Tiny Buddha

Tag: judgment

  • Healing from Shame: How to Stop Feeling Like You’re Fundamentally Wrong

    Healing from Shame: How to Stop Feeling Like You’re Fundamentally Wrong

    “If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can’t survive.” ~Brené Brown

    There is a special type of shame that activates within me when I am around some family members. It’s the kind of shame where I am back in my childhood body, feeling utterly wicked for being such a disaster of a human. A terrible child that is worthless, stupid, and perhaps, if I am honest, more than a touch disgusting.

    The feeling of shame in my body feels a bit like I am drowning and being pulverized from the inside at the same time. I have a deep, awful nausea too, like a literal sickness about who I am.

    In an effort to save myself from drowning in shame, I might try to ingratiate myself to the person I am talking to. Make myself sound more palatable, more decent, less dreadful. Or maybe become argumentative to try to kill the feeling in my body by drowning out the voice that seems to be activating the sensation.

    These experiences became like shame vortexes in my life. The place where my true spirit, whatever self-love or esteem I had, went to get pulverized in a pit of torment. A reminder of what a truly dreadful and disgusting person I really was.

    Families are such incredible quagmires of emotional activation. Generations of repressed emotions—of blame, shame, guilt, resentment, rage, frustration, etc.—constantly simmering, occasionally boiling up, being thrown at each other, activating more emotion.

    And yet family are often the people we yearn to receive acceptance and unconditional love from the most. But they’re often the people who find it the hardest to give it to each other.

    My journey with shame has been lengthy because, for a long time, I didn’t know how to work with it. For many years I felt like I was bumping into shame in every corner of my life. And there were many corners.

    In my work, I struggled to be seen, to be what I wanted, to do what I wanted.

    In my relationships, I struggled to relax because I was ashamed about being a pudgy woman who wasn’t wild, free, and fascinating.

    In my friendships, I was often the helpful, problem-solving friend—because to be the messy, chaotic human that I was would jeopardize who I thought my friends wanted me to be.

    In my parenting, it was overwhelming. I wasn’t a calm, healthy-eating, active, patient goddess. I was impatient and distracted, and I dreaded having to play with my kids.

    I was terrified of being rejected, resentful of feeling used by people, and scared of going nowhere in my life because perfectionism gripped me so tightly that I struggled to get started on anything.

    I see now that underpinning all of this was shame. Shame that I was getting life wrong on a number of levels, and really, I just wasn’t trying hard enough. But when I tried harder, it never worked. I would lose energy, fall apart, and then I’d want to hide alone in a room, where no one could see me.

    I didn’t even realize that it was shame. I thought I was just self-conscious, a bit shy, needing to get my act together. I was a perfectionist. I had high standards. I wanted to get things right.

    But now that I know more about emotions, I can see I was drenched in shame. Utterly drenched around this basic concept that I was doing it all wrong, and it was all my fault.

    Shame is in that desire to be invisible, to disappear, to remain unseen.

    Shame is in that desire to hide. To not be looked at. Because being looked at means people might see who we are underneath the veneer. The mask we put on.

    Shame often breeds when it becomes unsafe to be who we are, usually as little children, or when things are happening around us that we don’t understand, that don’t feel normal. When we feel we have to hide who we are or who our families are. When our parents don’t feel comfortable being who they are, there we see shame.

    The thing about shame is that we don’t realize how much of it there is around us. As Brené Brown says, it thrives in secrecy and judgment. Most people aren’t walking around saying, “Hey, look at my shame! Come see the deep, dark crevices of my soul that feel so wrong and awful.”

    Many people aren’t aware that shame is even present for them, as it hides underneath other emotions like anger, fear, or sadness.

    But even though it is hiding, even if we can’t see it, it can control our life like gravity controls us on this earth. We don’t think about gravity, but its powerful force keeps us rooted to the ground. Shame can act in a similar way, its force dictating our actions and behaviors, pulling us in directions that work for shame, but not for the authentic, free-spirited people that we yearn to be.

    Shame serves shame, and only shame. Shame doesn’t care about your desire for authenticity and for being calm, zen, peaceful, joyful, and in love with life. That sounds deeply scary and awful to shame.

    Shame wants us to stay small, to stay hidden, and to be inauthentic. That sounds way safer.

    It doesn’t want us to leap up and say, “Look at me! Look at me as an individual, doing things that are new and wonderful!”

    It doesn’t want us to be free and happy and full of love and light.

    It wants to keep us safe by reminding us how terribly awful we really are.

    Shame is at the root of so many things that plague us—a lack of intimacy in our relationships, an inability to go for what we want in life and have relaxed, authentic friendships, and a sense of stuckness in work.

    It can come out as a sense of persistently feeling rejected, drowning in deep wells of inadequacy, lashing out in anger as a way to hide the shame response, or hiding behind crippling shyness or social anxiety.

    Shame is your worst nightmare talking to you all the time about the ever-present list of limitations in your life.

    Shame is your worst critic analyzing your performance in all things.

    The reason shame feels so horrendous is that it’s not like guilt, which induces feelings about what we’ve done wrong. Shame is so much more pervasive than that. Shame is a feeling that we ourselves are wrong.

    To experience shame is a tremendously reducing experience

    How do we get rid of shame? Well, it’s not something that is quick to shift. It’s a process, and it takes time and emotional safety.

    Emotional safety is an awareness in our bodies, brains, and nervous systems that it is safe to have an emotion. Many of us don’t have emotional safety, so we run, hide, suppress, ignore, and distract ourselves or try to propel ourselves in any way away from an emotion. Many of us learned at a young age that certain emotions are not safe, and shame is usually one of them.

    But to work with shame, to reduce its presence in our bodies and our lives, we need to bring it to the light. We need to expose it to love, acceptance, and empathy. Bit by bit, little by little.

    One effective way to do that is to share little bits of our shame with our most trusted and loved people. Once the shame comes out, it’s out! We are free of it.

    We talk about our shame only with people we feel utterly safe with. We don’t talk to people we don’t feel safe with. Not the stranger on the bus, the friend who gossips to everyone, or your blind date.

    You only give people access to your shame if they have shown you that they are completely responsible with your trust; if you can tell them things and they won’t blame or judge you (which is a re-shaming experience). They come with empathy, acceptance, and love.

    They are honored that you would share your deepest secrets with them. They are prepared for the responsibility that that entails.

    And if we don’t have a person like that in our life? Sometimes when we have so much shame it can be hard to form these types of intimate, vulnerable, and trusting relationships. Shame wants to keep us apart, and separate. That’s how it keeps us alive and safe, by never showing anyone who we really are. Because probably once, long ago, we learned that being ourselves wasn’t safe. And so we chose a safer path—to hide.

    So while we work on shame, we can start this journey with ourselves. Talk to ourselves about what we find when we think about our shame. Have tender, generous, and loving conversations with ourselves. Write or record remembrances.

    And we do this when we know we can be empathic with ourselves.

    Because we all know those conversations when we are down in the depths of shame and we talk to ourselves and make it so much worse—we add more shame, more judgment, more guilt.

    “Why did I do that? Why did I sleep with that guy / not show up for work / send that client brief in late? I know why—because I am such a loser. I always do stupid stuff like this. Always.”

    That’s not an empathetic conversation.

    Shame breeds in conversations like that.

    Shame needs this:

    “Why did I do that! I can’t believe it! Oh wow, now that I think about it, I am feeling ashamed that I slept with that guy / didn’t show up for work / was late with that client brief. And this shame really hurts. So you know what, shame? I am going to stay with you, give you some love, some support, some tenderness, because wow, shame. That’s so painful.”

    We can’t de-shame ourselves by constantly re-shaming ourselves.

    We can’t remove shame by improving either. By doing more things, becoming better incarnations of the humans we are. We can only remove shame with empathy, love, acceptance, and connection.

    That is a pill we have to be willing to swallow. That we are worthy of empathy, love, connection, and acceptance.

    We have to start ignoring what the shame is telling us.

    Shame’s advice is that we should just spend the rest of our lives trying to become better humans. But let’s be honest, we’ve followed that advice our whole lives, and look where it’s gotten us—deeper in the shame well.

    So how about instead of castigating ourselves on a constant basis, we try to interrupt our shame spirals with a bit of love and empathy instead?

    How about we decide that maybe it’s just a feeling, and not an indication of a deep flaw in who we are as humans? How about we try out not whipping ourselves for every small transgression.

    Taking a step toward loving ourselves means working with the vicious, judgmental, potent force of shame.

    But it’s work that can be done. It’s completely possible, and I know because I have drained a ton of shame from my body these past few years.

    We need to not abandon ourselves when we are in shame. We need to take a little tiny bit at a time, just a touch, and bring it out into the light. Share with someone, with ourselves, become familiar with it, look at it, feel it, touch it—and hear it.

    We need to bring love and support to our shame. Bring acceptance and understanding.

    That is what our shame is yearning for, and when we shift our way of seeing it, we can start to shift the power it has over our lives.

  • Why Other People’s Comments Hurt Us and How to Let Them Go

    Why Other People’s Comments Hurt Us and How to Let Them Go

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

    Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

    Wow. That one takes me waaay back. All the way to the elementary school playground. A place where I attempted to use it as a shield. As juvenile as this saying is, I would search for comfort in its words for years to come.

    In the end, it doesn’t matter how old we get. It’s good to feel a part of something, to be understood, and to be accepted, and it hurts when we feel we’re not good enough to belong.

    Whether it’s due to the words of a schoolyard bully (with a flat-chested joke), a passing remark from a stranger (“your arms are hairy”), or an observation by a loved one (“you’re too shy), we begin to transform into a guarded version of ourselves.

    Daily interactions with others thicken our skin a bit, allowing some words to roll off our backs. But the ones that stick around change our inner landscape.

    For many of us, the physical pain we suffer come from accidents, adventures, or clumsiness. They are unpredictable events that originate from nowhere in particular. They don’t feel personal.

    Words, on the other hand, always stem from people. And they almost always feel personal. For a species that thrives on connection, acceptance, and love, words are a primary source of information about where we stand within our tribe.

    With words, we define ourselves, find our people, and take a stand. Words reinforce who we are. Words inspire. Words make us giants. With words, we feel pain, loneliness, or betrayal. Words cut us down. Words keep us small. Words plant seeds of doubt. Words deflate.

    Words are powerful. Choose them wisely.

    When it comes to delivering a message, how we say things matters.

    Words can be positive, negative, or neutral. Imagine how using the very same word creates different outcomes.

    “Quiet!”

    Spoken at a surprise birthday party, this gets everyone excited. The guest of honor is coming!

    Spoken to a questioning child, this makes her feel small, unimportant, hurt.

    Even an adult can suffer at this word. Imagine a man watching a football game. His wife runs in to share an exciting piece of news. He shouts “quiet,” and just like that she feels diminished and robbed of joy.

    Words are powerful. But is all the power reserved for the speaker?

    When it comes to receiving a message, we can feel powerless. Just as a spider’s web catches much more than dinner, our minds become cluttered with a lot of word debris. I have spent years unpacking my pain and my past, and the ickier parts are born from comments, passing phrases, and direct attacks.

    So, here’s my question: Why do some things go in one ear and out the other, while others have a way of following us around? Why do some words so profoundly affect us that we give up our joy and opt not to dance, sing, or speak?

    Here’s my revelation. Those who know me have heard me say it before: What we believe matters.

    It seems that words can become seeds planted in my brain. The ones that stick around begin to grow into something messy that tangle with my very being.

    After a lot (and I mean a lot) of soul searching, I have found my common denominator—two actually. My hurt is born from the truth or from my fear of what might be the truth. The pain is my feelings of lack that get amplified.

    Whew. That’s a bitter pill to swallow. None of us want to believe that we think we’re not smart, beautiful, fun, cool, lovable, or funny. But I’ll say it again. Almost all the remarks that have hurt me are ones I thought were true. Or ones I feared might be true. That’s it.

    When our truth is revealed or challenged it is painful. Our truth is often a part of us that we cannot or feel we cannot change. Whether it’s our laugh, our bodies, or our dreams, we are exposed.

    What do we do with this? The only thing we can—accept ourselves. Just. The. Way. We. Are.

    This doesn’t mean we cannot continue to grow and evolve as humans. It means that we are always being and becoming.

    Most of us go out into the world as ourselves and slowly withdraw into our shells as we feel less and less safe to be who we are. We become a watered-down version of our colorful selves to avoid vulnerability.

    But I’m here to challenge the idea that vulnerability has to be painful. Uncomfortable, yes, but maybe not painful. Our best defense is knowing and embracing who we really are so that when someone questions our character or motive it is either true or not true—and if it is true, being okay with that.

    If I find myself ruminating on a comment, it’s an opportunity, a chance for me to know myself better.

    Now, when a word stings, I approach the discomfort differently. I ask myself: Why am I hurt? Is this true? Is this something I can change? Do I want it to be true? If it is me, can I do more than accept it—can I love this part of me?

    I used to think my problem was that I wasn’t enough ‘this’ or needed to be more of ‘that.’ I used to think that if I could just take the best parts of other people and become those things, I would feel secure, confident, and untouchable.

    But it was exhausting, and I would inevitably fall short of my goal. My life was like a house of cards, ready to crash at any moment. Living in fear is draining. I also began to feel like I couldn’t make any forward progress. It was like treading water when I could be swimming.

    It wasn’t until I took a break and developed faith in myself that I found my full energy, optimism, and confidence return. Because in the end, we can never be great at being anything but ourselves. There is no trying anymore, only being. And the knowing that I don’t need to be all things. Just myself. Regardless of what other people have to say about that.

    And you know what? The strangest things have begun to happen. I have found new strengths, new joys, and new opportunities. When I let go of mimicking others’ successes, I have found more of my own. The kind that I’m not afraid to lose. The kind that doesn’t make me feel like a fraud.

    Sharing my voice has gone from scary and nerve-wracking to a way to create connection and joy. The transition feels like nothing short of miraculous. If you would’ve told me all this several years ago, I would never have believed that I could achieve this kind of peace and confidence. But I have come to believe in believing. And I highly recommend it.

  • Why Judging People Hurt Me and 5 Things That Helped Me Stop

    Why Judging People Hurt Me and 5 Things That Helped Me Stop

    “It’s very easy to judge. It’s much more difficult to understand. Understanding requires compassion, patience and a willingness to believe that good hearts sometimes choose poor methods.” ~Doe Zantamata

    In the past, judgments kept me safe. They reassured me that I had worth. That I was right. That I was good. I believed I knew the “right” way to live.

    I felt I could clearly see the truth of matters. I didn’t understand why others weren’t always able to grasp the truth that I saw. However, the real truth was that my inner world was full of turmoil.

    Since adolescence, I went about my day with a certain level of tension in my chest. It was almost imperceptible, but always there. I felt I was constantly fighting the world, the universe. I tried to control it, to mold it to the way I saw things. I judged anyone who didn’t follow my vision of right and wrong.

    I spent a lot of time arguing and judging. Politics, religion, even school board meetings—they all elicited strong judgments from me. Judging others felt OH SO GOOD for a minute. That’s the kicker. Inevitably, though, the negative energy of the judgments left me feeling irritated or angry.

    Why was I judging so much? Because I believed that missteps should be punished. My judgments were just that. I thought punishments were critical to learning. To growing.

    The reality was that the person I was judging was mostly unaware of my judgy thoughts. My judgments weren’t resulting in positive change. When I sat down and actually thought about what punishments accomplish, I realized that no one needs to be punished in order to change. I saw that I was operating from a false “truth.”

    What I hadn’t understood was that the only person I was punishing when I judged was myself. I was poisoning my body, my mind, even my soul, with anger.

    What is clear to me now is that when I judge, I create division. When I judge someone, I am saying “I’m here and you’re over there.” I’m thinking, “I’m right and you’re wrong.” The problem is—they are thinking the same thing!

    I experienced the wisdom of the introductory quote in what turned out to be a pivotal moment in my spiritual journey.

    I was a witness to an unpleasant argument about vaccines between two friends. I started to feel the tension in my chest increase. I began to judge and felt the need to jump in and share my “right view” with them.

    Then I centered. I became still. And I saw two moms who were scared. Two moms who loved their children. Two moms who were just trying to do their best. The tension fell away. I stopped judging and felt compassion for my two friends instead.

    My inner world changed. The tension was replaced with expansion. I felt peaceful. I felt love.

    There is a concept in Buddhism called “the right view.” The “right view” is often described as the perspective that doesn’t cause suffering. I’ve also heard it described as “all views, or none at all.”

    I’ve learned that we filter all external information through our own personal experiences, knowledge, and traumas before coming to a conclusion. Our inner world and patterns determine our reactions. This is why we can all receive the same information and still come to different conclusions. None are right, and none are wrong. They are just different paths.

    In the past, I would have tried to convince you that my path was right. I wouldn’t allow you to be who you were. I wanted you to be who I wished you to be. I would have judged you.

    I don’t know about you, but when someone judges or shames me, I don’t change. I dig my feet in. It’s not a very effective communication technique.

    Instead of judging, if we try to understand each other and allow each other to be who we are, we foster acceptance rather than division. We have compassion rather than judgment and our inner world changes. We feel an inner peace within.

    It’s important to note that not judging someone doesn’t mean you condone what they’re doing. It also doesn’t change the consequences of their actions. It just allows you to keep your inner world peaceful.

    So, how did I get here?

    First, I learned to meditate and find that place of stillness within me.

    Second, I learned how to find that place of stillness with my eyes open. These first two steps allowed me to create a space between an event and my emotions. This moment (or space) allowed me to respond rather than react. In this moment, the truth will often become clear.

    Third, I practiced catching myself judging. I would take a moment and hold the person in compassion instead. I would try to understand them. I would allow them to be who they are rather than who I wished.

    Fourth, I saw that punishments don’t work. Judging others or ourselves doesn’t facilitate growth. It creates tension and division.

    Finally, I discovered that judging ties you to the past. To past patterns, reactions, and impressions. I’m judging based on my personal past experiences. I learned to let go and to forgive things in my past. I knew if I didn’t, nothing would change.

    The result was inner peace. My chest doesn’t feel tight anymore. In fact, it feels like there is an open, shiny jewel in place of the tension. Love flows through me daily. I see the bliss of the present moment. I spend less and less time in the past.

    When someone says something hurtful to me now, I try to pause and center. I bless them. I know when people are suffering that suffering often spills out onto others. I hold them in compassion. I understand that they are doing the best they can.

    I’m also not perfect. I do still catch myself judging. I am also doing the best that I can.

    I challenge you to try leading with compassion. First, compassion for yourself. We are all learning and growing. Then compassion for each other. See what happens to your inner world.

    It is easy to judge; it’s much harder to try and understand.

  • Why Belonging Is So Difficult for Survivors of Domestic Abuse

    Why Belonging Is So Difficult for Survivors of Domestic Abuse

    “Our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.” ~Brené Brown

    Sitting there watching The Greatest Showman, with tears pouring down my face, I asked myself why does this song, in fact this whole film, make me cry so much? Why does it evoke so much emotion in me?

    “I am brave,

    I am bruised,

    I am who I’m meant to be.

    This is ME.”

    “Look out cos here I come,

    And I’m marching on to the beat I drum,

    I’m not scared to be seen,

    I make no apologies.

    This is ME.”

    I am brave, I am bruised, and I know, after many years of working on myself, that I am who I am meant to be. But if I am honest, I am still not marching to the beat of my drum, I am still scared to be seen, and I am still apologizing.

    The reason why this film makes me so emotional is because it brings up emotional scars that have still not fully healed. It highlights a part of me that still needs work. I watch these people who have lived their lives as outcasts and have never before found somewhere they belong, and I empathize.

    I have never been cast out of anywhere. I grew up in a stable, loving family, but I am familiar with the feeling of not belonging because for many years I have been scared to show the real me.

    This fear or inability to be me started the minute my ex pushed me over for voicing my opinion and trying to argue my point. It grew with every punch, kick, threat, humiliation, criticism, and brush off. It grew as the secrets I was keeping mounted up, as the lies I was telling became bigger and bigger.

    From the moment my relationship became abusive I did not belong anywhere because I was no longer free to be me.

    I hid what was going on, and when it was obvious something was happening because of the bruises, I made light of it and played it down.

    I withdrew from myself, becoming just a shell of a person. When I was at home with my partner, I was who he expected me to be; when I was with my family, I tried to be just like them. When I was at work, I was who I thought they wanted me to be.

    I found some sense of belonging when I gave birth to my first son. As I lay there in hospital with him in my arms this new feeling came over me—nothing else mattered apart from this wonderful little person. However, I quickly learned to be the mum my partner wanted me to be rather than the mum I wanted to be, and that broke my heart.

    Friends disappeared, work colleagues were unsure how to treat me, and on the one occasion I reached out for help (to one of my son’s teachers), I was brushed off. It was a private school, and domestic abuse was not something that was part of their agenda. I did not belong there.

    When I finally left for good, I turned up to a women’s refuge, with my seven-year-old son, in a place that I did not know, miles away from my family and friends. I thought that was it, that all my pain was going to stop. While the physical pain obviously stopped, the pain on the inside has taken much longer to heal.

    Over fifteen years later, after years of inner work and a happy marriage, I still do not feel that I belong in many places. This is because I am still holding myself back from being me.

    My self-preservation tendencies, which were once so vital for my survival, are now holding me back. The fear that kept me on high alert, that helped me to evaluate my words and actions before speaking or acting, to keep me safe, was so strong that even after all these years, it is still there.

    What if I do something to upset my husband, will he leave me?

    If I voice an opinion that is different to someone else’s, will they brush me off and think I am stupid or stop liking me?

    What if I say something and open myself up and no one cares or listens? That will just make me feel worthless and unimportant again.

    If I do what I really want to do and get it wrong or fail, others will think I am useless.

    Why would anyone want to listen to what I say?

    Making decisions that everyone agrees with means I am doing the right thing, even if I am not sure that is what I want.

    This fear has prevented me from finding places I belong.

    Yes, I fit in wherever I go because I speak and act in a way that suits the situation, that ties in with everyone else. I sit on the fence and do my best to understand and accept everyone’s point of view without voicing my own because then everyone will like me, and I will not get hurt.

    But just fitting in is not good for your self-esteem. It just cements the belief that you need to hide the real you.

    Being a good communicator involves adapting to suit the environment and situation that you are in, but it should not be at the expense of your own values and opinions, which are just as important as everyone else’s. Pleasing everyone else at the expense of yourself means that you are not giving them the best of you, because that can only come from being wholly and truly YOU.

    As a result of domestic abuse, I suffer from low self-esteem. It has got a lot better over the years, but it still pops up now and again.

    I go through times when my self-love and self-worth are purely based on what others think of me. One unkind word, one difference of opinion, one moment of feeling ignored has me plummeting into the depths of self-hatred and self-doubt.

    It normally happens when I meet someone new or join a new group. I am overly concerned with what they think of me, so I mold myself into someone I think they want me to be, ensuring that they like me. I still hold back now and again with my husband, preventing a disagreement that could potentially result in him deciding he doesn’t love me anymore.

    The truth is, everyone who meets you genuinely wants to meet the real you. The best you is the authentic, bruised, brave, perfectly imperfect you.

    There are times when I genuinely feel that I belong, when I feel comfortable being my funny, hyper, jokey self, when I can speak up and voice my opinion, when I have the confidence to make a mistake and to listen to and act on my intuition.

    At these times I feel content, my head is not working on overdrive trying to figure out what I should say and do, my heart is open, and I feel safe to be me. And I know that during these times I am able to give the best of me. These are the times when I feel I am just as important as everyone else. When I feel that I am an equal.

    I want to feel like this all of the time! I don’t want to just fit in. I want to belong wherever I go. I want to march to the beat of my own drum. I want to fulfill my potential and be all I can be.

    I know, however, that there is only one place I truly need to belong and feel safe to be me, and that is within.

    I need to know who I am, what I want, what I like, and what I don’t like. I need to be clear on what my values are and what my dreams and aspirations are. I need to be honest with myself about how I am feeling. I need to work on that overpowering self-preservation mode that is still on autopilot by recognizing that I am safe, that I will not get hurt if I open up and let my true self out.

    I need to give myself a break from the ridiculously high expectations I have of myself and treat myself with compassion and respect. I need to love and accept myself for who I am, not just when I have achieved something.

    Only then will I truly belong, will I be able to unapologetically be me and shout from the rooftops “THIS IS ME!”

  • The Messiness of Being Human and Why We Shouldn’t Judge Each Other

    The Messiness of Being Human and Why We Shouldn’t Judge Each Other

    “Those who understand will never judge, and those who judge will never understand.” ~Wilson Kanadi

    I’m waiting for my mother’s nurse to pick up. The hospital recording has been on a loop for twenty minutes: “Our hospital is committed to integrity, to the destitute, the sick. Our physicians and nurses have trained at some of the most prestigious colleges in the country. Our patients’ health and comfort is our #1 priority.”

    The woman on the recording sounds so clear and passionate. I can picture her in the recording studio. Maybe she had to audition for the part. Maybe she got paid a lot of money to say these things. Finally, a nurse picks up. She sounds exhausted. Would never have gotten the part.

    “Has anyone been in to see my mother? She’s hysterical and can’t breathe.”

    “Your mother is getting a new nurse.”

    “But the nurse I spoke with earlier said she was on her way with meds!”

    “Someone will be there within the hour.”

    “She’s got to suffer for an hour?”

    “Someone will be there as soon as they can.”

    “That’s not what your hospital recording says!”

    The nurse takes a deep breath. “Oh god,” she mutters. Then I hear the phone land on a hard surface.

    I know from experience what happens when the recording ends. When the recording ends, individuals take over.

    Recordings are usually neat and tidy. Real individuals are not. There may still be a commitment to life, to kindness, but unscripted commitments are harder to decipher. I think because behind the slogans and edited promises, everyone has to deal with their own relationship between the way we are told things are going to be and the way things are.

    My mother, for example, has a slogan that goes something like: I am a strong as sh*t individual with impeccable judgment. And she often is. But behind the scenes, in the moments of reality when whatever pain sets in and there’s no one around to slogan to, she cannot handle her anxiety and has a tendency to drink herself nearly to death and wind up in the hospital on life support.

    Me, for example, when I’m writing this, I’m pretty grounded in my ideas for about ten minutes at a time. But in between those moments, when the vastness of everything collides with the tininess of who I think I am, when my insane restlessness causes unbearable pain, I clench and then go to places like Amazon to look for things to better organize my pantry.

    I think of the nurse, obviously in no mood to hear about slogans. Perhaps she hasn’t slept in days and has been taking care of so many sick and destitute people that she has not been able to take care of herself. Maybe I caught her at one of those moments when she didn’t have enough energy to pretend to be a spokesperson for anything. Who knows what people have to deal with behind their job descriptions?

    There’s the slogan, and then the fractaling inward to a more intimate reality, to those minutes in secrecy behind all closed doors, where there are individuals dealing with themselves and other individuals.

    My mother’s neighbor has visited my mother every day in the hospital. He cares about my mother. And yet, he’s the one who gives her the vodka. He says he figures if she doesn’t get it from him, she’ll get it from someone else. He doesn’t think of himself as being a bad person; he’s just doing what he does based on the equipment and experiences he has.

    Just like the woman who called from the Special Olympics on the other line who got upset with me because I didn’t have time to listen to her slogan. “Thanks a lot,” she told me. “Now I won’t meet my quota.”

    I laughed to myself, thinking I must be attracting every fed-up person in the country. And I couldn’t wait to dismiss her as horrible, to throw her in that bin in my mind where ridiculously horrible people go. But if I dismissed everyone for being horrible, who would be left? Not even me. And I wouldn’t be able to call anyone to commiserate with, because they’d all be in my trash can.

    I think my expectations for people were learned from television. I grew up on television. Life on television always had a beginning, middle, and end, then applause and credits. People on television were always who they said they were, and if they weren’t, everyone would band together and help get them back.

    I remember when the television shows would end, resenting the real people around me for not being recognizable from one day to the next. What I didn’t realize was that the people on television were dependent on a budget, on someone to write their lines, on rehearsals. I didn’t understand that in real life people were dealing with their own thoughts and doing their best to express them in some manner that didn’t get them made fun of, divorced, in jail, or all alone.

    In reality, things are messy. In reality, the judgments we make of each other are judgments based on each other’s slogans and worldly circumstances. 

    I think of this wealthy relative of mine who says things like, “I feel so badly for your mother. It’s so sad.” And then I think of my mother, who says about this same person, “That poor sap. I am so grateful not to be her. She’s never had to survive any sort of malignancy. She’s just so blasé. So benign.”

    Sometimes I don’t think we really know each other. At best, I think we know our experiences of each other. Or maybe, just our experiences of ourselves experiencing each other. Perhaps the only way to really and truly be neat and tidy is to admit that we’re not. When we are honest about our shortcomings, maybe then we become real. And when we are real, maybe then we can be there for each other in ways that don’t disappoint as much.

  • How Boys Learn to Repress Their Feelings and How We Can Do Better as Men

    How Boys Learn to Repress Their Feelings and How We Can Do Better as Men

    “Shoutout to all the men going through a lot, with no one to turn to, because this world wrongly taught our males to mask their emotions and that strong means silent.” ~Alex Myles

    He is close to tears. He is not physically hurt. No ankle has been twisted, no knee has been scraped, nobody needs their asthma inhaler.

    The other boys are making fun of his size.

    Most of the time he pretends it doesn’t bother him. But I’m the coach, and it’s pretty hard to miss.

    I have watched him smile and try to shake it off. Sometimes he will parry with a comment of his own—something about them that they’re sensitive of…

    I know this thing that they are doing. I call this “emotional arm punching.” It’s a rite of passage boys use to desensitize themselves to emotions, just like when they punch each other repeatedly in the bicep and try not to show how much it hurts. 

    For about two months out of the year I am entrusted with seeing some of the real feelings these kids have. The reason why I get to see them is because they haven’t yet been taught not to allow themselves to feel them. They haven’t been taught that emotions are a weakness. But I can tell you this, it is definitely beginning, and this emotional arm punching, especially with boys, is the sign of it.

    This term I’ve coined—emotional arm punching—you see it all the time on playgrounds, middle and high school sports, probably even in the Boy Scouts. Maybe you remember it from when you were younger? It’s the tiny emotional jabs you take at your friends about things that you know they’re sensitive about that hurt their feelings.

    I know this well from my own experience. I was called stupid and berated by my coaches because, try as I might, I could never remember the plays.

    The other players would use the coach’s opinion of my play to deflect the attention from their own failings by coming after me relentlessly for my inability to remember plays, or, even worse, if I let down my guard and told my teammates how the coach’s remarks made me feel.

    Ultimately, I found myself deflecting my emotional hurt, hurling my own insults or digs back on my teammates about their performance.

    Now, if you asked most people, they would say this is a rite of passage in our society. You’re learning how to “be a man.” You’re learning to not let emotions affect you.

    Unfortunately, I can tell you this firsthand: it doesn’t teach kids not to have emotions. What it teaches them is to not tell or show anybody what they are feeling and to repress their emotions, just like I learned to do.

    With no one to help me actually work through my feelings, I found myself stuffing down my embarrassment and shame until those emotions became a roaring anger. That anger would ultimately become disproportionately intense. However, with no place to go, it would erupt from me when I least expected it—often on my friends or my mom.

    Kids are being called short, fat, ugly, or any unacceptable thing that their friends (or even those who aren’t their friends) say about them—under the flag of jest of course.

    What is the result? You get a bunch of kids that start to learn that they are not supposed to react. They pretend emotions don’t bother them. But in reality? They hurt doubly worse because they can’t get any support or acknowledgment for what they’re feeling.

    Why does this matter? Because those circles you see on the sports fields, in the schools, or even the Boy Scouts, you’re going to see when you’re grown up and go to the holiday party, bowling team, or men’s club. It’s the same people.

    They grew up and their emotions are so repressed that they come out in much more unhealthy or even lethal ways. Think excessive drinking, angry outbursts, isolation, domestic violence.

    Adults who learned to repress their emotions as children end up resorting to finding ways to numb those emotions that are seeping out because they didn’t learn the tools to process them.

    And then there’s blame!

    Blame is when our ‘uncomfortable emotions’ cup runneth over inside of us. When we give emotions like fear, anxiety, and anger a nice, comfortable home outside of us by spilling them all over someone else in the form of blame.

    in her Ted Talk, The Power of Vulnerability, internationally renowned speaker, storyteller, and researcher Brené Brown said that blame is described in research as a way to discharge pain and discomfort.

    Blame is acting out your anger instead of dealing with your emotions and the problem that’s in front of you. I had this a lot!  Eventually, however, I recognized the pain my actions and outburst of anger caused my friends and loved ones ultimately silenced me and, for a long time, kept me from making real connections in my life.

    If we want men to be more aware of and able to identify how they feel so that they have choices instead of reactions—choice of the challenges they will pursue in their lives, the relationships they will create, the work that will satisfy them, and the kind of father they want to be—we’re going about it all wrong.

    One of the best tools I’ve learned when dealing with my feelings is what I call “emotionally testifying.”  This starts with developing a practice of becoming familiar with all of your emotions, not just the ones that we as men find socially acceptable.

    Recognize what your emotions feel like in your body. Then, have the courage to express them to trusted friends and family, describing how you are feeling and why you think you’re feeling that way.

    This familiarity with uncomfortable emotions allows you to start to trust yourself with expressing them. They’re not foreign to you, or something to be afraid or ashamed of.

    As you become confident at identifying and expressing your emotions with people you trust, you’ll be able to respond differently when you later find yourself with a group of other guys, and that emotional arm punching begins.

    Instead of perpetuating this socially accepted, but emotionally unhealthy norm, you will have the skills to express how you feel about what’s being said in a way that is authentic to you without harming anyone else.

    I believe it is more masculine to identify and understand your emotions and to acknowledge and accept when you hurt someone else’s feelings. Just because somebody said something to you that hurt you doesn’t give you the right to go off and put those hard feelings out on someone else. That is not a sign of strength.

    Strength is knowing how you really want to feel and interacting with your friends from a place of honesty and empathy.

    If you want to learn to trust yourself and your emotions, tell your friends how you feel. If they give you a hard time, you will recover and be healthier for it. And you never know, they might follow your lead and give you an emotionally honest response back. Either way, it’ll save a lot of emotional bruising.

  • 5 Simple Ways to Overcome Your Mind’s Constant Judgments

    5 Simple Ways to Overcome Your Mind’s Constant Judgments

    “It’s easy to judge. It’s more difficult to understand. Understanding requires compassion, patience, and a willingness to believe that good hearts sometimes choose poor methods. Through judging, we separate. Through understanding, we grow.” ~Doe Zantamata

    If you don’t live in a cave, you have probably noticed two things. First, there are a lot of annoying, incompetent, stupid, and very difficult folks living in this world. Second, assuming you agree with my previous sentence, you have a very judgmental mind.

    For better or worse, you’re not alone. A hundred thousand years ago, the ability to judge people quickly helped our species survive. If we saw an unknown caveman and thought they “looked friendly,” we could die if they actually ended up being a killer. Thus, our minds learned to judge people quickly, and if in doubt, with great suspicion. After all, judging and being afraid of strangers could save your life.

    Yet nowadays, the tendency of our minds to judge most everyone as annoying, different than us, or just plain difficult simply leads to stress and unhappiness.

    Fortunately, there are five simple phrases you can use to overcome your mind’s constant judgments, and instead feel open hearted, compassionate, and at ease with others’ behavior.

    Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to find the simple phrase or phrases that work best for you. Once you find a phrase that works for you, you can maintain a peaceful and loving attitude toward people—even when they’re committed to being super annoying.

    It Must Be Hard Being Them

    The first phrase I’ve used to quickly let go of judgment is, “It must be hard being them.” This sentence is meant to evoke compassion, not superiority. If you think this phrase and feel superior to whoever you’re judging, you’re not using it the way it’s intended. However, if you think this phrase from your heart, and feel compassion for a person for being burdened by their difficult behavior, then you’re using it well.

    Recently, I talked to a very rude airline reservation clerk over the phone. She was curt, unhelpful, and incompetent (in my judgmental opinion).

    Anyway, she was either a very wounded and angry person, or she was having a particularly bad day. Yet, when I thought in my mind, “It must be hard being her,” I immediately felt more compassion for her. After all, someone as angry and unhelpful as she must create a lot of havoc in her life.

    She probably feels very lonely, frustrated with her job, and angry that she gets a lot of resistance to her difficult personality.

    Strangely, as soon as I felt more compassion for her, her behavior became less troubling. It often goes that way.

    How is That Like Me?

    I used to live in a spiritual community. I liked some of the members of this community, while others I found particularly irritating. When annoyed, in this community we were encouraged to use a phrase that helped us to immediately let go of our self-righteousness and annoyance. The phrase was, “How’s that like me?”

    So, if Joe was complaining about how it was too hot to work outside when it was eighty degrees, I’d ask myself, “How’s that like me? Do I ever complain like Joe is doing?” The answer was an inevitable “yes.” In fact, I’d try to pinpoint exactly how I sometimes behaved like Joe’s current annoying behavior. For example, I might remember that my complaining about being out of potato chips was similar to Joe being upset about working in less than perfect weather.

    When I would see how I sometimes acted in ways that were similar to whatever I found annoying or difficult in another, two things would happen. First, I would let go of my self-righteousness and feel humbled. Second, I would feel more compassionate toward whoever I had been judging.

    After all, we all do annoying and even stupid things at times. We’re human. The phrase, “How’s that like me?” has helped remind me of our shared humanity and assisted me in seeing that I, too, am not perfect.

    Don’t Know Mind

    A third approach to overcoming our mind’s judgmental tendencies is to think a phrase such as, “I don’t really know the whole story.” In the Zen tradition, they call this “don’t know mind.”

    Our mind always wants to attach a story to whatever is happening in our lives. Even when we have almost no information, we create a story in our head as to what things mean and what’s really going on. Most of these stories that we create make us look pretty good and make others look pretty bad. Yet, if and when we get a fuller picture of reality, we see that there’s no such thing as one person being “all good,” and another being “all bad.”

    People are complex, and they often have very good reasons for their behavior—even if we can’t see it at the time or know what it is.

    As a psychotherapist, I get to see “behind the curtain” of why people behave the way they do.  Several years back, I had a client who was required by a court to see me due to his having repeatedly hit his wife and kids.

    I had never seen such a person in my office, and my initial reaction to him was one of judgement and disgust. However, I soon learned that his father had not only beaten him, but sexually abused him as a child. As I learned about his life, I understood why he had turned out the way he did. I felt deep compassion for this wounded man, and as therapy progressed, I let go of my judgments and he let go of his violent tendencies.

    Had I held on to my initial judgment that he was a bad person, neither of us would have been healed. Not believing your mind’s initial judgments can be a path to greater freedom for both you and others.

     They Are a Perfect Them

    In most spiritual traditions, there is the idea that behind our personality and behaviors, we all share a common awareness, soul, or divine nature. This divine nature may be hidden under many layers of ego and problematic behavior, but it’s there somewhere.

    If you can quiet your mind and open your heart, you can sometimes tune into this soul or divine aspect in others—even if they’re being annoying.

    A phrase I’ve used to help me along this path is, “They are a perfect them.”  When I say this sentence from my heart, it reminds me that everyone is simply doing the best they can, and that a perfect soul is hidden underneath all their wounding.

    In movies, there’s always a “bad guy” or gal who we root against. Even if that character’s behavior is abhorrent, we may still marvel at the acting abilities of the person portraying the antagonist.

    In a similar way, when I see someone doing something I find offensive, I can still admire how well they’re playing their role. They might be a world class jerk, but at least they are playing that role perfectly. And behind the role they are playing, they are a wounded, vulnerable human being—just like me.

    In short, they are a “perfect them,” and as I allow them to be who they are, it gives me the chance to let go of my judgment and feel compassion and peace.

    A fifth and final way to conquer your (and my) judging mind is to use a phrase that Jesus used: “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.”

    People don’t consciously do stupid or self-destructive things. After all, people never put their hand on a hot stove if they know it’s hot. If we see someone acting in an upsetting or self-destructive manner, it inevitably means they’re too unaware—or too compelled—to do anything else.

    Because we assume babies are not very aware and have little or no free will, we tend to not judge them when they do things we don’t like—such as cry. In a similar manner, we can see that many adults also are so unaware or so compelled by their past conditioning that they’re really like a little baby. From our understanding that they “know not what they do,” it’s easier to let go of our judging and being annoyed at them.

    Ultimately, we all want to love and be loved. Unfortunately, our Neanderthal-like judgmental minds get in the way of what we truly crave deep down inside. By trying out the four phrases I’ve discussed, you may find a quick way to sidestep how your mind creates separation and annoyance. Once you find a simple way to elude judging others, you can instantly enjoy more peace, compassion, and love.

  • Why I Despised My Skin Color & 5 Strategies That Improved My Self-Image

    Why I Despised My Skin Color & 5 Strategies That Improved My Self-Image

    “Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.” ~Coco Chanel

    I believed I was ugly and blamed it on my dark skin. I hated my skin color. Looking back, I realized it’s because I didn’t fit in with the white kids, nor did I fit in with the black kids.

    I am mixed race. I have a black father and a white mother. Until I started school, I never considered myself different. My family and I were close, and I felt love and acceptance.

    When I started second grade, I developed a crush on a boy, who never noticed me and fawned over the pretty blonde girl in class. She was beautiful, with springy blonde curls and a soft, feminine voice. She wore colorful dresses that enhanced her beauty. I felt drab and plain next to her. Thus, began my dislike of my dark, frizzy afro.

    As I grew older, the name calling occurred. I was called zebra, Oreo, and n*gger. I spent a lot of my youth in tears.

    I wish I could say that it got easier as I grew older. I grew envious of the blonde girls, who caught the boys’ attention. I even envied my two sisters. One had no trouble getting boys to like her, and the other had beautiful hair that fell naturally down her neck in wavy curls.

    However, entering the seventh grade solidified my hatred of my skin color and frizzy hair.

    I sat in the back of my math class working on my assignment, while passing notes to my friends. Exhibiting a form of bravery, I tossed a note to my secret crush named Mike. He wrote back which pleased me.

    In one particular note, I asked him why he didn’t like me. As I handed it to him, I hoped with all my might that he’d tell me I was wrong. When he gave me the note back, he smiled, and I grew hopeful. I opened it and tears formed in my eyes. My heart plummeted to my stomach and bile rose to my throat. His words seared my brain as if he said them aloud.

    “Because you’re ugly.”

    Devastation enveloped me. I crumbled up the note, but the words couldn’t be as easily destroyed like the piece of paper. It sat in the back of my mind as an explanation to me why boys didn’t like me.

    In ninth grade, I was called a dog and had spitballs spat at the back of my head. I left them there, too embarrassed to even rummage through my thick frizzy mass to find them.

    “Why did you let them throw spitballs at you?” the substitute teacher asked me after class, as she removed the wet globs from my hair.

    I shrugged and left the room thinking, “Why didn’t you stop them?”

    By the time I graduated from high school, I pretty much gave up on finding somebody to love me for me. I did go on dates, but I had to do the asking. Even as I went out with them, I could tell that they’d have preferred to be anywhere else but with me.

    I struggled with my self-esteem but hid it all behind a smile. I decided to just be myself, be friendly, be kind, and smile. In private, I would cry as I wrote my feelings in stories and journals.

    Then one day at the college computer room, I met Rick. He spoke to me and showed an interest in me. When he asked me out, I accepted. Unfortunately, my life never went like I had hoped. I got pregnant. He left me.

    Deciding to keep my baby, I raised him with the help of my parents and went back to college to get my degree. I decided then to focus on myself and my little boy. Naturally, obstacles surfaced, but I chose to be myself and incorporated five strategies that slowly helped me start liking myself.

    1. I practiced self-care.

    Although self-love needs to come from within, I knew I’d feel better about myself if I put more effort into my appearance, so I bought new clothes and changed my hairstyle. This reinforced that I was worth the effort. Wearing flattering clothes and makeup enhanced my skin tone and body shape.

    I also took care of myself mentally by reading books that centered on personal growth and following steps to keep my thoughts positive, such as reciting positive affirmations and being more aware of my negative thoughts so I can reframe my thinking patterns.

    Taking care of my mind and body really helped me see myself differently. When I felt more comfortable in my skin and more at ease in my own mind, my self-confidence grew.

    2. I stopped worrying about what people thought.

    I had always been shy and introverted, and I was afraid of being judged. Being in college helped me break out of that shell. I spoke up in class and asked questions. I stopped worrying what people would think about me because I knew this was holding me back. My entire focus centered on what I wanted to learn and get from the classes I took.

    My best friend at the time told me that I should walk with my head up and back straight. She taught me that with my shoulders back and my head held high, I’d appear confident, and when I felt confident, no one’s opinions could hurt me. I adopted that form, and believe me, it felt great to walk with extremely good posture and feel the confidence exude from within me.

    3. I focused on the positive.

    Being positive had always been hard. I would wallow in self-pity and then wonder why I didn’t have many friends or couldn’t get a date. I changed my mindset and focused on the good things in my life and positive changes I wanted to make.

    I spent a lot of time with my son and worked on my writing skills, because being a writer was very important to me, and still is! I learned everything I could about business management and continuously developed my skills. I also started hanging out with positive people with healthy self-esteem and emulated their free spirit and vivacious personalities. Spending time around people who see the world through a positive, empowering lens has helped switch my mindset and feel better about myself and life.

    4. I started smiling more.

    By smiling more, I felt positive and happy more often. I wanted people to view me as someone approachable and friendly, so I smiled and showed my courtesy to those around me. It’s amazing what a smile can do for yourself as well for others. Smiling at someone in passing could touch that person and ease whatever pain they’re enduring. It could brighten their day and, and in turn help you feel good about yourself.

    When I was on my way to work one day, after picking up a hot chocolate at a nearby food court, I walked down a few steps toward the exit. An unkempt man entered and held the door open for me. I flashed him a smile and thanked him. He did a doubletake and then smiled hesitantly at me. It was then that I realized the power of a smile. It made me feel good to acknowledge this man because of a courteous gesture on his part.

    By being kind and grateful, I shared a moment with a complete stranger and it felt good.

    5. I found the courage to be myself.

    After practicing the steps above, I was no longer afraid to be myself. I broke out of my comfort zone and even spoke in public at church and seminars I took. Being myself freed me from living in a shell, where the walls I had built at a young age came crashing down.

    Today, my skin color no longer bothers me. I still hate my hair, but that’s beside the point. The fact is I realized that it wasn’t my skin color that was stopping me from making friends and finding love. It was me all along. I need to love and take care of myself first before anyone else could love me.

    I now have a wonderful, gorgeous husband who treats me the way I’ve always wanted to be treated by a man. He values me and loves everything about me—flaws and all!

    Exercising these five strategies created a life for me that I’m quite proud of. In retrospect, I wish I could tell my teenage self that life will get better, just be patient, and enjoy your naturally built-in tan.

    I’m proud to be half black and white. It is a blend of both my parents, who I love very much. Without them, I wouldn’t be the woman I am today.

  • 5 Tips to Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People

    5 Tips to Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People

    “No matter what you do, someone won’t be pleased. Someone will think your choices are wrong. And someone will tell you what you should do instead. No matter which path you take, someone will seem to be doing better. Someone will have more than you. And someone else’s life may look more impressive on paper. If you’re being true to yourself, none of that will matter because you’ll have something more satisfying than approval and the illusion of “success”: a life that feels right for you, based on your own wants, needs, values, and priorities.” ~Lori Deschene

    Have you ever walked past a grand-looking house, or driven through an upmarket neighborhood and thought, “I wish I lived here” or “The people living here are so lucky”?

    If you have, then we’ve been part of the same club! I used to do this a lot.

    While walking my dog, I’d look at a house and assume that the people living in that house must have been very happy with life. My assumptions were based on nothing more than the look of the front yard and the frontage of the house.

    When I think about it now as I write this post, I wonder, “How could I have been that naive?” Despite being aware of the expression “never judge a book by its cover,” that’s exactly what I used to do. How can one ever guess what lies behind the grand entrance of a home? Who knows what stories the plush homes of exclusive neighborhoods hold inside them?

    My regular bouts of comparisonitis got jolted by a sobering dose of reality through a shocking and tragic news story some years ago.

    One of the homes that I used to admire became the location of a horrific murder-suicide that wiped out an entire family! I could not believe my ears and eyes as I read the news and watched the coverage on television.

    My mind was thinking, in all its naivety, “How is that possible? What could have gone wrong for residents of that beautiful home? They had everything anyone could ever want, didn’t they?”

    Do I Know You?

    Have you heard the expression “human beings are like onions”? We have so many layers that hide our core self. As you peel away one layer, another appears!

    It is extremely difficult to know another person deep down to their core. How often have you found yourself wondering about the unexpected or puzzling behavior of someone you thought you knew well?

    The reality is that each one of us is unique, and it can often take a whole lifetime for us to understand our own selves. So, is it any wonder that we never manage to truly understand another person?

    Yet, we compare! We do it day in and day out, without even being aware of how easily and how often we slip into comparison mode.

    Humans are naturally prone to comparisons because this phenomenon begins quite early in our lives.

    As young kids, we might have experienced the feeling of being compared to other children—by parents, teachers, relatives, friends, peers, etc. As we grow into adults, we start comparing ourselves to other adults. Sometimes the comparisons might be in a favorable light, and at other times, the comparisons could be unfavorable. Either way, it leads to feelings that are unhealthy—a sense of superiority or inferiority.

    Feelings of arrogance or bitterness are never healthy, are they?

    Whether your comparison results in thoughts of “Oh, I’m so much better than this guy!” or “How does she do it? I’ll never be as good as her!”, there’s little doubt that “the thief of joy,” as coined perfectly by Roosevelt, has taken residence in your head and is busy ransacking your mind of all joy, happiness, and contentment.

    Why is it so difficult to avoid falling victim to the tendency of constant comparison?

    Social Comparison Theory

    Psychologist Leon Festinger proposed in his social comparison theory that the human species engages in comparison as a way of evaluating ourselves, like a benchmarking process. We get to know more about our own abilities, attitudes, or skills by comparing ourselves to our peers.

    Festinger’s theory contends that human beings can only define themselves in relation to other people. I wonder if that’s why the age-old existential question “Who am I?” seems so difficult to answer, as we seem to be incapable of defining ourselves independent of others.

    As mentioned earlier, social comparison can work in two ways.

    1. Upward social comparison

    This is when we compare ourselves to those who we believe are better than us. This type of comparison can lead to two kinds of thoughts, emotions, or outcomes.

    The first kind is where we might want to improve ourselves to reach the level of the person that we are comparing ourselves to, or even go past them. This is one possible benefit of comparison if we’re prepared to learn, as it could lead to personal growth.

    If comparison can be seen in this positive light, then “the thief of joy” might be entitled to a change of title and live inside us as “the giver of motivation.”

    The second and more common outcome of upward social comparison is envy, jealousy, and bitterness—obviously an undesirable outcome that can only lead to disappointment and frustration.

    2. Downward social comparison

    This happens when we compare ourselves to people who we believe are worse off than us. This is like an “artificial boost to self-esteem” exercise. The “at least I’m not as bad as him/her” attitude might help us feel better about our talents, achievements, or life situation, even if only temporarily.

    Social comparison begins early in life (for instance, a child in a kindergarten wanting the same toy that another kid has in his hands), gains momentum through school (new fads, fashions, and gadgets that kids want to follow or possess), and becomes deep-rooted in adulthood through comparisons in career, family, wealth, status, and lifestyle.

    This tendency to compare completes a full circle when the phenomenon moves on to adults comparing their children on how well they’re doing in academics, sports, or any other activity.

    Escaping the Comparison Trap

    To feel mentally and emotionally healthy, it is essential to free ourselves from the comparison trap. I’m sure none of us wants to experience the feeling of unworthiness from upward social comparison, or superiority from downward social comparison. So what can we do?

    Here are five simple ideas to get better at saying NO to the disease of comparisonitis:

    1. Define what success means to you.

    If we nailed down our own definition of success, the number of times that we indulged in comparisons would be significantly reduced. For instance, if our success definition were about raising healthy, happy kids, we wouldn’t really be bothered about someone else’s thriving business, would we?

    2. Discover your own strengths.

    Becoming aware of our strengths will help in minimizing the tendency of comparing our weaknesses with other people’s strengths. The great physicist Albert Einstein failed his French exams. Fortunately, he didn’t let that failure define him, as he was aware that his strengths lay elsewhere!

    3. Think of the big picture.

    Whenever you find yourself slipping into comparison mode (which will inevitably happen… we are human after all!), just remind yourself that there’s always more to a person’s life than what you’re seeing or hearing.

    Don’t let a peek through a small window into someone’s life lead to disillusionment or disappointment with your entire life. In other words, don’t compare your whole movie with another person’s highlights reel!

    4. Always be a student.

    Develop the “continuous learning” philosophy. If you always think of yourself as a student with lots more to learn in life, it becomes easier to think in terms of collaboration, not competition, with peers. If you think of yourself as an artist who is still painting his/her masterpiece, you might not be tempted to feel inferior when you view other people’s paintings because your job’s not done yet!

    5. Focus on small successes.

    When comparisonitis strikes, take up a small project that you can complete in a relatively short time, and do well. It could be something that you might’ve been putting off for a while.

    For example, let’s say you’ve started a new online business and you start to feel unsatisfied about the lack of progress. Maybe you’re looking at peers in your industry who are at a similar stage of the business cycle but seem to be gaining a lot more traction.

    Instead of letting this get you down, how about you focus on something small—like writing a blog or doing a podcast? Doing that specific task well could help lift your spirits.

    Unique Journeys

    Have you seen pieces of driftwood floating in a river? They come together at some point due to the action of the waves, might stay together for a little distance, and at some point down the river, the force of the waves separates them and they go their own ways.

    Our lives are like that.

    People come into our lives and go out of our lives at different stages of our life’s journey.

    We all begin our journeys at different points, end them at different points, and often our paths take different routes. Why then should we compare ourselves to others? After all, we are not running the same race.

    Try this exercise…

    Take a little trip down memory lane by rewinding your life some fifteen to twenty years. Think of someone that you always compared yourself with back then. It has to be someone that you’ve lost all contact with for many years. You also haven’t heard about them from anyone.

    Do you have any idea what they’re doing now? In fact, let’s go one step further—do you know if they’re still alive? Chances are your answer is “I don’t know.”

    So, my friend, in the long run, do comparisons really matter?

  • Why the Right Choice for You Isn’t Always an Immediate “Hell Yes”

    Why the Right Choice for You Isn’t Always an Immediate “Hell Yes”

    “If our hearts and minds are so unreliable, maybe we should be questioning our own intentions and motivations more. If we’re all wrong, all the time, then isn’t self-skepticism and the rigorous challenging of our own beliefs and assumptions the only logical route to progress?” ~Mark Manson

    I often hear people encourage others with the following advice: “If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.”

    Don’t get me wrong: I see where they’re coming from when they say it. Far too often we are dissuaded from listening to our gut feelings. Often, we follow the tyranny of shoulds. We compromise on our true needs and desires. We talk the inner voice away in favor of what’s expected of us.

    And yet I also see how this well-intended nugget of wisdom eliminates grey area. The more black-and-white view of the world that it inadvertently espouses may not be entirely helpful to everyone, especially those who struggle with depression or anxiety.

    Sometimes a maybe or an underwhelmed response means I don’t really want to do this. Other times it can mean I’m having complicated feelings that are worth unpacking and investigating.

    We often feel ambivalent about taking part in experiences that are outside of our comfort zones, even if those experiences may help us to grow. Our moods or current struggles can affect our commitment to activities we might ordinarily enjoy.

    Back in college when I was in the throes of a serious depression, for instance, I felt no pull to do anything—not even hobbies that I used to love. I said no to jogging and running. No to preparing nutritious meals. No to any experience that might bring me outside of my safe cocoon.

    The only activities I said hell yes to were invitations to go out and get wasted at house parties with friends—which, needless to say, made my depression even worse and perpetuated a vicious cycle.

    I wasn’t hell yes about healthy things. Drinking and escaping my pain were the only activities that elicited anything close to a passionate response from me.

    If I had misapplied the above advice, I might still be drinking in problematic ways and eschewing more mindful activities that align with my values, simply because I don’t always feel hell yes about doing them.

    Another example: a friend of mine told me there are weeks when she reads an hour before bed, and that the experience is lovely. When she becomes embroiled in a Netflix show, though, that habit dissolves. The thought of reading loses its appeal. Does this mean she doesn’t like reading? Is it a sign that she inherently prefers TV?

    I don’t think it is. What I do think it means is that activities involving passive consumption often have addictive properties.

    As David Foster Wallace wrote: “Television’s biggest minute by minute appeal is that it engages without demanding. One can rest while undergoing stimulation. Receive without giving.”

    Other examples: I’m drawn to sugar. Consuming it “feels right.” Picking up a celery stick feels more difficult. It doesn’t come as naturally.

    At certain points back in 2012 (before I moved to Uruguay), I wavered in my decision to teach abroad in South America.

    In 2019, when I considered the work and planning involved (as well as the money it would require), I even felt hesitant to take a vacation to Mexico City. Doubts and conflicting feelings dampened my “hell yes” into a “I don’t know, maybe….” shortly after my friend invited me.

    Did I still go, though? Yes! Did I have an amazing time? Also yes. Do I wish I could go back? One hundred percent.

    My point is this: don’t let ambivalence or a lack of “hell yes” convince you that you must just not really want to do something.

    It’s important to develop trust in our inner knowing; however, it’s also important to remember that our not always benevolent impulses sometimes masquerade as wise intuition.

    Even though we might pick up on a bad feeling, we never know what that bad feeling means. It could mean so many things. Instincts never come with clear instructions.

    That’s why it’s so hard to “just listen to them.” Listen to what? What action do we take in response to “this feels bad”?

    As for the hell yeses: especially for those of us with mental health struggles, immediate impulses and strong instantaneous reactions at times warrant further unpacking before being acted upon or blindly obeyed. It’s just not always true that they unequivocally have our best long-term interests in mind.

    A lack of an instant “hell yes” doesn’t necessarily signify that something isn’t right for us. It’s important that we allow room in our lives for the grey area, so as to ultimately act in alignment with our highest selves.

  • How I’m Winning Over My Inner Critic by Letting It Exist

    How I’m Winning Over My Inner Critic by Letting It Exist

    “Winning the war of words inside your soul means learning to defy your inner critic.” ~Steven Furtick

    We all have that voice in our head, the voice that’s always negative about ourselves. Our inner voice.  Our inner critic.

    The one that tells us we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive enough. That voice that continuously compares us to other people, so we come up lacking and feeling less than.

    Sometimes that voice is our own. Other times, and for some people, maybe those of us who have felt unloved or disliked by a significant person in our lives, that voice belongs to them.

    Then there are times when that inner critic will take on the voice of multiple people. A parent, a past lover who jilted us, and an abusive boss, for example. It can be quite the party in our heads, and not always a good one!

    For a while, the voice in my head belonged to my mom.

    It became a lot more frequent after she passed away. And a lot more persistent. Her best times to chat with me were always during my morning and evening routines. 

    Why? I haven’t quite figured that out yet. Maybe it was because, during those times, especially with my morning ritual, I was prepping to present my best self to my world, doing my makeup and fixing up my hair. What better time to be critical, right?

    In the mornings as I prepared for the day, I heard how my skin care routine didn’t matter, I was going to get old anyway, and look old. The makeup I applied didn’t make me look any better. The affirmations I wrote on the bathroom mirror were stupid and useless.

    Anything I did to make myself better and healthier didn’t matter. I could never change, and I could never improve myself. Regardless of how much I tried, or how much effort I put in, I would never be good enough. Never enough period.

    At times, I think there was an undercurrent of jealousy. Maybe because I wanted to improve my life, that I wanted so much more from life. More than what she wanted for herself and for me.

    When she was alive, I definitely felt this was why she found so many faults with me and pointed out all my shortcomings. It would make sense, then, that any critical thoughts I had about myself could so easily be transferred to her image, and in her voice.

    I can understand those feelings and see why her feelings came out the way they did. Fears held her back from becoming more, from wanting more. And just possibly, those were my fears too, but now being heard via her voice. Fears of never really becoming who I want to be, of never being enough.

    Sometimes it’s easier to deal with our negative thoughts if we can make someone else responsible for them. Have someone else own them. It takes the burden off of me to change my thinking if I can tell myself these negative thoughts are coming from my mom.

    For a long time, during those morning and evening chats, I argued back. I got very defensive. And I felt like everything I was doing was useless and worthless. During those times it felt like she was right. That my inner critic was spot-on.

    Then one day I got quiet. Maybe I was exhausted with this daily dialogue. I don’t know. But I got quiet. I decided to just let her talk without reacting to what she said. No more arguing. I just smiled, a gentle unconcerned smile, and continued with my routine.

    I let everything that was being said just sit in the space around us. I heard it but didn’t take it in.

    My intention now was to observe. I wasn’t belittling her feelings by ignoring her, I just simply observed and let her talk, giving her voice the space to speak and to be heard. Periodically, I responded with something like, “Yeah, I can see why you think that.”

    For a while this became the style of our regular chats. The new dialogue that the voice in my head was speaking. The negative remarks, the catty remarks, and the put-downs, all drawing a quiet and unconcerned smile, with no negative response from me.

    Before long it changed again. My mom-in-my-head, instead of chastising me for wasting my efforts, became inquisitive. The voice started making positive remarks about the products I used and the affirmations I wrote on the mirror. She became curious. That voice started asking positive questions, empowering questions. Questions that were now on my side—with me, not against me.

    It’s very possible that the reason my inner voice, my inner critic, has taken on the voice of my mom is that I still very much want the approval from her that I felt I never received while she was alive. I will never actually get it now that she is gone, and that’s something I have to accept. But this may be another way that I can maybe feel like I get it, even just a little.

    Perhaps it’s how I can get the approval from myself that I’m seeking too. The belief that I am indeed becoming the person I want to be. That I am indeed enough.

    I’m reminded of this saying, “We can’t control how other people act; we can only control our own reaction.”

    Sure, this inner voice is mine, maybe sounding like someone I know. And one would think we can control our inner voices. But if it were only as easy as that, no one would ever struggle with self-doubt, and at times self-loathing.

    Learning to control that inner voice is like controlling a temper-tantrum-filled two-year-old. Eventually do-able, but it takes herculean effort!

    The method that’s currently working for me is to let that voice speak. Meeting it with a gentle smile and letting it flow around me, without landing on me. Being observant but unconcerned. 

    Over and over, as long as it takes. Because soon that inner voice will be curious about what’s happening with me, what’s working for me, what it is that is bringing me such peace.

    Perhaps the same is true for you. Maybe instead of trying to make your inner critic go away, you just need to let it exist. When you observe your self-critical thoughts without fighting or attaching to them, you take a little of their power away. And maybe as you take your power back your inner voice will slowly transform into something softer, gentler, and on your side, because it can finally see it’s a good place to be.

  • The Only Way to Form Meaningful Relationships with People Who Get You

    The Only Way to Form Meaningful Relationships with People Who Get You

    “A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.” ~Jim Morrison

    When I left my full-time position at an ad agency and ventured out on my own, I had a clear goal in mind—to connect with like-minded people who align with my highest good. As far as how I was going to do that, I had little clue.

    My life was full of relationships built from forced, sometimes toxic circumstances where we found each other out of need or convenience. I am grateful for each of those people because they were there when I needed them most, but there was always a part of me that felt unknown or misunderstood. They did not speak my language.

    After a couple of decades of those experiences, it became natural to think that no one understood who I was, and no one ever would.

    Being an idealist, I’ve always believed in true heart-to-heart connections with other human beings as the most fundamental component of strong relationships, above cultural backgrounds, titles, properties, or romance.

    Most of the people around me, however, seem to pursue relationships to either avoid being alone or to create financial security, without the desire to form a deeper connection with others. Perhaps they don’t believe in the type of connection I know exists and think of it as a fantasy. In the past, I was often criticized as being naive and impractical.

    My idealistic nature often shows up in work environments, too, unguarded and without an agenda, while I watch others focus only on their own goals.

    I’ve always cared about coworkers as well as clients, and I’ve been enthusiastic about creating great designs to help them succeed. Those efforts were often seen as an agenda to get promoted, even perceived as a threat at times by supervisors fearing I was after their job. So, I finally gave into conformity and kept these idealisms to myself and pretended I had the same drives as everyone else.

    I wanted to be perceived as professional, to have friends, and to live every day drama-free, so I showed the world just enough of me in order to fit in comfortably.

    It is no wonder, in hindsight, I never met anyone who truly got me, because no one really knew about the existence of that part of me. And if I ever mustered enough courage to share those deep thoughts and visions, the slightest pause in our conversation or a split-second blank stare would scare me back into my shell all over again.

    Interestingly enough, after my “release” into the ocean (as I like to call it) from the corporate pond, and since taking full advantage of my freedom to work with whomever I choose, I find myself attracting more and more like-minded people. Whenever I marvel at the miraculous synchronicities, I begin to realize more and more why that is…

    I unknowingly started to come out of my shell and show the world all that I am.

    I was no longer met with judging eyes, passive-aggressive statements, and indirect criticisms that conditioned me to refrain from expressing myself in ways that I wanted to. Without having to deal with constant judgment and negativity, I naturally opened up and let my walls down.

    I spent the three-month grace period I granted myself following the leave nurturing feelings of self-appreciation and comfort and self-reflecting. What kind of relationships did I want moving forward? And what type of professional relationships would I want to build for my long-term success? The answer from deep within brought tears to my eyes—whatever business endeavors awaited, I always wanted to be as happy as I was right then.

    This morning, on an introductory Zoom call with a client who came to us for marketing and PR services, I had déjà vu listening to her echoing my own recent experiences.

    She is a veteran in her industry, well-educated across all subjects, has a rich cultural background, and is already a highly successful entrepreneur; yet she expressed discomfort in telling her personal story because she felt she would be seen as weird and unrelatable, at the same time wondering how her unique perspective and her desire to better the world could come across to the right clients.

    I immediately felt my pulse a little stronger, blood flowing, and wasted no time in sharing what I had just gone through.

    I gave her the following advice in hopes she would be encouraged to share all that she is with the world and build the clientele she truly desires. I got my confirmation immediately when her eyes lit up and her wonderfully mischievous childhood stories began to flow out naturally and comfortably… (Joy!)

    Your “weirdness” is your uniqueness.

    Since I’ve allowed myself to be more authentic, I’ve crossed paths with many people who share the same fear of being seen as “weird.”

    Many of us carry this heavy weight, the shame we felt perhaps from a young age of being judged, reprimanded, or made fun of, just for being ourselves. We then spent decades trying to fit in, prove we were “normal,” and worthy of love and respect. We diminished all the amazing qualities that make up exactly who we are as unique individuals.

    If you ever feel the need to hide your history, struggles, or emotions to appear “normal” to the rest of the world, consider this: You are actually depriving the world of getting to know you.

    What if the world needs your unique personality? What if the world is waiting to hear your personal story? Every single one of your qualities, even those some may consider “weird,” is a contribution to who you have become and what you have to offer the world.

    If you have read this far, you most likely have a desire to be known, to be acknowledged, and you are likely already sharing pieces of yourself with others, at least on a surface level. I encourage you to gently peel off another layer and share a deeper part of yourself. Because not doing so will keep you wondering and feeling caged.

    Like-minded people are trying to find you, too.

    Finding people who click with you can seem like a challenge, even if you lead a dynamic and interesting life and/or have a rich inner world.

    As I get older, I value deep connections more and more because I enjoy getting into a state of flow over effortless, meaningful conversations. I spent many frustrating years trying to figure out how exactly to meet the right kind of people, but it had never occurred to me they were looking for me, too. And I hadn’t made it easy for them to connect with me.

    When I met new people, I stuck with superficial conversations because, again, I didn’t want to be perceived as “weird” and be rejected. When I formed a friendship, I tried to maintain it the same way I had earned it, by not being who I truly am. Needless to say, those relationships were unfulfilling and short-lived.

    Sharing who you are authentically in each present moment not only helps connect you to those similar to you but also filters the relationships that are incompatible from the get-go. By bringing your inner world to light, you acknowledge your own uniqueness and allow others to fully see you, thereby making a connection with you.

    The more you let other people in, the deeper the connections you will form.

    The levels of connection you can create with another person can be exhilarating but also a little intimidating. Relationships can form from a fun-loving, surface-level interaction into something that touches the most intimate parts of your souls. But you have to be willing to risk discomfort and rejection in order to find the right people.

    If you are tired of superficial relationships that bear little fulfillment and want deeper connections you can build on, then your only option is to be brave, open up about your inner world, and let other people in.

    How deep the connections are will depend on how vulnerable you allow yourself to become and whether or not others reciprocate. Not everyone will, and that’s okay. It’s worth opening up to people who’ll reject you to find the one who won’t.

    Conversely, you need to be prepared to reciprocate just the same when someone else trusts you enough to show you their inner world. While this may take some courage to build up to, it’s also well worth the risk.

  • Where Our Inner Critic Comes from and How to Tame It

    Where Our Inner Critic Comes from and How to Tame It

    “Your inner critic is simply a part of you that needs more self-love.” ~Amy Leigh Mercee

    We all have that critical and judgmental inner voice that tells us we’re not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, etc.

    It tells us we don’t do anything right. It calls us stupid. It compares us to other people and speaks harshly about ourselves and our bodies. It tells us all the things we did or said “wrong” after communicating or connecting with someone.

    Sometimes it projects criticism outward onto others so we can feel better about ourselves. Other times we try to suppress our inner critic through overachieving, being busy, and accumulating more and more things.

    Sometimes it’s a protective mechanism that’s trying to keep us focused on our self-judgments so we won’t be authentic, because, if we are, we may be rejected and not get the love and acceptance we want.

    But, by doing this, we’re creating even more pain and suffering because we’re disconnecting from and rejecting our own essence.

    Just ignoring the critical voice doesn’t always make it go away. It may initially, but soon enough it will resurface if we haven’t healed/embraced our hurts, traumas, and wounds and shifted our internal patterning, which is where it comes from. 

    Have you ever heard the expression “What we resist persists?” Have you ever told an angry person to “just calm down” or a screaming child to stop crying? Does it work? Not when our energy is in a heightened state.

    Why is someone angry? Why is a child screaming and crying? Because there’s something going on internally that’s creating how they’re behaving. There’s often an unmet need or pain that’s asking for attention.

    Thinking a more positive thought to compensate can sometimes work, but sometimes it just creates an inner debate and mistrust in ourselves because deep inside we don’t believe what we’re saying.

    As children, many of us were taught to suppress those “bad” feelings because if we expressed them, we may have been or were punished. Welcome to the beginning of the critical voice; it’s often a frightened part of us that’s wounded and asking for attention. It wants to be seen, heard, and understood.

    My dad used to get really frustrated with me and constantly told me, “Damn it, Deb, you never do anything right.” Hearing that many times left an imprint in my subconscious. I started living with that interpretation of myself, and the critical voice kept me “in check” with being this way.

    For me, the critical voice was my dad’s voice as well as the deep shame I was feeling for making mistakes and not doing things the “right way.”

    I was holding in suppressed anger, sadness, guilt, unforgiveness, resentment, traumas, and pain that I tried to keep hidden with a smile on my face, but eventually it turned into a shame-based identity.

    My inner voice criticized me whenever I fell short or wasn’t perfect according to society or my family’s expectations.

    Just like when we’re triggered by another person, our critical voice is asking for our attention and guiding us to what needs healing, resolving, forgiving, understanding, compassion, and unconditional love.

    When it comes to the surface, we’re experiencing an automatic regression; it’s a part of us that’s frozen in time. It’s a reflection of our unhealed wounds, which created ideas of not being enough or that something’s wrong with us. Basically, it’s a trance of unworthiness.

    When we’re in a trance of unworthiness, we try to soothe ourselves with addictive behaviors. It’s hard to relax because we think we need to do something to be better and prove ourselves, so not doing anything, resting, isn’t safe.

    When we’re in a trance of unworthiness, it’s hard to be intimate with others. Deep inside we think there’s something wrong with us, so we don’t get close because they may find out and leave. This keeps us from being authentic because we don’t feel okay with who we are.

    Deep down I felt unworthy, unlovable, and undeserving, and the critical voice showed me what I was feeling and believing. I didn’t feel safe in life or in my body. How could I? I was living with so much hurt, pain, and shame inside.

    The critical voice is often stronger for those of us with unhealed wounds and who are hard on ourselves, and it tries to get us with shame and guilt. We’re always looking at ourselves as the “good self” or “bad self,” and if we’re identified with a “bad self,” we’ll act in accordance with that in all areas of our life.

    If we’ve become identified with the critical voice, it’s who we think we are; it just seems normal. And when we start to be more kind and loving, it doesn’t seem right because our identity becomes threatened and our system registers that as danger.

    That happened for me. Eventually I became identified with being a “bad girl” who’s critical and hard on herself, and, even when I started being a little kinder, more compassionate, and more loving, I felt an angst in my body. It wasn’t familiar, and even deeper, it wasn’t okay for me to be this way. My survival was at stake, so I would automatically go back to self-criticizing and judging, without conscious awareness.

    The critical voice didn’t only speak to me harshly; it also told me to do self-abusive things like cutting my wrists and face, starving my body or eating lots of sweets, and exercising for hours like a mad woman to get rid of the food I ate, whether it was a carrot or sweets, because I felt guilty. 

    Even after twenty-three years of going in and out of hospitals and treatment centers, taking medication, and doing traditional therapy, nothing ever changed; the critical voice had a hold on me.

    It was a powerful force, and when I tried to stop it, it would get louder. It thought it was protecting me in a backwards sort of way; if it hurt me first, no one else would be able to do so.

    When people used to say to me, “Debra, you just need to love yourself,” I looked at them like they were crazy. I had no concept of what that even meant because I had no experience of it.

    What I’ve come to see with myself and those I assist in their healing is that the more we keep our deep hurts, traumas, anger, guilt, shame, and pain hidden, the more the critical voice chimes in.

    And, for some, like me, it seems overpowering, so we try to find relief through smoking, drinking, eating, or being busy, and/or we experience severe depression, anxiety, or self-harming.

    When we’re consumed by the critical voice, we’re disconnected from our true essence, and when we’re disconnected from our true essence, the love within, we feel a sense of separation; we don’t feel safe with ourselves or others, and we don’t feel lovable for who we are, as we are.

    This is why many people can change, be happy for a day, but then go back to their critical and/or judgmental ways. Our automatic programming, stemming from our core beliefs, kicks in. It’s just like an addiction, and in a sense it is.

    We can try meditating, deep breathing, and positive thinking, but, unless we address the underlying cause, we’re likely to keep thinking the thoughts our internal patterning dictates. They come from a part of us that doesn’t feel loved or safe.

    So, what do we do when the critical voice comes to visit?

    What do we do when it’s what we’re used to, and it just happens automatically?

    What do we do when we don’t know how to be with ourselves and how we’re feeling in a kind and compassionate way?

    What do we do when we have no concept of what it even means to experience self-love or ease in our bodies?

    First off, please don’t blame yourself for how you’re being. Awareness isn’t about judgment; it’s about kindness, compassion, and love.

    Working with and healing our traumas, where the critical voice was formed, is key in shifting our internal energy patterning. Many people call this inner child healing and/or shadow working. 

    This is a soft and gentle process of moving through the layers of trauma with compassion and love and making peace with our protector parts.

    Through inner child healing, we can shift and transform that “negative” patterning and how the energy is flowing in our body. We can help that part of us that’s frightened, hurting, and maybe feeling separate have a new and true understanding so we can feel loved and safe in our bodies.

    When we pause and take a deep breath when we first hear or sense the critical voice, it allows our nervous systems to reset and helps us come back to the present moment; this allows space for compassion, healing, and investigation.

    Why do I believe that?

    Where did I learn that?

    Is it true?

    How does my higher self see this and me?

    Does the critical voice totally go away? No, it may still chime in; it’s part of being human. But once we realize where it’s coming from and heal/shift that energy pattern, more love can flow through, and we can experience our truth. When we learn how to be our own loving parent and meet the needs our caregivers didn’t meet when we were children, the critical voice often softens.

    Remember, the critical voice is just a scared part of us who really wants attention, love, and a way to feel safe. When we no longer take it personally, when we’re no longer attached to it as our identity, we can offer ourselves compassion, understanding, love, truth, and whatever else we’re needing.

    Life can be messy, and our thoughts can be too. This isn’t about perfection; this is about experiencing a deeper connection with our loving essence.

    There’s a sweet and tender spirit that lives within you. This spirit is your deepest truth. This spirit is the essence of you. You’re naturally lovable, valuable, and worthy. You’re a gift to humanity. So please be kind, gentle, loving, and caring with yourself.

  • If You’re Trapped Under a Pile of “Should” and Tired of Feeling Unhappy

    If You’re Trapped Under a Pile of “Should” and Tired of Feeling Unhappy

    “Stop shoulding on yourself.” ~Albert Ellis

    I was buried under a pile of shoulds for the first thirty-two years of my life. Some of those shoulds were put on me by the adults in my life, some were heaped on because I am a middle child, but most were self-imposed thanks to cultural and peer influence.

    “You should get straight A’s, Jill.”

    “You shouldn’t worry so much, Jill.”

    “You should be married by now, Jill.”

    “You should get your Master’s degree.”

    I could go on forever. The pile was high, and I was slowly suffocating from the crushing weight on my soul.

    What’s so significant about age thirty-two? It’s when I decided to divorce my husband of eighteen months (after a big ole Catholic wedding) and ask my parents for money to pay the attorney’s retainer. This is a gal with a great childhood, MBA, and a darned good catch for a husband.

    From the outside, our life looked charmed and full of potential. We’d just purchased our first home, were trying to start a family (despite suffering two miscarriages) and were building our careers. What no one else saw was the debilitating mountain of consumer debt, manipulative behavior, and my intuition’s activated alarm system… sounding off in reaction to the life I’d built and was, for all intents and purposes, stuck in.

    My intuition was done with the low-level warnings. She was sick and tired of being ignored, so she sounded the big one—an alarm that demanded action instead of lip service. I still tried challenging her; what she had presented me with was asinine.

    “But I can’t divorce him. We just got married. What will everyone think? I’m so embarrassed. I should have made better choices. How did I end up here? I did everything right, right? I should suck it up and stick it out; that’s what good Catholics do. This is kind of what life is, I guess… kinda sad, but it seems to work for most everyone else. Ugh, I wanted this… now I’m, what, changing my mind?”

    The alarm was not going to shut off until I sat long enough with those notions to yield honest answers. That was some tough sh*t to sit in. And even tougher to plod through. But it was better than being buried under it.

    This was my first lesson in “There’s only one way out of this mess.” There’s no express lane, no backroad, no direct flight. This ride resembled the covered wagon kind. Bumpy, hot, dirty, and uncomfortable as hell.

    I relented, listened, and tapped into the hidden reserve of courage I didn’t know existed within me.

    The time had come to quit living according to the “should standard” everyone else around me had subscribed to. The time had come to accept this curated life was not the one that would yield happiness for me. The time had come to turn up the volume on this newfound voice and assert to myself (and everyone else) that I was cutting my losses and trusting my inner compass.  

    The time had come to stop shoulding myself.

    Shoulds were my grocery list, my roadmap for life. How was I going to do this adult thing without my instructions???

    I’d already managed to clear a huge should—hello, divorce—and after that, with every should I challenged, another paradigm crumbled. I began to notice shoulds all over the place. After that, my awareness of intention got keener, and I could sniff out the subtle shoulds like a bloodhound.

    SHOULD: When are you having kids?

    CHOICE:  I do not want to have children. (Remember I miscarried twice with my first husband. I was checking boxes on my adulting grocery list. Honesty yielded clarity.)

    SHOULD: He’s too old for you and he has four boys of his own.

    CHOICE:  He is my person. His sons deserve to see their father in a healthy, happy relationship. I can show them love in a new, different way.

    SHOULD: You’re making great money in your job. Why walk away from your amazing 401(k) and great benefits to risk starting your own business?

    CHOICE:  I want to build a life I’m not desperate to take a vacation from. I want to live, serve others, and know when I’m at the end of my life that I chose it and made the most of it.

    Deleting the word “should” is a big first leap in taking ownership of your life. By altering your vocabulary in a simple way, you naturally become mindful of the words you put in its place. Instead of “I should….” substitute with “I choose to….” Instead of “You should…” try “Have you considered…?”

    Keep track of every time you say or hear “should” in a day. Then spend time with each one and get toddler with yourself. Ask why. Ask it again.

    Who says you have to get married or have kids or work a job you hate that looks good on paper? Who says you have to look a certain way or do certain things with your free time that don’t appeal to you? Why are you restless in your life? What idea keeps popping up, begging for your attention? Are you living your truth? What’s in the way? What pile of shoulds are you buried under?

    I get it. We’ve been programmed by our culture and our family traditions to follow the path, stay on course, climb the ladder to success! It’s the only way to be happy, they say. It’s the only way we’ll be proud of you, they insinuate.

    We’ve been indoctrinated with this thought pattern and belief system, and it seems impossible that we have the power to choose otherwise. We have the opportunity, the autonomy, the choice to rewire our iOS and make it what is ideal for ourselves.

    Overwhelm is natural; the antidote is to start small. Find one piece of low-hanging fruit, take a bite, and taste how sweet it is. For example, say no to an invite if you’d rather spend your time doing something else. Allow yourself to do nothing instead of telling yourself you should be doing something productive. Or let yourself feel whatever you feel instead of telling yourself you should be positive.

    Feel how nourishing it is to choose yourself. Experience satiety in your soul. Release restlessness and replace it with intention guided by your intuition.

    Do that and you’ll never should again. Or maybe you will—who says you should be perfect? At the very least you’ll think twice before letting should control you, and you’ll be a lot happier as a result!

  • Hurt by Negative People? How to Stop Taking Things Personally

    Hurt by Negative People? How to Stop Taking Things Personally

    “Some people are in such utter darkness that they will burn you just to see a light. Try not to take it personally.” ~Kamand Kojouri

    The saying goes that money makes the world go round, but of course that’s not true.

    It’s our relationships.

    How we relate to other people and how they relate to us keeps our world turning. When things go well, all’s right with our world. When things go badly, it can feel as though our world has ground to a halt.

    This is exactly how I felt whenever I had a difficult experience with a loved one or friend.

    Whenever they lashed out at me for no real reason, it felt as if I couldn’t move on again until their negativity or bad temper had blown over. Until that happened, I replayed the scenarios in my mind, trying to work out where I was to blame for their behavior, and feeling awful in the meantime.

    That’s why our relationships will always be the most important thing in our lives—they have such a strong impact on us, both good and bad.

    That is also why it serves us well to try to have the best possible relationship with others, as well as ourselves. That includes improving the connections we have with the difficult and less-than-positive people in our lives and strengthening our boundaries in the process.

    We probably all have several negative people in our lives—those who criticize, complain, belittle us and other people, and say or do cruel things. They can be the closest to us, people we have known all our lives, and that makes their negativity harder to escape and endure.

    I had a family member who was very negative about pretty much everything. Spending time in their company was usually a draining and disheartening experience due to their complaining and sniping comments.

    This person made it very clear whenever I met them that they had little time or affection for me, which of course made family get-togethers less than enjoyable.

    I was also puzzled as to why they were like that: we’d never argued, and I had never, to my knowledge, done or said anything mean to them. Yet, they still acted in a negative way toward me, especially if I mentioned affirmative life experiences such as a great holiday or a new exciting project.

    Unsurprisingly, I responded to their negativity with a sense of apprehension, frustration, and confusion, which stopped me from enjoying the company of my other relatives. It also made me wary about fully expressing myself or talking about my life. And my uneasiness undoubtedly made the atmosphere between my family member and me even more negative.

    We all Have Emotional Scars from the Past

    I eventually recognized that I was hurt by my relative’s treatment in large part because I took it personally and allowed it to affect my self-image and self-esteem—as if I somehow deserved it. Then I realized something that changed everything for me.

    We all have a self-image shaped in large part by other people. Family, friends, and partners, who’ve likely scarred us through anger, resentment, jealousy, judgment, neglect, or even outright abuse. And this affects how we show up in the world.

    Everyone, including the people who have wronged you or been negative toward you in some way, has scars from their past too.

    Maybe your critical mother doesn’t know any better because her mother was critical. Maybe your absent father never knew his father either. Maybe your backstabbing friend was jealous of you for reasons only known to them. Perhaps your cheating partner had abusive parents, and your partner sabotages relationships because they don’t believe anyone can love them.

    Each and every one of us carries around our scars, going out into the world to meet other people who have scars, and when we connect, these combined scars can sometimes tear open.

    We all See Ourselves Through Others’ Eyes

    We all tend to see ourselves through our loved ones’ eyes—starting with our parents when we’re young—because we assume their perceptions of us are accurate and blame ourselves if they’re not flattering. Our self-image can alter based on their comments, emotions, and actions—positive and negative.

    This is a classic case of our relationships shaping our sense of self, an ongoing shaping that begins even before we can fully understand the meanings of what other people say or do to us.

    We are each the result of our experiences within our multiple relationships and interactions. How other people relate to us affects our image of ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we are helpless in the face of other people’s behavior toward us.

    We may not have had much of a choice as a child, but it’s a different matter once we’re adults. With awareness, we’re now able to protect ourselves far better from others’ negativity toward us and set necessary boundaries.

    Learning to Connect in a Different Way

    If you’re dealing with a negative or painful relationship that leaves you feeling bad about yourself, you can of course choose to distance yourself from the person and limit contact. Sometimes, however, this isn’t possible, so you have to learn how to connect in a different way while safeguarding yourself from their negative impact on you.

    I decided I had to respond differently to my family member and their negativity for the sake of my well-being. I began to look beyond their behavior and actions, and in doing so I started to piece together an idea of what might be the real cause of their pain and unhappiness.

    I recalled they had often moaned about how much they hated their job, how they disliked the town they lived in and their neighbors, and they also often complained of tiredness and physical aches and pains.

    I began to see that this person’s negativity—even if it was aimed at me, maybe due to their feelings of envy—wasn’t really about me. They were unhappy with their life in general. Negative people are often unhappy on many levels.

    It also helped me to remember we all have emotional scars, as mentioned before. When you approach people from a place of understanding, compassion, and empathy, you no longer see them as cheats, liars, betrayers, or “bad” people out to get you—even though they might cheat, lie, or betray you. You instead begin to see beyond their behavior and recognize that they’re in pain.

    When you do that a lot of their power over you starts to fade. You begin to see them as vulnerable, like everyone else. You start to realize that their negative actions toward you reflect far more on them than they do on you.

    People often hurt each other because of their own deep pain and because they don’t know any other way to act. This is often a painful lesson to learn.

    But when you finally grasp this difficult truth, you become more accepting of what happened, more forgiving, and ready to let go and move on. You realize you do not need to take on their negativity, brood about it, or feel you are the cause of it.

    That doesn’t mean you have to condone or accept mistreatment. And that’s not to say people’s negativity toward you won’t bother or hurt you ever again, but the effect won’t be so intense. You’ll realize that the situation isn’t really about you at all. Any pain they try to inflict on you is simply a reflection of what they feel inside; it no longer feels so personal.

    When I stopped taking my relative’s negativity personally, I was able to interact with them in a different way. I was much more relaxed in their company and able to enjoy family gatherings much more.

    When you stop taking other people’s negativity personally, you cease to be so susceptible to creating your self-image through their eyes. In fact, you start to focus far more on how you view them.

    Then you’re also free to focus less on their negativity and bad behavior and more on how you respond to it. That might mean setting boundaries and limiting your contact with them, and that’s okay. Sometimes you have to understand and empathize from afar to take good care of yourself.

    We’re All in the Same “Life” Boat

    Essentially, we’re all in the same “life” boat, bobbing up and down on the vast ocean of existence.

    We are all fallible. We all inflict hurt on others, intentionally and unintentionally.

    We all experience negative situations and inevitable suffering, and we simply have to accept this. Without pain and suffering we might not value joy or experience spiritual growth. If we never experienced adversity, we might not appreciate our strength.

    And without negative people we might not be truly grateful for or cherish the loving, supportive people we have in our lives.

  • Surviving a Dysfunctional Relationship: What I Wish I Knew and Did Sooner

    Surviving a Dysfunctional Relationship: What I Wish I Knew and Did Sooner

    “No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow.” ~Alice Walker

    When I was a child and in my early teenage years, I was a free bird. I laughed easily, loved life, never worried, and dreamed big. I thought the best of others, the glass was always full. I never dreamed others would hurt me, and I had a joyful and playful attitude toward life.

    That was a long time ago.

    My breakdown started gradually and slowly with judgments from a very close and trusted family member I dare not name. This person, though probably well-intentioned, thought that you make someone stronger by criticizing them. They believed in knocking me down, throwing verbal punches to make me “resilient.”

    They believed in “hard love.” They watched while I faltered and sometimes suffered. They stood back and watched from the cheap seats, then critiqued my performance. Their assessment of me was rarely, if ever, encouraging and was full of arrogance and judgment.

    Well into my adult life, this trusted person threatened me after an ugly incident where they made a terrible judgment call. Instead of admitting their error, they threatened me and made it my fault by saying, “If you ever tell anyone about this, I will disown you.”

    Shuddering under the weight of those words, I decided to sever ties with this person once and for all.

    Those words, “If you ever tell anyone about this, I will disown you…” said so much about this person who I have struggled to understand my entire life.

    For me, it was about as close to the admittance of wrongdoing I would ever get from them. And as always, there was the signature and ever-present judgmental spin. “I will disown you” because, after all, this is your fault, and you deserve punishment.

    I try to come to terms with the aftermath of the ugly side effects that this person has brought to my life.  Someone so blatantly flawed showed me my own weaknesses because I allowed them to erode my confidence and well-being.

    I regret not cutting ties sooner—like twenty years ago.

    As I sat in the aftermath of this situation, I wondered what good can possibly come from such a disappointing relationship? A lifetime of misunderstanding, jarring actions, harmful words, and hurt feelings—all from a person so close to me—someone I should trust, love and respect.

    Perhaps the answer lies in the decisive way I ended it after so many years of abuse. The final decision for me to end this relationship was my first real stand to protect myself. The first time I valued myself more than another person.

    The dysfunction of this relationship would not have come this far if I knew how to establish healthy boundaries early on and knew how to deal appropriately with a difficult person. I am nearly sixty years old and have learned my lessons the hard way.

    I like to share with you some easy strategies you can employ if you are struggling with a dysfunctional person in your life.

    1. Nothing you say or do will ever change them.

    Save yourself a lot of time and energy and come to terms with this reality. The only person you can change is yourself, which is the best place to focus your energy. You can control your reactions to this person, your opinions, and how you deal with them, but you can’t control them.

    They have to accept you for who you are, and likewise, you have to accept them for who they are.

    If you don’t like them or their behavior, you have to decide how you will deal with it. Maybe you only visit once a year or not at all. Perhaps you only call on the phone. Explore all the options that you feel will work for you and keep you safe, and try not to feel guilty about your decision.

    2. Set healthy personal boundaries.

    Healthy boundaries are essential not only for you in this relationship but within all relationships. Setting healthy boundaries with friends, your boss, your wife or husband, your children, with anyone is key to having healthy and fulfilling relationships.

    When you set healthy boundaries, you also allow the other people in your life to know what you expect and what you will or will not tolerate.  They will appreciate you for that.

    Setting healthy boundaries starts with knowing what irritates you, what pushes your buttons, what compromises you might make, if any.  Healthy boundaries have a lot to do with knowing your core values. Start with a shortlist of core values important to you. Know them and stick by them, and when someone challenges those values, be ready to protect them because they are there to protect you.

    Also, choose your words carefully when setting clear boundaries. For example, saying, “You insulted me, so I am out of here,” is not as effective as saying, “Your words (specify the words you find insulting) are insulting to me, and if you continue to talk to me like that I will have to leave.”

    Everyone deserves a chance to change their behavior for the better. However, act decisively and immediately if your boundary is crossed.

    3. Whether it is a friend or family member, people who constantly cross your boundaries and challenge your values don’t deserve your energy.

    Being decisive like this is called standing up for yourself. You can walk away and come back another day—or not.

    If you don’t stand up for yourself early, people will chip away at your inner confidence and make you resentful and even potentially volatile. Don’t let things get that bad.

    Make yourself strong from the inside out, rely on your judgments. Don’t listen to other people who persuade you to ignore your guidance. Only you can know whether someone is violating your inner self.

    4. You are not a bad person for deciding to step back or even end the relationship.

    Tell yourself that you are not a bad daughter, son, wife, husband, mother, whatever. You are not bad for deciding to end a volatile relationship that has left you drained, eroded, and empty.

    Maybe you could have done things differently or better or sooner, but you didn’t and couldn’t, and you did your best. You had good reasons to step away or even leave the relationship; accept that and don’t beat yourself up over it. Self-preservation will always make you a better person in a relationship, and indeed, it will make you a better person out of it as well.

    —

    There is a great deal of wisdom that can be learned from years of perseverance and working your way through challenging lessons. It was my choice to stay in a dysfunctional relationship, perhaps too long, in a place that clipped my wings.

    I now know the true value of standing strong in who I am, and not basing my self-acceptance on the way others treat or view me.  That wisdom is profoundly liberating and once again I can be free, like a bird with newly feathered wings.

  • 5 Life-Changing Pieces of Advice I Would Give to My Younger Self

    5 Life-Changing Pieces of Advice I Would Give to My Younger Self

    “I’d go back to my younger self and say, ‘Lighten up. Take it easy. Relax. Don’t be so anxious about everything. Try not to have today stolen from you by anxiety about yesterday or tomorrow.’” ~Bill Nighy

    I believe there is great power in looking back at our past to learn from our experiences, mistakes, and regrets.

    The Spanish philosopher George Santayana remarked, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” I might add that the history we need to study the most is our personal history so that we don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again in our lives.

    If I had the option to go back to my past, this is the advice I would give my younger self.

    1. Express yourself freely and work to overcome your shyness.

    In the past, there were many opportunities that I didn’t take and many friendships that I failed to make because I was shy and often felt uncomfortable and self-conscious. Some people would interpret my shyness as rudeness, so it was crippling to me in many ways.

    Advice to myself:

    Make a conscious effort to interact and express yourself freely around others, no matter how uncomfortable it may make you feel in the moment. If you struggle, take deep breaths to relax yourself and calm your irrational thoughts.

    Nobody is judging you and analyzing you as thoroughly as you may think. Everybody is too absorbed in their own world to spend time caring about every little thing you say and do.

    Try to do the opposite of what a shy person would do in any given situation. Easier said than done, I know, but if you do that long enough, you’ll start creating a new identity for yourself in your mind. That’s really all you have to do to overcome being shy. The more you do it, the easier it gets and the more confident you’ll become, and soon it will feel natural.

    2. Stop fighting your negative feelings.

    For the longest time, I would try to resist and battle my negative emotions, like anxiety,  hoping they would go away somehow. If I felt that familiar knot in my stomach and started thinking anxious thoughts, I’d tell myself I should be positive because our thoughts create our reality.

    A couple of years ago, I finally realized that the way to free yourself of negative emotions, as counter-intuitive as it sounds, is to accept them.

    The more we try to fight our feelings with the underlying thought “I shouldn’t be feeling this way,” the worse we feel. However, these feelings pass much faster when we allow ourselves to feel them without judging them or thinking that they shouldn’t be happening.

    Advice to myself:

    Let go of the need to try and fix your negative emotions with your mind.

    Accept your unpleasant feelings and focus your attention fully on the sensations these emotions invoke instead of thinking thoughts like “I shouldn’t be feeling this way,” “This shouldn’t be happening.”

    When you do this, you will find that the unpleasant feelings dissolve much more quickly, and you will stop making things worse by feeding them with more energy.

    View your feelings as visitors, for they always come and go. Like most visitors, all they want is your attention and acknowledgement, and once you give them what they want, they will be on their way.

    3. Embrace uncertainty.

    In college, I spent a long time desperately trying to figure out my future, wishing for clarity on what I should be doing with my life.

    Many of us have a compelling need to have our whole lives all figured out. We hate not knowing where life may take us, and we seek the comfort of knowing what the future has in store for us.

    But no amount of mental analysis of our future can provide us with the answers. And that’s okay, because we don’t always need to know what we will be doing a year from now.

    Sometimes the only thing you can do is trust in life. Because when we are not trusting, we automatically start worrying, because that’s our mind’s default tendency.

    Advice to myself:

    Know that it’s okay to be confused and not have all the answers. Learn to be okay with not knowing and make room for surprise and mystery, because that’s a big part of what makes life exciting and interesting.

    Most of your fears and worries about the future, if you closely examine them, are nothing more than mental fabrications and do not exist anywhere else than in your mind. Most of the things you worry about won’t actually happen, and even if they do, you might learn and grow from those experiences. Hence there is no need to take your fears so seriously and get worked up over them.

    4. Stop trying to run away from discomfort.

    Our mind tends to prefer the known and comfortable and likes to seek out the easiest way to feel good.

    We’re often hesitant to do things that require effort or make us feel uncomfortable, since our natural tendency is to avoid feeling any discomfort.

    But many of the things that are beneficial for us and worth doing in life will require enduring some kind of discomfort. To run away from discomfort is to run away from growing and evolving as a person.

    That’s exactly what I did for most of my life. I avoided meditating, exercising, journaling, and spending time alone without technology—habits that have all had a positive impact on my life—during the times when I would have benefited from them the most because I felt resistance whenever I tried to get started.

    I also avoided being vulnerable with other people. But I’ve noticed over the last two years that if I stay with the discomfort of interacting with new people instead of running away, as I used to do, the interactions ultimately become rewarding and enjoyable.

    This is true of most things—reward lies on the other side of discomfort, but first we have to push through.

    Advice to myself:

    The mind can be very persuasive and convincing and come up with an endless list of reasons to procrastinate or avoid feeling any discomfort. But don’t let your mind deceive you.

    Discomfort often points toward what you should be doing, not what you should be avoiding. Be willing to dive deep into discomfort and learn to embrace it. It will help you more than you know.

    5. Accept yourself and stop judging yourself.

    When I was in college, I used to judge myself a lot because many of my interests, such as spirituality and metaphysics, were very different from all my friends’ interests.

    It was a few years later that it finally dawned on me that I needed to stop looking outside for validation and permission to accept myself.

    Once you learn to accept yourself, it doesn’t matter what others may or may not think. Other people’s opinions may bother you fleetingly, but you will need to live with what you think about yourself every day, so don’t make it hard by judging yourself.

    Advice to myself:

    You don’t need to judge yourself or feel embarrassed about wanting to spend your free time journaling, meditating, reading books, or enjoying spending time alone by yourself.

    Don’t feel compelled to be like everyone else, and there is absolutely no reason to be apologetic for following and doing what lights you up.

    Because the truth is, it’s okay to be different and unique. Imagine how boring the world would be if we were all the same.

    —

    If you could talk with your younger self, what would you say? What do you think you would have done differently? What advice would you have for them?

  • A Life-Changing Insight: You Are Not a Problem to Be Fixed

    A Life-Changing Insight: You Are Not a Problem to Be Fixed

    “I decided that the single most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed.” ~Anne Lamott

    I remember one particular clear, cold winter morning as I returned home from a walk. I suddenly realized that I had missed the whole experience.

    The blue, clear sky.

    The lake opening up before me.

    The whisper of the trees that I love so much.

    I was there in body but not embodied. I was totally, completely wrapped up in the thoughts running rampant in my mind. The worries about others, work, the future; about everything I thought I should be doing better and wanted to change about myself… it was exhausting.

    Alive, but not present to my life. Breathing, but my life force was suffocated.

    This was not new. In fact, up until that point I had mostly approached life as something to figure out, tackle, and wrestle to the ground. This included my body, my career, and the people around me. 

    My tentacles of control, far-reaching in pursuit of a better place, said loudly, “What is here now is not acceptable. You are not acceptable.”

    “You can improve. You can figure it out. You can always make it better.”

    But this time, rather than indulging in the content of this particular struggle, I observed the process I was in and realized profoundly that even though the issues of the day changed regularly, the experience of struggle never did.

    And I would continue struggling until I stopped resisting and judging everything and started accepting myself and my life.

    This wasn’t the first time I’d had thoughts like these, but this time there was no “but I still need to change this…” or “I can accept everything except for this thing.” I knew it was 100% or nothing.

    I knew then I only had two choices:

    I could continue to resist reality, which now seemed impossible and exhausting (because it was). Or I could accept myself and the moment and make the best of it.

    “What if there is actually nothing to struggle against? What if I let go of the tug-of-war that I called my life?”

    The choice was before me. The one that comes to people when they have suffered enough and are tired: to put down the arms.

    This doesn’t have to mean accepting unhealthy relationships or situations. It just means we stop living in a constant state of needing things to change in order to accept ourselves and our lives. It means we learn to let things be—and even harder, to let ourselves be.

    Whenever I have a conversation with people who are struggling, I’ve recognized that they have this innate feeling of I should be doing better than this. Or, I should not be feeling like this.

    It might seem obvious that “shoulds” keep us in a contracted position of never-being-enough.

    But I have found that letting them go is not as simple as a quick change of thought.

    It seems like denying ourselves has become the generally accepted and encouraged modus operandi of our culture.

    Denying our feelings.

    Minimizing our pain.

    Hating our body parts.

    This leads to disconnection from the life that is here, the life that is us.

    Self-loathing has become the biggest dis-ease of our time.

    When we are disconnected from who we are in this moment, there is a tension between right here and the idealized self/state.

    This disconnection or gap is a rupture in our life force that presents itself as a physical contraction, a shortness of breath, an inner critic that lashes out harshly and creates a war within. This war contributes to pain, illness, and I’d guess 80% of visits to a medical doctor.

    Even some of the best self-help books promote this gap…

    Don’t think those thoughts.

    Don’t feel those negative feelings.

    Don’t just sit there—you should be doing something to improve yourself and your life

    All of the statements above might seem like wise advice. But we’ve missed the biggest step of all—mending the gap between who we are and who we think we should be so that we don’t feel so disconnected from ourselves.

    Disconnection is the shame that tells you that you’ve got it wrong, that it is not okay to feel or think the way you do in this moment. That you have to beat yourself up so you can improve, be more than you are now, be better.

    That you are a problem to fix.  

    This is the catch-22 of self-help when taken too much like boot camp. Self-help can be helpful, but it can create an antagonistic relationship with our true selves if it doesn’t include a full acceptance of who we are in this moment.

    The belief of “not-enoughness” is at the root of so much physical and emotional pain, and I, for one, have had enough of it.

    What if we allowed ourselves to be, or do, in the knowing that we are okay, that we are doing the best we can, given what we know at this point in time?

    Do you feel the fear-gremlins coming out that tell you that you will lie down on the couch and never get up again? Or perhaps you will never amount to anything or be good enough?

    This is the biggest secret of all: It’s all a lie to keep the consumer culture alive. 

    People who are scared and in scarcity need to consume something outside of themselves to gain fulfillment. But it never really comes because there’s always something new to change or attain.

    It can be so difficult for us humans to accept not only ourselves, but that everything just might be okay in this moment.

    That this feeling is just right. Even if it hurts.

    It’s okay to be right here, right now. Pain is here, and I don’t have to fight it.

    Our relationship with ourselves is the most important relationship we will ever have.

    Because we are truly sacred, no matter how we feel.

    Maybe the only question to ask today is not “What do I need to do to change?” but “How can I love myself, just as I am?”

    Maybe the act of loving ourselves is as simple as taking a breath to regulate our nervous system and come back to the present moment.

    Maybe healing involves not so much changing ourselves but allowing ourselves to be who we are.

    Which is exactly what I did that day when I realized I had missed my whole walk because I was caught up in my mind, worrying about everything I wanted to change. I shifted my focus from the thoughts I was thinking to the feelings in my body. I realized that I was enough in this step, in this breath, and that’s all there is.

    I promise the results of moving into acceptance will feel far better than the shame, disconnection, and cruelty that come from the constant pursuit of self-improvement.

    The truth is…

    You are not a problem to fix.

    You are a human to be held.

    To be held in your own arms and loved into wholeness.

    Take care of your human.

  • Avoid Feeling Bad: How to Stop Taking Things Personally

    Avoid Feeling Bad: How to Stop Taking Things Personally

    “There is a huge amount of freedom that comes when you take nothing personally.” ~Don Miguel Ruiz

    Oh man, if I had a dollar for every time I took something personally…

    I’d be rich by now.

    When I quit my corporate job in Paris and took a year off traveling people would often ask me, “So, what’s your plan now?” A normal question to ask, I know. But back then, I usually got offended by that question and other follow-up ones. It made me think that others were judging my decision and questioning my ability to change career paths.

    Or when I was single and people would ask, “So, are you seeing anyone right now?” Again, I’d often assume that they thought less of me if I didn’t have an interesting single life or wasn’t dating someone special.

    Or in the early days of dating my boyfriend, when he wouldn’t have time to talk or see me at times, I’d take it personally and assume the worst. Maybe I had done something to mess everything up. Maybe he didn’t think I was that interesting after all.

    Taking things personally is emotionally draining. It often makes you assume the worst and puts you into the victim corner. Sometimes, of course, it’s worth reflecting on our own behavior, which can help us develop and grow as individuals. But taking things personally, when many times they’re not, just tears down our self-esteem and makes us question ourselves.

    Here are a few ways to stop taking things personally:

    1. Question your negative beliefs.

    When we take things personally, it’s often because we hold a negative belief that is fueling our perception of a situation. For example, if you say “hello” to an acquaintance on the street and get upset because they don’t reply back, you might believe that people who don’t acknowledge you are rude or that they have something against you.

    Look at the limiting belief behind the situation and question it. Maybe they didn’t actually see you. Maybe they didn’t have time to perceive that it was you who passed by. Or maybe they were simply too occupied in their own mind to engage with anyone else.

    Many times, our beliefs make us misinterpret situations negatively and turn them against ourselves. We form negative assumptions and inevitably feel hurt if we don’t take the time to question our thoughts and beliefs.

    2. Don’t assume you know everything.

    When I left my job to travel for a year and get clear on what business to start, I was scared of what others, especially colleagues I respected, would think of me. I simply assumed that they would think I was irresponsible for leaving a good career for… well, I didn’t know yet.

    There was one colleague in particular, who I really looked up to, that I already had assumed judged me for my decision. Whenever she mentioned something about her career, I turned that against myself as a way of confirming “I knew it, she thinks I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

    Then one day, when we were talking about my journey and the choices I had made, she said, “You know Maria, I think you’re so brave. I wish I had the courage to also quit and pursue my own business.” This proved to me that we don’t know what others are thinking about us, even if we think we do. So don’t assume you know everything.

    3. Know that it’s not about you.

    When someone seems harsh or insensitive it’s easy to assume it’s personal. But often, it’s really not. Someone who’s rude to you in traffic might have had a terrible morning. Someone who makes a condescending comment might struggle with their own self-esteem and self-confidence. Someone who’s cold and short in their communication might be really stressed.

    It’s worth reflecting on what we can learn when it comes to things we take personally. In my experience, there’s always a lesson. Try to extract it and then leave the rest.

    For example, when I started a podcast, a friend sent me a picture over Instagram with the message “Women doing podcasts just found a substitute for therapy.” It was supposed to be funny, but it wasn’t to me.

    My learning in that situation was to care more about what I wanted to do instead of one other person’s opinion (or joke). (And I’m happy I’ve continued because, since then, we’ve received so much positive feedback on the podcast!)

    4. Create a counter-story.

    Often, when we take something personally, it’s because it confirms a negative story we have running in the back of our mind. For example, if someone in your family makes a joke or comment about you being messy or having limited cooking skills—and you regularly tell yourself that you’re somehow inferior to others because of these things—you might get offended.

    So, what should you do? Create an empowering counter story. Maybe you’re a bit messy, but so what? You might also be really creative. And maybe you’re not so great at cooking, but you have other skills—for example, you’re the one who always sorts out conflicts between people.

    In short, tell a story that benefits you and remember that we all have flaws, quirks, imperfections, and weaknesses. Needless to say, if you don’t like your behavior, then of course, you have the power to change it. But sometimes you simply need to accept that you are who you are, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

    5. Accept that we’re all different (and not everyone needs to like you).

    You might be taking something personally because this gives you a greater chance of getting someone’s approval. If it’s about you, then there’s something you can do about it. If it’s about them, then it’s truly out of your hands, and all you can do is accept that, for whatever reason, they don’t like you or won’t let you in.

    No single person on this planet is liked by everyone. That’s just part of life, for all of us. Instead of trying to change yourself to be liked by someone, shift your focus and ask yourself why you need this person’s approval. Is it that you’re uncomfortable with disapproval in general, or do you want them to like you for other reasons, such as they are a friend of a friend?

    When you identify the root cause of your discomfort with their disapproval, you’ll be able to tell yourself what you need to hear to let it go—for example, that their opinion doesn’t mean anything about you as a person.

    6. Create space between an “offense” and your reaction.

    When we take something personally, it’s easy to lash out in anger, frustration, or pain, which only makes things worse. Before you step into action, try creating some space between the situation and your reaction. Breathe, step away, and allow yourself to calm down before acting out.

    Maybe you interpreted the situation in a negative way. Maybe this person wasn’t judging or being condescending toward you. Maybe there’s something you don’t know about the situation. Try not to react to the situation, but to respond once you have calmed down. Perhaps with a little time and space you’ll recognize your initial conclusions were wrong.

    7. Ask for clarification.

    If you know the person who said or did something that made you feel bad, ask for clarification. What did he or she really mean? What was his or her intention? Many times, we interpret situations negatively. But in my experience, after asking for clarification, we realize the other person didn’t intend to hurt us.

    So instead of letting your thoughts spin off in a negative direction, ask the person to spell out what he or she really meant. You may be surprised by the number of times you learn that you completely misread a situation.

    8. Practice self-compassion.

    This is what it all comes down to, isn’t it? Practicing self-compassion when we’re being hard on ourselves. Because even though someone else might say or do something to offend us, we’re the ones who decide how we let their behavior affect us. We can always choose not to take negative comments to heart or get down on ourselves just because someone else was rude or insensitive.

    Practice saying, “I’m not letting that in” to draw a clear line when you’ve decided not to take something personally.

    Whether you misinterpreted a situation or someone actually was rude to you, you decide whether to invite it in or not. So stand guard to the door of your mind. Keep a high standard and make sure to let in words, thoughts, and beliefs that empower and strengthen you.

  • The 6 Personalities of People-Pleasing and How I Overcame Them

    The 6 Personalities of People-Pleasing and How I Overcame Them

    “The truth is, you’re never going to be able to please everybody, so stop trying. Remember, the sun is going to continue shining even if some people get annoyed by its light shining in their eyes. You have full permission to shine on.” ~Unknown

    I used to be a rebel. I was the girl at the party who would waltz into a room and have everyone in awe, their attention and curiosity caught by my presence. I felt it, they felt it, it was magnetic. I loved it—I had become the girl I wanted to be.

    That was until one night at a party, while I was making a batch of popcorn in the kitchen, someone came up to me and asked, “Why do you need to prove yourself all the time?”

    This question caught me so off guard. I was instantly confused. I was staring into space trying to figure out how I was proving myself all the time. So, I asked exactly how I was doing this.

    It turned out that when someone shared a story about themselves, I would share one of my own, and it came across as bigger and better. This person went on to tell me, “Actually, no one likes it, and it’s totally not necessary to win over your friends.”

    Holy moly. My blood started pumping faster through my veins, my face was burning up, my gut was wrenching at the thought of these people who I called friends not liking me. I thought I had finally found my community of like-minded souls.

    In this exact moment, I made the biggest decision of my life.

    It was time to squash down who I was, again. You see, I was in my mid-twenties, and I finally felt free from my childhood patterns. I was confident. I had friends. I could finally be me—who I was without the filter.

    They needed a toned-down version of me.

    So, I began to hide.

    I would sit in the corner or behind someone else. I wouldn’t share stories of my life adventures. I stopped dressing to impress. I apologized for silly things, and I watched every move I made around these people. It was exhausting, but the fear of them not liking me was crippling.

    Over the years I perfected these new behaviors of how to not be “too much” for the people around me. I went from being a wild, carefree soul to someone who was filled with anxiety in every social scenario.

    These new patterns overflowed into my work, family, relationships, and friendships. I became oversensitive, reactive, and uncomfortable to be around.

    After a decade of self-punishment, I was on a call with someone who I was working with, and they called me out for apologizing for not getting something right, even though it was the first time I had tried what they were teaching.

    Then the words that flew out of my mouth were: I did it again.

    Seriously, here I was, thinking I had it all figured out. I had adapted my behaviors, beliefs, patterns, and values to get through life, all in order to please other people. This was the slap on the face that I needed.

    So, I went on a deep soul journey that involved journaling daily. I took a real good look at myself and what I had created in my life. I began evaluating friendships, my work, the people in my day-to-day life, my family, and my environment.

    I had created a reality where I was no longer happy.

    My life revolved around everyone else’s needs, and I placed them before my own. I had become so aware of people’s energy, reactions, body language, and tone that I felt like I was suffocating.

    And for what?

    To not have friends, to not have people like me, to sacrifice my life for others.

    From that moment forward, I chose me.

    In order to do that, I needed to recognize how I’d formerly denied myself and my feelings so I could become aware of when I was tempted to fall into old patterns.

    Let me share with you the six personality types I lived through for a decade, how they play out in our daily lives, and how I overcame them.

    The Six People-Pleasing Personality Types

    The Approval Seeker

    When I was living in approval-seeking mode, my actions were geared toward praise. I would do anything to be the best employee in my jobs, from working overtime to taking on extra responsibility. I would play by the rules when it came to my family. I would make an effort to be noticed by my friends, all while chasing that sense of belonging.

    Praise was the fuel that kept me going. It reinforced the things I was doing right.

    The remedy to being an approval seeker is self trust, owning my values and my beliefs instead of looking for external validation. I simply started by questioning my motives in my actions.

    If I suspected I was doing something solely or primarily to receive approval, I asked myself, “Would I make this choice if I were being true and fair to myself?”

    The Busy Bee

    As a busy mumma of two, wife, business owner, sister, daughter, and friend, there was a time when I thought I had to keep it all together for everyone around me. I was the person who organized all the parties, Christmas dinners, birthday celebrations, family get-togethers, kids’ school activities, groceries, holidays, and anything else you can think of.

    The people around me saw me as dependable and organized, and they knew that I would do any task to help out. Of course without any fuss because I was being of service to the ones I loved.

    After I spotted a yoga class I really wanted to attend and realized I needed to make time in my schedule, I started to review my weekly routine. I realized I didn’t have to be everything for everyone at all times, which was hard to accept since “acts of service” is one of my love languages. But I knew being less busy was an act of kindness and love for myself.

    The Conflict Avoider

    When people raise their voice or assert their authority to me, I tend to crumble. It looks like I am still standing there, but in my mind, I’m in the fetal position on the floor.

    Speaking up for what I believe in is sometimes easy when I am fueled by passion for topics I love, but there are a few people in my life who turn me back into the conflict avoider in a second.

    In tense situations with these people, I often observe what is about to play out and create an exit strategy. I ask myself, “What do I need to do? Who do I need to be? What do I need to say to get me out of here?”

    When I recognize I’m doing this, I now take a few breaths to ground myself before leaning into the discomfort I’m feeling. I consider how I can stay true to my values and respond in a way that opens the space for discussion.

    The Self-Sacrificer

    This is the most common form of people-pleasing because it’s driven by love. It happens with our nearest and dearest.

    I once had a boyfriend who was into punk music, and slowly, over time, while dating him, I turned into a punk chic. I listened to his music, I wore all black, I tore up my clothes, and I went from blonde to black hair. I would have done anything for his love.

    Self-sacrificing is when we put others’ needs ahead of our own, fitting in with their agendas and adapting to them, yet in this process we lose small pieces of ourselves.

    It’s a personal crime when this happens because it takes years to rediscover all the things we once loved.

    Experimenting is the cure to finding that feeling of pure happiness we once held. I took belly dancing and various yoga classes, went for walks in different places, and challenged myself to try new and old things to see if they lit me up. I also reminded myself that I don’t need to sacrifice my interests and needs for anyone else because, if they truly love me, they’ll want me to honor those things.

    The Apologizer

    Sorry! Oops, sorry. Oh yes, I would apologize for everything from accidentally bumping into someone at the grocery store to taking a long time getting drinks at a bar.

    I eventually realized I apologized all the time because I believed I was at fault in each situation—not just super observant and sensitive to other people, as I’d formerly believed. I blamed myself for all kinds of things, from meeting my needs to taking up space.

    One day I decided to walk the busy city streets with my head held high, no more side-stepping to get out of other people’s way or apologizing for almost bumping into them. I bit my tongue and simply reminded myself that it is okay to have my own agenda, I am not to blame for things that are out of my control, and I have a voice.

    The Sensitive Soul

    Often, I would guard myself against the world, even though I wanted to trust it, because I had a hard time creating emotional boundaries. The word “should” always hung over my head—I should always be available, I should be able to listen whenever someone needs me. But this took a huge toll.

    Everyone would come to me to share their story, offload their junk, and then move on, leaving me with a negative energy load. I would push down my feelings and pretend everything was okay. Also, I felt like I couldn’t share my story with others because they were in a bad mood, feeling sad, or the timing wasn’t right. I was a doormat.

    I needed to address my conditioning in order to stop taking on other people’s problems. Why did my feelings come second to others’? Why were their stories more important than mine? I discovered that I had been putting others on a pedestal and that I needed to dig deep into the “shoulds” and start tackling them one at a time until I was able to speak up and set limits.

    —

    I started people-pleasing because someone told me I was always trying to prove myself, but ironically, that’s what people-pleasing is—trying to prove you’re a good person by doing all the right things so no one will be upset or disappointed. Ultimately, though, we end up disappointing ourselves.

    Since I’ve started challenging these personalities, I’ve slowly offset my need to please. It hasn’t been easy, but I’m now a lot closer to the person I used to be—someone who likes who she is and has nothing to prove to anyone.

    Do any of these personalities sound familiar to you? And how are you going to tackle it?