Tiny Buddha

Tag: joy

  • The Changes You Fear and Losses That Hit You the Hardest

    The Changes You Fear and Losses That Hit You the Hardest

  • Perception Is a Key Component of Gratitude

    Perception Is a Key Component of Gratitude

  • Why We Need to Put Ourselves First and Prioritize Our Own Happiness

    Why We Need to Put Ourselves First and Prioritize Our Own Happiness

    “Putting yourself first is not selfish. Quite the opposite. You must put your happiness and health first before you can be of use to anyone else.” ~Simon Sinek

    If you’re someone who cares deeply for the people in your life, you may want to do anything you can for them. This devotion isn’t always reciprocated. Not to say we should only think of things in a transactional nature, but sometimes we can selflessly give ourselves away to people who are careless with our own needs.

    It often leaves us feeling like we’re being taken advantage of.

    It often leaves us feeling depleted, empty, and resentful.

    It often leaves us feeling like we’re trying to make everyone else happy, yet we’re miserable.

    Instead of doing things because we want to do them, we end up doing them because we’re attempting to make others happy.

    These are the moments that eat me alive. I end up sticking around a project far longer than I should because I’m worried about what it will mean for the other person.

    For the last year, I’ve been producing a weekly podcast with a friend. When we started it gave me purpose and joy, and I loved to work on it. But now? It feels like work I dread. I think about wanting to quit all the time. It’s an energy suck on my life. And all I can think of is, will they be unhappy with me if I tell them I don’t want to do the podcast anymore?

    I’m guessing we’ve all done this before—base our happiness on the happiness of others. We think…

    My parents won’t be happy unless I become a doctor, so I’ll go to medical school.

    My partner won’t be happy unless I prioritize their career over mine, so I’ll give up on my dreams.

    My kids won’t be happy unless I devote every waking moment to their needs, so I’ll sacrifice my sense of self.

    My friends won’t be happy unless I drop everything when they need me, so I’ll put my life on hold.

    My family won’t be happy unless I am the person they want me to be, so I’ll put their needs first.

    My cat won’t be happy unless… cats will *never* be happy. Much like most of the people who expect you to do these things for them. If they attach an expectation, you aren’t dealing with someone who values your worth and what’s meaningful to you.

    They’re looking at you as a means to something they want. This isn’t saying that’s a “bad” person, it’s the reality of being a human. There’s software running in the background that is based on self-preservation. It is universal among all living organisms.

    This software doesn’t exactly serve us in situations like this because it does everything it can to avoid pain and fear. And that’s exactly what’s keeping us stuck in these circumstances. We don’t want to cause pain in others, and we sure as hell don’t want to experience pain ourselves. And we fear what will happen if we say no to these people and prioritize our own needs.

    Will our parents stop loving us?

    Will our partner leave us?

    Will our kids suffer?

    Will our friends stop being our friends?

    Will our family start to ignore us?

    Will my cat still love me?

    It’s normal to have feelings of pain and fear.

    That’s worth emphasizing because you might think that the pain and fear are unique to your situation. It’s not. Pain and fear are a normal part of life.

    If we can see the choices we make through this lens of pain and fear, we can better understand why others are perhaps projecting their pain and fear onto us and our decisions.

    This is where it takes some courage. The only way things will ever change is if you stand up for yourself (because nobody else will). Stand up like you would for someone you love or a cause you care about. Stand up like your survival depends on it… because it does.

    It’s not selfish to put yourself first (what you want to do with your life). It’s selfish to expect others to put you and your needs first (what others want you to do with your life).

    I have a kid on the way. And thinking of her being here has forced me to think of my happiness differently. If I’m working on projects that feel like they’re robbing me of my time, I’m willingly sacrificing the kind of dad I want to be—present and grounded. The poor kid would be left with a warm body and a mind that is elsewhere racing with anxiety because I’m focused on making others happy.

    You could do nothing with the hopes of avoiding pain and fear, but it will invite a lifetime of regret. This is the equivalent of death by a thousand paper cuts. You lose your sense of identity, your life feels meaningless, and you drift aimlessly in a life that is not yours.

    This.

    Is.

    It.

    There are no do-overs.

    No second chances.

    You don’t get to do this life all over again.

    So don’t waste your days living someone else’s life.

    In the end, I decided that who I want to be as a father is a hell of a lot more important to me than a project. And much like most things we avoid in life, I had turned the decision into something far more complicated than it needed to be. It was a lesson learned from Dr Seuss who wrote, “Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind”

    Those who matter want to see you happy.

    They’re not the ones holding you back. They’re the cheerleaders of your life who ask you, who do you want to become?

    Commit to living your answer. It’s not selfish. It’s prioritizing your happiness.

  • How to Really Live In the Moment and Appreciate Life

    How to Really Live In the Moment and Appreciate Life

    “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~Albert Einstein 

    Just when you think you have the whole living in the moment thing down, a four-year-old comes along and shows you how it’s done.

    I’ve been working hard on this, actually, keeping a gratitude journal and everything. I was feeling pretty good about my progress yesterday when I decided to take said four-year-old on a walk rather than rushing through the to-do list burning a hole in the back of my mind.

    “I’m going to be totally present,” I reminded myself as we headed out. I took deep breath and said a silent thanks for the beautiful day.

    Like I said, I was feeling pretty proud of my progress. Then my daughter blew me away. She schooled me in everything I have been working so hard on, and she wasn’t even trying.

    Her commentary on the walk went exactly like this:

    Ohhhhhh, what an amazing house!

    What an amazing garbage can!

    Oh wow, what a wonderful tree!

    Look at the rocks!

    I hear a bird!

    I hear a wind chime!

    Mom, do you hear that dog? It’s perfect!

    I hear a truck!

    Do you feel the wind? It is so soft!

    Look at the beautiful cactus,

    Look! Two trucks. 

    She was so amazed by things that I never notice or worse, complain about. 

    Now, I wasn’t completely unaware. I was thankful for another spring day before the summer heat, and I was enjoying this rare one-on-one time with her.

    But I had no idea that the neighbors had wind chimes. I have never looked at a garbage can and called it amazing (at least not since I was four). This perfect dog is the same one that I complain about to my husband. The wind was messing up my hair.

    There were at least a thousand other concerns competing for my attention while she was content to watch ants on the sidewalk.

    Sometimes I wish I could be a little more like her.

    She didn’t care if I sent out that attachment with that email. She didn’t care about how many calories we burned on our walk. She didn’t mind that her clothes didn’t match because she picked out exactly what she likes.

    I was not going to let this fade from my memory to be overtaken by another thousand concerns.

    “Be amazed,” I thought.

    I repeated it to myself the way you do a telephone number.

    “Be amazed,” I scrawled as fast as I could on the first piece of paper I found when we got home.

    Be amazed.

    I set a reminder in my calendar. I made a post-it. I wrote it down in my journal.

    Be amazed.

    I don’t want to forget this feeling. This absolute clarity.

    My mind can be the most hardened criminal against my own happiness. It snatches the joy right out of my hands. It confuses busy with important, urgent with significant, and difficulty with meaning.   

    My mind gives the future and the past too much space. It wanders over to what the neighbors are doing. It reminds me of what I have yet to accomplish. It wants to speed up time, and it plows right through those moments to be amazed by.

    With this clarity also came sadness. My heart broke for the lost opportunities to just be and appreciate.

    I guess that’s the bittersweet part of life. You can’t wait until this one tough part is over, but then it’s gone and you can’t go back. There’s a new stage to take its place, and the cycle continues.

    Soon, you find yourself telling wide-eyed new parents and self-conscious teenagers (and basically anyone in one of those stages that you wanted to rush through when you were there) that these are the best years.

    “Enjoy this while you can. It goes so fast,” you say.

    Be amazed.

    Looking back, the times that I once wished would pass by quickly actually turned out to be the hardest to let go. I could scold myself for this, or I could remember to be amazed now.

    One way or another, time marches on. Old becomes new, new becomes old, and you get another chance to be amazed.

    Each new stage is also another chance to be nice to yourself about the whole thing. It isn’t humanly possible to love every second of life while it’s happening. Even four-year-olds aren’t amazed all the time.

    This little walk with my four-year-old reminded me that even the simple things are amazing, and the things I complain about? They’re life, and they’re doable. Sure, life now is different from life pre-kids (and pre-husband), I’m doing different things than my friends, and maybe my life doesn’t measure up to someone else’s definition of amazing.

    So what?

    I can be amazed anyway.

    Be amazed.

    Starting now, these two words will be a compass guiding me when it feels like I don’t have it all together. They will remind me what direction I want to go even when I feel completely lost.

    Be amazed. Take a step back and look at your life with gratitude every now and then.  

    Be amazed. Squeeze every last ounce of goodness out of what is around you. Savor it. Soak it up. Luxuriate in it.

    Be amazed. When you’re burned out, bone weary, and bedraggled, use amazement to fill yourself back up. Seek out those situations, people, and activities that remind you of what it means and how it feels to be amazed.

    And those painful parts? You know, the ones that really, really hurt. The ones you barely survive. Maybe there’s a little room for amazement there, too.

    Amazement when you make it to the other side.

    Amazement for how much the heart can hold.

    Amazement for your resilience, your ability to heal, and your capacity to keep loving and hoping.

    Be amazed by your spirit. Your tenacity. Be amazed by that part of you that refuses to give up.

    You only get one shot at life, and you don’t have a whole lot of control over what happens to you in it. Take advantage of the choices that you do have.

    I will choose to be amazed.

  • If It Brings You Joy, It’s Not “Wasting Time”

    If It Brings You Joy, It’s Not “Wasting Time”

    “At any moment, you have a choice that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    When I was a kid, I wanted to be an Olympic figure skater. Or an artist for Disney. Or maybe a musician.

    I wanted to be a songwriter and choreographer.

    I made up roller skating routines in the driveway to Tiffany and Paula Abdul. (It was most excellent.)

    I filled notebooks upon notebooks with illustrations.

    And if you were to ask me to describe myself, I might have said, “happy.” Or I would have chattered on about my dreams and all the interesting things I liked.

    Ask me today, and just like any other adult, my automatic response would probably be something along the lines of what I do and how hard I work, as if I’m interviewing for a job.

    I’m a psychologist. I’m a hard worker. I’m dedicated.

    (Adults aren’t always so good at this.)

    Somewhere around junior high, my identity shifted from happy and interested in everything to being studious and serious about everything.  

    Until very recently, I wouldn’t have thought to describe myself as joyful, creative, or inquisitive.

    Whereas I once thought about doing what fed my spirit, I started thinking about earning potential and prestige. Rather than doing things because they brought me joy, I did them because I was good at them. And things that I wasn’t didn’t make the cut.

    This was the time to start getting serious. Win the awards. Get scholarships. Get recognized.

    And stop wasting time.

    Things got competitive, too. Friends started talking about test scores, then it was talk about college and graduate school and publications and careers.

    It was during that time that I also discovered insecurity. I got caught up in not-good-enough thinking, and I felt like an imposter all the time.

    I don’t even think I noticed that I’d forgotten about joy. I’d laugh as I said, “I’ll be happy when…” only to find that there was always another “when” lurking around the corner.

    I’d forgotten what we all know as children, that joy is a part of us. It’s not a place you arrive at when you finally finish all of this serious business. It’s a piece of you that needs to be nurtured.  

    But I didn’t nurture the joy. I let it go because I thought I could live without it. Even the things I did in the name of self-care had lost their joy.

    Running, which once left me feeling as free as the wind, became about getting faster and going farther.

    Yoga, which was meant to be a grounding and compassionate practice for me, became about sticking that handstand a little longer.

    Setting goals isn’t the problem here. It’s just that accomplishments aren’t the same thing as thriving.

    Looking back at all of this, I see that I’d made myself so small, I forgot I was in there at all.

    Oh, my success more than spoke for itself, but joy? Interests? Excitement? I’d shut them down one by one because I wasn’t good enough or because they weren’t serious enough.  

    I stopped drawing.

    I stopped making jewelry.

    I stopped doing things just because they were enjoyable.

    And why? Because I thought I could live without them.

    I did everything you’re supposed to do, and I did everything in my power to do it just right. I got into that fancy private school on a full ride, got the Ph.D., got the license, and got the stable job. And I became so entrenched in this serious, hard-worker identity that I forgot about me.

    I’m truly grateful for the opportunities and privileges and people in my life, but as a human being, it felt like something was missing. Maybe those things I’d been living without might have been more necessary than I thought.

    Little pieces of that happy little girl popped up from time to time, but I’d push them away or turn them into something too perfect.

    And then one of those pieces shouted at me so loudly I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I was sitting on the blue mat in my son’s room reading Pete the Cat when it happened.

    You should do this. Write a children’s book.  

    I could almost see myself step outside of my body and look at me in disbelief.

    Really? You? Write a children’s book?

    I tried to brush it off, but my heart was pounding, and I could hardly breathe. I tried to go about my business, thinking this would go away on its own. But it didn’t.

    After a lot of back and forth with myself, I finally mumbled the words to my husband, “I think I want to write a children’s book.”

    I braced myself for the same look of disbelief I gave myself, but none came.

    “You should do it,” he said, apparently not at all surprised.

    As much as I’d like to say this was some kind of magical transformation, it wasn’t. I didn’t quit my job and whip out a world-famous, award-winning children’s book. But that’s not the point of this story anyway.

    The point is that I found joy again.

    It took a while. I thought about it and analyzed it, trying to make it disappear. I told myself I didn’t know what I was doing and didn’t have the time.

    The thought stuck with me, though, growing louder and louder until, under the cover of darkness in the early morning hours, I pulled a sheet of paper from the printer, sharpened a pencil, and sat down.

    Like one of those scenes from a movie when someone who’s had amnesia suddenly remembers their entire life, the memories of all the things I thought I could live without came flooding back.

    Have I really been living without this all this time?

    I filled pages upon pages with illustrations.

    I made up rhymes and stories.

    And do you know what happened? I didn’t just feel joy. I felt free.

    I could probably go on living without this, but now I see that I don’t have to.

    I didn’t need to quit my job.

    I didn’t neglect my children.

    The house didn’t crumble at my feet.

    Pursuing this didn’t need to make me a cent. I didn’t even need to be very good at it.

    Because it was always about joy, and that’s not something I want to live without anymore.

    Living with joy doesn’t hurt anything. It doesn’t diminish your drive or ambition. It doesn’t make you less intelligent. And it sure doesn’t make you any less important.

    Living with joy makes you free, and that freedom reminds you of everything that is possible. Even the serious things.

    On the outside, my life probably looks pretty much the same since that night I sat on my son’s blue mat, but on the inside, everything is different.

    Since then, I found that little girl that I didn’t even know had gone missing.

    I remembered the roller skating routines, designing t-shirts, setting up photo shoots in the living room, and sitting on the edge of my seat holding my breath watching decorating shows.

    I remembered what it feels like to be happy and excited and inquisitive.

    And now I get it. Just because you can live without something doesn’t mean you have to.  

    What piece of joy have you been telling yourself you can live without?

    What do you think would happen if you said one day, “I don’t have to live without this?”

    You can find that joy, even if that little piece of joy has been buried for a long time.

    To begin, start by saying yes to yourself a little more. Yes to that little spark of curiosity, yes to that little smile that you shrug off, and definitely yes to that burning feeling inside your chest that screams, “Listen to this. This is joy.”

    It doesn’t matter if it feels ridiculous, it doesn’t matter if it’s “wasting time,” and it sure doesn’t matter if you’re any good at it. What matters is the feeling you get when you do it. Because that feeling like you’re going to laugh and cry and sit silently and run through the halls singing all at once, that’s joy. (And you don’t need to live without it.)

    Remember to pursue more than success or accomplishment. Those are important, but so are the things that bring you meaning, connection, and engagement in your life.

    Feel the spontaneous moments of joy that seem to bubble up out of nowhere, and plan a few to look forward to. Fill those moments with activities that fill you up. Simply unplugging is not enough when you’re after joy. And above all else, do not cancel on yourself.

    As you do this, stay alert for that voice that says you can live without this. Maybe you can, but maybe you don’t have to anymore.

  • The Profound Joy That’s Possible on the Other Side of Addiction

    The Profound Joy That’s Possible on the Other Side of Addiction

    “When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” ~Rumi

    As I stood on the doorstep of that rehab facility, I felt completely empty except for the overwhelming weight of anxiety and shame. In that moment, I wondered what all the normal people were doing today. How did they cope? And how was it that I couldn’t hack life and that things had spiraled so far down?

    It’s hard to admit you have a problem. To be honest with yourself when you’ve numbed everything out for so long seems ridiculous. To finally share it with the people around you is also daunting for so many reasons, not the least of which is actually having to give up your most trusted coping mechanism.

    At that doorstep, I felt at some strange in-between place. On one hand, I knew I had to leave the past behind me, and yet my future was something I couldn’t even begin to imagine. I had no wish for the future. No agenda. I was just desperate.

    What had led me here was a brutal struggle with alcohol that had consumed my entire life. I had spent years trying to meet everyone else’s expectations and maintain the illusion of perfection in order to feel loved and accepted. I had never learned to feel my feelings or cope with tough situations in healthy ways, so when faced with uncomfortable emotions and circumstances, I numbed myself out. But this came at a huge price.

    My job hung in the balance as did my closest relationships. And I couldn’t remember what it felt like to experience joy because you can’t selectively numb emotions. When you numb any, you numb all.

    The other thing that had led me to this threshold was a very small and almost inaudible voice. I had this message that I needed to “come home” and that “I needed to do this by myself, for myself.” While I didn’t understand this message at the time, there was an odd comfort and something that got enough of my attention to get me here.

    What struck me most as I found my sea legs there was that in this setting, I could finally be honest. I could say out loud that I had a real problem with alcohol, that my life was in shambles, that I was scared and that I felt hopeless. To be seen and understood is quite possibly the greatest gift that any person can receive.

    That facility was filled with a cast of characters, but I was in no position to judge. I just saw the raw, authentic beauty of people owning up to their life thus far and genuinely trying to create some meaningful change. This was humanity laid bare. It was full of trauma and distress, and also humor, knowing, and compassion.

    We were on a tight schedule with regular urine tests, limited exposure to the outside world, and no access to sharp objects. While I physically felt incredibly confined, my heart and my mind were gaining a freedom they hadn’t had in a long time. It’s funny how that happens.

    I was beginning to feel things. I felt a lot of anger, shame, resentment, and fear. I learned that I was angry about a lot of things, including all the times I’d compromised myself to please other people. I was deeply ashamed, embarrassed, and sad that my life had spiraled so far out of control. I was also full of fear because my future was not something I could begin to imagine.

    But I also started to feel freedom and hope, and we had some seriously good laughs. (Addicts do really ridiculous things!) I began to understand that feelings are big, and I’d only ever managed them by drowning them out.

    I began to learn that when I feel these big uncomfortable feelings, I can let them move through me.  And, when I make room to feel the crap, I also make room for joy, bliss, and a lot of gratitude.

    I never thought I’d say it, but my recovery has, hands down, been my greatest teacher. When I removed alcohol, I was able to come home to a deep place within myself. I was able to make peace with her and even start to love her.

    Self-love came slowly. It felt foreign to me. But, the prospect of it had a gentle quality to it. It felt inviting and hopeful. I could look at myself in the mirror and see past the puffiness and sadness into a part of me I knew more deeply. I felt like it was possible to reclaim the parts of me that made me feel alive. I started to ask myself questions like: What do I like about myself? What activities and people would bring me joy? How do I want to show up in my life?

    I began to see that I’d put so much energy into avoiding my life, numbing out, and trying desperately to hide my addiction. I wondered what I might be able to do if I used that energy to create a life that I actually enjoyed. I also decided that if I was going to go to all of this trouble to turn my life around, I wanted to be deeply happy and create a life that brought me a deep amount of joy.

    I began to make the tiniest daily choices to be on my own side. I started to take care of myself. That body that I had ravaged, I started to treat with compassion by nourishing it, hydrating it, moving it, and letting it rest. I came to understand that it was actually wise, and not only should I listen to it, I could trust it.

    I sought out the help of doctors, therapists, energy healers, spiritual leaders, and anyone who could help me excavate everything I wanted to numb out—feelings of inadequacy, unhappy relationships, anxiety, and a deep sense of disconnection from myself—and release me to a future full of possibility. I just decided to be on my own side, love myself a little harder, and show up as my messy authentic self. That felt good, freeing and often, amusing.

    Going to rehab was one of the best/worst things I’ve ever had to do. It was the worst because it felt like a last stop. It was the best because it absolutely saved me and was a gateway to a future I never could have remotely imagined. Recovering from addiction has been an incredible gift.

    If you think going to rehab sucks, entering the real world sober isn’t a whole lot better. There are many times I remember why I wanted to numb this place out. We live an intense world that thrives on numbing out. Choosing to be mindful, conscious, and authentically happy is not for the faint of heart.

    The difference now is that I am in charge of my choices. The voice in my head is a lot more like that whisper—gentle, encouraging, and compassionate. I reminds me that I am in the driver’s seat and that the simple, mindful choices I make in every moment have a profound and transformative impact over time. How I take care of myself, how I show up in the world, and all of my intentional actions can make a very big difference.

    I realized that when I was saying “no” to alcohol, I was saying “yes” to me. I was saying “yes” to my health and vitality. I was saying “yes” to my mental health, my joy, and my peace of mind. I was also saying “yes” to the people that I loved and the kind of life I wanted to create. I was now living from a place of reverence for this human experience. Now, I wanted to celebrate it, savor it, and enjoy it.

    We all have raw material in our lives, and it’s what we choose to do with it that matters. We can let the past torment us or we can meet it, acknowledge it, and choose to create a different future. We can breathe life into this new way of being.

    Today, I make my well-being my top priority. I try to infuse my moments with joy. For me, this means simple things like listening to music I enjoy, getting outside, wearing my favourite color. It also means doing things that bring my mind, body and spirit joy—these things include yoga, meditation, journaling, getting a good night’s sleep, and drinking lots of water. I’m also sure to surround myself with good people. I believe that joy is a choice, and we need to open our hearts and our minds to let it in.

    Recovery is possible, and so is joy.

  • If You Think You Can’t Be Happy Until All Your Burdens Are Gone

    If You Think You Can’t Be Happy Until All Your Burdens Are Gone

    “As rain falls equally on the just and the unjust, do not burden your heart with judgments but rain your kindness equally on all.”  ~Buddha

    Our burdens come in many forms. They are our relationships, our responsibilities, and our pasts that haunt us from beneath our consciousness. They weigh us down and prevent us from experiencing life’s true joy.

    Some people have to care for a sick family member most of their life. Some women give birth to stillborn babies. Some soldiers get their legs blown off while deployed.

    My story is unextraordinary: I’m a white, middle-class woman. My life has been easy, and I have no reason or right in this world to feel emotionally oppressed. And yet, for all my life, I’ve felt I was a burden to those around me.

    It all started, as many stories have, with my parents.

    My mother always told me about how she had to purchase books on strong willed children because I was “too much” as a toddler, and she didn’t know how to handle me.

    Both of my parents pushed me to be independent: do it on my own, regardless of whether I was ready. Often, I was. But on the occasion I wasn’t, I wanted to be a good daughter, so I tried and tried until I could do it independently anyway.

    They praised my independence. I also watched them dole out criticism to anyone who relied on others or let others take advantage of them.

    Because I love my parents fiercely, I took this to heart and vowed never to be a burden to them.

    I have spent most of my life fighting to control how others viewed me so that I could assure them that I was not going to be a burden.

    When I was a young adult, a few years out of college, I was forced out of my first (beloved) teaching job. I had nowhere to go and was waiting to hear back from the graduate programs I had applied to.

    Although I never asked them to move back in, my parents told me, “Well, you better not think you’re moving back in with us, because that’s not happening.”

    After picking up the pieces of my broken self, I set off for grad school with my then-husband in tow.

    I married my first husband at twenty-four, mistaking pain for love. He was profoundly troubled—touched by depression, anxiety, and deep-seeded self-loathing, and I was going to save him. I was going to be the force that moved him from “burden” to “power.”

    We fought and struggled and suffered, and as you probably guessed, I did no saving of any kind. I did, however, endure relentless emotional and verbal abuse for years. I wish I could say that our toxic relationship was fully his fault, but unfortunately that’s not the way things work.

    After years of poor emotional regulation skills and believing everything in life is a burden, I treated him like one, too. Communication is a two-way street, and I was an excellent emotional manipulator. After completing grad school and our third year of marriage, I finally acknowledged that our relationship was built on pain, and I divorced him.

    I got a new job and moved to a new state, away from my failed marriage and away from my parents. I met a man who made me feel, for the first time in my life, like I wasn’t a burden.

    As Thich Nhat Hanh said, “You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.”

    To this day, my husband makes me feel light and free. He sits with all of my emotions, my good ones and my bad ones. He takes my poor communication and bad emotional self-regulation skills in stride and gently calls me out when I make him feel like he is a burden.

    My husband has taught me what it means to love unconditionally and give support without the expectation of anything in return. And he has taught me how to give unconditional love as well.

    Over the years I’ve become progressively better at acknowledging my feelings about being a burden to others and how others can be a burden to me.

    A couple years ago, my mother turned her criticism to one of her best friends who gives money to her adult daughters by paying some of their bills. My feelings of being a burden burned in my heart as my mom raged for over a half an hour about how her friend was wrong to give them money because her daughters would never know how to stand on their own two feet.

    I bit my tongue. Telling her to stop raining judgment on others would only make me a burden on her.

    But it was at that moment that I experienced a turning point. I realized that avoiding becoming a burden to people was becoming a burden to me!

    It’s like the adage, “Don’t be too busy worrying about whether they like you that you don’t even consider whether you like them.”

    The very thing I was avoiding in my life had become the heaviest burden that I was carrying with me, day in and day out.

    Last summer, I watched my dad—after finding his eighty-nine-year-old mother passed away one morning—fail to acknowledge any emotions or grief. Instead, he complained about having to cancel her cable, hire painters for her condo, and the burden of being her executor. And then he commented how much time my mother spends taking care of her ninety-seven-year-old mother.

    He said how much time they’ll have when my maternal grandmother passes away. How much time they’ll have when my brother’s children are in school, and they don’t have to babysit. How much time they’ll have when my mother can retire and doesn’t have the burden of having to work… the list goes on.

    I will not wish away someone else’s life or my time to make my own life a little easier. I will not spend my life waiting for all my burdens to disappear, only to learn that all the joy is gone and there is nothing left.

    The opposite of joy is not pain: it’s numbness.

    If you take away the pains, the joys will be gone too, and you’ll be left feeling empty.

    You cannot remove yourself from being someone else’s burdens (that’s on them). You can’t even remove all your own burdens. But you can move through your burdens and transcend your pain to find more joy in life.

    If you feel you’re a burden on others, understand that every person on this earth deserves connection and support, including you. Needing and asking for help doesn’t make you a burden, and if someone implied this to you or even said it directly, they were wrong.

    If you’re feeling hopeless that people exist who love without any expectations, take heart: they are out there. And when you find them, learn from them how to give unconditional love, and give them that in return. You don’t have to go through life alone.

    If you’re waiting on a time that you will never have any burdens, remember that you can choose where your focus is. It’s easy to ruminate on our burdens and pains. When you find yourself obsessing over what’s weighing you down, gently release the thoughts.

    Find things in your life to build upon joy: relationships, creative practices, or hobbies. These are great ways to interrupt the pain and make you feel lighter.

    And remember that judgments are burdens. Before you judge others, ask yourself what kinds of burdens they might be carrying. You can’t get rid of their burdens for them, but you can help them carry them, simply by being there and listening.

    Rain will fall on your life. We all have burdens and feel like we’re the burden from time to time. But if you can shift your perspective, you can stop your burdens from weighing you down and you can experience all the joy life has to offer. And if you’re lucky, you can rain your joy and kindness on others, too.

  • How to Access Awakened Consciousness Through Meditation [Free eBook]

    How to Access Awakened Consciousness Through Meditation [Free eBook]

    If you’re anything like me, you’ve likely tried meditation, or even adopted a consistent habit, only to question if you’re doing something wrong. You show up and put in the time, but despite your best efforts, you’re not reaping the expected benefits, or at least not with the consistency you originally hoped to see.

    Perhaps you initially turned to meditation for stress-relief, some way to defuse the constant sense of pressure and overwhelm that’s prevalent in our achievement-focused society.

    Or maybe you first tried meditation to help you focus and be more present so that your days don’t go by in a blur while you’re busy rehashing the past and worrying about the future.

    Both were true for me.

    Before I found meditation, I lived my days shuffling through a number of damaging mental habits: dwelling on victim stories, beating myself up for all the ways I felt I’d failed, and pressuring myself to somehow achieve massive success in order to prove my worth.

    I was missing out on my life while focusing on all the life I’d already missed and all the life I might miss if I didn’t somehow do better.

    I hoped meditation would save me from myself, and in some ways it has. But I’ve also placed unrealistic expectations on my practice and found myself making, what I later learned, are common meditation “mistakes”—mistakes that prevent us from experiencing the greatest benefit of meditation: awakened consciousness.

    Spiritual luminary Craig Hamilton explores this thoroughly in Unlocking the Power of Meditation, a FREE eBook that I suspect you’ll find both eye-opening and life-changing.

    In a nutshell, awakened consciousness is a sense of connection to our true nature, beyond our mind and ego. It’s the place where we can easily access our intuition, wisdom, creativity, confidence, inner strength, and resilience.

    This is what I think we’re all after: not just reduced stress and greater focus in the moment, but access to an expansive, sacred part of ourselves that brings us an immense sense of freedom, flow, and connection to everyone and everything around us.

    If you’ve struggled with meditation, as well—if you’ve found it difficult to maintain a regular practice and feel you haven’t experienced all the mental, emotional, and physical benefits you’ve read about—I highly recommend you check out Unlocking the Power of Meditation.

    In this powerful resource based on groundbreaking research, Craig reveals the five surprising, yet pervasive mistakes most of us make that prevent us from accessing the true potential of meditation.

    He also shares one powerful shift we can make to ignite our meditation practice and access awakened consciousness.

    When you learn how to practice what Craig calls “direct awakening” you’ll discover how to:

    -Access the miracle of awakened consciousness every time you meditate and allow its powerful energy to infuse every aspect of your life.

    -Experience a deep inner freedom from the hypnotic spell of fear and desire, enabling you to meet life’s challenges with courage and grace, beyond reactivity or compulsion.

    -Access a source of wisdom that arises spontaneously in response to the needs of the moment, bringing forth laser-like clarity faster than the speed of thought.

    -Tap into a dynamic and seemingly limitless source of energy, enabling you to do whatever needs to be done in each moment without burning out or becoming drained.

    -Access an inner well of creativity that brings forth a seemingly endless flow of unexpected new ideas, visions, and integrative solutions from a place beyond the mind.

    -Become a conduit for an overflowing love and care that flows through you into the world from a place beyond your mind’s comprehension.

    It’s a short eBook with a massive impact, and it ends with an invitation to a free ninety-minute workshop that can help you take your meditation practice to the next level.

    If you’re ready to move beyond the most common mistakes meditators make and live a life filled with meaning, purpose, love, and inspiration, you can download the free eBook Unlocking the Power of Meditation here.

    I hope you find it as helpful and illuminating as I did!

  • The Simple Path to a More Fulfilling, Far Richer Life

    The Simple Path to a More Fulfilling, Far Richer Life

    “Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” ~Seneca

    Many of us say we want a simpler life, but we don’t make any changes because that would require us to make hard choices that go against the flow. We say we want to be less busy and enjoy more of our days, but it feels easier to do what everyone else is doing, even if it’s actually harder.

    The path of least resistance is a well-paved six-lane highway that barrels forward in one direction. The constant hum of traffic tricks you into thinking it’s the best way to get where you want to go. If you’re interested in a simpler life, take the next exit because I’d like to share a new route with you.

    But first, a few important questions…

    Why do we accept rules, expectations, or beliefs forced on us as adults? If this comes at a cost that consumes our soul and leaves us questioning life, why do we view this as a fair trade-off?

    Why do we subject ourselves to the torture of leading chaotic lives? Do we think our sacrifices are worthy and just because they’ll enable our kids to live better lives? Does our reality really reflect the life we want to pass on to our kids? Or are we passing the torch to a relay they don’t actually want to be a part of?

    At some point, we forgot why we work. And the forty-hour work week is something no one questions. It is what it is. How is it that every job needs the same length of time to complete its tasks in a week?

    You need to have a source of income to put a roof over your head, food in your belly, and clothes on your back. I won’t debate you on that. After we fulfill these necessities of life, we start to get lost with everything we think we need to be happy.

    We live in a consumerist culture. As a result, we’ve come to believe that our wants and needs are the same thing. This requires us to make far more money than we really need for a happy life. It traps us in jobs we don’t want. And it forces us to spend our most precious resource (our time) on things that don’t make us happier.

    I know, I’ve been there myself. In my mid-twenties, I was in a job I hated, living with someone who deserved better, in a city I didn’t want to be in. Rather than address the root of my unhappiness, I bought a brand-new shiny sports car. I was depressed and I wanted a car to fulfill an emotional need. Spoiler alert: All I got in return was more depression and a bank-draining monthly payment to remind me you can’t buy happiness.

    I don’t want to spend my life endlessly consuming in an attempt to avoid my feelings and needs. I want to be present in every moment and enjoy as much as I can, like my niece, who’s coming up to her third birthday. She’s already the world’s greatest mindfulness teacher.

    Like a penguin marching through the Antarctic, she waddles forward with purpose. She stops to let that grass tickle her toes. She laughs as the feeling of a breeze kisses her cheeks. She is present with every ounce of her being. I’m with her, but a moment before I’m whisked away by the thought of upcoming projects and emails I “need” to respond to.

    Modern society squashes the whimsical out of you like a fat June bug under a careless foot. The decades of school and meaningless work are like buckets of water drowning a campfire. Only the embers remain. The fire that burned within your soul waits for oxygen to stoke it back to life.

    To reach the simple life you have to make the hard choice to carve your own path. It’s that voice that says don’t settle and points you in the opposite direction of everyone else. It’s the words of Dr. Seuss who urges, “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

    Getting started with a simpler life doesn’t require anything you don’t already have. It only requires you to focus on everything worth appreciating in your life as it is right now.

    The purí tribe lived along the northern coast of South America and in Brazil. Philosopher Henry David Thoreau modeled his life after their ability to live simply, present, and fulfilled. Their way of living was in the presence they gave each moment: “For yesterday, today, and tomorrow they have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning by pointing backward for yesterday, forward for tomorrow, and overhead for the passing day.”

    While we can’t all uproot our lives and live in the woods like Thoreau, and modern life is decidedly more complicated than life in the time of the purí, their commitment to presence offers a simple solution to the chaos of an ever-connected life.

    By doing less and being more engaged in everything we do, we’re able to enjoy our lives now instead of waiting and hoping we’ll find happiness and fulfillment sometime in the future, when we’ve accomplished or earned enough.

    But this requires us to tune out the noise of the world, an ever-present buzzing that drowns out the voice of our soul as the years add up.

    As a kid, that voice whispered to us about exploration and adventure. We were driven by curiosity and refused to be idle.

    Everything was exciting.

    Everything was magical.

    Everything was a gift.

    Living this kind of life comes back to our ability to be present like the purí tribe.

    It’s in these moments of presence that we get a chance to listen and hear what our soul is saying. We know deep down that material things will not make us happier. We know deep down that all the promotions in the world will not fill the void of missing out on life. We know deep down that the rat race is a game we don’t need to be a part of.

    Being present with these uncomfortable feelings is the beginning of a new and rich life.

    Left unchecked the rat race crushes your soul like the grass beneath an elephant stampede. This way of living is toxic for the mind, body, and soul. It’s a disease that fills you with stress, destroys your family, and gives you little to hope for.

    This is the reality I was facing when I was forty pounds heavier and had hit rock bottom with my mental health. I often found myself drinking with the hope that I wouldn’t wake up.

    It wasn’t until I was present with this pain that I could see that I needed help. And it wasn’t until I faced my feelings that I was able to strip away the things that didn’t fulfill me so I could      make space to enjoy the now.

    If you’re living like I once did—distracting yourself from your discontent and missing out on your life as a result—know that things don’t have to continue this way.

    At any time, you can choose to be honest with yourself, let go of the things that drain your spirit, and allow yourself to find joy in the simplicity of the now.

    At any time, you can tune into life’s simple pleasures—the excitement of your dog’s wagging tail, the unexpected smile of a passing stranger, or the way your son’s eyes light up when he smiles—and recognize that this is happiness. And It’s available at any time if you’re not too busy or caught up in your head to appreciate it.

    The purí tribe would point overhead to the passing day as a reminder that this is the only day we have. There’s no sense looking backwards unless that’s the direction you want to go. Each and every day carries a new opportunity to be present and live a rich life.

  • How a Numb, Phony Zombie Started Singing Her Own Song

    How a Numb, Phony Zombie Started Singing Her Own Song

    “Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

    Six years ago, I came across a line from an old poem that punctured my present moment so profoundly it seemed to stop time.

    On an average Tuesday, there I was, sitting at my desk, ignoring the stack of papers I was responsible for inputting into a spreadsheet and procrastinating as usual on the Internet instead.

    At this particular time, Pinterest was my drug of choice—anyone else?

    As I was aimlessly scrolling through wacky theme party ideas and spicy margarita recipes, suddenly, here came this old-school poet Oliver Wendell Holmes with these words that leapt off of my laptop screen and stung me like fourteen different bee stings to the heart:

    “Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!”

    I was floored. It was as if Oliver’s invisible hand had reached into my day and popped the protective bubble of my well-established comfort zone, sending me crashing down to the ground of an uncertain reality that I had so expertly managed to hover above for years.

    When I landed inside of the truth of my life for the first time in a long time, here’s what I saw:

    A recent college grad whose dad had died in the first few weeks of her “adulthood,” who took a job in the marketing department of a reputable company because it “looked good,” who spent her time outrunning looming fears of growing up and grief by seeking refuge in extraneous purchases, greasy slices of pizza, late nights under laser lights, and the bottoms of bottles of wine.

    A numb, phony zombie in red lipstick who had forgotten her own song.

    As a little girl, effortless music oozed from my pores. I could laugh, cry, dream, question, create, and believe in magic, and other people, and myself, with such abandon; it was like I was a tiny conductor leading a spontaneous orchestra of full self-expression, always unrehearsed and totally freestyle.

    And I didn’t just speak, I SANG! And I didn’t just walk, I DANCED!

    Had I put no soundproof walls up around my being then? I could recall what it was like to feel that free. But the memory of my smaller, wilder self marching proudly to the beat of her own drum felt so distant from where and how I was living.

    So instead of continuing on with the endless spreadsheet that I was responsible for completing that afternoon, I decided to take a break. A long break. I found a sunny bench outside of my building where I could go to sit and think.

    Then suddenly, The Little Mermaid swam right into my stream of thought. I closed my eyes and saw the scene where Ariel trades in her powerful voice to the evil sea witch, Ursula, for a pair of legs. She is so certain that becoming a part of the human world is more important to her than speaking her own truth and singing her own song. And I wondered…

    In what ways am I living at the expense of my own inner music? 

    I began to examine the situations in my life where I found myself exchanging an authentic piece of who I was out of fear, in order to achieve a particular outcome in the world. Here are just a few places in my life where I discovered this was so:

    I’d sacrificed my passion, by accepting a job I merely tolerated, because I was afraid of failing and wanted to give the appearance of being successful.

    I’d pushed down my grief, numbing it with shopping, food, and alcohol, because I was afraid of breaking down and wanted to give the appearance of being “fine.”

    I’d sacrificed authentic connection for toxic friendships because I was afraid of being lonely while I found the right friends and wanted to give the appearance of being liked.

    I’d sacrificed my authenticity and ended up living a small life because I was afraid of vulnerability and wanted to give the appearance of being in control.

    That was the moment when I decided I was ready to ditch the legs—everything that was just about appearances—and dive deeply into my own true passion, grief, and longings for connection and authenticity.

    I quit my job and enrolled in a spiritual studies certification and celebrant ordination program.

    I hired a therapist to help me heal and a coach to help me dream; these two women would become some of the fiercest advocates for me and my inner music that I’d ever meet.

    I started taking courses in personal development, joined a business mastermind, and got myself into as many meditation circles and yoga classes as I could.

    I began to play around with my expression again, belting my favorite songs from my childhood, wearing colors that sparked aliveness in me, scribbling lines of poetry till I fell in love with my own heart’s language again, and dipping my fingers in rainbows of paint without a plan.

    It felt so good to seek for the sake of seeking, and to create for the sake of creating!

    I finally started to let some of the people that I loved and trusted in enough to really see, hear, and hold me.

    And I got present, like really, really present, slowing down for long enough to fully inhabit whatever moment I was in. From that place, it became so natural to tap into the very real magic that had always existed within and around me.

    I recognized the miraculousness of my two feet on the ground, the blessing of my breath, and the rhythm of my heartbeat. I started to notice the sound and sensation of my full-body NO and YES. This new level of awareness polished my lens of perception, allowing me to see my life through my child self’s eyes once again—from a place of curiosity, excitement, imagination, and hope!

    My dive has brought me to terrifying places where I’ve wanted to sell myself out to the sea-witch over and over again, but still, I keep on swimming.

    For my song cannot be silenced, and neither can yours, though both of us will spend months, if not years living in fear of what it will take to truly sing.

    There is so much music inside of you and me. And to be the highest expression of who we are here to be, we’ve gotta sing our songs and sing em’ loud! But to live like that, we’re going to have to give ourselves permission to feel, say, and do what’s true.

    So, maybe owning your truth doesn’t look like finally quitting a job or grieving the loss of a loved one. But I challenge you to really take some time to stop and scan through your life with no judgment, just wide-open eyes and a loving heart, and ask yourself:

    What do I desire? What fear arises in the face of my desire? Where am I selling myself out to run/hide from my fear? And what must I do to express the full potential and possibility of achieving my desire?

    Do you remember the fierce and fearless drive that you had as a child to learn and grow? Can you imagine how many times the little you tried and failed and tried again at mastering the skills you needed to really engage with life—walking, reading, writing, using your words to ask for what you want, feeding yourself, tying your shoes, wiping your own bum, etc.? Where does that invincible tenacity go?

    The answer is: YOU’VE STILL GOT IT!

    It has been and always will be within you. You and I have the capacity to thrive in any and all areas of our lives. How? By becoming brave enough to stop and listen to our own music, then allowing ourselves to be truly guided by it as we go!

    Belt out your song like your life and the lives of future generations depend on it, because they do. And if you miss a beat or sing a note or two out of tune, don’t be afraid to own it. It’s all just a part of the dance. 

    If you’re looking for me, I’ll be here, diving deep into the depths of my being, tuning into my own music, swimming through fear, and daring myself to sing. Over and over and over again until my very last breath.

    And you? It is my hope that you will have the courage and the willingness to go deep and begin unleashing the divine music that only you were born to sing.

  • How I Overcame the Stress of Perfectionism by Learning to Play Again

    How I Overcame the Stress of Perfectionism by Learning to Play Again

    “What, then, is the right way of living? Life must be lived as play…” ~Plato

    I am a recovering perfectionist, and learning to play again saved me.

    Like many children, I remember playing a lot when I was younger and being filled with a sense of openness, curiosity, and joy toward life.

    I was fortunate to grow up in Oregon with a large extended family with a lot of cousins with whom I got to play regularly. We spent hours, playing hide-and-seek, climbing trees, drawing, and building forts.

    I also attended a wonderful public school that encouraged play. We had regular recess, and had all sorts of fun equipment like stilts, unicycles, monkey bars, and roller skates to play with. In class, our teachers did a lot of imaginative and artistic activities with us that connected academics with a sense of playfulness.

    I viewed every day as an exciting opportunity and remember thinking, “You just never know what is going to happen.” My natural state was to be present with myself, enjoying the process of play

    Unfortunately, my attitude began shifting from playfulness to perfectionism early on. Instead of being present and enjoying process, I started focusing on performance (mainly impressing people) and product (doing everything right). The more I did this, the less open, curious, and joyful I was.

    Instead, I grew anxious, critical, and discouraged.

    I first remember developing perfectionist tendencies when I was in elementary school and taking piano lessons. For some reason, I got the idea that I had to perform songs perfectly, or else I was a failure.

    Eventually I became so anxious, I would freeze up while playing in recitals. I started hating piano, which I once had loved, and eventually quit.

    My perfectionism spread into other areas of my life, too. In school, I pushed myself to get straight A’s, and if I earned anything less, I felt like a failure. I often missed out on the joy of learning because I was so worried about getting things right.

    My perfectionism also negatively impacted my relationship with myself. I believed I had to look perfect all the time. As a result, I often hated the way I looked, rather than learning to appreciate my own unique appearance and beauty. I also remembering turning play into exercise at this time of my life and using it to pursue the “perfect” body.

    Movement, which I loved when I was a child, began to feel exhausting and punishing.

    Perfectionism also hurt my relationships with other people. I felt like I had to be smooth and put together and that I always had to put everyone else’s needs above my own. Not surprisingly, I often felt unconfident, anxious, and exhausted around other people.

    At this time in my life, I believed that if I tried and worked hard enough, I could do everything right, look perfect, and make everyone happy.

    My perfectionism increased in young adulthood until eventually it became unsustainable. In my early thirties, I became the principal of a small, private middle school where I had taught for eight years. I loved the school and was devoted to it.

    In many ways, I was the ideal person to do the job. But I was also young and inexperienced, and I made some big mistakes early on. I also made some decisions that were good and reasonable decisions that, for various reasons, angered a lot of people.

    To complicate matters, the year I became middle school principal, the school underwent a massive change in our school’s overall leadership, and we suffered a tragic death in the community. I worked as hard as I could to help my school through this difficult time, but things felt apart.

    My school, which had largely been a happy and joyful place, suddenly became filled with fighting, suspicion, and stress. These events were largely beyond my control and were not the fault of any one person, but I blamed myself. For someone who had believed her whole life that if she worked hard enough, she could avoid making mistakes and could make people happy, my job stress felt devastating.

    I felt like my life was spinning out of control and that all the rules that once worked no longer applied. I crashed emotionally, and I remember telling my husband at this time, “I will never be happy again.”

    That was one of the darkest times of my life.

    It took me several years to find happiness again. One of the major things that helped me to do so was recovering a sense of playfulness.

    After my emotional crash, I decided I was done with perfectionism. I understood clearly that focusing so much on avoiding mistakes and pleasing-people was the source of much of my suffering. 

    I realized I needed a different way to approach life.

    About this time, my friend Amy and I started taking fencing lessons together. I was quite bad at it, but it didn’t matter. Because I had given up perfectionism, I didn’t care anymore about impressing people at fencing class or performing perfect fencing moves.

    Instead, I cared about being present with myself in the process and staying open and curious, and focusing on joy.

    I had a blast. I felt free and alive, and something flickered to life inside me that had felt dormant for many years. I felt playful again. And I realized that I had been missing playfulness for many years, and that it was part of what had caused me to become so perfectionistic.

    Playfulness is the attitude we take toward life when we focus on presence and process with attitudes of openness, curiosity, and joy. Perfectionism, on the other hand, makes us focus on performance and product and encourages anxiety, criticalness, and discouragement.

    Fencing helped me rediscover play and leave perfectionism behind.

    I fully embraced my newfound playful attitude. It touched every area of my life, and I hungered for new adventures. I began reconnecting with dreams I had put on hold for a while. Eventually I decided to leave my job as a middle school principal and return to graduate school to earn my PhD in philosophy, a goal I’d had since seventh grade.

    Earning a PhD in philosophy may not seem like a very playful thing to do, but it was for me. For six years, I immersed myself in the ideas of great thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Rousseau, Herbert Marcuse, and Paulo Freire.

    It felt like I was playing on a big, philosophical playground. But I also faced some significant challenges.

    I was thirty-seven when I returned to grad school and was a good ten to fifteen years older than most of my colleagues. Most of them had a B.A. and even an M.A. in philosophy, while I had only taken one philosophy course in college. I had a lot of catching up to do, and I faced some major challenges.

    One of the biggest challenges I faced early on was our program’s comprehensive exams. We had two major exams over thousands of pages of some of the hardest philosophical works ever written. The exams were so difficult that at one point, they had over a fifty percent fail rate. If students didn’t pass them by the third time, the graduate school kicked them out of the program.

    I was determined to pass these comps and spent all my Christmas and summer breaks studying for them for the first several years of graduate school. But I still failed both exams the first time I took them, and I failed my second exam twice.

    It isn’t surprising I failed them, given the high fail rate for the exams and the fact that I was still learning philosophy. But it was painful. I had worked so hard, and I was afraid of getting kicked out of the program.

    I was tempted to revert to my old perfectionist habits because they had once given me a sense of control. But I knew that would lead me down a dead-end road. So, I began applying all the lessons I had learned about playfulness to the comprehensive exams.  

    Rather than focusing on performance and the product, I focused on presence and process. I also focused on practicing habits of openness, curiosity, and joy. Mentally, I compared the comps to shooting an arrow into the bull’s eye of a target. Every test, even if I failed it, was a chance to check my progress, readjust, and get closer to the bull’s eye.

    This turned the comprehensive exams into a game, and it lessened the pain of failing them. It helped me accept failure as a normal part of the process and to congratulate myself every time I made progress, no matter how small it was. This attitude also helped me focus on proactive, constructive steps I could take to do better, like meeting with faculty members or getting tutoring in areas I found especially challenging. (Aristotle’s metaphysics, anyone?)

    I also taught myself to juggle during this time. Juggling not only relieved stress, it was also a playful bodily reminder to me that progress takes time. Nobody juggles perfectly the first time they try. Juggling takes time and patience, and the more we focus on openness, curiosity, and the joy of juggling, the more juggling practice feels like a fun game. 

    I began thinking of passing my comps like juggling, and it helped me be more patient with the process. I eventually mastered the material and passed both my comps.

    Studying for the comps taught me to bring playfulness into all my work in graduate school.

    Whenever I felt stressed out in my program, I reminded myself that perfectionism was a dead-end road, and that playfulness was a much better approach. Doing this helped me relax, be kind to myself, accept failures as part of the learning process, and to take small consistent steps to improve.

    This playful attitude kept me sane and helped me make it to the finish line.

    Playfulness was so helpful for me in graduate school that I have tried to adopt this spirit of playfulness in all areas of my life, including the college classrooms in which I teach. I have noticed that whenever I help students switch from perfectionism to playfulness, they immediately relax, are kinder to themselves, and increase their ability to ask for help.

    I am dedicated now to practicing playfulness every day of my life and to help others do the same. Playfulness isn’t something we must leave behind in childhood. It is an attitude we can bring with us our whole life. When we do so, life becomes an adventure, even during difficult times, and there is always something more to learn, explore, and savor.

  • Easing Anxiety: How Painting Helps Me Stop Worrying

    Easing Anxiety: How Painting Helps Me Stop Worrying

    “Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.” ~Kahlil Gibran

    Anxiety has followed me around like a lost dog looking for a bone for years now.

    I feel it the most acutely when I’m worried about my health or my daughter’s health. I notice a strange rash or feel an unusual sensation and all of a sudden: panic!

    My worries are not limited to health concerns though, and my ruminations go in the direction of dread about the future of the world, worries about my finances, and fears that I’m not good enough.

    Is my anxiety warranted? My mind tells me it is.

    “Remember how you had that bad reaction to a medication? It could happen again!”

    “You know how your daughter had that febrile seizure two years ago? You never know what could happen next!”

    “Think back to that time you and your family had a slow winter and were extremely worried about money. That could be just around the corner!”

    And on and on my mind goes. I know I shouldn’t believe what it tells me, but sometimes I get sucked under and can’t help it.

    I don’t think I was anxious like this when I was a kid. I think these underpinnings of nervousness started when I was older, probably my late twenties. I suppose by then I’d lived enough life to know that things can and do go wrong.

    I don’t like feeling anxious. I don’t like the way my body feels jangly and my mind races. I don’t like it when I can’t focus on the thing I’m supposed to be doing.

    But this is not a sad story, it’s a story of tiny improvements and little steps forward. It’s a journey of finding peace in the middle of a storm.

    For me that peace began with painting.

    Let me go back a few decades, back to when anxiety wasn’t part of my life. When I was a child, I loved art. I drew, I colored, I took extra art classes on the weekends because that’s what I enjoyed.

    I went to college to become an art teacher, switching to a graphic design track later. When I finished school in May of 2001, I had a part-time design job, and after the events of September 2001, I knew I needed to travel, to get out of the safe life I was living in my hometown.

    That’s when my creative practices fell by the wayside. I would never give up those years of travel and camping and working random jobs, but when I look back, I see this is where I stopped making art.

    Luckily, after the birth of my daughter in 2014, the desire to create came roaring back. At first, I was using a tiny corner of a bedroom in our small mountaintop rental house to paint. Eventually we bought a house, and I had the space to spread out, to keep my supplies on top of my desk, ready to paint whenever the urge struck.

    That’s when I started noticing something important: Painting stilled me in a way that nothing else did. It eased my fears and anxieties in a way other practices (deep breathing, meditating) did not, at least not as consistently.

    Painting is my peaceful place. Painting brings me directly into the moment, quickly and easily. You know how you’re supposed to stay mindful and present? That’s what painting does for me, no tips or tricks or timers or mantras needed.

    Yes, I use other methods to quell my anxiety, but painting is my absolute favorite. I get to bring forth something new. I get to flow with wherever the brush takes me. I get to be still inside while the rest of the world drops away, all while allowing something beautiful to emerge.

    When anxious thoughts start to swirl, I know what to do. I head into my studio, grab some materials, and start creating. Soon enough, the spiraling worries are gone and instead my mind is quiet.

    Even if you aren’t artistic, even if you don’t have a creative bone in your body, I still think you can achieve the stillness I achieve when painting. You might not have a brush in your hand, though!

    First things first: If you struggle with anxiety, you should seek the help of a licensed professional. As helpful as painting is, I also see a counselor, and the tools she’s given me are absolutely priceless.

    Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here are the other ways I think stillness and peace can be found, even if you’re not meditating or breathing deeply while counting to ten.

    Think back to what brought you joy and the feeling of flow when you were a child. Maybe for you it was playing sports or a musical instrument; writing your own sketches or training your dog to roll over. Whatever it was, look for ways to add more of it back into your life now.

    Start paying attention to your life as an adult and what activities make you forget about the time. When are you fully immersed? When do you fully let go? Maybe it’s during a yoga or meditation class, but maybe it’s when you’re preparing a meal for your family or writing up a budget for work.

    Still your mind any time you remember. I do this now, especially when I’m not painting. I know that a still mind releases my anxiety, and I also know I can’t paint all hours of the day. Simply noticing the feeling of my body on the chair below me or listening to the sounds in the room around me helps my mind to quiet.

    I think the reason painting is so helpful for my anxiety is that, in order for me to be anxious, I have to be worrying about the future and what it holds. When I’m doing an activity that requires my full concentration, I have to be in the moment; there is no other choice.

    All of the practices that we can use to find calm, whether it’s changing our thoughts, following our breath, repeating a prayer or mantra, they all rely on the same thing: bringing our presence to the now.

    What activity brings you into the now? What makes you feel fully alive and entwined with the moment? It doesn’t matter if you’re artistic. It doesn’t matter if you like making things. The only thing that matters is finding a way to be here, in the now, instead of in the unknowable future.

    **Artwork by the author, Jen Picicci

  • Why It’s Okay Not to Have Everything Under Control

    Why It’s Okay Not to Have Everything Under Control

    “Relax. Nothing is under control.” ~Adi Da Samraj

    This has been an incredibly difficult, stressful, and uncertain year for me, as it has been for most people.

    If I was told a year ago that in 2020, my work hours as a healthcare professional would be reduced, I would be quarantined for months in a small one-bedroom apartment with my boyfriend of seven months, I’d gain fifteen pounds in a few months, and I wouldn’t be able to travel to other countries, I would have rolled my eyes, laughed in disbelief, and thought to myself whoever is delivering this information had eaten one too many Cocoa Puffs.

    The truth is these past nine months, starting from before the pandemic, have been some of the most challenging times, both emotionally and mentally, that I have ever experienced.

    A little backstory: Prior to early November, I was working two part-time jobs. After some thought and deliberation, I decided that I was going to quit one job (of course the one that provided my health insurance) because I couldn’t keep working eleven-hour shifts while commuting an additional two hours in Chicago traffic to be at this clinic.

    Working these two jobs had drained me, and I’d stopped taking care of myself. So, I took a leap and decided to quit one of them in early November. At least I had until the end of the month to figure out what to do about health insurance. And honestly, how much could really happen in a month?

    I devised a plan to slowly increase my hours at my other job. Come the end of November, I ended up having a surprise “change in my health status.” This really shocked me and threw a curve ball since I would lose my group medical insurance at the end of November. Since I didn’t want to pay $700 a month in COBRA insurance, I decided to pay out-of-pocket so I could keep seeing my healthcare provider in December to address my change in health status.

    What are the chances that this would happen? How unlucky could this timing be? Why now?

    Then in December, my health status changed again. Lucky for me, I did not need to worry about continuing to pay to see my healthcare provider again. However, I did have a nice bill from those December visits with my primary care provider.

    I thought to myself, well this can only get better… right?

    Then in February, I got in a car accident while I was driving to work. My car got totaled. Fortunately, both the other diver and I were fine. But we’ll just say these past few months were off to a rough start.

    So, once the Coronavirus started to accelerate in March and my work hours were reduced, I didn’t even know what to think. With the pandemic, all this uncertainty really came full force. I remember staying up into the wee hours of the morning the week of March 16th with a heavy knot in my stomach reading all the articles I could about Coronavirus to try to make sense of what was happening.

    Instead of it making sense, panic started to fill me. I couldn’t stop texting friends every new article I could find about how the Coronavirus was continuing to affect others and spread. My friends in turn would text me similar articles, which only perpetuated the fear.

    This apprehension and restlessness wouldn’t stop. It grew and grew until it was the only thing in the room with me. It was all I could think about.

    I worried about my family and friends. Every article I read seemed to contradict the previous one. I worried about finances. I didn’t know what to believe. I worried about my job. Even now with the pandemic continuing, it’s still so confusing.

    These past nine months have really reinforced why it is okay not to have everything under control.

    The valuable lessons I’ve learned about control (or lack thereof) are helping to decrease my anxiety levels when I become overwhelmed and stressed. I hope this might help others who may feel similarly in these uncertain times.

    1. Life is full of uncertainties, and that’s okay.

    It’s human nature to want to have control and explanations for pretty much everything. It helps us stay at ease and somewhat sane. However, life really is a series of uncertain events.

    Yes, we have control over some things—like our actions. But when it comes down to it, we don’t have control over many things—like a pandemic, other people, the weather, accidents…

    It’s about being comfortable navigating through uncertainty. The more I am okay with not knowing everything, the more at peace I feel.

    2. Focus on the journey, not the destination.

    During times of stress this year, such as with my car accident, change in health status, or the pandemic, my mind would always go into fast-forward mode. Suddenly in my head I would skip to five years into the future.

    How am I going to buy a house with all this money that I am paying toward bills? With the pandemic, will my loved ones and I be okay? Will I have a stable job?

    This thinking pattern helped me realize that all anyone can really do is stay in the present moment. Especially in a case like the Coronavirus, going too far into the future with my fears and uncertainties will only add unnecessary stress to my life, since I have no idea what’s coming, or when.

    Yes, we can take precautions. However, it is also important to also realize that worrying constantly solves nothing in the long run. It only creates more problems to fixate on and takes us away from life and all the precious moments that are unfolding around us in the present.

    3. Make changes in your life that may be scary.

    Since I am doing contract work, I am now on a private individual insurance plan (which is not cheap). However, because my work caseload has been cut in half, I decided to go out of my comfort zone and take a job halfway across the country for a year because it offers healthcare benefits and the chance to grow professionally.

    I feel like this is taking a big leap traveling across the country with my boyfriend during a pandemic. However, I also believe life is short, and now is the time to continue to make changes to keep evolving.

    4. There are lessons every day.

    Let me tell you, I have not always had the best emergency fund prepared. It’s been in the back of my mind but not a priority until everything hit the fan for me in November. If this isn’t the universe sending some kind of strong message, I am not sure what it is.

    I have learned to start putting money into an emergency fund, and to use it more wisely. To not take my health for granted. To really appreciate and enjoy quality time with family and friends. This year has also taught me that nothing is guaranteed, and in an instant, everything can be taken away.

    5. The only constant in life is inner joy.

    I used to believe the quote that the only constant in life was change. This was before I traveled to Thailand and stayed at a yoga retreat two years ago. One day when my friend and I were taking a meditation class, our teacher, Ulf, told us that the only constant in life is inner joy. The more I think about this statement, the more I agree.

    Nobody can take your inner joy away. No matter how hard life gets, it’s important to find joy. So even though it can be quite challenging at times, that is what I have been trying to do more consciously.

    Taking a walk and finding joy in the sunshine. Talking to a friend on the phone that I haven’t reached out to in over a year. Eating a meal made from scratch. Cuddling with my boyfriend. Joy can be found even in hard and dark times because it comes from within. Nobody can take joy away except for ourselves.

    —

    For all of you out there who are having a difficult time with all this uncertainty, here’s to being okay with not knowing and finding inner joy when everything seems to be unraveling and out of our control. Here’s to dealing with life and all of its uncertainties with openness and awe. Here’s to living.

  • Why Joy Is Important for Healing Developmental Trauma

    Why Joy Is Important for Healing Developmental Trauma

    “We all have everything we need within us to create our fullest potential.” ~Abraham Maslow

    Did you grow up with a critical, distant, or ignorant mother?

    She probably made sure that your physical needs were covered, but she never noticed or understood your emotional needs. If she was anything like my mum, she may even have shamed you for having them!

    You’re an adult now, and you have everything you need to be happy. So why aren’t you? Instead, you feel unworthy, disconnected, and lonely even when you’re with people you love. There’s this constant emptiness inside that makes you angry and sad at the same time. 

    Maybe you still long for a loving mother like you did when you were young, hoping that one day she’ll show up, or maybe you’ve given up hope that your mother will ever change.  

    Either way, she left open wounds inside your entire being—invisible traces of the trauma that you sustained. And you need to heal these wounds so that you can rediscover your true nature, activate your full potential, and live a life of your choice—a life filled with joy.

    Healing is crucial for your health—mental, physical and spiritual alike. The good news is, you don’t have to live in misery waiting for the “perfect” day to start being happy. In fact, bringing more joy into your life now will help you heal.

    Think about it this way: Joy is like the sun that eats away grey clouds and opens up the skies. Everything it touches brightens up and fills with the energy of growth. 

    Joy helps minimize the stress of the fight-or-flight reactions that you grew accustomed to because of to your traumatic past. It activates positive patterns in your brain instead, helping you heal and thrive.

    Just like it helped me.

    How I Learned to Speak Joy

    I was thirty-one when I made the life-changing decision to move abroad, far away from the stress of the strained relationship with my mum. On the outside, I was a confident adult woman, the mother of a seven-year-old boy. But inside, I felt like a scared little girl longing for a safe place to hide.

    Moving to a new country brought much positive change into my life. But, like nearly everything in life, with the good came a challenge.

    Running from my narcissistic mum, I left behind everything I knew—everything I had built in my life. I also left Mum alone with my dear sick father in the age before the Internet, when international phone calls could bite holes in a family budget. What I wanted was a break from the pain inflicted by Mum’s behaviour, but I never stopped worrying about her and my dad.

    I swapped my career in one of the country’s best medical centers for the life of a housewife, surrounded by strangers who spoke a language I didn’t understand. I uprooted my little boy and brought him to an unfamiliar place far away. We both felt like two survivors who had landed on another planet, and I needed all my strength just to stop myself from falling apart. 

    So how did I step beyond merely surviving, and begin to thrive? By making a conscious decision to live in the now and enjoy what I have.

    As simple as it seemed, it was a challenge in itself. You see, Mum taught me that life was serious business, and neither fun nor joy belonged there. Fortunately, the healthy part inside of me knew what I needed: to master another “foreign” language—the language of joy. Fortunately, I listened.

    “Even when you didn’t have the mother you needed, there’s a place inside your heart that totally knows how to love.” ~Jette Simon, psychotherapist

    So, there I was, learning to enjoy mundane chores like vacuuming and cleaning bathrooms—what could be less joyful than that? But I would turn on MTV, sing along, and swing my hips to the tunes blazing out of the big black box of a TV we had back then. And that simple trick drizzled my life with positivity, helping me to turn boring, everyday stuff into pleasurable activities.

    After that small success, I learned to seek and find joy in everything I did.

    You may be unable to change every challenging circumstance of your life, but you can bring more balance to your emotional inner world. 

    Being a food lover, I experimented with local recipes, enjoying tickles of creativity and sharing the results.

    My mother-in-law, Kirsten, who called me every day, clearly cared about us. Unfortunately, we didn’t speak a common language, and I needed something to make those conversations come alive. So, I made a list of the stuff I was usually doing—I’m vacuuming, reading, helping my son with his homework, and so on—and my husband translated it for me. This list became not only my first lesson in Danish, but it also brought joy to our connection and deepened our relationship.

    I loved spending quality time with my son with no stress attached and enjoyed the growing feeling of closeness between us. I did my best to help him cope with new people and our new life, and in turn, he helped me.

    I enjoyed my time alone, too—a walk with the dog (another language to learn!), sunbathing on the terrace, or reading a book. For the first time in my life, I could sit there doing nothing, and no one would criticize me for being “lazy” as Mum used to!

    Spice up your daily activities to expand a flow of positivity and minimize reactivity patterns.

    Looking back, I clearly see that I learned to be in the moment, pay attention to what I was doing, and do it with joy.

    Gradually, my overall mood began to improve, and I could see my life in a brighter light. Each day started to look more like an adventure, with endless possibilities for joy presenting themselves.

    It didn’t heal my trauma, of course, but it helped me get the best out of a turbulent time of change and prepared me for a healing journey. 

    Your Brain Still Remembers

    The chronic stress of developmental trauma has a long-lasting impact on the brain. Overloaded with negative bias, some parts of your brain are overwhelmed and “acting out,” while others are numb, taken out of the game. You need to calm the loud ones and reactivate those that have gone quiet. By doing so, you re-center yourself and find a healthier emotional balance. 

    When you laugh, have fun, or simply enjoy the moment, troubles and worries step aside, and you enter another realm where you feel connected, safe, and loved.

    Joy is inside you as a natural part of your true being. You simply need to find and reconnect with it.

    Here’s how you can increase your ability to feel joy.

    Acknowledge your current situation.

    Put in words what you’re struggling with, why, and how it’s negatively impacting you—not to punish anyone but to clarify the challenge. Remember, denial keeps you stuck, but acknowledging things for what they are opens doors for personal growth, healing, and joy.

    Now, knowing where you stand, ask yourself what you want your life to be and what you can do to get there. Possibilities for moving forward always exist; even small steps will take you closer to your goal.

    Find balance in a state of control.

    Either too much or too little control means co-dependency. Many people try to overcontrol their lives. To overcome this, let go of things that are beyond your control, like changing other people. Instead, focus more on self-growth. 

    In other cases, people allow their circumstances to dictate their lives, resulting in too little control or even no control at all. If that’s the case for you, it means taking matters into your own hands. Start with easier things like taking care of your well-being and choosing things that bring you joy. After that, work on saying no and building and defending strong boundaries.  

    Learn to tolerate difficult emotions.

    To achieve a peaceful and joyful state, you must first learn to tolerate your difficult emotions. It’s not easy, but staying with your grief, anger, or shame can turn things around and free space for positive emotions. If you push these difficult feelings away, they will almost certainly eat you alive. Do you want to miss out on all the good stuff in life? I didn’t think so.

    Validate your feelings instead of suppressing them, denying them, or pushing them away. You have the right to all of them! How could you not be angry, sad, or in mourning when you grew up without the loving mother you longed for as a child?

    Working through painful feelings on your own can be tough, so ask your partner, a friend, or a therapist to support you during this time.

    Live in the moment.

    Did you know that multitasking is one of the biggest enemies of joy? It’s true! Taking on multiple tasks at once keeps your mind and body overloaded, and it’s impossible to enjoy yourself when you’re constantly changing activities. Focusing on one thing, on the contrary, allows joy to surface and bloom.

     Learn to calm yourself. 

    Nobody is happy or relaxed all the time, but you can learn the skills and techniques to calm yourself when you need to. By doing so, you help your brain build more positive connections and open up for joy.

    Mindfulness and mediation are two excellent techniques that help you to slow down and focus on the moment. If sitting silently cross-legged on a cushion isn’t for you, don’t worry, there are other ways to get the benefits of these practices. Anything that helps you focus, pay attention, and be present will do the trick.

    Engage yourself fully.

    No matter what you do, get completely involved in it. Even when you do something out of necessity, it’s possible to find joy in the action. Fully engaging in everything you do helps you discover new, exciting sides to boring stuff from your to-do list. And sometimes, adding fun to dull, repetitive activities like washing the dishes or waiting for the bus solves the problem and awakens joy.

    Help or share.

    Social connections bring lots of joy into your life, even if you’re just connecting on Zoom. Help people, or share something with them—a cup of coffee, a smile, or a passion of yours. For example, I like to bake, and blend facial tonics and creams; it helps me relax. But sharing my passions with others is what brings me profound satisfaction and joy. 

    And the effect stays for days and weeks—I promise! 

    Choose joy. 

    More joy means lower levels of inflammation in your body, better health, and greater happiness. You’re no longer a prisoner of your emotions and can consciously choose where you want to use your energy and how. 

    Activating joy helps you reconnect with an authentic, wise part inside of you that knows how to love. It means finally feeling like yourself and safe inside your skin—no matter what traumas you have endured throughout your life.

    “Every moment, if it’s really inside of you, brings you what you need.” ~Rumi

    Choose joy!

  • How to Recreate Meaning Now That the Pandemic Has Upended Life

    How to Recreate Meaning Now That the Pandemic Has Upended Life

    EDITOR’S NOTE: You can find a number of helpful coronavirus resources and all related Tiny Buddha articles here.

    “It’s not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.” ~Tony Robbins 

    Like millions of others, I lost my job in the wave of the coronavirus pandemic. I was teaching on a small island in the Caribbean. I discovered a purpose through my work, loved the peaceful nature of the island, and, true to my introverted nature, loved living in my too-quiet community. It was a job and a life that I had dreamed of for years.

    So, when we got the notification that we had to return home, I didn’t know how to react. Did it even make sense to be angry or sad or confused in the face of what felt like a cosmic slap? It wasn’t how this chapter of my life was supposed to turn out.

    The world is currently locked in the grip of uncertainty. All the numbers and fears, the influx of information, it’s hard to grasp onto the railing when the floor keeps shifting.

    Instinctively, many of us have created comfort in a cloud of normalcy. We’ve remade schedules, moved most of our interactions online, and explored new and old hobbies. I, of course, have done the same. After all, my life reset in the span of a week.

    But how can I be okay when I’m staring down a hole where my purpose used to be? How can I stay standing when my life and work are hanging somewhere I can’t reach?

    We Desire Meaning in our Lives

    As humans, it’s important to have meaning in our lives, whether it’s through our relationships, our work, or our interests. Making a difference, making art, making a living—everyone has something that drives them. We need to discover our “why,” and that “why” is easier answered when we define our values.

    It’s hard for me to live a life that isn’t true to who I am. I didn’t even know what a meaningful life looked like for a long time. The values I had weren’t fully realized, and I held them in shaky arms.

    Finding the answer to my why was neither guided nor paved. After years and years of schooling and working that bore no fruit, I started doubting that my life could be more than me simply moving to the next thing. And when you’re just moving along, purpose is nothing more than an idea.

    But when I found it, something in me thawed. The landscape changed. Moving along became moving with a purpose.

    And then I lost it.

    When I returned home, I struggled through an episode of disillusionment. Was there a point in trying? I reached out to my friend, and she provided me with a guidepost that I used to reframe my new life. Life is about connections with people. We all enrich the lives of others.

    It’s wisdom I’ve heard before. It’s not esoteric. But I have always felt disconnected from people and from the world. So her words didn’t click until I looked back and realized what I had gained—an understanding of the world outside my bubble and a duty to put others above myself.

    This meaning linked me to a world that I had always insulated myself from. It gave me a lens that I could better understand people through. It wasn’t just about me anymore. I have always valued helping others, but I learned that you have to step outside of yourself to really support and connect with others.

    Losing that put me in that hole. My link had been severed by an outside force, and I had no idea if it would ever let me reconnect it. Insecurity crept in. Would I be forgotten? Did anything matter anymore?

    I could let the pandemic answer those questions for me, or I could take my friend’s advice to heart.

    Recreate Meaning When Meaning is Lost

    Many of us have similar stories of losing important pieces of our lives. And those pieces are all tied to our personal stories. Meaning is an anchor that connects us to the world. Without it, we remain adrift. We’re just moving along.

    The pandemic has robbed us of milestones, livelihoods, jobs, events, and so much more. We’re all searching for ways to fill the holes, and this is made much harder in this tense atmosphere. But we can recreate meaning to build and maintain our connections to ourselves and to others, especially in a world that reminds us that life is fragile.

    1. Revisit your values.

    Family, creativity, knowledge, fun, service. What do you find important in life? Our values cement our understanding of who we are and what we want. They lead us to the people and opportunities that fill our lives with meaning and joy.

    Helping people—showing others love—is important to me. While I can’t currently help how I previously did, I am capable of showing love to friends, family, and those who need a hand. I believe love is how we can get through the pandemic.

    Creating is something that I also value, namely writing. Journaling helps me connect to myself, and writing articles like this gives me the chance to help others.

    Retell your story. Retrace the steps that led to your values.

    2. Reconnect with loved ones old and new.

    Like my friend stated, we all enrich the lives of others. Our people give us memories and share laughs with us. They pick us up when we’re down, point us forward when we’re looking backward, and remind us of what’s important when we’ve forgotten. They’ll help us through this crisis.

    The urgency of the current climate can give us a nudge to reintroduce ourselves to our family and friends. We can discuss the things that matter to us. Connect with each other on a deeper level, since, for many, emotions are close to the surface. It’s okay if we needed the extra push to reconnect.

    I am terrible at keeping in touch with others. Social isolation and concerns surrounding the virus, however, have pushed me to maintain and strengthen the connections I have. I don’t want to lose the link I established between myself and others.

    And I’ve been grateful to have heard from people I haven’t spoken to in a long time. It’s reminded me that I mean something. Perhaps we can remind others that they mean something, too.

    3. Engage in activities that are meaningful.

    Our lives are more limited, and we can’t always control what we have access to. If we’re able, we can explore our hobbies more, start new ones, or engage in meaningful activities. Not for the sake of using our time productively or just to keep busy, but for the sense of calm and fulfillment it can bring to our spirits.

    Even doing something as simple as playing a game, by ourselves or with loved ones, can be purposeful. Fun and relaxation mean something too.

    I looked to reconnect to the world by creating. I started writing almost every day and began exploring graphic design, something I was always interested in. By keeping on a purposeful track, I kept myself from just moving along to the next thing. It keeps my spirits up.

    4. Recreate milestones and events.

    Many things may be canceled, but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate the important moments in our lives. They can still mean something even if they don’t happen normally. Many people have moved graduations, birthday celebrations, and other moments online.

    If we desire to, we can recreate those moments in a way that is special to us.  The internet is filled with examples of people who have celebrated or plan to celebrate in their own way. With a little creativity, we can bring that magic home.

    Waiting for the world to return to normal is okay too. Sometimes we want the tried and true traditions. Meaningful is meaningful no matter how it is presented.

    —

    Getting out of bed is hard some days. I often question the point of doing anything. To help move through this lost meaning, I’ve funneled as much of the chaos as possible into rediscovering new meaning.

    The anxiety and uncertainty are overwhelming. The pandemic is challenging everything we know. But it’s important that we feed ourselves purpose when we’re able to. Our spirits burn brighter when they’re lit with that spark.

  • The Art of Slow Living: How to Reclaim Your Peace and Joy

    The Art of Slow Living: How to Reclaim Your Peace and Joy

    “In today’s rush, we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just being.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    We’re going to start with a visualization exercise. Set a timer for one minute, close your eyes, and reflect on your happiest childhood memories…

    I was born into a family of wanderers, individuals who held a deeply rooted love of travel, and an even deeper sense of adventure. My happiest childhood memories are the times when we packed up our suitcases and hit the road (or the sky or the sea).

    In the quiet stillness of my mind, I float away to a Hawaiian beach. Suddenly, I am once again a young adolescent lying in the sand with the ones I love as we watch the leaves of a large palm tree sway overhead, moving in front of the sun and casting long, warm shadows on the seemingly endless stretches of beach on either side of us. The crash of the waves reverberates through our ears, and a sense of peaceful stillness permeates our entire beings.

    Here, we have no responsibilities, and our attention is simply focused on being present with one another.

    Maybe for you, the happiest childhood memories that come to mind revolve around a favorite holiday when friends or loved ones laughed together without distractions, or spending time with brothers and sisters talking about everything and nothing, growing closer to one another.

    No matter the memories that come to mind, they undoubtedly had one thing in common—in those moments we (and those around us) were free.

    That’s the secret to intentional, or slow, living; when we practice patience with ourselves and others, and allow the busyness of our lives to fall away, we can feel the emotion that exists in every moment, and truly connect to the people and things around us.

    Childhood is, by its very definition, an opportunity to practice slow living. When we are children we do not have the stress of our jobs, our social status, or providing for others weighing on our shoulders. Not only are our days free from responsibility, they are also free from anxiety and worry.

    As we age, we have a tendency to forget the purpose of intentional living, and instead allow our days to be managed and monitored by the incessant beeping or text and email alerts and the allure of amassing social media likes.

    We allow our souls to be turned away from spiritual clarity and light, believing instead that the more “stuff” we allow to fill our days, the happier we will be.

    But the truth, friends, is that the happiness we so desperately seek on our busiest days is not found in the countless distractions of the world around us, but in the innocence of our hearts—the stillness and presence that has dwelled within us since we were children.

    Of course, I’m not recommending that you quit your job tomorrow, forgo all of your responsibilities, and craft some sort of bubble-like lifestyle for your days.

    I am suggesting that you evaluate where your priorities lie, and if you find your life has become too fast-paced to truly connect with yourself and others, that you take small action steps toward decluttering your spiritual core—the part of you that knows the answers to life’s greatest mysteries do not lie in the rush, but rather, in the moments of connection.

    Living intentionally is an art, and is not something that we can master overnight, but by committing to a practice of cultivation, we can encourage relaxation of our nervous systems, begin to avoid the people and things that take our time and energy without giving us anything in return, and create a life we love—a life that is full of peace and genuine joy. Here’s how to get started:

    Evaluate your life.

    What do you truly want out of your life? If there were no barriers like money or power, what would you want to do and with whom would you want to do it? Consider the answers to these questions to be your sense of inner wisdom and trust the messages you receive.

    Identify the people and activities that you desire to willingly surround yourself with, as well as those to whom you feel obligated, and notice how you feel when you think about these people and tasks, responding to your thoughts without judgment. Then, work on increasing the amount of time you spend doing what you love with those you love.

    Little by little, you will find that you are able to take control of your life and live in a way that fulfills you, allowing you to practice intentional presence in all areas.

    Understand that busyness does not equal importance.

    Answering all the emails in our inboxes while we sit at the dinner table is not going to mean anything to the people who mean the most to us. While many responsibilities are unavoidable, there is something to be said for committing to presence of mind, no matter how much we may struggle with feeling like we’re missing out on something that only our devices can tell us about.

    Generations ago, when professionals did not have electronic tools like cell phones or tablets, they somehow managed to complete all of their tasks and were considered by others as having contributed to society.

    Somewhere along the way, that understanding became skewed, and now, we have lofty expectations for how quickly we can respond to a summons and the number of commitments we can successfully juggle at one time.

    Understand that being busy does not make us successful or important; in fact, often, being too busy serves no purpose other than to detract from our connection with the people that are nearest to us.

    Choose a place in your home where you will stow your cell phone and other electronics upon entering the house. When our phones are out of reach, they will almost automatically leave our minds, and we can focus on being present with the people who are physically with us.

    If you find that spending all your time at home without your phone is too difficult or not reasonable for your lifestyle, establish small blocks of time (five to ten minutes maximum) that you are allowed to check your phone before re-stowing and returning your attention to the present. Over time, you will find that your need to have these phone breaks becomes less and less frequent.

    Find silence.

    Our world is noisy—there is no other way to describe it. Yet, we’ve become so accustomed to the din of our environment that we have seemingly become immune to noticing how this constant chaos negatively impacts us physically and spiritually.

    When was the last time you spent a moment in silence? It’s probably been quite some time, if you can even remember a moment free from noise at all. Our culture perpetuates trepidation around quiet, wanting to fill every pause with some sort of sound effect or reverie, so it’s important for us, as we pursue a slower lifestyle, to create a space in our lives that is free from distractions.

    Find a way to bring calm and quiet into your life whether it comes through a daily practice of meditation, a walk through the silence of nature, or a peaceful moment spent in bed before you close your eyes to rest. Pursuing peace will lead to a regular commitment to quiet and allow you to grow in your understanding of what it means to be truly present.

    —

    I’m not the little girl on the Hawaiian beach anymore. I have real responsibilities and accountabilities just like you do. But, by committing to a practice of slow living, of practicing intention and presence in my days, I am helping her to continue to grow and thrive.

    No matter your age or where you are on your journey, you can reclaim a piece of your innocent joy as well—the childhood version of yourself is still inside you, waiting for you to commit to their well-being.

  • Pain, Suffering, Joy, Love—Meditation Helps Me Experience It All

    Pain, Suffering, Joy, Love—Meditation Helps Me Experience It All

    “I know, things are getting tougher when I can’t get the top off the bottom of the barrel.” ~Jesse Michaels

    No one thought I was going to live to see twenty. Including me. In fact, I vividly remember telling my father that it would be miraculous if I saw twenty-five. It wasn’t emotional. It was simply a statement of fact. And yet here I am—mid-thirties, wife, daughter, one on the way, house, job, sense of purpose. What happened?

    I was one of those kids with questions. Big questions. “What does it all mean?” questions. I used to wonder what the point of all of this was. As young as seven and eight I remember lying in bed at night trying to understand the nature of the world. I would examine my family, my friends, my fears, my aspirations, looking for the thread that would unravel the existential knot.

    I loved to learn, and I was frequently drawn to the sciences in a way that I now see as continuing to look for answers to the big questions. When my friends were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, they gave the common answers—policeman, fireman, professional athlete, etc. I think someone said “Batman” (it might have been me…).

    When it came to me, I would usually say, “paleontologist or astronomer.” (I later amended this to astrophysicist, but I hadn’t heard of it yet, and further, didn’t have the math skills.) It was clear to me that this world had a rhyme and a reason, and I wanted desperately to understand it. And then, at twelve, I discovered the answer.

    I became a drug addict and an alcoholic. It was beautiful. It did not give me any answers; it simply took away the questions. It shrunk my life to the “one-pointed mind” that I would rediscover later in another context.

    Addiction is an all-consuming activity. I compounded this problem by developing a number of co-occurring mental health problems—rage, depression, anxiety. A continuous cocktail of hopelessness and loss.

    This spiral was only arrested at the nick of time by the intervention of a loving family and a supportive community dedicated to service to those struggling with addiction.

    In the decade and a half since, I’ve watched many friends die, go to jail, disappear, and I have often wondered what the difference between them and me is.

    I have heard the “some have to die so others can live” theory and the “they just weren’t ready” platitude. I have heard the “at least they’re not struggling anymore” and the “God must have needed them” explanations. I reject these utterly.

    While these statements offer some degree of emotional and psychological comfort, I can’t imagine the reality of what they seem to imply: Some of us are “chosen” and some of us are not.

    I think about a friend of ours who died Christmas Eve morning from an overdose. I couldn’t conceive of going to his grief-stricken family and saying, “Bummer about your son, guess he wasn’t chosen.” I’m sure that would’ve helped lift their Christmas spirits every year.

    I have been to seventeen funerals in the past few years, all for people under thirty and most under twenty-five. Each time I have asked myself the same question: Why them and not me?

    I don’t pretend to have an answer. Furthermore, I don’t think there is an ANSWER (capital letters intentional). When I discovered my spiritual and meditative practice I was strongly drawn to the fact that these practices openly admitted they had no answers, only a means to investigate the questions.

    Meditation doesn’t give me any answers. It doesn’t allow me to sidestep grief or pain or rage. It doesn’t make good times better or bad times suck less. It doesn’t offer me a way to disassociate from my very real human experience. Although, for the record, I have tried to use meditation to do all of these things.

    So what difference does it make to me?

    The meditation practices that I employ bring me face to face with the pain and hurt and fear and rage. The pain of losing my friends; the hurt that no one could help them, not even me; the fear that I very well could fall victim to the same delusions; the rage at the utter injustice of why beautiful, talented men and women at the beginning of their lives are lost to us.

    In not trying to avoid the pain, I get to experience it and learn from it.

    I have repeated the negative and destructive patterns of my life not because of lack of will or lack of desire to change, but merely because I didn’t see them. I’ve looked away from my pain and my trauma, and so it’s had no choice but to reemerge over and over again.

    Sitting “on the cushion” has given me a stable and safe place from which to step into the sea of suffering, find the part of me that needs comfort and compassion, and try to bring it into the light.

    My practice has shown me that the answers we look for are whatever we want them to be. Meaning is not an inherent quality. Things happen, and we, as human beings, assign them meaning. Sometimes the meaning is that we “live for them” (the people who have past). Sometimes we “make it matter.”

    I once asked out a girl in one of my graduate school classes because I had just helped bury a seventeen-year-old kid who I realized would never get to ask a girl out again. So what the hell? I asked her, thinking maybe Danny would give me an assist from wherever he was. She still said no. I swear I could hear him laughing at me.

    Sometimes we use things to reinforce the negative story that we tell ourselves about ourselves and the world we live in. We create our own victimization and tell ourselves it’s not our fault. The world is terrible. I did this forever, reinforcing the story of my own victimhood until it almost killed me.

    Meditation helps me examine all of these storylines. It helps me embrace the things that make my life better and discard (almost always with assistance) the things that are detrimental to myself, that cause pain to those around me.

    It offers me the opportunity to “turn the volume down” on the rage and anxiety and depression. It brings me back within the bounds of experiencing these without them becoming the monsters they used to be.

    It also helps me accept reality as it is. Nothing is supposed to be happening. It’s just what is happening. Embrace it or fight it, it makes no difference. It will, has, and does happen exactly as it’s happening. I only need to adjust to conditions as they are, not how I would wish them to be, to be truly content. Meditation helps me see things closer to how they really are.

    I write this having attended a funeral last week for a twenty-three-year-old man who was my student and my friend. I am selfishly grateful in a strange way that his death was accidental and not related to any substance abuse. I’m not sure if that matters, but it feels different.

    I loved and will continue to love Josh. He was amazingly talented. I met him when he was fifteen and couldn’t play a note. By the end of our time together (I was a music teacher then) he could play four instruments well and a few poorly (harmonica is tough). He had interned at a local music festival during high school and eventually parlayed that into a full-time gig at one of our local venues. I am so proud of him.

    His service was packed. Friends, family—he touched so many lives. The greatest gift that my practice afforded me is that I was there. Really there. I cried. I laughed. I hugged people. I snuck one of my medallions into his casket when no one was looking. I thought he’d like that, both the medallion and the sneaking. (We share a bit of an anti-authority streak.)

    I didn’t run—from his death, from my feelings, or from the people around me. I hugged his dad and told him how much I adored his son and how grateful I was to have helped him along his journey. I stood with my friends and offered a shoulder when they needed it and received one when I did.

    I am so deeply moved to have been able to be there, without a buffer, to help send off my friend. I can be uncomfortable and be okay with being uncomfortable. Pain and sorrow are my teachers. So are joy and love. Meditation brings me to the place where I can experience all of it. I wouldn’t trade this life for anything.

  • Even in the Hospital, He Found Joy in the Now

    Even in the Hospital, He Found Joy in the Now

    “Don’t let the sadness of your past and the fear of your future ruin the happiness of your present.” ~Unknown

    Back in the day when I was a stay-at-home mom, “mindfulness” wasn’t even a word in my vocabulary. The only mindfulness I was aware of was my own mind-fullness just trying to navigate a busy, full schedule with three children. It wasn’t until later in life that mindfulness was brought to my attention through the examples my oldest son Sean exhibited.

    Sean was my mindfulness teacher. He showed me how to be in the sweet spot of the now. He had an ability to hold a singular focus on what was happening right in front of him. There wasn’t any moment other than the one he was in, which made mindfulness look effortless.

    Mindfulness became a necessary skill especially because in the first year of Sean’s life, he developed an unexpected seizure disorder. As soon as the seizures began, we were on a life-long medical treadmill of doctor’s visits, prescriptions, surgeries, and therapies.

    Professionals wanted a recalling of the past as they asked a myriad of questions about family history, Sean’s developmental milestones, seizure activity, and responses to various medications tried. Noting past events took up a lot of room in my head, which made it hard to keep my mind focused on the present. Often I was busy corralling my thoughts from the detour they had taken into the past territory of “what used to be.”

    In those early days of seeking medical opinions, doctors gave optimistic reassurances about Sean’s future. Over time, as the seizures continued the prognosis grew more grim. I never wanted to think about Sean’s future for long, as down-the-road possibilities only caused apprehension and heartache. The what-if scenario’s easily swept me away from the present into feeling overwhelmed.

    I needed to practice mindfulness to cultivate calmness. Whenever I was present to the “what is” at any given moment, I could breathe more easily. I didn’t fret, re-hash, or ruminate over what had happened nor fear what could happen.

    Later in Sean’s life, his balance became more precarious. Despite wearing a helmet to protect his head, the helmet failed on many occasions to keep his face totally protected. If he lost his equilibrium or fell due to having a seizure, often a subsequent trip to the local emergency room occurred.

    One particular time after Sean had fallen, the ER visit was particularly challenging. Sean had received a nasty laceration just barely above his eye. It was a jagged, mean-looking, gaping wide-open cut. Sean’s eye had already swollen shut. The doctor explained how the sutures had to be intricately stitched in the inner and outer layers of skin.

    “Sean, you are the bravest boy in the whole wide world” was what I would always tell him. It was true. He suffered in a way that I know most people will never experience in their lifetime. I found as the years progressed, it became harder and harder for me to witness his suffering, to stay present during medical procedures.

    I talked and sang to Sean to distract him from what was happening, to reassure and comfort him. However, I knew I was losing my bearings. My thoughts were already in the instant replay of the traumatic scene we were in, in technicolor, on one endless loop. I couldn’t stop my thoughts from fixating on the suffering Sean was enduring.

    Sean looked as if he went a few rounds in the boxing ring. I knew this had to hurt and attempted to hold an ice bag on his face to minimize further swelling. I internally shuddered as I watched the wound being cleaned, the pain numbing injections and the sutures being threaded over and over in such a tender area on his face as I tried to hold him still.

    All these painful scenes got filed into an already extensive compilation of memories.

    Once the doctor finished, while we waited for discharge orders, Sean showed me a different way to live with his example of mindfulness on full display. This ER trip was where I learned that instead of re-immersing myself in the upsetting experiences of what had happened, I could stay present.

    I could find something to appreciate right in front of me, and allow myself to enjoy it fully, without revisiting painful experiences from the past and worrying about what might happen in the future.

    I moved a phone over to Sean’s lap and told him we would call Catherine, his sister. Ever since Sean was a little boy, he loved to make phone calls or ‘talk’ on the phone. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but you could see his glee whenever he was on the phone.

    I held the phone to his ear as he put his hand over mine to cradle it. As he talked to Catherine, he stretched back comfortably in the bed, tilted his head to the side, intently listening.

    It was stunning to watch how, in a matter of minutes Sean, understandably upset, was now beaming a big smile. He was totally there, in that moment, so totally tickled to be on the phone with Catherine.

    What he just went through receded into the past almost as if forgotten. He was not re-living in his mind the awfulness of the fall, how horrible of a cut he had nor the pain he had endured. No, not at all. Sean was on the phone, that’s all there was right then, and he was happy.

    Our positions reversed, with Sean, the calming presence, and I reassured by him. He showed me how freeing it was to release the past. To let go of the suffering, be right there in the now. How truly it’s a grace to have mindful moments like that and stay in the awareness of the moment.

    Sean showed me more than once how trouble-free life could be if one is mindful. No past considerations or future possibilities. When I was mindful, I saw Sean just as he was.

    I did not settle into thinking of the past when once upon a time, Sean was a normally developing, beautiful baby. Nor did I focus on the skills he lost along the way or how fragile he had become. Or abide in the fear and apprehension of what would happen next.

    Being mindful kept my thoughts in the present moment, which allowed me to more fully appreciate and enjoy the limited time I had with my son. It was only from there that I could sustain my immense gratitude for the gift of Sean’s presence in my life just as he was. His lessons on mindfulness are indelibly written in my thoughts and heart.

  • How to Practice Joy and Bravery

    How to Practice Joy and Bravery

    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.” ~Alphonse Karr

    “You should have told them. You should have told them you like it. They need to know people are happy there.”

    “I know I should have. But I didn’t want to seem insensitive or make anyone feel bad.”

    We sat at the dinner table, my boyfriend looking at me, me staring at my cleaned plate. We’d had variations of this conversation before. I tell him my coworkers aren’t happy at work, but I am happy at work, and he is forever confused as to why I’m scared to voice up that I love this job.

    Part of the reason for my silence is that I’m the youngest in the office. The pay isn’t very high, but it’s everything my partner and I need right now. I love teaching and working with students. My commute is a twenty-minute walk down a picturesque Main Street.

    Obviously, there are times of stress, imposter syndrome, and downright exhaustion. But it’s nothing compared to the fear I formerly felt about not having a job and living 2,000 miles across the country from my boyfriend. Again.

    Thus, when my coworkers voice concerns over meager pay and little respect, I usually pretend not to hear them, hunkering in my cubicle. Putting earbuds in with no music. Looking preoccupied with something else.

    Their concerns are valid. They have families and decades more work experience than I do. We’re all in different places, which creates the spectrum of job dissatisfaction.

    To say that I loved this job, that it’s the best thing that ever happened to me, I feared would alienate me further from coworkers whom I admire and respect. I am the “new kid on the block” as one referred to me, but I desperately wanted to fit in and be one of the faculty members.

    I’ve danced this line before, wondering when it’s okay to accept and show joy even when others are not feeling it. How can I be respectful and supportive when I’m happy in others’ sadness? Rather than helping them off the ground, isn’t that throwing sand on their faces and walking away? What about empathy?

    My partner, a skilled outdoorsman who asserts the only emotions he feels are laughter and hunger, said it simply: “You can help them if you tell them the truth.”

    I’ve thought about the people who inspire me the most. The people who seem to overcome every odd: being the first in the family to graduate high school and college, finishing a Ph.D. while working full-time and raising two kids, and leading the fight against cancer when it took her mom’s life.

    Knowing that other people have faced hard circumstances and still find joy is inspiring. It’s realizing that you can turn around from the desert you’ve been staring at to instead view a mountainside of purple wildflowers. Other people’s strength gives us strength. This is what my boyfriend meant when he said, “you can help them.”

    More than finding happiness, intentionally looking for joy and reminding ourselves of the good things is an act of bravery. Sharing joy is an act of bravery.

    We don’t have to look hard to find culturally affirming messages that work should be hard. That we should hate our jobs. That getting older sucks. That something other than the present moment is “the good old times.” And of course, that life itself is just plain hard. It’s easy to feel jealous. It’s easy to ignore what would have made us happy years ago.

    That’s easy. Creating joy for yourself is hard. So, let’s all do the hard thing.

    I don’t have the balance between empathy and joy figured out. One of my fears is still being insensitive to others’ pain. But I have come to realize this from more conversations and reflection on my heroes: We help others more than we hurt them when we share our joy.

    We open possibilities for people when they see happiness. Gratitude. Presence. Acceptance.

    As one example, my grandpa passed away last April. Grandpa was the glue and epicenter of our family. His spontaneous jokes, wide smile, and contagious laugh will always be missed by everyone who knew him.

    He and my grandma had been married for nearly seventy years. The grief is still raw for her; she talks to him every day. But she chooses to keep living fully, saying, “I wake up every day, and I think to myself: Am I going to be happy today? Am I going to be sad? And I choose to be happy.”

    It’s not that my grandma doesn’t miss my grandpa. Her bravery to choose happiness doesn’t dilute anyone else’s pain. Instead, it lives out the legacy of a joyous man and gives strength to his children and grandchildren. It opens the possibility that we can be happy. Simply put, her joy helps us.

    Below are three thoughts I’ve returned to when faced with the question of day-to-day living: Will I choose joy? Will I share it with others?

    I choose to…

    1. Make the best out of this situation.

    In college, my roommate came up with ideas for dance parties while she was studying for cellular biology. The idea was simple: study hard for something you don’t really want to be studying at all, and take a five-minute break to dance like an idiot to a 2000s pop song. Occasionally, the folks below you might yell through the vents. But the point is, you make the best of something you don’t want to do.

    I’m forever thankful that my roommate taught me this and then demanded I join in. She taught me that whatever’s going on, we can make it fun. We can make a boring trip to Walmart fun by blasting music, we can make working out fun by making all our friends go with us at 7am, and we can make studying fun by sipping a new flavor of herbal tea with each biology chapter.

    We can all apply this to our lives. Choose music that makes you happy while driving to run errands. Look at clouds and trees and other things that bring you joy. Make up stories. Even just stopping to tell yourself, “I will make the best out of this. I will make this fun for me,” will consciously remind you to make life fun for yourself.

    I choose to…

    2. Acknowledge and accept all emotions—feelings of anger, hurt, boredom, jealousy, not-good-enoughness, sadness, and loneliness.

    Though I choose to see the good in everything, that doesn’t mean avoiding pain. I want to feel it so I can help others through it. I don’t want anyone to feel alone, and that starts with acknowledging that each of us has feelings we don’t want to feel. When we feel them, we get a little braver. It’s easier to ignore them. It’s a whole lot harder to acknowledge they’re there, and to accept them.

    One simple thought to say to yourself, “I will be real with myself. I will be brave enough to feel this, so at the very least I can help someone else walk through this.”

    I choose to…

    3. Focus on everything that’s going right rather than what’s going wrong.

    It’s easy to find problems with everything. One professor told me, “Everyone can find problems. You can be the one guy to find solutions.” And it’s true. Would you rather be a problem-finder or a solution-maker?

    My default setting seems to be anxiety and problem-finding. I can find anything to be stressed about, anytime of the day, anywhere.

    It takes more work for me to intentionally think about what’s going well. So, one strategy I like to use is the negative game (this especially works for me because I’m a great worrier).

    What would it be like if my boyfriend left? I’m so glad to have a partner here day-in-and-day-out who loves me (and tells me that every day), who cooks well, and sincerely loves cats.

    What would it be like if I didn’t have a job? I’m so glad I have the opportunity to work with students each day and to help them reach their goals.

    What would it be like if my parents weren’t here? I’m so glad to have parents I can call every day and who truly care about me, who would fly across the country to see me, who listen attentively to every student-story I share.

    Who wouldn’t relax a bit after playing this mind game? Choose to think about what you can do; what you do have. Even the basics are grounding: having nutritious food to eat, clean water to drink, a safe home to live in.

    I did end up telling my coworkers that I enjoy this job after one of them shared they’re planning to leave after the next school year. I offered up a tentative, “I like this job. It works great for me right now.” No one threw rocks or kicked me out. They agreed it was great for someone just starting their career.

    Don’t be afraid to share your joy, even if other people don’t share it. Who knows, you never know how you can help someone. Maybe my brief words helped my coworker find something positive in our workplace.

    I leave you with one quote:

    “Never dull your shine for someone else.”

    Help other people see joy, and be brave enough to practice it.

  • How My Gratitude Journal Has Made Life More Fulfilling and Fun

    How My Gratitude Journal Has Made Life More Fulfilling and Fun

    “Be kind. Be thoughtful. Be genuine. But most of all, be thankful.” ~Unknown

    Have you ever tried to keep a daily journal?

    How long did you last?

    I’ve tried to keep one many times in my life, and I have failed every time. The longest I’ve ever kept a journal was for a measly two weeks, in a Google Doc, with my college roommates as a way to keep in touch, before I got bored and stopped.

    For the last four months, though, I’ve managed to write in my journal every day. The trick, for me, has been to keep my updates short and sweet and to write less about my daily problems, which tends to make me feel hopeless and overwhelmed instead of relieved, and more about the things I love in daily life.

    I keep a gratitude journal, and it isn’t a drag, like my past diaries. It’s fun and makes me laugh because I limit myself to writing about only two types of things: moments of gratitude and moments of triumph, or wins, as I call them. Occasionally, and I mean only when something bothers me so much that I can’t sleep, I rant.

    Keeping the journal has changed my life, and it’s good value too! Doing it costs me less than five minutes and five dollars, depending on the brand of pen I buy (I’m a sucker for Pentel Energel pens).

    If you’re looking for ways to integrate more gratitude into your life, I can definitely recommend keeping a gratitude journal. I’ve benefited from it in five specific ways, probably more. Here’s how:

    1. I enjoy spending time with loved ones more and see our challenging moments differently.

    I recently realized that one of the impacts of losing my mom is a constant fear of losing other people I love. My mom died five years ago, and I feel anxious about eventually losing my dad all the time. It puts a lot of pressure on me to be fully present for every moment we spend together and to be the perfect daughter.

    Here’s an example: My dad and I see a movie together, and I’ll periodically say to myself throughout the film “This could be the last movie we see together. You need to appreciate every moment!”

    It’s a pressure that will always be part of me, but I write in my gratitude journal because I refuse to let it control my life.

    Writing things like, “I’m grateful that I got to see a movie with Dad today,” relaxes me. It’s like giving myself permission to enjoy the movie because I know that I’m not letting the moment mindlessly slip by.

    My gratitude journal also helps me reframe the challenging moments I have with my dad. For example, I recently wrote, “My win today was setting aside my ego and communicating with Dad after we got into an argument over cleaning out old things.”

    Now, instead of seeing confrontations as disasters to be avoided, I see them as opportunities for us to communicate and strengthen our relationship.

    2. I can find rest, even when I’m upset.

    When I was little, my mom predicted that I would become a sensitive person because I had a big forehead. I have yet to find scientific proof of the relationship between the two, but I’m definitely passionate and I can take certain things very personally.

    What bothers me most is when people don’t follow through on their work. “How can they not have told me that they’d send it to me late?” becomes, “It’s so easy! I would’ve done that for them,” which then becomes, “I don’t trust this person anymore.”

    When I hop onto this train of thought, it’s hard to hop off and it weighs me down as I struggle over how and when to express my frustration.

    Writing in my journal every day helps me deal with the disappointments of daily life. It’s a safe space to rant about whatever is upsetting me. I do a big release of built-up anger and frustration on paper, and then I think critically about a solution to the problem.

    Not too long ago, I furiously wrote about an especially frustrating day at work and, while writing, realized that I had been doing everything right; I just wasn’t receiving the support I needed. Moreover, I saw that it was my responsibility to ask for it. I never would have come to this realization without journaling about it first.

    When I finish ranting and raving, and regain some feeling of control over the situation, I say to myself, “Okay, are you ready to move on?” And I write down one thing, no matter how small, to be grateful for. For example, “I’m grateful to my heart, for pushing oxygen to the rest of my body,” or, “I”m grateful for that awesome chocolate chip cookie I ate for dessert.”

    It’s my way of ending each day on a good note, and it prepares me for sleep.

    3. I wholeheartedly accept joy.

    In her Netflix special, “The Call to Courage,” Brené Brown says, “…joy is the most vulnerable of all human emotions. We are terrified to feel joy. We are so afraid that if we let ourselves feel joy, something will come along and rip it away from us…” (00:45:49).

    I love traveling. I’ve been traveling since I was two and have since been to over twenty different countries. Every time I go somewhere, I’m so overjoyed that I fear something bad happening. I might worry about the plane crashing or an accident happening at home while I’m away, both of which I hope I never have to experience.

    Another example is when I brave unnecessary hardship and call it the price I have to pay for something else, which is often completely unrelated.

    Brown’s research says that we wait for the other shoe to drop to protect ourselves from joy, which is one of the most vulnerable emotions along with love and belonging.

    Writing in my gratitude journal enables me to feel joy without the sense of foreboding. If something good happens to me, I no longer see it as a foreshadowing event to disaster. I just see it as another item to be added to the list of wins or moments of gratitude in my journal, which I can (and should) enjoy.

    4. I am deepening my commitment to certain people and activities.

    My gratitude journal helps me cope with the uncontrollable outcomes I face in everyday life, but it also helps me make healthy decisions about the activities and people I engage with.

    For example, after keeping my journal for several months, I noticed I was often grateful for my yoga practice and my public speaking and leadership club, Boston Toastmasters.

    As a result, I decided to increase my commitment to both activities. Instead of practicing yoga weekly, I now practice daily. I also recently ran for (and won!) an officer position at my Toastmasters club.

    Certain family members and close friends also make regular appearances in my gratitude journal. It reminds me to maintain our relationship and actively update them about my life, even if they live in another state—or country!

    I like having a record of interactions, activities, and people that bring joy or wins; it brings some very important parts of my life into focus.

    5. I am more satisfied with myself and my accomplishments.

    Historically, I’ve been my own harshest critic. Some days, when I refuse to believe that I’ve done enough, I spread myself too thin and completely exhaust myself.

    I was recently awarded a scholarship to go to journalism school. But everyone I shared the news with said something like, “Oh, journalists don’t make much money, you know.” Gee, thanks!

    I started doubting myself, thinking, “How will I take care of myself? I can’t believe I decided to go for journalism. Who am I to think I can write, anyway? There’s no way I’ll be able to make a living on it.”

    By chance, I happened to see the win I’d recorded the day I’d received my acceptance letter: “Today, I won a scholarship to go to journalism school.”

    I may not make a stable living on my writing yet, but I won a lot of money for the one piece I submitted in my application. That’s a big win! And thank goodness I had my gratitude journal to remind me of that; otherwise, I would’ve continued to question my decision, even though I know that this program is exactly what I want to do.

    My wins remind me that I’ve done enough, and in most cases, more than enough. If I see proof that I’ve done at least one thing that day to achieve my goals, then I can relax. Recording wins transformed me from being my own toughest critic into one of my biggest cheerleaders.

    —

    I’ve written 142 entries, and I’m still going strong! In this short period, gratitude journaling has impacted my life in so many ways.

    It’s challenged me to cherish every moment with my family, good or bad. It’s helped me find rest and practice acceptance, especially on difficult days. It’s also become my way to methodically focus and deepen my commitment to certain areas of my life. Most importantly, it has reminded me to celebrate all of my wins, no matter how others see them. It’s changed my life, and it could change yours too.