Tiny Buddha

Tag: hardship

  • The Greatest Transformations Often Emerge from Hardship

    The Greatest Transformations Often Emerge from Hardship

    “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ~Viktor Frankl

    Life has moments that completely reshape us, often without our consent or preparation. Trauma, loss, and grief—they don’t wait until we feel ready to handle them. Instead, they arrive unexpectedly, pinning us against the wall and demanding transformation.

    What began as a day like most training days, fueled by focus and determination, unraveled into an unimaginable traumatic event, one that shattered the life I had known.

    Prior to that moment, as a fitness trainer by profession, my world was defined by movement, strength, and the confidence that my body could carry me anywhere. Being active was a way of life for me, both professionally and recreationally.

    In a split second, all of that was gone, leaving me to grapple with an existence that no longer felt like my own. One moment, I was strong, healthy, and in motion. The next thing I would come to know was waking up in a hospital bed—my body broken, my spirit shaken, my heart heavy with grief and fear.

    My femoral artery had been severed. My family was prepared for the worst, told that people who sustain these types of injuries don’t typically survive.

    “We’re fighting with the clock. We’ll do what we can,” the surgeon had said.

    Those words hung in the air, marking the stark reality of how fragile the situation was. “Life over limb“ became the call, and amputation was the response.

    I spent the summer in the hospital, unable to see the light of day or breathe fresh air. Placed in a medically induced coma for several days, I underwent hours upon hours of intricate, life-saving surgeries—four of the eight within the first week alone.

    My body had been through the unimaginable—cut open, stitched, stapled, poked, and prodded—a battlefield in my fight for life. I had been revascularized, resuscitated, and endured a four-compartment fasciotomy that left my limb filleted open.

    Skin grafts eventually covered the damage as machines beeped and buzzed around me, tubes running from my body—feeding tube, catheter, IVs pumping life back into me. I lay in an isolated critical care room under 24/7 watch, caught in a space between survival and uncertainty.

    As I lay in the hospital bed, the reality of my new existence settled in. The loss of my leg was more than a physical alteration. It was a profound shift in my sense of self, forcing me to confront who I was beyond the body I had always known.

    Peering down at the end of the bed, a reality I was not ready for hit me all at once, with an undeniable, unforgiving force. One foot protruded from beneath the hospital blanket, just as it always had. The other side—my leg stopped short.

    The space it once filled was now an absence I could feel as much as see. In that instant, the weight of it all—what had happened, what had been taken, what could never be undone—settled deep within me. There was no waking up from this living nightmare. This was real.

    I faced a new reality. My lower left leg had been amputated below the knee. There was no gradual build-up, no illness, no injury to hint at what was coming. The sudden loss was more than physical. It wasn’t just my leg. It felt like I had lost my independence and any semblance of the life I once knew.

    The weight of it all pulled me into a darkness that felt impossible to escape. And yet, within that darkness, something began to shift. What had once felt like an ending became an opening for self-discovery—a bridge to deeper understanding of myself and a realization of the strength, courage, and resilience that had always existed within me.

    In the weeks that followed, I grappled with despair and uncertainty, only to realize that this darkness held more than pain. It became a catalyst for transformation. Losing my leg forced me to confront truths I had never acknowledged, opening the door to lessons that reshaped my life in ways I never could have imagined.

    Pain and adversity, anger and fear were not the enemies I once believed them to be. Instead, they became powerful forces that propelled me toward growth, leading me down an unforeseen path—not one I intentionally sought, yet one that ultimately offered exactly what I needed.

    I came to understand this through small victories, such as lifting myself from the hospital bed, taking that first step, and learning to balance when the world beneath me felt unsteady and my footing was unstable and unfamiliar.

    Those moments of discomfort became invitations. When met with willingness rather than resistance, struggles turned into progress. With each step forward, I regained both my footing and my confidence, uncovering a sense of empowerment I hadn’t realized was within me.

    The pain, the fear, and the struggle all led me to powerful realizations—lessons that continue to shape how I see myself and how I engage in life.

    Limitations Are Often Stories We Tell Ourselves

    At first, I believed life had betrayed me, that my body had let me down. I told myself I couldn’t do the things I once loved. I hesitated, afraid of looking weak, of failing. As I started pushing my boundaries, learning to move, to stand, to find new ways forward, I realized the greatest obstacle wasn’t my body; it was the belief that I now had fixed limitations imposed upon me. When I challenged that, I uncovered a world of possibilities.

    The mind cleverly builds barriers that seem insurmountable. Once confronted, they reveal themselves as illusions—perceived limits, not actual ones. The only true limitation is the one I place upon myself. I may do things differently now, and in doing so, I’ve discovered the power of adaptability and just how limitless possibilities truly are.

    My Body Does Not Define Me

    For much of my life, I equated worth with physical appearance and ability. I had built a life and career around movement, pushing my body to perform. Losing my leg felt like losing a core part of myself. I struggled with my reflection, with the visible mark of what had changed. I feared being judged, labeled, seen as broken, defined by what was missing. And over time, I began to see things differently.

    My prosthetic leg, once a symbol of loss, became my badge of courage, a testament to all that I had endured and overcome. While the external physical alteration was undeniable, the greater shift was internal.

    My sense of self felt unfamiliar, as if it had been stripped away along with my leg. Lost in uncertainty and overwhelm, I found myself called to look deeper. It took time and reflection to recognize that my wholeness remained intact. Strength, persistence, and self-worth weren’t dependent on the physical; they resided within. Even when they felt unrecognizable, they remained, waiting to be reclaimed.

    Everything I Needed Was Within Me All Along

    It’s easy to believe that what sustains us must be chased, that healing and wholeness come from outside ourselves. I searched for proof of my worth, looking outward for reassurance that I hadn’t lost something essential. But in the quietest moments, when I sat alone in my pain, when there was no one left to convince me but myself, I began to see the truth.

    What felt like loss wasn’t an empty void. It was an opening, an invitation to uncover what had always been within me. I didn’t need to rebuild from nothing or become someone new. I only needed to recognize what was already there. And in that recognition, the rebuilding and becoming unfolded naturally.

    Losing my leg did not break me. It revealed me. It became the doorway to my greatest discoveries, an invitation to meet myself in ways I never had before, to embrace the unknown, and to uncover the depth of courage, resilience, and inner power that emerges through hardship.

    A Final Reflection

    We all carry stories about what is possible, stories influenced by conditioning, fear, and experience. But what if our limits are not real? What if they’re just unchallenged? What if everything you need to rise, to heal, to rebuild is already within you, waiting to be realized?

    The greatest transformations often emerge from the depths of hardship. Life challenges us in ways we never could have imagined, yet within those challenges lie revelations, truths about ourselves we might never have uncovered otherwise.

    Hardship and struggle often go hand in hand, yet within them lies the path to ease. Though they bring pain, they also offer wisdom. They shape us, yet they don’t have to define us. When we stop resisting and lean into what challenges us, we gain clarity, uncover strength, and discover a deeper understanding of ourselves.

    What once felt impossible begins to feel natural. Through struggle, we find empowerment. Through trauma, we find self-discovery. Every hardship carries an invitation to redefine, to rebuild, to reclaim. The question is not what life takes from us, but what we choose to uncover in its place.

  • How to Navigate Loss and Fear and Emerge Resilient

    How to Navigate Loss and Fear and Emerge Resilient

    “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” ~Lao Tzu

    Sailing on a beautiful day in calm seas can feel like a spiritual experience and can convince your senses that life should always be like this.

    My family life was smooth sailing for many years. My husband and I were committed to our family and our responsibilities of building and running our businesses, leaving little time for anything else. Gradually, the weather changed, and we found ourselves in the uncharted, turbulent waters of divorce.

    I was unprepared for the toll it would take. My anxiety caused me to lose weight, and when I felt hypo-glycemic, it was my body’s reminder to nourish myself. I was scared about what life would look like for my three daughters and me and wanted the best for my husband, even though we decided we could not remain together.

    Living separately, we grew to learn how to do things we depended on each other for, such as financial management, cooking, DIY home repairs, etc. We lost some friends, and some family estrangements developed—a ripple effect we didn’t see coming.

    When you lose friends and family members due to divorce or estrangement, it can make you question your worth and stirs up self-doubt.

    Years pass, and life goes on.

    Eventually, we both remarried, and a few years later, my new husband, Bill, was told he had throat cancer. His treatments whittled down his hard-earned military physique to a shadow of his former self.

    During this time, as his caregiver, I was also preparing to take a board exam to practice my profession, and I worked as a science teacher in an alternative school to help make ends meet. The days were incredibly long and hard for both of us.

    Within that year, my father was diagnosed with cancer, which further destroyed our family. His treatments were equally brutal to his body. Eventually, Bill lost his valiant battle with cancer, and my father lost his battle in the following seven months, resulting in two funerals in a year.

    Physically, I was exhausted and gained an unhealthy amount of weight. Whenever I ate, I had gut pain, so I lost the pleasure of eating. Headaches were frequent, and due to a loss of sleep, my energy was so depleted that doing everyday tasks was a burden, never mind having to relocate and downsize yet again.

    I had little support, and this was when I felt genuinely broken.

    In my “brokenness,” I remembered a conversation with a pastor friend who reminded me that life has its seasons: the spring of childhood, the summer of youth, the autumn of adulthood, and the winter of death. So many aspects of life can be viewed that way. With that, I discovered truth in his words and oddly felt an inner peace.

    I grew to understand the phrase “if you hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up” because I hit those rocks hard. I desperately needed to regain my physical, mental, and emotional health, which had been tested repeatedly for years, for myself and my family.

    My sympathetic fight-or-flight nervous system switch never shut off. I realized I had to change that before relinquishing control of my health and well-being, which I have always valued but took for granted.

    Here is what I discovered in my losses and fears, along with some pearls for living with resilience.

    1. Submit to the process.

    Feel the depth of your feelings by allowing them to flow through you.

    When you are in a liminal place, at the threshold of change, it is only natural to have many strong feelings and feelings that you may resist—grief over the loss of a loved one or a relationship, fear of the future ahead, anger that you are in this position, frustration with your own body, or denial of the new reality.

    Feel your feelings and journal to process them or communicate with someone you trust. This is how you start to heal. Far better than suffering silently is being honest with yourself about your feelings tied to the complexities of your process.

    Minimizing yourself or numbing your feelings invalidates the depth and breadth of your experience.

    If possible, consider reframing a sad or difficult experience to put a positive spin on it.

    I may be divorced, but my daughters are the best part of my life. I would not have them if it weren’t for my previous marriage. Also, downsizing into a smaller home improved my financial situation. I rejected it initially, but it made my responsibilities and financial commitments more manageable in the long run.

    Suffering any kind of loss or hardship is never easy and can feel crushing. Meet yourself where you are, go with the flow of your emotions with self-compassion and nonjudgment, and, if possible, open your mind to reframing a negative into a positive result.

    2. Don’t ruminate while looking in the rearview mirror.

    This is so tempting.

    It is so easy to slip into the default pattern of looking at the past when we want our personal losses, challenges, and difficulties to make sense.

    Exercise radical acceptance if you need to accept your life as it is, even if it causes you pain.

    When I learned of radical acceptance, it felt unnatural, something I might have to convince myself to do. But I realized that to be at peace, I could not control everything in my life. Seasons.

    Also, bringing gratitude into your daily life is a valuable, underutilized tool that brings what is good into focus. When we target several reasons for gratitude as a daily habit, we shapeshift our mindset to support our well-being.

    Amassing what has happened to you in the past and bringing it into focus today creates an unnecessary, overwhelming burden. The past cannot be changed, and the future cannot be predicted, but we can choose to accept what is right now.

    This will lessen your suffering and the tendency to look back in the mirror.

    3. Connect with your physical, mental, and emotional needs.

    Prolonged stress affects our hormones, cardiovascular system, gut health, musculoskeletal system, immune health, and every other function and body system with far-reaching, long-term effects.

    There is no reason to neglect or minimize your needs; this is a time to amp up your efforts to honor your needs. Listening to your body’s messages strongly improves your ability to handle and recover from stress.

    When stuck in the stress cycle, mindful self-care practices are even more important to prevent unhealthy habits from forming. Eating nutrient-dense meals, walking in nature, practicing consistent sleep hygiene practices, or spending time with friends or family members who love and support you are effective self-care practices to reduce stress and manage anxiety.

    According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you cannot experience all the potential that your life has to offer if you do not first meet your basic physiological needs. As you meet those needs, you can move through your experience in life more fully, owning and attracting love to you, developing deep connections, and increasing your confidence, self-esteem, and full potential despite setbacks in life.

    It is easy to become more reflexive than in control, an oversight that is not uncommon for highly stressed individuals.

    When I reprioritized myself with self-care practices, my health and well-being improved, as evidenced by my improved blood labs, weight loss, ease of digestion, and increased energy levels. I had a renewed sense of purpose in my work; later in my life, love found me.

    When you connect with your physical, mental, and emotional needs, you can also better honor them in others.

    4. Chart a course that meets your life’s needs at the time.

    Decide what needs to be done to meet important needs. By successfully tending to some of the smaller needs, you can more easily prepare for larger target goals. With that, you develop an adaptable and increasingly more positive mindset.

    Consider small gains as you progress forward.

    As part of my healing and stress management, I knew I could do what I had to do by taking small, manageable, and incremental steps. It was too difficult for me to envision a big-picture view of a whole and healed life following so much loss for a time, but eventually, that changed.

    A day at a time, a week at a time, and a month at a time are now years later.

    Remaining open-minded and building your optimism naturally builds and reinforces your resilience muscle.

    So celebrate the small gains in your life. They naturally lead to more small successes, which builds confidence in planning for larger ones.

    5. Life happens, and when it does, develop a surfing mindset, even if you fear the wind or the waves.

    When the winds of change occur, a sailor must adjust the sail to tack and harness the wind to his advantage. The wind and the waves do not remain the same even on one given day. Sailors hone their skills to have the wind and the waves support their intended direction.

    Life never remains the same. Things constantly change. When they do, step back, breathe, and ask yourself what the next best step is in caring for yourself in the moment and in moving forward.

    Through resilience, you can more easily heal and accept life’s dynamic nature by learning and growing from overcoming challenges and setbacks, and, in the face of uncertainty, you can live more fully with confidence and joy in the present and in the mystery of the future.

    Resilience is a quality that is not earned by having an easy life; rather, it is a testimony to coming through hardship and challenging experiences and feeling whole despite them.

  • How To Keep Moving Forward When You Feel Like Shutting Down

    How To Keep Moving Forward When You Feel Like Shutting Down

    “I can’t believe what I’m managing to get through.” ~Frank Bruni

    My worst fear was inflicted upon me three months ago: a cancer diagnosis—non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Out of nowhere!

    Truth be told though, lots of awful things that happen to us come suddenly out of nowhere—a car accident, suicide, heart attack, and yes, a diagnostic finding. We’re stopped in our tracks, seemingly paralyzed as we go into shock and dissociative mode.

    My world as I knew it stopped. It became enclosed in the universe of illness—tiny and limited. I became one-dimensional—a sick patient.

    And I went into shock. To the point where I didn’t feel. As a person who values mental health and understands the importance of emotions, I seemingly stayed away from the feeling part. It wasn’t intentional; it’s how I coped.

    I dealt by mindlessly and mindfully (yes, that seems like an oxymoron) putting one foot in front of the other and doing what needed to be done, like a good soldier, plowing through the open minefields.  Actions and intentional mindset were my strategies.

    My biggest fear was: Will I make it through the treatments? What if I don’t?

    So I started reigning myself in to not let myself think too far ahead, down into the rabbit hole of fear and anxiety. Being a small person with no extra weight, I was scared of the chemo crushing me. Terror would rear its head when I allowed these thoughts to enter my thin body. What if I shrivel up and die? What if I can’t do it?

    And so my mind work began. I became very intentional about putting up that stop sign in my head so as not to get ahead of myself and project into the unknown, scary future. I began taking everything one step at a time.

    I stop now and digress. I had been in the depths of despair and darkness when, many years ago, my middle daughter, Nava, was diagnosed with lifelong neurological disabilities.

    I had a noose of bitterness and anger pulled so tightly around my neck that I couldn’t even go to the park with her. My envy of the other babies who could sit up and start to climb out of their strollers was too much for me to bear; to the point where I stopped going to the playground.

    My therapy at the time was a life-saver and helped me move from the unanswerable “why me/why her?” questions to the “how” and “what”: how to carry on with a major disappointment and blow, toward creating new expectations and goals, and what to do with this to still build a good life.

    Changing the questions helped me cope and move forward. This has served me well in other challenges throughout the years, such as my divorce and Nava’s critical medical issues years later, for which she was hospitalized for a year.

    So with the cancer diagnosis, I went to the “how” and “what.” How can I deal with this in as best a way as possible? What can I do to optimize my coping skills? How can I minimize my anxiety and fear?

    Having studied positive psychology, resiliency-building, and mindfulness, I’ve gleaned some tools over the years that are serving me now through my personal medical crisis.

    Let’s look at a few.

    Anxiety and Staying Present

    We know anxiety is caused by worry of the future. So staying present is key. Working on our mind to be in the moment and not spiral outward is crucial. I know my PET scan is coming up, and I’m naturally anxious about the results. I tell myself to take today and make it as good as possible and not think about the end of the week. There’s a lot of intentional work that goes into controlling the mind.

    And when we spiral, as we humans naturally do, we allow for that too. “Permission to be human,” as positive psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar states. The important thing is bringing ourselves back. It’s not that we don’t go to dark places; it’s that we notice it and don’t linger and get sucked down into it. We recognize it and can pull ourselves out of it.

    Expansion

    Once the shock and horror of illness begins to settle and we see some pattern or predictability, we can look to expand our identity and role beyond a sick person, or in my case, a cancer/chemo patient. I begin to step outside myself, my illness, toward others and other things that are important to me.

    Connecting with who you are beyond your sickness opens you up and reminds you of the bigger You. We are more than our difficult circumstance.

    I always remember Morrie Schwartz in the book Tuesdays With Morrie—how he cried each morning (as he was dying from ALS) and was then available and present for all his visitors, to be of help and service to them.

    So I reach out to a couple of clients to offer sessions during my seemingly better weeks (in between treatments). I create some (generic) social media posts. I haven’t gone personal with this online, so this blog post is a big (public) deal.

    Meaning in Your Life

    Doing things that are meaningful, however small, and that make you feel good is a sure way to stay engaged and moving. It’s the ordinary things that keep us going. Since I love colors, I wake up and match up colorful clothing and makeup (unless I’m too weak), as that makes me feel good.

    Nature and beauty are my greatest sources of soothing and healing. When I feel okay, I go to a park, sit by the water/ocean, and visit gardens, just get outside and look at the expansive sky.

    I deal with my indoor and outdoor plants. I cut off the dead heads, water them, take some pictures, and check on the veges. This represents growth and beauty.

    I get inspiration and uplift from words, and love non-fiction books of people transcending their adversities. I read, underline, and reach out to authors.

    And I learn. I started a creativity class with someone I actually found on this site. I figure it’s a good time to incorporate creativity and natural healing.

    What infuses your life with meaning? What is important to you? What expands you? Who are you beyond your difficult situation?

    Response and Choice

    Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist, logotherapist (therapy of meaning and purpose), and author of the renowned book Man’s Search For Meaning, is instrumental in the foundational concept that it’s not our circumstances that define us but rather our response to our situations that determine who we are and who we become.

    “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

    And another one: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

    These ideas have been life-changing for me and propel me to avoid an all-too-easy passive and victim-like mentality.

  • How to Thrive in Life after Surviving Cancer

    How to Thrive in Life after Surviving Cancer

    “Have a little faith in your ability to handle whatever’s coming down the road. Believe that you have the strength and resourcefulness required to tackle whatever challenges come your way. And know that you always have the capacity to make the best of anything. Even if you didn’t want it or ask for it, even if it seems scary or hard or unfair, you can make something good of any loss or hardship. You can learn from it, grow from it, help others through it, and maybe even thrive because of it. The future is unknown, but you can know this for sure: Whatever’s coming, you got this.” ~Lori Deschene

    Isn’t it amazing how some days are etched in your mind forever and other days are just lost in the wind? One day that is etched in my mind forever is December 27, 2006. This is the day I was told I had breast cancer. While breast cancer is common, being twenty-six years old with breast cancer isn’t that common.

    So here I was, twenty-six years old with breast cancer saying to myself, “Well f*ck, that sure throws off the plans I had for basically anything.” I quickly fell into fear, worry, and “why me?”. I will spare you the details of treatment; it wasn’t any fun. I lost my hair and my dignity and fell into depression when life returned to “normal.”

    Whatever normal is, I was living it. However, nothing was normal. I didn’t know how to live without a doctor’s appointment to go to. I mean, all I wanted was an end to the endless appointments and here I was without them, and I couldn’t figure out what to do.

    So, I took lots of naps because I was exhausted, or so I thought. Well, it turns out I wasn’t exhausted; I was depressed. I was alone with thoughts of wondering when my cancer would come back. I was sucked into a pit of despair that I had never seen before. Who was I becoming? The person who sat in their pajamas all day while I worked from home—yep, that was me.

    I wanted to scream, “I survived cancer, now what?” Where was the manual on how to live after cancer? Who helps me get back to living? I just go back to what I was doing, as if nothing happened? I was tired of saying to myself, “But I’m supposed to feel better, right?”

    As the stream of appointments, scans, lab draws, and phone calls from friends and family continued to slow, I tried hard to be well and remain optimistic. Continue doing my job, walking the dogs, and dragging myself to the gym. Life just didn’t seem real, and depression overwhelmed me for days or weeks at a time. A quick nap turned into a four-hour slumber; my physical body was healing, and my mental body was spiraling downward.

    The difficulty of shifting back to life was not what I expected, and thank goodness for friends. My dear friend Rebecca asked if I wanted to run a half-marathon, but my visceral reaction was no. Then I learned the race took place one year to the date after I finished chemo, so I thought, “Heck yea, take that cancer!” It was perfect timing. One foot in front of the other, I trained for my first half-marathon.

    I kept myself going by trying to run when I could. Running was my go-to mental health fix pre-cancer, and it was starting to work post-cancer too. I remember there were days when I would drag myself to run and come back home in minutes. Then there were days I felt like I had superpowers and it felt so good.

    Rebecca and I crossed that finish line, hand in hand, and celebrated with margaritas and Mexican food, my other go-to mental health fixes.

    So why do I feel inclined to share my story? It’s not just about cancer, depression, running, and margaritas. It’s about making something good come from something bad. 

    Cancer taught me a lot of things. The biggest lesson was to control what I could. That looked like taking a long way home instead of sitting in traffic, not getting worked up about long lines in the grocery store, taking risks like rock climbing in Utah, trying new things like fly fishing in the mountains of North Carolina, singing in my car on the way to work to pump myself up for the day, going on camping trips with my girlfriends, and leaving behind a soul-sucking career.

    I can’t say I am exactly happy I had cancer, but I can’t imagine life without it. It’s a love/hate relationship. Looking back, it was an opportunity for growth and learning that I can do hard things. It was a reminder to focus on being truly alive.

    There is not a guidebook for cancer survivors, no way to time travel to the person you were before your diagnosis, no way to return your body unscathed, or quick way to restore your trust in your body again.  It’s a journey that you must figure out for yourself, one minute, hour, and day at a time.

    You must accept what has happened and discover a new self.

    I learned more in the year after cancer than I had in the previous twenty-six years. You don’t need a cancer journey to do this.

    Life is short; learn to live life to the fullest. However, if cancer is part of your journey back to living, you are not alone in your quest to learn to live again. You can do this. One tiny step at a time, you will learn to truly live again. You will stumble back and take huge leaps forward.

    You can have a life full of purpose, happiness, gratitude, and adventure. Don’t merely survive cancer, thrive after cancer! What are you waiting for? Let’s do this.

  • How to Increase Your Sense of Control and Boost Your Resilience

    How to Increase Your Sense of Control and Boost Your Resilience

    “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” ~Maya Angelou

    When I look back, I am amazed at how differently I dealt with adversity the first few decades of my life.

    Growing up in a stressful home primed me to experience life with caution. Whether it was being afraid of physical harm, loneliness, or failure, I’ve lived my life with an exaggerated fight-flight response to everything. Adversity seemed around every corner, and no one was ever there to save me.

    I developed maladaptive mechanisms to minimize, avoid, or go around the things I was afraid of.

    I became a quiet and obedient kid to avoid my father’s anger.

    I accepted whatever sliver of love my chronically overwhelmed mother was able to give me.

    I settled for the last pick on the team. I quit afterschool theater after I was assaulted on the way home one evening.

    I gave up on art school because my father wanted me to be a teacher.

    I went to a music school as he wanted and quietly accepted my instructor’s abuse.

    On and on, hurt and disappointment became my constant companions, and I learned to just take it. No one seemed to care that I struggled. No one saw me.

    Over time, I learned to accept that the world was just cruel and indifferent to my pain. I learned that I have little control over my circumstances. I learned that I can either fight and fail or stay quiet and survive. I learned helplessness.

    I know now that my childhood wasn’t that unique, but for a kid, it was isolating and debilitating. I thought I was the only one who struggled like this. I felt different, alone, and somehow deficient. I developed low self-esteem and anxiety that soon morphed into this chronic feeling of impending doom.

    I carried that sense of dread and defeat into adulthood. Hypersensitive to stress, I avoided things that would challenge and overwhelm me. I looked to others for permission, approval, and validation. I allowed things without a fight, latched onto any good thing that came my way, and accepted crumbs from others never daring to stand up for myself and ask for more.

    They say that what doesn’t break you makes you stronger but for many—those without a healthy foundation—life’s big and small traumas build up and eventually show up as anxiety, depression, substance abuse, or PTSD. I developed most of these.

    Resilience Can Be Strengthened

    We all respond to adversity differently. Research shows that a loving, emotionally responsive, and supportive environment during childhood fosters psychological resilience throughout life. But even if we didn’t get that strong foundation growing up, we can still build resilience now.

    We can learn to overcome helplessness by increasing our sense of control.

    Finding Peace in the Present Moment

    The most significant practice that allowed me to shift out of state of helplessness and offer me some sense of control was mindfulness.

    Instead of reliving the past—the pain, resentments, and disappointments—or worrying about the future, I could find peace in this moment, right now. I couldn’t change what happened and can’t control what’s to come, but I can decide how I move now. In this very moment, I can control how I respond to life.

    A deep inhale, noticing my child’s smile, the scent of garlic as I cook dinner—I can focus on here and now, fully absorbing life through all my senses, knowing that in this moment I am okay.

    And, if I’m feeling stressed or unsettled, I become curious instead of trying to outrun it. I start paying attention to my body, tracking sensations, observing where I’m feeling tightness, consciously releasing the tension as I breathe in and out. This way, I can help regulate my nervous system and shift the patterns of reactivity. I remind myself to breathe as I ride the wave, trusting the discomfort will eventually pass.

    Learning to Move Through Negative Thoughts

    Once I allowed myself to feel what was going on in my body in times of high stress, I began noticing what I’m thinking and feeling in the midst of turmoil.

    It can be difficult to not get overwhelmed by the negative thought patterns engraved deeply in our minds, patterns we’ve been falling into for decades, without much conscious examination. Looking at those now, I realized how detrimental my mental scripts were to my well-being.

    With the help of my journal, I learned to reframe negative events, bring perspective into my experiences, and focus on what I could learn from them.

    For example, I’ve carried with me this feeling of failure as a young parent. For those first few years, I was living in a constant state of overwhelm, and there was a lot of guilt for not being good enough of a mom, feeling like a fraud and a failure. When I took a step back, I realized there was a multitude of circumstances going against me that made this part of my life extremely difficult, and I was just doing my best.

    I had three children super close together (three under three), which in itself was a Sisyphean task. I had just moved across the country and had no real friends or family to support me. My husband worked long hours, many weekends, often out of state. It was a lot to take on, and I was virtually on my own.

    Looking at this part of my life, I realized I had unrealistic expectations of what it meant to be a good parent. I also realized my perfectionist tendencies and the relentless pressure I put on myself stemmed from my fears of perpetuating generational trauma.

    This way of thinking wasn’t constructive—it was making me miserable. Slowly, I began noticing when these tendencies showed up, and instead of feeding them, I’d just watch them come and go.

    Mindfulness allowed me to move through negative thoughts and memories instead of getting stuck in them. I would observe what was going on inside my mind, breathe through the turbulence offering myself compassion for my struggles, and remind myself that I was doing the best I can. Over time I stopped being so hard on myself, and eventually shifted out of the habit of ruminating for good.

    Enjoying Something That You Do Well

    Spending time doing something that I can do well reminds me how it feels to succeed.

    I have always enjoyed gardening. It is my escape from the hustle and stress of today’s fast-paced world—my garden is my sanctuary.

    Watching my garden transform over the decade from a lot of dirt to where it is today—with all the fruit trees, veggie boxes, shrubs, grasses, and blooming annuals—brings me a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment.

    Finding something that you do well, and practicing it regularly builds confidence, self-esteem, and fortifies a healthy ego. It is imperative to have hobbies that you excel at and can turn to in times of stress or unpredictability.

    Spending Time in Nature

    We live in a world of chronic stress and anxiety. We are always plugged in and on the go, constantly planning, thinking, and doing, all the while feeling disconnected from ourselves and the world around us.

    Modern-day life means living in our heads a lot. To counter that, we need a practice that will ground us and bring us back to balance. And nature is one of the most grounding elements that we have.

    Being in nature down-regulates our nervous system and brings about relaxation. Even a short walk can improve our mood and reduce anxiety. Disconnecting from our daily grind this way—all the responsibilities, worries, and electronics—rebalances our body, mind, and soul. Our problems become less significant and impending. We can exhale, if only for now.

    There are many ways we can ground ourselves in nature this way. Gardening, walking, or even taking care of houseplants can be grounding. I like watering my garden in the evening, repotting plants on Saturdays, and long walks around a lake on Sunday mornings. Find your own natural zen. Soak in nature’s energy as often as you can—it’s healing.

    Caring for and Nourishing Your Body-Mind-Soul

    We can’t be resilient if we are depleted.

    When my kids were little, I barely had time and energy for self-care. I neglected my needs—whether physical, emotional, or mental—just like I was raised to ignore them growing up. Self-neglect is a trauma response, and years went by before I realized I was just perpetuating old wounds.

    As a result, I felt chronically depleted and anxious. Every little mishap or challenge would stress me out, whether it was a kid’s tantrum or packing up for a weekend trip. I was living in a state of chronic overwhelm, emotional dysregulation, and low-grade depression.

    As kids grew older and more independent, my healing turned a corner. I could finally go beyond basic self-care like showers and eating well, and focus on truly nourishing my body, mind, and soul. I now prioritize self-care like my life depends on it because it does.

    Focusing on the basics, I prioritize sleep, movement, and practices that nourish and relax me—long baths, longer walks, healthy food, reading, gardening, music. I rely on boundaries to protect my energy and inner peace. I practice mindfulness and do things with intention. I plan ahead to avoid rushing or multitasking. I fill my own bucket.

    With so much out of our control, caring for ourselves—body, mind, and heart—is the one thing we can do.

    ——

    While challenging times are a given in life and we can’t always change our circumstances, we can have a different relationship with what’s going on outside of us. We can learn to surf the waves if we stay mindful of practices that strengthen resilience. And that is empowering.

  • How I Get Through Hard Times Using Curiosity, Compassion, and Challenge

    How I Get Through Hard Times Using Curiosity, Compassion, and Challenge

    “Sometimes the worst things that happen in our lives put us on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us.” ~Unknown

    Until I was thirty-seven, I thought I’d led a pretty charmed life: I had a supportive family and good friends, I’d done well academically, always got the jobs I’d applied for, and met and married the perfect man for me.

    In 2013, when I was thirty-five weeks pregnant with my second child, I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. My baby was induced at thirty-seven weeks, and my chemo started ten days later. In a funny way I was relieved; Okay, I thought, I’ve been seriously lucky up until now that no one has been ill in my life, so if I can survive this, then this is as bad as it gets.

    And that year was bad—moving home, caring for a toddler and a newborn, and going through aggressive cancer treatment was horrendous, but I hunkered down, tried not to think too much about it, and survived.

    In December 2014, literally as we were clinking champagne glasses to celebrate my all-clear results, my husband had a devastating call from his mum in New Zealand. She had just been diagnosed with a rare and incurable cancer. Early the following year my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer, and my mother-in-law died that spring.

    It was at this point I started to feel weighed down with a heaviness. This wasn’t the deal… I’d taken the cancer hit for the team, everyone else was supposed to stay well. I started to lose my trust in the world.

    My urge to control everything and everyone around me, which I now realize I have had since childhood, went into overdrive. I became fearful of change and made list upon list to organize and reorganize my life until I had anticipated everything that might go wrong and put things in place to deal with it.

    My brave dad endured a variety of invasive and aggressive treatments, but his health continued to decline. I could not control what was happening or the sense of loss and grief that at times I felt were swamping me.

    Something had to change: I started journaling, yoga, and meditation. Slowly I felt my anxiety and my panicked grip on my life begin to lessen. I looked inward and I started to notice familiar feelings and patterns, recognized myself responding to roles and labels that I no longer felt to be true.

    There were shifts; very, very small shifts, but with two small children, a husband working long hours, and a dad with rapidly declining health, even small shifts made a difference to my capacity to cope.

    Toward the middle of 2015 my husband started to get awful headaches, nausea, and dizzy spells. He was in a very stressful job, so decided to leave work at the beginning of 2016 to get his health back and decide what he really wanted to do with his life. However, in the spring of 2016 he was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor. At that stage my children were three and five.

    The next couple of years were consumed by medical appointments for my dad and my husband, alongside the busyness that goes hand in hand with raising young children, but I continued my inner work. I examined my feelings. Was that really how I felt? Had I felt that way before? What helped then, what might help now? Is the story I’m telling myself about this true? What do I need right now?

    In spring 2018 my dad died, in spring 2019 my husband died, and in spring 2020 the UK went into its first lockdown due to Covid-19.

    Every year since 2014 I’ve said to myself, well surely the worst has happened, this year has to be better, and yet each year something else monumental and life-changing has happened. The past seven years have been relentless, and at times I have been overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for the people I love most in the world.

    People used to hear my story open mouthed and ask, “How do you cope?” I would reply in a way designed to brush them off, remove their focus of attention, and minimize my pain by saying, “Oh well, you know, you just deal with what life throws at you.” I knew that this wasn’t true, but a flippant reply was easier than the truth. After years of continual inner work however, this is my honest reply:

    To boost your resilience, to heal, and to ultimately thrive you have to be prepared to turn over the picture-perfect patchwork quilt of your outer life that you present to the world and take a good look at the messy stiches on the underside.

    You need to be prepared to look at the messiest of those stiches and painstakingly unpick them so that you can find the knots, the tangles, and the imperfections. It’s only when you connect with your authentic self that you’re able to respond to your unique needs in times of crisis and learn what you need to do to foster your own resilience.

    The way of doing this will be different for everyone, but if I could boil it down to one pithy statement it would be to always keep in awareness the 3 C’s: curiosity, compassion, and challenge.

    Here are some ways I’ve applied this in the last seven years to help me, and perhaps these ideas might help you too.

    Allow your feelings.

    Other people are allowed to feel uncomfortable about this, but that is not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to embrace your emotions so you can process them and work through them instead of repressing, denying, or numbing them with substances and distractions.

    In my life this idea of numbing or distracting has taken shape in many ways. One is the compulsion to check my phone rather than sit with feelings of restlessness, boredom, or uncertainty. Sometimes I find myself opening my fridge or cupboard, not because I’m hungry, but because I’m anxious or agitated.

    Recently, I’ve needed to work on sitting with my feelings when I say “no” to someone and worry there will be painful repercussions if I don’t keep other people happy.

    These are all hugely uncomfortable realizations, but offer an opportunity to spot patterns—do I always reach for food after a specific event, do I always reach for my phone when I feel a certain way in my body?

    Once I’ve shown a curiosity about my choices, I can have understanding and compassion for why and challenge myself to do something else. Instead of food can I do some rounds of a breathing exercise? Instead of the phone can I practice some simple yoga poses? Can I pause before saying “yes” to something I know won’t serve me and think of the times I’ve said “no” and there haven’t been negative repercussions?

    Key questions here are: What do I really need, what am I afraid of, and how can I soothe my threat system in that moment before reacting?

    Put your needs first.

    I learned that however much I was needed by other people (and with a dying dad, a dying husband, and two small children I was needed a lot), I had to start the day knowing that at some point I was going to make time to put my needs first.

    Sometimes that was getting up early to enjoy a hot chocolate in peace, often it was taking some quiet time in nature. I joined a gym with a pool because swimming is something I find hugely supportive for my mental health, and I joined an online yoga site as I no longer had the lengthy chunks of time I needed to get to a class in person.

    Embrace ritual and routine.

    Decision fatigue contributes massively to how overwhelmed I can become; routines provide a secure framework for my family to feel supported and give me more energy for the unexpected things that life inevitably throws at me.

    My routine includes:

    • Planning my week ahead on a Sunday—I have a simple document with columns for appointments, reminders, to-do list, and well-being
    • Putting out school clothes and making lunches the night before
    • Having a grocery delivery booked in for the same day and time each week
    • Menu planning and pre-preparing simple meals for the nights of the week that I know will be busy or I am working late

    Put together a well-being toolkit.

    Explore ideas and suggestions that you might find supportive, but don’t feel beholden to it. You don’t need to use all of the tools all of the time. Learning to listen to what you need in the moment (and giving yourself permission to act on it!) is really empowering.

    My well-being toolkit includes…

    • Breathing exercises
    • Journaling
    • Yoga
    • Reading
    • Running
    • Meeting friends for tea
    • Trying out new recipes
    • Sitting still—either meditating, focusing on my breath, or just letting my mind wander

    Build a supportive team around you and know their individual strengths.

    No one person can deliver everything you need. Manage your expectations about what each treasured person can bring to your life and learn who to go to for what.

    Challenge the narratives, expectations, and labels in your life (my 3 C’s).

    Do they still serve you or feel true; where do they come from; what do you need in order to let some of them go

    There were ways I perceived myself and labels others had given me that only addressed the way I presented myself outwardly. By turning over the quilt and looking at the stiches that made up these labels with curiosity and compassion I was able to challenge them.

    For example, am I really “standoffish,” or is that just my defense against crippling social anxiety? Am I really “bossy,” or am I just frightened of how unsafe the world will feel if I lose control? Am I really “capable” or just terrified of asking for help and being rejected?

    I would never suggest this is a simple process, and reaching even a modicum of self-awareness is a daily and never-ending challenge for me. There are no black-and-white answers, so it’s important to become accepting of living in the grey area.

    Ultimately, I believe that approaching each day, every response, every feeling with curiosity invites compassion and understanding, which helps us challenge and address underlying insecurities and outdated narratives that keep us down and stuck.

    Supporting ourselves to see beyond the labels, roles, and responsibilities layered on through our lives allows for the possibility of the emergence of the authentic self.

    This is a work in progress, I am a work in progress, and always will be.

    Some days I am overwhelmed with sadness, a heavy heart, and a sense of loss; some days I awaken already infused with a sense of gratitude and joy. Every day, however, I wake up prepared to be curious and interested, to approach all interactions with myself and others with compassion, and to do what I can to challenge thoughts and beliefs that I don’t want to take into my future. I just know that next year will be a better year.

  • When Life Gets Hard: 4 Lessons That Eased My Suffering

    When Life Gets Hard: 4 Lessons That Eased My Suffering

    “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” ~Viktor Frankl

    When life goes sideways, it can be hard to take one more breath, let alone find meaning.

    Trust me. I know.

    In the same year, I had breast cancer, chemo, radiation, and a divorce I didn’t want. There’s more to the story (there always is), but in essence, I lost everything—my health, my love, my home.

    During all of this, I lost sight of myself, quit trusting myself. I was sure I was to blame for everything.

    At the same time, within twenty-four hours of leaving the house I loved, six friends had given me the keys to their houses, telling me I always had a place to stay. My family showed up for me in ways that had me weeping.

    Also during this time, I had two powerful dreams and one still small voice—these three messengers told me the very things I needed to hear to go on.

    My first dream involved someone cooking something delicious in a kitchen. I couldn’t eat what she was making, because taste often goes awry with chemo, but I remember the cook saying, “Honey, there’s more sugar than salt in this recipe.”

    In other words, life’s sweetness would return. Just give it time.

    The second dream I had is that I dropped deep into the earth where every last bit of me was burned away. All that was left was a fierce and shining bone.

    This dream promised me that there was something deep inside that was indestructible, and it had everything to do with fierceness and light.

    And that still small voice? No matter what was happening, deep inside there was this wise and quiet Me who refused to let me be hurt anymore. What do I mean by that?

    I knew I needed something to help me survive, but this grounded Me knew I needed to be intentional about how I chose to survive. Because I wanted to make myself better, not worse.

    I began to write and record mini-meditations. I called them “A Hit of Hope.” A friend told me that the best place to record was in a closet, so there I sat, on top of my shoes, talking into my phone—using my voice and my words to name my pain and to convince myself that things would get better.

    Any human being will have pain and trauma. Any human being will have things happen to them that they would rather avoid. But as long as we are alive, we can know that life will go sideways. In big and small ways, we will suffer. So as much as it pains me to say this, why suffering happens is irrelevant. The only question we can answer for ourselves is how we will choose to be in the midst of pain and suffering.

    While there are still days when the bus of emotions can run me down, and while I have made more than my fair share of missteps in my recent journey, I have learned a few things along the way.

    1. When there are big, and out-of-control life events, radical self-love and emotional recovery are the first order of business.

    When you are hurting, put down the metaphorical gas can or salt or knives. Don’t make the fire any bigger or the wounds any deeper than they already are.

    What do I mean by that? Make choices that keep your head clear, choices that keep your body and spirit safe.

    For instance, a friend of mine, who was going through a divorce at the same time, was told by his best friend, “Just get roaring drunk, and stay that way for three months.” While that might help numb the pain, that kind of behavior would only create more problems in the long run. It would be far more healing to embrace journaling, yoga, or some other form of self-care.

    Also, even if you messed up, don’t beat yourself up. Can you admit to how you contributed to the situation? Absolutely, but think of yourself like a kid on the playground. More scolding and finger wagging usually does little to help the situation. Often, it’s a big ol’ hug that is needed to stop the tears. So, get centered, get settled, and heap loads of love on your hurting self.

    2. You get to feel every ounce of what you are feeling.

    Do not be ashamed of your feelings. A Buddhist concept relates to this: first and second darts. The first dart is the emotion (sadness, fear, anger), and because we are human, it is right and good to let those emotions flow through us.

    The second dart is our reaction to our emotion. Why do I always do this? If I were a better person, I’d… You know the drill. Feel your feelings, so that they can rise up and flow away, leaving you calm and clear.

    3. There is no time to lose, but there is no need to hurry.

    What in the heck does that mean? That bold statement doesn’t mean you should fly into manic or panic mode, but there is nothing like a life-threatening illness to remind a person that this now matters. In fact, this is the only now you are assured of getting. “You never know what’s coming,” a friend often says.

    The idea is to live each day fully. To make the small choices, the day-to-day decisions that bring you the most joy, the most delight. This might mean starting that novel or business, calling that friend you’ve been missing, getting on your bike or yoga mat, or climbing that mountain and yodeling until the grizzlies roar back in response.

    Simply put, there is not one day, one decision that will magically poof us to the good life for the rest of time. There are the small choices that add up—and either bring us toward more wholeness or continue to tear us to bits.

    4. Meaning is what helps us to survive.

    This last one is something Viktor Frankl, a survivor of four Nazi death camps, pointed out. In the worst of the worst, it can feel almost impossible to find meaning, but doing so is essential. It’s here that the why matters.

    When life assails, it can be easy to ask, “What’s the point?” To feel adrift. Untethered. Rocked this way and that by wind and wave, all threatening to pull you under.

    You have to find your why, your meaning, your sense of purpose or intention. What can you—you—do that makes life feel fuller, richer, more vibrant and alive?

    For me, it was helpful to think about active verbs. I wanted to move, create, heal, serve.

    What did this look like? I would work out each morning, because that helped me to feel strong in my own body. Then I would sit down and write my meditations, getting lost in the joy of doing something creative. This process not only healed my own struggling spirit, but I hoped it might do so for others. When I posted them, I did so with the intention of letting them serve others.

    If you have a hard time finding your own sense of meaning, take a look at your life. What do you do that makes you lose time, something you get lost in? That’s often a great indication of what brings you meaning. Or what is something you do that makes you feel better when you are done? How can you incorporate that into your life more?

    If you are still struggling, ask a friend to help you brainstorm. Or take a walk, and let your mind wander along with your feet. Your spirit often just needs some time, space, and quiet to speak deeply to you.

    This might sound like fluffy advice, but it’s not. As Frankl famously said, “He [or she or they] who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

    To be clear, this isn’t easy, nor does it happen in a day, a week, a month, or even a year. But create the right conditions and good things are far more likely to come.

    Last week, I happened to be sitting on my front porch. When I got up to go inside and make myself tea, I noticed my orchid in the front window.

    A friend gave it to me before I started chemo. Every morning, I look at it as I sit inside and write, but this was the first time I’d seen it from the outside. From this new perspective, I could see a gathering of buds, pressed up against the window, the direction from which the light comes.

    The soon-to-be blossoms were hidden entirely by the pot and the leaves when I sat inside in my leather chair.

    That orchid offered me a message, just like my dreams. Those flowers showed me a deep and profound truth: sometimes, the blossoming is on the other side.

  • The Wind That Shakes Us: Why We Need Hard Times

    The Wind That Shakes Us: Why We Need Hard Times

    “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” ~William Arthur Ward

    I live in the windiest city in the world—Wellington, New Zealand. Perched between the North and South Island, this colorful little city gets hammered by wind. The winds from the south bring cold, and the winds from the northwest seem to blow forever. My body is regularly under assault. But amid all that blustering lies the answer to one of life’s great questions: How do we feel at home in the wind? Or better phrased, how do we live with the hard things that blow our way?

    This research can shed some light.

    The Biosphere 2 was a scientific experiment in the Arizona desert conducted in the eighties and nineties. A vast (and I mean massive) glass dome housed flora and fauna in a perfectly controlled environment. It held all of nature: trees, wetlands, deserts, rainforests. Animals, plants and people co-existed in what scientists thought was the perfect, optimal environment for life—purified air, purified water, healthy soil, filtered light.

    Everything thrived for a while.

    But after some time, the trees began to topple over. When the trees reached a certain height, they fell to the ground.

    This baffled the scientists at first. That is until they realized that their perfect environment had no wind, no stormy torrential weather. The trees had no resistance. The trees had no adversity.

    The scientists concluded that wind was needed to strengthen the trees’ roots, which in turn supported growth. The wind was the missing element—an essential component in the creation of tall, solid, and mighty trees.

    What can this science experiment teach us about real life?

    Everything.

    A life without storms is like the Biosphere 2. Sure, it sounds idyllic. But that’s just a perception. And I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

    I thought a perfect life would make me happy. And it did, for a while. Good job, great husband, lovely home. But I knew deep down that something was missing. I always had a sense that life was incomplete. I longed for something; I just didn’t know what. It baffled me, just like it baffled the scientists.

    Without knowing it, I, too, had placed a biosphere around my heart. If any pain, any resistance, blew my way, my biosphere stopped it from penetrating. That is until I was diagnosed with blood cancer, and things began to crack. 

    Sitting in the office of a psychotherapist a few months after my diagnosis, nervously hunched and with hands under my thighs, I simply said, “I am really scared about my cancer.”

    That moment that I assumed was weakness turned out to be the exact moment my biosphere, my armor, began to crack.

    My diagnosis, my adversity, was nothing more than an opportunity to step outside of comfort and tell someone I’m scared. It jolted me enough to put me on an unexpected path of inner enquiry.

    Was it scary to open up? Hell yes! I wanted to stay in the biosphere. I really did. I kept searching for comfort within it, but I was unsatiated, and the wind crept in anyway and just grew stronger: I lost someone I loved to cancer, a close friend backstabbed me, my postpartum body broke, more wind, more pain, all while dripping in very small children. Just like those felled trees, I, too, toppled to the ground.

    When I could no longer withhold the wind, when I had to step out of the comfort of my biosphere and talk about my fears and look at my darkness, only then did I grow tall enough to find what I was looking for: I was longing to know the fullness of myself.

    I knew my old habits of perfecting and controlling life to avoid pain, numbing pain, or distracting myself from pain no longer worked. Those strategies did not lead me to the thing I wanted most: completeness. I had to go through the pain. Sit in it. Let it wash over and into me. I had to feel what it’s like to have cancer, be lonely, get hurt, lose someone I love, have a broken body. Only by going through it did I realize I could transcend it.

    Liberation was on the other side of pain. It existed outside of my biosphere. One therapy session at a time, one book at a time, one podcast at a time, one meditation at a time, one hard conversation at a time, slowly, things began to crack. Inch by vulnerable inch, eventually (like, years later), my biosphere crumbled to the ground.

    Brené Brown calls life outside the biosphere “living in the arena.” She said, “When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable.”

    She also said, “I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.”

    The courage to be vulnerable is the springboard out of the biosphere.

    If you’re in adversity right now—in lockdown, or the doctor’s office, or separated from a loved one— perhaps your biosphere, too, can no longer protect you from pain. COVID-19 has cracked open our collective armor and shown us how little control we have. It’s hard. It’s painful. But it is also an opportunity. When the outside world is crumbling, the only way is inward.

    When I look back, I see that pain or resistance only ever asked one thing of me—to look at it. It was a nudge (or a shove in my case) to look inward, get vulnerable, talk about my feelings, unpack my darkness, cry, unearth, read, listen, meditate, move forward in my awareness, expand my consciousness.

    And with time, I grew beyond the safety of the biosphere to a height that was inconceivable while I was in it. Without the wind, I would never have seen the height I could reach.   

    This process of unearthing all my fears and darkness eventually lead to a place of power. Now I have the awareness and power to choose when to act from fear and when to ignore it. The wind no longer rules me. I am at home in it—figuratively and literally.

    Living in the middle of Middle Earth has proven one thing: the wind is constant. We can’t avoid hardship any more than we can avoid day turning into night. The hard things in our life will keep on coming—more lockdowns, more sickness, more hurt—and the only way to be at home in the wind is not to fight it, to learn to live with it.

    We have a saying here in Wellington: You can’t beat Wellington on a good day. It’s true. When the sun is shining, Wellington is the most glorious city on earth. The wind has blown away the cobwebs, and majesty remains. The craggy coastlines glitter and the city’s heartbeat thumps and vibrates and enters the hearts of all who live here. On these days, the thrashing wind is forgiven, and we fall in love with our city again. And again. And again.

    Without the wind, there’d be nothing to forgive. There’d be no falling in love process. Life would exist on a flatline. Yes, there would be no gale. But we’d also miss out on awe. Life is both wind and sun, pain and beauty. By staying in the biosphere, we risk missing the magic that sits outside of it.

    I’m so glad I took that first vulnerable leap of faith all those years ago. Life outside the biosphere isn’t scary like I imagined. I didn’t remain on the ground like a rotting felled tree. I grew.

    I grew to a place where the air is clearer. I can breathe. Frustration or hurt or pain isn’t held onto for any sustained length of time. The waves of emotions come in, then go out. I observe it all without a sense of lasting entanglement. Fear is in the backseat. Pain is softened. Beauty is heightened. Love is everywhere, even in the wind.

    Deepak Chopra said, “The best way to get rid of the pain is to feel the pain. And when you feel the pain and go beyond it, you’ll see there’s a very intense love that is wanting to awaken itself.”

    That’s what is waiting for you outside the biosphere.

  • The Power of Compassion: How to Make Do in an Unfair World

    The Power of Compassion: How to Make Do in an Unfair World

    “A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.” ~Nelson Mandela

    Ever thought, “Life is so unfair!”

    Is it, really?

    Has life given you circumstances that keep you in a deep, dark hole of disadvantages that seem impossible to clamber out of?

    Has life decided that you need to live in abject poverty and watch everyone in your life suffer from being denied everything a human needs to be human?

    Has life put you in a position where you wouldn’t dare to dream of something better, for yourself, for your family, about anything, ever?

    My story is specifically about my home, Cape Town, South Africa.

    A place so breathtaking, it reminds you constantly that a higher power must truly exist.

    A place filled with the friendliest people, with a strong sense of family and community.

    People who smile easily and see the bright side of even the darkest realities.

    And, under it all, we have all been touched by the far-reaching hand of hardship.

    Elders have seen extreme poverty and prejudice, while raising large families as best they could under unrelenting circumstances.

    Families have lost loved ones in struggles for a better world at the southernmost point of the African continent.

    And the struggle continues.

    In 2020, the struggle persists.

    Sixty million voices go unheard every single day, with a slew of injustices hurled at them every so often, for good measure.

    Senior citizens have no means to support their modest lives, and no one to care for their needs.

    Unfair, with a lifetime of regrets.

    Able-bodied, competent, grown men and women are forgotten by the system, and left as easy prey to life-shattering temptations.

    Unfair, with daily desperation.

    With an unemployment rate pushing 30%, what will they do, and what will become of them and their families?

    The youth stare a bleak future straight in the face.

    Unfair, with overwhelming depression.

    Children lack the little they need to blossom into the future of this world.

    Unfair, with blissful oblivion.

    How long must they be happy in the little they all have?

    Every family has a story to tell.

    And sadly, the vast majority all sound like a broken record, playing the same tune over and over again.

    My family’s story is no different.

    Grew up in poverty, shared a home with ten other people, had very little to eat, had no gas or electricity, no vehicle, walked long distances in harsh conditions just to get to school every day, no telephone, no television, no appliances, no hot water, problematic plumbing in an outhouse, no healthcare, no dental care, one pair of shoes per person, worn until their soles were irreparable, clothes made from offcuts by the matriarch of the family, left school before the age of fourteen, helped support the family by taking on manual labor, stayed home to take care of eight to fourteen growing children…

    And the list of unimaginable challenges goes on.

    Sounds like a village situated in the remote parts of an undiscovered jungle somewhere, forgotten by time and progress.

    Yet, they survived.

    And tragically, so did the circumstances.

    In the age of social media, digital business, and limitless telecommunications, harsh circumstances still exist.

    While some miraculously overcame unbelievable odds, beat the system, and thrived, others were left at the mercy of history chasing its tail in a vicious cycle.

    And today, millions of people in South Africa still live this way, with no way to step out of the madness.

    As a kid, I remember both my mother and grandmother employing domestic workers who lived in an informal settlement (either with their families, or apart from their families who lived in a faraway state), in a makeshift dwelling that could go up in smoke, literally, at any moment, from a neglected candle.

    As an adult, I do the same as my mom and gran before me, and the very same set of criteria exists that has existed for four whole decades.

    No one has come to the rescue.

    Delving into the lives of those loyal domestic workers, it is not hard to imagine that the younger generations of their families walk the paths they always have.

    Unfair, hopelessly so.

    Same story goes for the gardeners, and brick layers, and handymen, and janitors, and security guards, and petrol attendants (who?), and car guards (huh?), and caretakers, and garbage collectors, and…

    But wait, there’s more. Devastatingly, there’s more.

    Add to the list, that layer of society who, until now, have managed to live marginally above the breadline (living pay check to pay check) and have a relatively “comfortable” life, who have now lost their gainful employment and don’t know where to start to earn a living wage to keep their families fed, clothed, and cared for.

    How do they get to win and rise above these life-altering, unexpected curveballs?

    The only immediately viable solution for them all that I can see is compassion, kindness, and generosity.

    Compassion from others, kindnesses from strangers, generosity of family and friends.

    And let me just assure you right now, in case you’ve ever wondered, that there is enough to go around on this magnificent planet.

    Interest in the well-being of others—the children, the youth, the family men and women, the seniors.

    Thankfully, this place called Cape Town has scores of beautiful people who practice compassion as a part of everything they do.

    Parents and siblings protect each other from the wolves at the door.

    People make the best of their dire conditions, and are grateful for all that they have, even if all they have is their health.

    Families and friends check that their family members and friends are “okay.”

    And would you believe that, even though you now know almost everyone’s story, they’ll do all that they can to convince you that they actually are okay?

    There’s a term for that: “making do.”

    They make do with what they have, they make do with what has been given to them, they make do with what they receive, they make do with what you can spare them, they make do with how they live, they make do with what they get paid for their hard, often physical, work. They make do.

    Their dignities are intact, in their minds at least, if not in reality.

    Unfair, to you and I, definitely.

    To them, it’s just life.

    And it’s in all of our hands.

  • 10 Powerful Quotes on Overcoming Adversity (and a Book Giveaway)

    10 Powerful Quotes on Overcoming Adversity (and a Book Giveaway)

    UPDATE: The winners for this giveaway have been chosen. They are Kristie St. Germain and Suzanne Hermary.

    As the year is coming to a close, now seems like a perfect time to shine a spotlight on one of my favorite books of 2017.

    Tiny Buddha contributor Harriet Cabelly has crafted a masterpiece in her book Living Well Despite Adversity: Inspiration for Finding Renewed Meaning and Joy in Your Life.

    Harriet’s faced her share of personal challenges in life, from going through a life-threatening medical crisis with her daughter to rebuilding her life after divorce. But this book isn’t just about her own journey. It features interviews with dozens of people who’ve learned to thrive despite illness, loss, and other tragedies.

    Uplifting and empowering, Living Well Despite Adversity offers hope and inspiration for anyone who’s struggling in life.

    The stories are raw, the lessons powerful, and the messages universal. While some of the names are well known—including Cheryl Strayed and Meredith Viera—many were new to me; and I couldn’t have been more grateful for the chance to learn a little about their journeys and what’s helped them heal and grow.

    I’ve shared below some of my favorite excerpts from the book, but first…

    The Giveaway

    Harriet has generously offered to provide two copies of Living Well Despite Adversity to Tiny Buddha readers. To enter the giveaway:

    • Leave a comment below. You don’t have to write anything specific. ”Count me in” is sufficient. But if you feel inclined, please share your favorite quote on overcoming adversity or something that’s helped you get through tough times.
    • For an extra entry, share this giveaway on one of your social media pages and post the link in a second comment.

    You can enter until midnight, PST, on Monday, December 17th.

    The Quotes

    From Michael Hingson, who was born blind, later survived 9-11 with the help of his guide dog, and then wrote the bestselling memoir Thunder Dog:

    “If I were to suggest to other people what they ‘should’ do if they’re going through a tragedy or any kind of unexpected change I would say you must start with accepting the fact that the change happened, especially if you didn’t have control over it. And even if you did and it took an unexpected turn where you were left in a quandary, you must start with ‘All right, where am I?’ Get over the fact that it happened—‘Now where do I go from here?’ I don’t care what the challenge is, we all can start with that.”

    From Amy Morin, who lost her mother, husband, and father-in-law in quick succession and then wrote the book 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do:

    “It’s tempting to try to avoid the sadness and distress associated with grief—but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you have to face your emotions head-on. Other people will try to cheer you up because they’re uncomfortable with you being sad, but let yourself feel sad and angry and lonely. Time doesn’t heal anything. It’s what you do with that time that matters. So it’s important to use your time to heal—and part of healing means experiencing a wide variety of emotions. And don’t be afraid to ask for help from friends, family, and professionals. Your connections with other people can make all the difference in the world.”

    From Natalie Taylor, who lost her husband, Josh, while pregnant with their first child:

    “One thing I try to say to myself when I hit a bad patch is this idea that ‘it will pass.’ I won’t feel this way the whole day or the whole week. So I sort of embrace it and go through it because it will pass. It’s not that I ignore it. When I do get sad I remind myself that I’ll be happy again, eventually, or I’ll do something else in the day that will make me happy. I just know that things change quickly, although with grief they don’t change so quickly. At this point, four years out, my day-to-day attitude is so much more positive than it was three or four years ago obviously.

    From Meredith Viera, journalist, TV personality, and caregiver to her husband Richard Cohen, who’s been living with MS for more than thirty years:

    “Build that group of friends, that support system around you. Go for it. Don’t be afraid. Don’t feel that you’re a burden to other people. And don’t be ashamed of illness. What you’ll discover is everybody else has their own thing. People don’t like to talk about stuff. They hide it, but if you’re open and you say you need help, people will be there for you. It’s important to know they’re there. It’s like it takes a village; when there’s illness it takes a village too. Most people have been phenomenal.”

    From Laverne Bissky, who started the No Ordinary Journey Foundation to help children, like her daughter, who struggle with Cerebral Palsy:

    “For me coping is about balance: not static balance but dynamic balance because life is always in a state of flux. It’s about knowing when to push hard and when to rest. When to fight and when to let go. When to use and when to conserve resources. When to work hard and when to have fun. Practicing mindfulness helps me to know when to shift between these. It’s about paying attention to what is going on inside of you.”

    From Natasha Alexenko, sexual assault survivor and founder of Natasha’s Justice Project, whose mission is to ensure rape kits are tested and investigated quickly:

    “You don’t always have to be productive. You’re biggest responsibility is to yourself and making sure you’re OK. If you are not feeling well emotionally or mentally, you should treat yourself almost like you’re ill. If you had a cold you wouldn’t necessarily mop your floors or do your laundry. You’re allowed to take a moment to smell the roses and not be hard on yourself.”

    From Julie Genovese, who wrote the memoir Nothing Short of Joy to share her story of living with a physically and emotionally challenging form of dwarfism:

    “I didn’t realize I had a choice of how to see my challenges. When I turned it around to see those challenges as adventures or as mountains to climb so that I could see a fantastic view, my attitude changed; that shift in perspective would change all of it. I realized I did have more of this inner divine power than I had realized in the past. It’s a universal quality that keeps us moving forward. It’s that desire to be our own truth, to be our whole self. We are all born into these different handicaps, visible or invisible, and they are the catalyst to wake us up and remind us that we came here for growth and awareness. Our hardship and struggles are that springboard to appreciate what we can have here if we look at it differently, or if we experience it with new senses—like jumping into a pool after a horribly hot day is ten times better than jumping into a pool every day when you’ve never really gotten hot. As humans we have these catalysts to keep prodding us forward and to keep remembering there’s a greater and more beautiful truth than maybe what we’re living.”

    From Dr. Daniel Gottlieb, psychologist, author, and radio show host, who’s been paraplegic since a car accident three decades ago:

    “When I’m in a dark hole, I want someone who loves me enough to sit there next to me and not tell me there’s light on the other side. Words are not going to do anything and 90% of the time they’re going to be patronizing. They’re also going to be a byproduct of your own anxiety and helplessness. Just sit with me. Just have the courage to try to fathom what I’m experiencing.”

    From Judy Shephard, who lost her son to an anti-gay hate crime and then founded the Matthew Shephard Foundation to help erase hate:

    “In my personal experience, as well as that of many very close friends and family members, you don’t ‘emerge.’ The darkness is always there; it just gets different. It becomes something you can look at with some objectivity. We still have joy and happiness in our lives; it’s just different. At least, that is what it has been for my family to date. My advice is not to let anyone tell you the accepted time limit for grief—it is limitless. That being said, it must also become something you embrace rather than fear. We’ve encouraged our friends and family to still share memories of Matt, not to shy away from remembering him. He will always be a part of our lives and that is a good thing.”

    From Julia Fox Garrison, stroke survivor and author of the memoir Don’t Leave Me This Way:

    “I think we are conditioned to say the word ‘can’t’ which closes all doors to possibilities. I have discovered that if you include the word ‘yet’ then the door to opportunity remains ajar. I used to say ‘can’t’ so often that it became second nature in conversation. Now I avoid saying ‘can’t’, but when I need to say it, I always include the qualifier, ‘yet’. So I can’t rollerblade yet, but I plan on it someday, maybe.”

    You can learn more about Living Well Despite Adversity: Inspiration for Finding Renewed Meaning and Joy in Your Life on Amazon here.

    FTC Disclosure: I receive complimentary books for reviews and interviews on tinybuddha.com, but I am not compensated for writing or obligated to write anything specific. I am an Amazon affiliate, meaning I earn a percentage of all books purchased through the links I provide on this site. 

  • Life’s Greatest Miracles Often Come Disguised as Hardship

    Life’s Greatest Miracles Often Come Disguised as Hardship

    Colorful Umbrella in the Rain

    “Out of difficulties grow miracles.” ~Jean dela Bruyere

    The image in my mind is vivid, like an old photograph etched into my brain, where every facet is clearly discernible.

    It was a frigid, blustery December night, right before my son’s seventh birthday. The heating unit had gone on the blitz, and the house was so freezing it seemed as though ice crystals would form on the inside of our windows.

    Grabbing as many blankets as possible, I wanted to envelope my son with covers, hoping he would feel safe and warm in the cocoon. Time for bed, I reassured him that all would be fine despite the bitter cold, and to have sweet dreams of sweltering, sunny summer.

    He then uttered a sound that I’ll never forget: “Da-ye.”

    I screamed for my wife, needing a witness to convince me that the frosty air had not played tricks on my brain or ears. She ran upstairs in great haste, anticipating some dire emergency that required her immediate attention.

    I relayed what had just transpired. One minute later, my son uttered the sweet sound again, “Da-ye.”

    My wife started crying—and not because she wanted his first word to be “Mom” or some close variation.

    Tears cascaded down her face because we were told our son would never speak. And at this moment, it was difficult for me to even speak as I was overwhelmed by the unbridled joy that overflowed my heart.

    My wonderful son, Scott, had just given us a gift, a blessing and miracle that was never supposed to be. He’d just uttered his first word, and we anticipated more words to come.

    At about two and a half years old, Scott was diagnosed on the autism spectrum.

    The diagnosis was so grim that we were told that our son would never be able to be functionally independent. Worse, according to the neurodevelopmental specialist, he would not be able to perform even the most rudimentary tasks, or achieve any milestones, like the ability to speak.

    The dire prognosis was unfathomable, and devoid of the slightest compassion: “You better get him ready for an institution because that’s where he is going.”

    Hurt, bewildered, fearful, and especially defensive, I told the doctor that we’re not buying into his bleak fortuneteller’s reading.

    I explained he does not know our son’s innate abilities, the incredible amount of effort and sacrifice we were prepared to exercise to help our son maximize his potential, or what special treatments or breakthroughs are on the horizon.

    “It’s good you still believe in miracles,” the specialist responded. He had the last word … well, if you don’t count my blasphemous retort, said under my breath.

    That car ride home felt like one of the longest rides we had ever taken. We felt hopeless and aimless, uncertain what direction to take.

    But while I was unsure what protocols to begin, I knew that we had to first have a shift of mindset.

    I reminded my wife (and myself) that Scott was no different now than he was before the doctor’s visit. In addition, I told her that we would use this physician’s words to propel us toward meaningful action, and sustain our efforts even though the road ahead seemed endless.

    We would be thoroughly involved moment to moment, choose to be present-oriented, and let the future take care of itself.

    This, in and of itself, could be deemed a miracle. I had always looked at the glass half-empty, consumed with the outcome of a given endeavor, but always expecting an unfavorable result.

    Now, for my own sanity’s sake, and for Scott’s best interests, I had to transform myself into a much more positive person, believing in limitless possibilities.

    I was not going to be weighed down with what if’s and concerns about tomorrow. Each day would present another opportunity to make the proverbial difference in our son’s life.

    Miraculous observation: Life’s challenges and hardships can actually help us evolve.

    We not only have to think of creative solutions, but we have to cultivate a mindset conducive to overcome barriers. We all have the miraculous capacity to change, and obstacles almost demand a change in perspective and mindset if negativity has been the dominating influence in our lives.

    So for the next four and a half years after that life-changing doctor’s visit, I spoke incessantly to Scott as if he understood me. I remember those early years picking Scott up from school, and engaging in marathon monologues.

    Sure, there were dark days. Pessimism and hopelessness would creep in, and I lost some of these emotional battles at times, but I never stopped fighting to control my own thoughts. (As spiritual writer, Louise Hay, points out: “Change the thoughts and the feelings must go.”)

    But overall, you would not recognize me because of my new uncompromising will, determination, and perseverance. I knew my son would speak one day!

    And years later, my prognostication came true, damned the torpedoes and that neurodevelopmental specialist.

    Whatever you’re going through now, see this as an opportunity to transform your state of mind and develop greater optimism and perseverance. Your challenge can make you bitter or better—the choice is yours.

    Miraculous observation: Small changes can lead to big improvement over time.

    Yes, we were blessed that Scott finally started speaking, but even if that never occurred, we saw other miracles. A boy who had colic exponential one million, and who screamed most of the day, transformed into a very affectionate, happy-go-lucky child—even before gaining the capacity to speak.

    You may be facing trials and tribulations right now. Perhaps the outcome that you desire has not materialized yet. However, can you see any small incremental changes helping the pendulum swing in your favor? Can you envision a happy ending but still focus on the here and now?

    Try to see those tiny miracles as they manifest in your own life, and express gratitude when they surface. By appreciating the small shifts, you’ll be better able to maintain an optimistic mindset, which will help you continually move forward.

    Realize you’re a walking and talking miracle, too, and what you can accomplish can transcend anyone else’s limiting beliefs about you. But the first step to opening your eyes to life’s miracles is to free yourself of your own limiting beliefs. You can stronger than you know, and you can do more than you think.

    Miraculous observation: Challenges give us the opportunity for deep connection.

    We often concentrate our energy and attention on those who have hurt us or disappoint us. We tend to overlook those souls who have been instrumental in guiding and leading us toward our best selves.

    While we were reveling in Scott’s progression, it dawned on me that we were blessed to know people who had made tremendous sacrifices to ensure his optimal growth and development.

    We were surrounded and supported by miraculous angels: We had two devoted, creative, and nurturing therapists who worked with Scott, day in and day out, for years. A preschool director had provided a first-rate education to him, and still, years later, spends an inordinate amount of time offering her healing methodologies.

    In addition, one or two teachers at the public school have differentiated themselves from their colleagues by vesting so much energy to see Scott advance. My mom has also been unwavering in her dedication and support of our family.

    The miracle is that there are people in our lives who care deeply about us, and even make sacrifices to try to help us.

    And the miracle of synchronicity occurs: Such people often come into our lives when we need them most. Everything is timing, and our angels came to the forefront at the perfect moments—almost through divine intervention.

    If you feel alone now and can’t think of anyone who can touch your life in a positive way, please be open to widening your social circle. When you’re ready and open to it, the right people will come into your life.

    Lori Deschene, Founder of Tiny Buddha asserts, “The only way to connect with people is to be willing to remove the distance.” All my life I had distanced myself from others. But after Scott’s diagnosis, I had to form meaningful connections—with therapists, teachers, members of the autism community, etc.

    See the miracle of connection, especially when times get tough.

    Final lesson: We can all handle adversity.

    For me, I see adversity as a hard stone—but one that is penetrable. I see myself blasting right through it.

    Others may envision adversity in a different way, or approach it in a different manner. Regardless of perspective, I realize that adversity does not have to overwhelm us if we keep our wits about us. If we choose not to ruminate on how hard it is, we can instead focus on doing whatever is necessary to free ourselves of its hold.

    My son’s so-called disability has changed me immeasurably.

    I’ve learned the miracles of exceeding others’ limiting beliefs, breaking bad habits, adopting a new and improved mindset and disposition, seeing rainbows when it pours, appreciating distinct moments and the synergy of connection with others, all at the right time, and I’ve developed a never-giving-up spirit come what may.

    I owe so much to my beloved son and the miracles I’ve observed since his birth. It is my fervent hope that you see the miracles that are often camouflaged in hardship.

    Colorful umbrella image via Shutterstock