Tag: judgment
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Three Unexpected, Life-Changing Lessons I Learned at a Silent Retreat
“Every moment is a choice to begin again.” ~Unknown
By day three of the five-day silent retreat I found myself wondering, “Why did I do this again?”
The pain of sitting in lotus position for eight hours a day was testing my patience. I was frustrated that my mind would only be still for a few moments, before interrupting itself with commentary on the fact that my mind was still, and I wasn’t feeling any spiritual awakening—although not being a particularly “spiritual” person, this wasn’t entirely surprising
So why had I decided to go on a silent retreat in the first place? I had wanted to experience meditation without distraction and to take my practice to another level.
Going into the silent retreat, I had worries and questions circling: Will the silence be tedious? What will the other people be like? Are the teachers going to be cult-like leaders? Will I uncover some past trauma buried away deep inside?
Of course, of the things I worried about, none of them came true. Instead, what I found challenging and what I learned the most from were things that I hadn’t even considered: desire, expectations, and judgment.
Desire
If you’ve ever wondered what drives your behavior, you can thank the power of desire for that. And you certainly learn a lot about desire when you’re at a silent retreat.
Silent retreats are set up so that you never need to verbally communicate, which means that almost every minute of the day is scheduled for you, all your meals are prepared, and all external stimulation is removed. This creates a perfect storm for your desire to run wild, fantasizing about all the things you can’t have or do.
I never noticed how much I’m driven by desire until I spent a significant portion of the retreat daydreaming about different foods I wanted to eat. By day three I was writing lists of foods I was going to eat when I finally was “free” again.
I didn’t understand why I felt so compelled to do this until our evening teachings the following night, when I realized it was because I was struggling with desire.
That night we learned that what we’re often really craving is not the thing that we desire, but the reprieve we feel once we have relieved ourselves from the yearning of desire. This realization actually freed me from my wants, and allowed me to instead laugh at the simplicity of my humanness and my clear love of rice paper rolls.
It also made me realize that when we’re able to see what’s driving us, we have the space to observe our experience and choose how we respond, rather than being at the mercy of invisible desires. Instead, we’re able to consider what it is we really need, rather than simply what we want in that moment.
Since the retreat, I’ve been more mindful of when desire is driving me and it’s certainly helped my bank account, particularly when I’m having a moment where I think, “I just need these shoes” without really knowing why I “need them” so much.
Not that there’s anything wrong with buying shoes, but I’ve been able to see more clearly when my desire to buy shoes is coming from a place of wanting to feel better about myself, when I want to feel like I’m keeping up with others, or when I want other people to think I’m cool.
I’ve come to realize that while buying shoes might make me feel good in the moment, it isn’t going to build the foundations of lasting self-confidence.
Instead, I now find it much easier to pause and acknowledge, “Aha, this is just desire” and recognize that really, I have enough and I don’t need things to be enough.
Expectations
I’ve always known that having really set expectations can cause all sorts of problems, but the experience of the silent retreat cemented this for me.
My biggest problem was that I expected my meditation practice to somehow transform itself into something other than what it currently was. Of course, setting this expectation didn’t mean that my meditation practice changed at all; instead, it just left me feeling frustrated that I wasn’t experiencing something different. Ironically, meditation is all about experiencing whatever arises in that moment.
I didn’t even know what it was that I expecting to change. But I learned that when we’re searching for something, we’re blinded by the act of searching, and we miss the subtle changes that are unfolding before us. It’s often not until we let go of what we think should be changing that we can really notice and appreciate what has changed.
I also came to realize that expectations can really cause a lot of suffering. Now, looking back, I recognize that my expectations took me away from the beautiful sounds of the Balinese jungle, from the stillness that was there, and the joy of simply being.
When I let go of my expectations, not only did I start enjoying meditation more, I realized how powerful it could be to let go of expectations.
Despite having this realization, I’m still constantly surprised at how often my expectations get in the way of me being able to live peacefully. I often find myself expecting friends to behave in certain ways, and when they don’t, I feel deeply disappointed. But really, there’s no reason for me to expect them to behave differently, as they are simply engaging in the same behaviors that they have over the past fifteen years.
What I’ve taken from this is that the solution isn’t to disregard expectations, but to be mindful that your expectations aren’t too far removed from reality. I’ve found looking at the facts of a situation helpful in managing my expectations and instead, delighting in the unexpected.
Judgment
No matter how much we try not to be, we’re naturally judgmental. And I know this cannot be changed, but what I really noticed on retreat was the effect it had on my mind and my body, and how different my experience could be if I practiced letting go of judgment.
One evening I found myself really judging another girl for using social media while at the retreat. We had been asked to not make any contact with the outside world, and this of course included no use of social media.
At the time, I assumed that her use of social suggested that she wasn’t taking the retreat seriously. As these judgments raced through my mind, I noticed how much my body tensed up, how irritated I felt, and I could almost feel my mind narrowing as I focused on how their behavior was “wrong.”
Yet, when I opened myself up and tried to accept her behavior, I was freed from my own prison of judgment. When I allowed myself to be curious rather then judgmental, the experience transformed for me.
Instead of feeling irritated by her and closed off, I instead felt open and compassionate, and frankly just a lot less bothered by her. Being open and curious allowed me to move on and let go, relieving the discomfort of being judgmental.
It certainly wasn’t an easy thing to do, and I had to remind myself time and time again to keep opening, but the felt difference between the two was unbelievable. It was actually much more physically and emotionally pleasant being non-judgmental than being judgmental.
I really noticed this for myself when I was back in New York, sitting in a Broadway show. I caught myself totally distracted by the judgmental commentary happening in my head. It was the same old story, comparing my body to those of the performers, and my poor old thighs were the victims of my self-criticism yet again.
When I noticed how deeply I was caught up in worrying about the size of my thighs, I decided it was a good moment to practice what I had learned on retreat. I started saying to myself over and over, “Let go, be present.”
It was such a relief to allow myself to let go of judgment, and instead I was open to connect with feelings of joy as I started clapping along to the songs with the rest of the crowd. Not only this, letting go of the judgment allowed me to be more accepting and compassionate towards myself.
So all in all, while my meditation practice didn’t change as I expected it to, I certainly learned a lot on the silent retreat and took a lot away with me, all which was delightfully unexpected.
My three takeaways were that:
1. Desire is just a creation of our mind that we don’t need to follow. In fact, just acknowledging it can relieve us from the power of our desire.
2. Letting go of expectations allows us to be present and enjoy what is already here.
3. Being open and curious frees us from judgment, allowing us to be accepting and compassionate toward others, and ourselves.
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How We Suffer When We Judge Other People’s Choices
“The greatest gift you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.” ~Brian Tracy
Two months ago I travelled back home to Connecticut to care for a sick parent. My dad was preparing for cancer treatment, trying to figure out the medical system, and packing up to move all at the same time. He was overwhelmed with stress and exhausted from his pain medication. As a caring and health-conscious daughter, I was eager to help.
I had visions of cooking him meals of steamed greens and healthy soups. And I stocked my suitcase with supplements that would ease the pain and help his body detoxify. Growing up, I suffered from an autoimmune disorder called Celiac disease, which made any food with gluten in it toxic to me, so I deeply understood the link between what we consume and how the body functions.
It excited me to be able to pass this knowledge on to my dad. We always had a close bond, and in times of illness it’s easy to feel helpless. I figured this could be my contribution.
I was afraid to see my dad ill. I’d been living in Arizona for the past two years so I didn’t have to see the change in his appearance. The butterflies in my stomach expanded as I drove to his house the first time. Thinking of him being unable to move freely, work, and have a regular life tore me up inside.
My plan was to visit him every day for three weeks and to do whatever I could to help. Luckily, seeing him in person lifted some of my worry. He seemed motivated to try new things, like trade in his meat for vegetables. And he even listened intently while I showed him what supplements to take and when.
That set up didn’t last, though. As the days went on I noticed that the bottles of pills and their color-coded instructions didn’t move. I saw that the dirty pans in the kitchen were covered in grease. Once again, my stomach was in knots and I felt panicked.
The heaviness I felt about my dad’s illness subsided when I thought he was on board with my amateur health plan. And I was only suggesting what seemed like common sense. When he didn’t wholeheartedly take my advice, a feeling of grief took me over. I felt like he wasn’t taking care of himself and that I had wasted my time in coming to see him.
It felt like he was rejecting me.
One night about a week into my trip I spoke with my boyfriend on the phone. He was upset about a plumbing issue at the house and that our cat might be sick. Tears started streaming down my face involuntarily.
“It’s not so easy here, either,” I said with a wilt in my voice. It seemed that the stress my dad felt about his condition melted into me. And the fact that my plan to save him wasn’t working made me feel overextended.
And then it hit me: I was suffering because I judged the situation.
In my mind he wasn’t doing what he could to get better, and that was wrong. And by assigning that judgment, I suffered. As soon as I accepted that he could navigate this journey in any way he wished and that was okay, my internal pain disappeared. It was like magic.
Suddenly I felt my boundaries coming back. It was easier to go to visit him when I felt like it instead of being motivated by fear and obligation. I found a way to precook some meals for him that he could add into his meat dishes. I worked with and respected his choices.
He appreciated my new attitude. I wasn’t another person telling him what to do. What he really wanted was someone to listen, and I was now capable of doing that.
This made me more of a comfort and support to him and it gave me back the ability to actually enjoy myself. Before this epiphany I was choosing to stay in, feeling depressed instead of visiting with friends I hadn’t seen in months. Releasing judgment on my father’s situation gave me a multidimensional gift.
When I thought back to other times when I’ve suffered, I saw that the pattern held up. Addiction is a great example of this.
I’ve had a few close friends and family members battle drug and alcohol demons, and the feeling in my belly was the same. I felt heavy and sick when I thought about the choices those people were making and how hard their lives must be. But it wasn’t them giving me the feeling; it was my own judgment of their situation.
I was making their life path wrong.
There are plenty of things in my past that could have garnered the same judgment. I used to smoke cigarettes, I dropped out of high school and took my GED instead of graduating, I got married young and then got divorced. My life wasn’t picture perfect, but I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything. They taught me valuable lessons, and without them, I wouldn’t be me.
The suffering I felt was my creation. It was a choice. And just as easily as the heavy feeling came on, it left as I reminded myself of that. I realized that true compassion can be felt without taking on any negative feeling. Compassion is love and acceptance of where a person is; it should feel good.
Do you have friends and family members that you feel are making the wrong choices? It’s an easy trap to get into when gossip magazines and shows feel like the cornerstone of our culture. Everyone is supposed to have an opinion on the lives of others. So don’t feel badly if you have taken on that task.
The next time you feel yourself sinking because of another person’s decisions, remember to pause. Ask yourself if you are taking on this feeling of heaviness because you are judging them. If the answer is yes, then see if you can let it go. You can turn your concern into acceptance and still serve your loved one in the way they most need.
There may be times when you recognize that someone is inflicting harm on themselves or others, and in this case you need to use your best judgment. Get a professional opinion or call the authorities when the moment warrants it. Trying to help in the best way you know how is also a way to ease suffering. Acting on your observation doesn’t make you the bad guy; it frees you of holding accountability for what’s happening.
Coming out of judgment allows you to communicate without attacking. You can hold your own boundaries better and decide from an unemotional place if there needs to be any further intervention. And don’t forget to share with your loved one that you care about them. Hearing that someone loves you is often the best medicine.
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The Truth Behind Judging Others and Why We Do It
“Judging is preventing us from understanding a new truth. Free yourself from the rules of old judgments and create the space for new understanding.” ~Steve Maraboli
For a long time, I was a judgmental person. I would look at other people walking along the street—who had no idea I was even paying them any attention—and make all kinds of comments based on their appearance, their dress sense, the way they talk, walk, their weight—anything that took my fancy.
“She shouldn’t be wearing that skirt—it’s too short.”
“She should focus on losing weight, not scarfing down that bar of chocolate.”
“Her hair’s such a mess. Why doesn’t she comb it or something?”
The list of secret and harsh criticism was endless, but I didn’t think I was doing any harm. They didn’t know what I was saying about them, and I’m sure some of them would have had a few choice words to say about me, had they found out.
That may have been true, but what was the reason behind my unnecessary tearing down of these other people? It’s not as if they had done anything to me. They were simply going about their own business.
I didn’t think about why I was doing it. If you asked me at the time, I would have answered something along the lines of “because they should/shouldn’t be doing ‘that thing.’ ” I thought I was perfectly within my rights to make judgments about them and think exactly what I wanted to think.
And yes, up until today, I still think whatever I want—I’m entitled to have my own opinions after all, but I’m making more of a conscious effort not to be so unkind about people who do things differently. Truth be told, I’m human, so it’s not always the easiest thing in the world, but making that decision has given me a freedom I never expected.
Back then, after all the judgment and cruel comments flowed effortlessly from my mouth while I was out and about, I would go back to the comfort of my home. Only, as comfortable as I felt inside the safety of my own home, there was a distinct level of discomfort I felt within myself.
Watching TV, I would see women that I thought were beautiful, smart, or simply doing well in life, and the comparing would start. All of a sudden, I was stupid or ugly or failing miserably at being a woman and a mum more than ever.
When looking at myself in the mirror, I would see my entire body covered in unwanted imperfections: the wobbly thighs, the seemingly endless stretch marks, the not-flat-enough stomach, and the butt that was becoming closer and closer friends with gravity.
I disliked myself on a major scale. I didn’t think I was good enough, and as harsh as I was to the people out there on the street, I was exactly the same to myself.
I was unkind and cruel and I mentally beat myself up every single day. The only difference between what I said about people and what I regularly said about myself was that I could hear it—there was no escape.
It took many years to finally reach a point in my life where I could be honest about the reason I was choosing to be so mean. It was a hard pill to swallow, which is often the case when it comes to the truth. I wanted to ignore it and I tried my hardest but once I came to the realization, I had no other choice but to accept it.
Putting other people down made me feel better about myself.
“If I were that size, I would exercise every day.”
“If I had legs like that, I’d wear trousers.”
“I wouldn’t step out the house with such messy hair…”
By making them wrong for being who they were, I somehow gave myself a temporary boost—a feeling of being okay—because I apparently knew what the correct behavior was to undertake in each of their situations and they didn’t have a clue.
In those moments, I became everything I thought I wasn’t: clever, a great mother, a beautiful woman. I couldn’t see or feel those qualities within myself, so I had to use what I considered another person’s faults as the way to reach a point where I could give myself permission to briefly bask in the qualities I thought were lacking.
From then on, every time a thought about someone entered my mind, I would immediately go to work drowning out the words with lots of pleasant thoughts about that person instead. I no longer wanted to be that other kind of person; I wanted to enjoy being me and know I had lots of great qualities without having to latch onto what I perceived as something bad in others.
But that proved to be mentally exhausting. There were so many thoughts flying in that I thought I’d never stop being that person after all. I was so used to making ongoing comments about other people that it’s as if a tap had been turned on and it was now stuck.
But I wasn’t going to give in. I wasn’t prepared to continue as normal now that I could clearly see the reasons behind my behavior, so I changed my approach.
I started to let the thoughts come in and pass as best I could. I purposely paid them little to no attention. This immediately felt easier—no trying to swap them quickly with something else, no fighting, no resisting…
And that’s when I felt the unexpected benefit of freedom, a newly formed space in my mind that wasn’t being taken up with unfair comments. By not holding on to those thoughts, I believed them less and less and in turn, I was able to accept what I saw in front of me—another person living their life in the best way they could in that moment.
If they’re getting on with their life and doing no harm, then let them be. They are who they are and I am who I am. That doesn’t mean I feel this way every time. There are some days where I hold on to those thoughts like they’re the last ones I’ll ever have—until I catch myself days later.
So no, it’s not all rainbows, unicorns, sunshine, and flowers all day, every day.
The most important thing is that in the moments when I become aware that I’m holding on to unkind thoughts about someone a bit too much, I understand that it’s not really about them, it’s about me and the way I’m feeling about myself.
And that acts as my reminder to get and stay on my side so that I can continue to see the best in who I am.
If you ever find yourself being overly critical about someone—especially someone you don’t know—ask yourself why you feel the need. What’s stopping you from accepting a person exactly as they are?
We certainly need to be discerning, for example, between right and wrong, but is it otherwise fair to make people wrong for being different than us or not living their lives in accordance with our ideals?
The more we give a person space to be who they are, the more we give ourselves permission to be who we are.
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How We Can Stop Judging Others and Ourselves
“There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
We live in a world of ticker headlines, 24/7 news, and constantly updating Instagram and Facebook feeds. We are constantly making snap-decision judgment calls, categorizing what we see into “good,” “bad,” or “unimportant.”
In a second, we can see an image and believe we have all we need to form a fully realized opinion.
It’s in our biological wiring to judge everything we see—it’s how we have survived for generations upon generations. We are in a constant state of scanning our environment for threats and attempting to efficiently neutralize them when we do come across them.
And yet, ironically, we seem to have gotten to a point in our evolution where our judgments are doing us more harm than good, keeping us more unsafe than safe, and keeping us more in fear than in love.
When we get down to it, fear and love are the only two emotions we really have. They are our roots, the seeds of our souls, our most base and primal instincts.
All others are just off-shoots and iterations of the same.
We fear what we judge as bad; we love what we judge as good.
When we are in a state of fear, our bodies and minds do whatever they need to keep us safe. That may mean avoiding it, destroying it, or simply making it as different from us in our minds as possible. This is where the roots of racism, sexism, homophobia, and all other fear-based rationalizations are planted and nurtured.
I, like all other humans, have lived much of my life in this place of fear.
Only I didn’t call it fear.
I felt that I judged people fairly, that I saw in them things I would never be or do or feel in myself.
Though I have done deep work within myself to live in a place of love, forgiveness, and unconditional acceptance, I, like all people, still struggle with it from time to time.
It happened as recently as this morning.
I took my daughters to the grocery store for our weekly shopping trip and plunked them in a shopping cart shaped like a car. My eighteen month old daughter immediately ripped my list in half causing me to have to hold the two parts together every time I needed to check it.
I pushed the behemoth cart up and down the isles, cramming things in until I felt overwhelmed by both decision and physical fatigue.
My daughters were generally well-behaved but still did their part to act like kids: fighting over who got to hold the cereal, then both refusing to hold the cereal and throwing it on the floor in an attempt to throw it in the cart, pushing each other for more elbow room, asking to buy flowers and cookies and ice pops and a stuffed animal and tacos and pistachios and Finding Dora shaped Pirate’s Booty.
By the time I got to the register, I was ready for the trip to be done. It was still early in the morning, so only a few lines were open. I chose what appeared to be the shortest line and began unloading my stuff onto the belt.
That’s when I noticed that although I had chosen the shortest line, I had also chosen the one with the slowest cashier.
She and the woman in front of me were chatting and making small talk as if they were out on a coffee date, not in an increasingly crowded supermarket line with cranky kids and customers that were waiting to pay for their food and get on with their lives.
I did my best to surrender to the moment and keep it together. I reminded myself that I was waiting to pay for a cart full of healthy, nutritious food for my family—a position many women would do anything to be in. I smiled at my daughters and thought about how lucky I am to have them.
But still…
The clerk was really getting to me.
Finally, she started scanning my food and putting it into bags. And making small talk. And as she talked, she slowed down. Then she stopped and got out a roll of paper towels from under the register and started wiping down the belt where the frozen food had left a puddle of condensation.
I couldn’t help it: I rolled my eyes. I didn’t respond to her chatter. I refused to make eye contact.
Who the hell was this woman? She had a job to do and she was stubbornly refusing to do it in the efficient manner I know she had been trained to do it in.
I judged her. Harshly. And then I judged myself even more harshly for judging her.
As always, my judgments of her came from a place of fear:
- That I was going to lose control of my kids who were getting bored and cranky.
- That I might actually lose control of myself and say something I would later regret.
- That I never have enough time.
- That the situation could get worse and then it would feel even harder.
And then my frustration with her turned into frustration with myself and fear about myself:
- I’m not patient enough.
- I’m not kind enough.
- I’m too much of an introvert.
- I don’t appreciate what I have.
People who are in a state of fear can be vicious.
So what is the answer?
Love.
Love means unconditional acceptance of the light and the dark that we all have as humans and understanding that one cannot exist without the other.
Sure, it’s fair to say that the clerk should have been fully present and doing her job in a way that was efficient and respectful of the customers’ time. But I was making her responsible for my fear-based reaction.
The clerk was chatty and slow, just like I’ve been many times. Therefore, I really couldn’t condemn her without automatically condemning the same qualities in myself. This was probably why I was judging myself even more harshly than her!
In reality, there is nothing positive or negative that exists in someone else that doesn’t also exist in us because we are all human.
Perhaps instead of giving the clerk dagger eyes, I needed to see the experience she was giving me with gratitude. Maybe she was there to remind me that when we allow others to hurt us, we hurt ourselves. This was clearly illustrated by the fact that I quickly turned my anger toward her into anger toward myself.
Luckily because of my mindset work, I was able to move from seeing the clerk as an opponent and source of frustration to seeing her as a teacher for me and myself as a teacher for her, and also for my daughters who were a captive audience in the car cart.
Teaching is done mainly by example, and what we teach others we are also re-learning ourselves. What we share is strengthened in us, and so I had the choice to allow peace and love to happen in a moment that felt very un-peaceful by being peace and love.
Love is the remembering of who we all are at our core. Looking at a situation with love reminds us that our “flaws” are universal and therefore irrelevant.
Peace in that moment meant recognizing that I was having a vulnerable, overwhelmed moment, which put me squarely in the category of being human just like everyone else.
I took the lesson of having compassion for myself and for others that the clerk was teaching me and began to see things differently.
I gave myself a lot of grace and told myself that a moment of being annoyed and an exasperated eye roll didn’t make me a bad or ungrateful person. I reminded myself that both the clerk and I can do things imperfectly still be worthy of love anyway.
When you find yourself in a judgment/shame spiral, determine that you are willing to see things differently: with love.
Do this, and you will be guided by the most powerful force there is.
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6 Lessons to Remember When Someone Judges or Criticizes You
“Every judgment, all of them, point back to a judgment we hold against ourselves.” ~Lynne Forrest
I sat across from my good friend Anna over a cup of coffee. We had been having issues in our friendship and had finally gotten together to discuss them. I’m not a fan of conflict and call myself a “recovering people pleaser,” so I was very nervous.
I noticed immediately that the conversation didn’t seem to be going very well. I addressed my issues concerning our friendship and tried hard to own my part. But Anna kept saying things like, “There are things that you do that really bother me as well, but I don’t say anything about saying them.”
After hearing a variation of this phrase for a third time, I asked what she was talking about. She had never addressed any of these issues with me.
She took a deep breath and said, “Angela, I don’t think your relationship with your higher power is very strong. Also, you know those Facebook posts you write about peace and mindfulness? I don’t see that reflected in your personality. One more thing: Your relationship with your mother seems poor, and I think that’s why you are emotionally needy.”
I stared at her in absolute shock. I felt like I was punched in the face. The worst part is this girl was a very genuine person, so the fact that she saw these qualities in me broke my heart.
My spirituality and my sense of peace are things I have been cultivating intensely since I was sixteen. Here I was sitting across from this girl, who’s supposedly my best friend, and she doesn’t even see these positive qualities in me. I was devastated.
I walked out of that get-together saying I needed some time to be alone and process. I was deeply hurt.
Before we met, I had envisioned us having a positive conversation, fixing our relationship, and spending the rest of the coffee date laughing. Instead, I left feeling like someone had ripped out my heart and like I was going to throw up.
It’s been quite a process wrestling with this event, and I’ve had the opportunity to learn (and relearn) some amazing lessons.
1. Someone’s criticisms and judgments aren’t the problem. Believing them is the problem.
I’ve been criticized before, but these judgments particularly crushed me. I couldn’t stop crying. I felt exposed.
I realized the reason I was having such a hard time with what she had said was because there’s a part of me that believes her judgments about me. For example, if she had told me I was mean, I would have shrugged it off, because I do not believe that about myself.
On the other hand, I do have insecurities concerning my spirituality and sense of peace in the world. While I try to cultivate both of these aspects in my personal life, I’m not perfect. I struggle just like everyone else.
Once I realized I was upset because I believed her accusations to be true, I could stop blaming her. I was in pain because I was torturing myself with these beliefs and blindly believing them.
2. When someone shows us how we’re out of alignment with ourselves, we have an opportunity to change our beliefs.
I’ve seen again and again that the world is a mirror. When we think a thought and believe it, the world will give us an example to prove that thought to be true. Anna showed me the part of me that believed these insecurities. She gave me the beautiful gift of questioning if I wanted to hold onto these beliefs. Remember, we do not have to believe our thoughts.
I heard an example about thoughts once that has stuck with me. Thoughts are like cars zooming on a highway. The highway represents the mind. We get to decide which car we want to jump into. Do we want to jump into the car and believe the negative thought? Or do we want to take the positive route? (Highway pun intended.)
So, I get to decide. Do I really want to hold onto the belief that I don’t have a strong spiritual relationship? That seems like a painful story to believe about me. Instead, I am choosing to reframe the belief. Instead of believing that my spiritual relationship is weak, I choose to believe that it’s a work in progress. It’s beautiful because it’s not perfect, but even still, I spend time cultivating it every day.
3. It’s not our business how other people see us; it’s our business how we see ourselves.
A lot of the time when we are feeling in emotional pain, we are not in our business. It’s not my business what other people think of me. My thoughts and assumptions of me are my responsibility, and that’s enough to keep me busy.
Once I get clear on what’s actually my business, it’s amazing how many of my troubles simply vanish. It also gives me the opportunity and the time to change my thinking and take care of myself.
4. Look for the truth in the criticism and leave behind the rest.
Take this piece of advice with a grain of salt. If you can find what’s true about the negative things people tell you, it can be a great tool to strengthen your character. But it’s not an excuse for self-abuse.
For example, some of the things Anna said, I don’t find to be true for me. But I do sense that sometimes I can be emotionally needy with my friends. This doesn’t mean I beat myself up about this character quality. I can reevaluate how I am sharing my emotions and with whom I’m sharing them, and see if I am becoming co-dependent with certain people in my life.
I believe the depth of my emotions makes me beautiful, and sharing it with others has positively deepened many of my relationships. But it’s a good reminder for me to evaluate if I was sharing my emotions in a healthy way or if I was dumping them onto my friends to make me feel better.
5. Find gratitude in every situation.
I believe it’s important to find the gift in every event so we can grow. If we look deep enough, we can find the seed of gratitude in any situation. I realized after sitting with this experience for a week how thankful I was for my friend, for giving me the opportunity to see the painful beliefs I held about myself. Now I had the opportunity to clear them. What a blessing!
I also realized how thankful I am to have a friend who will be honest with me and tell me what she believes to be true. This does not mean that I have to take her judgments on as my own, but her reflections of me are pertinent in my journey to releasing these painful beliefs.
6. Always try your hardest to forgive people and yourself.
Forgiveness is one of the most difficult but powerful processes. I believe forgiveness is twofold. Not only did I need to forgive her, I needed to forgive myself. While I realized it was a blessing that she said these things, letting go of my anger for “exposing me” was hard. I knew intellectually I needed to forgive her, but actually doing it was a different story.
Once I realized I needed to forgive myself first, letting go of my anger became easier. I had to forgive myself for blindly believing these judgments about myself and not questioning if they were true. I had been holding myself hostage; she had just shown me that I was the one keeping myself behind bars.
—
Our relationship is not back to the way it was before we started having issues. While I hold a deep sense of respect and love for Anna, I realized at this point in my life that I didn’t want to be best friends with someone who saw me that way.
This doesn’t mean I don’t love and respect her. I have a deep sense of gratitude for what she has shown me about myself, and I have hope that our relationship will be even greater one day, because it will be more honest.
I still have to questions these judgments about myself, because after carrying them for so long, they don’t magically go away.
Once I become secure about these qualities and come into a more loving relationship with myself, I will think about rekindling the friendship, but maybe not. Only time can tell. Till then, I will keep on forgiving myself, questioning these beliefs, and reframing them to come into a more loving relationship with myself.
What has helped you respond well to criticism and judgment?
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Choose to Shine: Your Smile Is More Powerful Than You Think
“Shine like the whole Universe is yours.” ~Rumi
I had a revolutionary experience at a grocery store. Yes, a grocery store. I’ll never forget that day.
I believe that some of the most mundane and unimportant places I’ve visited have been the bedrock of my spiritual growth.
There is so much to witness at a store: people frantically trying to load up for the weekend, elderly in their motorized carts, people in line glued to their smart phones, and then of course the workers that 90% of the time seem achingly miserable and sad.
It was like any other day as I stepped foot into my local store to pick up up a few essentials.
I was walking in with the intention of getting some food for the week and ended up walking out with so much more.
Once inside, I saw a man standing at the front of the store with the biggest smile on his face. It was as bright as the sun. It was the kind of joy that you could easily tell was radiating from within.
I did what I habitually do: looked him in the eye, smiled, and called him by his name. As I grabbed my cart and glanced back up, I stopped dead in my tracks.
I had a huge rush of awareness: No one was noticing this man. Not a single person in my ten-minute stare down paid attention to him. No one.
He waved, with a big ole grin, to every single soul that entered the store. You see, his job was to acknowledge every person that walked through the front door. He was the “greeter” at a local store, and the best darn one I’ve ever seen.
This immediately fueled anger inside of me. It was as if he was invisible.
Why was no one seeing this man? Why didn’t they wave back—say hi, and enjoy his presence?
Why? Why? Why?
I wanted to stand right up there with him, get in people’s faces, and make them see us. But instead, I took a breath and allowed myself to get calm and centered before I did anything.
I decided to shift my attention to the entrance to actually see who was walking inside.
First, I noticed a businessman that kept glancing at his watch; it looked like he was in a real hurry. Who knows—he may have been late picking up donuts for his next meeting (that he was running).
Next, I observed a mother who had a cart full of kids that were kicking and screaming. She was rummaging through her purse; I bet it was hard to find that grocery list while managing to keep “all arms and legs inside of a moving vehicle.”
She may have even been a single mom, and her only option was to take them with her (hardest job in the world—I watched my mom raise five).
I then witnessed a couple who seemed to have been so in love that even if the greeter was standing there with a sign that had their names in bright red, they still wouldn’t have seen.
They encapsulated my attention all together. I just love seeing love, and my heart skips a beat seeing others that love each other so much, they live in worlds of their own. Smiling into one another’s eyes, how could they possibly have noticed him?
Soon after I stopped watching, I turned my attention back to the greeter. He was an unbelievable man.
It didn’t matter who walked through the door, or what baggage they were bringing with them—he treated each of them the same. He was so awake to life, so kind and conscious to the real meaning of love (little did he know).
His arms were open, ready to pour into anyone, no matter who they were. Even though he was being ignored.
I learned an incredible lesson that day, or lessons, I should say. And I’ll never forget these simply yet mighty realizations that are now imparted into my everyday life.
On days when I find myself judging others, and when my patience is awfully low, I think of this man. On days when I feel unappreciated and unnoticed, I think of him too.
I remember that he gave of himself, without any expectation of return. I remember how his smiled wasn’t dependent on if others smiled back.
I think of how his joy radiated from the inside out and how others, including me, were still affected by his actions, even if it didn’t seem so.
So that “greeter” is perhaps the embodiment of truth. This is what life is about: giving others the benefit of the doubt, because you make mistakes too. Understanding other people’s suffering instead of judging them, because you have suffered also.
I would encourage you to wake up to the world around you and realize that people are simply doing the best that they can. They really are.
Next time you feel the temptation to judge others for what you can only see on the outside, try seeing it from another angle.
Attempt to contemplate what they may be going through or the suffering you may not be able to see on the surface. Pass a silent blessing onto them and try to see yourself in them.
This will happen to you. You will show love and get nothing in return. You will smile and not get one back. You might even be completely ignored. You’ll open your heart and people will pass you by.
At the end of the day, it’s not about how others receive you or what adversity you may face; it’s about one thing and one thing only: choosing to shine your light anyway.
I truly believe that the Universe can be ours, if we can see things from the whole and complete oneness. In a world that seems to be full of hate, rage, and anger, we must never forget that we are all in this together.
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3 Things We Can All Do to Create Stronger, Happier Relationships
“Love is the absence of judgment.” ~Dalai Lama
I used to be one of those moms.
Let me explain.
I was a single mom for literally my daughter’s entire childhood. That’s okay—I was a control freak, so it really suited me. I got to make all the decisions. Perfect!
And it was… for me. Not so much for my daughter, but then in those days I was only focused on getting through the day and paying the bills.
We coped. I made the rules, set the boundaries, and expected her to tow the line.
Which she mostly did, although sometimes begrudgingly. But then, that’s normal behavior for kids, isn’t it?
Well, I thought so.
It’ll come as no great shock, then, I’m sure, when I tell you that she was very eager to escape the clutches of my control-freak-ness and be independent.
And so post-studies she eagerly shifted into her new role of a young adult seeking employment. This was a milestone. The start of her new career—woohoo!
The job market was tough, but we remained cautiously optimistic.
Something would come up. Wouldn’t it? Eventually?
And then she dyed her hair purple.
Yup. Purple.
Being one of “those moms,” my reaction was, with hindsight, completely predictable.
“HOW WILL YOU FIND A JOB WITH PURPLE HAIR?!” I shrieked, as we moms do.
She calmly looked me in the eye and said, “This is me expressing who I am, and if any potential employer has a problem with that, then I don’t want to work for them!”
What could I say. She had a point
And in fact, she went on to get the very first job that she interviewed for.
At one of the oldest and most respected academic institutions in our country.
In one of the most conservative departments.
After being interviewed by a panel of five academics.
With her purple hair.
Now, I’m not too big to admit that I learned a lot from this particular event. Maybe not immediately, but it was one of those times (and there were many) when the parent/child role most definitely reversed.
And I couldn’t be more grateful.
Here’s what I learned:
1. Recognize and identify your filters.
We view life through the filters we’ve accrued from our life experience. Sadly, this often dulls or taints our experience of life.
In this case, I saw my daughter as a child, someone incapable of knowing what was best for her. Viewed through this filter, she needed my guidance and opinion, as I believed all children did. After all, as the wise and experienced parent, don’t we always know better?
Apparently not.
We see what we want to see, what we’re used to seeing, what we choose to see, not necessarily what is actually in front of us.
I currently live in a country where there’s a large third world element. And with that comes a lot of roadside hawkers. And I mean a lot!
Growing up, I was cautioned to avoid them, told they were dangerous, made to look the other way.
They were pushy, loud, and not to be trusted. So I was told.
Who was I to argue? Surely my parents knew better.
And so, for a long time, I avoided them, labeled them as bad, and pretended they weren’t there.
As I grew older (and wiser), I started to notice them in a different way.
These people are excited about their wares, enthusiastically trying to entice passers-by, and happy to negotiate very vociferously!
They are energetic and eager. Friendly and interesting.
And mostly, they were simply fellow humans trying to make a living.
A different perspective. A different filter.
2. Stop judging. Find freedom in being neutral.
It’s human nature to charge every event in our lives as positive or negative.
Something is always right or wrong, isn’t it?
So surely having purple hair when your seeking employment in a tight marketplace is wrong, then. Right?
Have you ever tried to observe an event as simply neutral? It’s as easy as acknowledging that it simply is what it is—no judgment needed.
No emotional attachment. No expectation.
And you get to appreciate the value of the event.
Being neutral allows you to find how the event can work for you. It allows us to see a bigger perspective. And opportunity.
I often wonder how different my daughter and my relationship would have been in her younger years if I’d had the awareness then that I have now.
I remember once in her teenage years when she wanted to share some frustration she felt about a specific teacher with me. I listened with my “mom/adult” filter firmly in place, then decided she was wrong (naturally) and proceeded to deliver my (assumed) much needed opinion on the topic. That’s what she wanted, wasn’t it?
No, it wasn’t, not at all.
Not surprisingly, she didn’t share much with me after that.
She wasn’t looking for judgment. Or my opinion. She was simply looking for someone to hear her.
If I’d listened with neutrality I could have been that someone.
3. Get curious about others.
What’s right for me may be wrong for you. That’s a fact and its part of being human.
I had a specific idea of what my daughter’s life should be—how it should unfold, where her path should lead—entirely from my perspective.
I had never really been curious about what she liked, enjoyed, or found interesting.
Surely if she just followed my lead, life would unfold easily for her. Wouldn’t it?
She’d shown interest in music, other cultures, and cooking. I noticed, but that’s not the same as being really curious.
Many moons ago I had a friend who cultivated medical marijuana oil for use with horses.
I know, I also had wide eyes when she told me, along with a whole lot of judgment. I mean, marijuana is illegal (in our country)! How could she?!
I somewhat reluctantly listened to her explanation/justification, full of judgment initially.
And then I noticed how passionately she spoke about her love of horses.
I noticed her conviction to helping them as naturally as possible.
Then I thought about the risk she was taking by cultivating this oil. There was no financial gain for her—it was simply an act of love.
It wasn’t for me to condone or criticize her actions. That’s not my business.
Yet by being curious, I now understand her actions and see the beauty in her passion and love for her horses, whatever that may lead to.
Embracing and respecting each other’s choices fosters tolerance and understanding.
Not only that, but if we really observe those around us with curiosity instead of scorn, we expand our own experience. And isn’t that what life is really about?
—
My daughter is now a few years into her career at the same institution.
And she’s evolved. Her hair is now a medley of colors. (My own rainbow child!)
And it’s beautiful.
She’s happy. I’m happy.
We understand each other. And respect each other. I listen to her with immense curiosity regarding her opinions, even though mine often differ.
We don’t need to be right. We need to be happy.
When we drop our resistance, our happiness emerges.
It’s always there. No exceptions.
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Why We Need to Stop Judging Our Feelings
“Your emotions are meant to fluctuate, just like your blood pressure is meant to fluctuate. It’s a system that’s supposed to move back and forth, between happy and unhappy. That’s how the system guides you through the world.” ~Daniel Gilbert
As a highly sensitive person I experience emotions very deeply, though it’s not usually obvious to others that I’m having such strong internal reactions.
For those not familiar with this trait, high sensitivity is not a defect or a personality flaw; it simply means that you experience sensory and emotional input more strongly than non-sensitive people.
Of course, this is not to say that humans are really that bipolar in terms of their emotional and physical experiences; sensitivity is a spectrum, and I’ve found myself leaning to the more sensitive side.
High sensitivity has wonderful benefits: it facilitates deep insightfulness, fosters a drive for authenticity and creative expression, and enriches the sensory experiences of life. It’s a double-edged sword, however, because just as the positive aspects are magnified, so too are the negative aspects.
Just like with most aspects of life, this is a delicate balancing act, because it can be difficult not to become overwhelmed by emotion, whether positive or negative.
Embodying this trait throughout my life has been a challenge: I’m always super aware of my environment (both external and internal), and processing that information on a deep level pretty much all the time.
This causes me to have a preference for quiet environments (yet I live in New York City!), and also to need lots of alone time to recharge. This is not to say I’m a hermit or that I hate people; quite the contrary: I crave authentic connection and love engaging deeply with others.
It’s been crucial to learn to accept this trait, to pinpoint my needs without feeling guilty for them, and to have the courage to express those needs to my loved ones.
One of the most beneficial things I’ve been learning is the importance of non-judgment. For every high there is a low, and the only thing making a low “bad” is that we judge it as so.
Everyone experiences a full range of emotions, and a highly sensitive person will feel it even more intensely. However, fluctuating emotions are part of life. They’re not something to be avoided at all costs, as I believed I should be able to do in order to achieve an imagined and unattainable level of perfection, which didn’t include messy emotions that only get in the way.
When I feel “negative” emotions such as anxiety, anger, and sadness, I berate myself for succumbing to such “bad” feelings and feel the need to make them go away as soon as possible. Needless to say, this reaction does little to alleviate the distress caused by these emotions, and usually only exacerbates them.
What I’ve realized is that it isn’t the emotions themselves causing me to suffer—it’s my judgment of those emotions and my desire to rid myself of them.
When I am unable to make the feelings go away, it feeds my anxiety and I retreat even deeper into myself instead of allowing the emotional wave to pass and expressing my feelings to others.
Judgments are thoughts about emotions. Emotions are simply fleeting currents that come and go and provide a compass for us to fully feel and address whatever issues may be under the surface.
Though thoughts and emotions are related, they’re different things, and we can learn to manage both of those experiences.
In order to do this, I practice mindfulness exercises in which I simply allow my thoughts to stream and recognize that these thoughts don’t define me unless I give them that power; I’m the one in control of my experiences.
I also allow myself to fully feel my emotion, without judgment, sometimes naming them as they pop up if that helps.
Self-understanding and a connection with our intuition are essential for strengthening our emotional intelligence, and this is an instance in which high sensitivity is a major benefit, because it’s highly conducive to deep introspection.
I continually practice being mindful of my thoughts and how they cause emotions so that I can catch any spirals before they snowball.
This act alone has had tremendous benefits for my overall well-being, as well as my ability to manage, and most importantly, accept, all the emotions that come with being human.
A recent experience of unrequited love has demonstrated to me how far I’ve come in terms of riding the emotional waves without added layers of judgment and criticism.
At my gym, I met a very attractive man with beautiful chin-length blond hair, deep expressive blue eyes, and a sweet disposition.
I developed a little crush and tried my hardest to be more open, but also to accept that I do get shy and I’m slow to warm up to new people.
I didn’t judge myself negatively for it, but rather was proud of myself for my efforts to maintain eye contact, smile, and initiate conversation.
Unfortunately, as I was beginning to think the feeling might be mutual and trying to work up the courage to ask for a date, I saw him with another girl who frequents the same gym. It was obvious they had something going on.
Although it felt like I had been punched hard in the gut to see them together, in the past a situation like this would have also made me spiral into a deep hole of self-hatred. I would have criticized myself for being too shy, for failing, for missing an opportunity, and for allowing another woman to snatch up my crush.
These thoughts would then fuel intense regret, anxiety, fear, despair, and anger—which are emotions in response to thoughts, not in response to the actual situation. Then I’d criticize myself for allowing these feelings to get so out of control, and the vicious cycle would progress ad infinitum.
But that isn’t what happened this time.
Instead, I allowed myself to completely feel every emotion that came with this experience, not with thoughts about the experience.
A twinge of sadness, a pang of despair, loneliness, frustration, jealousy, defeat, embarrassment, desire, anxiety, lust, and anger all passed through me in waves every time I saw them together or felt how much I still liked him and wished I could have had a chance with him.
Without the layer of judgmental thoughts, these feelings became manageable. I’ve also developed a sense of gratitude for all the things I feel, because this is what it means to be human, and vulnerability is a beautiful thing that can connect us directly with our inner selves.
We hurt because we love, so hurt is a sign that you’ve let love in.
I’ve used this experience to learn more about myself, and I’m thankful that it can help facilitate my continued emotional intelligence training.
As I began to praise myself for my efforts rather than only criticizing myself for failing and letting my emotions consume me, I began to cultivate self-love as well. Since love for others stems from love for self, I found that this not only diminished anger toward myself, but naturally flows outward to others.
Compassion for others begins with compassion for ourselves, and high sensitivity facilitates this process.
I’ve also learned that how we react to events is far more important than what actually happens to us.
Unrequited love is usually seen as a negative thing, and it truly does hurt, but it’s also a window to deeper understanding and compassion. For that reason, I’m grateful to have had this experience, even though it’s painful.
Pain has a purpose. It shines light on the most important issues we must face, as well as our biggest opportunities for growth and learning. True, my crush doesn’t reciprocate my feelings, but I still have a loving family, I still love myself, and I love being alive to have all these experiences.
When I think about it like this, I’m grateful, and I’ve learned to love myself throughout all the fleeting emotional experiences that ultimately don’t define me anyway.
We just have to ride the waves and recognize that our thoughts are not always an accurate depiction of reality, our emotions are fleeting, and it’s completely okay to feel the entire spectrum of them.
We are human, and as the perfectly imperfect beings that we are, feeling the spectrum is what we are here to do.
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What to Do When the World Doesn’t Get You
“Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” ~Pema Chödrön
For as long as I can remember, I have always been a little different, defiantly so.
I was that child who never liked cartoons. I was nicknamed “the little old lady” for the things I said at the age of five.
I was that girl from northern Vietnam who refused to change her accent and use of language while schooling in the south, despite being made a subject of ridicule for that.
I was the only pupil that felt indignant about having analyses of literature imposed on us at school—why did everyone have to think and feel the same way about a poem?
The feeling of being out of place plagued my childhood and early adolescence.
My disposition as an outsider deepened during my time studying in Singapore. It was bad enough that I found nothing in common with the locals, but I did not feel an affinity with other Vietnamese students either. Joined by origins and circumstances, we were supposed to feel a bond, but I only felt my difference in interests and values.
When I left Vietnam and subsequently Singapore, I did not know how I would fund my future studies beyond the scholarships I was given. But in my mind, the pain of feeling an outsider justified the risks. I left in search of a place to belong.
My sense of isolation became acute after university. I was probably more out of place in the investment bank I worked for than I had ever been in my life.
Although I was very open to my colleagues, I did not develop the kind of relationships that surpassed our time working together. At the same time, I became more distinctly different from my friends. They all wanted to get their first car, buy their first home, and start a family, none of which was a priority of mine.
Over the years I learned to make peace with the notion that the world did not get me. I was relatively comfortable with my difference but deep down, I never gave up on a hunt for “my tribe.”
When I eventually found my calling and immersed in the world of entrepreneurs who cared about doing good things in the world, I thought my search was finally over. Yet as the months went by, I once again became acutely aware of how different I was from them all.
It was then that I decided to look at the matter more closely.
It became apparent to me that my unreserved self-expression actually did not help people understand me; I seemed to have a different mode of communication from everyone else! As a result, I was almost always “misinterpreted” in early encounters.
With this realization, it was tempting to conform to social norms and expectations, just to be more understood. Yet I could not bring myself to do it. The idea of adopting “inorganic” behaviors for no good reason did not sit well with me. After all, I never offended or harmed anyone with my way of being.
This conflict of wanting to be more understood while being fiercely protective of my authenticity came up in a deep conversation I had with someone. For the first time, I was hit by the thought that rather than the world refusing to connect, it may have been me all along.
Could it be that at some point during my childhood I assumed that my difference would never be welcomed, so I built a self-defense mechanism that kept me from engaging and risking rejection?
That could not be right. I was always unreservedly open about myself. I had a genuine interest in people and an ability to empathize. How could these not have come from an open heart?
Yet my heart knew that it was more open to let out than to let in.
I used to feel that amongst the few, I bore the curse of being different, and in order to not get hurt, I would only let in the special ones who “got” me. From the lofty height of my proud difference, I filtered people as those who I could potentially connect with and those who would be unlikely to get me.
I had little patience for people who did not seem to be on the same wavelength. While I would still be genuinely interested in their stories, my intention to connect would be taken out of the conversation.
This filtering process continued throughout every relationship of mine. I remember being disappointed with good friends for remarks that felt off, and a part of me would be forever shut to them from that moment on.
I was doing to others what I felt the world was doing to me. I judged! The more new people I met on a regular basis, the faster my filtering process became and the more despondent I grew about making new friends.
I felt a twinge in my heart at this realization.
And then something hit me.
More compassion. Yes, I needed more compassion.
If I could listen with compassion to those I did not instantly like, I wouldn’t dismiss them so quickly. Then who knows, maybe I would find a connection with them on some level.
If I did not write off everyone who made an unwelcomed remark to me, I would spend more time trying to understand their perspective. Then who knows, maybe I would find that I had simply misunderstood them.
If I could have more compassion for this world, which works on bases so different from my own, maybe I would not see my difference as such a hindrance for connection.
If I had more compassion for myself, maybe I could start to believe that I, too, would be loved and understood for who I am by the majority of people out there.
If I believed that there was always a place for my individuality, maybe I could feel a sense of belonging anywhere in the world. If I believed that I did not need similarity for connection, maybe I could stop the search for “my tribe.”
I have finally realized that we are all different in our own ways, and what I struggle with, many others do too.
Making myself special and playing the victim role did protect me, for decades, from becoming someone else. But it also took away my faith in the abundance of compassion out there.
Whoever you are and whatever your difference may be, there is enough love, respect, and understanding for all of us. Will you choose to believe?
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True Connection Happens When We Release Cynicism and Judgment
“Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.” ~Bill Nye
It’s cool to be a little cynical, right? We’ve all seen the movies; we know an air of ennui and a well-cultivated sneer is all a person needs to get by.
When I was in my early twenties I used to archly describe myself as an “optimistic cynic.” To me, it sounded cool. I was playing in bands, and I’d decided this was how I wanted to show up to the world.
Back then I responded to everything, whether good or bad, exciting or not, through a filter of sarcasm. (And for those who don’t know me, I’m talking British sarcasm here too. The strongest kind.)
Thankfully, though, after years of deep work on myself, I eventually realized that really, in being so cynical, I was just hiding behind a façade, a front. The cynicism was a barrier to protect myself, and ultimately, it halted me making real connections with others, and myself.
I think I first realized this while at university. There was a guy who lived on my floor who was just a really good person.
Andy was happy, friendly, well-liked by everyone. The source of good emotions wherever he went.
At the time, of course, I dismissed his demeanor as an act to be liked, which, as I write this now, I realize was me projecting my own issues on him.
But even then a part of me knew Andy was doing something right. When he’d invite me to things (and I of course turned him down with a sarcastic aside) I felt a little silly, a little humbled by his great outlook and energy, which contrasted so greatly with my self-defeating ‘cool.’
You see, deep down I knew I wanted to do all the things he was doing. I wanted to live my honest truth like he was, but for whatever reason I couldn’t bring myself to let go and just be myself. Andy held a mirror up to my sneer, and I didn’t like what I saw.
I’m glad to say I’m not like that anymore. But it’s still in me on occasion, and I think in all of us if we aren’t careful. It seems more and more, cynicism is becoming the default setting for our collective consciousness. It’s the way to be now in this post-modern world.
Don’t trust people. Don’t show your feelings. Don’t give a damn, frankly.
We live in very uncertain times, so it’s understandable, then, that we’ve learned to question people’s motives. But where this once still bordered on liberal curiosity, it is fast turning to simple mistrust, disconnection, and in many cases, actual fear of others.
It’s a sad situation, and something I feel we all need to be aware of. More so, we need to actively fight against this cynicism and learn to connect with each other again.
A study at Harvard that was conducted over a staggering seventy-five years has proven beyond any doubt that that when it comes to being happier in every way, it’s all about making real connections:
“The more areas in your life you can make connection the better…The study’s most important finding is that the only thing that matters in life is relationships…Happiness is love. Full stop.”
But before we can make powerful connections with others, there’s someone else we need to connect with—ourselves.
When we are disconnected from ourselves, we lose our power and our confidence in our abilities; thus, our ability to trust ourselves diminishes. And if we can’t trust ourselves, how can we trust others?
So, we need to take the time to discover our own wants and desires and to connect fully with our core values. When we have this self-knowledge a lot of other things quickly fall into place.
You can practice this in small ways too. Take time throughout the day to engage in a tech-free walk in nature and get your peripatetic system working. You’ll be surprised how quickly you connect with your truth when you’re completely alone with no distractions of any kind.
Meditation, too, is a great way of just being with yourself fully. You’ll often find you have great insights once you actively create some silence for a short period and calibrate yourself. In this way, we can quickly become a person who is so focused on their path that cynicism never even gets a look in.
When we connect with the vision we have for ourselves, we gain clarity and can then relax, become more comfortable, and begin to create real connections with the world outside.
When you take the time to do this, you make peace with yourself, and it is from this position of power that you can create powerful moments with other people and become the source of good energy wherever you go.
You can start this today: Practice actively connecting with people on a deep, powerful level. Look into their eyes just that extra second longer; give a hug that has real emotion behind it, a handshake that lasts a little longer than normal, or a comment that hits just right.
With every person you talk to from now on, make a connection. Create a moment. Turn off the rest of the world and just, warmly, be with them.
Do this right and it’ll feel like you’ve made time stand still. You’ll soon realize how great you not only make others feel, but how great you feel yourself as your connection and empathy for the world grows.
Because flip back to the “cynical optimist” version of me you met at the start, and you’d see someone who regularly reacted badly to others, who got annoyed easily.
I’m sure we all have had those times when other people have riled us—the man on the street walking too slowly in front of us or too close behind us, the rude checkout girl who can’t raise a smile, the work colleague who makes bad jokes or talks too much.
We know that getting annoyed only ultimately harms ourselves. If something annoys you, that’s on you. And while we might think we’re displaying dominance and superiority by getting annoyed, really, all we’re doing is giving away our power and becoming disconnected to others and our true, better selves.
Researchers have dubbed this fundamental attribution error, which states that we tend to give too much weight to someone’s personality or disposition in explaining their behavior in a given situation.
In other words, we all too often take one single thing that someone does and use it to make a judgment on their entire persona. I’m sure you can agree that this does not help at all in creating honest connections with our fellow humans.
We need to combat this bias whenever we can. A great technique I found, that immediately helps us feel more present and connected with others, is to consciously reframe the event.
When you feel yourself getting a little antsy, rather than stewing on it and becoming disconnected and wound up, simply change the story.
That man walking too fast behind you? He’s late for his new job and is a little worried about what his new boss will say.
The sulky checkout assistant? They’ve just split up with their partner and feel heartbroken.
If someone annoys you, tell yourself a story about why they are doing what they’re doing, and reframe it in a way that you can relate to.
In this way we can all learn to be a little more empathetic, a little more connected, a little nicer even.
And like I say, living this way really is a win/win situation all round; as you grow more connected with yourself and your environment, your own power and confidence will grow as a result. So create moments, reframe the stories you tell yourself about others, and show up in the world as a source of great emotions.
That’s something we can all connect with.
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Falling Apart at Inconvenient Times: Why There Is No Shame in Public Pain
“The major block to compassion is the judgment in our minds. Judgment is the mind’s primary tool of separation.” ~David R. Hamilton
On the evening of October 28, 2014, the phone rang. When I heard my stepmother’s voice, immediately, I thought, “This can’t be good.”
Last I had heard, my father was resting comfortably after routine surgery earlier that day. Now it was past midnight in North Carolina.
“Jill,” my stepmother implored, “please talk to the nurses. I have no idea what they are trying to tell me.” Sometimes we cannot listen to what we do not want to hear.
The nurse came on the phone and confirmed my worst fears. My father had suddenly become septic and was quickly heading into multiple organ failure.
In her “I’m trying to tell a complete stranger her father is dying in the nicest way possible” kind of voice, the nurse told me I might want to make plans to get out there as soon as possible; now would be good.
I booked the first available flight. Sleepless and terrified, I boarded the plane. After settling into my seat, a lifetime of Dad memories raced through my mind. A lump in my throat began to rise and swell at the thought of seeing my father, helpless and frail, making his way from this world to the next.
“Please don’t lose it on this plane,” I carefully cajoled myself.
A distraction seemed in order, so I put the earbuds in, set the music to shuffle, and held my breath. As luck would have it, the first song depicted a powerful tale of loss that felt like an illuminated road sign on a dark, lonely highway. Death is a road we all travel.
When I heard the words of my own story, told by someone I had never met, I couldn’t hold back anymore. First a few quiet tears, followed by the full-on ugly cry—right there in row 17, seat C.
“Oh dear,” I thought, “I am officially that person.”
We all know that person: the one who breaks into tears in the grocery line after discovering “happily ever after” was not to be. The co-worker stifling sobs behind the fourth-floor bathroom stall when he learns he is next to be downsized. Or, in my case, the middle-aged woman in 17C trying desperately to get home in time to say goodbye to her father.
Amidst heaving sobs, I glanced across the aisle and met the gaze of a fellow passenger. With only his eyes, he kindly whispered, “Yep. You’re that person.” With only my eyes, in return, I answered, “Yep. You’re right.”
It was as if life had stolen my undergarments and hung them in the public square to dry. I felt exposed, raw, ashamed. If only my feelings would have shown up on schedule, preferably in the privacy of my own home, thank you very much.
Humans can be parsed into two categories: those who have been that person and those who will be. Like a rude party guest, the unsoothable pain of loss can show up, uninvited, at the worst possible times and demand from us things we don’t want to give.
So often we shun grief or sorrow that cannot wait for a convenient time to be felt. Perhaps witnessing another’s sorrow ignites our own, so we create a safe distance with our judgment: “Some people really oughta learn how to keep it together.”
We wouldn’t tell a child in pain to knock it off and keep it together. Why would we say this to ourselves? Why would we demand this from others?
I regret to inform you feelings cannot be scheduled. There will be moments when the thread unspools faster than we can wind it. This is okay.
Feelings do not need to be fixed because they are not broken; neither are you.
It is when we are most vulnerable that we are most deserving of our own loving-kindness. Those song lyrics and the compassion in my aisle mate’s eyes were the only things I needed that day. While it didn’t make the pain stop, I did feel a little less alone with it, which made all the difference.
We know that person because we are that person.
When it is your turn in the cosmic hot seat, I invite you to offer yourself the blessing of your own loving grace. Speak to yourself as you would a child in pain. If you get the honor of bearing witness to another’s unspooling, why not offer your fellow human the same blessing: I see you. I hear you. I love you.
Sad girl image via Shutterstock
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The Truth About Social Anxiety and 5 Ways to Relieve It
“Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us, when in fact, it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from being seen and taking flight.” ~Brené Brown
About fifteen million adults suffer from social anxiety according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Fifteen million. And we’re not just talking about what you’d call shyness. We’re talking about big fears of judgment and scrutinization from others.
When we hear statistics it can be difficult to remember the humanness of those numbers. These are people who want to find love, who want to make new friends, or who need to talk to new people for work. Maybe you’re one of them. I used to be.
I remember feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, being highly aware of what I was saying, how I was saying it, and how other people were taking me in. I even remember being in college at a party standing with a group of friends when one of them loudly declared that I looked super uncomfortable.
Well, I was super uncomfortable, and that statement only brought more attention to my demeanor making me even more self-conscious. It sucked. I didn’t want to feel awkward let alone be known as the awkward girl.
I was always so concerned with how I was presenting myself. I wanted everyone to feel like I had it all together. I wanted to appear cool, but mostly I didn’t want to do a lot of things.
I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. I didn’t want to make a fool out of myself. And I definitely didn’t want to be disliked.
What I wanted was to be able to speak easily to people. I wanted to feel laid back. I wanted to not be “shy” in groups. I wanted to feel comfortable. I wanted to get lost in the moment instead of watching and analyzing my every move. I wanted to just be me, and be okay with it.
Often times when we talk about anxiety this is where we stop. But I’ve discovered something deeper. I worked on myself a lot in my twenties. I made a very dear friend who was super outgoing. Being in her presence helped me see that I could present myself differently.
I could open up a bit more, I could smile a bit more, and I could show my happiness to strangers.
I also learned a lot about my ego. I saw some of the ways my mind was holding me back. I was able to acknowledge that fear was driving me in these situations and that I didn’t have to pay so much attention to my mind.
I became more comfortable in social situations through practice. I found my edge and worked from there. I became more cheerful, more outgoing, and it worked.
People responded, and I connected more deeply. It felt great, but it didn’t entirely feel easy. I still didn’t feel 100% in my own skin, and I found myself exhausted after being in social situations.
Years later I discovered that all along I had been afraid of being seen.
I’m not talking about being out in the world and observed by others. I’m not talking about being afraid of showing up at a party or an event and having people look at me. I’m not talking about superficial self-consciousness. I’m speaking about a deep, spiritual need to be seen for who it is we really are.
All this time I had actually been terrified that if someone saw who I really was they would reject me, and I didn’t know that I could recover from that. But if someone rejected the persona I’d created, well, that wouldn’t be as bad—it wasn’t really me.
I discovered this truth through something we all have at our disposal 24/7. It’s actually something we all need and use: the breath.
Breathwork is a powerful active meditation, and it’s changed so many aspects of my life including this one. It’s given me access to deeper truths about myself and about human beings in general.
We all want to be loved, and to be loved means you’re accepted as you are. So if you’re deeply afraid, unconsciously afraid, that you might not be loved, how do you think your body is going to respond? It’s going to feel fear.
It shows up as self-consciousness because our minds work to remedy the situation. If I monitor my every movement I’ll be safe. I won’t show too much of myself, and I won’t be rejected.
The problem here, aside from the fact that we don’t want to actually be living our lives in constant moderation of ourselves, is that we expend so much energy watching ourselves, trying to be the person we think we should be.
That’s why I was so exhausted after being in social situations. It took up so much of my energy to be around people and not feel like I could really be myself.
There is so much relief in being able to be yourself. There is so much freedom in having deep, unconditional love for yourself and knowing that the only thing that matters is that you have your own back.
It leaves you feeling comfortable being you. It allows you to have a more intimate relationship with yourself, discovering who it is you actually are instead of living under the guise you’ve created for yourself. That guise was a defense mechanism; it was your shield so you wouldn’t get hurt.
But you don’t have to worry about getting hurt anymore. Yes, you will still feel pain, but you will have such a deep trust in life that you know you’ll always get through it.
With this trust and this love and this new life, it’s not scary to show yourself anymore.
You know that the right people will forgive you if you mess up. You know that the people who you need to have around you are the ones who love the things that come out of your mouth, who don’t push you or manipulate you or judge you.
From simple, immediate action steps to deeper healing work, here are five ways you can start relieving your social anxiety today:
1. Use the power poses.
Power Poses are simple body movements scientifically proven to increase confidence hormones and decrease stress hormones. Before you’re going into a social situation put your hand behind your head or even simply raise your hands wide and high in the air.
2. Focus on others.
When we’re self-conscious in social situations we’re so focused on ourselves that it’s extremely difficult to connect with others or to even relax. Try finding someone to connect with by asking them about themselves. Become interested in them and place all your awareness on what they’re saying. This helps us engage and removes us from our own self-concern.
3. Find your edge.
Know where you’re comfortable and where you feel like you’re going to have a panic attack. Somewhere in the middle lies your edge.
Your edge is the place you can go to that feels uncomfortable but not like you’re going to die. Hang out there, take some risks.
This might look like you starting a conversation with someone on your own, asking someone a question, making eye contact, or telling someone something about yourself that feels personal. Continue to practice living on your edge, and it won’t be your edge anymore.
4. Look deeper.
You can remedy things by watching and emulating those who excel socially. Or you could spend time getting to know yourself more deeply, facing the truth that maybe you’re afraid to show who you really are. Once we’re willing to face the things we’re hiding from we can begin to liberate ourselves from these deep fears.
5. Use your breath.
You can use your breath in the simplest way to reduce your stress levels. Take deep belly breaths very slowly. The slower and deeper the breath the more you activate your parasympathetic nervous system creating a relaxing environment in your body.
If you want to go for full transformation you could try breathwork and see what you discover about yourself.
There is a life free of social anxiety. When you choose to dig a little deeper and take steps to heal yourself, you’ll find yourself on a new path. On that path you may discover that you don’t even know who it is you really are. But once you discover yourself, you’ll see there is a whole world of people out there waiting to meet you.
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No Matter What You Tell Yourself, There Is Nothing Wrong with You
“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” ~Bronnie Ware from Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
I wish I could remember the exact moment I mis-learned that being myself wasn’t going to cut it.
It happened early. Maybe kindergarten. I didn’t do it consciously, but at some undetectable moment, I put my real self in a box and created someone else. This new me was so much better—always happy, very accommodating, super quick and witty, and an expert at everything.
This new me was almost impossible to maintain. She required constant observations, self-sacrifices, and living in fear of being found out. But I knew she was necessary. The real me was not an option.
Why? Because something was wrong with me. Even in elementary school, I had come to an unfortunate conclusion: Everyone is better than me. I can never let anyone see that.
There was evidence. I had the only divorced parents in a conservative suburb. I had stringy hair that never congealed into the halo formation I desired no matter how much spray I applied. (It was the eighties!) I didn’t own any brand names. And, worst of all, my father was gay.
My dad never told me he was gay. He just was gay one day when I was ten. The problem was, he left my mom for a man when I was three. That left seven years of deception in between.
I went to gay parades with him because he “had some gay friends.” I slept over at the house he shared with his “roommate.” So when my mom finally sat me down to tell me the truth, I was shocked. And betrayed. They’d both been putting on a show for seven years. Why?
My ten-year-old brain assumed they must have hidden it because it was supposed to be hidden. In a time before Ellen or even an inkling of gay marriage talk, I figured this was a secret so shameful that nobody should know about it.
I wasn’t against my father or against homosexuality. I was against being different. Flawed. Weird. I was surely the only girl in elementary school who had seen assless chaps at a street fair. I wish I had owned it and flaunted a rainbow flag backpack, but I couldn’t then. I was too obsessed with being ‘the same.’
I decided not to tell anyone. Not my friends. Not my teachers. No one.
But a story has all the power when the only place it’s allowed to live is inside you.
Keeping up a constant lie is exhausting. The anxiety alone about being found out can overtake your body. It controls the way you speak, the way you breathe, what you choose to share with friends. The latter kept all my friends at an arm’s distance. I craved so badly to feel closer to them. Connected. But connection was too scary.
Six years after I found out about my father’s true self, he fell into one of his many deep depressions and took his own life.
I had just gotten my driver’s license. His phone was off the hook, and I drove against my mom’s rules to see him. His apartment was a den of depression and his 6’5” body thinner than I’d ever seen. I gave him a hug, and when I drove away, I had no idea it would be our very last hug.
At sixteen, there were few conclusions for me to make besides: See! Something is seriously wrong with me. My dad didn’t even want to stay to see me grow up.
Outwardly, I pretended it was no big deal. I cried alone in my room, in my car, places where nobody could see. I wanted to rewind it all. I wanted to change everything. I wanted to go to sleep for years and wake up a happy adult with it all figured out.
I jumped further into people pleasing. That guy needs a date to something? Let’s go. My teacher is handing out extra credit? I’ll do double. Smile. Smile. SMILE! I got my grade point average to 4.5 and was crowned homecoming queen. (Kids, take notes! You too can become homecoming queen if you simply accommodate every single person who is not you.)
I went to college far away to get away from myself, but my self followed. My fear. My pretense. My anxiety followed. And as I compared my family to an even broader spectrum of strangers, it got worse.
The only time I would talk about my personal life was when I was drunk and making jokes. Once a salesman told me to buy a present for my father. I laughed and said, “My father is in the ground!” Then I walked out of the store laughing as if it was the funniest thing I’d ever said.
Years after college, I met a girl in a writing class. She was the tiniest person I’d ever met and had a voice to match. It happened that our leases ended at the same time, and we had a frank conversation about becoming roommates.
“I am a loner,” I told her.
“Me too. We can close our doors and we’ll know that it’s not a good time. Let’s do it.”
We moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, and one month after combining our silverware, this girl washed the dishes I’d left in the sink. I didn’t get it. She wasn’t my mom. She didn’t have to. I could not grasp the concept of someone else actually wanting to do something for me without being forced or wanting something in return.
She also insisted on driving me to the airport or paying for dinner or seeing if I needed anything from the store. She simply wanted the best for me. She was offering me the connection I’d craved, and I didn’t know how to handle it.
We would lie on the carpet at night and stare at the popcorn ceiling. I tried to be vague when she asked me about my life. I was used to short answers, accustomed to my motto: Get done with the talking fast so the group can move on to someone better. But she wouldn’t let me off the hook.
She reached for me. She held my hand. I’d never experienced such intimacy with a friend. I recoiled at first, but she persisted. It’s like she knew the terror inside my head—the terror to be close, to be discovered, to be guilty. She knew, and she was guiding me through.
And so I told her my truth. I let it out. And she told me hers. And we cried and we laughed and we didn’t stop until our lives made a pile on the living room floor. She didn’t hate me. She didn’t abandon me. She didn’t tell me I was weird or different or wrong. She just held me and said it was all okay.
At twenty-eight, she was my first real friend. At twenty-eight, I finally grieved openly for my father.
This first friend of mine began to unravel the mask I had spent years sewing. She pulled the first thread, and then I began to write, which untied me even more. I posted an essay about my father on my blog and was met with solidarity and hugs. And love.
Being real felt suffocating at first. I had to get used to awkward pauses when I’d say the word ‘suicide.’ I had to learn to relax and not be on constant alert during conversations in order to say the wittiest response first. I had to admit when I was wrong or didn’t know. I had to be willing to show others my imperfection.
I’m still working on it all. Every day. But since I came clean, my world is completely different. I drink less alcohol because I don’t need to hide from my own terror-filled brain. I have a set of friends with whom I can share every tiny detail about myself. I feel fulfilled. I feel honest. I sleep well.
And most of all, my story has lost its power. Once I began saying it out loud, I realized that every single person has felt shame at some point. No one thinks she or her family is perfect. But it takes sharing to find that out.
I felt such a relief from letting go of my secret that it became my mission to spread the word.
I started a show in Hollywood called Taboo Tales. I help people take their secrets and make them into emotional comedy pieces they tell on stage to a big crowd of strangers. It’s a mini version of what I’ve experienced over the last seven years. People get to tell their story, feel a relief from letting go, and then find immediate solidarity from the audience.
Brene Brown says, “When we deny the story, it defines us. When we own the story, we can write a brave new ending.”
It is the absolute truth. I have seen it firsthand countless times on stage. And I experience brave new endings every day. I have an entirely new life after learning to become vulnerable. To tell it all. To own what’s made me who I am. To be proud of my cool, gay, leather-wearing dad!
Sure, I’m still working on figuring out who I am after faking it for so long. But I know for sure I’m doing my best. And I’m not following in my father’s footsteps. He let his shame simmer inside of him until it was too much. Not me. Vulnerability saved my life.
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If you’d like to taste some vulnerability, you can start with a tool I use in my Taboo Tales workshops. Set a five-minute timer and write a list of all the things you would never share with anyone else. The timer makes you keep going, and you’ll be surprised at what comes up.
Take one of those things on your list—the scariest one— and write about it. You can burn everything later, but just getting the story out from inside where it festers is a necessary step. See where that takes you. Maybe read what you wrote to one person if you can.
If not, start with small truths. Post an honest picture on social media instead of something posed and perfect. Let someone see your messy house or car when you may have made an excuse in the past. Respond with anything other than ‘fine’ when someone asks you how you’re doing. And something I really value in my own life: tell the truth when it’s time to break plans.
“I’m really too depressed to hang out today” is actually what a good friend would want to hear instead of “I can’t make it.” Your honesty could open that friendship up to new and more intimate conversations.
Friends are really important in your path to vulnerability. Could you tell any of those items on your list to a friend or two? If you feel like they would all judge you, maybe you could use a new, cozier friend. They’re out there, I promise.
And one last tip: participate less in gossip. One thing that keeps us holding ourselves back is the fear of being judged. So I challenge you to not be a part of judging on the other side either. Once you begin letting go of your own judgments against others, the idea of being judged yourself becomes less scary.
Tips or no tips, the goal is to tell your story, whether it’s big and taboo or not. Start small and work up to letting it out in whatever ways you can. Hey, if you want to start below, let’s make this comment section a judgment-free space where everyone’s allowed to share whatever it is they can. That can happen on the Internet, right?
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You Are Beautiful; Can You See It?
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” ~ConfuciusThis is my sister Cindy and me when we were little. If you look closely you may be able to tell that Cindy has Down Syndrome. This was a long time ago and one of my most favorite pictures. I am now fifty-eight and Cindy would be sixty this month.
I followed Cindy into this world and I was with her three years ago when she left. I am who I am in this world because of Cindy. She taught me all of the most important things about life through being who she was.
If you have never had the privilege of knowing anyone who has Down Syndrome, you are missing something extraordinarily beautiful. My belief is that they are angels who are here on earth to teach us about beauty. True, real beauty.
I have some strong beliefs about beauty.
Real beauty is totally free. It doesn’t cost any money and it’s in abundance for everyone.
Real beauty feels good. It’s a relief when we recognize it in ourselves and others.
Real beauty is worth more than money.
We all are beautiful and beauty is all around us.
When Cindy looked in the mirror she saw extraordinary beauty, every single time.
She saw a treasure, a work of art, grace, refinement, happiness.
She didn’t see what many others saw when they looked at her. She was different looking. She walked funny. She kind of hobbled from side to side. She had a short neck and a fairly large face and her eyes were different. She often did things with her tongue and held her mouth open. Her tongue was thicker than ours so she didn’t speak with the clarity that ‘normal’ people do. She often twisted her words.
And yet, she was exquisitely beautiful.
She was nothing more and nothing less than who she was.
She was pure, precious, and tender.
She didn’t judge. There was no right or wrong or better or worse with her. No one was less than or more than anyone else in her eyes. Everyone was simply who they were. No expectations. No hidden agendas. No judgment. No measuring up. Ever.
Somehow I think she saw right into the soul of everyone she met. She saw right into me. I know that. She didn’t see my skin tone or hairstyle or makeup job or weight or size of me. She saw the real being of me. She saw my essence, and because she saw what was real in me I was authentic with her. My mask fell off every time I was with her.
When Cindy died I made a commitment to live my life with courage to see and reveal my beauty. I also made a promise to look for and see the beauty in others. I am doing that more and more.
At fifty-eight I now look in the mirror and see lots of wrinkles and fifteen extra pounds that want to stay with me. And I am okay with that. When I look in the mirror now I consciously look for love.
I look to love myself and what I see before me. I know that all those lines are paths to loving myself and others even more. They are not scars to be erased or covered up. They are lines of living and loving fully. Of sharing and caring for others, and myself, with tenderness and compassion. Just as Cindy saw me. No judgment. No criticism. No agenda.
Cindy saw me, and she loved me so that I could learn to see and love myself.
And if I can do that, you can too.
Today, when you look in the mirror, look carefully to see you.
Try to see yourself through the eyes of someone who loves you unconditionally, appreciates you for all your best qualities, and would never judge you.
If there’s no one who has ever loved and appreciated you in this way, understand that this is likely why you struggle to see your beauty, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Don’t worry about an image you think should be reflected back at you. Look for you in the mirror. Don’t focus on the laugh lines; focus on the smile. Don’t home in on the scars; remember the strength that helped you heal. Don’t look at yourself with a critical eye; look for and celebrate the light in your eyes.
I guarantee if you look carefully, you will see something, someone beautiful. Someone worth loving and caring for. Someone soft and tender and precious. Someone who has a place in this world and a gift to share.
Someone beautiful.
You.
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How to Stop Being a Victim of Your Own High Expectations
“The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated on achieving reform from within.” ~Gandhi
If someone asked you to recall the last time you were kind to yourself, would you struggle to bring up that memory?
At one point in time, I couldn’t remember ever being kind to myself.
I grew up with a lot of expectations from a demanding mother and other caretakers. Their expectations were all about them being in control and always being right.
It was more than confusing; it left me with a need to prove myself constantly, and it gave me an inner critic that berated me at an early age.
Years later, I got a job in corporate America where expectations were clear-cut and measured. Positive encouragement and regular successes made me feel good about myself.
I became addicted to that feeling. My ego encouraged me to continually exceed other peoples’ expectations by making my own even higher. My inner critic accepted nothing less.
Then I started my own business. I expected success to come quickly, easily, and be beyond anything I had experienced before.
It certainly bypassed my expectations—in the worst way possible.
This is a story of failure and how life got better when three small changes worked together to free me from being a victim of my own expectations.
Take a look, and imagine what these changes can do for you.
Change One: How You Treat Yourself
Not only had my third attempt at creating a successful business failed but also the man I loved turned out to be a lying, thieving con artist who left me emotionally and financially broke.
Life became nothing more than dealing with shame, runaway anxiety, and panic attacks that flung me out of bed at night.
Then I tripped over a bag of books one day that I’d packed for a fundraiser. One fell out.
Have you ever heard of the Buddhist practice called loving-kindness? I hadn’t, but Tara Brach’s book Radical Acceptance that fell at my feet explained it to me. Desperate for any relief I gave it a go.
The practice begins with expressing loving-kindness first for yourself and then for others. Think you might have trouble with that? Then begin by expressing kindness to someone or something you love such as a pet. Take that feeling and transfer it to yourself.
That’s how I had to do it. It was both heart- and eye-opening to realize how mean I had been to myself, and for how long I’d been that way.
Though the full loving-kindness practice can take hours to complete, using this shortened version is a quick, effective way to feel better about yourself.
This is what I’ve taken as my mantra, but feel free to use your own words: May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be held in loving-kindness. May I realize loving-kindness as my essence.
The practice is simple and easy to do: Eyes opened, lowered, or closed, speak the words quietly or silently, and immerse yourself in the feeling of loving-kindness for as long as you can or for as long as time permits. Thirty seconds is fine, but the longer you can sustain the feeling, the quicker you’ll reap the benefits of this practice.
Not only can you begin and end your day with loving-kindness but you can also easily practice it as you’re waiting for tea or coffee to brew, an elevator or bus to show up, or a person to come back after putting you on hold.
Aim for a total of six or more practices each day. Not only will that help you make a habit out of treating yourself kindly but it’s also a great stress buster.
Yes, you have to practice, but imagine how good you’ll feel when you fill yourself with all that loving-kindness.
Change Two: What You Say That Limits You
Though I was trying to be nicer to myself, my inner critic was entrenched in the judgmental family attitude.
When I challenged it to stop judging me so harshly, it was quick to call me out on my own behavior of judging people.
It was true. I judged, and I labeled.
Attach a label to someone and that’s how you see them and think of them—even when evidence exists to the contrary.
And what I was doing to other people was the same thing I was doing to myself.
So I challenged myself. For every negative label I wanted to attach to someone, I had to come up with at least six different reasons that would stop me from doing so.
For example, the person who cuts you off in traffic. Instead of labeling them as a stupid jerk, you think: Maybe they got fired or hired today. Or maybe it’s something tragic or serious that’s distracting them. Perhaps they just came from the dentist, and now they’re getting transmissions from outer space!
It’s a practice that I made a game out of, and like any game, it has rules:
- You must focus on the person’s behavior and come up with six reasons that could have caused it.
- At least some of the answers have to be within the realm of possibility.
- Reject all expectations of finding the perfect answer or even coming up with six of them.
This practice is doable anywhere and with almost anyone, including kids.
It helps create an awareness of how labels limit your thinking and creates an awareness of the truth that what we do to other people reflects what we do to ourselves.
Don’t forget to play it with your inner critic. Listen closely and you might hear grinding noises as it tries to switch gears from beating you up to being supportive.
After all, if you can be less judgmental toward other people, how can it not do the same for you?
Change Three: What You Say That Belittles You
This one is about your self-talk habits. You know the ones when you ask yourself questions like, “How could I be so stupid? ” or, “OMG what a screw-up! Could I not make a bigger mess of things? ” or, “Why do I do this to myself? I’m such an idiot!”
Yes, labeling is definitely going on here, but this is different. This is all about your expectations of yourself and how you talk to yourself when you fail to meet them.
Even with the loving-kindness and labeling practices, my expectations of myself continued to run high. My inner critic loved beating up on me for every mistake, failure, or setback, real or imagined. Then one day, a little voice made itself heard, “Not being very kind to yourself, are you?”
So leaning heavily on my loving-kindness practice, I struggled to be more tolerant of my mistakes. Asking myself questions that would produce a more positive response was a big help.
For example: “Nothing is a total failure. There has to be something positive about this. What is it?” Or, “Is this really a mistake? Did I really screw up? Is it possible the outcome is acceptable?”
Think about those harsh ways you talk to yourself and the questions you ask that belittle you. They may be old reruns of taunts and questions other people used on you to make you feel ashamed or to justify punishing you.
Replace them with questions that explore the circumstances of your mistake or setback. Remember to look for anything that could be construed as positive. Doing so will help you reform your demanding expectations.
Sometimes, positives can be hard to find. That’s when you really want to be nice to yourself. Do extra loving-kindness practices, and then ask yourself what you’ve learned from what happened.
Experience can be a harsh teacher. Owning up to what you’ve learned may not be an easy pill to swallow. There may not be a spoonful of sugar to help it go down, but it’s certainly more desirable than beating yourself up, isn’t it?
Small Changes Have Large Impacts
These changes are small but powerful because they open you up to possibilities that you may not have considered previously.
They help you stop being victimized by your own expectations by treating yourself more kindly, by helping you realize that judging other people is closely aligned with the labels and limitations you put on yourself, and by helping you see the positives in supposed failures and cut yourself some slack.
Changing habits of thought and behaviors is challenging, but if I can do this, you certainly can!
It all begins with a practice taking less than a minute, six times a day. It’s a small practice of showering yourself with loving-kindness.
It’s easy to start. It’s easy to do. Just repeat after me:
“May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be held in loving-kindness. May I realize loving-kindness as my essence.”
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Dealing with “Haters”: How to Rise Above the Negative
“The final proof of greatness lies in being about to endure criticism without resentment.” ~Elbert Hubbard
A splash of tequila to the unsuspecting open eyes is a brutal way to learn that someone has a problem with you.
My brother’s girlfriend was drunk at the time, and laughing so hard at the sting of my agony that she had a bathroom accident. I hadn’t provoked her in any way. It was just one of those things that make you wonder.
Later I would come to find out how much she secretly detested my academic success.
I didn’t understand it at first. I thought she loved me as if I were her younger sister. It eventually was revealed that she was one of those people who smiled to your face and talked badly about you to other people. Especially when you were in a place to shine.
That was the first time I realized that no matter what I did, there would people in this world who would seethe on the inside, just because I was who I was.
Does any of this sound familiar?
So, you’ve managed to kick start the old social dynamics domino effect of your success. The people who love you will support you and sing your praises. They will defend you in the sight of defamation, be there to toast your victories, and wipe your tears during your defeats.
And just when you really begin to shine, you hear it on the wind: someone has a problem with the way you look, the way you sing, dance, or flip veggie burgers. Maybe he or she even has a problem with the way you express yourself.
Our society calls them “haters.” Labeling these individuals as one-dimensional blots of hatred isn’t really the answer. Many of them have problems and are lost and misguided.
And some of them may even be good people who just happen to be succumbing to the twinge of the ego.
Here is where some of you are probably thinking, “that’s not my problem.”
My answer to this is simple. It will be your problem if you let it be. And for many years, I let it be my problem. The tequila thrower wasn’t the only instance, and I burdened myself with what I did to deserve such negative feedback.
Why didn’t these people like me? What could I do to stop them from “hating” on me? It took me years of inner spiritual exploration to discover one important fact:
If you zero in on the negativity of these people when they are in the throes of their negative spin, you will be anchoring yourself to their personal baggage and participating in their internal struggle.
In essence, you will be making their problem, your problem.
But to rise above the darkness is a little tough. Many times, it will seem that these people will do anything and everything to make you feel bad about yourself. In fact, you have to be a pretty secure person to be able to withstand any onslaught that is less than warm and fuzzy.
So how does one move forward in the face of ugliness?
For me it took a flip of perspective. I had to toughen up and see that people who throw tequila in your face when you’ve done nothing wrong are a part of our life’s transformative process.
1. Negative people will make you grow.
How many times have you cried yourself to sleep because of something one of these people said or did? How many times after did you pick yourself up and vow to get better, stronger, and less accessible to emotional pain by the hands of others? Whenever a “hater” becomes active in the energy of their negativity toward you, this becomes your time for growth.
You may fall down crying again or get angry. But you will often find a way to get better and grow beyond their criticism just to make certain that there is no validity in their claims.
2. They secretly want to be like you.
Envy is a special kind of cruelty serum. When a person becomes envious of another, it is always because they have admired a beloved trait in that person. Unfortunately, when they turn their focus inward in hopes of replicating your desirable characteristic, they find lack in their own lives.
It can be a pretty hard thing to want something that others have and believe that there is little chance that you can create this experience in your own reality. Instead of bringing out the best in themselves, they will often fixate on the object that reflects their inadequacies.
3. They are your success indicators.
If you’ve attracted the attention of people who take pleasure in criticizing your every move, chances are that you are a shining star and the world has started to take notice. People who have it in them to try to knock you off your high horse are telling you something on the soul level.
What are they saying?
“You are a trendsetter, a trailblazer, a person who leads and conquers. And since you’ve decided to make a name for yourself and step up with the big boys, I’m going to have to challenge your fortitude.”
4. They are your teachers.
Have you ever heard the expression that we pick our teachers? It is believed by many who thrive in awakened circles that we choose the people who will help us to grow the most in our lifetime.
We live in a physical world of polarities. In the expression of our physical experience, there is no light without dark, no good without evil.
The opposing forces in the world serve to give dimension, color, and context to our earthly experience. Under this perception, we can see that there can be no friend without the adversary. For what is a friend without the adversary to use as a comparative backdrop?
And it is the adversary that will give us some of our greatest lessons in our lives.
They will teach us to love ourselves, cause us to muster our strength and grow far beyond our perceived shortcomings. The truth is, these people come in all shapes and mentalities. We can talk about personal traits such as prejudice, ignorance, and natural born cruelty to name a few, that could be seen as the true causes of “hateration,” but all of this just falls into the category of the person’s inner darkness and lack of personal evolution.
The fact is this: Either they will purge through their garbage and learn to bring light inside of themselves, or they will stay stuck in their internal war. Either way you’ve got to find a way to deal with them while keeping your own light protected.
So how do we deal with the negativity? It’s all fun and games when we talk about it, but how do we actually begin to overcome when the negativity rears its head? It helps to start with this:
1. Free yourself of judgment.
Relinquish the desire to form an opinion about what these people are saying or doing. Attempt to see their actions as neither good nor bad, just background chatter of their internal struggle that has little to do with you and everything to do with them. Try not to take their criticisms personally.
2. Lead with compassion.
Understand that because of their negativity, they have a lot of internal work to do to become a whole person. See that they may potentially be in the midst of their own suffering, which is spawning their criticism. Realize that their negativity probably affects their relationships and their ability to transform and receive true inner wisdom.
That’s gotta suck.
3. Keep your eyes on the road.
You’ve been put on the planet for an important reason. You’ve gotten as far as you have by focusing on what you need to do. Anyone who is threatened by your positive performance is indicating that you’re doing things right.
Don’t look to the left. Don’t look to the right. Just stay grounded on your path and continue to surround yourself with people who build you up.
4. Forgive.
Forgive these people for raining on your parade and forgive yourself for forgetting your umbrella.
It’s okay to emote and react sometimes. You’re human. Cut yourself some slack. And if you’re really grown up, try to cut them some slack as well. We were not all created with the same level of pain tolerance, emotional endurance, and maturity level.
Now remember, these are just some guidelines that you may want to add to your toolbox. I have found that the most important thing to remember is that all of this is just part of the journey of discovering the self.
Angry egg image via Shutterstock
