Tiny Buddha

Tag: hurting

  • What It Really Means to Be There and “Hold Space” for Someone Else

    What It Really Means to Be There and “Hold Space” for Someone Else

    “A healer does not heal you. A healer is someone who holds space for you while you awaken your inner healer, so that you may heal yourself.” ~Maryam Hasnaa

    I was sobbing quite hysterically, huddled into myself sitting on the kitchen floor.

    It literally felt like my life was falling apart. And so was I.

    I had been striving so hard to start a meaningful business that would change the world and help others, as well as heal myself from intense ongoing physical symptoms. But it seemed the harder I tried, the less things worked.

    My head bobbed slightly off my knees as I took ragged breaths.

    What the hell was wrong with me? The thought that was driving my meltdown was unintelligible in my brain, due to the crashing waves of my emotional reaction.

    But somehow, eventually, I found myself able to fully lift my head and stare straight on at my distorted reflection in the stainless steel door of the dishwasher.

    The whole while, he sat with me.

    My endlessly loving partner, Jonathan, held space.

    I remember when I first turned to a friend and said, “What does holding space really mean?” I asked with the inquisitiveness of a child, like a small human who does not yet know what a word means.

    Because with something like this, can any of us really find the words to accurately explain it?

    She used a story in an attempt to define it, “When I was really freaking out about something, I went over to my friend’s house and just let it all out. My friend was able to just listen to me and just you know… hold the space.”

    “Holding space” is a concept that is hard to define without using the exact same words to define it. But as she explained it to me, I realized I’ve been lucky to have many experiences of people holding space for me, and I for them.

    When it comes down to it, what are we really doing when we are “holding space?”

    The interesting thing about this term is that we aren’t actually “holding” anything.

    When your daughter comes home from school and wants to tell you all about her day, and you listen intently… you are holding space.

    When your boyfriend vents about how hard work was that day, and you give him your full attention… you are holding space.

    When you are flipping out over one thing or another or all the things, and someone looks at you with complete acceptance… that is holding space.

    When you are both recognizing what is currently is going on, and open to stepping into a new reality… that is holding space.

    Holding space is about being in the space. 

    It’s about being fully present with the experience. Holding space is viewing someone without judgment and seeing him or her through loving kindness. Holding space is recognizing that although we all may stumble, we are all also so powerful.

    Holding space is like holding the door open for someone to walk through to experience a new model of the world. Instead of feeling like the walls are caving in, holding space literally gives breathing room to express, open up, and simply be where we are.

    What we are really doing when we hold space is nothing but pure acceptance—of ourselves, of others, and of the moment.

    As Brene Brown says, “When we are looking for compassion, we need someone who is deeply rooted, is able to bend, and most of all, embraces us for our strengths and struggles.”

    Those compassionate, rooted people in our life are invaluable to help us weather the storm and stand in the light again. But what happens when that other person just is not available to you in that moment?

    Holding space doesn’t have to involve anyone else physically being there with us or listening to us directly. You can each hold space for yourself. When you are going through something big (or seemingly small), you can hold space for yourself by tapping into self-compassion. 

    Dr. Kristin Neff defines three components of self-compassion as self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.

    Self-kindness entails being warm and understanding towards ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate. Instead of ignoring our pain or hurting ourselves with self-criticism, self-kindness involves being gentle with yourself when you encounter a painful experience.

    Common humanity is that reminder that we all suffer. We are all mortal, vulnerable, and imperfect. This suffering is part of the shared human experience. Realizing that can help us feel less isolated and more connected within that space.

    Mindfulness is taking a balanced approach to our challenging emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. Instead of “over-identifying” with our thoughts and feelings, mindfulness is a willingness to observe our negative thoughts and emotions with openness, clarity, and equanimity. It’s a non-judgmental way of becoming aware of our inner experience as it is, without trying to suppress or deny.

    We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion at the same time. This means, the more you can hold space for yourself, the more you can hold space for others. In that space, we all experience what it means to feel unconditional love. 

    When you feel unconditionally loved, you are able to fully own your own experience and truly be who you are. There is a calmness and clarity and an ability to also love the world as it is.

    This is where true power comes from. When we are able to be in unconditional love, all of our thoughts, words, and actions flow from it. We are bringing more of that love into the world.

    Which means holding space isn’t just beneficial for one. It benefits all.

    By loving ourselves, we also hold space for the world.

    **This post was originally published in March, 2018.

  • The Key to Helping a Person Who Is Depressed

    The Key to Helping a Person Who Is Depressed

    “Don’t look for someone who will solve all your problems. Look for someone who won’t let you face them alone.” ~Unknown

    Depression for me is like constantly walking up a hill.

    Most of the time the hill has only a one percent gradient. You can hardly even tell it’s a hill. I walk, run, jump, skip along, doing cartwheels and stopping to smell pretty flowers and listen to bird-calls; it’s sunny and warm, with clear blue skies.

    Even though I have to put in a little bit of effort to walk up, times are good.

    And then something happens in my life, like I lose my job, I have to move, or I’m having ongoing arguments with my partner, and my hill starts to get a bit steeper.

    It’s still reasonably easy climbing, but it takes a little more effort. It gets a bit darker around me, like the sun has just gone behind the clouds. But it’s fine. I can do it.

    And then some other things happen, like I’m feeling stressed out because it’s exam time, and I call my friend to hang out but she doesn’t have the time, and I injure myself and can’t do my usual activities anymore—and my hill gets even steeper.

    And then all of a sudden, almost without me realizing it, I’m on hands and knees, crawling up this really steep hill.

    It gets kind of dark around me, and pretty windy, like a storm is brewing. The temperature drops, I get goosebumps. But I don’t look at the darkness around and behind me. I am still aiming for the spot of brightness at the top. I know I’ll get there soon.

    I struggle to make eye contact with people, go out to social events, or call friends back, because I’m so focused on just making it up the hill.

    And then some other things happen, like I get a virus, or someone I love dies. And then my hill is so steep it’s like climbing a ladder, but slippery and made of grass and dirt and rocks.

    I freak out a little bit now, because it’s really hard! I’m scared of falling, but I still keep trying, to keep going up. Even though I’m barely moving.

    I can’t talk to you. It’s like I retreat right into the depths of my mind, and I can’t connect with anyone. I really need all my concentration not to fall.

    And then it starts raining. Really heavily. It’s become pitch black, like the middle of a moonless night. It’s still crazy windy. I try to grab a tuft of grass, to hold on to something, anything. But it’s slippery and wet, it slides through my grasping fingers, and I fall.

    And I fall, down the hill; sometimes not so far, sometimes a long way before I can grab a hold of something and stop myself. And I’m scared. Because that far down the hill, it’s dark, it’s rainy and stormy, and I feel so alone.

    And at that point, people around me—my friends, my family—get frustrated with me. Because I’m crying all the time, at this point. (Wouldn’t you, stuck in a storm in the dark?).

    People think they need to, or they think I want or expect them to, fly down on a helicopter, throw me a rope, and haul me straight back up to daylight. Fix me. Save me.

    I can understand people wanting to do that, because you know, I would like it to be that easy. It would be nice. But no one can do that for me. It’s my hill. I have to climb it—myself.

    And what is so comforting, at this point, is someone to just climb next to me. That’s all I want.

    Just someone to sit it out with me, dry my tears and hold my hand, and give me words of encouragement and feed me occasionally, while I start to make the trek back up from so far down.

    Because it’s a whole hill I have to walk up! It’s really steep that far down! It’s going to take me a little while. It’s hard for me to even remember what it feels like to be near the top.

    But I’m trying, I’m forever climbing, and eventually I do get back up to the daylight, where it levels out and it’s not so steep and hard at all.

    Though it can be tough climbing next to me, because when I’m down I’m inclined to do things like cry or ignore you or get angry with you over nothing, its worth it! Because when I get back up and I’m skipping along in the sunshine, I’m a really great person.

    If you have someone in your life that’s struggling up their own hill in the dark, could you not worry about fixing them and instead just offer to be there with them? Sometimes that’s the most meaningful thing.

    Depressed woman image via Shutterstock

  • When You Can’t Take Away Their Pain: Just Being There Is Enough

    When You Can’t Take Away Their Pain: Just Being There Is Enough

    “Just being there for someone can sometimes bring hope when all else feels hopeless.” ~Dave G. Llewellyn

    Parents, if I were to ask you what your worst nightmare is, what would you say?

    I daresay it probably falls somewhere under the category of “safety and health,” and the negative version thereof.

    Death. Illness. Suffering.

    It could largely summed up as “to watch or know my child is suffering,” an extension of that being “… and to not be able to do anything to help or take it away.”

    If you’re not a parent, I’m guessing you’re felt this same way about someone else you’ve loved, so a lot of this probably applies to you as well.

    Let’s focus for a minute on the illness angle, as that is where I have a personal frame of reference.

    Illness is a painful reality for millions of people around the world.

    It doesn’t matter whether that illness is something as seemingly innocuous as the common cold, or something far more sinister on the health scale; for a parent to watch their child get sick and suffer, it’s not a situation that anyone wants.

    They’re forced to put on a brave face and shove down the feelings that threaten to bubble over at any point: fear, sadness, guilt, anger, helplessness, frustration, and exhaustion, just to name a few. 

    Chronic illness has left its mark on my family; spun it’s web, drawn us in.

    I may not have been a child when my whole world changed—I was a young adult of twenty-four years old—but my parents had to stand by and watch it all unfold.

    I’ll be a child in their eyes—their child—always.

    They’ve not only had to witness the initial impact—that devastating moment when they were told to brace themselves, stand strong, for their child was so critically ill that her life was hanging in the balance—but they’ve also had to continue living with those ever-reaching threads for fourteen years.

    They’ve watched me overcome adversity and shine, time and time again.

    But then the coin flipped over and they had to face the underlying realities of my situation despite my vibrant smile: the ongoing chronic pain, neurological deficits, and life challenges.

    When a person is chronically ill, the whole family feels the pain.

    Healthy family members are often overworked, physically and mentally, particularly if they have assumed caregiver responsibilities, all of which is compounded by the helplessness they feel when they’re unable to provide relief to the family member in distress.

    I’ve always been aware of this impact. I’ve always known my parents would willingly take my illness and make it theirs, if that option existed.

    I know my parents often feel powerless; they don’t know what to say, how to act, or what they can do to help me.

    I’ve always understood and had empathy for this. But I’ve never fully comprehended the true extent of their experience and feelings.

    How could I possibly?

    Just like they can’t walk a mile in my shoes, I can’t walk a mile in theirs. Our shoes are unique. They fit only us.

    Life lesson coming up…

    Horus, my fur child, has had some health challenges over the past twelve months, seemingly one thing after another.

    His most recent ailment relates to a leg issue that thankfully is now on the mend, but it’s certainly been cause for worry.

    At one of his recent check-ups, his vet made mention that Horus is most likely experiencing a high degree of pain and discomfort, despite the perpetually happy exterior and perky disposition, and it suddenly struck me:

    My child, so like his Mumma, is in pain.

    Quite possibly a high degree of pain.

    I will never know for sure.

    And I can’t take it away for him.

    A blow to my heart. I’m his Mumma and I can’t take away his hurt and make it all better.

    It’s a blow that my parents, and in this example context, my mother, has no doubt felt, time and time again, with my situation. Only I know hers would be amplified tenfold. A hundredfold. And my father’s as well.

    Because parents love their children so deeply, they would make any sacrifice required to take their hurt away and make it all better.

    What happens when you really can’t take away their pain, despite all the wishing and heartfelt sentiments? 

    When you really can’t remove your child’s obstacles, in whatever form they may take?

    I can’t fathom the agony, anger, guilt, frustration, helplessness, powerless and the myriad of other emotions that my parents must have felt, and continue to feel, when they think about my challenges in life.

    And even though I am in an amazing new season of growth, opportunity, and health, the challenges are still real, albeit tapered down—thank goodness!—and I know they still struggle because I struggle.

    A parent is supposed to take away all of her child’s obstacles.

    Or are they?

    Truthfully, that is an unrealistic burden to place upon yourself.

    To any parents reading this—or to anyone who’s feeling the agony of being unable to heal their loved one’s pain—please do your upmost to release yourself from these mental shackles. 

    The mind is very cruel at times, if you allow it untethered freedom, and it will keep you stuck in a place of sadness that serves neither you nor your child. You can’t be there for them, or anyone else, if you’re lost in your head, beating yourself up for not being able to do more.

    You’re doing the best you can. Why compound your pain with unnecessary guilt?

    To my parents, please know this:

    You have equipped me with everything I need in this life.

    You can’t take away my pain, but you can be happy that you gave me the strength and the will to persevere.

    You can’t take away my obstacles, but you can be there, physically and emotionally, to guide me, to hold out a hand, to lift me up when I fall down, to be my biggest cheerleaders.

    Sometimes, all you can do is be there.

    But just being there might be enough.

  • I Am Happy, Hurting, and Healing

    I Am Happy, Hurting, and Healing

  • Acknowledging That We’re Not Okay is the Only Way to Make Things Better

    Acknowledging That We’re Not Okay is the Only Way to Make Things Better

    “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your own understanding.” ~Khalil Gibran

    There was a time in my life where I felt like everything needed to seem okay.

    I had trouble achieving emotional closeness in my relationships, I was unsatisfied in my career, and I struggled with at times severe anxiety and depression. But I was always “okay,” and actually went great lengths to hide any sign that I wasn’t.

    I kept myself busy to avoid seeming “lame” by having nothing to do, or perhaps to avoid the feelings that would come up if I had nothing to do. If I felt insecure or dissatisfied with something, I’d simply lie and try to cover it up rather than ever acknowledge there was a problem.

    Feeling alone and not heard in my friendships? Well, everyone else seems to be fine, so I’ll just pretend I’m fine too. Uncomfortable feelings? Push them down and ignore them, always. And if someone did something to hurt or offend me, I never said anything, because I wasn’t able to stand up for myself or set boundaries.

    I’m still trying to understand the origin of these feelings, but for me, it was dealing with generations of family trauma and hurt, as well as realizing that I’m bisexual. It was also receiving the message, implicitly and sometimes explicitly, that as a woman, it wasn’t okay for me to speak up and stand up for myself.

    Essentially, at some point, I came to believe that my real feelings weren’t acceptable.

    And the reality is, it was incredibly lonely. This perception left me unable to truly connect with anyone, because I felt as though they wouldn’t like the real me. But everyone else seemed like they were fine, so I pushed down who I was and my own personality to be who I thought I should be to fit in.

    I think we all struggle with this to some degree. Everyone has weird habits and secrets they keep to themselves. But for some of us, we feel like something is fundamentally wrong with us, as though if people saw our real selves, they wouldn’t like us. And so we hide it, and act in ways that we think we “should” act to seem like everyone else.

    The problem with this is that it makes life a lot more complicated when you have to suppress your own reaction or feelings, think about it, and then do what you assume other people would do in your situation.

    I always tried to hide and minimize any discomfort, pretend I felt more comfortable in my relationships than I did and was happier with my life than I was. Not that the people around me weren’t wonderful people, but I didn’t ever feel that I belonged or was known.

    In fact, in my early twenties, I had everything I could possibly want—a college degree, my own place, a relationship, great friends, and a job with a prestigious company. And I wasn’t happy. Or perhaps there was a part of me that was unfulfilled. Everything in my life was great, but I simply didn’t feel seen.

    The problem with always being “okay” is that at some point you just can’t do it anymore. And unsurprisingly, there came a point when my life fell apart.

    I experienced unemployment, a series of failed romantic relationships, and health issues, including disordered eating. In many ways, my life is still “apart.” Making changes has involved a lot of yoga, meditation, and emotional work, and even some solo traveling. It has been difficult and painful, and I have lost relationships.

    But the truth is that this previous “me” was like a house of cards, or perhaps a house with a cracked foundation. I pushed a lot of things down, I never stood up for myself or expressed my real feelings or needs, or even had any idea what those were—and that simply wasn’t a sustainable way to live.

    The most important step I took, and that I believe anyone can take, is finally stopping and recognizing when things are not okay. We can’t fix what we won’t acknowledge, and it is impossible to make changes if we refuse to admit something is wrong.

    Had life not presented me with the chaos it did, I would have continued to push my way along, shoving down any unwanted feelings and avoiding addressing them but also avoiding the growth, connection, and happiness that comes from actually facing my fears and emotions, and working through them with other people.

    Before, I had operated from the clearly faulty assumptions that any differences or unique qualities I had, such as my sensitivity and introverted, empathic nature—or, you know, things that make me a human being—were shameful and bad and must be covered up, that I was “too sensitive,” and that being assertive was definitely taboo. And above all, I must never admit it if I needed help. So I just went with what life gave me and tried my best to fit in.

    I’m learning to sit with difficult feelings and situations and trying to understand them instead of constantly running away from them.

    I am also working on communicating with people when they upset me. Sometimes they don’t have any idea, and promise to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But if they don’t care, that is something I need to know too. And instead of giving in to my insatiable need to fit in and be like everyone else, I’m trying to just be honest and be myself.

    Finally, instead of running, I’m trying to acknowledge when life isn’t good. Because acknowledging this, and understanding what uncomfortable feelings have to teach me, is the only way to actually make anything better.

  • You Have to Feel it to Heal It: The Only Way Out is Through

    You Have to Feel it to Heal It: The Only Way Out is Through

    “Emotional pain cannot kill you, but running from it can. Allow. Embrace. Let yourself feel. Let yourself heal.” ~Vironika Tugaleva

    I plodded up the half-mile hill that led to my house, my backpack weighing heavily on my shoulders in the insistent summer heat. The mild breeze that drifted off the Boston harbor was a cruel joke, hinting at coolness but offering no respite.

    Recently heartbroken, I felt tears streaming hotly down my cheeks for the third time that day as the pain of my ex-partner’s absence crashed swiftly on my heart.

    I reached out to a trusted friend seeking solace. “Sobbing again” I texted her, knowing she would decipher the pain behind my words. She hesitated for a moment before responding: “Duh.”

    I hiccupped mid-sob, surprised.

    She went on: “Feel it. It’s going to hurt. But every moment you’re sobbing, you’re doing the work. Every moment you’re hurting, you’re healing. The only way out is through.”

    I stared at the screen, digesting her words. That was the last thing I’d expected. I’d expected to be coddled or encouraged to look at the bright side. I’d expected to be force-fed an ice cream cone at J.P. Licks.

    This was different. For the first time in my grieving process, I wasn’t told to gloss over my feelings with a coat of rose-colored paint. Someone I trusted was encouraging me to feel my pain in its entirety. Through her eyes, my pain was valid and productive—a necessary step on my journey toward healing.

    Her direct acknowledgement of my suffering was the permission I needed to truly feel my pain instead of avoid it. Instead of worrying that I wasn’t trying hard enough to be happy—instead of worrying that I was taking “too long” to heal—I felt like I was doing everything properly.

    I could celebrate the work I was doing, even when that work was breaking into sobs, for the third time that day, on the half-mile walk home.

    My pain and grief had meaning.

    It could serve a purpose.

    It could serve me.

    Since then, I’ve developed a new way of looking at pain:

    When we allow ourselves to fully experience painful or uncomfortable feelings, we are doing work. Sitting with our feelings instead of disengaging or distracting ourselves is work.

    Once we accept that we are doing work, we can silence our internal critic that believes that feeling pain means we’re “doing something wrong.” Instead, we begin to understand that feeling our pain is important and productive.

    When we understand the true nature of our work, we can summon compassion for ourselves as we move through our uncomfortable feelings on the path to healing, peace, and wholeness.

    This framework has changed my life. I’ve applied it to my most acutely painful emotions, like heartbreak, as well as milder ones, like unease.

    Last month on a stormy Friday night, for example, a tide of anxiety rolled through me. Instead of texting my friends or sweethearts to organize an impromptu rendezvous—a surefire way to distract myself—I turned on my air conditioner, donned the biggest sweater I could find, and cuddled my pillow as I watched the rain streak down my window.

    It felt uncomfortable. I felt the familiar tightness in my chest and shortness in my breath.

    “You’re being anti-social!” nagged my inner critic. “You’re being boring. It’s Friday! You’re not trying hard enough.”

    I took a deep breath and put my hand over my heart. I am doing work, I said firmly into my heart. This is important. I kept my hand on my chest, repeating these mantras in time with the falling rain, until my inner critic’s voice was an echo of an echo.

    When I woke up the next morning to a clear blue sky and a bout of energy, I took pride in how I’d weathered the storm, so to speak. I learned that my anxiety was impermanent and, most importantly, manageable. 

    Then there are those darkest moments of sorrow, the moments when grief shakes even our sturdiest foundations. When we lose a loved one. When illness consumes us. When we experience a tragedy so emotionally excruciating that it redefines our very understanding of pain.

    In these moments, when we can’t find a single silver lining for miles, we can summon the courage to sit with our sorrow. We can find solace in the truth that there is simply nothing else to do.

    Experiencing our grief—if only for moments at a time—is work. This is the work of living on this Earth, of being human, and of surviving the universal rites of passage that mark our lives as we age.

    When I feel existentially lost, isolated, and convinced of the meaninglessness of my pain, I take a moment to witness the people around me. I watch people walking hand in hand at the park, or reading novels on the train, or sunbathing at the beach.

    Somehow, the vast majority of people around me have weathered similarly painful times. The mere fact of their existence, when I’m certain I will shatter into nothingness, is strength enough to soldier on.

    Before I learned the benefit of sitting with my feelings, doing work of this nature didn’t appeal to me. Why wallow in sorrow when you could just do something about it? I wondered. 

    When I felt uncomfortable, I would find a way to occupy my time and distract my heart. I’d burrow my nose in a screen until I was only dimly aware of the world around me; call one friend after another, repeating the same painful story, swimming concentric circles around my pain without ever diving in; grab a pen and scribble a to-do list to feel the rush of purposefulness at the expense of true catharsis.

    In retrospect, it’s easy to see that my “coping strategies” were no such thing.

    When we distract ourselves from our pain with a flurry of motion, we fool ourselves into thinking we’re being productive. We fall victim to the addictive high of the quick fix. But as any hard worker in any field will tell you, there is no substitute for good, hard work. Work that gives us a sense of our own intrinsic worth and yields desirable results. 

    Which begs the question: Given the undeniable difficulty of this brand of work, why do it at all? What is the reward for expending such mental and physical effort?

    Different folks will offer different answers. As for me, I’ve always believed that our purpose on this earth is to live our richest, most beautiful lives. Anything less seems like a terrible waste of the gift of conscious experience.

    I believe that in order to live such lives, we must live our essential truth. Living our essential truth means making the conscious effort to feel the spectrum of our pain, magnificent and minor. It means giving ourselves permission to feel emotions as they are, and rid our lives of the pressures to conform, perform, and self-delude.

    When we act in accordance with our deepest feelings, our lives become simpler. Instead of constantly choosing how to act or what to say—spurring waterfalls of anxiety and self-doubt –there is always one choice: the choice that is true for us. The choice that we feel in our hearts.

    The next time you are hurting, uncomfortable, or lonely, feel your pain. Feel as much of it as you can bear. Your pain is a necessary step on your journey towards healing. And remember:

    You are doing your best.

    You are healing at exactly the right pace.

    You are doing work.

    Your work has meaning.

    It can serve a purpose.

    It can serve you.

  • Understanding the Cycle of Pain: How to Transmute Anger into Empathy

    Understanding the Cycle of Pain: How to Transmute Anger into Empathy

    “When we get angry, we suffer. If you really understand that, you also will be able to understand that when the other person is angry, it means that she is suffering. When someone insults you or behaves violently towards you, you have to be intelligent enough to see that the person suffers from his own violence and anger. But we tend to forget … When we see that our suffering and anger are no different from their suffering and anger, we will behave more compassionately.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    There is so much to be angry about every day because life is unfair.

    My own situation right now is infuriating. I left my job and my home country in large part to return back to the US and help my mom care for my father. During that time, my mother’s frustration with her role as caregiver, along with the emotional stresses and practical limitations it placed on her, often boiled over into rage directed at me. This situation persisted for ten months.

    Immediately after that, she herself became terminally ill, and now my role is caregiver. My whole life plan has had to change as a result, so my hopes of going back to my old life now need to take a backseat to my mother’s illness, which was brought about by her own behavior (smoking). For so many years I had asked her to quit, to which she reacted—you guessed it—angrily.

    When it was clear she wasn’t doing well, I encouraged her to see a doctor. She got angry with me.

    While in the hospital, she was frustrated at being confined to a bed. She took her anger and frustration out on me for that too.

    Now, faced with difficult treatments and limitations on her lifestyle, she lashes out at me every day or two. Me—the only one at home with her, and the only one of her four children who has the will and/or ability to care for her in this way.

    I’m not going to lie—it’s difficult to refrain from reacting in kind, and sometimes I do just that.

    In my cancer caregiver support group, I found this is a common thread—people are angry, and they have difficulty directing and dealing with that anger.

    One woman has a husband whose blasé attitude toward his cancer puts him in a lot of dangerous situations. This completely stresses her out because she is in a constant state of worry about his health and safety. But, rather than expressing these sentiments, she has internalized them, allowing anger to slowly fester.

    It was a significant and therapeutic step for her to actually admit that she was angry. Her way of coping thereafter was to withdraw from her husband in order to preserve her own emotional well-being.

    Another woman was angry because her husband, sick on-and-off with cancer for nearly twenty years, was also depressed through his illness, leaving her as the sole caregiver and breadwinner. Needless to say, her marriage was far from the storybook version she’d originally had in mind. Her way of dealing with her anger was to be productive—to be the best mother and caretaker she could be—and occasionally vent or break down to some trusted friends or our group.

    There is nothing wrong or shameful about either of these two approaches. Both women have shown incredible fortitude in the face of difficult situations. Furthermore, their reactions were certainly much more constructive and peace-promoting than simply popping off and reacting temperamentally.

    However, I have found it helps take me to an even more peaceful state to remind myself of the cycle of pain.

    In this cycle, as succinctly described by Thich Nhat Hanh above, people act out in negative ways (e.g. aggressive, uncaring, etc.) as a result of inner pain. Even if that pain is difficult for us as outsiders to understand, it is there as a matter of fact.

    Though it may help to intellectually understand the specific causes and dynamics of the individual’s pain, in most cases that isn’t possible because you cannot get inside someone else’s head. But we can still accept that the other person is in pain. Once we accept this, we can relate it to our own and therefore feel empathy.

    This is very difficult to do in the moment. What helps me when I feel the flush of temper is to take a deep breath and close my eyes. When I take in that breath, I imagine myself “breathing in” the other person’s pain, which appears to me internally as smoke or pollution.

    I then imagine in my head what they are going through. That is why it helps to understand what the pain is. In my mother’s case, it’s the fear of her disease as well as the discomfort with suddenly having to deal with the restrictions it places on her time and activities.

    I imagine them dealing with that pain, and as the breath comes in I feel a sensation permeate my body. I then let out the breath, which I imagine to be a vapor of peace. I feel lighter and calmer.

    I call this alchemy for the soul—transmuting anger into empathy.

    When I expressed this in the group, I was met with crickets, except for the woman who was angry about her husband’s careless attitude about his condition. She had two comebacks.

    First, she said although that was a “nice” sentiment, she needed to take care of herself at this point and not worry about her husband’s emotions. After all, as the cancer sufferer, he was receiving all kinds of sympathy from every corner. Fair enough.

    Secondly, she said that it takes a lot of energy and effort to “suppress” your feelings when you’re already feeling exhausted from being the caregiver. I understand that too.

    At that point, I dropped the matter, firstly, because I sensed her slight agitation and secondly, because I thought it might strain the dynamics of our safe place if I came across as a preachy teacher in a group of equals.

    What I wanted to say was that this is not about her husband’s feelings. In fact, quite the opposite—doing this would be all about her emotions.

    To hold onto anger and need to direct it somewhere, to me, is draining. I need to carry it around and find where to put it. I need to put effort into not blowing up at someone. To me, this exercise of alchemy for the soul feels like the opposite of “suppression,” whose Latin origin literally means to “press down.”

    When I perform my little alchemy ritual, the feeling is much more of a lightening up or dissolving kind of sensation. Rather than doing someone else a favor, I feel like I am treating myself well, which allows me to treat others well too (and not begrudge them for it!).

    Even when someone else is clearly the “cause” of your anger, it helps to remember that it isn’t really him or her—it’s his or her suffering that is at the root of the hurtful actions. Yes, they are responsible for what they do, but it helps to remember that it’s human to sometimes act out when you’re hurting.

    If you feel that this thinking lets the person off the hook too easily, remember that however hurtful someone’s actions are, no one can “make” you feel a certain way. Ultimately, how you react internally to someone’s actions, what you choose to focus on and how you think about it, is your own responsibility. To blame another person for how you feel is to give him or her power over you.

    To be clear, I’m not making excuses for bad behavior. If someone does something cruel or thoughtless or aggressive to you, it is his or her failing for doing so. But however hurt you may feel in the moment, that person does not have the power to make you carry that hurt with you in the form of anger.

    Once again, this has nothing to do with you being a saint and deigning to give that person compassion or forgiveness; it’s about you taking care of yourself by stopping the angry chain reaction that can lead to all kinds of hurt and unfortunate behaviors.

    Why not just allow yourself to just be angry and make up a sad story about what was done to you in which you are cast as the victim? In a sense, you’re totally justified in doing so, but where does that lead? How does that help you? The truth is, you very well might have been a victim of someone’s aggression in that moment, but only you can make yourself remain a victim by carrying around the negativity.

    When you help yourself by letting go of your anger, you help everyone else around you too.

    This is a practice that has very much helped me, but it’s not the only way to deal with anger. I’m always in search of new strategies myself, so please feel free to tell me what’s helped you cope.

  • The Most Powerful Way to Help Someone Through Emotional Pain

    The Most Powerful Way to Help Someone Through Emotional Pain

    “When you can’t look on the bright side, I will sit with you in the dark.” ~Unknown

    I walked in for my monthly massage and immediately sensed something was off.

    A layer of desolation hung in the air like an invisible mist, ominous and untouchable, yet so thick I felt as though I could reach out and grab a handful in my fist, like wet cement, oozing out between my fingers.

    I’d been seeing the same masseuse once a month for three years, repeating the same routine each time. I wait in the hallway just outside her rented studio, a large walk-in closet size room in a building filled with hundreds of similar rooms, each rented to private individuals running their small passion businesses. Across from her, a wax studio. Down the hall, a hair salon.

    The building houses the manifested dreams of men and women who finally had enough of the daily nine-to-five grind, fired their bosses, and defiantly forged their way into their own businesses, renting space big enough for their hopes yet small enough for their start-up pockets.

    The appointment started unlike any other. When her door’s closed, it means she’s with another client, so I sit in the hallway, in one of the two wobbly wooden chairs the building provides for each tenant, and wait.

    When the door opens and the previous client leaves, we greet with hugs and smiles, expressing mutual joy in seeing each other again. As she closes the door, I take off my clothes and lie on the table face down, exchanging small talk about any happenings since we last saw one another.

    Except this time, on this fateful day, the door opened and I was greeted by an overwhelming sense of sorrow spilling out of the room with a vengeance, as if it had been trapped for decades.

    Standing in place of my masseuse friend was a lifeless, hollow shell of a person with empty zombie eyes. I hardly recognized her.

    Jen (not her real name) was clearly not her usual self.

    I’ve seen her in several bad moods throughout the years but this was beyond moods, and bad was too kind a word.

    Like me, Jen’s an introverted, sensitive soul, and neither of us have tolerance for inauthenticity or meaningless chit chat. We had long established that she didn’t have to be “on” around me, that she was allowed to take off her professional mask and I my client mask and we could simply be ourselves with each other, neither of us having to endure the torture of polite pleasantries if we didn’t feel like it.

    One of my pet peeves is society’s constant pressure and expectation to put on a happy face and pretend everything’s okay while inside things are desperately broken.

    So I said “hi” and walked in, neither expecting a return “hi” nor receiving one. She closed the door behind me and tears suddenly welled in my eyes as I undressed, as if sorrow no longer had the means to escape through the open door and found another way out by hitchhiking my tears.

    I wanted to respect the present moment, even though I didn’t understand it, so I stayed silent and lay on the table, face down, as I’d always done.

    Ten minutes in, between deep long strokes on my back, I heard a soft, almost inaudible, “I lost the girls.”

    Jen had been pregnant with twin girls. I remember the day she told me. She could barely wait for me to get through the door before blurting out, “I’m pregnant!” She and her husband had been trying to get pregnant for a while and finally, she was not only pregnant, she was pregnant with twins!

    And now, she wasn’t anymore.

    I sunk into the massage table as the enormity of what she said dropped into me. And then, I started to get up and tell her that she didn’t have to massage me. We could talk if she wanted, or she could take the extra hour to herself, I’d still pay her. She gently nudged my shoulder back down and said she needed to work; it kept her mind from self-destructing.

    She told me that her soul had been emptied along with her womb, and there was nothing left, let alone tears, inside her.

    I had enough tears for both of us so I told her I’d cry, for her, her girls, and her loss. For the next forty-five minutes, as she released my knots, I released tears, wails, and guttural sobs. It came and went in waves and I became acutely aware of the rhythm of her breathing as it converged with mine and became one.

    Between waves, there were moments of talking.

    Like with me, she had met many of her clients with the exciting news that she was pregnant, and like with me, she also had to tell them she was no longer pregnant. Client after client, spread out over weeks, she had to repeat the same story over and over until every client who knew had been caught up.

    It was a devastating loss for her, and one she had to retell to each client, all hearing it for the first time, all with similar questions and the same sympathetic side tilting heads in response.

    She said her days have been filled with well-intentioned but stale advice like “everything happens for a reason,” and “they’re in a better place now,” and “you’ll get pregnant again.”

    She told me each time she heard these statements, it felt like another jab in her weary stomach. She didn’t care about getting pregnant again, better places, or higher reasons. When a mother’s unborn babies have been ripped away from her, no reason could ever make it right.

    She wasn’t in the headspace to feel better or think of a brighter future, she simply wanted to be acknowledged for the pain she was going through now, but no one had remained with her in the pain. They had all tried to make her feel better, which only made her feel worse.

    In our own discomfort of feeling painful emotions, we try to help others not feel theirs. It’s difficult for us to see someone we love suffering, and naturally, our first impulse is to try to make it go away, whether it’s through reason, logic, distraction, faith or any other means.

    We feel helpless, so we desperately reach for what we know, what we’ve been taught, and what others have done to us in our own moments of suffering. We offer trite words that deep down we know won’t help but we hold onto the hope that they will anyway because we don’t know what else to say or do.

    The more powerful choice is to simply be with someone, accepting and embracing the painful moment as is, without trying to fix or make it better. It goes against our natural urge to want to help, but often, this present moment acceptance of the deep emotions flowing through a person is exactly what they need to help them move through it, in their own time.

    As powerful as it is to shine a light for someone who’s ready to emerge, it is equally powerful to sit with them in the darkness until they’re ready.  

    After the session, Jen told me she felt relief for the first time since it happened, as if a weight had been lifted from her. She hadn’t realized it, but with each client, friend, and loved one who tried to make her feel better, she felt a mounting sense of pressure to feel better, as if there was something even more wrong with her for not being able to.

    She hadn’t been conscious of the constant pressure until it was gone, in our session, when she was finally allowed to feel exactly as she’d been feeling and was fully accepted in her pain.

    Stepping out into the hallway and turning back for a long melting hug, I sensed the profound shift in her energy, vastly different from when I had walked in an hour ago. She was still wounded but there was an element of acceptance in her pain, a faint glow of light within the darkness.

    This sacred, healing light only comes as a result of fully embracing the darkness. It can’t be forced, manipulated, or pushed into existence.

    This is the true power of accepting our own deep pain and sitting with someone in the dark as they feel theirs.

  • License to Hurt: What We Really Need When We’re in Pain

    License to Hurt: What We Really Need When We’re in Pain

    “We’ll light the candle together when she’s ready. For now I’ll trust the darkness for us both.” ~Terri St. Cloud

    Over breakfast one morning recently, Jeff and I started reminiscing about past years, and something was said that brought back a painful memory for me. My boss at the time had been unimaginably small-minded. He had hung me out to dry. “I still can’t understand why he did that,” I said.

    Jeff looked at me levelly. “You need to get over it, Jan,” he said. “It was years ago.”

    Wise advice, without question. The only problem was that I didn’t want it just then.

    Why is it that we are so seldom allowed a few moments just to hurt? After a serious heartbreak like the death of a loved one, sure, we’re given all the leeway we need. But the run-of-the-mill slights and small, persistent sorrows are treated as something we should quickly move past, even when they’re deeply painful.

    Jeff, poor guy, was just trying to help. I couldn’t fault him. I knew I was being a bit ridiculous. But what I longed for was someone to acknowledge my outrage, let me sit with it, live into it for a few moments—and then gently remind me that it’s time to get over it.

    A few hours later, after I’d licked my wounds and was feeling better, I began to wonder: Might I also be failing to honor the sorrows of others?

    Everything I’ve learned in the past eight years, since the death of our son, has pointed me to the same lesson: The most important thing we can give each other in times of pain is compassion, a simple, “Oh, I bet that’s really hard.” We should offer that before—or instead of—advice on how to cope.

    Even worse are the times when we immediately turn the conversation to ourselves: “I know just what you mean. I’m going through something like that too.”

    I catch myself doing this way too often. My intent is to signal to the person that we’re partners in pain and can support each other. But the comment shifts the focus away from my companion’s heartache to mine.

    Or we may inadvertently belittle our friend’s sorrow with stories of how we’ve overcome the same challenge.

    Recently I overheard a conversation between two elderly women. One was talking about how emotionally wrenching she was finding it to give up her home and move to a retirement facility.

    “Oh, you won’t miss it a bit once you get settled,” the other woman said.

    She had already been through the experience and knew without question what lay ahead. I wanted to break in and hug the first woman. When we are in pain, the last thing we need is someone who knows without question what lies ahead.

    Many of us find it deeply uncomfortable to be in the presence of suffering. And no wonder. We live in a culture where we’re taught from childhood to hide our hurts, to buck up and get over them. We don’t want to display them, and we don’t want to see them in others. Yet unspoken pain is all around us.

    I’m talking here about a way of caring for each other that hews a fine line, because I in no way want to encourage my friends and loved ones to wallow in their sorrow. I want to honor it for what it is but never give it the power to rule my life.

    It’s true that others may be able to benefit from what I’ve learned—but not immediately after suffering the same kind of hurt. And it’s entirely up to them whether or not they want to learn from me.

    To show love for another in sorrow asks more of us than empathetic gestures. It asks us to try and understand exactly what the other is feeling, and even to risk getting a taste of that pain.

    At a retreat in Maui in 2001, Ram Dass drew a clear distinction between empathy and compassion.

    “Compassion for somebody else is that you are one with them and you hurt with them. That compassion comes out of the oneness of your heart, the oneness with all beings . . . ” He continued, “It’s not just empathy. It’s not one person feels empathy for another person. It’s got to be one person.”

    How will I ever reach the point where I can feel as one with someone who’s hurting? In this I’m like a child learning to walk; I can only stumble and try again.

    I’ve lived most of my life cultivating the image of myself as a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need anyone’s help. Reid’s death showed me how wrong I was. My task now, I think, is to be present for others who are hurting, because I know what suffering means. This knowledge is a bittersweet gift that’s been given to me by life. I’m trying as hard as I can to use it.

    I do not always succeed.

    This is what I know for certain: I can’t tell others how to heal. All I can do is sit with them—and when they’re ready, help them light a candle to find their way out of the dark. Doing this kindly, without giving voice to how I think they should move forward, is a practice I will struggle to follow the rest of my life.

    One last thing: A few weeks ago, when I had another setback with work, my dear Jeff came to me and enveloped me in a hug. He held me close, hurting with me. And only then, after several minutes, did he remind me that it wasn’t all that important—that in fact I had plenty of reasons to let it go.

    I responded by giving him the biggest, longest kiss I’ve given him in years.

    Photo by mhx

  • How to Use Silence to Help Your Hurting Friend

    How to Use Silence to Help Your Hurting Friend

    “Sitting silently beside a friend who is hurting may be the best gift we can give.” ~Unknown

    There’s a time for words and a time for silence. Thankfully, when I went through one of the darkest periods of my life, I had friends who knew what time it was.

    When things go well, your friends don’t usually need to show up in silence. But everything changes when you go through a season of intense pain and disappointment. I know this from firsthand experience.

    My life took a drastic turn for the worse when the first ride of the season on our motorcycle ended abruptly. A driver who should have stopped and waited turned left onto the highway, right in front of us. In that moment, we met a world of hurt.

    After the initial crash, which I barely survived, I experienced incredible peace and gratitude. I was in a great deal of pain, but I found myself grateful for my family, the excellent care I was receiving, and hope for a better future.

    In the early days of repair and recovery, I appreciated the friends and family who came to visit. I enjoyed hearing their news and talking about my journey. I read, with gratitude, the cards that were filled with words of encouragement and love.

    But I also appreciated the times when words were not spoken. My true friends would watch me fall asleep in the middle of a conversation and not be bothered. They knew I needed the rest and were okay sitting in silence.

    When Silence Meant the Most

    At the four-month point of my recovery, the pain and loss took a turn for the worse. An infection in my leg that was supposed to be killed two months earlier was alive and well. It resulted in an unexpected re-admittance to the hospital and a painful fourth surgery.

    After that fourth surgery, the reality of my situation started to sink in. My body would never be the same again. The next marathon I was planning to run would never see me at the starting line. The door into a brand new work opportunity that opened up just before the accident was slammed shut.

    As the losses mounted, my infected leg throbbed under the pain of reconstruction. I slipped into depression and struggled to find relief physically and emotionally. The pain medicine took the edge off the physical pain but the emotional pain was relentless.

    At one particular low point in the hospital bed, my wife and two life-long friends sat with me. In the void of silence, something powerful happened. I started to cry shallow tears at first, but then guttural sobs that came from the deep pain I was feeling.

    At that point in my hurt, I would have snapped had someone told me, “It will be okay. Hang in there. You’ll get through this.” Those words would have felt like patronizing pity and been no comfort at all.

    What I was given in the silence was the best gift I could have received. I wasn’t out of the woods, but I had moved ever so slightly in the direction of healing and being present with my pain and struggle.

    I had a similar experience two days later in the same hospital room. Another dear friend came to visit, not with answers or platitudes, but with support and a willingness to sit in silence. He received my tears in silence without feeling awkward and left having given me a gift.

    Life Lessons on How to Help a Hurting Friend

    Through my experience with silence, I harvested several takeaways. I apply these lessons to myself and give them to you as you seek to help those in your life who hurt.

    Human Companionship Helps Carry the Pain

    When you go through a painful experience, part of the load only you can carry. Part of the load, however, can be shared by companions who travel with you. My friends drove me around, shoveled my driveway, looked after my work, and brought me the snacks I really enjoyed. But they also helped me carry my pain.

    Carrying the pain of another can be a challenging task, but when it happens, it’s like a cup of cold water on a hot day. When my friends sat with me in silence while I hurt physically and emotionally, they provided reassurance and support so I would keep going and not lose hope.

    Well-Placed Words Can Be a Comforting Distraction

    Sometimes we use words because we’re uncomfortable with silence. Sometimes we use words because we’re uncomfortable with pain and suffering. But words offered at the right time and in the right way can also be life giving.

    The words I appreciated when in pain were the stories of life and experiences in the outside world. I enjoyed hearing about the holidays taken to warm places, babies being born, and the jokes being told.

    The stories became a comforting distraction from the pain and difficulty I was experiencing. There were times when I wasn’t in the mood for their stories, but if that was the case, I would just simply tell them and they would revert to silence.

    Friends Give Us Strength to Hold Our “Why?”

    When I carried an overwhelming load of loss and grief, I asked “Why?” Asking “Why?” is a natural response to loss. The problem comes when we demand an answer and never get to a place of accepting our situation.

    The friends who helped me while I was asking “Why?” were the ones who didn’t try to answer the question but sat in silence and allowed the question to be the elephant in the room.

    I felt strength when my friends held “Why?” with me without needing an answer or making me feel bad for asking.

    Friends Remind Us We’re Not Alone

    Online social networks meet a certain need for connection, but when we’re in pain, they’re not enough. You need warm-blooded people to be present with you when you hurt. I certainly did. Having friends like or comment on my Facebook status helped, but it wasn’t enough.

    The presence of a true friend who is able to sit in silence meets the human need for connection and affects us more than we know. You know it matters because when you are alone for too long, depression and despair starts to set in.

    Just By Being Present, Friends Might Be Doing Enough

    When I was in pain the physiotherapist forced me to get out of bed the day after surgery, I dreaded it. I knew I needed to get moving again, but the pain and struggle was intense. What helped was a friend or family member who walked in silence beside or behind me.

    My friends saw my pain and struggle and couldn’t take it away. What they could do was be present, and when they did, made my life just a little easier to endure.

    Who in your life is in a world of hurt? Who could you help, not with words, but with your presence?

    If you don’t have the right words, don’t worry. Your presence and willingness to sit in the silence may be the best gift you could give your friend.

  • Break the Cycle: How to Stop Hurting Others When You Were Mistreated

    Break the Cycle: How to Stop Hurting Others When You Were Mistreated

    “What’s broken can be mended. What hurts can be healed. And no matter how dark it gets, the sun is going to rise again.” ~Unknown

    I grew up with difficult and hurtful parents who spoke critically, with the intent to demean.

    Each word of sarcasm, each thinly veiled joke or put-down undercut my self-esteem. Each knocked me down a rung in life and kept me from my potential.

    Rampant comparisons to other Indian kids succeeding academically, attacks of my mediocre performance at school, and harsh language were my mother’s weapons of choice.

    When someone attacks your self-esteem repeatedly, you feel beat down. It feels like you were meant to fly, but your own family is making you drown.

    Then, your natural tendency might be to do to others what someone has done to you.

    My tendencies were to judge and compare others in my mind, to taunt and verbally attack them. It was fitting then, I guess, that my career path led me to becoming a lawyer, now an ex-lawyer.

    As I got into the habits of sabotaging and hurting others, I never thought much about it. I just assumed that because my parents had talked to me harshly and treated me badly, I had the license to do the same to others.

    Others could handle the pain because I had. Others could endure a verbal lashing because I had. Others could handle emotional abuse because I had.

    You, too, might have grown up in a household that wounded you deeply. You might have never been able to leave the shadow of the pain and suffering you experienced. And you might have learned to treat people as others once treated you.

    I’ve come to believe that just because others hurt us, that doesn’t mean we have to continue the cycle of abuse.

    You don’t have to fall into your natural, default behaviors. You can change. You can choose different actions and make different decisions. You can break the cycle of negativity, criticism, and abuse.

    Here are six steps to heal the pain you felt and end the cycle of hurt.

    1. Work on forgiving those who hurt you.

    This may be much more easily said than done, but forgiveness is the key to healing. If you can’t forgive today, at least set the intention to forgive. It doesn’t matter how tragic or traumatic your past was; you must forgive for yourself. You’ll feel like a heavy weight has been lifted from your shoulders. You will be able to breathe much more easily.

    It helps to put your abuser’s behavior in perspective so you can see their actions in a different light.

    Try to understand what influenced their behaviors and characteristics. For example, with my parents, they were likely raised in a similar way. Also, culturally, parents in Asia tend to be direct and hold you to high standards because they want you to succeed in life. Their intentions may have been ultimately good, but the way they went about parenting was misguided.

    Look at them through a lens of gratefulness. What could you appreciate about them, in spite of the pain they caused? Is there anything you can appreciate about the pain? I owe my sense of compassion, which is the foundation of my work, to my parents. Because of how I was hurt growing up, I now do work that reduces suffering and helps people find peace.

    Look at them through a perspective of love. If you saw them through a loving prism, how would you explain their actions and behavior?

    2. Work on your own healing.

    Instead of burning in anger and hatred, focus on what you need for your emotional and mental health.

    Assess the damage they’ve caused, look at the impact their behavior has had on your life, and determine what you must heal.

    Visit a counselor if necessary. Find coping mechanisms. Write about your hurt. Open yourself to a spiritual practice. Seek the tools that can help you heal your emotional wounds.

    Cultivate love for yourself. Speak to yourself gently. Let go of your high demands and expectations of yourself. Notice if how you treat yourself is similar to how the people who hurt you in the past treated you.

    3. Look for alternative role models.

    Watch your behavior and notice what you do when others hurt or anger you. How do you react when others push your buttons?

    If you don’t know how to respond or react differently from the people who raised you, look for alternative role models. Seek people with positive and emotionally healthy ways of responding to personal situations.
    Study them. Take notes. Notice how they handle trying circumstances. Model their behavior in your own interpersonal relationships.

    4. Learn positive and empowering behavior.

    If you were taught destructive and dysfunctional ways of being and speaking, opt for alternative ways. Hold back on hurtful words, convey your needs with softer language, and respect other people’s boundaries. Practice listening intently instead of responding rashly to what others say to you.

    Recently, someone told me that I couldn’t park my car in a particular part of a lot and had to park much further back and walk. The area I had parked in was for the vendors of the event I was attending.

    My first reaction was to fight back, use the parking lot rules against them, ask for the manager, and make a big scene about how unjust it was for me to have to move my car a couple blocks away where there was clearly space right there.

    Then I noticed the person was wearing a volunteer badge and had an overwhelmed expression on his face. I opted not to do what my defacto behavior was and instead chose understanding. I tried to see that he was doing the best he could and was just looking out for the vendors, who were critical to a successful event.

    Even if this person was wrong and even if it was unfair, I could still make his day a little less stressful and more pleasant. I could avoid arguing, making a scene, or verbally attacking someone who was trying their best to serve others.

    5. Focus on your reactions instead of the behavior of others.

    You can’t control others’ reactions, but you can learn to notice, change, and improve your own.

    Look for triggers and other behavior that provokes you. Notice your immediate reaction when people treat you badly, disrespect you, or lash out against you.

    Instead of immediately engaging with this behavior, withdraw, reflect, analyze, and take a thoughtful next step.

    This is what I had to do when I was talking to a woman I had recently met, who was not a fan of the type of writing I do.

    I found her remarks dismissive and non-supportive, and felt like lashing out. I wanted to attack her in some way or put down some part of her life that she valued, but after several days and after much calming down, I focused on my reaction. I let the anger simmer, re-evaluated her simple preference for fiction writing, and came to the conclusion that different people have different reading preferences.

    I was still hurt and told her so without demeaning or attacking her in return. I was able to communicate that I was hurt, which she apologized for, without hurting her. A win!

    6. Spread your light.

    Remind yourself that even if you grew up with challenging people and the darkness of human behavior, you get to choose how you treat others and show up in the world.

    You can operate by the default of hurting others—or, worse, seek revenge—and mimic the harmful and negative habits you witnessed growing up, or you can actively take different steps and make different choices.

    You can bring yourself out of the darkness of bad behavior, cruelty, abuse, and negligent child rearing. You can go out in the world choosing love and spreading your light of compassion and understanding.

    You can be the conduit who transforms pain into healing, not only for yourself but for everyone around you. You can show others who are hurting that forgiveness, understanding, love, and compassion are possible even after you’ve been hurt. And in doing so, you can help make the world a less hurtful place.

  • We Often Criticize When We’re Hurting

    We Often Criticize When We’re Hurting

    When we're hurting

  • When Mindfulness Hurts: Feeling Is the Key to Healing

    When Mindfulness Hurts: Feeling Is the Key to Healing

    “You start watching your breath and all your problems are solved. It is not like that at all. You are working with the heart of your experiences, learning to turn towards them, and that is difficult and can be uncomfortable.” ~Ed Halliwell

    Can mindfulness be bad for you?

    I had been expecting it: Once you become a regular at it, mindfulness permeates all aspects of your life.

    I only sit in meditation for twenty minutes daily (and a full hour on Sundays), but I carry its effects with me the rest of the time, elevated levels of awareness and all.

    This is not to say that I constantly float on a blissful cloud. In fact, this sudden increase in mindfulness, even for someone used to deep introspection and resolutely committed to lucidity, comes at a certain cost. What I hadn’t expected was the actual weight of mindfulness.

    Three months into the daily practice of mindful meditation, I had to admit that it was not solely eliciting the deep serenity I had hoped for. In fact, I realized that in some ways, I actually felt less happy than before.

    I couldn’t precisely put my finger on it. All I knew was that things seemed heavier, more raw. How could that be? Wasn’t mindfulness supposed to help me transcend the vicissitudes of life? What was I doing wrong? Was I the only one in that odd situation?

    I decided to do some research. It didn’t take long before I discovered evidence that mindfulness can indeed have “side effects.”

    A quick online search showed me that I’m actually in very good company. Mindfulness, and the practice of meditation, has reportedly entailed significant “downsides” for a number of enthusiasts.

    We come to mindfulness in the hope that it will constitute the path to peacefulness, often unaware that this path is paved with cracked and bumpy stones. Only after stepping onto that road do you realize how uncomfortable the process can be.

    Just like therapy, meditating is difficult, sometimes painful.

    The first and most obvious reason is that sitting still, quieting the mind, and focusing on the breath presents a real challenge. Many beginners and non-beginners complain of an overwhelming restlessness or, on the contrary, of an irresistible tendency to fall asleep (I belong to the latter category).

    The second reason is that mindfulness has a way of annihilating our blissful ignorance. It offers an unexpected and unparalleled insight into our areas of vulnerability, the sides of us that we are not always prepared to welcome nonjudgmentally.

    To get the most of it, one must recognize that the practice of mindfulness is dirty, hard work.

    According to Willoughby Britton, a Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University Medical School, the downsides of mindfulness range from mild to severe, and can manifest in various ways—from unexpected anger and anxiety all the way to depression and psychosis.

    Mindfulness can exacerbate a number of mental health conditions, bring back to the surface traumatic memories, or simply force you to deal with things that had conveniently been swept under the rug.

    Whatever your initial levels of stability (or instability), a lot can emerge in the first stages of the regular practice of meditation. Ready or not, you have to deal with it. It is disconcerting at best. In my case, it was sometimes downright depressing.

    Picture a handful of Band-Aids applied to different spots on your body. Each Band-Aid conveniently covers an injury that you’re happy to ignore (or so you think).

    Mindfulness is like peeling off the Band-Aids, one by one. It hurts.

    Then you discover what’s under them: A bad cut here. A big bruise there. The occasional infected wound. A few badly healed scars. Mindfulness makes it hard to ignore that you are, under all those Band-Aids, actually hurting, or at least not entirely recovered.

    To add insult to the injury, mindfulness has a way of preventing you from applying new Band-Aids. Things that we considered pleasant, and that help us deal with life’s vagaries, lose their appeal once we become aware of their true purpose and associated costs.

    We use, in our daily lives, an arsenal of strategies, often without knowing it: thinking patterns, daily habits, activities we view as pleasurable “add-ons,” such as eating, shopping, staring at a screen, and so on. We don’t perceive those “pursuits” as Band-Aids. Aren’t they the spice of life?

    The regular practice of meditation and a more mindful approach to life, however, sheds some light on our dependence. Any behavior that resists modification might indicate an addiction, even if it was just to chocolate, new running shorts, or social media.

    I am now, more than ever, aware of my coping mechanisms, aware that rather than making life interesting, they mostly patch up an aspect of my existence that requires attention.

    If I feel bored, tired, or stressed, no amount of sweets, sports gear, or Internet surfing will truly fill the void or fulfill the need.

    Where I would mindlessly resolve to an old habit, this new knowledge stops me in my tracks. I pause, observe, notice the underlying emotion or sensation.

    If I’m under work-related stress, such as a quickly approaching deadline, or a recalcitrant passage to translate, I will often have a sudden craving for sweets, or feel the pressing need to check my Facebook page. It’s not a coincidence, I know that now, but I needed mindfulness to realize it fully.

    Now, instead of walking to the cupboard or opening a new tab in my browser, I stay put and take a deep breath. I skip the coping mechanism and refrain applying a new Band-Aid or replacing an old one.

    Even my thought processes are modified. When certain situations repeatedly elicited the kind of stress that requires a Band-Aid, I was forced to reconsider, at least to a certain extent, the choices I had been making in various areas of my life: my career path, other types of commitments, and even some relationships. I realized I had too much on my plate and that I needed to respect my limits.

    Accepting the fact that I indeed have limits was no small feat. Even if I have long been aware of some of my “rationalizations” and “compensations,” I have never faced life with such clarity, honesty, and courage. I am proud of it. I am also unsettled.

    In spite of this, I am still fully committed to continue with my mindfulness practice. The cans of worms I am opening can be a handful, but I was carrying them anyway, and they were wearing me down. I choose to deal with them.

    Things might feel very raw, but they also feel very real. I can already sense a new level of lightness and freedom on the other side of this demanding exercise.

    I invite you to give it a try too. As we move along in our mindfulness practice, I trust that we can all find our own sweet spot, the place where an increased awareness meets a renewed sense of well-being.

    For many, this will mean starting slow. When you incorporate mindful meditation into your life, don’t go for the three-day retreat right away. Not only will it be too demanding, it might even backfire.

    Instead, simply find a quiet place where you can sit for at least five minutes, in silence, every day, and focus on the breath.

    You may feel uncomfortable at first, as the feelings you formerly numbed or avoided emerge. Don’t let that deter you. If you embrace the discomfort, you’ll eventually gain the clarity needed to acknowledge and heal old wounds, break unhealthy patterns, and generally step onto the path to a more authentic life.

  • Why Advice Doesn’t Help When We’re Hurting (and What Does)

    Why Advice Doesn’t Help When We’re Hurting (and What Does)

    Couple Hugging

    “Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we’re listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.” ~Karl A. Menninger

    I remember my first call like it was yesterday.

    I answered the phone, heart beating out of my chest, hand firm on a sheet of local emergency phone numbers.

    The voice on the other end was full of… meek embarrassment.

    Not exactly what I was expecting.

    “Uhh, I’m really sorry… I’m not, uhh… I’m not suicidal…. I just… I just had a huge fight with my girlfriend…. I just… I really need to talk to someone…. Is that okay?”

    If you’re like I was before I became a volunteer in 2011, when you think about a suicide hotline you imagine circumstances so traumatic and unbearable that they bring people to consider ending life.

    But, I soon discovered that everything I expected to be true—everything from what the callers would be like, all the way up to how I would handle them—was completely wrong.

    And what I learned forever changed the way I think about pain.

    My First Big Surprise About Pain

    I became a volunteer because I wanted to help people who were hurting.

    But looking back, I realize that I had a big misconception about what those people would look like.

    I imagined two discreet groups: “normal” people living with minor ups and downs in one bucket; and “broken” people struggling with trauma and unrelenting emotional upheaval in the other.

    (I had imagined I was in the “broken” category, but that is a story for another day.)

    I was sure callers to the hotline would fall into the latter bucket, too.

    Which is why I was very surprised when I found myself speaking with “normal” people over and over again, people who I might easily have met behind my local coffee shop counter or in the grocery store aisle.

    I began to see that we are all vulnerable to pain so big that we might reach out to an anonymous ear in order to pour out our hearts.

    I realized that some of us may struggle with mental illness, but none of us are “broken.” Feeling extreme pain is simply part of the human condition.

    But that was just the very beginning of what I was to learn.

    What We All Need More Than Anything Is to Be Seen

    I thought my work at the hotline was going to be about giving advice. Indeed, I looked forward to it.

    I imagined helping callers develop coping techniques.

    I pictured using my keen insights to help identify root problems.

    I fantasized about offering guidance toward self-transformation.

    But, although I didn’t understand at first, all of these things were actually forbidden at the hotline. My role was to be an attentive listener.

    That’s it.

    This only began to make a little bit of sense when I realized that there was just one thread running through each of the hundreds of stories shared with me by callers: a lack of a trusted confidante.

    What each and every caller had in common was a deep craving to share themselves with a caring listener. Our job as volunteers was to offer this.

    Okay, that made sense to me. In a world filled with busy, stressed out people, it’s too easy to feel like we don’t really matter to anyone beyond fulfilling our obligations, if at all.

    Maybe it was this feeling—the feeling of being invisible—that was bringing so many callers to the brink of despair and onto our phone-lines.

    “Mmm, it sounds like you feel…”

    This simple string of words was taught to volunteers in order to make callers feel deeply seen and acknowledged.

    But are you wondering (as I did) how simple parroting is supposed to do anything substantial?

    Didn’t the callers also need help?

    Yet I found that callers were indeed substantially moved when they received undivided and caring attention.

    Someone might begin a call in a frantic tone of desperation only to end it with a sense of peace and hope, all because a volunteer fully acknowledge their complete being.

    Eventually, I even began to see that well-meaning “help” (like advice or personal anecdotes) could actually be damaging.

    Telling someone in pain about ideas based on our experiences crowds out what a distressed person really needs—a reflection, pure acknowledgement, to be seen.

    We Are All Profoundly Resourceful

    Despite callers’ uplifted moods, for a time I was still skeptical about the usefulness of empathetic listening.

    But if I am being honest with myself, my problem was that it made me feel unimportant.

    If all I was doing was holding up a mirror for callers, how was I supposed to get satisfaction out of my work? Didn’t some of them need my hard-won wisdom?

    But I soon noticed something interesting.

    Since most callers lacked a sounding board for their deepest feelings—buried anger, forgotten hopes, disappointments—many of them started to lose touch with those feelings until they bubbled over into a catastrophe.

    Callers often didn’t even know they were calling the hotline to talk about their uncomfortable feelings.

    They called the hotline to talk about tangible problems—major relationship conflicts, getting fired, losing a friend.

    I started to notice that it was only after having the chance to speak without interruption for several minutes, receiving only empathetic sounds of understanding and reflection in reply, that they would even begin to unpack the twisted mass of pain in their hearts.

    And that’s when I caught a glimpse of the magic beginning to happen.

    Once the mirror I offered allowed callers to glimpse hidden corners of their inner worlds, they were empowered to keep exploring.

    Soon, they were clearing away cobwebs and dusting off all kinds of rusty tools and insights, all as I sat, phone propped on my shoulder and mouth gaping at the miraculous turnarounds that had virtually nothing to do with me.

    The truth was that callers didn’t need to hear about how I fixed my own kinda-similar problem.

    They didn’t need to hear about what my friend did in the same situation.

    Indeed, hearing my own musings would have interrupted the magic process.

    My ego was disappointed at first, but watching someone else regain their footing is immensely more satisfying than patting yourself on the back.

    Instead of my wisdom, I begin to take pride in my ability to convey empathy and ask questions, encouraging callers to dig deeper.

    I was truly happy to be doing my small part in helping callers tap into their immense personal resources.

    Having Our Feelings Validated Is Transcendent

    I was thrilled to be witnessing this new power—the power of skilled and empathetic listening. I saw that it was emotionally replenishing for callers and empowered them to calmly analyze their hearts and their worlds.

    But there was something else going on, too. Something that seemed almost spiritual.

    I felt it, too. When I got off of a call, I sometimes felt a little dizzy, a little euphoric.

    But why was I feeling so uplifted by conversations that started because someone had been feeling hopeless and alone?

    What I came to realize is that empathetic listening offers a lot more than soothing companionship.

    Empathetic listening and acknowledgement also means giving someone the chance to feel like they fit into the order of the world.

    It means allowing someone to feel like a puzzle piece slotting perfectly and seamlessly into something bigger than themselves, like they belong. It is truly transcendent.

    And since the act of empathizing deeply with another person means becoming one with them for a short time, as a volunteer I was experiencing the transcendence, too.

    With every call I felt a part of a bigger whole. I felt connected.

    And by the way the callers often thanked us volunteers, sometimes even through tears of relief, I knew they felt connected, too.

    Connection is the Ultimate Emotional Pain Pill

    Volunteering at the suicide hotline convinced me that listening and connection are so powerful that they can relieve even the deepest pain.

    I might not have found my chance to shine as a skilled sage, but discovering that even the most troubled among us can begin to regain footing was infinitely more satisfying.

    “Yes, absolutely, it’s okay.” I said to my first caller. “It sounds like you feel really, really upset. Tell me more about that.”

    Couple hugging image via Shutterstock

  • How to Take Care of Yourself When You Feel Like Shutting Down

    How to Take Care of Yourself When You Feel Like Shutting Down

    “Displace the pain. Put it in a camera, in a story, in a poem, in a song, in a lover, in a canvas.” ~Unknown

    As an aspiring mental health counselor, I’m a huge advocate for self-care. I think it’s extremely important to educate people about the benefits of taking the time to nourish our souls and to give ourselves some TLC.

    I have several go-to ways I like to take care of myself, from practicing yoga to immersing myself in nature to writing to taking the time to mindfully apply my favorite lotion.

    I find myself engaging in these activities on days with good weather and when I’m generally happy.

    Lately, however, I’ve noticed that it’s during the times when it’s hardest to think about self-care, whether our schedules are jam-packed, we are going through a difficult time, or we just don’t feel our best, that self-care is critical. 

    It’s easy to want to do fun activities or be nice to ourselves when life is looking good, but it’s much harder to have the energy or desire to take care of ourselves when times are tough.

    But isn’t that when we most need to be our own best friends and supporters?

    This all became even clearer to me when I received devastating news not too long ago. My childhood dog, Maggie, had passed away from kidney failure at fourteen years old. My desire to cook a nice meal for myself, write in my gratitude journal, or work out went right out the window.

    All I felt was numb, and all I wanted to do was to fade into the couch and cry.

    As human beings, when we experience a grief reaction or a trauma, it’s natural for us to freeze, feel numb, or to want to retreat and isolate.

    While I believe it’s crucial that we listen to our bodies and give ourselves time to grieve, express ourselves, or react however we need to during that time (as long we aren’t causing damage to ourselves), we must also advocate for our healing and well-being.

    I’m not saying that this is easy by any means, and this process is different for everyone. It might even seem foreign, unnatural, forced, or even impossible at first to think about doing activities that are fun or require energy when we are in a state of crisis or disarray.

    As humans, we’re hardwired to want to stay in our comfort zone, but that’s not where the growth happens, nor where our optimal levels of health and happiness reside.

    Since Maggie’s passing, it’s been hard to get myself to do even basic things, such as eat full meals, and it’s been difficult to go about my day knowing at any moment I could start crying uncontrollably.

    Although it’s still very fresh, I could feel myself beginning to slip into a place that wasn’t healthy or beneficial to my well-being. I wanted to be careful not to let myself be completely overcome by the grief of losing her.

    I was thinking about how I could let myself express the emotions of heartbreak, sadness, and emptiness yet still find a way to take care of myself. The first thing that came to mind was writing.

    I’ve always been a writer at heart. My pen and paper (or these days, laptop) have gotten me through some pretty dark and challenging times. I knew that the self-care I needed at that moment was to open up a word document and just type.

    When I allowed myself to get lost in my writing, I found that my heart felt a little lighter.

    Self-care doesn’t have to be a grand gesture, and it isn’t just one thing. For some it might include booking a full day at the spa, while for others it might be much more low-key. The awesome part is, no matter what type of self-care you choose to participate in, you will receive the full benefits.

    If you’re not sure where to start and you’d like some helpful strategies, look no further. I’m no expert, but I am committed to practicing self-care. 

    Here are some tips and ideas that have been helpful for me:

    1. There is no right or wrong way to “do” self-care.

    Before you truly begin incorporating self-care into your life and feeling the benefits of it, it’s natural to wonder if you’re approaching it right. The good news is: There is no right or wrong way to engage in self-care, as long as you’re doing activities that contribute to your level of happiness or sense of well-being.

    Allow yourself to be led by your intuition of what you need.

    Practice disabling the part of yourself that wants to censor yourself or question the quality of the activities you’re doing and the work you’re producing as you’re engaging in self-care.

    If you’re writing, for instance, you can edit it later. If you’re dancing, let yourself be guided by the rhythm of your body rather than your brain trying to keep perfect time or form.

    2. Incorporate some form of self-care into your daily routine.

    You might not always have the time or energy to do a full workout or practice your favorite self-care activity, but you can find little ways to take care of yourself every day. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Even just a five or ten-minute practice can make a huge difference.

    For example, as you are waking up in the morning, take some time to repeat with confidence a positive mantra or affirmation that coincides with your goal or intention for the day. Or set aside a short window of time for deep breathing or a walk in nature. Little things can make a big difference.

    3. Consider the Wellness Wheel.

    As you begin to integrate self-care into your life or work to maintain the strategies you’ve already implemented, think about the several different types of wellness (physical, emotional, spiritual, social, intellectual, environmental, occupational).

    Take the time to understand which self-care activities are connected to the different types of wellness. This might help bring things into perspective.

    There may be times when some parts of your wheel seem more plentiful than others. If you find yourself stuck or lacking in a specific area, you can work to nurture those parts of your wellness wheel, but you can also feel grateful for the parts that are blossoming.

    4. Inform others about your self-care practices.

    If your self-care means unplugging for a day and others are going to want to contact you, you might want to let them know that you’ll be out of reach and explain why.

    It might be difficult for some people to wrap their heads around it, or you might receive some pushback (remember, change is hard). People may be used to you always being available, but for others this could be a chance to understand your needs better and hopefully provide encouragement and support.

    It might be a challenge to get into a groove with your self-care if you’re just beginning, so talking to family or close friends about the changes you’re making might spark something for them as well.

    Maybe your friends have wanted to make similar shifts, and they’d like to try it with you. Rather than hearing complaints for taking five hours instead of five minutes to answer a text, you might just inspire them to unplug too.

    5. Be gentle with yourself, and don’t forget to celebrate successes.

    Just like any change you’re trying to make in life, it doesn’t always happen immediately or all at once, but rather over time.

    If you experience a self-care setback, such as falling out of a new practice, being overcome by grief, or not dedicating as much time to it as you’d like, try your best to be gentle with yourself and use positive self-talk.

    On the other hand, if the positive changes you’re noticing seem very small, try your best to remember to celebrate your efforts and the changes you are seeing. With positivity and commitment, you’ll notice the changes might begin to get bigger, and they might last longer too.

    Self-care isn’t meant to be a quick fix to make all uncomfortable emotions disappear, and it won’t replace the difficult recovery processes we must go through when we endure trauma, experience extreme loss, or work to get out of a rut that we’re stuck in for whatever reason.

    It can, however, help us take the pain we feel and soften it, or channel it into strength or something beautiful.

    Self-care can help us feel a sense of happiness, gratitude, hope, and healing.

    So, have fun with it! Experiment so you can see which types of self-care suit you and your lifestyle. If you feel yourself getting stuck, listen to your mind, body, and intuition—they know you the best.

  • When You’re Hurting and Healing: Give Yourself a Break

    When You’re Hurting and Healing: Give Yourself a Break

    Give Yourself a Break

    “Stop beating yourself up. You are a work in progress, which means you get there a little at a time, not all at once.” ~Unknown

    Often these days, I would like nothing more than to move forward. If I could only figure out which way was forward, I would definitely start heading in that direction. If you couldn’t already tell, I’m going through a break-up, the most major break-up of my life so far.

    Again, I’m often disappointed that if I were to check a box to describe my “relationship status” it would most likely be “It’s complicated.”

    Truthfully, it’s not as complicated as I make it; however, at times it has me spun around to the point that I don’t know my direction. Pain and confusion are part of daily life.

    Recently, after a tearful conversation with my ever-supportive sister, I was looking forward to sitting down on my cushion and experiencing the sadness and pain I was feeling.

    I had spent a day intently focused at work, and, when my mind wandered, holding back tears. I was looking forward to letting those tears flow. I was ready to let these emotions live and to acknowledge and accept them, to live with them.

    I thanked my sister for everything, hung up the phone, walked to my cushion, and sat. I set the timer. I pulled my head up high. I collapsed, crying. I pulled myself up again. I collapsed again, bawling.

    Merely the thought of pulling my chest up again was exhausting. All day I had looked forward to a moment when I could let these emotions be, and now I felt too weak to experience them in the manner I thought I should.

    Experiencing the discomfort, however, did not seem to be my current problem.

    These emotions had something to teach me, and I wanted to learn. If I could just sit in meditation with the pain I was experiencing, I could begin to understand the lessons—or so I thought. I thought the lessons would tell me what to do and how to move forward.

    I wanted to be strong and stable. I wanted to sit with my head high and feel the pain. I wanted to not be a pile of howling self-pity on my bedroom floor. Sitting on the cushion, I realized I might not have an option.

    It was undeniable. At this moment I might just be a weeping mass on my bedroom floor. A word came to mind: overwhelm. I was overwhelmed.

    So I reset my timer. Five minutes. For five minutes I could cry my heart out. Then, I decided, I’ll get up, cook dinner, eat dinner, drink a cup of coffee, and read a novel, and then I’ll come back to the cushion.

    The new plan went much better. Only, I wept for about thirty seconds, and then I lay there breathing deeply. The timer went off and I got up.

    I remembered Pema Chodron’s advice about lightening up, which is exactly what I needed to do. She said, splash water on your face, go jogging, do anything different. I put on Donna Summers instead of the cathartic break-up music I’ve been playing recently.

    I danced while I cooked dinner. I had my dinner, my coffee, my reading. I sat on my cushion. I experienced the feelings that had now transitioned into numbness.

    The gratitude I have for that experience, for being able to recognize my needs and provide them for myself, to simply give myself a positive, healthy break, is immense.

    I gave myself the space I needed. I had hoped to sit on the cushion and get that space, but I found it shaking to “Bad Girls” instead.

    It’s not uncommon to want ourselves or our situation to be different. It is the desire to be a better person that pushes us to grow, change, and actually become better people. However, personal growth is often a slow and painful process.

    The expectation to be something we are not, whether temporarily or permanently, is a form of aggression toward our selves.

    The best thing we can do is nurture ourselves and our circumstances just as they are. Listen to yourself and do not try to force yourself or your situation to be something it is not.

    When you give yourself a break, you create space. Allowing things to be, just as they are, without judgment or expectation, gives you room to breathe. And that is good for clarity. You may find things start to get better, if you let them.

    My situation remains “complicated,” and I still experience confusion. However, the confusion has slowly begun to dissipate. I am more willing to rest in that confusion, to accept complicated.

    The truth is, I am moving forward, day by day, no matter what my choices. There is nothing disappointing about complication; it’s a sign of growth and transition. It’s hard to see sometimes, but the joy of living is in the unknown.

    Letting myself be weak gave me strength. Letting myself be confused gave me clarity. Letting my life be complicated simplified it. Letting myself off the hook gave me a really pleasant evening when I needed it most.

    Girl meditating image via Shutterstock

  • 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.

  • Why Letting Yourself Feel Broken is the Key to Feeling Whole

    Why Letting Yourself Feel Broken is the Key to Feeling Whole

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

    I spent my twenty-fifth birthday crying alone at the foot of a mountain. While I had always found solace in spending time by myself, in that moment, I did not recognize my “self.”  Without my self, I had nothing.

    I was utterly alone.

    Three weeks earlier, a man was shot just feet away from my front door. My then-boyfriend and I performed CPR until an ambulance arrived, but the man had been killed on impact. The police left my home at 3 a.m.; at 7 a.m., I was headed to the airport for a family wedding.

    There is no mourning at a wedding.

    Forced to paste on a smile, I told myself and everyone around me that I was fine. Never mind the fact that I felt like all of the air had been sucked out of me. If you tell a lie enough times, you start to believe it yourself.

    For weeks, I assured myself that I was strong enough to bear the heavy burden of witnessing a violent crime. I always identified as a strong, independent woman. I couldn’t let go of that, I felt, or I might not ever get it back.

    But as the days passed, I started to realize that something was different. The girl who was known for her constant zest for life and naturally cheerful demeanor was replaced by a woman who was exhausted, short-tempered and—it took me weeks to realize—depressed.

    When the truth finally broke free, I was overwhelmed. Sitting there, at the base of my favorite Phoenix mountain, all I could think was, “I am not okay.”

    In that moment, I was not okay.

    But the truth has a funny way of setting you free. Faced with a sensation that was completely foreign and extremely uncomfortable to me—the idea that I was more vulnerable than I wanted to believe—I finally saw a glimmer of light.

    Only in honoring my emotions was I able to let them go.

    After crying myself weak, I climbed that mountain. As I reached the top, I inhaled deeply and felt my breath for the first time in weeks. The tears that flowed at the top were entirely different: they were tears of gratitude.

    The moment that I learned to allow myself to be “not okay” was a turning point in my adult life.

    To allow yourself to feel is to allow yourself to really live.

    Once I was able to look at my emotions honestly, I was able to look at my life honestly and to realize that I did, in fact, want to participate wholly in it. I appreciated life more deeply than ever before.

    Months later, when my dear friend lost her dear friend, I shared my secret: “It’s okay to be not okay.” Amidst all of the sympathetic wishes and “it will get betters,” that message resonated most deeply. Her grief was okay.

    Sometimes, people need permission to break. And it is from that broken place that they are finally able to become whole again.

    Time and time again, when faced with some of life’s hardest moments, I have shared my secret: “It’s okay to be not okay.”

    Accepting that simple truth has been exactly the remedy that allowed the people I love to move into a space where they are more than okay—they are thriving.

  • Emotionally Overloaded: Are You Taking on Too Much of Other People’s Pain?

    Emotionally Overloaded: Are You Taking on Too Much of Other People’s Pain?

    “All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” ~Havelock Ellis

    I would have done anything for my friends, until one of them nearly broke my heart and spirit. He was my best friend. We felt like platonic soul mates.

    We had a standing lunch date every week, called each other terms of endearment, cried together, laughed together—the standard best friend things.

    Then, tragedy struck him. Over and over.

    His long-time partner left him. Then he lost his executive-level job. Next, he had a string of major medical issues that put him in the hospital.

    He needed ongoing weekly treatments to stay alive. His restricted schedule and constant pain made him unable to find work. He ran out of money.

    One day he cried all through our lunch, and then asked for a loan so he could pay his bills that month. I gave him more than he asked for and plenty of time to pay it back.

    He needed an organ transplant ASAP, so I got tested to be a living donor.

    I listened and was there even when my mood and physical energy were drained because of his tears and constant complaints about his life being “a mess.” How could I not be there? He was going through hell.

    But so was I. But I felt like my problems were nothing compared to his, and he needed me because he had very few other true friends and a completely estranged family. We were best friends. It was my job to keep him company and to try to help him in any way possible.

    And then, one day he never confirmed our lunch like usual. He never showed up at all, and would not return my calls and texts. I got ahold of his other friends and family, and the following two weeks were possibly the worst of my life.

    He had turned to drugs to cope with the pain. It turns out he had been putting on an act in a lot of ways. The money I loaned him was probably to buy meth. I felt betrayed, confused, but mostly scared and panicked. I couldn’t lose him.

    I did everything in my power over those two weeks to help him. I got in touch with his family and landlord.

    My phone was constantly buzzing with calls and texts, alerting me to his increasingly bizarre behavior—passing out in his hallway, urinating off the fire escape, casing the hotel next to his apartment for money and food, throwing all of his possessions into the dumpster and putting items out on the sidewalk to be taken away.

    He was trying to end his life. Numerous calls to police and wellness checks resulted in no benefit; he would appear of “sound health and mind.”

    He was smart, and had been involuntarily committed to the psych ward months earlier after a friend thought he was a danger to himself. He knew the right answers to give, and blamed his physical condition on his disease.

    He’s an adult, I was told. No one could force him to get help. But I kept trying every trick in the book to make him see the light and keep fighting for his life.

    Then, he cut me out. He stopped communicating entirely. I received a cashier’s check, no note, in the mail for the remainder of the loan. After years of almost daily contact, he was gone.

    And then, he died.

    The stages of grief hit me hard and fast. But one emotion hit me hardest of all: guilt. I felt I had missed something that would have saved him, like I had not done enough. But mostly I felt guilty because part of me felt relieved I could finally stop worrying about him. I could refocus on myself and healthier friendships.

    I had begun dreading many of our lunch dates. Would he be “a mess” again, crying in public, full of pessimism, unable to hope for a better tomorrow? I started taking on these emotions. Friends pointed out to me that my mood plummeted after time spent with him.

    Being his friend had simply become way too heavy a burden than I was able to carry. He was beyond help, because he chose not to help himself. He taught me three valuable lessons that have transformed the way I approach relationships.

    1. Trying your best to help someone is more than enough.

    Make a genuine but practical, self-caring effort. Sometimes you can’t do anything to help.

    2. If you start suffering ongoing, negative consequences from a relationship, it’s time to reassess.

    Maybe you need to be open about how the relationship is affecting you. Maybe you need to step back a bit and treat the relationship more casually. Or maybe you need to walk away.

    3. Everyone’s struggles are valid and important—especially your own.

    Don’t think that your issues aren’t serious or worthy of your attention just because someone you care about it going through “bigger” things. You can’t take care of anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself.

    If you have someone in your life who needs help, it’s okay to help carry part of their load temporarily, but you need to unload if it starts weighing you down too much. A best friend is their own best friend first.

  • Stay Motivated To Make Lasting Changes With These 5 Simple Steps

    Stay Motivated To Make Lasting Changes With These 5 Simple Steps

    I see the light

    “The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” ~Ralph Blum

    We all face obstacles. Maybe you’re unhappy in your career, but don’t know what else you’d like to do with your life. Maybe you’re unfulfilled in your relationship, but don’t know how to communicate this to your partner. Or maybe you’re struggling to make ends meet financially, and don’t know how to get out of debt.

    A few years ago, my life was in complete shambles. My marriage had fallen apart, I was unfulfilled at work, I felt disconnected and misunderstood by family and friends, and I was in an all out battle with my physical body as I suffered through the aftermath of a decade’s worth of dysfunctional eating habits.

    My entire life felt like one big obstacle, and unfortunately, when we feel like this it’s easy to lose track of who we really are and what we really want in life.

    Whether it’s family, friends, career, finances, or a combination of all the above, if left ignored these obstacles can quickly grow to feel insurmountable.

    We begin to feel overwhelmed, stuck, and anxious, which manifests itself as lack of motivation, procrastination, and a slew of behaviors and symptoms that represent our avoidance of facing these obstacles head on.

    Well, with every day that passed, more and more pieces of my life began crumbling around me. I knew something needed to change, but what? Where would I start? What did I want?

    I knew I couldn’t fight the entire war at once, so I spent many hours asking myself these questions and trying to figure out which battlefield to walk onto first, if any. Eventually, I decided to tackle the obstacle I’d been battling the longest: I decided to focus on building a better relationship with my physical body.

    We all have that one hurdle that rears its ugly head over and over again, and for me, that hurdle was my diet.

    At the time, if you’d asked me “Why do you want to build a better relationship with your physical body?” I would have responded with something like this:

    “Because I’m in physical pain.”

    While this was a good enough reason to choose this as the first obstacle to tackle, it didn’t hold weight for very long. Pretty soon, I found myself losing motivation, and asking myself the question, “But why?”

    “But why is it important to overcome this physical pain?”

    Since all the dysfunctional behaviors surrounding my eating issues were familiar, and I’d been dealing with the physical pain for so long, I actually found comfort in it.

    So I knew this lack of clarity was a recipe for disaster, and a surefire way to quickly lose motivation. I needed to go deeper to uncover the real reason why I desired to change this area of my life.

    Eventually, I came up with this:

    “Because my eating habits are affecting all aspects of my life: My career, my physical health, my relationships and social life.”

    This answer was definitely more honest, but once again, it still wasn’t good enough to warrant the hard work and dedication I knew it would take to overcome this obstacle. The people in my external environment had grown to expect these strange behaviors from me, and even aspects of my career had been based around some of my dysfunction.

    So once again, I found myself asking the question: “But why?”

    “But why does it matter that your eating issues are affecting your career, your physical health, your relationships, and social life?”

    And that’s when it hit me; that’s when the real motivation behind my desire to change rose to the surface: “I’m lonely, unfulfilled, scared, and I have no clue who I am anymore.”

    Bingo. Just like that, I uncovered the real source of pain surrounding this obstacle in my life. All of a sudden, there was a new fire fueling my motivation and desire to change.

    With this new clarity, I was able to craft a clear picture of what I actually wanted in my life: I wanted to feel connected to the people and situations around me. I wanted to feel connected to myself. And I wanted to stop living in fear.

    Once I uncovered the real motivation behind my desire to change, I slowly started to realize that each and every obstacle I was facing in my life stemmed from the exact same pain! I somehow knew that by attacking this pain at its roots, I’d be able to overcome all these obstacles at once.

    And this new clarity about what I didn’t want was the motivation I needed to help me finally develop a clear and honest vision of what I actually did want in my life.

    So now it’s your turn. Here are 5 steps to gain more clarity about why you want to change, and what you want in life:

    Step 1:

    Pull out a piece of paper and a pen.

    Step 2: 

    Ask yourself the question, “What’s one area of my life that I’d like to change?” Write this answer on the top of the page.

    Step 3:

    Look at your answer. Now ask yourself, “But why is this important?” Write this new answer below your previous answer.

    Step 4: 

    Repeat step 3 until you uncover the real reasons motivating you to change. Keep going deeper. You’ll know when you’ve gotten to the root cause of your pain.

    Step 5:

    Based on what you uncover, develop a clear vision of what you want in your life. Use this new awareness and motivation to help you remain committed to this new path.

    Remember: Saying “I’m unhappy at work” or “I feel unfulfilled in my relationship” isn’t deep enough. Keep going!

    We all face obstacles in our lives, but if we’re willing to do the tough work of asking ourselves “why?” these obstacles can truly become the gateways that lead to greater clarity and new beginnings. We can use this clarity to gain a deeper understanding of what we really want in life, and to motivate us to make lasting changes.

    Photo by Lel4nd