most people didn’t want his input, which left him feeling rejected and led to him becoming verbally aggressive. Eventually, his ‘helping’—his anger and boundary crossing—landed him in prison.

    He was not a bad person—far from it. He was simply run by his unconscious motivation to save his younger self. He projected and displaced this onto other people who did not need saving and never asked for his help. But his conditioning won every time and in the process wrecked his life.

    What ends this cycle is awareness, understanding, and compassion.

    We must learn to look at the consequences of our actions or inactions and then dig deep. We must ask ourselves: What patterns do I keep repeating? What must I believe about myself, others, and life in order to act this way? Why do I want what I want and why do I do what I do? And what would I do differently if I stopped acting on my childhood conditioning?

    Beliefs fuel all of our choices. When we don’t like the consequences of our actions, we must turn inward to shine a light onto the unhelpful unconscious beliefs we formed as children. Only awareness can help us find and soothe them. Only understanding can help us make sense of them. And only compassion can help us forgive ourselves for the patterns we unknowingly perpetuated.

    We didn’t know what we didn’t know. We couldn’t have made any different choices. But once we begin to see and understand how our minds work and how our conditioning drives everything we do, we grow more powerful than we ever thought possible.

    It is then that we are able to make healthier, wiser, and more life-enhancing choices for ourselves. We can then break the cycles that previously kept us stuck in unfulfilling and often harmful situations and relationships.

    There is always a different choice. We just have to begin to see it.

  • How to Listen to Your Body and Give It What It Needs

    How to Listen to Your Body and Give It What It Needs

    “And I said to my body softly, ‘I want to be your friend.’ It took a long breath and replied, ‘I’ve been waiting my whole life for this.’” ~Nayyirah Waheed

    For more than half my life, I took care of my body “by the numbers.” Every day, I walked a certain number of steps, no matter how sore, sick, or tired I was. I worked a certain number of hours, often going without sleep in order to finish my work and check off all the numbered items on my to-do list, no matter how my body begged for rest.

    For weeks I’d follow a strict diet, counting points or calories or carbs, ignoring hunger pains and my growling stomach. But when the diet was over, I’d stuff myself on sweets and junk food until I felt sick and ashamed. At the same time, I struggled to see a certain number on the scale and to fit into a certain dress size.

    Not only was I miserable physically, but when I didn’t meet these “number goals,” I felt like a failure and told myself there was something wrong with me.

    Maybe some of this sounds familiar to you. Maybe you’re exercising through pain, working beyond exhaustion, and eating in ways that leave you feeling tired, bloated, or sick.

    Maybe, like me, you’re blaming your body for not being strong enough, thin enough, tough enough, or just plain not good enough.

    But here’s the truth: None of this is your body’s fault.

    Whether you know it or not, your body is speaking to you all day long. It’s telling you on an ongoing basis what it needs to keep you healthy, comfortable, and happy.

    The trouble is that we’ve all been taught to ignore what our bodies are telling us in order to please the people around us. From our earliest days we were told when and what to eat. We’re told how we should look, act, and live in order to fit in. And, over the years, we’ve learned to judge ourselves and our lives “by the numbers.”

    But what if you decided to stop letting those numbers run your life and started listening to your body instead? What if you could trust that your body has a deep wisdom you can rely on to keep you healthy and strong?

    Here are some techniques you can use to connect with your body in a way that helps you feel, hear, and then honor its needs. Try them all and see what works for you.

    Listening to Your Body

    1. Respect it.

    Begin by thinking about and speaking to your body with love and respect. If you’re not sure how to do that, try repeating this.

    Dear Body:

    I love you exactly the way you are.
    I thank you for all the things you’ve done for me throughout my life.
    I respect you for all the things you do for me daily.
    I honor you for having the wisdom to know how to heal.
    I trust you to take care of me, and I will take care of you.
    I promise I will always listen to you and give you what you ask for to heal and thrive.
    My beloved body, I will speak to you with love and care for you as long as we’re together.

    Thank you.

    Commit to replacing any negative thoughts you have about your body with thoughts of gratitude for how well your body works and how many ways it serves you throughout your day. If you’d like, pick the body part you like best, and resolve to replace any negative thoughts about your body with a positive thought about what you like about your nose or your hands or your teeth.

    2. Connect body and mind.

    The easiest way to connect your body and mind is to use a combination of your breath and your sense of touch. Begin by putting your hand over your heart. Notice how your heart beats under your palm and how your chest rises and falls with each breath you take. Now close your eyes and draw a deep breath into your belly. Hold it a moment, then exhale slowly.

    As you continue to breathe deeply and rhythmically, bring your focus to the sound of your inhale and the sound of your exhale. Breathe in and breathe out as you continue to relax.

    Now, tune into your body and what it’s telling you.

    Is it tense? Relaxed? Tired? Hungry? Thirsty? Jittery? Notice if there’s a part that’s holding tension. Is that part tight or stiff? Does any part of you feel achy or anxious? Take a moment and really listen. You may be surprised at what you learn about what’s really going on inside you.

    3. Ask what your body needs in the moment.

    Now ask your body what it needs to feel better right away. When it answers, be ready to honor that need.

    • If your body is feeling anxious, try this breathing technique. Pull your shoulders all the way up to your ears, then exhale with a whoosh and repeat until you feel calmer.
    • If you’re hungry, grab a quick, healthy snack.
    • If you’re thirsty, drink some water.
    • If you’re restless, take a break and go for a short walk.
    • If you’re achy or stiff, stretch or try a few yoga poses.
    • If you’re tired, take a nap if you can. If not, try taking a two-minute vacation. Close your eyes and imagine yourself relaxing in a beautiful, peaceful place. Let your worries and exhaustion go for those two minutes while you soak up the feeling of calm relaxation.

    4. Ask what your body needs to stay healthy in the future.

    Next, take some time and ask your body what it needs on a long-term basis to heal and thrive in the future.

    • Do you need to go back to the gym?
    • Do you need to stop eating at night?
    • Do you need to replace your mattress to get a better night’s sleep?
    • Do you need to ask for help at work or at home?
    • Do you need to schedule a massage?
    • Do you need to forgive yourself or someone else?
    • Do you need to start speaking up for yourself?

    Pick the one thing you know your body needs right now to help it heal. Decide on one small step you could take right now to make long-term healthy changes. Commit to taking that step. Then commit to taking another small step tomorrow and the day after that until it becomes a healthy habit.

    5. Stop living “by the numbers.”

    Resolve to stop letting numbers run your life. Instead, commit to allowing your body to be your guide to good health and peace of mind. No more fear of failing, because you can’t get this wrong. Your body always knows what it needs.

    Remind yourself how important you are, not only to yourself but also to the people around you. What you think and feel matters. Your body matters. And when you honor that body by treating it with love and respect, it will respond in kind.

    As Jim Rohn says, “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”

  • Why My Grandfather Was Happy Even When He Was Dying

    Why My Grandfather Was Happy Even When He Was Dying

    “It’s not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.” ~Tony Robbins

    Is there anyone in your past that inspired you to become the person you are today? For me, that was my grandfather, Charlie.

    Charlie grew up a poor farm boy in a small South Carolina town and ended up an executive in a Fortune 250 company. He was a poster child for the American dream, and I respected him for it.

    But what I admired most was his character. Charlie was always content with life, regardless of his circumstances. He prioritized servant leadership and measured his self-worth based on how well he served others.

    People were drawn to him because of these characteristics.

    I only had twenty-five years with my grandfather, yet he had a tremendous impact on my life. Although I learned much from him during that time, the most significant lessons came near the end of his life as he was dying.

    For most of his life, Charlie was active and fit. He played football in college, golfed throughout adulthood, and was a master gardener (he had a spectacular rose and tomato garden).

    But all of that quickly came to an end after he was diagnosed with ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease).

    ALS is an incurable and fatal disease of the nervous system marked by progressive muscle weakness within most of the body’s muscles. Its symptoms cause difficulty with walking, picking things up, and even breathing.

    Over a short time period, Charlie went from regularly golfing and gardening to being unable to do much (other than watch his body slowly waste away). He couldn’t drive, needed full-time oxygen, and had trouble walking on his own.

    Given his condition, you’d think he would have exhibited (at least some) anger, frustration, or depression. Yet he didn’t. Instead, he was the happy, content man I’d grown up with.

    Initially, I assumed that he was hiding how he really felt so that he could remain the strong patriarch of our family. But over time, I realized that he wasn’t faking it. He was happy despite all that he was going through.

    As a young, stressed-out law student who couldn’t fathom handling his situation half as well has he was, I wanted to know how this could be. So, I got up the courage to ask him.

    Charlie told me that happiness has nothing to do with your circumstances or how you feel physically. Happiness is about who you are. 

    Unfortunately, I had no clue what he meant. But Charlie had a way of ending conversations when he felt that he’d said enough, and this was clearly one of those moments. So, I shut up and hoped that I’d one day get it.

    That day came only a few weeks later when I helped Charlie drive my grandmother’s car to a local service station he frequented. The day was cold, grey, and misty—and Charlie was having an especially tough time breathing and walking.

    When we got there, the mechanic made a point to come talk to my grandfather (which should have been a clue of what was to come, but I was oblivious). After chatting for a few minutes, he went outside to get to work.

    To my dismay, Charlie wanted to follow him. As I assisted my grandfather up and outside, I wondered if following was the best idea and worried about how he’d be affected physically while standing in the cold, wet weather.

    For the next forty-five minutes, Charlie stood outside and talked to the mechanic while he worked. I often had to repeat what my grandfather said, because his voice was going, but that didn’t seem to matter. Both men laughed and enjoyed each other’s company.

    On our way home, Charlie nodded off and his breathing sounded terrible. Later that day I asked him why he’d used so much of his energy to talk to a man he barely knew and had nothing in common with.

    He looked me in the eyes and told me that what he was about to say was important and I’d better listen.

    Charlie told me to never discount or disrespect people so easily. He emphasized that most people are wise and have lessons to teach. The key is to be open and willing to listen.

    That’s when I finally got it.

    Charlie was happy and content because of how he viewed himself, his place in the world, and even the people in it. For him, life was about being of service to and in relationship with other people.

    My grandfather believed that everyone has unique gifts to share with the world, and that his role in life was two-fold:

    1. To fully understand his own gifts and use them to serve others
    2. To allow people to use their gifts for his benefit and be open to learning from them

    Charlie believed that serving people is part of being in relationship with them. And he understood that service comes in many forms, including through simple everyday moments such as taking the time and effort to talk to your mechanic while they work on your car.

    One of the things I learned from Charlie that day is to stay curious about people, especially about those who seem different. He was fascinated by these differences and wanted to know what motivated them and what they dreamed about. He aimed to see their soul.

    This viewpoint enabled him to look at people as human beings who are vulnerable, dream big, and feel. That’s what enabled him to be so open to and accepting of others no matter who they were, what they did for a living, or how different their beliefs were.

    Charlie also understood that relating to and connecting with others is a two-way street. To connect with people means allowing them to help you. You must be willing to be vulnerable.

    The interesting thing about vulnerability, accepting help, and allowing yourself to learn from others is that it’s actually an act of service. By opening yourself up this way you’re allowing someone else to fully realize and use their gifts.

    That’s why Charlie so gracefully accepted the vulnerability his illness brought upon him. And it’s why he was content and even happy those last difficult years.

    Once I understood the answer behind why Charlie was always so content with life, regardless of his circumstances, it raised an important question. How could I be that way?

    I wish I could tell you that I immediately figured that out. Truth is, I’ve worked for years to get to a place where I can finally say that I’m closer to where I wanted to be. And I’m still a work in progress.

    I’ve tried just about every mindset practice there is out there, from self-affirmations to focusing on the positive. Many have been dumped and all have been revised over time.

    Here’s what has worked for me (that I still do consistently):

    1. When dealing with negative and stressful situations, I remind myself that every experience is an opportunity for growth and development.

     I identify what can be learned and focus on that. This isn’t the same thing as always being positive. It’s about not getting stuck in negativity.

    2. I observe people closely when in public and try to identify the emotions and feelings that they’re exhibiting.

    And then I take it further by imagining what their dreams might be and what they fear. Basically, I get curious. This practice has made me a more intuitive people-reader (which has helped me both personally and professionally). And it’s also made me more accepting and less judgmental of people and their differences.

    3. I try to add value to someone’s life daily by being kind or of service to someone.

    It might mean complementing a co-worker on a new outfit, reaching out to an old friend I haven’t talked to in a while to tell them I care, or going out of my way to be kind to a waitress who’s been rude (and obviously not having a good day). Doing this has made me more aware of my surroundings and the people in it and helped me to better connect with people more quickly. It’s also made me more compassionate and kind.

    4. I’m grateful for something small every day.

    I’ve found that gratitude helps me to see the good in the world (and in people) and to have a more positive attitude, especially if I focus on the so-called little things. And when times get tough, I force myself to be grateful for what others are doing to help me. I started that practice when I battled breast cancer. It helped me accept my vulnerability with more grace.

    —

    My grandfather was a wise man. I wish that he were here with me now but am hopeful that sharing what I learned from him will continue his legacy. A legacy worthy of being passed to (and by) others.