Tiny Buddha

Tag: hurt

  • How to Overcome the Pain of Rejection

    How to Overcome the Pain of Rejection

    “Live your life for you not for anyone else. Don’t let the fear of being judged, rejected or disliked stop you from being yourself.” ~Sonya Parker 

    Hearing this word probably makes you think of not being good enough or not reaching certain standards. As unpleasant as it is, rejection is part of life, and my life is no exception.

    From being the last to be chosen to join the volleyball team to receiving a college admissions response in the dreaded “thin envelope,” I quickly learned that not everybody thought the highest of me.

    As years went by and I took on more risks, I invited more rejection into my life. The boy I crushed on for months only wanted to be friends. Another candidate was selected for my dream job. Many literary agents thought my manuscript wasn’t a good fit for them.

    And eventually, I endured the ultimate form of rejection: The man who promised to be by my side till “death do us part” changed his mind.

    One of the most famous statements by renowned psychologist Abraham Maslow is that self-actualizers are “independent of the good opinion of other people.”

    Even though so many of us have heard Maslow’s or a similar statement, rejection continues to bring up our most negative emotions. We feel ashamed and inadequate, and wonder whether something is seriously wrong with us.

    A recent social research study shows that the same regions of the brain that become active during painful sensory experiences are also activated when we experience social rejection.

    Rejection literally hurts.

    What to do? How do we lessen the pain? How do we join the ranks of Maslow’s self-actualizers?

    Here is what I’ve learned.

    Rejection is negative judgment manifested, and judgment is subjective by nature.

    This means you can decide to interpret rejection as evidence of someone’s perception rather than as evidence of your flawed nature.

    The area rug that is beautiful to your best friend might be hideous to you, and that’s okay. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but an opinion doesn’t determine whether a rug is truly pretty or ugly. The rug just is.

    The same principle applies to opinions about everything else, including people’s opinions about you.

    People who reject you are the minority.

    Estimate how many people you’ve met in your entire life. Count the number of people who have severely rejected you. Divide the second number by the first, and you’ll see how the result rarely exceeds 1%.

    Is 1% significant? If you only drink 1% milk, you feel your diet is healthful because after all, 1% milk fat is almost nothing, correct?

    I’ve met thousands of people throughout my life, and even though I have received a fair deal of moderate rejection, only a couple of people have rejected me in such a way that seriously challenged my self-identity.

    Bottom line, extreme rejection is usually the exception.

    The intensity of your negative emotions will depend on the degree of attention you place on the rejection.

    You can be aware of the unpleasant experience, but if you don’t focus on it, you’ll take away its power.

    Place your attention on the positive feedback and support you receive from others. Being consciously aware of the people who have encouraged you will allow you to align with high-energy emotions and positive situations.

    Rejection can be an instrument for learning and growth.

    Although rejection is subjective, you could decide to use the experience as an opportunity to contemplate your current behaviors, and determine ways to grow and become a better person.

    Rejection from potential employers became my motivation to review my resume and enroll in professional development courses.

    The feedback I received from literary agents propelled me to bring my writing craft to the next level.

    My husband’s decision to leave our marriage moved me to help others going through a similar situation.

    Rejection is a sign you’re experiencing life to the fullest.

    Chances are, if you had chosen to hide under the covers and had not pursued the friendship, career, contest, or relationship, you wouldn’t have experienced rejection.

    But you wouldn’t have completely experienced life either.

    Learn to see rejection as proof that you’re brave enough to take on risks and to participate in the wide realm of experiences available on this planet. Feel empowered by what you have accomplished.

    The only approval that truly matters is your self-approval.

    Your self-love and respect for your uniqueness will trump the negative emotions brought up by rejection.

    Once you’re conscious of your magnificence, rejection will lose its power.

    You might not feel happy about being rejected, but you will bounce back quickly.

    Most importantly, you’ll continue embracing life, pursuing your truth, and focusing on the many gifts in your past, present, and future.

  • How Forgiveness Enables Us to Stop Hurting Ourselves

    How Forgiveness Enables Us to Stop Hurting Ourselves

    Healing

    “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and realize that prisoner was you.” ~Lewis B. Smedes

    I was planning a seminar event with one of my good friends. (Let’s call her “Randi.”) It was a great match; she had event planning and design expertise, and great energy in front of an audience. I understood the structure of such an event, and I authored much of the content.

    It was a powerful presentation and we were going to be a great team bringing the material to life. We spent months putting the seminar together: rehearsing, setting the date, booking the venue, designing the graphic announcements, and buying advertising. With only a few weeks to go, everything was in place.

    Then I got an email from Randi. She was still going to do the seminar, just not with me.

    She had a new boyfriend whom she felt he was more suited to her vision of how to present the material. Without consulting me, Randi changed the graphics for the presentation, one of the presenter names, and charged ahead with her new version of the seminar.

    To be honest, I was shocked. I had spent a significant amount of time and money up to this point, and leveraged all of my contacts. I thought we made a great team, and I trusted her without question to carry out the tasks we had agreed upon to make the seminar a reality.

    I immediately called Randi but she didn’t answer my calls (probably a wise thing since I was mad). I wrote to her explaining that a great deal of the content in the seminar was my original material, and she had no right to use it.

    I demanded that she refund my share of the money we had spent on advertising and the venue deposit. She wrote back that she was sorry, but the answer to all my demands was no.

    I was outraged and felt betrayed! I developed a story that I repeated endlessly in my head about what she did, why it was wrong, and how it violated every agreement we made.

    Gathering all my evidence I headed to court: not legal court but the court of public opinion. I went to all my friends and laid out the facts—the evidence—and asked them for a verdict. The verdict was unanimous. Guilty!

    Now I had plenty of evidence that I was right. In my mind the betrayal was not clouded in shades of grey but was black and white: We had an agreement, I trusted her, and she had violated that trust.

    I was right, and yet being right was making me miserable. The more I told the story of what she did, and why it was so wrong, the more unhappy I became.

    Simply put, I was using her to abuse myself. But as long as I kept telling the betrayal story—to myself or anyone that would listen—I couldn’t let it go.

    Eventually the stubborn attitude, “I can’t get past this,” was no match for the awareness that every time I engaged in my story it was like hovering too close to a hot stove. It was unmistakably clear to me that my insistence on being right was burning me.

    Being right (my intellectual interpretation of the event) was a dead end I could never resolve. Repeating my story was like hitting my finger over and over again with a hammer.

    It took a while, but the awareness of what I was doing revealed that there was only one choice I could make to get the emotional turmoil to stop.

    What finally healed me was forgiveness. In the end I didn’t forgive her because it was the right thing to do. My intellect was too strong and the facts too compelling.

    I didn’t forgive her because that’s what good people do. I couldn’t forgive her even though I agreed with what the famous poet Alexander Pope said: “To err is human: to forgive, divine.”

    I could never come to a resolution weighing the pros and cons. I simply chose to give up my story, let the whole thing go, and forgave her because it felt good. Forgiveness was the only medicine that would heal the wound I created.

    When we can’t forgive someone for an offense, and justify being right about it, we are only using them to hurt ourselves. It’s a trap, a maze of suffering without end.

    Being right and getting all worked up about it—our national pastime—only hurts us.

    To heal any hurt caused by the perception that you’ve been abandoned, betrayed, disappointed, misunderstood, or unfairly treated takes a double dose of the sweetest medicine of all: forgiveness.

    Photo by Neal Fowler

  • A Simple Way to Avoid Hurting Other People

    A Simple Way to Avoid Hurting Other People

    “Don’t let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” ~Dalai Lama

    The most straightforward advice I can suggest to make real concrete changes in your life is to practice causing no harm to anyone—yourself or others.

    Try it for a day. Or two. How about a week? You will probably find that it’s harder than you think. Before you know it, someone has triggered you, and either directly or indirectly, you’ve caused harm.

    I am a successful psychotherapist and conscious woman, and I’m also committed to transparency. No more hiding behind the therapist’s veil for me. The one that projects enlightenment and hides the truths of being human.

    With that said, I happen to be a bit controlling. Take a moment and imagine yourself at a Twelve Step meeting. “Hello. My name is Carrie Dinow, and I am addicted to control.”

    It’s really helpful to get to know the ways you cause harm, much like you would a lover in the early stages of a romance when every part of you wants to know the other. You definitely want to get to know your own inner ‘others,’ the pained shadow parts of yourself that can live buried below the surface.

    The ways we cause harm can show up like fifty shades of grey, so the more intimate you can be with your own particular expression, the greater chance you have to let go. Like being overly invested in how many men join my husband’s camping weekend.

    The most obvious expressions, of course, appear as control, blame, withdrawal, and lashing out. With a little gossip and lying on the side.

    What is your harm of no choice?

    You’ve heard the fairy tale about the toads. It involves a princess who, when angered, would start to say mean words, and toads would actually come out of her mouth.

    How many times I have said to myself, “Do not say a word. Keep your mouth shut. It will only cause harm.” Despite our good and sincere intentions, most of us wrestle with our own toads. I know I have.

    I find that I am just like the Buddha—as long as I’m alone. It’s a lot easier to keep my mouth shut when it’s just me, myself, and I. Add a husband (even one of the best ones on the planet) and highly persistent daughter (the love of my loves), and all bets are off.

    The other night my daughter was extremely persistent, keen on getting her way. My husband, who is a revered psychotherapist—adolescents being his specialty—wrestles with his own blaming toads. In the past, his toads would trigger my toads. And faster than you can say Jackie Robinson, we are consumed by a plague of harm.

    So what are the ways for holding our seat, and for making sure the toads of control and blame don’t fly out of our mouths? The one I have found most impactful of all is to just shut up. No matter what, don’t scratch the itch. That’s all! Mmmm….

    That’s one reason I meditate. To court my inner toads and free me from my learned drug of no choice—control. It’s profoundly humbling to sit with my own thoughts, and to sit with an itch and not scratch it, without an escape clause.

    The practice of returning over and over to my breath allows me the choice of whether or not I stay attached to this addiction. When conflict arises or tones don’t meet my approval rating, I have more of a choice of how I want to react.

    Letting go of this lifelong relationship to control allows me to tolerate others’ behavior. No longer a feather in the wind at the mercy of someone else’s emotional breath, my need to escape the scene when things don’t go my way seems to be calming, mostly.

    After many years, meditation has become my new drug of choice. It offers me a chance to pause so I can actively engage in letting go of my control which, in my household, reduces the harm. The benefits are a lot like cooking with Teflon; things don’t seem to stick as much.

    What does it take to change the habitual response and to keep your mouth from spewing poisonous toads? To begin a different practice with yourself? One that honors letting the moment pass without responding to it?

    Most of us could use some basic tips on on how to loosen the grip on our well-ingrained habits of striking out and blaming.
 Each time we lash out with aggressive words and actions, we are strengthening the toad pool. And, the internal scoreboard can start to look like Anger 10, Patience 2.

    In the game of life, we can become easily irritated by the reactions of others. However, each time someone provokes us, we have a chance to do something different, to tend to our own reactions. Either we can strengthen old habits or we can take a moment to pause.
 That’s what it takes, a big fat pause.

    Did you know that patience is the antidote to anger? Learning to pause can help us develop our patience. When we begin to pause instead of retaliating, even if it’s only briefly, we are starting to loosen the pattern of causing harm.

    Have you ever noticed that much of the suffering comes from the escalation from that one moment when someone comes at you with a tone or says something that hurts your feelings, or has an opinion you absolutely don’t agree with? It’s what we do with that one moment to the next that can imprison or free us.

    Each time the toads escape us, we escalate our aggression and solidify our harm habit, which makes it a bit more difficult to calm the waters. If we learn to sit still with the restlessness and the sensations of anger, we can begin to tame and strengthen our mind.

    If only we could pause. Give it a try. No harm done.

  • How to Love More and Hurt Less in Relationships

    How to Love More and Hurt Less in Relationships

    “Our interactions with one another reflect a dance between love and fear.” ~Ram Dass

    In my personal experience, I’ve learned that it is sometimes easier to dance this journey of life solo rather than in partnership. Many of us have experienced life both in relationships and outside of them. Both are just as sweet.

    I’d like to offer up some lessons I have learned in my dance in and out of relationships:

    1. They are not meant to last forever.

    Our society seems to put a lot of pressure on the idea that things will last forever. But the truth is, everything is impermanent.

    After a recent breakup, I found myself feeling as though I had failed the relationship. Then I stepped outside of my conditioned thinking and discovered that love and failure do not reside together. For when you have loved, you have succeeded, every time.

    It was Wayne Dyer that introduced me to the rather practical concept that “not every relationship is meant to last forever.” What a big burden off my back! Of all the souls hanging out on this planet, it seems to make sense that we might have more than one soul mate floating around.

    Relationships can be our greatest teachers; it is often through them that we discover the most about ourselves. In relationships, we are provided with an opportunity to look into a mirror, revealing what we need to work on as individuals in order to be the best version of ourselves.

    Each relationship will run its course, some a few weeks, months, years, or even a lifetime. This is the unknown that we all leap into.

    2. Attachment is often the cause of suffering.

    We sometimes cling to people in an attempt to hold them closer, but this often pushes them further away.

    In love there is nothing to grasp; it is so expansive that trying to capture it is like trying to capture water with a net. When we attempt to control where a relationship is going, we become disconnected with the sweetness of the moment.

    Ram Dass shared one of the most exquisite paradoxes: “As soon as you can give it all up, you can have it all.”

    It is silly to think that we can own someone’s love, but many of us have tried to do it.

    I often find myself fantasizing about how my future will unfold with a new partner, but it is in that moment when I fall out of the present.

    We have the opportunity to surrender to the natural flow of relationships, letting go of our proposed outcomes and taking ourselves out of the driver seat.

    This means being fully present in moments of intense love, conflict, uncertainty, vulnerability, and joy.

    3. Being vs. doing.

    In the beginning of relationships, we strive to show up as our best selves, hoping to impress the other person and to receive their love in return. In most cases, we are focused on doing simply because we want to make an outstanding impression on the person we fancy.

    But if you’re anything like me, being and doing are extremely hard to keep up at the same time.

    In relationships there is work, but there isn’t much we have to actively do. In fact, doing can often be associated with attempting to control a situation.

    The place where we should hang out is in the being. Being allows us to show up as our authentic selves. When we show up as humans being, something magical happens. Being is our natural state. Love thrives in this space.

    4. Allow for change.

    Don’t be attached to any particular way your partner is showing up each day. Change is inevitable. As humans being, we are constantly growing and discovering new passions and experiences.

    For example, next week your partner might wake up with the realization that they want to leave their job as a lawyer and become a yoga instructor. How will you respond? The news might be shocking and somewhat unusual, but change happens. The question is, can you allow space for that?

    Oftentimes it is harder to embrace change within others than it is to accept within ourselves. If you are anything like me, consistency is super important; however, completely unrealistic. Someone once told me “you are consistent with your inconsistency.” I initially took this as an insult, but now I see it as a practical strength. It shows movement and willingness to change.

    —

    Love is the greatest dance in life. Surrender to each step. Hold your partner close to your heart, but don’t grasp. If we can allow ourselves to enter into partnerships with this awareness, it may dramatically shift the way we see and experience relationships and love.

    Couple image here

  • Dealing with Life’s Inevitable Pain: 4 Lessons to Help Reduce Your Suffering

    Dealing with Life’s Inevitable Pain: 4 Lessons to Help Reduce Your Suffering

    Sad Woman

    “Suffering is not caused by pain but by resisting pain.” ~Unknown

    Pain is everywhere. Whether through heartbreak or a broken bone, we all struggle with unavoidable hurt at some point in our lives. Often, even the suggestion of suffering is enough to send us running for cover.

    One of our most basic instincts is to avoid being hurt, and for good reason. The world is full of sharp objects and hot frying pans. While our instinctive wiring is helpful when it comes to cooking, it only contributes to our suffering when applied to the pain of relationships and physical discomfort in our lives.

    I have an unusual amount of experience with physical pain. Along with the sprained ankles, broken toes, and pinched fingers of everyday life, I have survived three open-heart surgeries, a bone marrow tap, and hundreds of needles.

    From the slight pinch of a blood-pressure cuff, to the white-hot burn of needles touching bone, to the agony of layers of skin coming off with bandages, I have experienced a thousand degrees of pain.

    I spent years hating every moment of pain I endured. I have fought tooth and nail (and many an unfortunate nurse) to escape the experience. Yet, my resistance and anger did not lessen my pain. If anything, my struggle only increased it.

    Each us will someday face the experience of unavoidable emotional, mental, or physical pain. Whether mild or excruciating, how we approach our physical suffering can change how we approach any discomfort in our lives.

    Here are the four lessons I have learned from pain:

    1. There is only this moment.

    In the midst of pain, there is only the eternal present. The past and future become meaningless when we cannot imagine a time when we will not be consumed with pain. Living in the present moment may be the last thing we wish to do, as we scramble desperately for any distraction from our suffering.

    Yet, we must allow our pain to exist, as no more or less than it is.

    By asking ourselves every moment “Can I bear this right now?” we disengage our minds from creating more suffering through struggling against what is real.

    One breath, one second at a time, we can breathe through any pain, physical or emotional. In attuning to the present, we realize that not only are we strong enough to endure, but that our pain is lessened when we cease to struggle against it.

    2. Resistance creates more pain.

    A tense muscle feels more pain. As we expend more energy to keep our suffering at a distance from ourselves, we increase our distress. Paradoxically, relaxing into the sensation of pain, even by the smallest degree, makes us more resilient.

    By approaching physical distress with curiosity and compassion for ourselves, we may notice small differences in our experiences. We may even discover that the anticipation of pain in our minds is worse than the actual experience.

    Surrendering to suffering allows us to pass beyond it. Mental and emotional pain cannot dissolve until we acknowledge that they exist. By ceasing to struggle against an internal or external force, we leave room for our courage to move through us.

    3. It’s okay to cry.

    The image of the strong, silent warrior is a misleading symbol. Often, we think that holding our breath, stifling our tears and our cries of agony will make us stronger. In fact, the opposite is true.

    Our body releases biochemicals and hormones in response to both physical and emotional pain. Giving voice to our suffering is healthy and allows us to process these chemicals much more quickly.

    Just as vocalizations are used in martial arts to focus the energy of a strike and students of yoga breathe into poses, we can use our voices to channel and release pain. Animals shake, run, and shriek to blow off the intense energy that pain creates. We can do the same by letting our inner creature howl.

    4. A life without pain is impossible.

    While a cushioned life without pain is appealing, it is impossible. Striving for a life free of physical suffering not only takes us away from reality, but also isolates us from the joys of life. Our moments of agony can help us appreciate our times of ecstasy even more.

    Cultivating the idea that pain is only one of many experiences allows us to reframe our suffering. Rather than interpreting is as a punishment, we can choose to see pain as just another bodily sensation. We certainly do not have to enjoy it, but we can strive to accept pain as a part of being human.

    In opening myself to the experience of pain, I have discovered not weakness, but unexpected courage within myself. By striving to remain present in moments of discomfort, we can unearth hidden grace in the most painful situations.

    Photo by Robert Vitulano

  • How Pain from the Past Can Be a Gift in the Present

    How Pain from the Past Can Be a Gift in the Present

    “When something bad happens you have three choices. You can let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” ~Unknown

    Don’t hate your past. No matter what it contained or what it did to you, the past shapes who you are, not just for the things you felt damaged you but for the lessons you can take from it.

    I love working with the people I call the world shakers. They’re the people who want to make a difference in the world so that they leave it in a slightly better way than they found it.

    I love these types of people because they’re so driven by their heart and passion for others. They’re kind. They value people.

    You know what else these people have in common? They have empathy for others and a desire to make the world a better place. Not in a showy, “give me the Nobel Peace Prize” kind of way (although a bit more showy-ness wouldn’t go amiss!) but in a gentle, modest way.

    Do you know what really amazes and inspires me about world shakers? They’ve had their own hurts, challenges, and heartbreaks but instead of letting those things harden them and make them brittle, they’ve allowed themselves to stay open and vulnerable.

    They’ve taken those things that have wounded, battered, and pierced them and transformed the experiences into fierce empathy for others.

    They can’t walk past the person who’s struggling because they know how it feels to struggle. They have a way of recognizing the human condition in all of us.

    They turn it outward and use it as a learning experience, one that enhances their ability to empathize and drives their conviction to change things for others.

    It could be the mother who refuses to pass on the cycle of abuse she experienced to her own kids, or the teacher who bans the world “stupid” from her classroom because she can remember how much it crippled her to hear it as a child.

    It could be the man who gives coffee to the homeless guy every day because he can knows what it’s like to feel like no one cares about you, or the recovering addict who works with troubled teens to try and save them the pain of his experiences.

    World shaking is often driven by a need to make things better because of the pain we’ve suffered ourselves. 

    Still, I still have to catch myself when I bemoan the things that have happened to me over the years. Like everyone, I’ve had my share of unpleasant, difficult, and down right heart breaking experiences.

    For the longest time I was angry at the world because I’d experienced them. I hated the mistakes I made. I berated myself for my screw-ups and stupid choices. I felt defined by them—embarrassed and soiled—like I should be wearing a T-Shirt with the words “Damaged Goods” on it.

    One day, a very wise person said these words to me:

    Everything that has ever happened to you is the perfect preparation for the person you’re destined to become.

    And everything flipped.

    Those things that I had regretted so much had shaped me. What’s more, I had a choice in it. I had inadvertently used those things that had happened to me as things that drove me forward. Many of the things I’d become interested in, my passions, and my values were driven by those very experiences.

    I’m a passionate advocate for reducing the stigma associated with mental health issues, and I started my whole journey of learning about personal development and emotional resilience because of my own battles with stress-related illness.

    I help people find joy, passion, and a sense of purpose at work and that’s undoubtedly because I spent so many years in jobs that didn’t suit or that where I didn’t feel I was making a difference.

    I’ve also struggled in jobs that really did suit me because I didn’t know how to handle the stresses and challenges our work can bring. I didn’t understand the importance of asking for help, having strong support networks, actively managing stress, and making sure I wasn’t mentally giving myself a hard time too often.

    Having to take a break due to burn out and stress felt horrible at the time it happened to me. But during that time out I studied, trained, and read—a lot!

    I realized that resilience is a practice, not some innate skill that you either have or you don’t. I learned how to develop my own resilience and that made me immensely driven to help others do it, too.

    My dark times also forged my sense of empathy, a key skill I bring to my work. If I’d had the “charmed” life I’d originally wanted, would this have been the case? Somehow I doubt it.

    All of the lessons I’ve learned led to wisdom that can only be gained through experiencing life’s ups and downs.

    Hard lessons learned are deep lessons. They shape us. Most of us are familiar with the term post-traumatic stress, but did you know there is also a phenomenon called post-traumatic growth?

    It’s the ability to grow through adversity—to come out the other end stronger, clearer, and with a renewed zest for life.

    I think that’s what many of us fail to recognize in ourselves, that those dark times, far from diminishing us, can give us the most profound of gifts—the gift of recognizing human life in all its messy, painful, courageous glory.

    We can take those gifts and use them to be a beacon to others to say, “It’s okay. I’ve been there. This too will pass.”

    And that surely is a real gift worth giving.

  • How to Move On When You’re Hurt and Waiting for Closure

    How to Move On When You’re Hurt and Waiting for Closure

    “Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Ah, closure. That feeling of vindication, or a sense of completion—it can be very enticing!

    There are times when seeking resolution is really important. If we are having an argument with our partner, settling it can help strengthen our relationship. If we are having a disagreement over a contract, determining the outcome may be required to continue with the project at hand.

    In these types of situations, seeking resolution is very relevant.

    That said, there are loads of situations that occur in life in which we seek closure, even though it does not really serve us. As a matter of fact, this desire can hold us back.

    When we feel we’ve been done wrong, we want resolution. The size or type of infraction may not matter. We want to know who is guilty of the offense, or, if we know who the culprit is, we want to know why they did it.

    Here’s the catch: It’s pretty common to feel like this resolution is necessary to move forward.

    Many moons ago I was in a relationship with a man who turned out to be quite unsavory. Unbeknownst to me, he had gone through my wallet, made note of my credit card info, and was using two of my cards to finance what I can only describe as a shopping addiction.

    I was not using the cards at all, so was not expecting to see bills, and since he consistently arrived home before I did, he was able to get the bills from the mailbox before I ever saw them.

    I did not learn of his deception until we broke up for other reasons.

    Besides dealing with typical breakup emotions, I also had to face the reality of this man’s ability to lie to me and steal from me.

    Yes, the relationship went south, but I thought we’d had love and respect between us, and, well, enough integrity to not commit crimes against one another.

    I wanted him to account for his behavior; I wanted an apology; I wanted him to explain to me how he could have behaved in such a despicable manner toward anyone, much less me, his girlfriend (at the time).

    Unsurprisingly, I didn’t get any of that.

    I was rocked by this for quite some time. It took me months to realize that the reason I wasn’t getting over it was because I was still waiting for him to explain, apologize, or something. I realized that if I wanted to let it go, I was also going to have to let go of my desire for him to admit he was a mega jerk.

    We want to feel in the right. We want it to be recognized that we were done wrong. If possible, we want an admission of guilt.

    However, in looking for this type of closure, we are often giving away our power. We’re saying, “I cannot move past this experience until…”

    What we actually desire is an internal, emotional shift. We want to feel better!

    We already know we can’t expect the outside world to take care of our feelings. Let’s apply that knowledge to resolution as well.

    Here’s how I got over the thieving boyfriend situation, and it’s a formula I continue to remind myself of whenever I begin to feel like I can’t move past an experience until satisfaction is mine.

    Acknowledge that something crappy happened.

    Yes, it totally sucks when a formerly good friend stops returning our calls and texts. And it can be life-altering when we are let go from a job, despite receiving positive feedback on our performance review.

    It’s important not to pretend. Sometimes we rush past the feelings that are present in an attempt to appear uncaring (unhurt, really), or like we have it handled. Getting back on the horse is great and all, but let’s first acknowledge that it hurt when we were knocked off!

    Having feelings doesn’t make us less able to handle tough stuff, or to come up with great solutions. It just means we’re human.

    Identify all the feelings you do have.

    If the situation is minor, it may be one or two feelings. For more intense events, it can take a while to pinpoint all of them.

    This is essential, because identification and recognition go hand-in-hand. In doing this, we’re accepting that we are feeling these emotions. This sort of self-acknowledgment is crucial.

    By the way, we’re the only ones who get to decide what is major, or minor, for us. We’re all unique, and we’ve all had different experiences that have helped mold who we are. Something that is minor for one may be major for another, and vice versa. That’s okay.

    The point is not to compare the experience we are having to how others would react; it’s to self-process and move forward.

    Release the need for outside meditation of any sort.

    This is not about forgiveness. It’s not about taking the high road, either. Those options both involve the other person. This is about us, and what we want.

    It is simply about asserting that we can move forward regardless of what is happening (or what doesn’t happen) in the outside world. We can use affirmations, or meditation, or whatever tools work for us for energy release.

    When we are looking for resolution from the outside world, we are also seeking acknowledgement. Learning to self-acknowledge is a wonderful gift to give ourselves.

    Whether you use the tips above, or another recipe that works for you, let’s choose to move forward. We are the one who will benefit, and we’re the only ones who will suffer if we don’t.

  • How to Be Hurt Less by So-Called Evil People

    How to Be Hurt Less by So-Called Evil People

    Protected by Light

    “Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

    There were monsters in my closet—or so my five-year-old self believed. As soon as my mother kissed me goodnight and flipped the lights off, they would appear.

    See, in my room, the sliding closet doors were kept open, and on the top three shelves, monsters would magically appear in the darkness. Their wide mouths closely resembled folded towels and their eyes looked like the buttons of my sweaters, but I was too scared to notice.

    I could only see evil creatures staring at me, and after a few minutes of terrorizing myself, I would run out of my room and jump in my parents’ bed. Then, one night, I closed the closet doors and the monsters went away.

    Years later, another monster would haunt me in the middle of the night.

    This monster had a name, and one of those facial expressions that made her look as she was perpetually frowning. This monster had had an affair with my husband, and had repeatedly attempted to thwart all of my efforts to forgive and to save my marriage.

    “That woman is evil,” friends of mine who knew her would say. “She’s plain evil.”

    I believed she was evil, and when she assumed the role of a monster in my head, anger and fear settled themselves comfortably in my heart.

    As I did when I was little, I tried to close the doors of my awareness to send this new monster away. When a thought about what had happened came to me, I would push it out of my mind, but the thought would eventually return with renewed intensity.

    Then, one day, as life as I knew it crumbled before my eyes, I started to awaken. I knew that unless I let go of the fear and anger, I wouldn’t be able to move forward into love and happiness. I loved myself too much to remain stuck in this dark place.

    Messages about oneness and compassion seemed to come to me from books, podcasts, live lectures, the Internet, and people I met. Life was calling me back.

    I understood that I had the power to free myself from this “monster” and from all the “evil” people that might try to come into my life. I’d like to share what I learned with you. 

    “Evilness” is a judgment.

    When you label people as “evil” or as “bad,” you block your ability to see that they come from the same source that created you. Removing judgment allows you to extend compassion not only to them, but also to yourself. Through compassion, you can heal.

    You can choose not to give power to so-called evil people.

    You might have given the evildoers starring roles in your life drama, but to them, you might just be someone who got in their way. They pursued their goal without considering the damage caused by their actions.

    They probably rationalized what they did in a way that made them feel they weren’t doing anything wrong, or that they had no option but to do what they did.

    By realizing this, taking the actions of others less personally, and changing your thoughts about these actions, you can choose not to give your power away to other people. You can lessen the negative impact that hurtful actions have on your emotional state.

    “Bad” people can become your greatest teachers.

    My adult-life “monster” taught me to deal with adversity like no one else. Whoever has come into your life has done so for a reason. Ask yourself what lesson you can learn from the negative behavior of other people.

    It’s okay to reject “evil.”

    Once the worst of my situation was over, I learned I had the choice to simply not let myself be bothered by what anyone had done to me.

    When people were verbally attacking him in public, Buddha responded, “If you have a gift to give a friend, but the friend refuses to accept the gift, who then does the gift belong to?”

    Limit your time with those who tend to bring negativity into your life and choose not to place your attention on the detrimental actions of others.

    “Evil” dissolves when you bring light into it.

    If I had just turned on the light in my room when I was little, the monsters in my closet would’ve disappeared.

    Usually, when others attack you, they are subconsciously seeking to bring up negative emotions in you. Their pain needs to feed on your pain to continue existing. If you decide to not give in to the negative emotions, they’ll have less incentive to attack. Light nullifies darkness.

    Bring the light of your love and kindness to everyone around you, and watch the “bad” people in your life retreat or even change their actions.

    “Evil” people don’t know better.

    People who hurt you act out of ignorance. They justify their harmful behavior by thinking they are doing what they need to do given the circumstances in their lives.

    Also, people who harm others are usually in dreadful emotional states. They are under such pain that all they have to give to others is pain. Realizing this truth will help you advance on the road to compassion and forgiveness.

    There are no evil people.

    However, the world is filled with people thinking evil thoughts. If you become prey to anger and hatred, you’ll join the ranks.

    Send love to everyone around you, including those who’ve hurt you. Love will open the door for goodness to come into your life, and will close the door to those evil monsters in the closet who are people just like you and me, doing what they think is best at a certain moment in their lives.

    Photo by Jenny Poole

  • Finally Letting Go of the Pain and Moving On after a Breakup

    Finally Letting Go of the Pain and Moving On after a Breakup

    “Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” ~C. S. Lewis

    Another year over and you’re still troubled by a relationship that ended last year or in years past. The whole thing is dragging on too long—why can’t you just get over it? But every time you think about it or bump into your ex, you feel ruined again

    How about giving your feelings another shake?

    Rattle them in any direction—a new one. If it turns out to be the wrong direction you can correct that later, but just move them, any which way, get them out of the rut they’re in. One way to do this is by talking it through, even more than you already have.

    Why Talk it Out?

    Perhaps something remains unsaid for you, even now. Perhaps that’s why your feelings remain so strong. Or perhaps they’re entangled with non-relationship issues—a sense of getting older, time passing, concern about not having children, or the life you hoped for.

    Perhaps part of you holds out hope you could get back together again. Perhaps you need to admit that and let go of it.

    Maybe you fear you won’t meet anyone else like your ex. You won’t, but you will meet someone. Just they will be different.

    Explore all this.

    How It Helped Me

    I attended a few counseling sessions a year after the end of a relationship. It had been a long, happy relationship that had started in my early twenties, but it burned out as our lives took us in different mental and geographic directions.

    For the year after the breakup I got on okay with life, but the shine had gone. A veil hung between me and true engagement with the world. I could smile but the smile never went to my eyes.

    I honestly thought I had done all the talking I could at the time of the breakup—my ex and I had even attended couple-counseling together—but a year later, something still felt stuck in my chest.

    So I sat myself down in front of a counselor. I didn’t want to or feel like it, but suddenly all this stuff came out of my mouth—stuff I found laughable or which fell away as I said it, stuff I didn’t know I’d been thinking. Apparently, it just wanted to get itself off my chest. And it had needed a year to mature sufficiently to do it.

    I kept apologizing to the counselor for talking endlessly and not letting her get a word in. But it worked. I realized I was over the relationship, but not the process of its ending—the fatigue, the accusations, the indecisions, the reverberation among friends and family.

    I was suffering a lingering childlike shock that such things could happen in life. Discovering this, and finally putting words to it, allowed those feelings to go.

    Some other things I’ve learned along the way:

    If You’re Feeling Overwhelmed By Emotion

    You’ve just bumped into your ex and you’re feeling highly emotional. Half of you wants to cry, half of you would do anything to get rid of those feelings.

    This is your mind panicking to get rid of emotions it cannot understand. The mind likes to understand things but can never understand the heart. Hearts have no logic.

    So, abandon trying to comprehend what happened or why. After all, at this stage, is there anything your ex could say or do that would change how you feel?

    Befriend the part of you that gets emotional. Don’t beat it up. It’s normal and healthy to feel how you feel. You’re alive!

    Besides, emotion shows you have a heart and would not wish the same sorrow on others. This aspect of your personality is to be treasured. Wouldn’t you love it in anyone else?

    So, instead of trying to quash emotion, ask “Is it possible for me to feel like this and still be okay?” Because your heart is stronger than you know; it is designed to handle being broken.

    Loving Someone Does Not Mean You Should Be With Them

    It also doesn’t mean that they’re good for you. Face this reality squarely. You can have a happy life, even with great sorrow in your heart, even while carrying loss.

    Physically, your body is probably keeping going just fine and it’s only your mind that has the problem. Its idea that “things should have been different” conflicts with what actually happened, so it wedges your mental wounds open.

    That causes the turmoil. Give in.

    Admit: “This is exactly how it should have been. This is exactly how it is.” Shrug while saying it. Facing the truth is difficult. As a result, life may feel more painful, yet perhaps also more peaceful, because conflict with it is reduced.

    Our Sorrowful Life And Happy Life Can Exist In Parallel

    Author A.S.Byatt has occasionally spoken about the longevity of bereavement. She lost her son forty years ago. He was eleven.

    Twenty years later she told an interviewer, “You don’t get over it and you suffer greatly from people supposing you will. You suffer from people not understanding the pain of grief.”

    Another twenty years on, Byatt shared with another interviewer a metaphor she developed with her friend Gill Cadell, a widow. It involves parallel train tracks:

    “One is appalling and one you just go along,” explained Byatt. “Gill said to me, ‘Is it alright to be pleased to see the flowers in the morning?’ And I said, ‘Oh yes, because the other track is always there.’”

    The interviewer asked, “You mean the appalling track?”

    “Yep.”

    “And it’s still there?”

    “Oh yes, it hasn’t changed.”’

    You see, winter trickles into the beginnings of spring. It’s okay to try loving a new person while still loving your ex. The heart can simultaneously run along multiple tracks.

    Making The Decision

    My friend, who dabbles in NLP, had a client who was still heartbroken eighteen months after breaking up with her boyfriend. The woman was explaining to my friend, in detail, how she felt—a curdle of sadness, anger, hurt—and how she was convinced she would never be able to move on.

    My friend stopped her, saying, “And now tell me, how you will feel when you are over him?”

    The woman described how free she would feel, how relieved that it was behind her, how keen she would be to get on with life, how confident and unafraid she would be if she happened to meet her ex.

    My friend suggested, “So why don’t you just feel that now?”

    The woman’s life transformed instantly.

    For her, it was about making a decision to move on. If it has been a while since your relationship ended, perhaps this choice is also available to you. Play with the idea.

    Five More Minutes And We’re Going On A Bike Ride

    I remember a story about Kylie Minogue that went something like this. She had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and her boyfriend sometimes found her crying on the bathroom floor.

    He would firmly tell her, “Okay, honey, you can cry for just five minutes, then I’m taking you on the bike for a ride.”

    She’d think, “Hmm. Actually a bike ride sounds pretty good.”

    This is the attitude to take. It doesn’t matter if sorrow comes again and again, just each time draw a line in the sand. And beyond that line make something else happen.

    It Has Been Long Enough Now

    People may tell you it’s time you got over your relationship. Like with bereavement, you don’t ever have to “get over” it, but you may need to more forcibly move yourself on, and if you’re stuck, to take a new approach to doing so.

    Hurtful experiences, ones that emotionally and logistically reset our lives, leave us with two choices: open up more or close down.

    The braver choice—the one that will allow new things to enter your life—is to open up.

    So how about setting aside a few weeks to unfold this a little more? If you can’t climb out, dig out. Book yourself a few sessions with a counselor whether or not you feel like it or think it will help.

    Go in, sit down, see what happens. Give your heart the chance to say everything it wants regarding the relationship and whatever is entwined with it. What emerges may surprise you.

    Give yourself a new and different opportunity to leave it behind.

  • How to Heal From Rejection: 5 Steps to Soothe the Pain

    How to Heal From Rejection: 5 Steps to Soothe the Pain

    Feel Alone

    “Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

    I spent years training as a psychologist, waiting for the day I would graduate and finally have time to explore my second passion—writing.

    When I opened a private practice I left my mornings free, and over the next fourteen years I wrote six screenplays, two novels, and a children’s book. But mostly I wrote letters, thousands of them, to agents, editors, and producers, asking them to read my work.

    They rejected every manuscript I sent them.

    After fourteen years of rejection, my mood, my confidence, my motivation, and my hope of ever being published or produced were fading. I felt too drained, too wounded to continue writing. I knew I needed to heal.

    Since I was a psychologist, my first move was to check out the latest research on rejection. I was especially curious to see if anything was known about why rejections cause such strong emotional pain. (As we all know, social and romantic rejections can be excruciating.)

    What I found was rather surprising. Functional MRI studies have revealed that the same areas of the brain become activated when we experience rejection as when we experience physical pain. In other words, rejections hurt because they literally mimic physical pain in our brain.

    I also discovered there are five things we can do to soothe the emotional pain rejections elicit, as well as to speed our psychological recovery:

    1. Stop the bleeding.

    One of the most common reactions people have to a rejection is to become self-critical. We list all our faults, lament all our shortcomings, and chastise ourselves endlessly. Romantic rejections cause some of us to employ an inner dialogue so harsh that it verges on abusive. We then convince ourselves we somehow deserve it.

    Yet, by kicking our self-esteem when it’s already down, we are only making our psychological injury worse, deepening our emotional wounds, and significantly delaying our recovery.

    2. Revive your self-worth.

    The best way to restore confidence, motivation, and especially self-esteem after a bruising rejection is to use a self-affirmation exercise. Self-affirmations remind us of our actual skills and abilities and by doing so, affirm our value in the domain in which we experienced the rejection.

    The exercise has two steps. First, make a list of qualities you have you know have value, and second, write a brief essay about one of them. (I wrote about what I believed was my strongest attribute as a writer—my perseverance.) By writing a couple of paragraphs about one of our strengths, we remind ourselves of what we have to offer and revive our self-esteem.

    3. Connect to those who appreciate and love you.

    Getting rejected also destabilizes our ‘need to belong,’ which is why we often feel so unsettled and restless after a romantic or social rejection. Our need to ‘belong’ dates back to our days of living in small nomadic tribes, when being away from our tribe was always dangerous and sitting among them was a source of comfort.

    One way to settle ourselves after a rejection is to reach out to our core group—be they friends, colleagues, or family members—to get emotional support from them and remind ourselves we’re valued, loved, and wanted.

    4. Assess potential changes.

    At times we might need to reassess our strategy, especially after multiple rejections (or in my case, many hundreds).

    Perhaps the friends who’ve fixed us up with romantic prospects who are never interested aren’t the best matchmakers. Maybe our online profile or pictures need to be updated, or it’s possible we’re getting rejected from potential jobs because we need to brush up our interview skills.

    My own aha moment (an insight that was obvious to everyone except me) came when a writer friend said to me, “Fourteen years, huh? Have you thought maybe you should skip the novels and write about psychology, since you know, that’s what you do…?”

    5. Try again soon.

    Another common reaction to rejection is to avoid any situation that might expose us to additional pain. We might not want to date for a while, or go on new job interviews, or make new friends, or in my case, start another writing project.

    But that’s an impulse we have to fight.

    Avoiding situations only makes us more fearful of them. Hesitant as I was to start writing again, I decided to heed my friend’s advice. I did a few months of research and started writing again. This time, it was a non-fiction proposal for a psychology/self-help book.

    I held my breath and sent it to an agent. She liked it and submitted it to several publishing houses.

    They did not reject it.

    Rejection is a form of psychological injury, one that can and should be treated. The next time your feelings hurt after a rejection, take action, treat your emotional wounds, and heal.

    Photo by Tanya Little

  • How Feeling My Pain Made Me Feel More Alive

    How Feeling My Pain Made Me Feel More Alive

    “We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” ~Kenji Miyazawa

    I used to run from pain.

    My father died suddenly when I was six. For years I stuffed it down, never letting anyone know my emotions or how I was feeling, and I ran from situations that could cause me to lose, to feel pain.

    My heart would jump and feel fear every time I received bad news or a “bad” email from a boss. I only wanted to feel good things. I stayed out of relationships for fear of the eventual loss and bad feelings, not realizing that I was missing out on all the beauty in between.

    A year ago, my journey to feeling pain began. I had decided a few months before that I would open myself up to a relationship. I was ready to see what was out there. I was ready to feel, whatever it was. I met an amazing guy, and I thought he was the weirdest but most fascinating and beautiful person I’d met in a while.

    There was lots of love and tenderness between us. I think we were very similar, and we both subconsciously wanted ours to be a beautiful, painless relationship. We were precious with the time we spent together and never fought.

    The first pain between us came after a few months. I wanted to know where this relationship was “going.” I wanted him to be my boyfriend, officially.

    He told me he felt almost everything for me—intellectual stimulation, passion—but not an emotional connection. He wanted our relationship to continue on as it was: seeing each other three or four times a week, no expectations of what this was or would be.

    Our relationship was already beautiful. Why did that need to change? We committed to only seeing each other without calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend.

    As time went on, I stuffed down all of my doubts about our relationship. I pushed away the full days when, for some unknowable reason, I wanted to end it. (I had no solid explanation, but a feeling.)

    I ignored the red flags of someone who was just not ready to commit. I ignored my heart telling me that this wasn’t the kind of relationship I really wanted. But I continued on as before, making the moments we had together as happy and as beautiful and as magical as I could, and he did too.

    Until right before I was leaving for a weeklong work trip. He asked me out of the blue what I thought about seeing other people. Valentine’s Day had been a week before, and I had seen no signs of him feeling this way. He had gifted me with a small figurine of an elephant carved inside a latticed egg because he knew I loved elephants.

    I felt sharp pain and shock. We were walking my dog, and I walked away from him and was silent until we made it back up to my apartment. “Lauren,” he said. “I just want to talk to you.” Please just let me do that, his eyes said.

    So we did; we talked: He told me how in the past he’d had relationship doubts and hadn’t expressed them and how he felt that relationship had gone on without him. The next morning gave no conclusion, but we were tender with each other, and he whispered, “I’ll miss you,” before he walked down the subway stairs to work.

    When I returned a week later, he picked me up at the airport, and when we got back to my apartment, he coldly told me he couldn’t sleep over: He wanted to be emotionally open to other people.

    My heart broke. I cried and made him stay the night. And I was a wreck the whole next day. But something in me felt freed; something in me felt that this was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

    I had been so afraid to tell him how I felt, to tell him my own doubts and insecurities about how he made me feel, that I just didn’t tell him. Crying and feeling the emotional hurt of the split was incredibly painful, but it was the truest and most raw emotion I’d felt in months.

    When I looked at the elephant figurine he had given me, I realized that it wasn’t beautiful; it was trapped inside a structure of its own making.

    The fear that was holding me back had come true: that we could break up. But it happened, I felt it, and I was still there, still very much myself.

    Two weeks later, I found out my beloved dog Bella had cancer, and a week later, I had to do one of the hardest things I’ve had to do—take her to the vet and put her to sleep.

    Even as her body broke down, her spirit stayed strong: At the vet, I left her on a friend’s lap and briefly left the room, and when I returned, she tried to jump into my arms.

    Two of my closest friends were with me in the room, and after it happened we just hugged each other and cried. It felt strangely good and freeing to be able to cry together with someone, to feel pain together.

    A part of me thought that the loss of my relationship was just preparing me for this loss.

    Through all of this, my older brother had been fighting cancer.

    He was diagnosed almost three and a half years ago and had fought it with his life ever since. In between chemo and radiation, he surfed, traveled, coached his kids’ soccer teams, and was an inspiration to all who knew him.

    A month ago, he needed an emergency visit to the hospital: He had fluid in his lungs and spent five days with a nurse visiting his home to drain them. I went home to see him and he was thin, carrying an oxygen tank around with him, but his spirits were high.

    He was happy to see me. I told him about a recent trip to Turkey, about Bella, about my relationship. He listened to my pain and gave me advice.

    A couple months back, he succumbed to his disease, surrounded by his wife and two children. At his funeral the priest, who knew him well, recounted how my brother told him that the past three years had been some of the happiest of his life.

    I know my brother felt great pain, physically and emotionally, and he hid it from most of us. But he pushed through it to give his wife and daughters as much of himself as he could.

    And now I’m in so much pain that it all runs together. The relationship, my dog, my brother—I don’t know what to feel first. But the strangest thing is that it is the most alive I’ve felt in years, allowing myself to just feel all that I am feeling, and not judge it or push it away.

    Allow yourself to feel pain, to sit with it. To build relationships that you may one day lose, for whatever reason.

    Holding pain will be the hardest thing you do. Feeling pain is the bravest fight you will fight. Running, avoidance, fear in whatever form—it all brings you further away from being a full, feeling person.

    Pain is clarifying, cleansing. True.

    You feel this pain because you loved so hard, because you felt so hard.

    Walk bravely through pain’s cleansing fire, although it scares you, although it burns so bright that you walk in knowing it will hurt. You will come out on the other side stronger and more complete.

    I don’t know what your pain is. We all hold some pain inside of us; we carry it with us. And that’s fine. It really is.

    There is a beauty in pain that that even happiness cannot touch, because you risked, you loved, you let yourself feel. Pain will be the thing that brings you to yourself, before and after pain—before, there is happiness; after, there is transcendence.

    Pain is a part of your experience, not something to run from or escape. Pain will find you somehow, and going through its cleansing fire will be one of the truest things that can happen to you in your life if you let it.

  • 5 Ways to Deal with Emotional Oversensitivity

    5 Ways to Deal with Emotional Oversensitivity

    “It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.” ~Pema Chodron

    I’ve never been much of a sun worshipper. I’m a pale blend of Irish, Scottish, and English, so my skin goes from alabaster to boiled lobster in about twenty minutes.

    Once when I was a teenager, someone accidentally smacked me on my sunburned back.  I was in tears. She was genuinely sorry and I said I was all right, but secretly I was angry.

    Couldn’t she see how red I was? How slowly I moved? Someone with a sunburn gives very obvious signs, or so I thought. How could she not know I was in pain?

    Now I can see how my signs weren’t obvious at all. Most of us are so busy rushing through our own lives that only the most astute person can see when someone else is hurting.

    So, when someone accidentally aggravates my injury, who is at fault? Them, for not noticing I’m hurt? Or me, for not alerting them to be careful?

    The answer, of course, is that nobody’s at fault. It’s an accident. Any mature person recognizes this and, instead of getting stuck in blame or guilt, takes immediate steps to make amends and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

    This is especially true for emotional pain.

    A friend used to hurt my feelings all the time. Accidentally. His actions were never overtly malicious. Yet he was as oblivious to my signs of emotional pain as that person who smacked my sunburn had been to my physical signs.

    My emotions felt sunburned.

    He knew about a relationship from a few years earlier that had left parts of me very raw. But the “clothing” of my naturally gregarious, optimistic personality concealed how sensitive I still was, just like the lightweight summer blouse had concealed the extent of my sunburn.

    He didn’t realize that his perfectly innocent behavior triggered deep pain in me.

    In my youth, I would’ve blamed him for hurting me. Thankfully, I was mature enough to realize that he wasn’t causing my pain; he was just accidentally irritating a tender spot I already had.

    I’ve always been extremely sensitive, emotionally. I often lack the ability to articulate what I’m feeling, or what I’m sensing from others, but I feel it. Oh, boy, do I feel it.

    Once I accepted that other people usually aren’t aware of my emotional sensitivities and how easily my feelings get hurt, I quickly developed a way to examine the true cause of any pain I felt.

    I use these five questions:

    1. Was it intentional?

    Putting aside my pain for a moment, I look at the situation from the other person’s perspective.

    Did she or he intend to make me feel this way? It’s rare when a good person is deliberately cruel, and it’s obvious when a mean person is bullying. When I trust that others aren’t trying to hurt me, I can take them out of the equation and focus on what I’m feeling.

    2. What am I feeling?

    When we’re in pain, blaming the person who hurt us is a natural defense mechanism. We project our pain outward as anger, rather than turning our attention inward to heal. Are we accusing someone of making us feel worthless? Stupid? Ignored? Embarrassed? Unattractive? Unloved and unlovable?

    Naming the accusation lets us dig beneath it to find the sensitive spot it’s protecting, and see what’s really going on.

    3. What’s really going on?

    Once I identify what I’m feeling, I want to figure out why I’m feeling it. What am I really struggling with? It’s usually a repeating theme centered on my insecurities.

    For example, if someone “made” you feel stupid, maybe you doubt your own abilities and intelligence. If someone “made” you feel worthless, perhaps you don’t accept your own value as a human being.

    I often feel forgotten or ignored, because I’m an overachiever who struggles with feelings of inadequacy.

    It helps to remember that other people can’t “make” us feel anything. They can only trigger feelings and opinions we already have about ourselves.

    4. Where’s the relief?

    Once you find where you’re sensitive, an emotional salve helps ease the sting. Maybe you need to be alone for a while. That’s okay. It’s also okay to ask for help. My favorite relief is spending quality time with friends, but I sometimes have trouble asking for that.

    I used think that asking for help was a sign of weakness in me. When I helped my friends, I never judged them as being weak. They were simply going through a rough time, and I wanted to help make them feel better.

    That’s when I realized that not asking for their help denied them a chance to be my friend. I now feel that asking for help is like giving a gift. I’m giving my friends something they want: a chance to be my friend.

    Maybe I need a distraction, and we just hang out together. Maybe I need to talk through what happened, to figure out how to stop it from happening again. It doesn’t matter.  I tell them what I need, they provide it happily, and we both feel better.

    5. How can I prevent it from happening again?

    Trust your relationships enough to talk with the person who hurt you about what hurts. Chances are, the other person has no idea you’re hurting.

    This is the hardest part for me. I’m always worried they’ll think I’m whining or placing blame. Be clear that you’re not blaming them and don’t want them to feel guilty. You simply want to share the fact that you have a sensitive spot.

    Together, figure out how to avoid irritating that sensitivity, and make a plan for how to deal with it if it happens again.

    We all have our insecurities—our sunburned emotions. Accepting and caring for those oversensitive spots helps protect them until they heal. And they will heal, just like a sunburn does.

    Surround yourself with supportive friends and family. It’s SPF for the soul.

  • Forgiving the Unforgivable and Ending Your Own Suffering

    Forgiving the Unforgivable and Ending Your Own Suffering

    Man Thinking

    “Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” ~Malachy McCourtro

    I was completely unprepared for the emotional hailstorm that bombarded me when, back in 2001, I learned that my wife had been having an affair with my best friend of twenty-plus years.

    My normal, predictable life (which I absolutely loved, by the way) had been virtually shattered overnight. Not only did it culminate in a very bitter war (see: divorce), it also marked the onset of a toxic poison that had begun to work its way into my veins: resentment.

    It began with crippling depression—depression so bad that I no longer had the appetite to eat or a desire to care for myself. I spent untold hours (and days) under the protective shield of a comforter in bed, drifting into a slumber of numbness. Sleeping meant that I didn’t have to feel.

    And with an empty house now all to myself, I made a decision to lock the front door and refuse to answer it for anyone.

    Having just had a proverbial knife twisted into my spine by the two people I loved and trusted the most, what good could come from anyone knocking on the door with a smile on their face? People hid vicious claws behind their backs, and I refused to be stuck with them again.

    Signs Of Life

    Then, suddenly but slowly, I began to crawl back to life. I spent less time in bed, began to eat on occasion, and even reached out to talk to family. Calling around to local churches, I learned about a divorce support group that met on Wednesdays, and forced myself to attend.

    The people at this group, mostly other men, served to reassure me that I wasn’t the only one facing the frightening task of putting a broken life back together.

    And even though I cried my way through the first few meetings, a footprint for recovery began to take shape. But the poison of resentment was an entirely different monster—one that would take me a full decade to exorcize.

    Sentenced To Suffer

    Despite acquiring a new set of coping skills, I began to suffer through obsessive thoughts about the affair between my ex-wife and ex-best friend. I tortured myself with the painful details of their intimacy, imagining it over and over again throughout the day.

    And when I slept at night, my mental participation was no longer even required—those obsessive thoughts became a box of terrifying toys that came out to play on their own.

    In my paralyzing condition, I came to believe that having an apology from the both of them was the only way to exhale. But neither of them had any intention of doing so. The affair had already been going on for so long before I discovered it that they could never rightly offer any explanation of value—and therefore, never did.

    So much for exhaling.

    After a whopping ten years of this sort of self-inflicted torture—long after my divorce had been finalized—I realized it was well overdue that I look inward for the answer. No one was going to offer the apology I wanted or felt entitled to.

    I could either choose to forgive regardless, or continue in the pattern of resentment and anger that swallowed my current quality of life.

    Making A Decision To Forgive

    I chose to forgive. To let go, and to recognize the past as a dead era I’d never be able to change.

    Forgiving is a hard thing to do when you feel like the recipient is undeserving—even more so when they have no clear intention of ever apologizing. You’d rather they feel the full weight of your hurt and pain, that they suffer as you suffered, and come to know the same meaning of anguish and sorrow that you have.

    But in refusing to forgive, we wrongly assume that we are dealing out due punishment to a deserving party—neglecting to see the poison we’ve sentenced ourselves to continue ingesting.

    The Weight Of A Grudge

    Refusing to forgive can sometimes become so paramount to our existence that we let it define our life. It reflects in our language, in the stories we tell people, and in our attitudes. And since the pain is familiar, we bask in it, subconsciously teaching ourselves to see the negative in everyone.

    We miss the opportunity to form relationships and build healthy bridges with people under the faulty logic that, since one person hurt us, they’re all out to hurt us.

    Research shows that psychological stress accumulated over a period of years begins to settle as physical pain in the body—pain we can literally feel taking a toll on our well-being. Mindful meditation has worked wonders in alleviating that burden for me since I chose to forgive.

    The final stage of forgiveness, at least for me, was to pray for the people who had wronged me—and I find myself doing so a lot, whenever old feelings start to surface. I pray for their health and happiness in a sort of radical act of kindness—a spiritual adoption, if you will.

    Forgiving is one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever given myself, since with it came freedom and the permission to move on and enjoy what life has to offer in the present moment. A shackle has been removed from my ankle, and I’m free to move about now.

    I was, after all, the only person who could ever remove it to begin with.

    Photo by Will Foster

  • How My Anger Led Me to Forgiveness and Peace

    How My Anger Led Me to Forgiveness and Peace

    “Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on.” ~Alice Duer Miller

    As an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a relative, I had become accustomed to keeping secrets. Silence, I was taught, was a good thing. It protected people that I loved.

    So for over a decade, I carried the dark and overbearing weight of my past in secrecy and in silence, believing I was the only one in the world who’d ever experienced such abuse—until I learned from a college workshop that one in four women and one in five men fall victim to sexual abuse by the time they are eighteen.

    Shocked and convicted, a surge of emotions overwhelmed me.

    Later, for the first time, I was able to share my secret with my mother. She was devastated and we cried, but the conversation ended on a peculiar note: “You can’t ever tell your dad,” she said, “because it will destroy him.”

    It felt as if I’d finally surfaced for air after drowning my entire life, and now I was being pushed back underwater, but sadly I accepted it. As aforementioned, silence was a good thing, wasn’t it? It protected people that I loved.

    The seven years that followed proved to be the most tumultuous of my life. I battled suicidal ideation, clinical depression, anxiety, panic attacks, plummeting self-esteem, immeasurable anger and resentment, and the take-home prize of the millennia: unforgiveness.

    I was a highly-trained victim at this point, putting on an Oscar-worthy performance.

    And then one day, I’d had enough. I did what I’d always wanted to do: I got angry!

    Now before you take a baseball bat to your ex’s four-by-four, I’m not talking about the type of anger that features fist fights and flying chairs on daytime talk shows. This type of anger is a process through which you can access the power and peace that can only come from forgiveness.

    There are four steps I have experienced in this process:

    1. Give yourself permission to get angry.

    I was accustomed, as I’ve emphasized, to the golden rule of “silence.” Skeletons were better left in the closet, I thought. Unfortunately, mixed with my already existent people-pleasing ways, this was a recipe for disaster.

    In my journey toward esteeming others above myself, as many of the world’s wisest sages have taught, I inadvertently evolved into a doormat. Talk about regressive Darwinism!

    I wanted to be a good person, and so when I felt anger, resentment, and unforgiveness, I beat myself up over it. I truly believed that I was a horrible person for being angry over what had happened to me. Further, I didn’t want to be the “villain” in others’ eyes or the black sheep in the family who just couldn’t let go of the past.

    But at long last, I finally gave myself permission to feel that anger to the fullest. I gave myself permission to own my anger, and in doing so, I validated myself. I acknowledged that I wasn’t an unfeeling robot or a mindless drone—I was a flesh-and-blood human being with a deep spiritual wound that deserved proper treatment.

    I allowed myself to acknowledge that I was in pain, that it didn’t feel good, and that I was angry about it. As such, a process could then—and only then—begin. I could now travel into the deepest and darkest parts of my soul and bring light to those forgotten caverns.

    2. Share your story.

    There was a time when I believed I would never share my story with a single soul. I could’ve never imagined those long years ago how untrue that would become.

    Every time I share my story, I feel more and more powerful. I’m no longer a victim—I’m a survivor! Sharing your story is not about incriminating the wrongdoer. It’s about validating yourself, owning your experience, and committing to living your best life.

    There may be someone reading this right now who has never shared the life story that’s so burning inside their heart. Whether it’s writing down the story in your personal journal or finally telling a trusted, long-time friend, take this bold step forward. You will feel freedom like never before.

    Your story is nothing to be ashamed about. Come forth from that dark corner into the light. The weight feels lighter with every word you speak, and the story will become easier to share with each telling.

    I believe that if more people realized how liberating it feels to finally share their story, more people would in turn experience the love, freedom, and peace that they so desire and so deserve.

    3. Seek support and wisdom.

    Dealing with anger while bearing the goal of forgiveness in mind requires a life support team. You need to surround yourself with loving people who care about your personal growth and want the best for you.

    And while these people will support your need to validate yourself and feel angry, they mustn’t be people who will talk you out of forgiveness. Instead, ensure that your life support team is stocked with people who understand the power and love that comes from forgiveness and why it’s vital to your permanent joy.

    These people should also be able to ensure that you don’t act out on your anger. Getting angry doesn’t mean treating people unkindly and it’s not a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for nasty behavior and cruel words.

    You’re not excused from characterizing love just because you’re wounded. Trust me: you don’t want to live like that anyway. I can personally attest that it will only leave you feeling more deflated and defeated.

    Whether it’s friends or professional help, your support will be a safe space where you can share your struggles, open yourself up to the insight and guidance of others, and apply their suggestions to your life toward more positive and empowered living.

    4. Have the conversation.

    Once you have progressed through the above steps, there will come a time when you will want to have “the conversation” with the person who has hurt you. If you’re like me, you might be shaking your head, declaring that it won’t happen. I thought the same—until it did.

    And when it did, fists didn’t fly. Neither did chairs.

    Because I’d journeyed through the previous steps, I was able to come from a place of perfect peace. I was in control of my emotions. And I was able to lovingly explain to this individual how they had hurt me, how it had made me feel, and why I therefore struggled with extending forgiveness.

    Six months later, the process came around full circle and I was finally—finally—able to let go of the past and forgive. This didn’t mean forgetting about what happened. It meant reclaiming my life and deciding that the past wasn’t going to have any control of my happiness or my future.

    All because I’d made the choice to stop denying my anger and instead face it head on.

    What about you? Has denying anger kept you from moving toward forgiveness and peace? Try the four steps above. Go ahead, get angry (constructively)! Freedom’s waiting on the other side.

  • Opening Up to the Possibility of Love: 3 Things to Remember

    Opening Up to the Possibility of Love: 3 Things to Remember

    Sunset Couple

    “Love takes off the mask that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”  ~James Arthur Baldwin

    I sat silent on one end of the phone. I could hear my own breath and heart pounding in my ears.  I was sitting on the precipice of greatness, and all I had to do was express what I was feeling. Sounds relatively straightforward, so why did I feel so anxious?

    To say that I have worked hard at rediscovering my authentic self would be an understatement. I have been on this quest in one form or fashion since I was seventeen, so about seventeen years now. And I have made significant progress, if that is the most correct way to label my journey.

    I have struggled with eating disorders and self-acceptance and self-love and compassion and kindness for others. I have done away with meaninglessness in my life for the most part. I have gotten away from placing importance on material possessions and have worked to simplify my life.

    I am more content and sure of myself and who I am than I have ever been. So why would uncomfortable silence throw me for such a loop at this stage in the game?

    To be perfectly honest, although I have demonstrated gains in areas of my life, I have yet to find someone who is a kindred spirit. As I have come to know myself better, I have been better able to express and identify what I truly want in a partner. That being said, dating has been less than successful.

    More often than not, dates have ended with blank stares from across the table when I open my mouth about my spiritual journey. I have never been able to fully express to another the very thing that defines my existence on earth, and have it received in kindness and understanding.

    So, when I met Rob for the first time, he literally took my breath away. I immediately detected his soul, his compassion, and passion for life. I recognized his connection with his feelings, and yet his ability to not take the whole process too seriously.

    In him, I saw myself. For the first time, I did not feel alone. I did not feel different. I felt like I was home. 

    So, back to the phone call: the reason I was so nervous was that, although I had this intense connection with Rob, we were at a crossroads. I could sense that we both wanted to address it, and at the same time neither of us wanted to address it.

    We were so early in our developing relationship, I felt like I needed to let him know how intensely I felt about him and how incredibly special I thought our connection was. And boy, was it scary!

    And in that moment of silence, I reflected back to helpful ideas I had used in learning to love and accept myself. Incredibly, they applied in this new relationship and how I needed to proceed in expressing my feelings.

     1. Stay present and stay you.

    During our conversation, I felt this urgent need to run and hide from the emotion building inside me. I felt like I wanted to crawl back inside my shell and disengage from the desire to open up completely to him.

    We were obviously attracted to one another, but the old voices of fear of rejection and fear of not being good enough crept back into my head. I realized that I had gone through that when I was learning how to love and accept myself.

    I had all of the preconceived notions of who I was or should be, and had to demystify all of that and realize that I am enough just the way I am. As is.

    I had to continuously get myself back to my center, to focus on the present moment and trust in the process of being my authentic self, knowing that the person who was supposed to cross my path, would.

    2. Live openly and honestly and speak from your heart.

    As I learned to accept myself, I found that speaking from my heart became easier. It’s not that we deliberately try to deceive others, but we often do a good job of deceiving ourselves.

    Trying to stop emotion and put up your defenses won’t do anyone any good. It may protect you in the short term, but you are the only one who will be harmed in the end. It will be you who misses out on true happiness and joy.

    Things may not always turn out the way you envisioned, but there is no defeat in living with pure intention.

    3. Go all in and accept that it may fail.

    Part of discovering myself again was learning as I went along. But unlike times before when I was harsh and self-defeating when I made a misstep, I was kind with myself. I gave myself some encouragement, the benefit of the doubt, and got back up and continued the best I could.

    When I finally trusted myself and accepted myself fully, I was able to mess up completely, yet be okay with it, because I knew I was doing my best and had set out with good intention.

    In the same manner, I had to realize that I am not perfect and neither is my partner. Showing compassion when there is a misstep is what will make the bonds stronger. That is how I needed to view Rob and our budding relationship.

    We had established similar core beliefs and journeys and now I had to trust in that as being the foundation for whatever was ahead of us.

    If that meant faltering and deciding we were not as compatible as we first believed, then so be it. I couldn’t be disappointed if I gave it my all and at least attempted something amazing.

    The phone call ended with me bumbling through my feelings pretty inefficiently. And wouldn’t you know it, he reciprocated and expressed relief about me bringing it up. He too felt like we had a connection and had great interest in pursuing it.

    If there is one thing I could leave you with it would be this: Don’t harden yourself to that pure emotion. Open up and welcome it in. Let it flow through you. Let the tears well up in your eyes and say the things your heart whispers. The person who is meant to hear those words will.

    Photo by Darren Johnson

  • Learning to Trust Again When You’ve Been Hurt in the Past

    Learning to Trust Again When You’ve Been Hurt in the Past

    “The only way to know if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” ~Ernest Hemingway

    In a world where it seems as though all we hear about and see is how one person betrayed another, how do we allow ourselves to trust someone to get close at all, let alone trust them to be near the most fragile parts of us?

    Over the course of the last year, I’ve been working as an intern-counselor at a residential high school with around seventy teenagers. Many of them have come from unbelievably challenging backgrounds where they have had to learn to not trust anyone as a matter of survival.

    Imagine having spent your entire life always having to watch your back literally and figuratively, not just because there are strangers who may want to harm you, but also because even those who are supposed to be close to you could turn against you in an instant.

    How difficult do you think it would be to let down the defenses that kept you safe and in some cases, alive, for so long?

    In my own world, I’ve struggled with allowing people to really know me because for most of my life, it felt as though I was burned every time I did.

    Over time, I learned how to seem friendly but kept virtually everyone at a distance, and those who got too close I rapidly pushed away, sometimes completely out of my life.

    I was already struggling to put my pieces back together after several major tragedies in my family, and allowing others in meant (the possibility of) compounding my heartbreak. I just couldn’t handle anymore at the time.

    Eventually I began to open up, but each time found myself wondering why I had been so naive again.

    Then there came a point where, slowly but surely, people began to enter my life who showed me what it meant to be able to trust—trust them to show up, trust them to listen, trust them with commitments, and the biggest one of all, trust them with my heart.

    These people came in the form of friends who are now my family and have had my back in countless ways over the years, and the most surprising and recent of all, a man who is not only telling me, but showing me, what a man does to express his profound interest beyond just the physical.

    If I wouldn’t have begun to take down my walls, I may have never found these amazing people. They didn’t appear because I had perfectly learned to trust already. They appeared because I was willing to learn to trust, even if imperfectly.

    As I’ve been learning to trust and lower my defenses, I’ve been working with my students to do the same.

    Their stories are different in that many of them have come from a history of abuse and/or gang related activities. But we share a similar outcome in struggling to realize that what once protected us is no longer needed, and in some cases, is actually hurting us further by isolating us from the love we need to heal and move forward.

    It’s like taking too much medicine; sometimes a certain amount is necessary to get better, but beyond that it can break our systems down.

    We each come to crossroads in our lives where we have to make the decision to let go of our old survival mechanisms in order to grow and make room for something better.

    Sometimes what used to protect us becomes what harms us and stifles the capacity for our lives to be open and full of joy, love, and peace.

    When it comes to trusting each other, we have to accept that our past is not our present. We have to be able to recognize that what hurt us before is not necessarily what is currently standing before us—even sometimes when the situation looks frighteningly similar, and sometimes even when it’s the same person.

    Does this mean we won’t ever get hurt again? Nope. That’s a part of life. People will let us down, and we will let them down, but that doesn’t mean our efforts to disassemble our defense mechanisms are in vain.

    If we never allow ourselves any vulnerability, we lose out on the opportunity to make incredibly deep and meaningful connections that open up our lives in ways that couldn’t happen any other way.

    Those connections draw out the very best within and create a new reality—one where we learn that the only way to know if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

  • 4 Questions to Turn Your Anger Around and Forgive

    4 Questions to Turn Your Anger Around and Forgive

    Talking

    “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and realize that prisoner was you.” ~Lewis B. Smedes

    For a long time, I had a stressful relationship with my dad. We had a falling out after I was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa. He didn’t understand what I was going through in regards to eating and body image, and I tried to push him out, so we stopped talking.

    Somewhere inside of me, I had built up anger that was directed at him and I just couldn’t bring myself to forgive him or let go. And he was just clueless, not knowing what was wrong with me and why I didn’t like him, so he stopped trying, too.

    Before I knew it, it had been almost a year without saying anything to each other, and I was heading off to college. I was still angry inside until my mom gave me a book called Loving What Is, by Byron Katie. Everything changed after that.

    Not overnight, but slowly things began to improve between my dad and me.

    The book has to do with four simple questions that you ask yourself about a thought or emotion you are experiencing.

    Because I felt like my dad had distanced himself from my problems, and believed that he loved my brother more than me, I had thoughts like, “He doesn’t love me,” and “I’m never enough for him,” so I worked on these thoughts with what Byron Katie calls “The Work.”

    I took the thought “I am never good enough for him,” and put it up against the four questions.

    1. Is it true?

    Is it true that I am never good enough for my dad? Yes.

    2. Can you absolutely know that it is true?

    Can I absolutely know that I am never good enough for my dad? No.

    3. How do you feel when you think this thought?

    When I think that I’m not good enough for my dad, I feel angry and sad. I become defensive and hot.

    4. Who would you be without this thought?

    Without the thought that I am never good enough for him, I would be calm, relaxed, and not so upset. My relationship with my dad would improve and I wouldn’t worry so much about his approval.

    The next step is to turn the thought around. Here are my turnarounds with examples as to why these are true for me.

    • My dad is never good enough for me because I am constantly judging him.
    • I am good enough for my dad because he does show he is proud of me.
    • I am not good enough for myself because I do not approve of who I am.

    After doing this work on my thoughts about my dad, I began to see things differently. My eyes started to open to things I haven’t seen before.

    If I wanted my dad to approve of me and accept me for who I was, I first had to approve and accept him as he was.

    When I turned around my thought, even though it was hard to realize, I saw that my behavior toward my dad was the problem, not him. I failed to remember that he was just doing what he knew how to do; he was trying his best. It was me who needed to approve of myself, not my Dad.

    Forgiveness had never come easy to me. I always felt as though I was the one who deserved the forgiving, but something changed the day I read this book. I forgave my dad. I forgave him and accepted him, and in turn, I accepted myself.

    I gave my dad what I wanted from him and our relationship turned around. I gave myself what I wanted from him and I turned myself around.

    The Work can be helpful for every thought you have or problem you are facing, as it allows you to look at your life and yourself in a new light. I understand that sometimes it can be painful questioning your thoughts, especially ones that have been with you for a long time, and it’s not an overnight process.

    Sometimes I would cry myself to sleep over my responses or want to tear the page apart because there was no way I could forgive my dad. But if you give it time and patience, a change will start happening inside of you.

    You will learn to see the person in a different way. You will see that everyone is just trying their best with what they have in this moment, and even if you believe they don’t deserve forgiveness, you deserve to be at peace.

    Photo by morstan

  • Embracing Pain: Life’s Gifts Often Come Wrapped in Sandpaper

    Embracing Pain: Life’s Gifts Often Come Wrapped in Sandpaper

    “The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.” ~Unknown

    “How did you get so wise?” My friend’s voice on the other end of the telephone line was genuinely curious.

    I took a moment to think, wanting to be just as sincere in my response as she was in her inquiry. I felt the words climb up from the depths of my heart and ride a breath of truth as they passed through my lips.

    “I cry a lot,” I finally responded.

    Believe me, I wish there was another way. On my personal journey—and there are surely others who walk a similar path—life at times sweeps me up in a wave of utter brokenness, and washes me onto new shores of beautiful transformation, grounded wisdom, and unconditional love.

    There is a longstanding slogan in Alcoholics Anonymous that pain is the touch point of all spiritual progress.

    Somehow our moments of deep despair and gut-wrenching desperation serve as evolutionary portals to a higher level of grace and resolve. The breakdown itself is the gateway to the breakthrough.

    Don’t get me wrong. I do not go chasing after anguish like an adrenaline junkie with a death wish. Just because turmoil shows up as an unexpected guest at my front door that doesn’t mean I graciously invite it in for tea and cookies.

    I avoid pain—internal and external—whenever possible. I’ve given birth to two beautiful children and both times I asked for the labor-numbing drugs. If I so much as stub my toe on the bedside table or get into an spat with my husband, I reach for my favorite quilt and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for comfort.

    I have heard there are two types of pain in the world—welcomed and unwelcomed.

    Suffering is defined as unwelcomed pain. I am beginning to understand that, like enduring labor, the more I am able to stop resisting pain’s vice-like grip and breathe through the ark—noticing its build, peak, and subsiding—the less of a hold it has on me.

    Just like birthing my babies, on the other side of the pain is the promise. Some of life’s greatest gifts come wrapped in sandpaper.

    Here are a few of the treasured insights I have received on the other side life’s tribulations. I hope they renew your strength, affirm that you are not alone, and shed a hopeful light on your dark moments.

    Pain strengthens you. 

    In order to build a muscle we lift the weight. But first there is a breaking and bleeding of the capillaries. The healing of the wound is what develops the muscle; injury precedes strength.

    Pain refines you.

    It takes pressure to make a diamond and fire to purify gold. Nothing cleanses the soul like a good cry. Tears wash away the impurities of fear and attachment and clear the channels for love to freely flow.

    Pain lightens the load.

    Growing up my mother would often say, “When you are down to nothing, life is up to something.”

    Navigating painful moments can feel like squeezing yourself through a tight corridor. There is no room for excess baggage. At the peak of agony I have learned to let go of the “stuff” in my hands—my stories, my fears, my judgments—in order to hold on for dear life.

    Pain qualifies you. 

    Nothing qualifies a person to step up to a big vision for their life like pain. When I count the cost of the rejection and disappointments endured on the journey to living my dreams, it creates a worthiness and grounded resolve that my toughest critics cannot chip away.

    Pain connects you.

    One tragedy unites people in a far deeper way than a thousand moments of laughter. Falling apart independently and collectively healing has launched powerful, life-changing movements like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.). Pain becomes purpose when it is shared.

    Like the peaks and falls on a heart monitor, the valley low moments are just as much a confirmation of life as the mountain highs. Lean into pain’s sting. Allow yourself to be placed on its potter’s wheel and transformed into all you can ever hope to be and more.

    Remember, life is never happening to you, it is always happening for you. Always.

    Photo by sue jan

  • 3 Ways to Feel Good When Things Seem Bad

    3 Ways to Feel Good When Things Seem Bad

    “It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.” ~Pema Chodron

    Have you ever had something happen in your life that completely changed everything?

    Wham. Suddenly you haven’t left your bedroom in days, you can’t remember what it feels like to shower, and it’s clear the only friend you can really count on is your cat. 

    And whether it’s a major life-suck event or a minor one, the question is: How can I feel contented and calm when things don’t go to plan?

    That is what this post is about. Because a while back I had a M. A. J. O. R. Major event. It went like this:

    I’d just graduated from college. I had a Masters Degree. In science. Human nutrition science, in case you’re wondering. I was excited about life!

    Sure, I had a ridiculous door-to-door research job and my roommate was annoying, but I had plans—I’ll move in with my boyfriend, get a better job, travel, start a family, hang out with all my amazing friends, and live an awesome life.

    But then I got sick. The kind of sick where raising your arms above your head makes you want to take a nap. And instead of starting the amazing life I’d planned, I moved home with my parents.

    It was a shock, to say the least. Before that, I was tough. I hiked. My friends liked me. I stayed up late. I wasn’t a sick person.

    And while my parents are sweet and kind, living in their basement in small town New Zealand, watching daytime re-runs of Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, and hanging out with a fluffy cat called Whisky was not the plan.

    It wasn’t so bad at first. But months went by, then years, and it seemed no matter what I did, I was still sick.

    I thought, why did this happen to me?

    I cried. A lot. For seemingly no reason. And if someone asked why I was crying, I’d say, “I’m just so tired.” I cried so much some days that I’d go home and laugh with my sister on the phone over who I’d cried in front of that day. It was comical.

    That was a few years ago now. And, of course, the whole experience turned out to be a huge gift. They often are, in my experience, anyway, but that’s getting ahead of things.

    Here are three insights that helped during those “you’ve got to be freaking kidding me” times:

    1. There’s a healing side to pain.

    When a challenging event happens—a breakup, a sickness, or having your leopard pink car seat covers stolen—the human mind, being what it is, thinks this is why you feel badly.

    You hear it all the time: “Oh, you poor thing for losing your car seat covers.” Or, “She’s such a rat to do this to you.”

    The truth is, it’s your perception of the situation that makes you feel bad. This means that no matter how crumpled-in and dysfunctional you feel, you’re not. It’s just your thoughts that are a bit wonky. And actually, your thoughts on this were always wonky; the situation just exposed them.

    Take my situation. Everything I’d based my self-esteem on was gone: work, grades, friends, boyfriend, the ability to sit up straight for more than half an hour.

    I thought I was upset because I was sick, when the truth was, my situation had triggered every negative belief I had about myself. Things like:

    “I’m only lovable if people like me.” “I’m only worthwhile if I’m busy doing things.”

    I so strongly identified with all the things I did that when you took them away, I felt miserable. I’d been given the opportunity to see what I really thought about myself.

    Someone could have told me “you’re worthy and lovable,” and I might have intellectually known this, but I didn’t feel it.

    What I began to realize was that behind the pain, over time, my faulty beliefs were shifting. My sense of self-worth was beginning to heal by itself.

    The pain is the faulty belief system being ripped out by its roots. You feel like you’re losing something dear. The trick is to understand that it’s just a faulty belief going away. And beneath it lays a pocket of self-love that you haven’t previously been able to access.

    As poet Kahlil Gibran says, “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.”

    2. Pain fades when we let go of expectations.

    Most of us live in an intellectual way. We make plans for our life and then we try and follow them through. We think we know the best way for our life to proceed.

    The truth is, a large part of our pain is caused by an attachment to our expectations.

    For example, one of the reasons I felt so bone achingly sorry for myself was because I had a plan for how to have a good life—and it didn’t include Dr. Quinn.

    I thought success came from going to college, getting a good job, and having a family. No one said anything about spending all this time in bed. But actually, it was the best thing for me.

    To illustrate you how powerful your expectations are, try this exercise:

    First, imagine you’re me.

    Now, imagine you’d grown up thinking the best way to have an awesome life was to spend five years in bed cross-stitching cushions. That it was something everyone did.

    “Oh yeah,” you’d say to your friend, “I’m just off to do my five-years-in-bed years.”

    And they’d be like, “Oh cool. I hear you learn such amazing things, like how to feel self-assured, and you get clarity on your life direction, and you start to feel that inner calm we’re always reading about.”

    Seriously.

    Now think about your current situation and imagine that for your whole life, you believed that what is happening to you was going to happen. And not only that, but it’s the absolute best thing to happen.

    So much of the pain we feel is because we can’t let go of how we think life should look. Your mind thinks it knows the best way for your life to work out—but simply put, it doesn’t; the plan it had was flawed in the first place.

    Your mind can only see your life as it’s showing up right now. There is a bigger picture.

    3. You’re doing fine.

    Learning about personal awareness and healing can be such a helpful thing, but remember, there’s no right or wrong way to feel.

    Feeling grateful and “being positive” and so on is perfectly fine, and sure, it can be helpful, but if you don’t feel like it all the time, don’t worry about it.

    Instead of attaching a judgment to how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking, try just noticing it.

    I believe the act of simply noticing and accepting how things are, right now—no matter how messy and dysfunctional they seem—is the most powerful, healing thing you can do.

    Photo by Dahl-Face Photography

  • Get Past It Instead of Getting Even: Revenge Isn’t Winning

    Get Past It Instead of Getting Even: Revenge Isn’t Winning

    “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

    The first thing many of us think of after someone has wronged or disrespected us is how to get even—how to hand out a dose of that person’s own medicine in an attempt to feel totally vindicated.

    Most of us have thought about revenge at one point or another.

    Maybe it’s a co-worker, a classmate, a family member, or even a boyfriend or girlfriend, but regardless of the relationship it’s often an instinctive reaction when someone attacks the deepest, most fragile part of ourselves

    Does this really accomplish anything positive?

    We might gain some personal, though temporary satisfaction, but it does little to ease the pain others have inflicted upon us.

    I recently received an unexpected email. While the sender was certainly a surprise, the content of the message and its motivation were not.

    The sender was my father, and in what has become my parents’ only way of communicating with me over the last few years, it was a familiar message filled with anger, blame, and defensiveness.

    Though this wasn’t the first time my parents had defamed me in this way, it still saddened me for much of the next few days.

    Children, especially adolescents, are known for “mouthing off” to their parents while growing up, but it’s hard to imagine this coming from someone who taught you that this was disrespectful.

    My relationship with my parents has become difficult to maintain as a free-thinking adult.

    I suppose some might say that we should always forgive family members for their faults, especially parents.

    But regardless of the relation, at some point you grow tired of others not telling the entire truth; tired of having to defend yourself; tired of being referred to as the cause of someone else’s issues.  

    Growing up I had a great deal of respect for my parents. They provided for all of my worldly needs, taught me invaluable lessons and skills, and maintained a true sense of family and tradition within the walls of our home.

    Yet something was missing for me, as I was burdened by an inner need to always seek my parents’ approval and acceptance, which rendered me incredibly insecure and anxious growing up.

    Eventually, I became completely dependent on them for emotional stability and continual guidance. I didn’t love and trust myself enough to be the keeper of myself, so I allowed my parents to fill that role for me.

    As I evolved into an adult, found someone who loved me without conditions, and began to develop a deep appreciation for the person I was, I realized I no longer needed the family dynamic that I was so dependent on for so long.

    My parents, however, had a difficult time understanding that I was no longer that insecure, anxious, easily manipulated little boy trying to find his place in the world. I was now an adult, ready to chart his own course.

    We started arguing regularly, and many times rather than deal with the repercussions, I would just say I was sorry and return to how our relationship had always been.

    This dynamic continued on for many years until one day I offered my opinion and perspective on a complex, delicate matter they were considering. I questioned their motivation and feared the possible outcome, and thought voicing my concern would be appreciated.

    I was truly stunned by their reaction.

    Letters, emails, character attacks—they even posted hateful comments on a newspaper’s website I contributed to frequently, dragging my name through the proverbial mud in an effort to convince people that I wasn’t the man I proclaimed to be.

    I never expected something so heinous from my own parents. I was so taken aback, hurt and angry that my first thought was how to get back at them—to do a little mud-slinging of my own in an attempt at destroying their character, just as they had done to mine.

    Then I stumbled upon the following quote, and suddenly everything I thought I understood changed.

    “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” ~Gandhi

    How could I possibly be so naïve to believe that seeking revenge on my own parents would make my actions any better than theirs, let alone change the course of what had already been done?

    My revenge would only keep the wound open longer, perpetuating my bitterness and squandering my time on something I couldn’t change. Though never easy, acceptance is key in putting the pain behind you and moving forward with your life.

    I began to ask myself: Will I find any inner solace by propagating my anger? If I succeed at getting even, will it really change my reality? Does it make me the better person to do to them what they’ve done to me?

    As difficult as it was, instead of arguing and trying to defend myself, I simply said nothing. No replies, no rebuttals, no communication, nothing to engage us in the kind of negative confrontations we were accustomed to.

    I’ve learned that living without the drama that so many people thrive on is the only way to live a meaningful life.

    I’m far from perfect and those feelings of retribution still creep up now and then, especially when I get an email or letter as I did the other day. But each time the thought pops into my head, I begin to realize something:

    Regardless of how justified you might believe you are in seeking your revenge, it’s important to remember that life isn’t a game and simply getting even doesn’t mean you’ve won the battle; it just means you’ve lost your self-respect.

    It’s taken me a while to accept that I probably will never see my parents again. Yes, there will be times when I miss the family unit I remember from when I was a little boy; but then I’m forced to remind myself that things will never be as they were again.

    It saddens me that my parents are missing out on getting to know the man I truly am, instead of the insecure, anxious little boy they’re convinced still exists.

    In truth, I would not be the person I am today without them—a person of character and integrity who’s managed to touch the lives of many, even theirs I’m sure.

    In my heart I forgive them for everything that’s gone on, and the peace that provides me is much greater than the fleeting satisfaction of seeking revenge.

    Though it might seem impossible, even the bad things that happen in life have a funny way of leading us to a better place. At least, they did for me.

    Photo by joybot