Tiny Buddha

Tag: joy

  • 3 Simple Steps to Create More Joy in Your Life

    3 Simple Steps to Create More Joy in Your Life

    “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” ~Carl Jung

    “Should I move back?” was the question I asked myself. It was 2018, and I had moved to Berlin eight months prior. And everything had gone wrong. So wrong.

    I moved here for a relationship, but that relationship ended. I also moved for different work but found myself in a toxic environment. I had very little support from the community after my relationship ended. And I found myself horribly ill and in a hospital.

    The easy thing to do would have been to move back to London. It was still a huge move, but I would be back with my friends and support network.

    But something stopped me.

    Something was going on inside me that told me I would not be any happier if I moved back.

    That moving back would be a massive distraction from what was happening inside me. It would allow me to ignore that—to push it aside. And then, hopefully, in London, I would be too distracted to need to deal with it.

    I had no idea how transformative that decision would be.

    What was going on inside me?

    I had come to the realization that I had moved to Berlin to try to escape from who I was. That I was trying to choose only part of myself rather than all of myself, and I was doing this by trying to have a relationship with someone.

    But, in actual fact, I was bored. Bored in my life. Bored in a successful career as an international executive—a career I had no interest or passion for anymore.

    I decided it was time to figure out who I was. Not just part of me, not just some of me. But all of me.

    But I had no idea how to do this. I was drifting about in the dark. Then I realized that was part of the problem—I was trying to break through this veil of darkness to understand who I wanted to be.

    Imagine a Strange World

    I want you to imagine you are in a strange new world full of mountains, valleys, deserts, seas, and oceans. And this world is completely dark other than a light you hold in your hand.

    No matter what you do, no matter how far you try to raise the light, you still cannot see into the darkness.

    Instead, all you can see is within the circle of light.

    This World Is You

    This strange new world is actually you, the lands and oceans making up all your joys, passions, grief, sadness, and much more.

    But for many of us, our identity, who we are, and what gives us joy are unknown lands in the darkness.

    When it comes to wanting to understand who we are, we realize that, although we inhabit our body, many of its thoughts and emotions are a strange new world to be explored.

    And this is uncomfortable. If we are not distracting ourselves from the darkness, we’re spending all our efforts trying to pierce the veil of darkness. But trying to look further does not work.

    So what can we do?

    Look at what is within that circle of light. There is so much to learn, explore, and understand within this circle, even though so many of us discount it.

    Do we see a lump of rock and walk over to see how interesting it is? We then see something else and walk toward that, and then another and another thing. Without realizing it, we are walking through the darkness step by step, focusing on what we can see. And in doing so, we are exploring our hidden world.

    What does this mean in practice?

    1. Be mindful of the now, no matter how bad it seems.

    In Berlin, when I was choosing to leave or stay, I was working for a toxic company with everyone constantly angry or bursting into tears in front of me and one person trying to set me up for failure. It was a horrible time.

    But within that horror, there was some gold.

    As I became more mindful, I realized there was one thing I enjoyed during the workday: speaking with someone one-on-one. I loved helping and supporting people in private chats, especially those who wanted to grow and improve.

    I was amazed by this revelation. How could I be feeling joy within all this toxicity? But now I know that a fundamental part of me loves connecting with and serving people, which is why I am on this planet. This was the first signal or seed of my purpose.

    Ignoring what we hate is easy, but gold can often be hidden there. Be mindful of those times as well as the good. The thing you really need might be hidden in those awful periods.

    Outside of work, I realized I could use my beautiful balcony, but I was not using it, as I was too distracted by everything going wrong (and did not have any chairs).

    Berlin is so beautiful in the summer, and even though this year had brought non-stop rain, it was temperate enough to sit outside, sheltered from the rain, and enjoy the humid, rich smell of the garden air.

    One night, I was treated to a drunk neighbor so happy they were singing in the rain. And it was so joyful to hear them do that.

    But I was not doing it. I was too distracted. So I bought myself a chair and found myself meditating and thinking while sitting out in the summer rain of Berlin.

    Years later, I realized that many of the seeds of my current life were planted on that balcony.

    During this time, I stopped and allowed myself just to be. Providing myself with this time allowed me to start understanding myself.

    And when I was bored on the balcony, I meditated or watched TED videos that inspired me.

    2. Reconnect to joy from the past.

    We live in societies where we are pressured to focus only on our career, taking on more responsibility and making more money so we can use that money to buy the latest thing, be it the newest iPhone or some new fad on Instagram or TikTok.

    But this is not joy.

    Joy is such a short-lived emotion. We only feel it when carrying out an activity that gives us joy; if we are too distracted, we can miss it.

    When we start to focus on a career or material possessions, we can end up disconnected from joy. So we must find that joy again.

    Part of this can happen in step one—being mindful of the now and noticing when we feel that joy. But we can also mine for joy.

    The first way of doing this is to think back to when you were a child and teenager. What did you enjoy then? Do you do any of this now? Or did you give it up because you felt too busy or ashamed?

    I used to love Legos and Star Trek but was often shamed by family and friends for liking them. Then, as an adult, I thought only children play with Legos, so I gave it up. Now, I buy myself Lego sets and enjoy putting them together.

    But we can also reframe what we like in childhood into adult traits and actions.

    I used to love writing stories when I was young. Knowing I loved writing then, I realized I could decide to write now, but differently.

    Now I write for joy, but rather than stories, I often write articles explaining concepts and helping people.

    Reconnecting to joy from the past also helps us to rediscover parts of ourselves that were always there.

    Many people believe they are not creative, but when they rediscover their joy from when they were young, they discover they were hugely creative.

    3. Throw things at the wall.

    The final thing is to try random things. To do random things. To see how much you enjoy it or where it leads you.

    I discovered that a center around the corner from me was holding a workshop for a spirit journey. I had never done anything like that before. I thought it was something that happens in the rainforests of the Amazon, not around the corner from where I live in Berlin.

    But I thought: Why not try it?

    I had a fantastic time doing it, and it led me to more mainstream events at the center, from potluck dinners to events for finding your purpose. It also helped me create my own social network here in Berlin.

    So try random things you’ve always wanted to try and note which things you hate and love; they will help you discover what you want and who you are.

    What Did I End Up Doing?

    The year 2017 was really hard for me. I felt pushed to my limits.

    But making that decision to stay and work toward understanding who I was—understanding that dark, hidden world—is one of the best decisions I ever made.

    It led me to discovering my passions and the sort of life I wanted to live.

    I have given up a six-figure salary to focus on various passions. I just returned from a “workcation” in the sun (avoiding the bleak Berlin winter), and I no longer have that sense of dread I had each day.

    There is still much for me to do. Making these changes has led me to find even more parts of myself.

    Although these new parts of my world are still to be explored, I have found impressive mountains to rest upon and amazing oceans to sail on within me, and my life is so much more fulfilling because of it.

    How about you? Do you want to start exploring who you are, your hidden world? If so, start now!

  • Try This Fun Little Phrase to Immediately Boost Your Joy

    Try This Fun Little Phrase to Immediately Boost Your Joy

    “Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” ~Karl Barth

    I had no way of knowing when I went to visit my brother’s family that summer in 2019 that my three-year-old niece would say seven words that would forever change my relationship with joy.

    It was July and predictably steamy in Georgia where his family lives. I was visiting to meet my newborn nephew, and the stifling heat kept us all inside for most of my stay.

    The second morning after I arrived, I was spending time with my younger niece and keeping her entertained. My older niece was at a playdate, my sister-in-law was with the baby, and my brother was running an errand, so she and I had some bonding time to ourselves.

    We sat in the living room playing her new favorite make-believe game, Girl’s Club. The game of Girl’s Club was simple: speaking out loud, describe Girl’s Club, the idyllic imaginary place where the girls who were in could come hang out, and it was now my turn.

    “Hmmmm, let’s see.” I started. “Well, there’s a fountain outside with mermaids swimming in it.”

    My niece’s round blue eyes became enormous. “I knew it would be like this!” she said. I laughed; it was so cute, and her glee was contagious.

    I continued my turn. “And inside, there is a ceiling painted to look like a rainbow.”

    Again, a deep inhalation and, “I knew it would be like this!” This time she clapped her hands.

    I couldn’t stop smiling as I went on describing. Girl’s Club was clearly being channeled from my own inner four-year old, so my niece and I were on the same page.

    “And there is an enormous golden chandelier…and pink velvet couches!”

    My tiny three-year-old niece jumped up and down and flung her entire body onto the couch, rocking back and forth, unable to contain her excitement. “I KNEW it would be like this!”

    It was the biggest exclamation yet. Our back and forth continued just like this, with me sharing more details, and my niece affirming that not only was this fabulous, but it was exactly what she expected—and now it was here.

    I was struck by her response. Her joy was palpable, literally bursting from her small body in motion and energy. And she never got tired of exclaiming over and over, “I knew it would be like this!” I noticed several things about my niece on this particular morning:

    1. She is aware of what she loves, of what feels fun and good to her.

    2. She expects that things will be good and delightful to her. Of COURSE the couches are pink velvet, exactly like she imagined.

    3. Her recognition that the goodness she anticipated and knew would be coming was now here and should be celebrated.

    4. Her complete embodied joy.

    When was the last time I had embodied joy like this? I couldn’t say for sure, but here was my niece, easily accessing it on a Thursday morning in the living room of her house simply by having a conversation about imaginary things.

    I had a meditation practice and did yoga, and I was pretty good at tapping into calm. But I realized that calm is very different from joy, and while I often allowed myself this muted sense of peace, could I let myself really let go into the full-bodied exuberance of joy?

    As adults, we can protect ourselves by expecting the worst. “I don’t want to get my hopes up,” or “If I think it’s going to turn out well that might mean something bad will happen,” or having the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop when things are really good. Having something good is vulnerable, because then we have something to lose.

    Embodied joy is one of the gifts of childhood. We haven’t yet learned to be too cautious, to temper expectations, to feel the weight of responsibility creeping in to tense our shoulders. Of course, in some childhoods, responsibility or hardship comes early, with the loss of such exuberance a heartbreaking addition to whatever difficult circumstances have arrived.

    Ideally in a happy, healthy childhood where you are cared for and your needs are met, all you have to do is receive. Receive the meals made for you with love, receive play time with a sibling or friend, receive the vivid magic of your imagination, receive the tuck-in and goodnight kiss from a parent. Receiving the goodness here in this moment was exactly what my niece was showing me.

    Completely charmed, I shared the story with my brother and sister-in-law, and we laughed. I shared it again with my husband, with my parents, with friends. Each person I shared it with had the same reaction: laughter, genuine delight, and the recognition of an obvious catchphrase that could maximize the impact of a joyful moment immediately.

    What happened next unfolded like clockwork: everyone who heard the story wanted to use the phrase too. At home on a Friday night with my husband making homemade pizza: “I knew it would be like this!”

    At the beach with friends watching the sunset from the deck and laughing: “I knew it would be like this!”

    Hugs between siblings reuniting after a long time apart: “I knew it would be like this!”

    Sitting alone, snuggling on the couch with a blanket and some tea, the dog lying companionably next to me with her silly snore: “I knew it would be like this!”

    The trick is to notice the moment in the first place and really receive it by saying the magic words. Saying the words feels like a way of savoring, of giving permission for the goodness of life to fully arrive. Using this phrase works wonders when alone, and when used with others, it becomes a celebration.

    You can try it when you snag a parking spot in a crowded lot, when toasting a friend at happy hour, gazing up at the moon and stars, hearing your favorite song come on the radio.

    Just remember, the first step is noticing that these moments are already present in small or big ways. Be curious about the little things already in your life that could be welcomed even more, establishing a more joyful and familiar relationship with goodness. Your happiness gets a boost when you consciously let it in, savor, and even celebrate.

    Grant yourself permission to receive, to know that good things are for YOU and that they’re already here, to celebrate little moments of happiness and in doing so amplify the joy in your life. Using this phrase is so easy—even a child can do it. I knew it would be like this!

  • 5 Simple Ways to Make JOY Your Job This Year

    5 Simple Ways to Make JOY Your Job This Year

    “Don’t wait for joy to find you, because you might end up waiting forever.” ~Unknown

    Eight years ago, my husband and I made a pact to make joy our job.

    We were in the middle of chasing little kids and careers, had a whole lot of stress (on the edge of burnout), and realized that something needed to change.

    The idea started small, with the premise that if we waited for joy to find us, we might wait forever. We figured that life was going to require us to do something different to see a different result. It took us a bit of time to experiment with what brought us joy and what didn’t (because it had been years since we prioritized joy at all), but the juice was worth the squeeze!

    There were some small but key things that helped us shift toward a more joyful life, and I’d like to share them with you now in hopes that you can make this your year of JOY!

    Here they are.

    1. Give yourself permission.

    As a good midwestern gal, I have always had the belief that if I work harder, faster, and stronger than others, I will see success. I’m here to tell you that’s true! However, while working toward specific goals (promotions, planning a wedding, buying a house, you insert the thing), joy can fall to the bottom of the heap.

    I get it. I always thought that I needed to be one step ahead before I gave myself freedom for fun, but that’s the wrong mindset to take on because life’s a moving target. You will never reach the finish line because life happens in the living of it (cliché but true).

    Give yourself permission to prioritize joy! Maybe it’s a date night or an hour to yourself, but whatever it is, you should give yourself permission to enJOY. A burnt-out version of you is no good to anyone else.

    2. Make a joy ideas list.

    Have you ever planned a night out and looked at your spouse or friend and said, “What are you in the mood for?” Their response: “I don’t care. What are you in the mood for?” Sometimes it takes just as long to decide what to do for fun as actually going out and doing it.

    For this reason, we started with a whiteboard in our bedroom (doesn’t everyone have a whiteboard hung up in their bedroom?), and jotted down things we used to do, things we wanted to do, and things we heard others talking about. It took us a few days to get a good joy ideas list going, but little by little we had inspiration for date night and beyond.

    Our thought was, with a whiteboard at the ready, we could dream up joyful ideas before we fell asleep and add more right after waking up, when our brains were rested and fresh. It worked!

    Some of our ideas included:

    • Go back to the restaurant we got engaged at.
    • Carve out a date night for yummy food.
    • Join a volleyball league to stay active.
    • Play “college”—eat the foods, do the activities, and go to the places we used to visit in college.

    Start making a list and checking off your joy items. You’ll be surprised how completing one joy item will spur more ideas and more joy. Here are some ideas to consider:

    • Be a tourist in your town. If you have a free afternoon, go out and do the things your town is known for! Try all the “bests”—ice cream, coffee, park, scenic views, you name it.
    • Create joy during meals. Spice up your meals with different types of cuisine and different meal locations (picnic in the living room). Also, a fun or fancy glass can bring joy to any table.
    • If you are short on time, exchange some screen time for a bit of joy and be sure to involve the kids! A few of the things we love to do are go on walks, play games, go on scavenger hunts, and play flashlight hide-and-seek.

    3. Carve out time on your calendar.

    This sounds easy, but it’s where people fall off the joy wagon.

    We’re going to Mexico in February! That’s what I often hear when I ask about joy. People give me the itineraries for their upcoming vacations (never mind that they might be six months away).

    If I asked you, “Where can you add joy tomorrow?” would you be able to do it? Or would you say something like, “After my next project at work, I’ll have more joy.” Or “Once my kids sleep through the night, I can have more joy.” Or “I don’t have time for joy tomorrow, I have too much going on.”

    Our minds are programmed to solve, achieve, and contribute, and that is a great thing…most of the time.

    Make sure you put the joy ideas and activities on the calendar—even if it’s just “take a walk” or “read a book.” Or at least save a block of time specifically for joy. Otherwise, time will slip by, and you will not have anything to show for it.

    4. Pick a theme.

    Sometimes it can be hard to think of something that is new and exciting yet takes little brain space and energy to put into action. My advice is to pick a theme. We have themed meals, parties, weeks of celebration in our house—you name it, we can theme it!

    We once celebrated a travel birthday for our friend’s daughter who took her first plane flight. We blew out candles on a cupcake to celebrate. We’ve had pretend holidays, tailgates for random sporting events, craft days, and even themed parties with friends.

    A theme is an easy way to give purpose to an afternoon, an event, or a week. If you are struggling to think of a theme, the internet has some great ideas.

    5. Invite other people to join.

    Our original joy list moved from bulleted ideas to a joy calendar, and the rest is history! We now create a monthly joy calendar, and our kids contribute ideas. One night a month my husband and I sit back and look at the calendar, almost like consultants to our own lives, and decide if we have enough joy. If we don’t think we have enough joy planned, we add some.

    It was a few months after we started to make joy our job when we started sharing the joy with friends and family. They started attending parties and joy activities, and I would get text messages saying, “Started our own joy calendar today! Thanks again.”

    Making joy your job will change your life! There will never be a perfect day or a perfect reason for more joy. Today is that day! Just start with permission, make a list, and go!

    Be sure to reach out when you create joy. I’d love to celebrate with you!

    Bonus tip:

    Joy is messy. Just do some small experiments. You will plan joy and it may not turn out the way you thought (kids will act out, sporting events may be cancelled, themes may turn out to be a bust), but be sure to keep going! Some of our funniest joy moments have come from our experiments (think failed cooking experiments and funny date night memories).

    Joy is your job!

  • I Wish You Peace

    I Wish You Peace

  • 10 Unique Lessons from Across the Globe for a Meaningful Life

    10 Unique Lessons from Across the Globe for a Meaningful Life

    “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” ~W.B. Yeats

    For a few years of my life, I was lucky enough to have a semi-nomadic lifestyle. A lot of my stuff fit in a backpack, and it was a great joy to move around different regions of the world and have rich conversations with people. One of the most enchanting aspects of my years spent backpacking was the discovery of these magical practices that resonate deeply across cultures.

    I started a precious collection of these soul-deep lessons from the various landscapes I passed by. From the bustling streets of India to the serene fjords of Norway, each destination offers unique lessons about the organic intelligence that resides in us humans and leads us to find ways of nourishing our bodies, minds, and souls.

    Here is a brief guided tour and a sample taste of some of my favorite insights across the globe.

    1. Jijivisha – The Joy for Life

    In the heart of India, amidst the chaos and colors of its vibrant cities, I encountered the concept of jijivisha—the sheer joy for life. Rooted in ancient Indian scriptures, jijivisha embodies an innate will to live, to embrace every moment with exuberance.

    As I wandered through the crowded streets, the laughter of children and the smiles of strangers became a testament to this enduring spirit. India, with its myriad hues, has an uncanny ability to infuse life with the essence of jijivisha, teaching the world the art of embracing existence with open arms.

    One of the places that I explored most is India. With 1.5 billion people, twenty-two official languages, and a few hundred unofficial ones, I didn’t even manage to scratch the surface of exploring that beautiful country. I also will not cover here how difficult life can be over there. But this country has a way of infusing some jijivisha in me every time I visit, and I love it very much for this.

    2. Niksen: The Art of Doing Nothing

    Amidst the picturesque windmills and quiet canals of the Netherlands, I discovered niksen, a comfortable way of doing nothing—allowing oneself to be idle, to daydream, and to simply breathe. Niksen is a humorous and purposeful idleness, where the mind finds space to breathe, unfettered by the demands of productivity.

    Here is how it goes: find some quiet time and intend to not do much. That’s it.

    Don’t try to meditate, or relax, and definitely don’t check your social media. Perhaps just doodle a little bit, or watch people passing by, or daydream guiltlessly.

    The idea is to come out of the “high-efficiency” mentality and embrace some moments of “wasting time.” The moment we try to make it into a “thing to do,” a way to relax or meditate, its effect dwindles with the idea that there is a goal to attain. It’s more like watching tulips in one of those wide landscapes of the country where niksen comes from.

    This has become one of my favorite activities ever. So much so that I now teach it to my clients as a way to restore their minds and souls. My Dutch friends laugh at me. They say it is like teaching them a technique called “chilling out.” And I say: that’s it! That’s what some of us need the most.

    3. Friluftsliv: The Love of the Outdoors

    Amidst Norway’s majestic fjords one can learn all about friluftsliv, the love for the outdoors—a practice that celebrates the restorative power of nature, even under the whims of weather.

    In the heart of nature, amidst whispering leaves and birdsong, the Norwegians tap regularly into the healing power of the wilderness. Friluftsliv is an invitation to step outside, to breathe in the crisp air, and to revel in the symphony of nature. It’s a reminder that, even in the face of life’s storms, there exists a sanctuary in the embrace of the natural world.

    If the Scandinavians can love the outdoors in spite of their weather conditions, I guess so can we!

    4. Hygge: Cozy Comfort, Deep Connection

    Hygge refers to a sense of coziness and warmth that comes from spending time with loved ones in a comfy environment. Imagine a Scandinavian Christmas evening, candles flickering, the warmth of the fire stove, and the comfort of being surrounded by loved ones, a warm teacup in hand.

    In the heart of Denmark, hygge reminds us that in the midst of life’s complexities, finding solace in the simplicity of a cozy ambiance and cherished companionship can nourish our souls and ease the burdens of the day. It’s about savoring the moment, finding joy in the ordinary, and embracing the warmth of human connection.

    I also think of hygge on those Sundays when I am going to spend the day at home; getting my coziest house socks, making a tea in my favorite cup, and lighting some candles can make the difference between a day that feels wasted and a day that feels cozy and restorative.

    5. Wu Wei: Effortless Flow, Harmonious Living

    From the heart of Taoism, wu wei teaches us the art of effortless action. It’s about flowing with the currents of life, embracing the path of least resistance. In the serene gardens of Suzhou, we learn that by aligning ourselves with the natural flow of the universe, stress dissipates, and harmony prevails. Wu Wei invites us to trust in the wisdom of the unfolding moment and find peace in the midst of chaos.

    This is my go-to when things are not going quite my way, and I find myself trying to force a solution. Wu Wei reminds me to go with the flow and adjust to what life presents.

    6. Meraki: Infusing Passion into Life’s Tapestry

    From the sun-drenched landscapes of Greece emerges meraki, the practice of infusing passion into every pursuit.

    Whether it’s preparing a meal, crafting a piece of art, or engaging in a conversation, meraki invites us to pour our soul into every endeavor. It’s a reminder that life is not merely a series of tasks but a canvas waiting for our creative touch. Meraki teaches us that in passionate engagement, stress transforms into purpose, and every moment becomes a masterpiece.

    Meraki is my favorite mindset when I am cooking. Experience has really proven this to me time and again: food tastes so much better when baked in relaxed meraki.

    7. Gökotta: Awakening with the Dawn’s Tranquility

    One more Scandinavian concept that I love: gökotta in Swedish. Gökotta invites us to wake up with the first light of dawn. It’s about embracing the stillness of the early hours, listening to the world awakening around us, especially the birds.

    Gökotta teaches us the art of starting the day in tranquility, setting a harmonious tone for what lies ahead. In the hush of the morning, we find clarity in the quietude of the dawn, reminding us of the beauty in beginnings.

    I would be lying if I said that I manage this practice often, but on those days when I do manage to wake up before most of the world and can step outside and listen to the birds, I know the swedes got some things very right.

    8. Dolce Far Niente: Embracing Sweet Idleness

    This list of cultural practices would be woefully incomplete without the inclusion of il dolce far niente. Amidst the rolling vineyards of Tuscany and the historic streets of Rome, Italy gifts us with this poetic concept, one that invites us to revel in the exquisite pleasure of leisure, reminding us that life’s most profound moments often arise in the unhurried corners of existence.

    The luxury of time unfilled, and the sheer bliss found in the simplicity of existence, is a reminder that sometimes the most meaningful moments occur when we allow ourselves to simply be, unburdened by the demands of the world.

    I find this works best sitting with friends by the beach or on a picnic—any chance to sit around enjoying slacking around without a trace of guilt.

    9. Sobremesa: Cultivating Connection, One Conversation at a Time

    In the bustle of Spain, la sobremesa teaches us the art of lingering at the table after finishing a meal and cherishing the warmth of meaningful conversations. Sobremesa reminds us that in the unhurried moments after a meal, bonds are deepened, laughter is shared, and stress fades away. It’s a practice that celebrates the richness of human connections, reminding us that in genuine conversations, we find solace and understanding.

    Next time a waiter tries to rush you out of a restaurant, remind them that you are still having your sobremesa…and that your meal is not worth a cent without it.

    10. Acurrucarse: The Coziness of Cuddling

    I cannot think of a time when I have not cherished this word. In my country, Puerto Rico, as well as in many places in Latin America, acurrucarse refers to cuddling with loved ones. It often describes cuddling with one’s children or pets, or watching a film on a sleepover with cozy blankets. It is a term laden with subtle nuances, encapsulating the essence of togetherness.

    For me, it is my daily ritual of cuddling with my dog after work or taking a reading afternoon with my teenage daughter surrounded by lots of cushions.

    —

    Each of these practices has a different flavor to it. Each is influenced by the geography, the history, and the landscape of each place, but each speaks to me of self-care, of a life filled with connection and purpose.

    If it is true that we humans share a lot of common troubles and concerns, for me it is worth noticing that we also share an organic intelligence that leads us in all parts of the world to cherish the quietness of rest, of connection and of tapping mindfully into the present moment.

  • Feeling Pressured to Follow the Crowd and Become Someone You’re Not?

    Feeling Pressured to Follow the Crowd and Become Someone You’re Not?

    In a world that pressures us to conform and toe the line, it can be hard to live a fulfilling, authentic life.

    We can easily spend years trying to be someone or something we’re not—checking off all the right boxes, meeting everyone’s expectations—all in a bid to gain approval from society, our peers, our parents, and even ourselves.

    But this comes at a steep cost to our well-being. Not only do we lose ourselves and slowly disconnect from everything that brings us joy and meaning, but we can also end up hating ourselves for struggling to measure up… when ironically, we don’t even really want the things we’re pushing ourselves to achieve. We just think we’re supposed to attain them.

    If any of this sounds familiar to you (and I suspect it does for most of us), I think you’ll appreciate this heartfelt letter from Tiny Buddha contributor Antasha Durbin Solomon’s book, Are You on the Right Track? A 101-Day Guided Journal from the Universe.

    I hope it serves as a reminder that the best person you can ever be is yourself.

    Letter 71: Living an Authentic Life

    Dearest One, 

    You could spend your entire life pretending to be someone you’re not, all in a bid to gain acceptance from others. But when your journey comes to an end, you’ll pull off the mask you’ve been wearing and realize you wasted your life playing pretend. 

    Or you can make the conscious decision to take the path less traveled and live authentically as yourself. This takes courage, especially in a world that programs you to believe that money, beauty, and recognition are the most important things in life. 

    Let this letter serve as a reminder that your time on Earth is limited, but you are not. Don’t waste another second pretending to be someone you’re not. Embrace your uniqueness and every attribute that makes you who you are. Explore your interests. Build upon your passions. And spend your time—your greatest currency—in whatever way truly serves you. 

    You get one shot at this life. Make yours count. 

    With endless love,

    The Universe 

    Are You on the Right Track? is truly a treasure trove of inspiration and motivation. Each letter offers simple yet powerful reminders to help you take back your power and live a purpose-filled life. And the journal prompts can help you dig deeper and make meaningful change, one step and one day at a time.

    To access the full journal and all 101 letters, click here. When you buy the book (eBook or paperback), you’ll receive free enrollment in Antasha’s popular online course, “21 Days of Energy Healing for a Happier, Healthier Life,” which typically costs $49.99. To gain access:

    Antasha will then provide you with an access code and course link.

    I hope you enjoy this transformational journal as much as I did!

  • How You Can Have More with Less: The Magic and Joy of Being Present

    How You Can Have More with Less: The Magic and Joy of Being Present

    “Don’t let this silly world trick you into starving your soul for material things. Cause someday you’re gonna be sitting out under the sun and realize how little you actually need to be truly happy.” ~Brooke Hampton

    It was early morning. The birds were chirping, the street sweepers were methodically clearing debris off the sidewalk, and the coffee vendor was chattily filling his customers’ cups with fragrant java from the dispenser precariously balanced on the back of his bicycle. There I was, taking a pleasant and serene walk while on my recent visit to India.

    As I took a turn into a small sideroad, I noticed two little girls running around and playing. At first, I didn’t take much notice. But then something grabbed my attention.

    The gleeful duo was scampering around chasing each other, squealing with delight, clapping their hands, laughing hard, and just plain enjoying each other’s company. Again, nothing extraordinary. But something was drawing my attention to them, and then I saw it.

    They were pretty much absent of what we would define as typical material needs.

    No toys to play with. No playground to run around in. Old, worn-out clothing. Disheveled hair. Not even any footwear while running around the street.

    My first thought was, how could they be so happy? Do they not feel despondent or envious of other kids that have more? Do they not feel worried about their futures?

    But none of that really seemed to matter. They were living life in the moment, completely and joyfully absorbed into their natural sense of play.

    My next rationalization was “they are just kids,” ignorant to the social and economic structures and norms. Oblivious to how the world really works.

    But then, I figured, we see this same level of psychic energy and consciousness in adults too.

    A climber could spend hours on a rock face and be completely absorbed with the challenge, the interaction between her fingers and the next rock outcrop, the changing weather patterns, and the ultimate goal—the top of the cliff.

    A violinist in an orchestra becomes the violin, completely engrossed with the activity of playing his part, but also being in absolute synchrony with the broader group.

    A painter could spend hours honing her painting, unaware of her immediate surroundings.

    So does this experience only come to fruition when the skills required are more refined or complex? Not really.

    Take a factory assembly line, where two workers are next to each other doing the same repetitive task over and over again. One may be carrying out their task in a mechanical fashion, while the other may be immersed in their curiosity, with a sense of perseverance to continually improve their skills and quality of work.

    Imagine two individuals standing next to each other at an art museum staring at a Rodin statue. One may be passing through and merely throwing a glance at the marble figurine. The other may be swept into a different realm, admiring the intricate contours and appreciating the level of difficulty and complexity of the art in front of her.

    How does this happen? Why are the experiences for the exact same activity so different for two individuals?

    I truly believe this is due to what I call the power of play.

    And the beauty and simplicity of this is that it can work with anyone, in any activity, in any situation, or in any environment.

    There are a few criteria we need to keep in mind to make an activity an optimal experience. Ask yourself these questions before you start any activity.

    Can I actually do it?

    The activity has to be achievable. In other words, you have the needed skill to complete it, or the ability and resolve to learn the skill.

    Can I focus on it with my everything?

    The activity should require your full concentration, and that’s usually possible when we are applying effort toward a goal and getting immediate feedback as to whether it is working or not. If not, we can find our concentration starting to wane.

    Does it move me into a different mental axis?

    This concentration and effort take us away from our day-to-day reality, and any negative connotations that may be encumbered with it—away from the worry, stress, anxiety, or fear that we may experience in our daily lives.

    Will I “be present” in my being?

    Our level of self-awareness is acutely sharpened, taking in all the ebbs and flows of our thoughts, feelings, and energy levels. This allows us to feel in control of our consciousness, our emotions, our life flow.

    Can I alter time?

    And finally, it changes the perception of time. Sometimes, say when playing an exciting game of tennis, time can swiftly fly by. Sometimes, like when we are excitedly learning some new dance steps, time and motion can slow down, and we appreciate these micro-moments.

    When we leap off the diving board and plunge into this state of play, we experience a great sense of enjoyment—a feeling that the psychic energy we have consumed was worth it and has resulted in a great outcome, one that can be savored for a long time to come.

    And that is how we can have more with less.

    If we can make small, discrete changes to meet these criteria, it can make a transformational difference in whether we immerse ourselves into the experience or are “just in it for the ride.”

    We can make every day, every activity, every experience, fulfilling and nourishing to our soul by simply being more present with what we’re doing and bringing more enjoyment to what we do. Pause and think about how you can make any activity more enlightening, and you will see it lightening your life as the heaviness melts away.

    Just like the two little girls that were completely involved and enjoying the experience of play together, savoring life together.

    They didn’t need anything more.

    PS: The next day I bought those little kiddos some footwear, and the way their faces lit up was such a joy to see!

  • How to Live a ‘Good Life’ (Almost Every Single Day)

    How to Live a ‘Good Life’ (Almost Every Single Day)

    “If your vision of your life centers on your highest values, you will be aligned with your dharma far above everyday existence. Whatever the values are—love, creativity, service, spiritual growth, beauty, or whatever you choose—dedicating yourself to the highest values unites purpose and inner growth as nothing else can.” ~Deepak Chopra

    I wasted almost a decade of my life. Don’t make the same mistake as me.

    On my fortieth birthday, I found myself lying in bed, fully awake at 5 a.m., with a tightness in my throat.

    “A new decade,” I thought, without much excitement.

    Staring at the ceiling, I tried to remember what I had accomplished in the past ten years. As I searched in vain for any memorable moments to celebrate, panic began to fill my chest. “I wasted my thirties,” I thought. “One-eighth of a lifetime.”

    Have you ever felt that way, as if life has passed you by? That you’ve wasted some precious years that you’ll never be able to get back?

    Perhaps you got caught in the hamster wheel, being so busy with work and daily chores that you didn’t realize how quickly time was flying by. Maybe you’ve thought of traveling, writing a book, or learning to play the guitar but continually postponed your projects for a ‘someday’ that has never arrived.

    It doesn’t feel good.

    That morning, I realized I had made a mistake. I spent most of my thirties pursuing a single goal: building my business. It became an obsession that consumed all my time and energy to the point that I forgot to nurture my relationships, travel, or do anything else exciting.

    At forty, I had very few friends and no hobbies, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for myself.

    Later on, I discovered that this could have been prevented by doing one thing differently: by adopting a simple habit that ensures we live a good life almost every single day and avoid future regrets.

    That’s what I want to share with you.

    How Can We Live a Good Life Every Day?

    A few months after my fortieth birthday, I listened to a podcast with Hal Elrod, the creator of The Miracle Morning, in which he shared his perspective on how to live our best lives every day.

    His realization came on a specific day after spending time with his daughter, working a bit on his business (his life’s work), connecting with his wife, exercising, and eating healthy meals. As he wound down after dinner, he thought to himself, “Today was the best day of my life.”

    He then wondered why he had just had this thought since nothing truly special had happened that day—his child wasn’t born, he hadn’t gotten married, and he hadn’t booked any elite clients. So what was it that made the day so great?

    The day had been filled with all the most important things to him, his top values: his family, his relationship with his wife, living a healthy lifestyle, and inspiring people (his life’s work). He realized that living a good life, a regret-free life, comes down to living in alignment with our top values every day.

    It hit me. This was my solution to avoid wasting another decade: value-centered living.

    Here’s how we can implement this into our daily lives.

    Step 1: Identify your top five values.

    Your top values are what you consider most important and meaningful in your life. They come from your personal beliefs about what it means to live a good life.

    Below are a few questions to help you identify your top values:

    • What do you need in your life to feel fulfilled? Or, what’s missing in your life that you need to feel fulfilled?
    • How do you like to spend your time, and what would you like to have more time for?
    • What do you enjoy spending money on?
    • If your life ended right now, what would you regret not having done, accomplished, experienced, and become? And if you had one year to live, how would you spend your time? What would you focus on?
    • What would make you say you have lived a good life when you are 100 years old?

    I recommend identifying your top five values because if we center our life on just one main value, we risk feeling dissatisfied and even having regrets in the future because we won’t have nurtured the other things that are important to us.

    That’s what happened to me when I just focused on building my business (which is my value of doing meaningful work) and neglected the other areas of my life.

    Another example is a friend of mine who has two kids and highly values being a good mom. However, after a few years of taking care of everyone and not addressing her own needs and other desires—she stopped doing art, put her career on hold, and wasn’t taking much care of herself—she began feeling resentful toward her family. She was giving-giving-giving but not filling her own cup by honoring her other needs and desires.

    So focusing on just one of our values for a long time can create an imbalance in our life. That’s why step one of the value-centered living habit is to identify our top five values, not just the top one.

    Step 2: List actionable ways to honor your top values.

    Once you have identified your top five values, make them actionable by expressing them as verbs. For example, if one of your values is meaningful connections, you could phrase it as “connecting deeply and authentically.” Start each value statement with a verb.

    Next, specify more precisely how you can put each value into practice. For instance, for the value of connecting deeply and authentically, it could be:

    • Being fully present when interacting with someone—giving them my undivided attention
    • Listening with the intention to understand, not just to reply
    • Sharing my honest thoughts and feelings
    • Being open and vulnerable
    • Staying in touch with my closest friends and family by sending them messages and calling them regularly
    • Scheduling time every week for social activities

    Try writing at least five actions for each value. It’ll be helpful for step 3.

    Step 3: Do something daily to embody your top values.

    The last step is the value-centered living daily habit.

    Every morning, look at your list of actions you created in step 2, and decide what you’ll do to honor your top values.

    Personally, I write this in my journal. First, I write down my top five values as reminders, and then I write down what I’ll do to nurture each one that day.

    It doesn’t have to be complicated. For my value of meaningful relationships, I may just write a nice comment on a friend’s post. For self-care, I may go to a yoga class. For purposeful work, I may film a Tik Tok video.

    —

    This simple daily habit makes sure that we give attention to and nurture the most important things in our lives. Every single day, even if the day isn’t perfect, we are more likely to feel satisfied because we’re focusing on what matters to us.

    This simple practice has been a game-changer for me (thanks to Hal Elrod!), and I hope it can serve you too.

  • 5 Ways to Explore the World and Feel Excited About Life

    5 Ways to Explore the World and Feel Excited About Life

    “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”  ~Mark Twain

    In 2022, I wanted to quit my job and didn’t know why. I was about to embark on a six-week trip to a country I’d always wanted to visit—New Zealand—to work in sports TV production. I loved the people I worked with, the company I worked for, and the buzz I got from live TV. Still, it wasn’t enough. I needed to explore these feelings further.

    That word “exploration” was the key. It took me back to 2004, when I was in a hostel in Laguna Beach, an eighteen-year-old girl travelling alone. When I was growing up, I didn’t want to follow the traditional route of going to university just to find a corporate job, climb the career ladder, and retire with a good pension. The perfect path for many was not an option that excited me.

    I was travelling around the U.S. West Coast, hoping to find adventure and opportunities, but I knew I’d need to start seriously thinking about my future and next steps when I returned to London.

    I sat on Huntington Beach and spent some time thinking about what I wanted my life to look like. I wanted to work for a reputable company that could offer me travel opportunities. I couldn’t identify what I wanted to do with any precision, but I knew that was a good starting place.

    A few days later, on July 7, I was awakened in the early morning by a fellow Brit who informed me that terrorists had just attacked London. For the rest of the day, I was glued to the BBC, watching the tragedy unfold. In between the journalism, adverts depicted BBC correspondents working all over the world, and that’s when I thought the BBC might be the company for me.

    Several months later, I returned to London and applied to be a production team assistant for a BBC sister company. To my astonishment, I got the job. I was so excited! A new job, new people, and new opportunities.

    During my first week, I overheard my boss speaking on the phone with a friend in the BBC Sport division. She was preparing to travel to Germany to spend six weeks working on the FIFA World Cup. My mind exploded. That was the job I yearned for. I wanted to work in sports and travel to the most spectacular events on earth.

    I asked my boss if she could find out whom I could contact to get a foot in the door in that department. It wasn’t straightforward, but after several attempts and emails to their senior production manager, I was asked to come in for a coffee and informal chat.

    Fast forward eighteen years. I’ve travelled the globe to work on the biggest sporting events, from World Cups in South Africa and Brazil to the London Olympics, Euros in Poland and Ukraine, umpteen Formula 1 and Formula E races on five continents, sailing regattas off the coasts of Australia and the US, cricket in the Caribbean and New Zealand. And that’s just a partial list.

    Travel has shaped my life in so many ways. It has impacted my outlook on life, perspectives, relationships, and goals. It has taken me out of my comfort zone time and time again and allowed me to be inspired by new things.

    I have loved my job and still do, mostly, to this day. So it was a surprise to me when I felt the urge to hand in my notice.

    Truth be told, throughout my career, I’ve always been restless. I have consistently sought out new opportunities within the framework of my role. I’ve moved between companies, permanent contracts, temporary contracts, and freelancing. I’ve trained to become a teacher, left TV to work on sports documentaries, returned to TV, become a tutor as a side job, and set up my own business.

    It wasn’t that I was unhappy in TV production. I just love exploring and presenting myself with new learning environments. That eighteen-year-old in me who never wanted to follow the common path society can push us down still lives within me. And I wouldn’t change her for the world. If I’d never explored different paths, I never would have had the courage to create a lifestyle around my passions, purpose, and skills.

    Exploration is one of the greatest purposes of humankind. Everything we know about the world comes from those who explored before us. Discoveries in medicine, science, technology, religion, geography, space, and philosophy have changed the world for the better. They have led to greater equality of race and gender, alleviation of poverty, advances in health and education, tolerance and peace, and preservation of the environment.

    The world is constantly changing and developing because of our need to explore and continue learning, growing, creating, building, making, connecting, debating, and trying new things.

    So, if you’re feeling stuck and want more fulfilment in your day-to-day, it might be helpful to remember there’s a whole world out there to discover. Our time on Earth is finite. Life should be lived, explored, and enjoyed. Through exploration, you might just stumble across that sweet spot that lights you up and creates a new path for your future.

    Here are three reasons why I believe exploring and discovering new opportunities could be the recipe for a more fulfilled life:

    1. Exploration is a natural requirement for humanity.

    It is as necessary as warmth, love, food, and shelter. Exploration has been the driving force behind humankind since the dawn of time because it is at the centre of everything we do. We explore everything we do from the moment we are born through play, travel, work, speaking, writing, experimenting, singing, and interacting with each other. Let alone the preciousness of exploring the world through the eyes of our children.

    From religion to literature, politics to science, and design to philosophy, we are constantly asking questions and searching for new ways to develop our minds and abilities. There is no end to exploration. It is the driving force behind our survival as a race.

    2. Exploration creates more self-awareness, which I believe is a critical aspect of meaningful living.

    It allows people to understand their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for growth. By becoming more self-aware, you can gain a deeper understanding of your passions, values, and goals, and can make more intentional choices about how you live your life.

    3. Exploration inspires us and gives us hope for a better future.

    There is a vast world outside waiting to be explored. It offers adventures to be experienced, endless possibilities, stories to be created, and dreams waiting to come true.

    Having a curious and hungry mind allows you to discover goals and options that will bring you more fulfilment and happiness. You can chase your dreams with the comfort of knowing that it’s possible to understand almost anything. By constantly learning, you see what’s possible for yourself and others and alter your perspective of the world.

    Exploration doesn’t have to involve big steps such as quitting your job, moving countries, or travelling the world seeking adventure. Instead, we can seek exploration in our every day, and the good news is there are plenty of opportunities to explore and seek purpose wherever you are in life.

    Here are five ways you can implement exploration into your everyday lifestyle immediately.

    1. Look at your passions and interests and find a way to get more involved in them.

    Whatever interests you—art, animals, baking, singing, decorating, driving, teaching, embroidery, music, or sports to name a few—find a way to go and explore how to implement this into your daily or weekly routine.

    This could be interning, volunteering your time, picking up a book, subscribing to a podcast, emailing someone who is successful in that field, or taking a class. Getting involved in this area will open up your creative channels. The key is to allow yourself permission and time to experiment.

    2. Be spontaneous and get out of the humdrum routine and predictability of your daily life.

    Play a different radio station on your way to work, choose a brand new restaurant or cuisine on the weekend, walk a different route around your park, order something completely different off the menu, or choose a different vegetable to cook with each week. There are always surprises and fascinations in store for us if we are open to exploring new ways; we never know what we will discover.

    3. Connect with new like-minded people.

    You never know what conversation might spark a new thought or perspective. You can find inspiration from one word, a smile, or an interaction that can change your outlook on a situation. For example, buying from a local business instead of a corporate chain allows you to get to know the owner and the story behind their product. Their story might just inspire your exploration journey.

    4. Even if you can’t pack a suitcase and fly to far-off destinations, that doesn’t mean you can’t transport your mind to them.

    Movies, documentaries, TV shows, and books can all transport you into new worlds and cultures. Next time you settle down with a good book or in front of the TV, why not choose a new genre and be open to learning new things?

    5. Your clothes are one way to show the world what you stand for and who you are.

    Fashion has a huge impact on your mindset, mood, and confidence. Experiment with different clothing, mix and match what you already have, and play around with what makes you feel most confident so you’ll want to get out in the world and explore.

    —

    We can open the door to exploration in everyday life. After all, the reason for your exploration is not to discover your life’s purpose. The purpose of your life is to live it!

    Exploration is a continuous journey toward self-improvement and personal growth that allows you to live a life that is fulfilling and meaningful to you. Don’t give up on exploring what you want and pursuing your dreams. Your life is what you make it, and it’s worth trying to make it what you want it to be. So go! Explore and discover. Embrace the journey and enjoy the ride!

  • One Missing Ingredient in My Recovery and Why I Relapsed

    One Missing Ingredient in My Recovery and Why I Relapsed

    “The Phoenix must burn to emerge.” ~Janet Fitch

    Many people were shocked when I relapsed after twenty-three years of recovery. After all, I was the model of doing it right. I did everything I was told: went to treatment, followed instructions, prayed for help, and completed the assignments.

    After returning home from treatment, I joined a recovery program and went to therapy. Once again, I followed all the suggestions, which worked when it came to staying sober. I had no desire to drink or do drugs—well, at least for a long while.

    When I went to treatment, I was an emotional wreck. I would have done anything to get rid of the pain. But substances only intensified the pain and prevented healing.

    The worse I felt, the more I needed to medicate those emotions, but it was only causing the ache in my heart to be prolonged, driving me to suicidal thoughts. The moment I stopped using substances, the pain immediately subsided. I’d gone from struggling to get out of bed to engaging in my life fully.

    But going to treatment was only the tip of the iceberg. There was something much deeper underneath my addiction that I wrongly thought a relationship could fix. There was an underlying malaise and sense of shame I couldn’t identify. I knew something was wrong, so I kept searching for answers but couldn’t find the magic formula.

    Without the solution, relapse was inevitable.

    Most recovery programs address a single addiction, but I had many. After two years of sobriety, I stopped smoking but then started compulsive exercising. I didn’t eat right, spent too much, was codependent with needy people, and went from one addictive relationship to the next, never healthy enough to attract someone who could problem solve with me.

    I didn’t realize I was still substituting addictions for love.

    I wanted to make up for my troubled childhood, and I thought getting married and having kids would fix the problem, but after several attempts, it only made me feel more inadequate. Worse, I was a therapist and felt like a hypocrite. It wasn’t like I didn’t work at getting better; self-help was like a part-time job

    I spent decades in different kinds of therapy, not only as a patient but expanding my education in other modalities. I attended dozens of workshops and seminars doing inner-child work. I fully immersed myself in over twenty years of therapy, including psychoanalysis. My toolbox was overflowing, but I still felt disconnected for some reason.

    I didn’t realize those tools weren’t teaching me how to love myself.

    My journey took me on a lifelong spiritual quest. I found a higher power in recovery. I attended various churches and did some mission work in Haiti. I went to Brazil to be healed by John of God (later convicted of multiple cases of sexual abuse), on to a spiritual quest in Peru, on a visit to the Holy Land in Israel, and to Fiji to find my destiny but still felt something was missing.

    I read every spirituality book I could get my hands on and studied A Course in Miracles, but I was still disconnected from myself and others.

    Discouraged, I began to drift further away from all sources of help. I resigned myself to being an unhealed healer.

    I didn’t realize that all the therapy and spirituality were simply another form of addiction for me.

    Relapse began when I got breast cancer and was prescribed opiates after surgery. I got a taste of that forgotten high and made sure I took all the pills, whether I needed them or not. I also forgot how mood-altering substances affected my judgment.

    Instead of facing my fears about being ill and moving forward with my life, I reconciled with my ex-husband. I had little to no regard for how this affected my children. Like a piece of dust suctioned into a vacuum, despite feeling uncomfortable, I allowed my thoughts to suck me back into unhealthy choices—all the while in therapy.

    The next seven years were dark. Another divorce was followed by my former husband’s death, though I was grateful to bring him to our home and care for him until he passed. Then, a fire turned our newly renovated home into a mass of black and burnt-out walls, forcing another relocation for myself and youngest. Soon after, one of my businesses suffered severe damage from another fire resulting in six months of work and restoration.

    Three devastating hurricanes over two years damaged our home and business. One caused the foyer ceiling to cave in, another landed a large tree on our roof, and the third made our yard look like it had been run through a giant blender. One of my businesses was twice flooded and everything had to be thrown away.

    Soon after, our home was ransacked and burglarized. The stress of managing repairs, insurance claims, child-rearing, and working full-time felt like I was repeatedly set on fire and drowned.

    I kept trying to get better but felt emotionally shredded from the struggle. Desperate for support, poor decisions kept me in a whirlwind of insanity—more bad relationships. I was tired of trying, sick of hurting, and anger brewed within me.

    I stopped therapy, recovery meetings, and my spiritual quest, and decided to throw it all away. I went on a rebellious rampage. I’d been married at age sixteen and had a child, and now I was entirely alone. I decided to return to my pre-recovery lifestyle and live it up.

    Looking back, I lived a dual life of selfishness and a thirty-year career of helping others. I was self-will run riot but couldn’t see myself. I’d lived a life of making things happen and simultaneously wondered why my higher power didn’t deliver everything I wanted.

    Spirituality is a tricky thing. It’s so easy to think that God or some higher power is in control, but I believe, with free will, it’s a collaborative effort. Do the footwork and wait… if only I’d waited; impatience was my Achilles heel.

    My party life added a new heap of problems: disappointed children, bad judgment, and wrecked relationships. It didn’t take long to wind up in the same place that took me to treatment twenty-three years earlier, an emotional bottom. But this time, I was ready for the miracle of change.

    I finally found the missing ingredient to a happy life.

    The night was pitch black as I drove around emotionally deranged from grief and substances. After a near accident, I pulled into a parking lot and sobbed uncontrollably. I railed, “Whatever you are out there, why did you abandon me? Why haven’t you helped me? Why don’t you love me?”

    Immediately, a thought shot through my brain like an arrow through a cloud. “It’s not me that doesn’t love you. You don’t love yourself.” And for the first time in my life, I realized two things: I didn’t love myself and didn’t know what loving myself even meant.

    How would I learn to love myself? It never occurred to me that I didn’t. But now, I was armed with the missing ingredient to my happiness, and I intended to figure it out.

    Psychoanalysts are taught the importance of an infant’s basic needs for nurturing and bonding, but I’d never applied any of those concepts to myself. There were some missing parts in my childhood, so I had to learn how to provide for my physical, emotional, and spiritual needs,  as well as get proper nutrition, rest, and activity, in addition to responsibilities, play time, creative and quiet time, gratitude and appreciation, and loss of tolerance for unkind behavior (to and from others), all of which places I started the journey to self-love.

    I let go of what I wanted and focused on doing the next right thing for myself and others. The results were miraculous; peace engulfed me for the first time. By being the love I’d always wanted, I felt loved.

    I was always a doer and thought that spirituality was like getting a degree. Follow the steps, and everything will be okay. Whether or not that’s true, there’s a lot more to staying sober than following a set of directions. It’s important to find a higher power, clean up our act, apologize to those we’ve hurt, and stop using, but that won’t keep us sober if we don’t know how to love ourselves. My higher power became love.

    Correct behavior and self-love are not the same. Loving oneself starts with giving thanks to the sunrise and the sunset, cuddling with your pillow and those you love, acknowledging a universal intelligence and trusting guidance from your conscience, discovering and loving your mission, and nourishing your body, mind, and soul.

    Feed your body with nontoxic food; feed your mind with positive, stimulating information; and feed your soul with nature, good friends, healthy partners, and a higher power (of your own understanding) that inspires and uplifts you.

    If you’ve struggled with staying sober, you probably haven’t learned to love yourself. It’s never too late to start. When I started loving myself like a small child, I lost all substitutes for that godly love, and I finally began to blossom and grow.

    It took decades of failure to discover the missing ingredient to staying sober. I had to learn that love isn’t something I get. Love is an action I give to myself and others.

    Through being the love that I want, I then receive love. There’s a difference between staying sober and recovering. For all like me, who failed to stay sober, learn how to love yourself and then you will recover from the lack of self-love at the root of this tragic disease.

    It’s not enough to just stay sober, and life without happiness makes no sense. You were meant to have a life of love and joy. If you’ve tried everything and something’s still missing, try learning how to love.

  • An Unexpected Place to Find Kindness: What Made Me Feel Like I Belong

    An Unexpected Place to Find Kindness: What Made Me Feel Like I Belong

    “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” ~Mother Teresa

    Routines are important to me. I rely on certain things to bring me back home to myself; to feel clear and open in my mind, body, and heart.

    One of the activities that bring steadiness to my life is swimming. It’s one of my greatest pleasures. There is something magical to me about the feeling of water on my skin, the repetition of the arm strokes that calm my mind, the sound of my breath that relaxes my body, and the rays of sunlight that reflect off the water.

    I rely on swimming three mornings a week. I like to say it gets me back in my lane or it keeps me out of the others’ lanes.

    I showed up to my local pool several weeks ago—pool closed due to mechanical issues.

    It was just supposed to be for a few days. I told myself that it was a gift to give my body a rest from swimming. Over the next few days, I told myself that this time allowed me to help a loved one who needed extra care. But as more time passed, I couldn’t find a reason to find peace without swimming. I missed it.

    I found another pool a bit farther away from my home. Though I felt irritated that I had to go to another pool and create a new routine, I chose my love for swimming over any of the inconveniences.

    After my first swim, an employee ran over to me and said, “I’d like to introduce myself and welcome you to our pool. It’s wonderful to have more lap swimmers here.” We connected over our love for swimming.

    I left feeling a little more cheerful than I usually do after a swim, and I am already pretty cheerful after swimming.

    I came back the following week, and after finishing my swim was greeted by the water aerobics women. As I got out of the pool, they chatted with me about swimming and how they want to learn to do laps.

    Over the next few weeks, I began to notice that every time I left swimming, I was a bit more cheerful.

    One morning, as the aerobics women came into the pool, I noticed that they greeted each other with hugs and kisses (yes, in the pool at 9:00 a.m.).  I asked the lifeguard, “Does this always happen?” 

    He replied, “Sure does.”

    In the locker room women hum songs, tell me to have a blessed day, and chat with me about all sorts of things as I shower. I don’t know anyone personally, and yet they are undeniably kind and warm to me.

    Just this past week a woman belted out in the locker room I AM BEAUTIFUL. I couldn’t help but feel completely overjoyed at this women’s confidence and radiance.

    I have been noticing how I’ve been feeling after swimming, and I have become curious about what’s contributed to the fact I haven’t checked if my pool has reopened.

    It’s the women. It’s the kindness. It’s the singing. It’s the joyful greetings. It’s the curiosity.

    While I only know two women by name, they know even less about me and how the things they have been doing for many years have been bringing an extra dose of cheer into my life.

    It has not been easy for me living in a neighborhood that is known for intergenerational legacies of families living here. I didn’t come from this neighborhood. Even though I have been here for eighteen years, feeling like I fit in has been a private struggle that I don’t often share with others.

    In this pool, a short drive from my home, in another neighborhood, I have found a place that I need more of in my life. 

    We all want to find our people; we all want to belong.

    Sometimes we don’t actually know how much pain we hold until we are blessed with the one thing that has been missing—kindness.

    And with that kindness, the protection starts to soften and the hurts come to the surface. We realize that’s just what our heart was holding all of these years.

    In my mind, I’ve known the story of the past eighteen years of living in a place I don’t really feel like I fit.

    I’ve worked with the beliefs. I’ve taken responsibility for what is mine to learn, heal, and grow from. I’ve also come to accept that this was what life gave me and that even in not feeling like I belong, there have been tremendous gifts and blessings these past years.

    But it is also true that we need to give words to our truth. I want to belong. It is a human birthright to belong. We are designed to belong to groups of human beings.

    We see people through our own lens and make up stories about them that aren’t necessarily true. I am grateful that these women at the pool didn’t make up a story about me and instead treated me with kindness.

    They could have easily made up a story about me. They are black, and I am white. They know I am not from their neighborhood, but instead, they saw past what I looked like and opened their hearts to me. They sang to me in the shower, blessed my day with prayers, and wished me well for the rest of my day.

    None of us know the story of someone’s insides. None of us know how simple acts of kindness and inclusion can make someone feel like they belong.

    Sometimes the people that we least expect to make a difference in our lives do. We are all capable of this.

    We all live with a protected heart in some ways; none of us are free from hurts. If I hadn’t sat with the pain of not belonging and feeling disappointed in past relationships, my heart may have been impenetrable. I had to learn to be there for myself with kindness before I could allow others to be there for me. I think this is true for all of us.

    Sometimes the simple gesture of placing your hand on your heart and saying to yourself, “I am here for you” is a great act of kindness and allows the unexpected joys of life to be felt when you least expect them.

  • How I’m Accepting the Uncertain Future (with Less Worry and More Joy)

    How I’m Accepting the Uncertain Future (with Less Worry and More Joy)

    “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” ~Ferris Bueller

    For as long as I can remember, my life has consisted of change.

    I grew up moving around the world. I went from Canada to Pakistan, Egypt to Jamaica, Ghana to Ukraine, and then finally China to Australia.

    Moving to new countries and adapting to new cultures is like a cold plunge to your entire system and way of being. I felt I had no choice but to fit in as quickly as possible.

    By the age of six or seven years old, I pre-empted every move by being constantly prepared. I thought about every possible scenario and planned in detail how I would survive. This technique served me well as I bounced around the world, saying goodbye to my best friends and immersing myself in a whole new culture, time and time again.

    However, when I became an adult and had control over my life, I no longer needed to plan and prepare for my next move. I could live where I wanted. I could stay where I wanted. Yet my overthinking and planning continued.

    Even if I had no intention of moving to another country, my body prepared me for it anyway. It served me up a million scenarios; it prepared me for the heartbreaking goodbyes and the awkward hellos.

    I became addicted to thinking, and not the kind of thinking that earns you academic achievements. It was the kind of thinking that was built by years of worry. But the thing about worry is that it feels like productivity when in reality it’s a depleting sense of anxiety.

    It feels like I’m doing the right thing by planning ahead, and for many years I felt like this was a very good, honest way to spend my time. It seemed very normal to plan every little part of my life in infinite detail and would-be scenarios. I mean, doesn’t everyone do that?

    Apparently not. Apparently, some people deal with every situation as it comes. They don’t spend any time preemptively worrying about things before they happen or imagining all the possible scenarios that could unfold.

    Instead, these particular people go about their daily life, and once they encounter a challenge, they deal with it in the moment. They just handle the situation and then move on. I can’t even imagine how calm and pleasant it must feel to have a mind like that.

    Right now, we are in the middle of a crossroads, yet again. We are expats living in a country far away from any family and raising our young daughter on our own.

    We’re debating whether to move closer to my husband’s family or closer to mine. We’re trying to figure out what jobs we could get and how much they could pay and if we need to go back to school. We want to do what’s best for our daughter, but also for us. We want to stick to our values, but we know we can’t have it all. We’re aware we need to compromise and sacrifice something.

    My old self is rearing to plan, prepare, and organize my potential new life. It’s constantly on overdrive waiting to pounce and dive down a rabbit hole of overthinking. It hates living in uncertainty. But with this many potential scenarios, my head will explode if I sit down and think about every single one of them. Not to mention the life I will miss out on now by thinking about the life that awaits me.

    Right now, it’s summer in Australia. The days are long and warm and humid, just the way I like it. As much as I feel like I need to spend every single waking moment planning and worrying, I also want to enjoy my life now.

    The other day I went to the beach with my husband and one-year-old daughter. It was a sunny, hot day, and as we were getting ready to go, I began worrying if we’d ever find parking. “It’s okay. If there’s no parking, then we’ll just go home,” I told myself reassuringly.

    We drove to the beach, and miraculously we found parking extremely close to the water. I found a little, tiny spot under a rock with shade to ensure no one would get burned. My husband took my daughter, and off they went in the water.

    I stood back under the shade with my long-sleeved shirt and responsible hat, taking photos of them as I always do. A cheerful voice inside of me said, “Go swimming. Let’s enjoy the sun!” For the first time in a long time, I decided to go into the water.

    The water was a bit cold; I prefer when it’s very warm, but I paddled around anyway. I disregarded any fear of sharks, any fears of getting burned, and just enjoyed the water.

    My husband wanted to do a few laps, so I took my daughter and sat on the shore with her. Gentle waves crashed at our feet, and she looked up at me and smiled.

    I grabbed a fistful of wet sand, and my daughter stared in amazement as it formed into intricate blobs on my bare legs. I normally hate the feeling of sand on my body, but in that moment I didn’t even notice. She squealed in delight as I started to build little sandcastles on her legs.

    I remembered that I hadn’t put sunscreen on my back, and I’m very pedantic about sunscreen. I wondered if we should move to the little shady spot I found up on dry sand. But we were having so much fun there I didn’t want to leave. I could tell my daughter didn’t either. So we stayed.

    The waves came again and again, washing away the sandcastles we built. My husband came out of the water and joined us. I felt so much love and happiness in that moment. I wanted to run to my purse and get a photo of how happy we were. But instead, I sat there continuing to build sandcastles.

    When we finally got home, my back was burnt. Normally this would really concern me. I have known people who have died of skin cancer, and I do everything I possibly can to avoid a burn. But on this very day, I let myself be sunburnt. I let it be okay.

    I had so much fun at the beach that reflecting on it left me with tears in my eyes. I cannot remember the last time I was so fully present, alive, and engaged.

    So often the voice of anxiety is pulling me away from my life and trying to protect me by forcing me to think about all the things that could go wrong and how best to avoid them. For once, I didn’t let that voice win, and it wasn’t a battle. It was a natural feeling of allowing another voice, the one of calm, to take center stage.

    I know I can’t plan for everything. But I’m trying to take confident strides in the direction of what feels right, moment by moment. Believing that whatever comes, I can handle it. Life happens fast, and I don’t want to miss these many special moments building castles in the sand with my little family.

  • How I Stopped Worrying About Running Out of Time to Achieve My Goals

    How I Stopped Worrying About Running Out of Time to Achieve My Goals

    “The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That’s all there ever is.” ~Alan Watts

    One thing that is promised to each one of us in life is death. No one will avoid dying or feeling the pain of losing others. From a young age I remember being aware of this fact, and it scared me.

    As I got older, I began to feel a sense of pressure that I was running out of time and loss was imminent. The thought of losing my loved ones and the uncertainty of what may happen worried me. I wanted to avoid the feelings of loss and limitation, so I unconsciously began to move faster.

    There was a deep fear that if things didn’t happen fast, they would not happen at all and that I wouldn’t have enough time.

    Faster became better, and I started the hamster race of working hard to achieve my dreams. Whether that was finishing school, starting a career, being in a healthy relationship, starting a family, being fit… even my spiritual journey became a race to happiness that only existed in the future!

    I realized later in life that this mindset was born out of fear—the fear of loss, the fear of the unknown—and protection from these fears was a quick accomplishment. It created an immense amount of stress and suffering because all goals and dreams take time to build.

    I believed sooner was better, and if it wasn’t fast then it wasn’t happening at all. I began to find reasons for why it wasn’t happening—that I was not good enough, life was unfair and hard, and it was not possible for me. Each time I repeated these limiting beliefs, I took one step away from my dreams and developed more anxiety.

    This led to a cycle of starting, quitting, and then searching for something different. I would garner the courage to start something new only to fall flat on my face when it didn’t happen. The cycle of shame would repeat, impacting my mental health and my ability to move forward.

    I wanted to see proof that I was achieving my goals and searched for tangible evidence to feel good while simultaneously ignoring all the wonderful things that were right before my eyes. Like living near the ocean, spending time with my loved ones, talking walks along the coast, having meaningful conversations with friends, and enjoying moments of quiet with my favorite cup of coffee. These mean so much to me now.

    I wanted the degree, the paycheck, the happy photo of me surrounded by friends, rather than the silence of uncertainty and the impatience I felt in the present. My fear of time took away the only real time that existed, the now.

    When I slowed down and paused, I realized that I had experienced so much growth and expansion in all the years I’d thought I was wasting time. Every roadblock had challenged me to change. In fact, my anxiety, fear, and disappointment around my slow progress led me inward to heal my relationship with time.

    Though many of my dreams did come true, I was only able to recognize them when I slowed down and let go of the “when.”

    I was able to achieve this by practicing meditation, breathwork, and awareness. With time and consistency, the present moment became filled with color, and its beauty swept me away from the ticking time bomb of the future. I began to enjoy each step of my journey, whether it was the beginning or end.

    With the gift of hindsight, I can see that it is not about the “when” but about the “what.” What I’m doing right now in the present. The number of negative and limiting beliefs I placed upon myself and the shame I felt were due to an emphasis on always “thinking forward,” and a lack of being with myself in the present.

    The truth is when we let go of our misconceptions of time and follow our dreams patiently, we see that time is not against us; the process is a necessary part of our journey.

    The time it takes to reach our goals is not empty; it is filled with learning and unlearning so that we find ourselves. In the end it is not the achievement that leads to freedom, but the wisdom that comes from living life.

    If we make the present moment our friend rather than our foe, we can experience and appreciate our present journey rather than focusing on our arrival.

  • The 3 Ms That Help Me Cope with Seasonal Depression

    The 3 Ms That Help Me Cope with Seasonal Depression

    “The word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” ~Carl Jung

    My two-year-old son looked up at me with his big, blue, beautiful eyes.

    He wanted me to play. I took a toy car in my hand and rolled it along the wooden living room floor we were both sitting on, making an enthusiastic VROOM as I did it. He smiled. He appreciated my effort at sound effects.

    The streetlights standing on the road outside our living room window were already glowing warmly, even though it was barely 4:30 p.m. and the sky was black.

    I miss the summer evenings, I sighed to myself.

    I stared up and out at the darkness briefly before Henry demanded my attention and I found myself looking down, playing cars again. I smiled up at him, doing my best to appear happy. To make him feel like I was enjoying playing cars with him.

    The truth is, I didn’t feel enjoyment playing with him.

    For a few weeks at this point I hadn’t felt much enjoyment from anything.

    I was going through the motions. Attending to my familial and professional responsibilities as best I could. All the while, longing to be back in bed so I could sleep. Except, upon waking up, I never felt fully rested. I was instantly greeted by the same familiar feelings of fogginess, emptiness, and numbness.

    Every morning as I got dressed, it felt like I was dressing myself in armor. Like the knights would wear in the movies I watched as a boy. A heavy metal armor that made the simplest of movements, like getting out of bed in the morning and playing cars with my son, feel like a battle that required all the strength I could muster.

    I’ve suffered from seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression, for all of my adult life, but the winter of 2021 was the worst episode to date.

    I put it down to a combination of sleep deprivation from being a parent to a toddler (I now understand why sleep deprivation is used as a torture technique), ongoing physical and mental challenges with long COVID, and uncertainty around whether I’d see family over the Christmas period due to lockdown restrictions.

    As the darker days descend, I’m preparing myself for another potential battle.

    I know I don’t need to fight this battle alone, so I’ll be calling on my friends and family to support me, as well as working with a therapist who formerly helped me process my experience.

    There were three focuses that helped me get through the depressive episode last year. Here they are, the 3 Ms.

    1. Mindfulness

    Writer Rolf Dobelli suggests that we are two selves—the remembering self and the experiencing self.

    Our remembering self is our story—who we think we are based on our past. My remembering self tells me I’m English, I love a double espresso, and have a history of anxiety and depression.

    My experiencing self is different. My experiencing self is the me who is here, right now.

    Experiencing myself writing.

    Aware of the tapping sound my fingers make as they dance along the keyboard as I type.

    Aware that my heart is beating slightly faster than usual, probably due to the chocolate I scarfed down a few minutes ago.

    Aware of feeling vulnerable as I write about seasonal affective disorder.

    Our experiencing self exists moment to moment, whereas the remembering self only exists in the past, through thought.

    This idea was helpful to me during my 2021 depressive episode because it reminded me that I’m more than a depressed person (which would be a story from my remembering self); I’m a person who feels a lot of sadness, as well as many other feelings and emotions, some that feel comfortable, some that feel uncomfortable.

    Back then, I’d take time each day to practice a mindfulness meditation. Sitting for five minutes, simply observing how I was feeling, importantly, without judgment.

    Noticing what my mind was focusing on, as well as bringing awareness to my emotional state and breath.

    I’d cultivate an attitude of compassion toward myself, avoiding firing the second arrow that’s taught in Buddhism, and not feeling bad for feeling bad.

    I’d simply accept how I felt in the moment and allow myself to feel sad, helpless, and hopeless, without judgment, knowing that my feelings are always fleeting.

    2. Meaning

    The second M that helped me was meaning.

    We’re told the meaning of life is to be happy. But there are going to be periods when we’re simply not going to feel happy. This doesn’t have to mean our life becomes meaningless; instead, it’s in our moments of unhappiness that it’s best to focus on what brings our life meaning.

    Even though I don’t always enjoy playing cars with my son, raising him and spending time with him and his mum gives my life tremendous meaning.

    Some mornings last winter I didn’t feel like getting up, and if I lived alone, I probably would have stayed in bed. But knowing my son and wife were depending on me, I felt a sense of duty to show up and be the best dad and husband I could be given my struggles.

    I showed compassion toward myself by not believing any thoughts saying I needed to be perfect. Instead of choosing to feel ashamed for how I felt, which would make me feel like withdrawing, choosing self-compassion helped me to tackle my various responsibilities but also be realistic and not over-commit.

    It meant honest communication and being okay with doing less than I normally would. I made a Top Ten Actions List by asking myself, what are the most important actions to take today to look after myself and address my responsibilities?

    I also made a list of all the people, places, and activities that give my life meaning and breathe life into my soul and aimed to dedicate time toward them each day. Having a clear and achievable focus was helpful, and as the depression slowly lifted, I was able to return to my normal level of action.

    3. Moments of Joy

    Like the streetlamp I watched glowing warmly from my living window, there were moments during the depressive episode that pierced through the surrounding darkness.

    The sound of my son’s laughter as he chuckled hysterically.

    Feeling the peace and stillness of the forest on my walk.

    Being reunited with friends after lockdown and catching up over a coffee.

    The wisest words I’ve ever heard were these: Look for the good in your life, and you’ll see the good in your life.

    This isn’t a matter of positive thinking—it’s a matter of acknowledgement.

    Even on the days when my mood was at its lowest, there were a handful of joyous moments shaking me temporarily from my depressed state and waking me up to the truth that even on the darkest of nights, there are lights shining for us.

    These lights, the people and events bringing joy to our life, are little beacons of hope, reasons to be appreciative. And basking in their warmth momentarily can keep us trudging along in the darkness until, hopefully, a day arrives when it lifts and the sun rises again.

    At the end of each day last winter, I’d take a minute to write down any joyous moments and bask in their warmth again as I revisited them in my mind.

    —

    The most challenging aspect of depression is how it tries to convince us that not only is everything bad, but everything will stay bad permanently.

    Through focusing on mindfulness, meaning, and moments of joy, fortunately, I was able to see again that this isn’t true.

  • Mindful Forgiveness: 4 Steps to Unlock the Healing Power of Your Mind

    Mindful Forgiveness: 4 Steps to Unlock the Healing Power of Your Mind

    “The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” ~Steve Maraboli

    The key to healing is learning to let go of negative thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness will allow you to be aware of your thoughts and feelings; forgiveness will help in letting them go.

    Simple as it is in theory, putting it into practice may be harder.

    Mindfulness, being aware of your thoughts and feelings in the present moment, is not that difficult. But the trick is to do it amidst the chaos of our modern way of living.

    Forgiveness is even harder. Our mind sees the events of the past as lessons that are beneficial for our survival and wants to hold on to painful and irritating memories.

    But in the modern world, we rarely need this primal safety mechanism, and the grudges we hold hurt us more than they do good.

    What’s worse, the things we have done, or others have done to us, often make us angry. Anger can be a severely damaging mental condition; not only damaging to our minds but also to our bodies.

    However, taking the time to consciously combine mindfulness with forgiveness will open the way to profound emotional and physical healing, and will eventually lead to a joyful and healthy life.

    Being mindful of your thoughts and feelings will allow you to confront them instead of repressing them. Once confronted, the events that cause those thoughts and feelings can be examined and forgiven.

    I learned this the hard way, but now I want to share what I know so that you can skip the painful part.

    Pain is Often a Prompt to Grow

    Just a few years ago, I thought I had life figured out. I had done everything ‘right,’ succeeded in achieving my goals, and therefore, I expected to be happy.

    After years of rigorous studying, I landed a job at a corporate bank. It was everything I had ever dreamed of. I could finally afford a fancy car. I was surrounded by amazing people. I went to parties, traveled, and had fun. Life was (supposed to be) pretty sweet.

    As fun as it was, it was not healthy in any way. My health started to deteriorate quickly. I gained over thirty pounds, started to have pains in my back and legs, and was always tired.

    What’s worse is that no matter what I did, I could not be happy. I was constantly irritated or anxious and had no idea what was causing these feelings.

    Then one day a realization hit me: I was completely miserable.

    Why was I not feeling any joy in life? I could not understand what the matter was. There was no reason for me to feel how I did. I was doing everything that I had learned was supposed to bring me happiness, yet I still wasn’t happy.

    So there I was: a young man in my mid-thirties, gaining weight, feeling miserable, and losing my mental and physical health in the process.

    I had no idea how to deal with any of this. How was I supposed to deal with my anxious and angry mind when I had never learned to deal with my emotions, let alone express them in a healthy way? The only solution for me was to not confront my feelings at all.

    Before long, I developed a heart arrhythmia, which felt really uncomfortable, especially when trying to sleep. My pulse rate went up to 120 bpm and did not come down no matter how I tried to relax. Sometimes it felt like my heart would stop beating for brief periods of time.

    So I went to a hospital, but the doctor who examined me told me that he couldn’t determine the cause. Physically I was fine, and my EKG was perfect. Like taken from the pages of an anatomy textbook.

    This was, of course, very puzzling. How could my heart seem to be healthy when I was clearly suffering from arrhythmias?

    Lying there in the hospital bed, I had time to think deeply about life. And after some pondering, the answer became obvious.

    Illness Is Created First in the Mind

    My condition was psychosomatic. I understood that my inability to deal with my emotions was piling up negative thoughts and beliefs in my mind, which caused my body to react in a negative way. I had refused to be mindful of my thoughts and feelings, thus being unable to let go of them.

    Only when I was forced to stop and listen to how I truly felt could I find this answer. It was a hard and mandatory lesson in mindfulness, one that still sticks with me today.

    So I decided to confront my negative thoughts and emotions. The process was simple: Stop and take a deep breath. Be still and focus on breathing in and out slowly. Then tune in to how I feel. What are these feelings? Why am I feeling them? What are they trying to tell me?

    I noticed that under the surface, my most dominant feeling was anger.

    I was angry with myself. Why was I not able to deal with my emotions? Why hadn’t I listened to how I felt and tried to repress my emotions instead? Why did I let the situation get so bad?

    I was angry with my parents and teachers. Why didn’t they show me how to express emotions in a healthy way? All I was ever told was “crying is weakness,” and “being angry is not okay; go to your room until you calm down.” Sometimes it was not even okay to show love or affection. So I learned to repress my emotions.

    I was also angry with society. I felt that the only thing I had ever heard about how to be happy was wrong. I did not find happiness by achieving goals or getting material wealth, as is so often taught by society (and everyone else around us for that matter). I had the education, the career, the money, the car, and so on. Yet I was miserable.

    But I knew that it was not necessary to be angry with myself or others. I was only doing what I had learned was right. Likewise, what others had taught me about life, feelings, and happiness was what they had learned themselves. They did not know any better, and their intentions were good.

    So I decided to start forgiving. I used mindfulness meditation to connect to my thoughts and feelings.

    And when I was deeply immersed in my mindfulness meditation and focused on a feeling, often a memory popped into my mind. It was something that someone had said or done that had made me feel angry or afraid.

    I then “healed the memory” through an exercise where I forgave the people involved.

    And wouldn’t you know it, when I started to forgive the things that I or others had done in the past, I healed almost instantly.

    I got rid of all the pain in my mind and body, and there was no sign of arrhythmia anymore. I almost couldn’t believe it. With this simple combination of mindfully identifying thoughts and feelings, then forgiving the people that caused them, I healed my body in two days.

    Two days. That’s all it took to heal over ten years of neglect.

    I also found my mental well-being improving by leaps and bounds. I felt peaceful and happy. I started to see the joy in everyday moments, which I hadn’t for years. I realized that the opportunity to feel joyful was always there, but I’d been so occupied with the past and the future that I was unable to see it.

    The 4 Levels of Forgiveness

    This is what I did, and you can try this too.

    1. Forgive yourself for what you did to yourself.
    2. Forgive yourself for what you did to someone else.
    3. Forgive others for what they did to you.
    4. Forgive others for everything they have done.

    Start with level one and work your way through the levels. With this exercise, you will start to feel better in a matter of days.

    For levels one and two, forgiving yourself, try this simple exercise:

    Think about something you regret. Stand in front of a mirror, look yourself in the eyes, and say, “I forgive you. You did the best you could at the moment. You didn’t know any better.” Repeat this in your mind, or even better, say it out loud. Do it at least five times. After you are done, close your eyes and take a deep breath. Relax.

    This might be the hardest one of the exercises. For some reason, we tend to hold a grudge against our past selves. But it doesn’t do any good to be unforgiving. For a long time, I was guilty of thinking, “I’ll never forgive myself for what I did!” But as I started to do this exercise just once a day, I quickly started to feel like a weight was being lifted off my shoulders.

    For levels three and four, forgiving others, try this quick meditation:

    Close your eyes and relax. Breathe in and out slowly three times. Think about a memory that’s bothering you. Imagine the situation as vividly as possible and pay close attention to the person that’s the cause of your negative feeling.

    Then, imagine the scene you are in starts to fill with bright, warm light. Like the midday sun on a beautiful summer day. Imagine yourself approaching the person that’s causing the suffering and saying to them, “I forgive you. You did the best you could at the moment. You didn’t know any better.” Then imagine giving them a warm, loving, forgiving hug.

    If you feel like you need help with this, you can imagine anyone you want, even multiple people, there with you to give their support. If you so choose, you may even bring to the scene a higher power to help you.

    Done! Open your eyes and take a deep breath. Relax. You may already feel a little lighter, but don’t worry if this takes several tries. It may not be instantaneous or easy, but it’s definitely worth it.

    Everyone Is Doing Their Best (Including You)

    Forgive yourself for not knowing any better at the time. Forgive others for acting the only way they knew how. You acted the way you had learned, and so did everyone else. Please don’t blame yourself and try to forgive others for their behavior. By holding on to fear, anger, or hate, you will ultimately hurt yourself.

    Forgiveness will give you peace of mind. It will allow you to live mindfully and enjoy the moment, which you now understand as a perfect opportunity to express who you are. You will be able to let go of the past and stop worrying about the future, and your life will start to fill with peace and joy.

  • Stay in the Right Lane: Let Yourself Slow Down and Enjoy Life

    Stay in the Right Lane: Let Yourself Slow Down and Enjoy Life

    “I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” ~Diane Ackerman

    Wow! My last weeks of my career. Though many days and weeks over the last thirty-four years have seemed to last forever, it truly is astonishing how fast time goes. And don’t we often try to make it go even faster?

    Our jobs are stressful. We are often under tight time constraints and deadlines. We have clients and associates who want and need things yesterday.

    We work in jobs we have very little control over. Add that to our daily responsibilities as parents, spouses, partners, friends, children to aging parents and—not to be forgotten—ourselves. It’s a lot.

    Maybe you are like me. When I was younger, I too often:

    • wanted to fast-forward to a new day, a new week, or a new season of life
    • wished time away
    • focused on that vacation that was months away
    • couldn’t wait until my kids were older
    • had my eye on that next job
    • sought to get through tough circumstances I was facing, or
    • desired to be where someone else was in life

    What did it cost me? Memories and opportunities. I don’t remember many details of when my kids were growing up because I was always thinking ahead. I was not in the moment.

    I missed opportunities to learn and grow because I was always focused on that next thing instead of learning what could help me in that next thing.

    I missed all the beauty this earth has to offer because I was driving too fast.

    It cost me time. I wished away something I can never get back. It cost me the fun of simply living life, my life.

    It has taken me sixty-five years on earth to figure out how to make every moment count. And, if I’m honest, it’s something I must work at every day.

    “Don’t focus on making each moment perfect, focus on the perfection each moment provides, be it a good one, or not so good one.” ~Jenna Kutcher

    Notice that I didn’t say “make every moment happy, productive, or memorable.” Just make it count. Be in it. Live it.

    There are many moments that aren’t happy. In fact, they can be downright sorrowful or exhausting. But, at the same time, they help shape you and enable you to grow.

    I missed many good moments in my life because I was too focused on making the ending happy or perfect to enjoy what was happening right before my eyes.

    A few years ago, my son and I met up with a good friend of mine. We started talking about our kids and what fun it was to go to all of their events when they were younger. I was pounding my chest by bragging about being at all of their events.

    My son, to his credit, challenged me. He said I was there physically, but I wasn’t really there. He told my friend I was always on my phone, or otherwise preoccupied. He was right. I was there but I can’t tell you about the goals they scored, the amazing moves they made, or the songs they sang. It was like a dagger went through my heart. But it was true.

    My dear friend Doug told me a great way he is trying to live right now. He said, “stay in the right lane.” I love that. We often want to get somewhere fast, so we pull into the left lane and zoom past everything to get to the destination. 

    I did that most of my life, in all areas of my life. As I start to live in the right lane, I am having an easier time being more in the moment. I am being intentional.

    I start my day with a routine of praying, journaling, exercising, and setting my focus to not be on one or two things, but to be awed by the wonder of what I might encounter. I intentionally set aside days where I do not have a set schedule.

    As I am more in the moment, I am experiencing all sorts of beauty, joy, amazement, clarity, purposefulness, happiness, and opportunity.

    When you look at my photo library, you will see mostly pictures of bugs, birds, flowers, and trees from my walks. My mind has space to be creative and I am finding clarity on the things I want to do in this season of life, for me. My relationships are flourishing because I am actually there, truly experiencing another person.

    Being present has also allowed me to see myself for more of who I am. I have often said I never felt I was good enough. I felt I had to do more in order to be enough. Now that I have more clarity on who I am, I want to do more, because I am enough. I realize that no matter what I do from here on out, I am good enough. Because of who I am, not what I do.

    Many have asked what I will do in retirement. Like, retirement is the end, so how will you live to the end? I am looking at it more as a transition into the next leg of my journey.

    I am going to continue to live in the right lane, enjoy every moment, create and experience new moments, and focus on the journey itself, not the destination. I plan to live as Laurie Santos puts it, “be happy in my life, and with my life.”

    “The most dangerous risk of all…is the risk of spending your life not doing what you want, on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” ~Randy Komisar

    So how do you do that? It isn’t always easy.

    Have good self-awareness (know yourself and trust yourself). Be intentional. Make time for the people and things that matter. Make the time to think about what you really want in life.

    And slow yourself down.

  • FREE Global JOY Summit! Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and More…

    FREE Global JOY Summit! Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and More…

    Hi friends! I’m excited to invite you to the upcoming Global Joy Summit, a FREE online even running from November 13th to 16th.

    This is an amazing opportunity to be inspired by the contagious joy and timely message of the Dalai Lama and the late, great Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and learn from 30+ renowned joy scientists, spiritual teachers, changemakers, and artists.

    The lived experiences of these two global icons, and self-described “mischievous brothers,” serve as a profound example of the power of joy in the face of adversity. They teach us that joy is an essential key to meeting the many ordinary and profound challenges we now face, individually and collectively.

    The summit will include a free screening of Mission: JOY—the laugh-out-loud funny documentary that shares the magical friendship, practical wisdom, and historic final in-person meeting of the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu—as well as inspiring and practical sessions with 30+ speakers.

    The summit will explore:

    • Practices to transform stress, anxiety, grief, depression, despair, isolation, challenging emotions, and difficulty 
    • Practical tools to cultivate well-being, connection, love, compassion, and joy
    • The relationship between joy and sorrow (they’re not opposites)
    • Joy as a “clean fuel” to power transformative action
    • Ubuntu, interconnection, and compassion as essential keys to healing our planet and creating a good future
    • A special keynote with His Holiness the Dalai Lama
    • Live interactive workshops and musical performances 

    More than ever, the world needs each of us to tap into the innate love, compassion, and joy that the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu remind us are at the core of our beings.

    Come for one session or all and join the celebration and exploration. 

    You can sign up for free here.

    I hope you enjoy this joy-filled event!

  • Why My Boyfriend and I Play Like Kids and Are Happier for It

    Why My Boyfriend and I Play Like Kids and Are Happier for It

    “Play is the foundation of learning, creativity, self-expression, and constructive problem-solving. It’s how children wrestle with life to make it meaningful.” ~Susan Linn, Psychiatrist

    We met at a job interview for a summer camp. At the time, I was twenty-two years old and pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English literature and psychology at UBC. On the other hand, H was attending college in the hopes of one day becoming a high school history teacher. He also “liked to promote and support the development of children.”

    During our first date, we grabbed coffee and spent some time at Indigo Books & Music. I was impressed. I had not only found a boy who was willing to tolerate my endless browsing, but genuinely seemed to enjoy it.

    H was funny, dressed nicely, and most importantly, didn’t know much about me. Later, he would learn that I’d grown up a perfectionist, that I became overwhelmed easily, and that I always took life too seriously. I valued the art of productivity and felt self-conscious when acting silly.

    In our early days, we enjoyed sunbathing at the beach and went “playground hopping,” a term coined after spending an entire afternoon going from playground to playground, sitting on the swings, flirting. We climbed the various structures and found out we could no longer get across the monkey bars.

    We had a typical “summer romance.” We sent each other flirty texts at work, and I chased him around the jungle gym during one of our outings with the kids. We played Connect 4 instead of strip poker and went to the candy store to buy samples of all our favorite childhood treats. He loved to make blanket forts and was always to blame for the ensuing pillow fight. We put on music and danced in our underwear in my bedroom late at night.

    He brought out my inner child. We played handshake games while waiting for the bus without caring about the other commuters’ glances. We painted cheap wooden frames from the dollar store and bought a puzzle at Toys R Us. We went to the kid’s arcade and had a playful Skee-Ball competition.

    After a few months of dating, and as a result of my interest into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), H and I sat down and made a list of what would become our Common Core Values. Out of sixty values, we picked about a dozen. Then, we talked about them.

    Connecting with our values adds meaning to our lives, but clarifying values can be challenging, because most values are words that are vague. Take, for example, the value of respect. Most people I know value respect. But what does it look like? And what does respect look like specifically in a romantic relationship? We recorded our choices in our newly bought couple’s journal.

    Our values included words such as connection (physical, emotional), equality, boundaries, safety, teamwork, gratitude, humility, and kindness, as well as trust, courage, and vulnerability.

    The value that stood out to me the most, though, was play.

    Play has been one of the core tenets of our relationship. When we first met, he had no idea that I was heavily involved in the mental health community.

    I worked at the hospital where I did peer support work and supported children as well as their families navigate the (highly complex) mental health system. I heard devastating stories of families trying to access care.

    I sat on the board of a non-profit organization that held support groups for students every week and spent a lot of my time holding space for others, while at the same time admiring their resilience. Outside of that, I was busy taking classes, and trying my best to care for my own mental health.

    A few years ago, when I fell in love with Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection, the chapter that stood out the most to me was: “Wholehearted Living Guidepost 7: Cultivating Rest and Play.”

    In the chapter, she introduced Dr. Stuart Brown, a psychiatrist who has studied play. He explained that play is time spent without purpose and can include a variety of “frivolous activities.”

    As a young adult, overachiever, and university student, I spend most of my time working hard, trying to achieve the definition of “success” society has defined for me. At times, there are sleepless nights, two cups of coffee, and skipped breakfasts.

    When H and I play, we lose track of time. We become immersed in our decorating of gratitude jars, tickle fights, and me chasing him down with an ice cream cone.

    My relationship with H has given me one of the greatest gifts: the ability to lose myself in laughter, and permission to focus on leisure without feeling guilt or anxiety. In the words of Brené Brown, it is all about “letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth.”

    I like to refer to H as “Mr. Fun” because it’s the part I love most about him. If it wasn’t for him, I would rarely allow myself to play. I often feel self-conscious and judge myself harshly whenever I feel the urge to do something “childish,” like coloring. I tell myself, “Don’t be ridiculous. Grow up. You’re not a child anymore.”

    At the time of our discovering our common core values, we had only been dating for three months. Since then, we’ve grown enormously as a couple. The wonderful thing about our common core values is that we now have a silent agreement. We have both committed to living by those values, so we refer to them as needed, especially during a conflict. When we make mistakes, we refer to the value of forgiveness. It lessens the guilt and shame while still holding us accountable.

    Essentially, play encourages self-enquiry, social connection, and being curious about the world.

    Play has allowed us to cultivate a relationship that is based on vulnerability and helps us cope with the uncertainty of the world. It has enhanced our intimacy and helped us relax during stressful times. After all, we are realistic, and understand that our relationship will encounter many obstacles in the future, including having to cope with economic and political instability.

    From an outsider perspective, I am described as responsible, punctual, and can be found balancing my budget with an Excel sheet, every month. You are more likely to find me writing professional emails than singing in the shower or expressing my creativity.

    Sometimes H and I argue about the pros and cons of having carpet in our future dream home and sometimes we make lists of supplies to buy, like Play-Doh, or Legos. Sometimes we discuss Canadian politics while drinking apple juice in plastic cups. We eat Kraft Dinner as a snack and calculate the cost of a one-bedroom apartment. We are both children at heart and young adults trying to navigate the world.

    And not too long ago, H surprised me with a heart shape made of colourful melted beads.

  • The Secret to Eternal Youth: How to Feel Excited About Life Again

    The Secret to Eternal Youth: How to Feel Excited About Life Again

    “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. ” ~Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart

    I am forty-nine years old, and I’ve never felt so young in my life. Many people my age feel old. Many people younger than I am feel old, while many people who are older than I am still feel young.

    What makes someone feel young? I can assure you it has nothing to do with how many wrinkles you have. It is something much deeper than that and yet something very simple.

    Most of us get serious about life around the time we are thirty. We devote ourselves to building our career, building our family, or both. From young people who care mostly about having fun, we become responsible adults. We need to prove ourselves, to make money, to buy a house, and to secure our future.

    “Along the way, I forgot to get excited about things. Everything became a project, something I had to deal with,” a friend told me when I asked her if she was thrilled about buying a new house.

    When we build our home, our career, our family, and our reputation, there is a part of us that we leave behind. When we enter the world of mortgages, insurance, and pension funds, fun goes out the window. And when that happens, we lose our fire.

    Fire is fun; it’s freedom, it’s joy. Fire is courage and boldness. Fire is passion and excitement. Fire is being spontaneous, taking risks, and saying your truth. Fire is exercising and moving energy.

    Fire is fighting for what you believe in. Fire is believing in yourself, believing in life, believing that you deserve to fulfill your wildest dreams. Fire is having wild dreams. Fire is learning new things and teaching them to others. It’s being inspired and inspiring.

    So often we are overwhelmed with life’s demands, and we forget to have fun; we forget to keep our fire alive, and we lose our mojo. Some of us got burnt by our fire when we were younger. Fun led to addictions and other destructive behaviors. We have learned to fear our fire and avoid it at all costs.

    During a few wild years when I lived in New York City, a friend once said to me, “In our twenties we have to do crazy things so that we have something to talk about in our thirties.”

    This is how we live, feeling that from this point onward, life is going downhill toward decay. We feel like our prime years were left behind. We try to reduce the signs of aging to feel better when we look in the mirror or at pictures of ourselves. But no matter what we do, we won’t look like we did in our twenties.

    About three years ago, I started feeling old. I’d always looked younger than my age, but I lost in the Botox race, as I did not do any. I lost my passion; I lost my desire to have fun and enjoy myself; everything was very serious.

    I hated looking at my pictures. All I saw was the lack of charm and beauty that I once possessed. I tried to convince myself that these were external, irrelevant, and unimportant concerns, but they were not; they reflected something deep that was going on in my life.

    Don’t get me wrong. During this time, I was already working at something I loved with all my heart. I loved mothering my son more than anything in the world. I loved my husband and was very grateful for our marriage. But except for my work and my family role, I didn’t care about anything. There was absolutely no time or ability to enjoy life.

    Then things got even worse. I got sick and was forced to constantly deal with my health and nutrition. My diet became more limited than it ever was; I could not enjoy food anymore. I thought I was going to die. I was already older than my mother when she passed away at the age of forty-four, and it just made sense that I would follow in her footsteps to heaven.

    But I was also lucky. I was lucky because there was something inside of me that was stronger than all of this. An inner voice told me that I was still alive and that I should not take it for granted. Every day I got to live was a gift. What was I going to do with this?

    Was I going to look back and cry for not being as beautiful as I once was? Or was I going to look forward and make my life the way I wanted it to be? I realized that it was all up to me. I could continue sinking down into my dietary limitations, my homework struggles, and my aging looks, or I could ignite my fire.

    I decided that it was time to make a big move, from Israel to the US, where I’ve always wanted to live. In order to be fully alive, I had to throw myself out of the nest.

    Even though my husband had no desire to make this move, I knew it was a matter of life and death for me and that I had to take the lead. It was my truth, and it required taking a huge risk.

    During the pandemic we could not even make a preliminary visit, nor could we know for sure if our son would be accepted to school, but we had to take our chances.

    Once we settled in Asheville, NC, I bought new colorful clothes. After years of wearing black bamboo jumpsuits, I added some flair to my wardrobe.

    I took some courses with great teachers who inspired me. I got back to practicing yoga and became a part of the local yoga community. I got back to listening to music that made me want to dance.

    I started writing and publishing my work. I started telling my truth more often. I had some big talks with important people in my life. I said some things I’d never dared say before. What did I have to lose? What does anyone have to lose?

    That’s the beauty of being older. You are wiser, more experienced, you know yourself, and you understand life better than ever before. You are mature enough to deal with your fire in a healthy way.

    You already know that there is no point in pretending or hiding. You can live your truth, you can be who you really are, and you can work toward the fulfillment of your dreams. And it’s rejuvenating, so rejuvenating, despite the wrinkles and the fact that your body is no longer in its prime.

    You can live like you’ve died and come back to life. What will you do differently? Do it. Do it today. Don’t wait.

    If your life does not excite you, make it exciting. If life is not fun, make it fun. Obviously, you can’t control everything. The human experience is not always fun, but no matter what your circumstances are, you can always make things better for yourself, even if it’s just a change of attitude.

    People, especially those on the spiritual path, dismiss fun, and I am the first one to admit that I do this. There are always more important things to do. It’s so hard to find time to mother, to be a partner, to work, to cook, to write, to meditate, to practice. Alcohol is bad, drugs are bad, and sugar is bad. All the things you used to have fun with in your twenties are bad.

    For years I prepared all of my family’s meals. When you eat out, the food does not have your loving energy and is not made with the same organic, local, and fresh ingredients. This is all true, but the pressure to constantly cook had a counterproductive effect on my health.

    Today, sometimes I eat out or order in, and it makes me so happy. I am more flexible, more open, and I am much healthier. It’s all about finding the middle path. If your path puts out your fire, it means that something is wrong.

    It’s not that igniting my fire has solved all my problems. The human experience is still hard. I am still facing many challenges, in some ways even more challenges. When you change, or say your truth, it’s usually not so easy for the people around you to deal with. But I am empowered to deal with my problems. I feel fully alive and beautiful.

    Today I love the way I look. I love the way inspiring aging women and men look. When you live out of passion, courage, and truth, you radiate beauty.

    If you are willing to look beyond the anti-aging ads, you can see that aging is a beautiful process. I’m excited to age. I want to get old. My mother did not have the chance to be old. I have so many dreams to fulfill, and I am grateful for every moment given to me to fulfill them.

    One thing is for sure: I will never lose my healthy fire again.

  • How I Stopped Carrying the Weight of the World and Started Enjoying Life

    How I Stopped Carrying the Weight of the World and Started Enjoying Life

    “These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.” ~Najwa Zebian

    During a personal development course, one of my first assignments was to reach out to three friends and ask them to list my top three qualities. It was to help me see myself the way others saw me.

    At the time, my confidence was low and I couldn’t truly see myself. I didn’t remember who I was or what I wanted. The assignment was a way to rebuild my self-esteem and see myself from a broader perspective.

    As I vulnerably asked and then received the responses, I immediately felt disappointed. All three lists shared commonalties, specifically around responsibility. The problem was, I didn’t see responsibility as a positive trait. In fact, I didn’t want to be responsible; I wanted to be light, fun, and joyful.

    Though I understood that my loved ones shared this trait in a positive light—as in I was trustworthy and caring—intuitively, I knew responsibility was my armor. I used it to protect and control while, deep down, I wanted to be free and true to myself.

    I didn’t trust life. I found myself unable to let go out of fear of what may or may not happen to myself and others. I let my imagination run loose in dark places and believed if I thought my way out of every bad scenario or was on guard, I could somehow be prepared to meet the challenges that arose.

    I thought that if I oversaw everything, it would get taken care of correctly and then I’d be safe from the pain of life. The pain in life was not only my own, but my family’s, the local community’s, and the world’s. I wanted to plan and plot a way to fix everything so that everything would be perfect.

    I saw myself as a doer—a person that takes actions and makes stuff happen. I relied heavily on pushing myself and coming up with solutions and, at times, took pride in my ability to work hard, multi-task, and be clever. With time, however, I felt resentful and exhausted.

    Over the years it became too heavy a burden. My shoulders could no longer carry the weight of the world, and I was incapable of juggling so many balls. I had to let go.

    There were so many things that were out of my control, including situations that had nothing to do with me, and yet there were so many people I loved and so many dangerous possibilities.

    Living in a state of constant responsibility meant I had to be alert; I had to be on guard. I was never present and thus unable to have fun. I didn’t understand how to enjoy life while being responsible. I saw these as competing desires and ended up avoiding joy totally.

    I believed I could save joy for a vacation or that wedding coming up next month. I always postponed joy until later so that I could resume being responsible.

    However, being a doer and taking responsibility for things that were not in my direct control had consequences. I was unhappy and drained, constantly wondering why I couldn’t just relax and enjoy life.

    Even when I went away on a vacation, I was unable to calm my mind and have fun. I told myself once x,y,z was taken care of, then I’d feel calm, but then something new would come up and I’d be thinking about that instead of enjoying my trip.

    This left me with a powerful realization: I felt safer feeling anxious and tense than I did feeling happy.

    In some twisted way, it served me. At the time, being happy was too vulnerable, while being on guard for the next catastrophe felt safer. This was not how I wanted to continue living life.

    I wanted to remove the armor. I wanted to trust and enjoy life, and I wanted to believe that whether or not I was on top of everything, things would work out.

    I knew that I could be responsible without carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. That I could be dependable and caring without being stressed or serious. Those were expectations I had falsely placed on myself, and it was up to me to remove them.

    Once I realized that solving the world’s problems was harming my health and that I was choosing fear over joy out of a false sense of security, I decided to give myself permission to feel the discomfort and vulnerability of happiness. In doing so I found the courage to let go, trust, play, and love life.

    I began setting boundaries with myself. The person that had placed the badge of responsibility on my shoulders was me, and I had chosen to do it out of fear, not love. I had to let go of knowing everything that was going on in other people’s lives and the world and take space from social media, friends, and family to make space for me.

    I began to cultivate joy by practicing presence daily and taking the time to do things I enjoyed doing.

    I took yoga classes, watched comedy shows, went to the beach, and continued personal development courses.

    I learned that although I was great at multi-tasking and pushing through, it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to courageously follow my dreams and enjoy my precious life.

    That meant that I had to feel the uncertainty, sadness, and danger of life’s circumstances without jumping in to fix anything. I had to take a step back and bring awareness to my thoughts so I wouldn’t unconsciously join the merry-go-round of solving problems.

    I was a beginner at all these things, but the more I practiced, the more joy I experienced, and this spread onto others. Surprisingly, friends would tell me how I inspired and helped them—not by solving their problems but by being bold enough to enjoy my life.

    If you want to enjoy your life but stress yourself out trying to save everyone from pain, begin to set boundaries with yourself. Stay in your lane and focus on the areas you have direct control over—your attitude, your daily activities, and your perspectives.

    Try slowing down, investing time and energy into activities that light you up. You can’t protect anyone from what’s coming in the future, but you can enjoy your present by letting go and opening up to joy.