Tiny Buddha

Tag: intuition

  • How I Overcame My Debilitating Gut Issues by Digesting My Emotions

    How I Overcame My Debilitating Gut Issues by Digesting My Emotions

    “I do not fix problems. I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves.” ~Louise Hay

    Here’s my secret: In order to fully heal over a decade of debilitating digestive disorders, I had to stop trying to heal. Instead, I had to do nothing. What, do nothing? Yes, that’s exactly right—I had to let go of the search for the perfect cure. Let me explain.

    I developed chronic gut problems at age fourteen—such a precious age! After being dismissed by doctors (“It’s all in your head; it’s a girl problem”), overprescribed antibiotics for years on end, or just given hopelessly ambiguous, catch-all diagnoses like IBS, gastroparesis, candida, h. pylori, and leaky gut (as any sufferer of gut problems can relate to!), I became my own wellness warrior.

    For twelve years, I was on a crusade to find the “right” answer: the right elimination diet, the right supplements, the right doctor, the right healer, the right yoga poses, the right amount of water for my body weight, the right breathing techniques, the right blogger, the right retreat, the right fix that would heal my gut once and for all.

    In truth, I was stuck in a healing loop, and healing became my identity. Sound familiar? I let myself believe that I could never be truly healed, so that I would always be chasing the next popular protocol or promise—paradoxically, it was almost easier that way. “Healing,” which is one of the most profound inner transformations we can undergo, had become a completely disembodied, intellectual exercise.

    I have to be gentle with myself. My quest was not deliberate self-sabotage. You see, I was desperate to get better.

    To not be afraid that any given food, no matter how “healthy,” could set off a land mine of symptoms. To not keep living small so that I could be close to a bathroom and heating pad at a moment’s notice. To stop being defined by my “stomach problems,” and start living fully, or living at all. Until the gut problems led to a cascade of other health problems, and I had to wake up.

    In my healing loop, I was cut off from my inner voice, from my inner guidance, my compass. No wonder I couldn’t get off the loop to a place of true equanimity, balance, and wholeness, in all areas of my life.

    I had no access to my gut intuition.

    Now, I can’t say for sure what came first: suppression of this intuition, which led to gut issues, or the onset of my gut issues themselves, which led to further suppression of my intuition.

    Either way, indigestion, in any form, is literally the inability to let go of the past, of experiences and events that are transient, but that we choose to let define us. Our guts are where our will, personal power, and courage reside. Or, when imbalanced or compromised, our guts are where fear, inaction, and indecision take hold.

    We know this on the same instinctual level that leads us to say, “She’s got guts; trust your gut; I have a bad gut feeling about him; be more gutsy!” But what if we actually listened and trusted our guts? What does that even mean?

    Similarly, we’ve all heard about the mighty microbiome—how we are basically superorganisms composed of trillions of gut bacteria that support everything from immunity to serotonin production. But how does this information translate into the beautiful unification of mind, heart, and belly that leads to quantum healing?

    Sure, we know to take probiotics and eat fermented foods to feed our good gut bugs, but how often do we hear about the metaphysical roots of gut problems—fear, dread, anxiety—and how to weed them out?

    Beginning to Digest My Emotions

    Eventually, when I was twenty-six, I became so depleted from outsourcing my healing powers to “experts,” that the only wounded healer I was left with was myself. Sicker than ever, I realized that no elimination diet would ever work, because there was something else eating away at me.

    What was I not digesting? After twelve years of gut problems, I began to ask myself this question. A wonderful massage therapist told me to start talking to my belly, to ask her what she needed.

    Every day, I lay down with my hands resting on my stomach, and I simply said, “I am willing to feel what is ready to be felt. I am ready to digest my emotions.” That’s all I did. I lay there and waited for my emotions to arise.

    My belly was so tightly contracted, so afraid of herself, that at first, nothing came up at all. I felt completely detached from my entire digestive tract. After all, I’d been beating her up for years, admonishing her for making me sick, feeling completely helpless and victimized in the face of symptoms.

    So I just kept my hands on my belly and trusted. I spoke to her softly. “I am well. What I need to heal is already within. I am willing to feel what is ready to be felt.”

    Little by little, tears came. I imagined the pain was dissolving as black smoke and floating out of my body. Days passed, then weeks. My belly began to give in. I began to digest. And when I did, my whole body shook with the emotion I was most afraid of, fear itself.

    Fear—of failure, of success, of my power, of my weaknesses, of not being enough, of being too much, of the future, of the past, of what was not and what would never be.

    I was holding a lifetime of fear in my stomach, and my stomach was contracting around it, protecting that fear like my life depended on it. My life did depend on it—as a defense mechanism from the vulnerability and open-hearted living that lies beyond fear.

    That fear was slowly depleting me of my life force, of my ability to assimilate anything positive, from nutrients to joy.

    At first, facing a fear so elemental and ingrained can literally seem like dying. And a death of sorts is taking place.

    A deeply somatic, cellular release is underway. All the body needs is support to let the process unfold. S/he needs love, rest, and compassion. S/he needs to know she is safe—and s/he will do the rest.

    It was in that space of not trying to heal, of doing nothing, where healing really began. Because ‘nothing’ is where the little voice of gut intuition can take form. That little voice, what I call the Inner Wise Woman (or Man), can emerge—first quiet, wounded, and confused, and then a little more resilient each day.

    Begin to recognize that voice. Listen to its timbre, its intonations. Learn to trust it. S/he is never wrong. And beyond that voice is where true healing, and true living, begins.

    How to Practice Emotional Digestion

    How do you digest fear? How do you sit with a belly full of fearful thoughts long enough to witness and dissolve them?

    This is the process of emotional digestion that healed my gut after twelve years of incessant pain and discomfort. It is a powerful practice of learning to trust yourself and your intuition, and, if done regularly, will transform much more than just physical pain.

    1. Listen

    Each symptom is a sign, a messenger, of an inner imbalance at play. You have to get quiet enough to listen to the messages.

    Lie on your back in a comfortable position where you can fully relax and release. Place your hands on your belly. Don’t do anything—don’t think about the pain, or what could be causing it, or how to fix it.

    Just breathe and be. Trust that the information you need will surface at the perfect moment, when the body is ready to impart his or her wisdom.

    After you have brought your mind-body into a state of peace and coherence, send your body a signal of safety by repeating an affirmation:

    “I am well. I am whole. I love you and I’m listening.”

    You may lie here for half an hour, or for hours. You may be ready to tune in after a few minutes, or you may need to repeat this practice every day.

    Know that wherever you are is perfect, and everything you need to heal is already within. All you have to do is listen.

    2. Ask

    Once you have become comfortable with the practice of simply listening to your body, you are ready to ask him or her what s/he needs. Tell your belly (or whichever part of your GI tract is in pain), either aloud or in your head:

    I am fully ready and willing to feel what needs to be felt.

    And just see what comes up. Breathe into the answer.

    It may be a resounding voice in your head, or a wellspring of emotion, or a very subtle shift in perception. The more you practice, the more refined your intuition will become. Once feelings have begun to arise, ask your belly:

    What messages are you sending me through these symptoms?

    What feelings can I release from my gut, so I can receive what I need in this moment?

    What information do I need to know to heal?

    Meditate on the answers. Again, depending on the duration of your symptoms, this process may take months or years for answers to fully reveal themselves.

    Don’t worry. Everything is unfolding in perfect time.

    3. Shift

    You have listened to your body’s innate wisdom and asked for answers. Now it is time to shift this knowledge into deep healing. You are literally transmuting the pain so you can make space for more beauty, grace, health, harmony, and peace in your life.

    If you have been storing fear in your belly, call upon courage and belief.

    If you have been storing scarcity mindset and inaction, call upon abundance and willingness.

    If you have been storing low self-worth, call upon gratitude and peace.

    There are many ways to shift a physical manifestation of a metaphysical imbalance—both somatic and emotional. Here are some potent and practical ideas.

    Write through whatever answers arose in your emotional digestion, meditation, and self-inquiry practices. Ask your belly to write what s/he really needs to you/through you. Then, do not judge the words—just let them flow. You may be surprised what comes up.

    Repeat a positive, present-tense statement daily for a month. For indigestion, author and healer Louise Hay suggests the following: “I digest and assimilate all new experiences peacefully and joyously.”

    Move the energy through you. Dancing, shaking, and yoga are among the many powerful ways to literally shift your energy by moving it out of your body, and calling in more refreshing, open, and higher vibrations.

    Try energy healing. Sometimes, the support of an intuitive energy healer, reiki practitioner, or bodyworker is fundamental to releasing stored psychospiritual blockages from the body.

    Once you have listened, asked, and shifted the energy of fear, pain, indecision, lack of will, or whatever arises from your gut, you make space for a radical, new capacity: your intuition. Your inner knowing. Your Inner Wise Woman or Man.

    Next time pain arises, instead of trying to heal, ask your intuition: What does my body need to heal?

    And listen as s/he tells you the perfect medicine for your unique body vessel.

  • How to Access Your Intuition by Listening to Your Favorite Music

    How to Access Your Intuition by Listening to Your Favorite Music

    “Sometimes music is the only thing that takes your mind off everything else.” ~Unknown

    All major art forms can be a way to experience a deeper part of ourselves, but there is something unique about music. Perhaps it’s because music is a frequency with no physical form, so it can easily become a pathway to the formless realms of intuition and our higher selves or soul. We may never know for sure, but it is clear that music has a powerful effect.

    I have had experiences of feeling whole, connected, and complete when listening to music. However, I was not consciously aware of these experiences for a long time.

    I can remember driving my car, listening to my favorite songs, and being “transported” someplace. It was an experience of complete euphoria and wholeness. At the time, these were mainly subconscious experiences, and all I was aware of while listening was that I felt good.

    As I started to develop and use my intuitive abilities, I began to have many conscious experiences of my higher self. Only with this reference point did I become aware of how many times I connected with my higher self while listening to music. It was the same experience!

    Not all music will feel like a spiritual experience, and the pieces that do will be specific to the person listening, as we’re all unique. You may have said, without thinking much about it, that a particular song “speaks to your soul.” It does, and you will want to listen for its helpful guidance.

    Have you ever heard a song and then put it on repeat for the whole day or even a week? I sure have, many times. It seems like each time I play a favorite tune, it opens my heart a bit more to reveal hidden emotions and desires. These are the types of moments and songs you will want to observe to see what your inner wisdom is showing you.

    Over the past four months, I have been atypically listening to some of my favorite music from the 1980s; “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper, “Hazy Shade of Winter” by The Bangles, “Cherish” by Madonna, to name a few. Even current songs with an ’80’s feel find themselves first on my playlists.

    I began to internally investigate why the sudden ’80s music craze in my life when I received a knowing from my higher self that I was homesick and needed to talk more with family. I then started to recall childhood scenes of me playing with the family and neighborhood friends.

    I was in my formative years during this decade, and my siblings were still living at home. The ’80s was the only decade my entire family lived in the house before my older siblings moved away. It was a fun and joyful time in my life.

    My whole family now lives all over the country, and I live in Hawaii. We usually travel several times a year to see each other, but not this year because of the pandemic. I have been suppressing sadness about not being able to travel easily and safely to see my loved ones for many months without realizing it.

    The ’80s binge I’ve been experiencing these past few months was a way for me to emote this sadness and experience the childhood nostalgia associated with this music genre. Once my higher self revealed the deeper feelings around my recent propensity towards ’80 music, I began to reach out to my family more, which has helped with my feelings of isolation.

    Next time while listening to this music, take some time to reflect internally on what is happening and if any high levels of intuitive information are coming through. What I mean by high levels is direct guidance coming from your higher self or soul.

    There are ways to tell if you are getting intuitive guidance from your higher self while listening to music. You can observe specific characteristics right away that indicate you are receiving soul-level information.

    For example, intuitive information from your higher self is always accepting and loving. This loving feeling is inclusive and leaves none of you feeling left out or unworthy. Soul-level guidance will not come with harsh judgments and guilt trips.

    Another characteristic of soul-level information is that it will often come in very quietly. You may have heard phrases like “whispers of the soul” or “the still inner voice.” This is often the case when your soul is speaking. Music naturally stills your mind, which creates a quieter internal environment for higher guidance to come through.

    Guidance from your higher self is enveloped in peace. I notice that this peace is often present when listening to music I love. Even if a song’s message is heartbreaking, it still rides on a wave of peace if it’s speaking to my soul.

    Being in motion while listening to music, like on a bike ride or dancing, can heighten this experience of connecting to soul-level intuitive information. Movement helps “loosen” your spiritual body so you can become more open and receptive. Intuitive information will often become conscious when the physical body moves, especially if you are relaxed.

    If you’ve ever had an epiphany with your earbuds in, on a jog or an elliptical—with your mind clear, blood pumping, and heart open—you know what I mean.

    A relaxed nervous system is vital for hearing high levels of intuitive information. If the nervous system is on high alert, your internal environment will be very noisy. Information coming from the higher self is gentle and quiet, so having a relaxed nervous system will foster a space within you to hear your soul’s guidance.

    Listening to music while exercising outdoors is a great combo for hearing your intuition. We are intimately connected to the natural environment, and exercising outside in beautiful areas will naturally quiet and relax your body’s nervous system.

    I’m guessing you may have already experienced this as well. You’re at the beach, or in a park, your earbuds creating a perfect soundtrack to the beautiful, peaceful scenery, and suddenly life becomes clearer.

    If you don’t live in a place with a lot of natural outdoor beauty, put on some relaxing or heart-opening music in headphones and go for a walk. Do what you can to create a peaceful inner environment as you move around.

    Additionally, if moving around is something you can’t do, try taking a long bath or sit next to a body of water. Make the environment pleasant by lighting a candle or putting on your favorite soothing music. Water is a strong current for intuitive information. You may be surprised how much intuitive guidance will come through in these therapeutic settings.

    I have had many revelations in the tub or after a dip in the ocean. I often will get into a body of water when I’m feeling scattered, anxious, or confused. After soaking for a while, my nerves and mind will relax, and the next step I am looking for will appear.

    Whether you listen to music while exercising, at a concert, or just lounging around the house, I encourage you to think about the kinds of intuitive messages you get while listening. Is your higher self calling you to hold a different perspective, forgive, or acknowledge your true feelings about something?

    If you love lyrics, pay attention to words you’re drawn to and note what is happening in your life at that moment. Do the two relate? I tend to gravitate toward listening to instrumental songs. I feel they give me a blank canvas to interpret soul-level guidance more clearly. You may find that too.

    You will want to write down the soul-level information you receive while listening to music, apply it to your life, and then see if it has value for you. You can measure value by whether something is uplifting, useful, and helps you grow in character.

    Remember that if you closely observe your internal environment while listening to your favorite songs, you can intuitively reveal what your soul is saying to you. And then you can act on it and change your life.

  • Think Less, Sense More: How to Get Out of Your Own Way

    Think Less, Sense More: How to Get Out of Your Own Way

    “I believe in intuitions and inspirations…I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am.” ~Albert Einstein

    I’ve been thinking a lot. Maybe you have too?

    There’s a lot to think about these days.

    I’m taking in information, processing new ideas, adapting the conditions of my life to the current circumstances, and establishing new behaviors. Maybe this sounds familiar to you?

    All of this reasoning is primarily a frontal cortex function. When we understand and organize information, that function occurs at the front of the brain. This part of the brain creates order out of chaos. Structure from disarray.

    The threads of sensory and experiential input are woven together into an integrated fabric that turns disparate threads of information into something cohesive and comprehensible. Logic and language step in to further clarify and solidify the process. Our experience with the world around us becomes something that has meaning. It’s a handy tool. It’s a good part of our consciousness.

    An interesting and often overlooked fact is that our brain does much more than this. When we refer to someone as brainy, we are often referring to their intelligence. And by intelligence, we are often referring to fact-driven logical prowess. Our language reveals much about how we interpret our capacities.

    Even if we only take into account physical evidence, we possess a capacity for so much more. Our brains are more than brainy. Our intelligence is more than intelligent. We aren’t here only to make linear sense of things. Our existence suggests there’s more to it than that. Our purpose is bigger.

    Which brings me to this pandemic happening in tandem with a flailing economy, massive dysregulation of most systems that govern the rhythms of our lives, and a social awakening rippling through the core of our society. Which brings me to why I’ve been thinking a lot. I’ve been thinking because survival and purposeful existence in this world demands it.

    And.

    There’s always an “and.”

    Purposeful existence demands more than just thinking.

    The brainstem is located at the back of the skull, where the brain meets the spine. The brainstem regulates breathing and heart rate. It governs basic movement and sensory experiences by serving as a conduit for input from the spinal cord to the rest of the brain and vice versa. It’s the center of your most essential involuntary survival processes.

    This is the place of your most basic presence as a human. It’s your sign of life. There is no logic, no language, no sense or order here. The brainstem is a portal from the nervous system to the brain. Nothing in the portal is interpreted or coherent. It’s just nerve firings and stimuli, electrical currents and rhythms. A jumble of input with no meaning or filter. The brainstem connects your body to consciousness.

    This meeting place is potent. It’s the threshold between having a functioning, sensing, present body and the awareness to observe, understand, and trust into it. The brainstem is a liminal container, a transitory passageway of uncensored, unrefined experience.

    Meaning making is necessary, of course. The stories we weave from our conclusions about the world are essential (though they can also be dangerous if we get caught up in negative stories about everything that could go wrong).

    But, first, there is the elemental material of existence, the origins of presence. This is the fodder that transforms our presence into energy. Our existence into a resolute force.

    I’ve been offering myself permission to think less and sense more. I get out of the front of my brain and sink into the back of my skull, right where the skull curves away from my neck. That place behind my throat. Sometimes I take a deep breath into that space, unhinge my jaw, relax my tongue, and open my mouth to breathe out.

    Life has been unbelievably messy. No job. New job. New learning curve. No childcare. New living situation. Every habit I had a few months ago has been entirely reinvented. Most assumptions I had about how the world functions from day to day have been decimated. I’ve had to get creative. I can’t think my way through this.

    When I sidestep my intellect, something else emerges. When I breathe into the back of my skull another kind of intelligence informs me.

    Rather than thinking through or mulling over, I feel into something. I receive a nudge, a pull, an instinctive reflex to start in a particular direction, regardless of whether there is a path present or not. I’m nudged and so I go. It’s often messy, circular, and wayward. But I go, nonetheless. There is usually something there. The going is always worthwhile. And it is absolutely never what I expect.

    This place does much more than govern my heartbeat and my breath. It’s the place I write from. It’s the place I tap into while I’m teaching yoga, when I seek to nurture myself and those practicing with me. It’s the place I sink into when I feel uncertain and unmoored. I don’t get answers here, but I do get clear. It’s where I go for the essentials. The dwelling of my instincts. The gathering place of my sensitivity. The sparking nerve fibers of survival, function, and purpose.

    I’m getting out of the way. I’m diving into an ancient, intuitive, simple part of myself. I’m feeling and seeing in the most essential way I know how. The brainstem is a portal, connecting simplicity to intentionality. It’s a different kind of intelligence. I’m linking consciousness to my body, awareness to my experience. It’s as simple as that. And it’s so much more.

    Want to try it out? I find this practice is most visceral for me when I lie down, so if you can, find a good spot to recline and rest. If you can’t lie down right now, it’s okay. Just sit and get relaxed.

    Take a few breaths and sink into the place where you are. Let your body settle downward and feel present within your space. Become aware of your breath. Now, start to send your breath back to the base of your skull. Feel it swirl in that space where the back of your head meets your neck.

    Unhinge your jaw, get space between your teeth, and relax the tongue. Let your mouth drop open and sigh out from that space at the very back of the throat. Repeat a few times.

    Observe what it feels like to sink your awareness to the back of the skull. Also, get curious about what emerges when you lean into this space. What feelings, thoughts, images, ideas, or sensations come forward? What happens when you intentionally sidestep your reasoning mind and sink into a different part of your consciousness? What wonderful things could happen if you were to trust the most essential parts of you?

  • How to Hear Your Intuition When Making a Big Decision

    How to Hear Your Intuition When Making a Big Decision

    “Your brain can play tricks, your heart can be blind, but your gut is always right.” ~Rachel Wolchin

    Have you ever wondered why it can feel so incredibly difficult to make a decision? The pros and cons lists, the endless stream of thoughts talking us into it and then against it, the anxiety about potential disappointment, doing it wrong, or regretting it can leave us paralyzed with self-doubt.

    I can very much relate to this cycle. In the past, I had extreme difficulty making decisions. I would become completely obsessed with all aspects of the process, seeking to talk it out with anyone that would listen and write list after list on what direction would be best.

    I eventually realized that my “process” wasn’t working. I ended up only increasing my confusion and self-doubt. The more I talked about the different options and sought others’ opinions, the less clarity I had, which then sent me out to involve even more people in the process. This was a cycle that became endless and maddening for those closest to me.

    I had read about accessing my intuition, which was supposedly there to guide me, yet I still didn’t know how to tap into this alleged “whisper” that already knew the answer. How exactly was I supposed to find it, hear it, and apply it? I assumed no one else had this problem as badly as I did and that it would require years of self-exploration to fix it.

    When we have difficulty tapping into our intuition and trusting in ourselves, the “how” of it all can feel overwhelming.

    I am happy to share that tapping into this part of myself did not require years of self-exploration but rather a willingness and openness to exit my conscious mind—the thinking part of myself—and explore my subconscious—the emotional and feeling part of myself. As I learned how to deeply relax and soothe this deeper part of myself, clarity became natural.

    Three Ways to Access Your Intuition

    1. Giving Our Mind Permission

    We can feel extreme resistance around connecting to our body when we’re stressed or feeling anxious to figure something out. We want to stay in our heads and solve it logically, not allowing ourselves to abandon the problem for even a few minutes. We don’t realize this only creates more indecisiveness and stress, raising our cortisol levels, which impacts our ability to think clearly.

    Important decisions are made through accessing faith within ourselves, where our mind and body connect in harmony. Like so many matters of the heart, this can feel very counterintuitive.

    The more deeply we can relax, the more powerful our mind will be to gain clarity and make the right decision.

    This can look like talking to our conscious mind, letting it know we’re working on things: “I’m working on it; this is how I will give you the clarity you’re asking for.” This gives us permission to exit our head, lowering the resistance we are feeling. We assure the mind we’re not going to abandon it forever, but just for right now. We will be returning. This quiets the chatter we’re hardwired to have on a continuous thought loop.

    If permission doesn’t enable you to calm your mind and access your intuition, it can help to get out in nature, channel your excess energy into a creative project, or simply practice stillness in the chaos of it all. This helps us get past the impulse to “do” something out of fear and worry. Exiting our reasoning mind and connecting to this deeper part of ourselves allows the emotional waves to pass and for clarity to come.

    2. Identifying What We’re Feeling

    Building trust and faith in ourselves starts with connecting to our body and what we’re feeling. Where are we holding tension or feeling sensations related to the outside stress within us? What does it feel like? Where does it feel lighter or heavier?

    As we practice exiting our thinking mind, we’ll feel different sensations as we further relax into what we want and allow it to come in. The distinctions may feel extremely subtle at first, yet as we deepen our awareness through the relaxation, we’ll start to identify nuances within our choices that will guide us to the one that is most in alignment with what we want. We want to stay open and note any gentle intuitive nudges in one direction over the other.

    I once had to make a hard decision about my oldest son’s schooling that brought up all kinds of mixed emotions. My husband and I agreed early on to transfer him to a bigger school for elementary, as his current school was very small, and we wanted him to have a different classroom experience with his teachers and peers.

    I have a hard time with endings, and while knowing this about myself, my emotions still wanted to take over. A decision that, in the big scheme of things, that didn’t need to feel so stressful was activating old pain points in me.

    I started to become a first grader myself again when my parents made decisions that felt like hard transitions. I didn’t want him to feel unheard, unsupported, or angry. I realized I was caught up in my own triggers, my own experience, and completely letting fear and worry take over.

    I felt deeply conflicted and fearful of making the wrong decision for my son, yet I knew the answer wouldn’t come from talking it out.

    I practiced visualizing a pendulum and paid close attention to which way it was slightly drifting. Was it leaning a little closer to yes or no? When facing similar feelings of uncertainty, I still love to close my eyes and notice if the pendulum is swinging a little more right or left and explore that direction a little more.

    3. Evoking Curiosity

    Evoking curiosity allows us to discern between whether we’re reacting versus responding to the issue.

    Curiosity allows us to be right where we are in the moment without judging ourselves for being indecisive or for not knowing the answer right away.

    For example, as I chose to get curious and compassionate with myself rather than closed off and frustrated when I felt like I couldn’t come to a decision for my son, I was able to go deeper into the “why” of what I wanted.

    As I leaned into each scenario, remembering what was discussed when calm and fully in my conscious mind, I started to feel a subtle, yet distinct difference when I relaxed into each choice.

    I was able to observe myself getting caught up in short-term fears such as how I would be viewed by the school we were leaving, what would the other families think, and what if I regretted it and went crawling back in six months?

    I’ve learned that the compulsion to project out into the future and let worry take over was endless, and that it cut me off from the joys of starting a new chapter for him filled with new possibilities.

    I started to differentiate between my intuition versus my ego’s need to have a constant issue or problem requiring my full attention. I’ve also learned through this practice to listen to myself, paying attention to these differences, and to have faith in myself.

    I was then able to choose the option that most clearly aligned with my “why.” I was able to see how fear was paralyzing me from making a decision and how my “why” for wanting to pursue other choices was valid and there for a reason!

    Curiosity allows us to explore our options with ourselves in an open, nonjudgmental, compassionate way so we can then respond from a place of clarity instead of reacting quickly and emotionally.

    To evoke your curiosity, ask yourself: What are the reasons you want or don’t want it? Are your reasons legitimate? What is the thinking process behind what you want? Is it reactionary? What needs to be done to truly own this decision?

    As we continue to ask questions, we soothe the subconscious part of ourselves that is scared, agitated, and anxious, and stop triggered emotions from taking over and leading.

    We can give ourselves permission to put the fear away by asking ourselves, “What would I want to do if I weren’t scared?”

    This allows the conscious part of us to step in and make decisions, managing the reactions coming up that are deeply rooted in our subconscious, our childhood, past triggers, and past disappointments.

    When we awaken this connection within us, we begin to identify deeply with what we need now, rather than the unmet needs of our past.

    With practice and patience, I am confident decision-making will feel like a completely different experience, turning what once felt impossible into a deeper way of connecting and knowing ourselves.

  • What You Need to Know Before You Start or Quit Meditating

    What You Need to Know Before You Start or Quit Meditating

    “Many paths lead from the foot of the mountain, but at the peak we all gaze at the single bright moon.” ~Ikkyu

    I was the kid who didn’t like to sleep. In nursery school, I would pretend to be asleep at nap time, while the other kids were sleeping. I’ve always thought life was full of exciting things to explore and learn, and I didn’t want to sleep through it.

    So, it shouldn’t surprise you that traditional meditation didn’t sit well with me (pun intended). I remember my Buddhist grandmother chanting and meditating twice a day. Yet I never had any interest in mantra meditation until I was in my forties. I thought it was boring, and I didn’t have the patience to sit still.

    Meditation helps to lower stress, improve concentration, and increase emotional intelligence. It helps to connect you with your subconscious—also referred to as higher self, intuition, or inner self. There are two concepts to understand before you embark (or disembark) on your journey:

    1. There are many ways to meditate.

    Just as there isn’t one correct religion for everyone, there isn’t one correct way to meditate. There are hundreds of ways to reach a meditative state.

    As a teenager, I experienced an altered state sometimes when I played the piano. Even though piano playing isn’t recognized as a meditation, I knew I was in a meditative state. It felt like my brain was producing more alpha waves, which is what happens with some types of meditation.

    My fingers felt nimble. I released my emotions into my playing. Everything seemed to flow. I wasn’t thinking—it was as if my higher self or intuition commanded my fingers.

    When doing repetitive chores such as washing the dishes, sometimes I would zone out. It seemed contradictory to zone out while zooming in to focus on the act of washing the dishes. This was my first exposure to mindfulness.

    In my twenties, I started learning tai chi and yoga. Iyengar yoga bored me. I enjoyed Ashtanga yoga, also known as Power yoga, but didn’t feel meditative doing it. It felt like an intense stretching class for me.

    Likewise, with tai chi, which made me feel like I was doing choreography in slow-mo, but I didn’t feel an altered state. In fact, I studied tai chi for about three years and never felt chi energy. Yet in my first reiki class, I felt the chi. Go figure.

    Meanwhile, I was a Polynesian (mostly Tahitian and Hawaiian) dancer. Unlike with tai chi and yoga, I experienced a variety of meditative states when dancing.

    High energy dancing to live Tahitian drumming felt like a shamanic meditation of primal energy. Dancing to traditional hula chants felt like a spiritual combination of mantra and moving meditations.

    Modern hula songs are usually about love or nature. Dancing about love was an emotion-releasing meditation. Dancing about nature felt like a spiritual nature meditation without being outdoors.

    After ten years of Polynesian solo dances, I switched to Latin partner dances such as salsa and Argentine tango.

    Improvised, non-choreographed social dancing is enormously fun! It makes me completely focused on the present moment. I get into a meditative state and feel creative and playful.

    Dance leaders can’t be as completely in the moment as I can as a follower. They have to think a few microseconds ahead. After all, they’re “driving.”

    My favorite partners create with me and give me the space to express myself. They don’t dictate all the moves and try to control me like a puppet.

    I imagine that musicians feel a similar flow when they’re jamming spontaneously. In fact, when I dance to live music, the musicians and I often feed off of each other.

    They play music that inspires me to dance a certain way. In turn, the energy I give off inspires them. It’s a win-win feedback loop!

    When I dance Brazilian samba, even dancing to recorded music can make me feel high. Likewise, African drumming has a shamanic trance energy. I was doing ecstatic dance meditation before I knew there was a name for it.

    Going back to mainstream forms of meditation, I’ve taught mindfulness in health education classes. As a communication coach, I’ve taught breathing meditation to help clients relieve public speaking anxiety. I’ve even taught meditation to help develop assertiveness in my ESL (English as a Second Language) students.

    In short, there are many ways to get into a meditative state. Don’t let anyone convince you that their method is the only correct way. You may find more than one way that works for you.

    2. Don’t judge yourself.

    Meditation helps you pay attention to your subconscious and intuition. Yet, paying attention isn’t enough. Your inner self also has to feel comfortable enough to share its thoughts with you.

    Your subconscious voice has probably been suppressed for years. As if you were earning the trust of a shy child or a skittish animal, you have to be gentle and kind with yourself.

    Don’t judge your thoughts or feelings. Acknowledge and accept them without judgment. They are what they are.

    Being critical of yourself counteracts the benefits of meditation. Don’t agonize over how you look when you’re doing yoga. Don’t beat yourself up if you lose track of the number of repetitions you’ve chanted.

    Don’t focus on playing the right notes or dancing the right moves. When you relax, you will be more likely to enter a state of meditative flow.

    Most importantly, don’t ever feel that you’re doing a meditation wrong. Or feel that a meditative activity isn’t a “real” meditation because it hasn’t been codified and practiced for thousands of years. If grooming your cat or brushing your dog with a flea comb puts both of you into a meditative state, it’s legit.

    Listen to your inner self for guidance on what kind of meditation you feel like doing and when you want to do it. Trust that your inner self knows what’s best for you.

  • Your Traumas Misleading You

    Your Traumas Misleading You

  • Your Intuition Isn’t Just Insecurity

    Your Intuition Isn’t Just Insecurity

  • You Know What’s Best for You, So Stop Giving Your Power Away

    You Know What’s Best for You, So Stop Giving Your Power Away

    “Insight is not a light bulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out.” ~Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

    If there is just one thing I would absolutely love every person on this planet to understand, it is their own inner knowing. And if I could have two things, I would add the power that inner knowing gives to each of us.

    When it comes to what’s best for you, your own opinion is the only one that counts—and you can use it to change your life.

    It’s easy to be brainwashed in this society because right from the get-go, when we have no choice but to be dependent on others, we are taught to believe that others know better. This inadvertently teaches us to suppress our own desires, feelings, ideas, and opinions about the world.

    My parents, probably like yours, had very strong views about what was right and wrong. If I stepped outside those boundaries I was punished rather than left to experience the natural consequences of my thoughts and actions. That introduced self-doubt into the equation, and other damaging emotions like worry, anxiety, fear, guilt, and so on.

    With emotions like this in the mix, reinforced over many years, taking action based on our own insights becomes difficult. At best it’s fraught with an obstacle course of emotional bombs waiting to be set off along the way. At worst, we stagnate, freeze, and live our lives according to the opinion of others.

    As Malcolm Gladwell says, it’s too easy to snuff out the insights your inner knowing gives rise to—especially after years of suppressing them.

    When our parents enforced their boundaries and opinions, they were most often well-meaning, and they were likely just repeating the cycle of what they were taught. But it’s that generalized and pervasive trust in authority, that is perpetuated by well-meaning people, that causes the issue.

    I was not taught to trust my instincts or intuition; these weren’t words that were even a common part of my vocabulary. Yet, who else can I truly trust? If I live my life according to the opinion of others, can I ever be happy?

    We are each this unique cocktail of highly complex DNA, experiences, and feelings. Other people can inspire me, yes, they can reflect back to me what they are hearing, seeing and/or feeling from me, but I am the only one who can actually answer what is best for me. I started to really get this almost twenty years ago.

    “If it sounds ‘off’ to you, it probably is. Trust your instincts,” he said.

    This was on a phone call taking place across the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the night. A mentor of mine, in a successful network marketing business, had turned whistleblower. He gave interviews for the national press and was featured on Dateline NBC.

    I’ll never forget it. I had been part of that business for seven years. There was nothing wrong with the plan to make money; it was legitimate. There was a personal development ‘system’ that sat alongside it that also worked well; the growth I had undergone was undeniable and worth every penny.

    It was the secretive approach of those in positions of influence, the concealed gains from the ‘system’ and the part that played in their projected lifestyles of success to entice others to follow suit, that was the problem.

    At best, there was a lack of transparency. At worst, I could say there was a deliberate attempt to deceive in order to continue to line the pockets of those in positions of influence. I had suppressed the “there is something I’m not being told” feeling often. When I heard what my mentor—one of the previous elite—had to say, I felt a sense of relief; I could trust my intuition after all.

    That was in my twenties. Between then and now I have done a lot of work to try and retrieve my sense of who I am, what the inner me actually thinks and feels about things. It isn’t easy; I can never ‘undo’ the experiences I have had, but I have come to look at them in a new light.

    I have learned that all anyone has to offer is an opinion. It doesn’t matter what the subject is, who the person or body is, or how highly you hold them in your esteem; it is simply an opinion. Just look at how many ‘experts’ in any given field disagree. The only truth is one that is felt by the heart, and it differs from person to person, from moment to moment; it is as unique as that cocktail that we each are.

    Stepping authentically into the world isn’t easy. The feelings attached to those earlier opinions, boundaries, and consequences are part of the fabric of who I am, but I step anyway.

    And with each step, together with my new vantage point and the support of others who cheer me on in this quest, my confidence gathers and new habits form. Best of all, I feel happier inside, like life is for the taking now, not in some imaginary future when I’ve satisfied everyone else’s needs.

    Each time someone asks for my advice, I always remind them to take only what resonates. But it is no surprise to me that people more often than not doubt themselves and look to others for answers. Someone once left a comment on my blog with contact details for a guru they viewed as having solved their problem for them, but that just told me they had given their power away.

    It’s great when I can look to others as support, or even a facilitator, but if I see them as the person who solved my problems for me, I become reliant on them again and again. I increase their power and decrease my own, in my head.

    And that is the real issue. This is about our thoughts, the things we believe to be true.

    The only reason someone else is able to appear as if they have solved my problem for me, is because I don’t understand and can’t see my own part in solving it. The very fact that I see whatever it is as a problem creates a resistance in me to seeing the solution. It’s like when I ‘lose’ my keys. I tell myself that I “can’t see” them and this literally blinds me to them.

    Other people’s problems don’t seem as insurmountable, though; we tend to hold less doubt about others’ abilities than our own. So someone else’s belief in us to solve it, particularly someone held in high esteem or purported as a guru, lowers our resistance to the solution that has been right there for the taking all along.

    There is only one time when I don’t fully trust my intuition, and that is when I am having fears and self-doubts. I am always aware of my entry into to this world, the well-meaning opinions that shaped my early beliefs. I know how much self-doubt I still hold despite years of focusing on things to build my self-esteem.

    While I have a great gift for understanding others and their dilemmas, when turning that on myself in moments of stress, I know my ability to read between the lines can develop into more of paranoia. That is when I find it useful to look to someone else to help facilitate me seeing what is truly going on.

    But there are other pointers—the things happening around me, the way my body is feeling, the dreams I am having—all these things can tell me what is really going on beneath the surface more objectively than my mind.

    While ideally I would have liked to have been born into a world that taught me to nurture and value my inner knowing, my intuition, right from the outset, simply becoming aware of it and practicing using it often also gets great results.

    For example, moving to New Zealand, even moving within New Zealand to a new city in recent years, these have been intuitive moves. While my head could explain the rationale, overriding all of it was this sense of “it felt right.”

    Trusting what feels right for us, and having the courage to follow up on it, this is what gives us the power to create our best life.

    I sometimes get blog comments from people who really push and prod me on this point, a point that I think is absolutely critical to understand—that any one of us has the power to change our life at any point.

    It doesn’t matter if you are lonely, penniless, homeless, overweight, underweight, sick, really sick, feel useless, are an abusee, an abuser, or even a psychopath, while there is breath in your body and conscious thoughts in your head, I believe we all have the power to change, with no exceptions.

    I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s possible.

    A quick Google search will fill your cup with example after example of people who have turned their lives around. Libraries and bookstores are filled with in-depth accounts of people who have changed their lives for the better. The inspiration is there, the tips and tricks and opinions are there, you just need one thing—to believe you can.

    And, as I have said, if you can’t quite believe it of yourself consistently enough to keep going, find someone who believes in you until you begin to prove them right.

    While other people can’t live your life for you, they can help boost your confidence when you want to make changes. If you need to increase your self-confidence, find those who support the kind of changes you’d like to make and let their belief in you be the thing that nudges you forward. Today, with online communities and forums, it is easier than ever to find what you need. Though you will be surprised at how other people show up in your life when you least expect it.

    Start by creating a conscious awareness of your self-defeating thought patterns and behaviors. Becoming aware of what is going on is crucial since 90% of our thought patterns are just a recurrence of yesterdays’ and, like anything we do repeatedly, we become less aware. The easiest way to turn this around is through meditation and taking some regular time to just contemplate.

    Take the time to hear your own thoughts, to truly feel into your own feelings, to begin to trust your own intuition. This is your true opinion of anything, and it’s the only one that counts. With it, you can start to contemplate positive changes in your life, looking for examples of when things have worked out for you in the past.

    And, finally, consider a life where others you know are equally aware of their own thoughts and feelings, their own insights and intuition. A world where people are focused on their own authentic happiness rather than in pursuit of trying to be ‘good enough’ to satisfy others’ standards. To me, this feels like a happier world—less judgmental, more free; free to evolve. We can help create this world by showing the people around us what it looks like to trust ourselves.

    Consider taking this step for yourself, and your loved ones, and you will not only change your life for the better, you will have changed our world for the better.

  • Trust Your Intuition: If It Feels Like a No, It’s a No

    Trust Your Intuition: If It Feels Like a No, It’s a No

    “You will never follow your own inner voice until you clear up the doubts in your mind.” ~Roy T. Bennett

    One evening my husband and I decided that we, along with our daughter, would go together to a neighboring town about thirty minutes away the following morning. He had an errand to run, and I was going to take our daughter to a nearby playground.

    The morning arrived, and as I thought about it, I had a wave of feeling/thought that said, “I don’t really want to go,” or maybe it was more like, “I’d rather just stay around here because that would be more fun.” All I can say is that there was an inner nudge that told me not going would lead to a happier outcome.

    Instead of going with my gut, though, I asked my daughter if she wanted to go to the playground, and when she said yes, I let that change my mind. (She’s four! Of course she wants to go to the playground!)

    We piled into the car and headed to the highway. Before you get any ideas about this being a horror story about a car accident or other life-altering incident, let me assure you that nothing terrible happened. Just something that showed me I need to keep up my practice of listening to that inner voice we all have.

    We dropped my husband off and went to the playground. It was fine, I guess, but sort of frustrating: My daughter played for maybe five minutes before asking to go to the bathroom. After that, she said she was ready to leave the playground and have a snack in the car. It had been all of fifteen minutes.

    We got back in the car and drove to the spot where my husband was. After fifteen or twenty minutes of us waiting for him in the car, he came out, kind of a in a grumpy mood, and we debated who would drive back home.

    I have a story about not wanting to drive when my husband is in the car. I tell myself he makes me self-conscious and I’d rather just have him drive. I was already in the driver’s seat, though, and he didn’t seem to care either way, so I stayed where I was.

    As soon as I started backing out of the parking lot he told me to watch out. He was worried about me hitting someone. I got annoyed, but kept going.

    When we got to the road, I had to make a tricky left turn. It’s a spot where people are coming from all directions, and there happened to be a police officer waiting to pull out across the way from us.

    I was about to go, but a car came quickly around the bend. I felt like I was out too far and started to back up a little, then my husband said, “What are you doing!?” That did not go over well with me.

    I got a little hysterical, feeling trapped. I couldn’t make the turn, I couldn’t back up, and my husband refused to switch places with me because he thought the police officer across the way would be suspicious.

    I ended up yelling and freaking out, even dropping an f-bomb, which is so not the way I want to act, ever, but especially not in front of my kid.

    I finally made the turn, then got off the next exit and asked my husband to drive. Sitting in the passenger seat it hit me: My inner voice said I’d probably have more fun staying close to home, and I realized it was almost certainly right.

    The trip to the playground was a bust, my daughter and I had to spend a bunch of time in the car (half an hour both ways plus the time waiting for my husband) to do basically nothing, and my husband and I ended up having a bit of a blowout.

    I couldn’t have predicted how the day would go, but I knew in the morning I felt like taking it easy, and instead, I put myself in situations that had the potential to be stressful.

    It’s not that anything awful or life-altering happened; it was just a clear example of how going against what felt right, what felt like the most fun, ended up being not the best choice for me. And I was particularly annoyed because I’ve been dedicating time and attention lately to listening to my intuition.

    Overall, though, I have been getting better at tuning in and heeding the advice of my inner guidance. Here’s what I’ve done over the years to get better at it.

    I regularly check in with my body.

    My body is so much smarter than I am. She knows when she’s had enough to eat and she knows when a situation isn’t the right one for me. Experiences that don’t align with my innermost desires result in me having a tight feeling in my chest or a churning feeling in my stomach, and if things go on long enough, I’ve been known to manifest physical symptoms that send me to the doctor.

    I once ignored my intuition about taking a job. I only lasted there a year, and I was sick constantly. It’s rare for me to get sick at all, so this was just a confirmation of what I’d worried about from the beginning. The body knows, even when the mind isn’t willing to acknowledge it yet.

    I started looking at what made me feel light and happy.

    Like the body, emotions are an incredible guide for showing us where to turn next. If something makes you feel alive and excited, then go in that direction! If something makes you feel low-energy and sad, it’s time to change course.

    I look for the next right step instead of trying to figure out a thirty-year plan.

    Our minds want to have all of the answers right now, period. If you feel excited about a new and completely different career path but your mind can’t figure out how it can earn you a living, you may shut it down completely, ignoring your intuition and probably squelching your happiness.

    These days, I just try to figure out the next right step, the one for this moment, rather than trying to see how it will play out when I’m eighty. Sometimes the next right step is for me to go to sleep instead of thinking about it anymore!

    If I’m frazzled and worrying about a million things that are work or business related, I slow myself down and ask what has to be done right now. The answer is usually something simple, like answer this email or take a break for lunch and come back when I feel refreshed. If you take it moment by moment, it truly slows things down and simplifies them.

    I do the thing that makes me feel good whenever possible.

    It might seem counterintuitive, but it’s often much easier to get done what you need to when you follow the path of what feels best. For instance, one evening I needed to write a blog post, but I just wasn’t feeling it.

    Instead of forcing myself to do it, I made some art and watched some TV. After maybe an hour I felt jazzed up and good, and it was incredibly easy (and fast!) to write the blog post.

    I ask questions with the intention of getting an answer.

    Instead of walking around all day thinking “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do,” I now make a point of asking, either in writing or in my head, “What’s the best thing for me?” It takes practice, but you’ll get answers, even if they’re subtle.

    I can hear you wondering, “What am I supposed to do when I have to do something, but my intuition says it’s a no-go?”

    I’m the mom of a young kiddo, and even though I don’t always feel like getting up with her at the crack of dawn, or peeling the skin off her apple, or watching that episode of a cheesy cartoon with her one more time, I usually still do it.

    Time with her at this age (and in general) is fleeting, and to combat the feeling of obligation I remind myself that I chose this life. I also check in to see what I can do in any given moment to make sure I’m getting some feel-good time for myself. I think it’s important for her to see me enjoying my life and making choices that support my well-being.

    I know there are lots and lots of obligations we feel tied to, but I believe if your intuition is telling you over and over again that this is not right for you, you must start to listen and let it go.

    Perhaps you feel you can’t give up this obligation right this second, but how can you move away from it? How can you take on more of what feels joyful and right for you and less of what feels burdensome and heavy? Just do it a little at a time, if that’s what feels best.

    I’m really passionate about this subject, and it’s because I have seen how much my life has improved by going with my gut. I’ve also seen what happens when I don’t, even if it’s minor like the incident I described.

    When I see and hear other people struggling with decisions or doing something big (like getting married!) even when it doesn’t feel quite right, I want to reach out and hug them and tell them that going with their intuition will always pay off in the end, even if it doesn’t seem to make sense in the moment.

    You already know the answer; you just have to listen.

  • The Lost Art of Silence: Get Quiet and You’ll Know What You Need to Do

    The Lost Art of Silence: Get Quiet and You’ll Know What You Need to Do

    “Silence isn’t empty. It’s full of answers.” ~Unknown

    Last week I was visiting the Scandinave, a Scandinavian-style bath spa, with my mom when it struck me how rare true silence has become. By true silence, I mean silence in the form of not speaking, but also silence in the form of reflection, pause, a capacity to become still, a capacity to just be and not do.

    The art of silence was lost. Even at these baths, where the goal was to disconnect and enjoy the stillness of nature, there was constant chatter among groups with voices audible across the pool. It didn’t matter that signs were posted around the area, encouraging silence:

    Honor Silence.
    Speak Quietly.
    Absolute Silence.

    As a society, we have forgotten how to become quiet, how to become still. We are always on the move, always busy, always doing. We’ve forgotten how to just be.

    This lack of silence pervades our lives. It’s in the moments filled with meaningless small talk about the weather to avoid simply sitting in silence. It’s in the moments on the subway, filling our ears with music, busying our minds with our phones, to avoid simply sitting in silence.

    As a yoga teacher and practitioner, I have seen it showing up in the form of teachers filling classes with an endless stream of cueing. I have seen it showing up during savasana, the final resting pose, which gets cut short to avoid the anxiety of watching students fidget in the uncomfortable silence.

    To me, this is a tragedy.

    Silence creates space in our lives. It allows us to pause between moments, to process and reflect, to see beyond the surface into the depths of our lives. When we cut out silence, we cheat ourselves out of the fullness that life has to offer. Only in the silence can we truly hear the whispers coming from within us, urging us towards our highest potential.

    Silence breeds deep connection, not only to ourselves but to the world around us. The energy of a silent room filled with people is almost palpable. In silence, we are all powerfully connected to our higher selves, to the universe, and to each other.

    For one moment at the spa, I felt this. Sitting in absolute silence in the sauna, silence brought a group of strangers together. We were all present, sharing the same moment, connecting with the world and not with our phones. It gave us space to turn inward, to take stock of our internal landscape, to let go of what no longer served us, and to renegotiate who and how we wanted to be in the world.

    Without silence, we keep moving forward, not really knowing where we are or where we want to go.

    I came away from that day of silence and quietude with a new awareness of what was happening in my life. In those moments of silence, I could hear my inner voice growing louder. Where it was once only a whisper, easy enough to ignore, it suddenly became deafening.

    After a day of silence, I had no other option but to face it. I went home that day and had a hard conversation. Potentially one of the hardest I’ve ever had.

    I realized that I hadn’t been honoring myself in my relationship because I had been afraid of losing something that I loved. My partner and I weren’t on the same page with what the relationship meant to us and what we wanted from it. Unintentionally, I lost pieces of myself to the relationship—by being the one to compromise, by being the one to follow, by being the one to give in. In this way, I put my relationship with myself last.

    I stopped cultivating things I loved that were separate from him in order for us to spend time together. I didn’t go out of my way to make my own plans on the weekend.

    In the silence, I heard my inner voice becoming louder and clearer. I couldn’t go on feeling this way or being this way. The silence gave me the space to hear what my heart was saying and the strength to listen. Something had to change.

    I had to stop sacrificing my own needs and desires just to please someone else. I had to start standing up for myself and making it clear that what I wanted mattered too. I had to start making my own plans and doing things just for myself, and not always waiting to see if he had other plans in mind. I needed to be me, wholeheartedly me, first.

    It was scary to have that conversation, to feel like I might lose it all, by voicing what was in my heart. I was scared of what would happen if I stopped going along with it, if I started putting myself first. But I couldn’t avoid the conversation anymore. The silence roared.

    Perhaps that is why we avoid silence—because once you hear the voice in your heart calling out, you can’t ignore it. You can’t go on denying what’s in your heart once you create the space to hear it out. And that can be scary.

    Usually the voice within wants you to do the hard thing. The voice doesn’t want you to settle. It doesn’t want you to give up. It wants you to live to your highest potential. It wants you to climb mountains. It wants you to dream big and live big. And living that way isn’t always the easy thing. It’s not always the comfortable thing.

    Leaning into silence might seem scary. It might even be painful at first because your mind and body will fight it. But I urge you not to run from the silence any longer. Embrace it. Allow it to create space in your life, because it will transform your life. Ultimately, the silence pushed me farther into the life I dream of, into a life of passion, of meaning, of giving myself my best shot.

    Here are some ways you can rediscover the lost art of silence:

    1. Start small.

    The more time you spend in silence, the more powerfully it will impact your life, but diving straight into a ten-day silent retreat might not be the best approach. In fact, it might have the opposite effect.

    Instead, slowly introduce small pockets of silence into your day-to-day life. If you drive on your daily commute, try turning off the radio. If you take public transit, take out the headphones and put away the phone. Feel this silence and notice what’s happening around you and within you.

    2. Set aside time for meditation.

    Block out a specific time in your day or week for a meditation practice. Perhaps it is first thing in the morning, or before you go to bed at night. Set a timer for five or ten minutes, sit or lie down with your eyes closed, and simply breathe. Watch your breath move in and out of your body.

    3. Use mantras.

    While at the baths, I used mantras to move into the silence. My mantra of the day was “Life flows through me with ease.”

    In the silence, I heard myself fighting against the ebbs and flows of life—holding on to expectations, worrying about how things might turn out, resisting where things were going.

    Sometimes our minds see silence as an opportunity to berate us with thoughts, thoughts about not being good enough, about missing out, about being in a hurry, about not having enough time. Our minds will be particularly active if we aren’t used to the silence. Your mind will fight the silence. A mantra can help you to quiet the mind and settle into the silence.

    4. Use movement, such as yoga.

    If our minds are particularly active and we have a hard time just sitting in silence, we can start with gentle, mindful movement to ease ourselves into it.

    If we aren’t used to sitting in silence, our bodies can get very antsy. Silence can make us anxious. By using movement, we can soothe our nervous system and our minds, making it easier to ease into a state of being.

    When I first got to the baths, I used a few neck and shoulder stretches to relax my body for stillness. This focus on the body in turn helped ease my mind into the silence.

    Embrace the lost art of silence. Your highest self will thank you.

  • 10 Ways to Let Go of the Hustle and Surrender to the Flow

    10 Ways to Let Go of the Hustle and Surrender to the Flow

    “You can’t control everything. Sometimes you just need to relax and have faith that things will work out. Let go a little and just let life happen.” ~Kody Keplinger

    I have always been an overachiever: straight As, the top of my class; whatever I endeavored, I aimed to be the best at it. I strived through high school, college, graduate school, and in the corporate world.

    My hard work came with awards, accolades, and the feeling of accomplishment. But it also came with burnout, exhaustion, and the feeling of never being good enough.

    Once I achieved a goal, I was happy for a minute. But my next thought would inevitably be, “There must be more to life than this.”

    Even though it didn’t feel good, I repeated this pattern of strive + achieve + repeat at every level in my life, until I had an epiphany.

    It happened a few years ago when I traveled to Bali for a yoga retreat. While exploring the small third-world island, I noticed the locals with modest homes tending their fields, or running their local shop. One thing stood out: They all seemed incredibly happy—or at the very least, content—with their lives.

    This struck me for a couple reasons. For one, they didn’t live lavish lifestyles or have big houses or fancy cars. They weren’t climbing any corporate ladder or angling for a big promotion.

    But this didn’t matter. They appeared to be present, at peace, and enjoying the simple things that life offered.

    What a stark contrast this sentiment and lifestyle was with the one I just traveled from. Despite their lack of first world luxuries, these people seemed to have something we Americans (and I) didn’t: happiness, peace, and a sense of “enough.”

    I started to question my own desire for striving, for perfection. I wondered if all my efforts were actually keeping me away from the peace and acceptance I desired most. It seemed like a vicious cycle.

    After I left Bali, I kept this idea of “maybe it’s okay not to strive” in my head. And instead of embracing my perfectionist tendencies, I started to consider another way.

    Throughout the years since my trip, I haven’t totally abandoned my high-achieving ways (though I’m still working on it). But I’m now able to see that there is a time to strive and a time to let go. A time to make things happen and a time to allow things to happen.

    And, perhaps even more importantly, I learned that you can’t necessarily strive your way to happiness. In fact, it’s often the path of surrendering, accepting, and being at peace with where you are that truly helps you tap into that sense of contentment and ease.

    So if you find yourself over-efforting, working hard, toiling without any respite, it may be time to explore the opposite path: surrender. When you surrender, you invite life to flow as it will and you roll with the current instead of fighting to swim upstream.

    When you surrender to the flow, you open yourself to possibilities instead of forcing opportunities that might not be right. You embrace and honor where you are, without worrying about where you need to be.

    When you notice yourself striving but feel like what you really desire is peace, these ten steps help you to let go of the hustle and embrace the flow.

    1. Trust yourself.

    Cultivating trust in yourself is by far one of the most grounding and stabilizing forces you can experience. Trusting yourself means that you know what’s best for you. In order to trust yourself, you must stop looking outside of yourself for guidance and start looking inside. Even as you seek advice or answers, always run it by your inner barometer to see if it truly resonates with you.

    2. Know that you already have the answer.

    Your answer might be blocked by fear and resistance. But when you find a way to put aside those fears, you can tap into what your intuition is telling you. Know that the answer already resides within you, even if it’s not clear at this moment.

    One way to get better acquainted with your intuition is to ask yourself what your gut is telling you. Over time, the more self-aware you become, the easier it will be to hear the voice of your intuition.

    3. Recognize that what you want to achieve is already within you.

    In order to have conceived a dream, you must already have created somewhere in your mind. When we desire something, we imagine it in great detail, and feel what it would be like to experience it. The simple fact that you’ve seen or imagined that vision for yourself means that the outcome is possible for you. Believing that you can—and will—bring this vision to life is the key to receiving it.

    4. Embrace the resistance.

    Resistance comes to us in the form of fear, self-doubt, procrastination, and other roadblocks. It shows up in our lives when we are at the precipice of doing something important and meaningful to us.

    When you recognize resistance as a sign that you’re about to do something big, you can learn to embrace it as the powerful messenger it is. Instead of letting it debilitate you, you can see resistance as a sign that illuminates where you must go.

    5. Trust the process.  

    The path to your desired destination may be a winding road and not a straight line. It might even have some cutbacks and hills involved. But you won’t get to where you want to go unless you’ve first learned the lessons from the present.

    Play the hand you’ve been dealt and trust that this is all part of your journey. There is something in your experience right now that is critical in helping you to become the person you need to be to move to the next level.

    6. Let it go.

    When we have a dream or a wish for ourselves, we can become very attached to it, and guard it preciously. You conceived your vision and believe in it. Now you can release it and be free from it.

    This doesn’t mean you don’t take any action, but it means you’re not holding so tightly to your vision that you worry about taking only the perfect action. Set your vision free into the universe and trust it will happen in its own time.

    7. Seek joy.

    Remember to play and enjoy the process. “Life is what happens when we’re making other plans,” John Lennon said. When you feel yourself waiting, overthinking, indulging feelings of doubt, take this as an opportunity to seek out what makes you feel good. Ask yourself what would make you happiest in any moment, and go do that. Seek activities that you fill you up. Wash, rinse, repeat.

    8. Take inspired action.

    Inspired action means action from a place of feeling pulled toward something, inspired by something, and from a place of “want.” This is directly opposed to taking action from a place of pushing, striving, or a place of “should.” Follow the pull, not the push. Don’t worry about what you or others think you “should” be doing. Explore what you feel called to, and let yourself be guided by your inspiration.

    9. Tap into your intuition along the way.

    If (when), along the way, you feel disheartened or discouraged, impatient or impotent, anxious or depressed, simply press the “PAUSE” button and take a big, long, deep cleansing breath. This is the perfect time to turn back inward and listen to your intuition: your built-in, always-available inner guide. What is your intuition telling you? What do you need to know right now?

    10. Let the universe support you.

    Sometimes it’s not a matter of making things happen, but a matter of letting things happen. Instead of mucking around in the road, get out of your own way. Sit down on the path and open up to receiving what is meant for you.

    When you stop striving and start surrendering, you will see the infinite possibilities and opportunities that exist in every moment. You’ll tune in to the frequency of the universe, and she’ll show you the way.

    Throughout our lives, there will be periods to achieve and periods to receive. Once you tap into your own self-awareness, you can recognize what pattern you’re currently in, and whether or not it’s serving you. If you’ve been striving for too long, it might be time to surrender to the flow.

    Remember that surrendering is not quitting. It’s honoring yourself where you are at this moment in time, and allowing what you want to catch up with you. It’s taking time out for yourself and reflecting on what’s important. So that once the time to strive comes back around (which it will!), you will be supported with the energy, the purpose, and the guidance you need to move forward.

  • How to Connect with Yourself in a World Designed to Distract You

    How to Connect with Yourself in a World Designed to Distract You

    “The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” ~Plutarch

    We live in an age of information overload. Our televisions and the Internet are flooding our senses with a myriad of things.

    Researchers carefully craft all the advertisements we watch and all the magazines we read to prime us to think certain thoughts and take certain actions. A particular color, a special tone in the voice, a slight gesture with the eyes—all are designed to do one thing and one thing alone: influence our minds.

    They affect us just enough that the subsequent thoughts we may have seem like our own, and the decisions we make based on those thoughts seem rational.

    On a daily basis, we are ‘primed’ to spend our time or money on something we may not need. A thought is planted in us so carefully that suppressing it feels like denying our most basic instincts. And why not? It stirs our primal desires of power, sex, and influence. The results are obvious, and all around us.

    We are always looking forward to the next gadget to purchase, the next movie to watch, or the next television series to binge on. We are consuming information and material possessions at a startling rate, and we don’t seem to mind. We feel that when it comes to entertainment and information, there is no such thing as too much.

    We also engage in the use of social media as a means of connecting with people. We want to share everything from pictures of our family to the latest meals we cooked.

    Sending out that daily status update makes us feel a certain kind of security about who we are. We know we are living a good life when someone confirms it with a “like” on the Internet. It’s a form of social validation that encourages sharing, often at the expense of true feeling.

    This constant outward search for approval is often the reason why we don’t look for an internal source of approval. We get used to asking others about who we are and become unable to see the reality for ourselves. If they tell us we are doing the right thing, then we must be; otherwise, we are not that sure.

    The result of this trend is we have no time left to reflect or ponder. If, on occasion, we do look inward, we feel a sense of emptiness and fear. Not knowing what to do with it, we try to fill that emptiness with some external source of gratification.

    That emptiness is important. It is telling us that we are disconnected from who we are. This disconnect is one of the main reasons why we end up in painful life situations.

    A few years ago, I was about to graduate from a US university. The job market was tough, and I needed all the help I could get to find decent work. At the time, a professional contact who I greatly admired became my mentor. He seemed to know it all, and I always looked forward to his advice.

    He believed that a person in my field would not find a job easily out of college, especially because I was an international student and would require a work permit.

    He thought that in order to survive, I needed to get certified as a programmer in a particular high-end software. Although it would be tough to get, the effort would be well worth it. And if I still couldn’t find a job, he would get me in touch with the right people himself. And so, it was decided.

    Over the next six months, I spent thousands of dollars on books, coaching, and commuting in order to get certified in a computer language that I struggled to develop any liking for. I was jobless for six months and couldn’t even afford to pay my rent. I lived with friends who were kind enough to let me sleep on their couch and study for twelve-plus hours every day.

    The day after the exam, I had to go to the ER for severe dehydration. It turned out that I had lost close to twenty pounds over the previous few weeks and weighed only 125 pounds. Obviously, I could not afford health insurance at that time and got hospital bills that took me two years to pay off in installments.

    When my mentor found out how terribly I had performed in the exam, he told me my chances weren’t looking good and he wouldn’t be able to do anything for me. I never heard from him again. After a month, I got the result that I did manage to barely clear the passing mark, but it was too late. I had already accepted a job that would let me pay the bills.

    Over the next few years my self-esteem continued to erode. It ended with me leaving the country and heading back to India after four years of struggle in the United States.

    Looking back at why I placed my trust in someone so blindly and continued to face self-esteem issues, I realized that I was totally disconnected from who I was as an individual.

    I knew that I did not like computer languages to begin with, but while making that fateful decision, I ignored all the self-knowledge I had until that point. I put more trust in someone else’s belief about who I was, just because I needed their approval.

    I suffered, not because someone gave me bad advice, but because I was unable to reject it. I kept ignoring my instincts because I thought they didn’t matter.

    A good sign of having lost connection with yourself is that your true instincts feel like distractions, and distractions feel like true instincts.

    When we are distracted, we feel bored, confused, and unmotivated. We become inclined to pick the easiest path from those available.

    The post-Internet world is designed to distract us, disconnect us from ourselves, and keep us that way. It gives us one novelty after another, just like giving a child one toy after another to keep her occupied. Otherwise, she might cry. But sometimes, a child needs to cry.

    We are afraid of crying, of getting hurt, of looking at ourselves as we are. So we prefer to be distracted and entertained, no matter what the cost.

    Is there a way to rediscover that connection with ourselves? To feel centered and confident about who we are; to understand our emotions, feelings, and desires clearly; to know our strengths and acknowledge our limitations?

    Can we know ourselves from moment to moment, every day, not with words or descriptions, but with an actual perception of our inner selves being intact, self-sufficient, and free from outside influence?

    I think there is a way. This three-step process has greatly helped me reconnect with myself. I hope it helps you too.

    1. See what you see.

    Take a moment to notice what you are seeing at the moment. Is it your phone or a computer on which you are reading this, and your surroundings? Or, are you also seeing, at some level, mental images?

    Most of the time, we are unconsciously seeing things, such as what happened at work today, or what our friend said to us, or some scenes from a favorite TV show. At other times, we are often seeing things that we want to happen, or fear might happen.

    The physical eye shows us one reality, which is often mundane, but the mind’s eye shows us a reality that can be quite interesting.

    We unconsciously or consciously visualize things that either give us pleasure or fear. We imagine negative outcomes and think of ways to protect ourselves in case they happen, or we imagine positive outcomes like enjoying an upcoming vacation. Yet, both outcomes exist only in the mind. The present reality contains no such thing.

    Visualization is a double-edged sword.

    As kids we are encouraged to imagine more and more in order to be creative. But creativity isn’t just visualization, is it? It is also about seeing the same reality as others, but differently. The key is being able to visualize when we need to and not when we don’t. Otherwise, our imagination becomes hyperactive and results in a constant stream of images in front of our eyes. As if we were dreaming while awake.

    If we can stop our visualization at will and only see what our physical eyes are showing us, then our mind becomes simplified. It relaxes and naturally draws our attention inwards, to our bodies. Our attention moves from things that exist in the mind to the things that exist in physical reality.

    Quick exercise: Look around the place you are currently sitting in. See all the things in your room, no matter how insignificant. Look at every shape, every color, every corner. Take time to notice it. Look at your own hands and examine them closely.

    Reality is full of physical sensations, not imagination.

    This brings us to the second step in the process.

    2. Feel what you feel.

    If someone were to ask me, “Can you describe exactly all the emotions you are having at the moment?” I would find it difficult to answer.

    We often experience multiple emotions at the same time. Sometimes we are angry but also sad because of our life situation. Sometimes we are at peace with the world but also feel a longing for something better. Sometimes we are full of gratitude, but not without a hint of pride. Our body responds to the emotions we are having through physical sensations.

    When our palms sweat, we know we are nervous, and when our heart races, we know we are excited or afraid. When we are worried, our breathing becomes shallow and our muscles and nerves tense up. When we are happy, we breathe easy, and our body relaxes. The reason is, our mind is telling the body what to feel, based on what the mind is thinking.

    We are so used to living this way that we pay no attention to what the body is feeling without this input from the mind. As a habit, our body obeys our mind, not the other way around.

    For example, what are you feeling in the little toe of your left foot?

    Can you distinguish the sensation in each one of your toes? It’s not that easy, because our mind has never paid attention to it before.

    Quick exercise: Close your eyes and try to discern the shape of your hand by feeling the electrical impulses on the skin and the gentle blood flow in the veins. If you are able to discern only the index finger or just the thumb, then become more sensitive to what you are feeling until you can feel your entire hand. Within two to five minutes you will feel your heartbeat and its rhythm pulsating through your hands. It has always been there.

    Repeating this exercise with our entire body can help us develop a full-body awareness. In my experience, this is a very powerful way of connecting with ourselves.

    The only thing you have to watch out for is what you think about those sensations. For instance, if you find a source of pain, you might hear your own voice say, “Here is that bothersome pain again. What do I do with it?”

    If you hear negative self-talk such as this, it is okay. Listen to it calmly.

    This self-talk points us to the next stage of connecting with ourselves, which is listening.

    3. Hear what you hear.

    Whose voice do we hear when we talk to ourselves? It’s our own voice, or at least how we want ourselves to sound, right? The person who speaks inside our mind is the “I,” and the person who listens is “myself.”

    Boy, do they love to talk!

    The “I” is always telling “myself” things to do, and things to avoid. Even if we go on a solitary hike on a mountain to spend some time in nature, we can still hear the “I” talking.

    But why are there two of us? Commonsense dictates that there should only be one, right?

    Of course there is only one individual, and we can all experience it this way.

    Quick exercise: Close your eyes, and pay close attention to whatever sounds there may be around you. For thirty seconds, listen to every detail you can hear. Then open your eyes.

    While you were listening, was there an “I” talking to a “myself”? Or was there only the experience of listening?

    When you were having that experience, there was no division between “I” and “myself.” They were one! That state of pure listening, feeling, or hearing is the state of connection.

    When we are fully connected, we become whole.

    What happens when we find the connection?

    When we are connected, it is possible to know our pleasures, desires, fears, ambitions, and anxieties for what they actually are. We perceive them with clarity and without any internal conflict.

    For example, if fear arises, we notice a few things about it.

    1. We realize that there is nothing dangerous actually taking place, except in our minds.

    2. That our heart rate changes, and muscles tense up as the fearful thought arises.

    3. That the “I” is talking to us and telling us to be afraid.

    Knowing these things, we are already one step ahead of fear. The next time it arises, we can predict its pattern. Without worrying or overthinking, now we can solve the real problem at hand, if one exists at all!

    When we are connected, our instincts also become stronger, and we understand what is right and wrong for us. We can make big decisions easily and have no regrets later.

    Four years ago, I had a persistent feeling that I should adopt a dog. Despite having no experience raising a puppy, my instincts kept telling me I needed to do it. My parents and a few of my friends advised against it. They said, “You don’t know what you’re doing. You will end up returning the poor animal the very next day.”

    This time, I listened to myself. I went through the learning curve that comes with taking care of a furry friend but never regretted my decision. Today, our life is unthinkable without our dog, and I am a much better person because of him.

    A strong connection is sometimes all we need, and in some cases, all we have, to keep us sane in this evolving world.

  • Follow Your Heart, Not Your Fear: How to Make Choices That Are Right for You

    Follow Your Heart, Not Your Fear: How to Make Choices That Are Right for You

    “Unnecessary fear of a bad decision is a major stumbling block to good decisions.” ~Jim Camp

    Twenty years ago, my wife and I decided to move from Montréal, where we had lived for the first thirty-five years of our lives, to Nova Scotia, 800 miles away, where we had no connections whatsoever. Neither a small decision nor undertaking, since this involved our four kids and the entire contents of our house (not to mention a dog and two cats).

    Why were we moving? We were not moving because of a job opportunity; we enjoyed the life we had in Montréal. And there was nothing, as far as we knew, waiting for us in Nova Scotia. Nothing, except our future, the next stage of our lives.

    But we both had a strong, clear feeling—a felt sense—that it was time to leave. And we both had a strong, clear feeling that Nova Scotia was the right place to move to. Simple as that.

    There were lots of reasons to think that we shouldn’t make this move and take all the risks involved. In the year before we moved, every attempt I made at getting work there fell through. Every attempt I made at finding a house to rent fell through. It was literally only three weeks before we moved that we finally had a place to move to!

    There was plenty of worry, stress, and anxiety, plenty of thoughts saying that this was a bad decision.

    By this point in my life, though, I had learned to listen to my intuition and to the signals of my heart to guide me in my life choices.

    I had learned not to let my thoughts (that is to say, my worries, doubts, fears, anxieties, and apprehensions) paralyze me in my decision-making. I had learned to have more confidence in what my body felt than in what my mind said.

    There was a time when I would have wasted a lot of time and energy debating back and forth and then made a choice I was neither sure was the right one nor fully happy with.

    For the first three decades or more of my life, I was a person who struggled intensely with making choices and decisions.

    I was usually afraid of making the wrong choice and unsure of how to know whether I was making the right choice. Aside from any question about “right versus wrong” choices, I worried about what others would think or how others would feel if I made this or that choice.

    This indecision, this self-doubt, resulted in significant stress and anxiety, sometimes, to the point of feeling too paralyzed to act at all, as well as resulting in wasted time, lost opportunities, and regrets.

    Over the years, I worked in therapy on overcoming anxiety and other issues and learned and practiced meditation, mindfulness, and yoga. Over time, and with consistent practice, I gradually learned how to find a calm center in the midst of those conflicted thoughts.

    I also learned how to tune into my heart with heart-focused meditations.

    I discovered that my heart would always tell me what I really needed. There was always one clear answer from the heart about what was right for me in any given situation. And when I experimented with acting on those choices, the outcomes were always good, and I never felt doubt or regret. There was a consistent sense of acting in alignment with my true self, my true purpose… my truth.

    The fundamental basis for this approach to making decisions is mindfulness. Being mindful means being able to “sink down” below the turbulent surface of thoughts, projections, fears, and perceptions that all clamor for my attention when I have a decision to make. It means having a still center from which I can then be aware of the quieter and subtler signals in my body, my heart.

    When you mindfully tune into your heart, when you separate from your thoughts and emotional reactions, you discover that the heart has a very clear, although sometimes a very subtle, way of saying “yes” and “no.”

    A sensation or feeling of opening, relaxing, warmth, moving toward is a “yes.” A feeling or sensation of closing, hardening, pulling back, tensing is a “no.”

    I have learned to trust that this response from the heart tells me what is best for my overall, integral being, for my physical health, my mental health, my social relationships, my family relationships, and the unfolding of my life purpose.

    Mindfulness is the basis from which this approach to decision-making stems, but making decisions this way as a practice also enhances my ability to be mindful in everyday life.

    It’s an exercise in letting go of attachment—attachment to desires and fears; attachment to expectations of myself, of others, or of the future; attachment to thoughts about what I “should” do; attachment to what other people might think and feel.

    Most of our stress, anxiety, indecision, and doubt around making decisions is rooted in fear. We fear unknown outcomes, or we fear negative outcomes that we project might happen.

    Fear reactions always serve to dissociate us from our true and integral self in the moment.

    In his book The Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton talks about how a cell is either in defense mode or in growth mode; it cannot be in both at once. The same is true psychologically.

    If we are engaged in fear, even just in our thoughts, and trying to defend ourselves from negative outcomes, then the choices we make will be based on trying to protect ourselves from whatever it is we fear. They will not be grounded in hope, confidence, and faith; they will not be conducive to growth and thriving.

    It isn’t necessarily easy to resist the fear and to listen to your heart. Our brains are wired to prioritize safety; this means that the brain will pay attention to fear and let it guide our thinking. It takes practice and perseverance to find a calm center beneath and within the fear; it’s the work of mindfulness, applied to actions.

    Mindfulness is fundamental as it trains you to detach from the narrative of the fear-based thoughts. But making decisions to act in ways that challenge those fears takes the challenge up a notch.

    Part of the solution is reminding yourself of what has always happened in the past when you acted according to these fears. You will find that there is always some kind of dissatisfaction or disappointment, if not outright frustration, that resulted.

    Part of the solution is working on reducing those fears (try energy psychology techniques or, my favorite, logosynthesis); and part of the solution is in “feeling the fear and doing it anyway”—pushing through the fear and experiencing the positive outcomes.

    I have come to make all my decisions in this heart-centered way, and I have never been disappointed. On the one hand, I can say that I have never been disappointed because the outcome has always been good.

    On the other hand, there is a feeling that comes simply from making a decision this way, based on a felt response in the body, where I physically experience my body saying yes or no, that allows me to detach from expectations about the outcome altogether, and to feel good and confident about my decision, regardless of the outcome.

    I feel good and strong simply because I am making the decision that I know is right for me.

    The outcomes we wish for are not always the outcomes we need or that will be best for us. The outcomes we wish for are often based in a sense of lack, longing, or insufficiency. In my emotional heart I may fear, I may want to avoid something, or I may long for something, desire it.

    In my energetic heart, the response will not be based on any sense of fear, avoidance, lack, or insufficiency. It’s based in a consistent, integral sense of self, in relationship to others, to the world, and to life itself.

    I used to be afraid of confrontation, or even of risking a confrontation by displeasing people. So when it became clear that the dynamics of my birth family’s gatherings were too stressful for my wife and detrimental to her well-being, I was forced to look at it more closely and acknowledge that I felt uncomfortable in those situations, as well.

    I had the usual reaction: “But it’s my family! I can’t just decide not to go for Christmas!” But in my heart I felt clearly that the right choice was to stop attending. Having to take this action and tell them caused me a lot of anxiety.

    I was afraid of the anger and rejection I felt certain would come of it. I delayed and avoided.

    When I did tell them, I was met with confusion, anger, and blame. The response I feared did happen. What didn’t happen is what I really feared—that I would not be okay if they were unhappy with me.

    I was okay. We were okay. It made my relationship stronger because my wife knew I would take her needs seriously and act on them, even though it was uncomfortable for me. It made me stronger because it helped me to realize that even if I made other people unhappy, I could still be okay.

    Knowing I was making the right choice for myself, there was a clear distinction between what other people might think was “right” or “wrong” and what I knew in my heart.

    Letting go of fear opened me up to growth.

    The more you practice decision-making in this way, the more you develop an incredible sense of freedom, an ability to move in this world in a way that is true to yourself and to your life purpose. It helps to cultivate the “courageous self-acceptance” and the “fearless heart” described in Buddhist teachings.

    And when making your decisions becomes clearer, less stressful, and less conflicted, it makes your relationships with others a lot easier. You let go of people-pleasing, of guilt, of feeling like you have to explain yourself or compromise yourself and make decisions that aren’t right for you.

    You may be afraid that if you act according to your heart, you will make people angry. And that may be exactly what happens. But your great fears of the consequences of people being angry with you never happen. You realize that even if you have to deal with loss, you have regained something of yourself.

    Relationships become simpler as you feel a sense of wholeness, of integrity. You know you are acting with integrity, and so you feel comfortable affirming your choices. You feel less defensive when people disagree with you. This is a freedom we should all wish for each other, and grant each other.

    And, in case you were wondering, nineteen years later, we still love living in Nova Scotia. It is home now, and we would never think of leaving. Within a couple of months of moving here, I was working full time. It has been a great place to live, to work, and to raise our children, and we would never think of leaving.

    Our hearts drew us to a place that became home in a way that the place we grew up and began our adult lives in could never quite be. Our hearts drew us to our destinies.

  • Why Strong, Brave People Aren’t Afraid to Quit

    Why Strong, Brave People Aren’t Afraid to Quit

    “Some people think it’s holding on that makes one strong—sometimes it’s letting go.” ~Unknown

    Throughout my life I’ve quit many things.

    I quit a reasonably ‘sexy’ job title and steady paycheck.

    I quit a six-year relationship with an essentially giving and loving person.

    I quit being a yoga teacher after investing heavily in getting qualified.

    I’ve quit many courses halfway through like calligraphy (of all things), ‘life design map’ courses, and online courses for all sorts of random things.

    I quit therapy once, before they told me we were ‘done.’

    I’ve quit several crappy part-time jobs when I first started building my business.

    Yep, I’m a quitter. Or at least, that’s the label I gave myself.

    You see, for many years I was the queen of being mean to myself. She can still pipe up on some days, but I used to be so continually nasty to myself, it was exhausting.

    “You never finish anything.”

    “You just don’t have what it takes to go the distance.”

    “You’re so pathetic, Nat.”

    “Why can’t you just see things through? What the hell is wrong with you?”

    The other day a client told me she had these same questions (which are really just nasty taunting statements) going around in her head, as she felt guilty for giving up on something that she’d known for a long time she didn’t want to continue.

    “I feel like a quitter, Nat. Won’t walking away mean that I’m just quitting?”

    And so we began to talk about the meaning of quitting.

    What does it actually mean anyway?

    To me, to quit means to leave, usually permanently, or to be rid of something, right? I mean, that’s what the dictionary definition tells us.

    But what if all the times we labeled ourselves as quitters were actually times when we were following our very finely tuned but so often ignored gut instinct?

    What if quitting was just a term we’ve become used to hearing from the people around us, from our parents, from anyone else that might have reminded us where we “should have stuck things out,” but holds absolutely no truth in relevance to the situation we supposedly decided to quit?

    I mean, let’s take the end of my six-year relationship for instance, which some, including my ex, might view as me having ‘quit.’ Do the years prior to that, where I struggled with myself over what was working and what wasn’t, and where I held on and tried to keep things together for both of us, not count as me working hard to keep going?

    If I casually had just walked out without a reason, that would have been quitting, but I didn’t; I stayed and fought for as long as I could, and I made a decision that I felt at the time was right for both of our long-term happiness.

    And then maybe you could also say I quit being a yoga teacher, or at least my mum might have been worrying about that at the time. “But what about all that money you spent traveling over there and taking the course?”

    And I could understand her worry, but I reached a point when I had to be honest with myself.

    I had been putting pressure on myself to be a perfect and shiny and accomplished yoga teacher even though the entire reason I had gone on the training was to heal myself and my spine, tap into who I really was, figure out what I really wanted from life, and deepen my practice. It was never to be a teacher.

    So yes, maybe I quit yoga teaching, but again, what I was actually doing was being true to myself.

    And I want to encourage you to do the same.

    Drop the struggle you might currently be experiencing with the quitter label. It’s never going to serve you, and you know it’s not who you really are.

    If you know deep down that something doesn’t feel right—if you know you’re not meant to be with the person you’re with, in the job you’re in, or doing the work you’re doing—then walking away from it does not make you a quitter, my beautiful friend.

    It makes you empowered.

    It means you have guts.

    It means you are strong enough and tuned-in enough to listen to yourself.

    It means you’re following your intuition.

    It means you know your time and energy are best spent doing something else.

    It means you know you’re on the wrong path and you’re brave enough to take action to change direction.

    It means you’re brave.

    It means you’re strong.

    And it means you’re taking responsibility of your happiness.

    Does it mean you will quit everything in your life?

    No, it most certainly does not. When you find what’s right, you’ll know, believe me.

    But turning over several stones to find the one that shines instead of settling for the safety of the first thing you find is a journey few are prepared to walk.

    So with that in mind, you’re pretty amazing for having chosen to be true to who you really are.

    Finding what lights you up doesn’t come overnight; maybe for some it does, but for most, it requires a few more stones to be unturned.

    So don’t be afraid to keep moving, don’t be afraid to throw in the towel, don’t be afraid to ‘quit.’ It means you’re taking decisive action around what you will and won’t stand for, what feels good and what doesn’t, and most importantly, what feels true for you and what just quite simply doesn’t.

    We can’t live our most expressive, fulfilled, and empowered life trying to labor away at something that doesn’t light us up from the inside out, so stop wasting time trying to, and don’t be scared to do something different.

  • How a Pause Can Help You Say No and Avoid Regret

    How a Pause Can Help You Say No and Avoid Regret

    Say No

    “No is a full sentence.” – Unknown

    I like to help. I like to be kind. I like to join in.

    Usually, these things happen as a result of saying yes. Generally it makes me feel good inside. Better about myself.

    But what happens when helping, kindness, and joining in ends up being a burden with too many negative repercussions? Do we continue on the same path? Should we continue to say yes?

    Throughout my life, I have had a good relationship with the word yes. Yes has led me to unexpected, beautiful, memorable experiences. Yes has brought me to my beautiful partner and family. Yes has allowed me to approach life with open intention and a limitless heart.

    But the light and wonder of the word yes also has a darker side.

    Yes has led me to regret, yes has led me to boring and bitter moments, and yes has had me suffering.

    Many people I know (me included) burn out in the process of agreeing to things that maybe we shouldn’t. We nurture, we soothe, and we offer companionship—oftentimes to others before ourselves because we say yes.

    We are often quick to say yes and dive into tasks, parties, and relationships when sometimes we should be saying no.

    This is no mean feat for a person conditioned to play certain roles to please. The transition to kindly, firmly, and confidently say no has been a long time coming for me.

    Having experienced one too many moments agreeing to things that deep down I didn’t really want to do, I found it helpful to practice saying no. That tiny word with so much power. That tiny word that has mostly liberated me from the clutches of others’ approval.

    It was hard at first. Often I would say no, followed by a long line of excuses, and then I would even offer an alternative arrangement, for fear of offending the other person.

    Sometimes I would ruminate about saying no for a long time after the event, beating myself up about it and wondering if the person might ever speak to me again.

    Then as I got older I guess, or finally had enough, or maybe it was a natural transition, I started a tentative relationship with the word no.

    I danced with the word by creating more space between requests and answers and stopping to feel whether yes felt right. I listened to what I really wanted to do.

    There is a beautiful tale told by Clarissa Pinkola Estés about intuition.

    In a nutshell, a mother is dying and she wants to ensure her daughter learns to trust her own intuition after she is gone. She hands her daughter a miniature doll, which looks much like the little daughter.

    The dying mother tells her daughter to keep the doll in her pocket at all times, feed it, and listen to it whenever she is lost or unsure. These are the last words the mother speaks and the little girl is left holding her doll—a miniature version of herself.

    The tale goes on to follow the little orphan as she navigates her way through a difficult time. Every corner she turns, she touches the doll in her pocket and listens for the answers.

    Of course the little doll is not actually giving her the answers. The little doll is her. And through the process, she reaches deep within, to listen to her true self and guide her to safety and to love.

    According to Estés, the doll represents the inner consciousness of all of us.

    If we were to pause momentarily every time we are faced with a difficult decision, we might actually hear the answer from within. Intuition, like many things, needs to be practiced and developed.

    Therefore, the best practice for strengthening my relationship with the word no is to pause and feel in that moment. The present. Listening to the doll in my pocket.

    It has been liberating to create space between. These days we are really quick to formulate responses in conversation, write hurried emails back to people, voice our opposition to something… It’s jarring and sometimes leads to regrettable outcomes.

    In building a better relationship with the word no, space can be created. Stillness. The space between feeling okay and not feeling okay.

    All these years, I jumped to yes automatically. I jumped to yes because I was brought up to say yes first. I said yes because I was (and still am in many ways) eager for approval.

    Please don’t get me wrong—I am not breaking up with the word yes for good. That is not healthy either. But yes and I are making a ‘conscious uncoupling’ for a while, in order for me to find my inner voice.

    I am doing this to hopefully have a better long-term, balanced relationship with the word no, and ultimately those around me. I value both words and the opportunities they bring (and release) for me, and I hope to support my child to learn to do the same.

    Life feels so much lighter when we practice finding the space to stop, feel, and listen to the doll in our pocket.

    Woman saying no image via Shutterstock

  • 10 Choices That Lead to a Happy, Fulfilling Life

    10 Choices That Lead to a Happy, Fulfilling Life

    “Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.” ~Aeschylus

    My twenty-sixth birthday was approaching, and I asked myself one question: “Do I want this year to look like the last one?”

    The answer was an immediate and very solid no. I frantically began to analyze what I was doing with my life to get this reaction. I was unhappy for most of twenty-five, romantically, professionally, and socially.

    I had been with my live-in boyfriend for about a year and a half, and there seemed to be a growing disconnect. Despite the lies, resulting in jealousy and insecurity, I stayed with him because it was what I knew. I was comfortably uncomfortable.

    I justified staying by telling myself, “All relationships take work” and “I know he can change.” I had also become a bit of a hermit with him. Netflix marathons every weekend. My social calendar eventually became booked with Don Draper and Piper Chapman.

    Professionally, I was nowhere near where I wanted to be. As a millennial, I can say we carry a certain grandiose expectation for a picturesque life that we expect to have at a very young age, and we thoroughly believe it’s going to happen. Right up until the time when it doesn’t.

    Stuck and confused, I realized that if I changed nothing, the next year was destined to look like the prior one.

    I was in search of my truth and my happiness. I needed to know what this life thing is all about. Why do some people seem to have it all figured out and I’m left worried and more confused than ever before?

    I had some money saved up, so I broke up with my boyfriend, moved out, bought a plane ticket, and left to travel Asia in a timeframe of a whopping two days. I had nothing to lose. I was on a mission to learn how to live a meaningful and happy life.

    After a few months of trekking unfamiliar mountains, living with monks, and being freshly single, this is what I’ve learned.

    1. Don’t sweat the small stuff; don’t sweat the big stuff.

    I learned this after I had my wallet, passport, and camera stolen. Every day you will be faced with challenges that are both in and out of your control. Either way, there’s no sense in worrying about them.

    If the situation is uncontrollable, whatever is going to happen, will. If you can control it, then take a deep breath and face it with a calm mind to make the process much easier. Worrying gets you nowhere. Hakuna Matata.

    2. Do something every day that pushes you out of your comfort zone.

    Order and routine give us a sense of security. It feels nice to have familiarity, but it’s also hard to grow into the person you’re meant to be without pushing your limits and trying new things.

    At one point, everything is new to us. The more experiences you expose yourself to, the higher probability you’ll find one your passionate about.

    3. Live fully in each moment.

    Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is not promised. The only certain thing we have in life is right now, this very moment.

    This is an important lesson I’ve learned when meditating with the monks throughout Thailand. They teach the significance of remaining mindful and the importance of acknowledging our senses.

    By smelling, tasting, feeling, seeing, and hearing everything in our surroundings, we’re able to stay in the present, resulting in insight, a crucial stepping stone on the path to happiness. Life is incredibly beautiful when you slow down enough to enjoy it. Live in the moment, live for right now. This very moment is life.

    4. Give gratitude any chance you can, and lots of it.

    I really learned about gratitude when traveling through Indonesia. When once I would have complained about a bad Wi-Fi connection, I saw people just grateful for clean drinking water. It really puts things into perspective.

    Take the time to remember how lucky you are. Even if it doesn’t feel this way, it could always be worse. Share love and gratitude every chance you can, and you’re left with an overwhelming feeling of abundance and happiness.

    5. Remember, life is what’s happening while you’re busy on your cell phone.

    Dining solo, I was left to master the art of people watching. What I observed was this: the happiest, loudest, and liveliest tables were those with cellphones tucked away. They were making memories and sharing stories and experiencing what life is all about.

    They ate more slowly and stayed longer because there wasn’t anywhere they’d rather be. On the contrary, those with eyes glued to bright screens were quiet and quick to eat with emotionless expressions.

    Next time you’re out, try leaving your phone in the car to thoroughly enjoy your company. If you can’t imagine a meal without technology, at least take a few moments to observe the difference between people on their phones and those who aren’t, and ask yourself, who’s table would you rather be sitting at?

    6. Listen to your gut.

    I’ve never been so in tune with myself as when I was on the road with no travel companion to interrupt my thoughts. There have been countless times when I’ve gotten myself out of sticky situations (or avoided them altogether) by listening to my “gut feeling” as a reliable and trustworthy source.

    Silence the mind and listen to the body. Our gut is widely acknowledged as our second brain. If it feels wrong and you can’t exactly pinpoint why, it’s your intuition in physical form telling you it probably is. Listen to what it has to say.

    7. Look for similarities.

    Same same. In Bangkok, I probably heard this phrase nine thousand times, which inevitably led me to ponder its significance.

    No matter where you go in the world, as different as we appear, we are much more similar to one another. We all have human emotions. Sadness and excitement are genetically programmed in us, and we all have the same end goal of happiness.

    A smile and laughter are universal. When you meet someone new, look for similarities and it will form an intimate bond. You’ll begin to feel compassion and a connection to them. A feeling of connection gives you a sense of home no matter where you are.

    8. Let go of the fear of not being accepted and let your true self come out.

    Living abroad alone, I really embraced my inner weirdo. I laid out all the things I was hesitant to say and do before because I assumed no one would “get” me. The results? Confidence and self-respect.

    You owe it to yourself to celebrate your uniqueness and be the truest version of you. Those who are meant to stick around will love you even more for it. Besides, weird people bring a lot to the table. Just saying.

    9. Make time to reflect on relationships and make changes.

    Being on a twelve-hour time difference and half a world away makes communication to home difficult, and perfect for relationship reflection. I really began to analyze the quality of my relationships, asking, “Do they feed my soul? Do we really have that much in common?”

    Life is too short to spend time with anyone who exhausts you. Be selective with where your energy goes. For those who you decide to keep in your life, it’s important you show them how much they mean to you. Love and respect leads to quality relationships, which are the only ones worth having.

    10. Know that no matter how far you travel in search of happiness, it can only be found in one place.

    A monk at the Wat Mahathat in Bangkok said something I will never forget. “Why are you here in Thailand? To find happiness? You won’t find it here. I can’t give it to you. You can travel the world to find it, but there is only one place it can be found. It is found within.”

    I had left home and traveled across the world to find happiness, but I never felt it until I became fully connected with myself.

    Somewhere along the way I lost sight of the important things by forgetting my relationships, ignoring my gut, and worrying too much about the past and the future. None of these things served me.

    True and lasting peace is found within. When you learn to be appreciative for what you have, embrace the present moment, and love fully, this is happiness. This is nirvana.

  • When You Lack Focus and Direction: Stop Looking for Your “Thing”

    When You Lack Focus and Direction: Stop Looking for Your “Thing”

    “More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity.” ~Francois Gautier

    Isn’t it funny—and annoying and brilliant—how often things turn out to be nothing like we thought they would?

    Six years ago I was recovering from a breakdown and reacquainting myself with my long dormant artistic side, and I remember spending a lot of time wondering what my “thing” was.

    You know, that one specific thing in this life that I was destined to do to be fulfilled, and ideally from which I would earn a comfortable living.

    I had always loved creativity, and particularly art, and had always wanted that to be my thing; I would be an artist, sell my work, and live comfortably on the proceeds.

    There were a couple of problems with my plan, however. One was my upbringing, which told me that art was unrealistic as a way to make a living. As a result, I had done all sorts of things that were nothing to do with my original dream, many of which I hated (hence that final breakdown).

    That mindset is not at all unusual in Western culture and is something many of us have to move beyond, but there was something else too.

    I could not seem to pin down my love of art and creativity to one single focus. I experimented endlessly, on my own and in classes, with everything from acrylics to oils, from printing to sculpture.

    And still I kept thinking, how will I ever know which is my thing? What’s the one thing I’ll be really good at and so endlessly enthused by that I won’t continue this constant dabbling?

    How will I ever be a credible artist if I paint in a different style every time I put brush to canvas? How will I ever fulfill my dream of making a living doing what I love when I seem so scattered and unfocused?

    Since no clear answer was forthcoming at that point, I just kept going.

    Sometimes I envied those who seemed to be born already knowing what their thing was, like my friend who always knew she’d be a vet. I thought they must have or know something I didn’t. That perhaps there was something wrong with me for being so fickle and apparently unable to settle on just one thing.

    But as it turns out, that seemingly flighty, unfocused, shallow dabbling was an essential part of the story, and not at all the waste of time I feared.

    I learned two key things about what I’ve come to see as the “myth of the thing.”

    1. There is what you are passionate and curious about and would do for free (and often do), an

    2. There are all the ways in which that comes through you.

    You are like a prism, full of your own unique mix of colors that join together to radiate a single beam—you.

    In my experience, it’s unhelpful and limiting to assume that you’ll whittle it down to a single thing or work it out with your mind. After all, your mind has no real knowledge of your heart.

    Your “thing that is not a thing” is already there inside you, but without taking action over and over from a place of curiosity and passion, you won’t give your personal and utterly unique filter a chance to make itself known.

    I’ll always be insatiably curious and I think that’s a fantastic trait to have, not a handicap. Today, I love to paint, draw, write, bake, tend my plants, make things, research, gather and share information, read books and blogs, spend time at the beach, explore spirituality, travel, and learn whatever I can about whatever catches my magpie eye.

    You might think I’m still dabbling. But all those things feed and become my thing that is not a thing.

    So what is my “thing”? It’s being what I can’t help being. It’s being curious and creative; it’s exploring, playing, demonstrating and sharing what I learn through the filter of art and creativity; it’s helping, supporting, and encouraging people to find their own unique ways to express themselves creatively.

    It’s doing what I’d do anyway and letting it evolve into something that feeds both me and others, and yes, it’s even starting to bring in an income. I am an artist, only in many more ways than the single one I envisaged.

    My magpie eye isn’t hindering me from finding my thing; it’s part of how my thing manifests. That realization has changed everything, and my life is infinitely richer for it.

    Without it, I would not have tried or learned so many things. I would not now have both a wealth of techniques and experiences and ideas to share, nor the understanding and empathy that comes with having trodden the messy meandering path myself. Both of those important factors unexpectedly became part of my work now.

    While there are many things we all know to do to help us find out who we really are and what we’re here to do, like journaling or meditation, I have found the following also helpful in my quest.

    It takes time, so give it time.

    I know that’s hard, especially if you feel stuck in an unfulfilling job or other restricting life situation. Patience and perseverance will stand you in good stead, so do what it takes to cultivate them. (I suggest a spiritual or energy practice.)

    Widen your view.

    Your “thing” won’t only show up in the obvious places. My creativity doesn’t just appear in the studio; it’s in how I put a meal together, how I arrange my desk, how I use my day, right down to the tiny moments.

    Listen to intuitive nudges.

    Have you developed an unexpected interest in historical fiction? Head to the library. Do you have a sudden urge to grow something? Visit the garden center.

    Not only might you find what you think you’re looking for, you also increase the chances of discovering something new that contributes to your clarity or brings a new opportunity. 

    Think of a task you do regularly that you find mundane.

    Ask yourself, what could I change about how I approach this to make it fun or interesting? How can I apply my unique way of seeing the world here? It could be a mindset change, an intention or affirmation, or it could be the actual physical way you perform the task.

    I have a system for folding my laundry that allows my mind to roam freely for a few minutes; that inner roaming brings in new ideas and insights. Thus laundry becomes not something that wastes my precious time but something that enhances it and brings me more into who I am.

    —

    Stop looking for that elusive “thing.” Start living your life in all the ways that are exciting and interesting to you, right down to the tiny daily details. Explore, create, discover, absorb.

    With some thought and imagination you can do this within your current job, with your children, when you’re doing daily tasks. It doesn’t have to be grand and time-consuming.

    And then you will find that your thing is simply who you can’t help being. The more of your unique inner rainbow you reveal, the more it will become clear who you are and what you are here to do. Just be prepared for it to look a little different—and a lot more beautiful—than you thought.

  • How to Be Sure External Factors Aren’t Affecting Your Decision

    How to Be Sure External Factors Aren’t Affecting Your Decision

    Standing at a Crossroad

    “Don’t make a permanent decision for your temporary emotion.” ~Unknown

    It was a beautiful day today. The sun shone brightly, kissing my face and warming my bones, the sky was as blue as a lover’s eyes, and there were those little fluffy clouds that seem like aimless but happy sheep floating gently in the sky.

    And my heart sang.

    I felt joy deep down in my soul.

    I smiled at bus drivers and baristas alike.

    Nothing could dent my good mood.

    Currently mulling over medium-term plans (I started living as a digital nomad two years ago), I started to consider seriously the idea of a short-term let in the English countryside, or a house-sit in some glorious old farmhouse surrounded by living green or golden fields, a cat on my lap, a dog by my feet, and chickens out back.

    Whooooah Nelly.

    I snapped back to reality with a click, the sunlight suddenly seeming harsh instead of kind, the blue of the sky austere instead of abundant, and the sheep in the sky suddenly moving with threatening purpose.

    I’ve been living in Thailand for nearly two years now, drawn there initially to experience something other than the total-work-immersion and the health issues that had previously dominated my life.

    Gradually, as I had begun to understand more the activities that brought me delight and awoke my passions, I eased into building a life there.

    I was happy to come back to the UK for periods of four to six weeks, a couple of times a year, but I wasn’t currently planning on living there. Not right now, anyway.

    It was then I was reminded how much our environment—in this case, the weather—affects our emotions and moods.

    It was easy to see how much the weather that day was influencing me. And I could remember lots of times when cold days and drizzle had made everything seem a little bit harder, a little bit more difficult to bear, a little more wearing on body and soul.

    And I wondered what other decisions I might have made in those circumstances, unconscious of the fact that the weather might have been influencing how I chose to move forward.

    Had I rejected social opportunities because my body had withdrawn into the comfort of sofa and duvet on days with biting winter winds?

    Had I declined to return a phone call from a recruiter that might have brought new possibilities because I didn’t want to take my gloves off on a cold day?

    Had I turned down a second date with a potential lover because the idea of trekking into the city to meet him in the rain felt like too much trouble?

    Alternatively, when the sun was shining, haloing those around me with a golden light, had I given people the benefit of the doubt?

    Had the energy to be kind to strangers?

    Gone out of my way to visit friends and family to share the warmth that the sun had brought me with them?

    This all led me to consider what other unseen or unheard things influence the decisions I make—decisions I think I am making independently, through my own free will.

    Environment, weather, the people I’ve just seen, the people I’m about to see, a song on the radio, the colors in the café where I’m writing out my pros and cons list.

    Buying a house is a classic example. Estate agents try to take photos of houses with a blue sky, with spring the best time to sell a house in the western hemisphere, and the sullen month of January the worst.

    There’s no question we can be influenced more than we realize by external factors. Marketing relies on this. But we can grow our awareness, and free ourselves from at least some of the stuff that isn’t really “us.”

    Here are my suggestions for how to ensure any decision you make is as much “yours” as it can be.

    1. Listen to your gut, then wait.

    This is one of the reasons I think it’s always a good idea to make a decision and then sit on it for a day or so.

    It’s taken me a long time to really hear my gut, and listen to my inner self. It’s important to listen to our instincts as part of any decision-making process, and combine that with experience, logic, and time to make the best possible decision.

    2. Consider your choice in different environments and difficult circumstances.

    Does it seem as good an idea in the dark night as it does in the bright day? In the cold as in the warm?

    In the dead of night, alone in bed I sometimes experience huge anxiety about things that in the day wouldn’t trouble me at all. I know now not to make a decision based on that anxiety alone.

    3. Get to know yourself better.

    Do you know what moods different external factors put you in? Do you love summer rain, or being cosy by the fire in autumn? Or do colorful spring flowers and snow at Christmas put you in a good mood?

    When you know what’s likely to increase your optimism or pessimism, when you’re thinking about a decision, take this into account.

    4. Track your moods.

    Moodscope.com is great for this. This engaging online tool presents you with twenty different emotions and asks you, via flipping cards, to rate yourself on each feeling every day. This can give you a very clear understanding of how you feel each day, and can help you to make your decisions accordingly.

    5. Make more of an effort.

    When you know you’re being affected negatively by outside circumstances, go out of your way to be kind not only to others, but to yourself.

    Hold off on big decisions where you can, and don’t sweat small decisions; it really doesn’t matter if you have the pasta or the risotto for your dinner. Have the other one another time.

    —

    Reminding ourselves that our emotions affect our decision-making, and that our emotions in turn are affected by many external factors, can help us to step back and understand how we are actually making a decision.

    As with many human processes, it’s not quite as simple as it looks, but it doesn’t take much to think about what else is going on, and allow for it.

    Man at a crossroad image via Shutterstock

  • The First Thing You Need to Do to Change Your Life

    The First Thing You Need to Do to Change Your Life

    Bold Man

    “Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny.” ~Steven Pressfield

    Altering your life in the smallest or grandest way is so simple, but it requires you to do something you likely are already doing all of the time.

    If you’ve ever wanted to take up a discipline, begin a new business, stop an addiction, or start anything new, it’s the same for all.

    Any life change requires one simple action: you to decide.

    Over five years ago, I knew in my heart I wanted a different work life, that a greater way of living a life of my dreams could be real for me if I could just take the leap.

    I was afraid of not having the external security that came with that job of five years. But when I looked at my true dreams, and who I’d become not doing what I love, it wasn’t who I felt I was deep at heart.

    Then it happened, I followed the feeling. I simply chose that enough was enough; I quit my job.

    There is a rich and deep aliveness that comes from following your heart, in acting on what you love despite any limitations or fears of the unknown.

    It’s what brings you closer to knowing who you are in your heart, and who I believe we all came to be in this life, dreamers willing to live their dream, not just know dreams exist.

    When I finally decided, there was no more deliberation, or trying to think of all possible outcomes. I stopped thinking about it.

    There are two types of fear: debilitating, poisonous, inaction fear, and an excitement fear that comes with taking inspired action. As soon as I decided, just an excited fear remained. 

    In a moment of true decision where you act on what you love, you experience a feeling of freedom and aliveness that overcomes fear. 

    Poisonous fear exists mostly in indecision, between knowing what you love and the perception that you’re unable to act on it.Perhaps that’s why it’s called “False Evidence Appearing Real.”

    When you take action on what you love, whether you experience fear or not, you’ve decided with your whole being, what’s called a true decision; and it overcomes all else.

    Often I hear people express a desire to do, or be something, and then they list the reasons why it’s not possible in their circumstances. But isn’t it true that possibility doesn’t become available to you until you decide to do it?

    In my experience, what’s possible only becomes real once you decide on the inside and then act on what you feel outside.

    If you’ve ever rented an apartment, bought a home, or booked a flight, you may know the power of decision. I’ve often heard people admit, “I didn’t know whether I could afford it then,” or, “I couldn’t afford it, but I did it anyway.”

    How is it possible to not be able to afford something, but have or experience it anyway? You decided, and more than likely, somehow your life circumstances changed. Some people call those coincidences, miracles, or serendipity.

    What’s meant to be is meant to be because you decide.

    I don’t just mean deciding to put it on credit, although sometimes that is the way, I mean watching your circumstances change to reflect your decision. I’ve experienced watching my business increase or receiving an unexpected financial windfall right after making a decision. It happens differently every time.

    A couple years ago I felt to move to NYC. At that time, I had no external security, no extra money saved, no job, or apartment lined up. I had no real reason to think it was possible based on my circumstances.

    When the feeling came to my heart, I said yes. A true decision is like falling in love; you don’t decide from your head, it’s something that finds you. I had only my feeling, but I’d developed trust for my intuition by this point.

    Decisions with the most impact are those that come from your heart because they have the power to defy what you think is possible (through love), and it’s those decisions that you experience the most aliveness (more love).

    The greatest challenge is your thinking: you may have to embrace whatever limitations are in your mind, and let go of what security you perceive you may lose.

    Following your heart may make no sense, and it may be the opposite of your plans, but it makes sense to the deeper knowing within.

    In the beginning, it’s not easy to follow just a feeling, but the more you do it, the better at it you become, and the more you value yourself for doing it.

    At that moment in time, I didn’t feel compelled or inspired to look for places to live in NYC before I got there, yet I lived in three different places. By staying in my heart and following the moment-to-moment inspirations, I saw the power of my decision unfold with ease.

    First, an old family friend offered me his flat in Manhattan while he was away.

    Before I left, I met a woman at an event visiting from Brooklyn who emailed me two weeks later asking if I wanted a sublet.

    The last place came when I followed my intuition to meet with a friend who surprised me with a place to sublet, which I moved into days later, the day my other place was up.

    From experience, it’s easier to follow the feeling when the possibilities are visible: you have the time, the money, or all the tangible circumstances.

    But what about when you only have a feeling, when the possibilities are still invisible, do you still follow the feeling in your heart?

    Living a life of love is more effortless because you cultivate more presence naturally, but you don’t do it for the effortlessness; you do it because you come to know yourself in that love at a deeper level.

    Sure, the move came with ease, but it was the aliveness I felt in following the feeling that took my breath away.

    Anyone reading this must take note: this was my story of following the feeling in that moment. If I moved to NY now, I would follow my feeling now, which could mean looking long and hard for places. It’s a new moment!

    There is a fine line between a deep knowing, and hoping, wishing, and laziness. I wasn’t not acting out of denial, I was in my truth, but your truth is going to be different every time, so don’t try my story “at home.”

    A friend and inspirational writer who lives intuitively moved with two kids to California, leaving a secure law degree position back east, both she and her husband following their respective feelings.

    Recently, she told me how she bought her house. “The bank should have never approved our loan from a logical perspective, it doesn’t make sense given our finances, but I just knew we had to take a risk and go for it because the feeling was pulling me.”

    In her example, it doesn’t mean she won’t lose her house. Don’t forget life is a risk; so is going after what you love!!

    Following your feeling will not only give you the experiences you perceive to be positive, it takes you to perceived negative experiences so you can be free of the fear.

    I followed the feeling to start a business a couple years ago, and it failed. The feeling took me to a failed business, but now I don’t fear failing.

    Ultimately, your intuition is guiding you to your bigger picture of what you love: less fear, and more power to alter destiny (love). Sometimes it takes you into beautiful romances, but later the feeling pulls you out of that same relationship you thought was forever.  

    The bigger picture has opportunities and challenges; you don’t get one without the other.

    It can be really hard because going beyond limitations stretches you internally. You have to truly love it from your soul, not just your head. And you have to be willing to say yes!

    You want more love, more inspiration, and more empowerment, but don’t know how? Decide first. You want to live a life that’s of freedom? Decide to. Possibilities become possible when you decide.

    The truth is, you’re the only one with the true power to alter your destiny, to shape your life into one you love. It’s starts with what you decide through opening your heart to the feeling. You can complicate it in your head, but it’s that simple. What you love is in every moment; it’s up to you.

    I didn’t always believe in me, but because I decide over and over again to live a life of love despite the fear, I now do.

    No matter who you are out there in this world, I believe in you in this moment. After all, it is a new moment, your moment.

    Bold man image via Shutterstock

  • How to Hear Your Intuition When You Don’t Know What to Do

    How to Hear Your Intuition When You Don’t Know What to Do

    Confused Man

    “Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.” ~William S. Burroughs

    Sitting in my office, I stared at the email in front of me.

    My heart sank.

    All energy and joy left me, to be replaced with confusion, anxiety, and a deep sense of frustration.

    As adrenalin rushed through my veins, one question engulfed my mind leaving little room for the answer.

    What should I do? What should I do? What should I do?

    I just didn’t know.

    The email was from a client. Someone who I had worked with for a long time. Someone who wasn’t listening to me. Someone who was causing me unhappiness.

    And as I re-read the email, I knew I had to make a decision.

    Could I deal with this any longer? The demands, the lack of control, the sharp tone that always seemed so unnecessary.

    Or did I have to stick it out? Put up with those feelings, just get on with the work and do the best I could? I needed the money, after all. Cash was tight—could I survive without this client?

    What should I do? What should I do? What should I do? 

    And then, in that one moment in time, it became clear exactly what I needed to do. I needed to step away from the computer. I needed to get outside. And I needed to breathe.

    So that’s exactly what I did.

    Twenty-four hours later, I was on the phone explaining to my client that I didn’t feel we were right for each other anymore. That we needed to bring things to a close. That it was time for me to move on.

    And move on I certainly did.

    That day when I stepped outside and went for a walk, I found peace and quiet, a sense of calm understanding, and most importantly, a moment of absolute pure clarity.

    My intuition spoke. And I listened to her.

    I realized that I had to remove myself from the situation that was causing me so much distress. Forcing myself to continue was no longer an option; it was not what my body and soul needed. Instead, I needed to follow my heart.

    And so, I let go of that client along with all those negative feelings. And I created space.

    Space for new people. New places. And new experiences.

    And do you know what? Once I made that decision, it was like an enormous weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

    My energy and joy returned to me in abundance, and I knew with absolute certainty that I had made the right decision.

    Once again, my intuition had guided me. And she hadn’t let me down.

    Tuning into your intuition during troubled times can be difficult. With so much noise, information, and clutter within the world, our thoughts can often be clouded with distractions.

    However, there are lots of ways that you can help your intuitive voice find its way to you. Just follow the tips below.

    Step away from the situation.

    I’ve found that during these times the best thing you can do is allow yourself some breathing space.

    Stand up and go for a long walk, head out into the wilderness, browse some antique shops, meditate, sit with a coffee and watch the world go by. Whatever you love doing, whatever calms you, now is the time to do it.

    Find some quiet space to let your mind wander, and your intuitive voice will have a far greater chance of being heard.

    Be honest with yourself.

    It can sometimes be very easy to ignore your feelings and push them away.

    We might push those gut feelings aside and take what may seem like the easier option because we’re afraid of failure, changing direction, and saying no.

    However, ultimately this is about your happiness. And if something doesn’t feel right, then maybe it’s time for a change.

    Be honest with yourself and acknowledge those unsettled feelings; they are there to guide and support you. Listen to them.

    Turn to your journal.

    I have found writing in a journal to be an incredible method for tuning into my intuition.

    Acting as a safe space to release emotions, work through problems, and process my thoughts, it can allow for greater self-discovery and understanding.

    Next time you are having difficulty making a decision, pick up a pen and some paper and let the words flow out of you. Reflect on the situation, explore those feelings, and consider the bigger picture.

    This free-flowing use of personal writing can be a wonderful catalyst for removing blocks and letting your intuitive voice lead the way. Just let the words pour out of you.

    — 

    The intuitive voice is a powerful one, but it often needs a quiet, calm, reflective environment to find its way.

    Learn where you can find some peace, go there when times are hard, and listen with all your might to what your heart and soul are telling you.

    Your intuition wants to guide and support you. So give it the space to be heard.

    Confused man image via Shutterstock