Tiny Buddha

Tag: Mindfulness

  • How to Mindfully Calm Your Anger and Stop Doing Things You Regret

    How to Mindfully Calm Your Anger and Stop Doing Things You Regret

    “Neurologists claim that every time you resist acting on your anger, you’re actually rewiring your brain to be calmer and more loving.” ~Unknown

    One of the most impactful ways that mindfulness has changed my life is how I’m able to work with my feelings of anger.

    Anyone who has met me in recent years would never know how anger used to run my life. I often wish that people who are just now meeting me could realize the transformation I’ve gone through from my past. If people could see how mindfulness has changed me from an angry, irritable person who hated the world to a fun-loving, happy-go-lucky guy, I think everyone would give mindfulness a try.

    My mindfulness practice has allowed me to pay attention to what’s happening in my mind and body when anger is rising. I often call this the “volume knob” of anger, and I’ll dive a little more into that shortly.

    First, I want to give you a glimpse into my past so you can have a better frame of reference of where I used to be and where I’m at now through a practice of mindfulness.

    The Child of an Alcoholic

    I grew up as a child of an alcoholic mother, and this gave me a host of issues while growing up, but the biggest one was anger.

    I was extremely angry with my mom because I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t stop drinking for me. I thought that if she truly loved me, she’d be able to quit drinking for me, but she didn’t. My mom ended up getting sober when I was twenty years old, but it was twenty years too late, and I still had two decades of resentments toward her.

    Aside from the anger I had toward my mother, I had anger toward the rest of the world.

    Looking back on it, it seems completely insane (and it kind of was). It angered me growing up with kids who didn’t have to go through what I was going through in my home life. The kids I grew up with had great parents who made a decent amount of money and could buy them whatever they wanted. But it wasn’t just the material things; they actually had parents and family members who cared about them.

    A Life Full of Anger

    Being angry all the time was exhausting, but it was the only way I knew how to be. Because of this, I took my anger out on anyone who crossed paths with me.

    Although I wasn’t someone who got into many physical altercations growing up, I had words that were venom. I hurt many people throughout my life by saying the most hurtful things I could think of, and then I felt extremely guilty about it. While I thought that every woman I dated was at fault, I could look back at my past and see how toxic I was to anyone who had the misfortune of dating me.

    I forgot to mention that I turned into a drug addict and alcoholic myself around eighteen years old, but I managed to get sober on my twenty-seventh birthday in 2012.

    Part of the program of recovery that I work says that one of the main reasons we drink and use is because of resentments, which I could definitely relate to. Another part of this program is making amends. Making amends to the people I had hurt in my past was something that helped me forgive myself, but I’m also not a big fan of making amends.

    One of the issues with getting sober is that you don’t immediately become this spiritual being. I still had a lot of anger, and I still couldn’t control my temper. I was the epitome of someone who reacted rather than responded. Whenever I would react poorly, I had to humble myself to apologize. I needed to figure out a way to manage my anger before it got to that point, and that’s when I found mindfulness.

    Mindfulness is My Anger Management Tool

    I didn’t find mindfulness until I was three years sober. My anger wasn’t nearly as bad as it used to be, but it was still there. I knew that I still had a lot of self-improvement to do, so I gave mindfulness meditation a try.

    From the first time I tried meditating, I immediately understood how transformative it could be in my life, but I didn’t realize how much it would help me with my anger issues.

    One of the reasons I love the practice of mindfulness is because there are so many informal practices. As I started introducing different practices like mindful walking, mindful listening, and mindful communicating, I was becoming more mindful in my everyday life.

    What I began to realize was that I was only acknowledging my anger when I was ready to explode, and it was often something that had been building up for a while. Since I wasn’t recognizing the early triggers of my anger, I wasn’t able to deal with it before reacting in a way that I would regret.

    Some of the patterns of my anger triggers I started to recognize include:

    • Disrespected
    • Lied to
    • Being talked down to
    • Not being treated fairly
    • Not given credit
    • Not appreciated

    When I speak of the “volume knob” of anger, I mean that mindfulness has helped me begin catching my anger at a volume level of one or two rather than at a nine or ten. By the time my anger gets to the highest volume, it is controlling me rather than me controlling it.

    Being more mindful throughout my day has given me the opportunity to not only spot my anger in its earlier stages, but it’s also allowed me to treat it with compassion and curiosity.

    Now, when I feel that initial anger within my body or mind, I get really curious. I take a calm breath and simply think, “That’s interesting. Why am I feeling this way towards this person or situation?”

    Mindfulness helps declutter the mind and help me get to the root of what’s really happening within my own mind. Often times, I find that my anger is based on circumstances that are completely outside of my control, or they’re based on other circumstances that have nothing to do with the other person or people involved.

    Perhaps the most profound way that mindfulness has affected me is that it’s had me realize that my anger is often based on belief systems that are rather closed-minded.

    A Mindful Communication Practice

    A great practice you can begin using is mindful communication. This involves being fully present during a conversation, which involves listening while also being mindful of what your own mind and body are doing.

    I suggest you begin practicing this with someone who you may not get along with too well, but not someone who makes you overly emotional. This could be a coworker you’re not too fond of, a family member, or a friend in your inner circle. If this is too much for you, you can do it while browsing social media posts or watching the news.

    While communicating with this person, be mindful of the emotions rising in your body and the sensations you’re getting. Begin to notice what they’ve said that’s triggered this initial emotion and be aware of where you’re feeling sensations in your body.

    Rather than turning to judgment, just be curious. Be fascinated by why your body and mind are reacting the way they are in that moment. When you treat these thoughts and sensations with equanimity, you’re less likely to react poorly in the situation.

    When I speak of being fascinated, I mean to treat your experience with the curiosity of a child. This was one of my first lessons in mindfulness. When you’re being curious, you’re not judging. Inspect your experience like a child closely examining a leaf for the first time. This helps takes the power away from the strong emotion you’re feeling in that moment.

    This whole practice is extremely important because it gives us a chance to pause. When we pause, we’re able to respond rather than react. Reactions are often what the primitive part of our brain wants to do, and we don’t put much thought into it. This typically leads to regret and suffering. By being able to pause, and then respond, we make much wiser decisions.

    This is going to take practice until you have your temper under control, but over time, you’ll begin to reflect on situations that would have set you off. I’m personally amazed at how well my anger is managed today, and it’s something I continue to work on. Now that I know how to respond rather than react, I don’t find myself regretting the decisions I made out of a knee-jerk reaction to anger.

    As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I wish more people could truly understand how much mindfulness has changed me. Whenever I see senseless acts of violence such as domestic abuse, physical altercations between strangers, or even murder that happens due to somebody’s inability to manage their anger, I just think of how much different this world would be if more people learned this practice.

    My hope is to be an example to others when it comes to managing anger through mindfulness. If they can see how I respond to life’s difficulties on a daily basis, maybe they’ll decide to give this mindfulness thing a try.

  • I Spent Years Looking for Happiness in the Wrong Places

    I Spent Years Looking for Happiness in the Wrong Places

    “Never put the key to your happiness in someone else’s pocket.” ~Unknown

    About ten years ago I made the mistake of re-reading my journal from high school. Wow, was I ever a miserable, slightly unstable person.

    I dated the same (great) guy for three years, but looking back over my handwritten confessions, you would have thought I was dating Mussolini. I had endless complaints, wanted to control everything my boyfriend did, and every other word I wrote was a gripe. And this was about a guy I tried to get to notice me for months before he finally asked me out!

    This was not the last time getting something I thought would make me happy didn’t do the trick.

    When I graduated from college, I was really stuck on the idea of losing weight. I’d gained some in college, but even after I lost what I’d gained, there was no satisfied feeling.

    Nope, I spent the next couple of years trying to lose more weight, and even when I got to my most slender and random strangers told me I looked great, I was still unhappy. I still thought something was wrong with me and was always trying to change myself for the “better.”

    It was as if getting the thing I wanted all along wasn’t actually the missing piece to my contentment.

    Still, when I gained some of that weight I’d lost back (because it was impossible to maintain long term), I kept trying to lose it again. For years. Seriously, years. I let it control my life. All because I thought it would make me happy… even though there was no evidence that weight loss would bring me any closer to peace than it had the first time.

    Once I was able to let that go (with therapy, lots of self-help, the death of my father, and getting pregnant), I found somewhere else to place my hopes for happiness: my career.

    This had already been lingering in the back of my mind as something to “fix,” but I didn’t really start focusing on it until I stopped obsessing about my body and was at home full time with my daughter.

    I got certification upon certification, got a graduate degree, started multiple online businesses, and even got myself accepted to a second graduate program, which I withdrew from before it started, thank goodness.

    Even once I pinpointed a career focus that felt satisfying and right, I was not happy. I found so many reasons to be upset, from telling myself I would never be successful to worrying that I wasn’t good enough at my chosen profession, to beating myself up for not being like some random person I was comparing myself to on the internet.

    Still, it wasn’t until earlier this year that I finally saw clearly, for the first time ever, that nothing was going to make me happy. Not love, not changing my body, not money, not my career.

    Before you write me a prescription for antidepressants, let me clarify: No thing will make me happy. And by thing, I mean external situation.

    Yes, it’s exciting to have a success in my business. My wedding day was lovely. Holding my daughter for the first time was miraculous.

    But all of those things are fleeting. Achievements and milestones can only lift the mood temporarily.

    Long lasting contentment is possible, though. I just wasn’t looking for it in the right place. I spent decades looking outside instead of inside.

    Now that I know what to do, I can access peace at just about any moment of my day. It’s not the giddy happiness of getting asked out for the first time by a long haired boy in a Nirvana T-shirt, but it’s steady, and it’s deep, and it’s long lasting.

    Here are some ways I access that still, yet joyful part of myself, no matter how much I weigh or how much money I’m making.

    1. I take the focus away from the past and the future and place them on the now.

    Let’s say I look out the window and see that the sunset is absolutely spectacular, and I go outside to take a closer look.

    Things can go a couple different ways at this point. I could see the sunset and let my thoughts run away with me, telling me things like, “go get your phone and post this on Instagram!” or “Oh my gosh this reminds me of that sunset I saw with my husband when we were up in New York and then it got so cold and then the baby got sick and we had to take her to urgent care because we couldn’t figure out what was wrong and the place was out of network and we got this huge bill and that was right before we realized the car needed a new transmission…”
    I think you get the idea. I’m definitely not experiencing or deriving any happiness from the sunset at this point.

    The other way to experience the sunset is to try to keep yourself physically in the present moment, enjoying what is happening around you right now.

    Feel the breeze on your skin. Feel the way your stomach rises and falls while you breathe. Feel the way there is an energy, almost an aliveness in your hands and fingers. Try to see the sunset without labeling it, and if your mind starts taking you away from enjoying the sunset, gently bring its attention back to the beauty around you and the sensations you’re experiencing in your body.

    2. I breathe. And I pay attention while I do it.

    This is really just another way to quiet the mind. Because quieting the mind is the only way to feel lasting happiness.

    Getting a boyfriend didn’t make me happy because my mind constantly came up with reasons things should be different. Losing weight didn’t make me happy because I was constantly thinking about the ways my body should be better. My career has brought more stress than joy because I think about it, what it should and shouldn’t be, instead of just letting it exist as it is.

    So back to the breathing thing. Breathing brings you into your body and out of your head. Breathing gives your mind something to focus on instead of your (negative) thoughts. Breathing brings you to the present.

    3. I consciously remove the pressure from my life circumstances.

    Here’s what all my past disappointments have had in common: me expecting them to make me happy. That’s not working for me anymore.

    Maybe it sounds sad or disappointing to you, but realizing that external situations, things society in general celebrates as success, aren’t going to do anything for my well-being is incredibly liberating.

    Once you realize that a promotion, that a baby, that a new dress isn’t going to make you happy, you’re free. You can still enjoy those things, of course you can, but you don’t have to put the entire weight of your happiness on them.

    So where does that leave us? It leaves us in the moment. Breathing now, creating space in our minds now. It leaves us quiet, still. It leaves us able to let go of judgment, of doubt, of chaos. It lets joy flow through us instead of making us cling to every compliment from a stranger or new pair of shoes.

    You can do this, too. You can allow your life to unfold instead of pressuring it and yourself to look a certain way. You can find a lasting happiness that you’ve never known possible. You just have to stop expecting it to come from a place outside of you.

  • Why Positive Thinking Drained Me (and How I’ve Found Peace)

    Why Positive Thinking Drained Me (and How I’ve Found Peace)

    “Glimpses of love and joy or brief moments of deep peace are possible whenever a gap occurs in the stream of thought.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Eleven years ago I read a book that was life changing for me. It taught me something I never considered during the previous twenty-nine years—that I could change my thoughts.

    The book was Loving What Is, by Byron Katie. It set me forth on a journey that included dozens of books that communicated the same thing: We think the same thoughts all day long, over and over, and many of them are negative, filled with worry, and not at all helpful. And we have the power to change those thoughts.

    I’ve lived by that belief ever since—that I have the power to change my thoughts and that reframing negative thoughts to better ones makes my life happier.

    This year, though, I hit a wall. Although my life and confidence and sense of self have improved tremendously in the past decade, some things were still not as I wished them to be.

    I felt unhappy much more often than I would have liked. I felt a low level anxiety on and off most days. I worried about money frequently. I just didn’t feel the way I wanted to feel.

    I kept reading more books. I kept trying to find a way to be consistently positive. I remember one weekend when I was feeling down I just repeated positive phrases to myself over and over all day long, but felt like I was barely keeping my head above water.

    In fact, it was the very next day that I hit a breaking point. My mind was tired from trying so, so hard to be positive all the time. I was struggling to keep it together and to stay upbeat.

    That morning I took my daughter to her swimming lesson, the first after a weeklong break, and things started to unravel. I wasn’t sitting where she expected me to be, she got upset, and after she found me, she clung to me. She wouldn’t get back in the water. She wouldn’t do what I wanted.

    I got frustrated. I got angry. In fact, when I looked back over the previous few weeks, I saw I’d been getting angry a lot lately. It was as if the harder I pushed myself to be positive, the more resentful I got about what I didn’t have.

    Eventually I calmed down. I brought my daughter home but still felt tied up in knots. I expressed anger to my husband, I cried, I felt out of control.

    By the next day the fog had lifted. I knew I couldn’t keep going like I had been. I knew forcing myself to try to be positive all the time was not the answer and was completely unsustainable for the long term.

    That’s when I picked up my copy of The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I’ve had this book on my shelf for probably that entire eleven years I was trying to change my thoughts, but I’d never read it. I guess I just wasn’t ready for it.

    Tolle tells the reader what he knows to be the truth: What’s happening in this moment is the only thing that’s ever real, and the only thing that ever matters. The mind wants us to worry about the future and ruminate about the past. But that is what keeps us disconnected, and separate from inner peace.

    I finally felt, deeply, what I’d been missing for all those years: That for me to feel completely free I didn’t need to keep trying to think positively, I needed to stop attaching to my thoughts at all.

    This has been such an enormous shift for me that it’s hard for me to even put it into words. I spent so much time, so much energy, trying to reframe thoughts, to question if they were true, to choose thoughts that felt better, and now I feel free from that.

    There’s absolutely nothing wrong with reframing your thoughts. Nothing at all. It did improve my life, and it will improve yours if you’re used to believing everything your thoughts tell you.

    But, for me at least, it’s no longer the way to a better life. Noticing my thoughts and just letting them go by brings me greater inner peace than I have ever felt.

    Here’s what I’m doing differently now that I’ve had this realization.

    I’m no longer setting specific goals. I’m a bit start-and-stop on setting goals anyway, but for now I’ve just stopped setting them completely. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to get things done, it just means I’m not putting a lot of energy into letting my mind come up with a big list of things it “should” be doing.

    None of that really means anything. Yes, making more money or being more “successful” in my work might mean more travel or newer shoes, but that does not lead to sustained peace.

    Being right here, observing what’s happening in this moment, is what leads to sustained peace.

    I’m not trying to think positively. This is a big change and a positive one for me (oh, the irony!). Trying to think positively all the time was truly energy draining for me.

    This non-attachment to thought, though, is peaceful. It’s not easy, and it does take some effort, but I don’t feel like I’m trying to push an elephant through a keyhole with my mind anymore. Having glimpses of being truly present is fun and joyful.

    I’m coming back to the present moment over and over and over again. I’ve been saying “be here now” and “be mindful” for years now, but I’m not sure I really, truly got what that meant.

    What it means to me now is this: Breathe in and notice what it feels like. Notice what the inside of your body feels like. Look around you but don’t make judgments about what you see. When thoughts start to fill in the empty spaces, stop them. Refocus on what’s happening in this exact moment.

    I’m noticing when my mind is racing. In the past, I’d probably try to think happier thoughts. If my head was full of thoughts about how much I had to get done, I’d try to soothe myself with “I have time to do what’s most important” or something similar.

    Now when I notice my mind is racing, I see it as a reminder to get back to the present moment. If my mind is running away with thoughts, then I’m mostly definitely not in the here and now.

    I breathe. I look around. I see that my mind doesn’t want to stop thinking. It’s afraid to lose its job.

    No matter what you choose, if you want to live a more peaceful life, you’re going to have to make a change.

    You may choose to observe your thoughts and then switch them to ones that feel better. Or, like I’ve done recently, you may choose to go beyond your thoughts to the moment that’s unfolding right now. To stop letting your thoughts, good or bad, have any power over your life.

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

    Even in the Hospital, He Found Joy in the Now

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • How to Just Be: 5 Life Lessons I Learned from Watching Sunsets

    How to Just Be: 5 Life Lessons I Learned from Watching Sunsets

    “Never waste any amount of time doing anything important when there is a sunset outside that you should be sitting under!” ~C. JoyBell C.

    “You need to just be.”

    At the time I didn’t understand my teacher’s words. My identity entwined itself with my ambition.

    I fought inner emptiness by overloading my calendar.

    I fought loneliness by never leaving time to be with myself.

    I fought depression by trying to do more.

    None of it worked.

    And the answer repeated itself, quiet and strong, “You need to just be.”

    Fortunately, my teacher was too wise to only tell me to do less when she could see that I was clinging to busyness like a life preserver. Instead, she gently showed me where to look for more.

    These are some of the lessons I learned more than thirty years ago when my teacher challenged me to meet her in an empty lot, walking distance from my house, on the side of a busy suburban Phoenix road. Day after day, we watched the sunset there together.

    Lesson #1: Live deep.

    There were beautiful parks in the area where I lived. Most people would have chosen a professionally landscaped setting, complete with benches, and maybe even a fountain, to watch the sunset.

    But that was too much like my overly manicured life.

    Instead, we sat in the dirt. The only landscaping to speak of was the sagebrush that dotted that lot.

    And it was magical.

    Driving by that empty lot at fifteen miles per hour, it seemed desolate. Dry. Unforgiving. But moving through it step by step, I discovered life.

    I watched the birds and lizards. I discovered tiny desert flowers. The smell of sage permeated everything. Beneath the surface of what appeared dead was the beauty I had been searching for.

    My feet on the ground there took me, step by step, out of the insecurities and discouragement in my own head. Slowly, wordlessly, I began to believe in something alive and beautiful in myself too.

    Beneath the layers of busyness and loneliness and pain, I glimpsed happiness, and I was ready to live it again.

    Lesson #2: The best part of the day probably isn’t in the schedule.

    Life is a process, not an event.

    Yet our culture socializes us to function as though joy can be predicted, scheduled, and completed in orderly increments.

    Sunsets rebel against google calendar.

    The time of the sunset shifts from day to day as the season progresses. The only way to experience the sunset is to be mindful of what is happening in the natural world, and to adapt.

    It’s practice for life, when people need us at inconvenient times, and opportunities emerge when we least expect them.

    It’s an invitation to listen to our own overscheduled hearts. To notice the rhythms of our spirits—whether we need quiet or company, challenge or rest.

    Most of all, it’s a reminder to open to the happiness right in front of us.

    I had gone through life telling myself I would be happy once I reached the next milestone or achieved the next goal. Problem was, the finish line was constantly shifting. As soon as I reached one goal, I replaced it with another.

    Watching sunsets interrupted that pattern by literally interrupting whatever else I had scheduled and training me to stop, look around, and notice beauty.

    How much happiness are you missing because you don’t have time to notice it?

    Lesson #3: It’s about the unfolding.

    Let’s face it: No one cares whether you watch the sunset. It’s not an accomplishment to list on a resume, or even an item for a checklist.

    And that’s the point.

    The value in watching a sunset comes in being present through the process. And every part of that process is beautiful. Life is the same.

    Often, we want to skip ahead through the parts that are slow or painful or lonely, and to freeze at a single moment of achievement. Or ideally, consummate joy.

    But life keeps moving. And that’s okay.

    Until my teacher’s invitation, I don’t think I had ever taken the time to sit and watch an entire sunset from beginning to end. I certainly didn’t do it regularly.

    On a good day I might have glanced up and noticed a moment of beauty in the western sky. I might even have snapped a picture. But then I went back to whatever I was doing.

    Watching the whole process is different.

    I learned that there is no single moment. The evening horizon is a constantly shifting tapestry. And it’s the interplay of light and dark, of clear sky and clouds, that creates the beauty.

    So too in our lives. Joy unfolds in a mixture of light and darkness, and every part of the journey is beautiful.

    Lesson 4: Create memories.

    Many things about my teenage years are a blur. But not those evenings sitting under a sagebrush watching the sunset. Relationships are nourished and lessons transmitted when we intentionally create memories.

    My teacher was good at that.

    When I visited her home, she served me tea. That was because you can’t gulp hot drinks, she explained. And slowing down enough to gradually sip helps you to just be.

    We planted tomatoes together, and then sat in the grass, and watched birds and earthworms. In retrospect, I don’t think she gardened regularly besides that experience with me. But she wanted me to feel dirt on my hands. To smell sunshine. To remember feeling a connection with nature, and with myself.

    Once she turned up the air conditioning and lit a fire in her fireplace in the Phoenix summer heat. She did it because she thought I needed the meditative experience of sitting by a fire, regardless of the 120-degree temperature outside.

    And although I now choose to sit by a river or the ocean when I want a to feel meditative in the summer, in creating that experience for me she made a lasting impression.

    People matter. Our emotional well-being matters. The moments we create together matter.

    Years later, when I had moved several states away and was feeling lost and discouraged for different reasons, my teacher packaged a giant sagebrush in a huge oversize box and shipped it to me.

    For a reminder.

    Lesson #5: Ending are also beginnings.

    When you’re sitting in the desert, listening to the insects, watching the evolution of the evening sky, there is no ending. As the colors of the day fade, the stars begin to appear. And as the desert cools from the daytime sunshine, nocturnal animals bring increasing life and energy.

    I realized that even though I came to watch the close of day, there was never a final curtain. There was only a continuation.

    Life is like that too.

    Change happens.

    But even the changes that seem abrupt and complete—like the difference between day and night—also have strands of continuity and connection.

    She taught me, without saying it, to look for opportunities for growth in my challenges, and to trust the process.

    When my beloved teacher was diagnosed with cancer two decades later, she shared her hopes and reflections as she watched her own death approach. She was curious, open. In all of our conversations I didn’t hear her express fear about her future, although she was often concerned for me.

    She shouldn’t have been.

    She had given me the tools I needed twenty years earlier, in a dusty field, on the side of a road, in the fading light.

  • Free 5-Day Mindfulness Challenge – Interview with Mindful in May Founder Elise Bialylew

    Free 5-Day Mindfulness Challenge – Interview with Mindful in May Founder Elise Bialylew

    Every year, I share a little about Mindful in May, a month-long online meditation program that can dramatically improve your state of your mind and your life, while also transforming the lives of others living in poverty.

    This year, I was grateful to connect with Mindful in May founder Elise Bialylew to learn more about the program; how mindfulness can help with depression, anxiety, and chronic stress; and how you can you can get a free taste of the already dramatically discounted program from April 8th through 12th.

    Here’s what Elise had to say…

    1. Can you tell us a little about yourself and why you decided to launch Mindful in May?

    I was always deeply curious about the human condition and the ingredients that are required to live a thriving life. At medical school, I remember being completely blown away as I held a human brain in my hands and wondered how a one kilogram mass could house a lifetime of memories, thoughts, and desires.

    Studying medicine, although at times was so difficult, gave me a deep appreciation for the miracle of the body and the preciousness of life.

    As I moved deeper into my career I discovered that while psychiatry helped save people’s lives, it often left the flourishing part of the equation to other professionals. I also realized that this was the part of the journey I was most passionate about. I wanted to support people in thriving, not just surviving.

    It was during my own search for greater clarity, meaning, and a way to manage the stress of my everyday life in the wards, that I truly committed to meditation.

    When I started learning mindfulness I had no idea how deeply it would transform my life.

    One morning, I was sitting in meditation when a phrase appeared in my mind, flashing like a neon light: “Mindful in May.” The phrase grew into an idea to create an online global mindfulness fundraising campaign each year during May, where people could be taught about mindfulness by the world’s best experts and dedicate the month to making a positive difference in the world, by raising funds for global poverty—specifically bringing clean, safe drinking water to those in need.

    This was the beginning of a new path that would answer the call of my longing to make a positive difference in a more far-reaching way than prescribing medication and facilitating small group meetings. It was an idea that integrated three of my passions: mindfulness, social impact, and community.

    For me, mindfulness meditation has been life changing. It’s taught me so much about how to manage stressful situations and equipped me to manage my emotions more skilfully, both in my personal and professional relationships. Of course it’s still a work in progress—there’s never an end to learning and growing but so far it’s transformed my life and career path for the better.

    The fact that we now understand that the way we use our minds can literally change our brains and our genetic expression, is an exciting finding that has re-inspired me along my career path and led me to create Mindful in May.

    In the developed world most of us have our material and survival needs met, but it’s our minds that cause so much of our suffering. The World Health Organisation states that depression is now the second leading cause of global burden of disease.

    In the developing world it’s something as basic as clean water that creates so much suffering.

    Mindful in May addresses both of these global issues by offering people a way to learn how to train their attention, develop their awareness, and become masters rather than slaves of their minds, while helping to raise funds to build clean water wells in the developing world.

    2. Who is this program ideally suited for?

    The program offers daily content and support including an online interactive community where participants can get their questions answered and connect with other likeminded people from around the world.

    Each year complete beginners and more experienced meditators can join the one month program and, no matter their experience, find it hugely valuable. There’s something for everyone in here and most people who do it once, come back again and again each year to deepen their knowledge and practice.

    3. How many people have participated since you launched, and what kind of feedback have they shared about their experience?

    We’ve had thousands of people from over forty countries participate, and each year we hear of the profound benefits people experience.

    Although I was hearing thousands of anecdotes each year about how the program was transforming people’s lives, I wanted science to support this finding. So we completed a pilot research study a few years ago that was published in the Mindfulness Journal which suggested that ten minutes of meditation a day over the one month program, was enough to bring tangible benefits.

    Specifically, research revealed that participants experienced greater presence and focus, reduced stress, reduced negative emotions, and more positive emotions and overall described a greater sense of flourishing in life.

    As well as these benefits, the research suggested that the more you practice meditation the more mindful you get, and the more mindful you get the more you experience positive emotions.

    4. So many of us today struggle with depression, anxiety, and chronic stress. How can mindfulness help us better cope with these challenges and life’s daily struggles?

    Each year more than 1,000 studies come out exploring the benefits of mindfulness in different domains. There is very solid research around the benefits of mindfulness in the realm of mental health.

    A group of psychologists in England (Mark Williams, John Teasdale and Zindel Segal) conducted a study of patients who had suffered multiple episodes of depression. Incredibly, they found that mindfulness practice was at least as effective in preventing depressive relapse as maintenance antidepressants—without any of the side effects. A later study building on this discovery found that mindfulness practice could nearly halve the risk of depressive relapse.

    Another groundbreaking study revealed that regular mindfulness meditation increased amounts of the enzyme Telomerase, which protects DNA from age and stress-related damage, suggesting that meditation can protect our cells from age-related damage that comes with stress.

    Although genetics undeniably has an influence on our mental health, the new science offers a more empowering perspective, where we can, to some extent, become sculptors of our own brains by practicing mindfulness.

    5. What, have you found, are the other key benefits of practicing mindfulness?

    Mindfulness offers us a way to see more clearly and be more aware of what’s happening within us and around us in the world. With this greater self-awareness and present moment attention we become better at:

    • Being aware of our emotions and responding to them rather than reacting
    • Having better access to what we really want in our lives and then taking action to make that happen
    • Recognizing thoughts and letting them go rather than getting stuck in obsessive planning or worrying
    • Managing our stress
    • Being in relationships with others with less conflict
    • Communicating more effectively as we are more aware of why we are feeling what we are feeling
    • Staying focussed at work and being less prone to multitasking
    • Falling asleep at night as we have a tool to settle the mind
    • Making decisions that are aligned with what we truly value

    6. What do you think are the biggest obstacles to starting and maintaining a meditation practice, and how can Mindful in May help people do just that?

    I’ve found over the years of teaching that there are many misconceptions about what meditation is, and this means people come to the practice with expectations that set them up for failure. One of the biggest misconceptions is that meditation is about stopping your thoughts.

    Meditation isn’t about stopping your thoughts but rather recognizing and becoming more aware of thoughts so that you are less caught in the impact they can have on you. Although as you practice for longer periods the mind certainly does settle, you can never stop the mind from thinking.

    Just like the heart beats, the lungs breathe, and the eyes see, the mind thinks. So when you sit to meditate and notice the constant stream of thoughts, you realize that this is part of meditation, and so it becomes less of a challenge as you stop battling with your own mind.

    There are other challenges to meditating whether that’s boredom, sleepiness, or restlessness, and these are all predictable obstacles that have been described for thousands of years in the ancient texts. Thankfully, meditators from centuries before us have faced these challenges and have come up with ways of working with these challenges, which support you to go deeper into the practice and experience the benefits that lie beyond these obstacles.

    I created Mindful in May with all of these obstacles in mind, and each week I offer direct ways of working through these challenges. I think this really helps people finally get beyond barriers they’ve previously experienced and they start to experience the deep benefits of the practice.

    One of the other big challenges for all of us is finding the time, prioritizing meditation, and making it a habit. We cover this challenge as well, and I feature guests who are experts in habit formation and behavior change. So it’s not just a meditation course that people are getting, it’s really an integrative program that helps people learn the tool of meditation but also learn how to create lasting positive change in their lives.

    7. As part of the program, you feature interviews with more than a dozen mindfulness experts. Looking at the lineup, I’m sure these were all powerful, inspiring conversations! But can you share a couple key insights from these interviews—ideas that you think have the potential to change participants’ lives?

    Critically acclaimed author and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, Dan Siegel, offers fascinating new research on the benefits of mindfulness and its ability to slow the ageing process, reduce inflammation, and lower both blood pressure and cholesterol.

    He delves into interesting discoveries around mind wandering, explaining that, …”it’s not that unhappiness leads to mind wandering, but, it appears … not being present is making you unhappy. Even if your mind is wandering toward fun things—I’m going to go on a trip to Hawaii or I’m going to go to a fun ski trip, or whatever—that actually isn’t the issue. Somehow being in the present moment and literally having presence is associated with happiness and well-being.”

    Mark Epstein, an NYC Bestselling author and psychiatrist, discusses what anger, restlessness, and worry can teach us about ourselves, and why “letting go” does not necessarily mean letting go of thoughts and emotions. He says, “Letting go does not mean releasing the thing that’s bothering you, trying to get rid of it only makes it stronger. Letting go has more to do with patience than it does with release.”

    8. I know you offer a free five-day mindfulness challenge to offer a taste of Mindful in May. What does that challenge entail, and how can interested parties sign up?

    I know how powerful the Mindful in May program is, but I also know that there are so many offerings online it can be hard for people to discern whether programs are really going to deliver what they promise. So, that’s why I offer a free program, to give people a chance to get a taste and discover the incredibly valuable learning and tools inside.

    The FREE 5 Days To Mindfulness program runs from April 8th-12th, and when you register you get:

    • Daily emails for five days with mindfulness teaching and guided meditations
    • Access to a fascinating video teaching with world leading Stanford mindfulness expert and professor of psychology Kelly McGonical—you’ll learn practical tools that will transform your stress and life for the better!
    • Guided meditations that will help you find greater focus and calm (and take less than ten minutes!)
    • Support from a like minded online community where you’ll be held accountable to stay on track during your five-day training.
    • Experience the power of meditating in community with people around the world through a LIVE online guided meditation with Elise to help you access greater calm and relaxation in the busyness of your life

    9. If people enjoy the free challenge, how can they get involved in the month-long campaign?

    To register for the one month Mindful in May program they need to simply register here.

    When they register they’ll get:

    • Guided meditations from the world’s best meditation teachers including meditations for relaxation, improved focus, better sleep, greater emotional balance, managing difficult emotions like anxiety and anger and more.
    • Sixteen+ exclusive video interviews with mindfulness experts, and neuroscientists including Daniel Siegel, James Baraz, Mark Epstein, and many more…
    • Daily emails to make meditation a habit
    • Access to the online community to help them stay accountable, connected and regularly meditating

    This world-class meditation program is normally $300, but for the month of May, we drop the price to just $49. This gives you a chance to donate some of the difference to the cause. So it’s a win, win—a clear mind for you and clean water for others.

    You can make an optional donation and or create a fundraising page and get sponsored to meditate for ten minutes a day throughout May.

    Every $50 you raise will transform the life of one person through giving them the gift of clean safe drinking water.

    —

    In case you missed the many links throughout this post, you can join the free 5-day challenge here, or get signed up for the full month-long Mindful in May program here. I hope you find the program helpful, friends!

  • Experience the Benefits of Mindfulness: Join eM Life’s Free One Percent Challenge

    Experience the Benefits of Mindfulness: Join eM Life’s Free One Percent Challenge

    Whether you’re a regular reader here or you just found your way to Tiny Buddha recently, odds are you’re familiar with the practice of mindfulness, but you may not be aware of the many benefits.

    A regular mindfulness practice can not only boost your mood, reduce your stress level, and help you be less reactive, it can also enhance your creativity, improve your sleep, and increase your resilience so you’re better able to handle life’s varied disappointments and challenges.

    And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Studies have shown that a regular mindfulness practice can also give you a higher pain threshold, lower your blood pressure, and even slow down neurogenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia.

    On a basic level mindfulness is being present and aware of what’s going on within and around you, without judgment. In theory, it sounds simple—it’s simply being where you are. But our minds can be loud and busy, and finding freedom from our thoughts isn’t easy, which is why we need to make mindfulness a regular practice.

    Just fourteen minutes of daily practice—one percent of your day—can help you experience the healing, calming benefits of mindfulness in your everyday life. And eM Life’s One Percent Challenge can help you make this a habit.

    eM Life’s One Percent Challenge

    Each day of this online challenge, you’ll be able to access interactive sessions to help you deepen your mindfulness practice. You can participate live or on demand and immediately exercise the skills you’ve learned with clear strategies for how to integrate them into your daily life.

    By participating in this challenge, you’ll learn to quiet your mind by devoting attention to your breath and body, and to practice awareness so you’re less apt to get swept up worries, fears, and unnecessary drama.

    The One Percent Challenge is a free, simple way to dramatically transform your life. With just fourteen minutes a day, you’ll cultivate a sense of insight and peace and will be better able to mindfully pause, reflect, and make the choices that best support your health and well-being.

    You might even find that after committing fourteen minutes and beginning to experience a positive shift, you feel inspired to practice for longer, which will deepen the benefits.

    Give Back While Giving Yourself Peace

    By participating in eM Life’s One Percent Challenge, you’re facilitating charitable donations to a number of worthy causes. The more people who practice, and the more minutes they complete, the greater eM Life’s donations to the following organizations:

    Mental Health America

    The country’s leading nonprofit dedicated to helping break the stigma around mental health

    ShatterProof

    An organization with a mission to change the conversation about addiction through advocating for research, resources, and change

    The Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation

    An organization that provides children with opportunities to participate in safe and impactful fitness, nutrition, and enrichment programs

    Earn Rewards

    After completing ten, twenty, and thirty days of mindfulness sessions, you’ll unlock wellness-focused rewards, like a 1:1 mindfulness session with one of eM Life’s world-class instructors, a Garmin vivomove® HR Smartwatch, a Mindful Daily Practice Guide to keep your mindfulness journey going, and much more.

    Make this the year you cultivate mindfulness for a more present, peaceful life, and you’ll not only reap the many rewards, you’ll also make a positive difference for countless people in need.

    You can register for eM Life’s One Percent Challenge here. I hope it’s helpful to you!

  • The Mountain of Should by Brady Gill

    Many people are living inauthentic lives because of all the “shoulds” they are listening to. Some “shoulds” are from their friends and family, some are from the world around them, and many are the voice inside their own head.

    The Mountain of Should reminds us that “shoulds” are a universal experience. It inspires us to imagine what it might take to let go of those “shoulds” and what is possible when we do.

  • Music for Painters by Michael Spivack

    As a composer and producer I’ve always felt my path would lead to some kind of deeper connection with the mindfulness movement and that my work was meant to provide healing and nourishment to others while offering me the joyous vehicle of benevolent creation.

    The seed for my recently debuted functional ambient music project, Music for Painters, was planted in early 2006 when I ran into a simple problem: I needed to find a way to use music as a protective bubble so that I could focus on pen and ink drawings in busy parks, coffee shops, and subway cars in New York City.

    I noticed that listening to music on my headphones helped drown out the noise but could have other undesirable effects depending on what I was listening to. Pop music pulled my attention and emotional awareness in too many directions, while hip hop, trance, jazz, and EDM all modulated my moods in ways that I found counterproductive to the art.

    After weeks of research, I stumbled upon Brian Eno’s genre-defining ambient works from the late 1970’s. The first time I sat down with my sketchpad and put on “Ambient 1: Music for Airports” I knew I was on the right track.

    The non-invasive, neutral yet beautiful soundscapes seemed to activate a force field of pleasant equanimity around my brain. It provided the right amount of stimulation and aesthetic smoothness to serve the function I needed it to. Soon after, I set my course on developing a methodology that would lead to numerous sonic sculptures that would become my project’s seminal works.

    Twelve years and a career in pop music production later, I’ve finally debuted Music for Painters publically with the premier of “Sitting on a Pale Blue Dot,” a thirty-minute musical sculpture inspired by the iconic 1990 photograph from the Voyager 1 mission which inspired the title of the late astrophysicist and humanitarian Carl Sagan’s 1994 book exploring mankind’s place in the universe.

    The exercise of perspective, in this case the perspective of our home planet as one unified ball of light, is a very powerful tool in cultivating mindfulness and allowing a break in the habitual negative thought cycles that can drain our daily energy reservoirs and threaten our ability to feel grateful; one of the pillars of true happiness.

    I’ve learned on my own spiritual journey that it takes conscious attention each day to cultivate a sense of connection to the gratefulness that already exists inside of me. Music for Painters is my offering to people looking for a healthy aide towards a better sense of connection with themselves.

    By providing stable textural spaces designed to allow the conscious mind to slow down, create space, and to express itself freely, it can be used as a meditative or self-reflective aide; a safe place to focus on mindfulness practices or discover personal truths that may be obscured by the noise of daily life. Try listening in different environments and see how your observations change.

  • What Expecting to Die Young Taught Me About Living a Happy Life

    What Expecting to Die Young Taught Me About Living a Happy Life

    “I’ve come to trust not that events will always unfold exactly as I want, but that I will be fine either way. The challenges we face in life are always lessons that serve our soul’s growth.” ~ Marianne Williamson

    At the age of nine, I was sitting in a doctor’s office at Baylor University with both of my parents when we were all told I wouldn’t live to see twenty-three. The doctor casually told us my dad would probably never get to walk me down the aisle and I’d likely never make my mom a grandmother, but there was great chicken pot pie in the cafeteria on the first floor.

    Enjoy the rest of your day.

    Eight months later, on my tenth birthday, the possibility of my dad walking me down the aisle was permanently taken away when he died suddenly of an aortic and thoracic aneurysm. He had the same genetic abnormality I have, which caused the aneurysm, so by my logic, confirmed by the doctors, my demise was not far behind.

    I had no idea the day I turned ten, the day I lost my dad, my misguided and broken heart gifted me a license to be entitled and reckless until the day I died. Which, according to the medical community, wasn’t that far away.

    Let me back the medical drama bus up back to the day in Texas at the hospital just for a quick, minor detail to note.

    That day my dad and I were simultaneously diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Marfan Syndrome.

    In a very tiny nutshell, it’s a connective tissue disorder found on the fibrillin one gene. It essentially weakens all connective tissue in the body. The result is a body whose heart, lungs, eyes, and spine are severely impacted. A prominent and common feature with this condition is “abnormal” height. People affected are relatively tall (I’m 6’2”, my dad was 6’9”).

    For precautionary purposes, we both stopped participating in any activities that raise the heartbeat, to decrease the risk of having an aneurysm or potentially causing damage to the face due to dislocation of the lens in the eye.

    No contact sports, no exercising, no gym at school. I was basically told I could walk, bowl, or golf. I hated sports anyway, so I was excited to not have to dress for gym.

    This consequently led to a lifetime of comments like “You don’t play basketball or volleyball?! That’s a shame!” or “Omg, you’re so tall!” As if I wasn’t already painfully aware, but I digress…

    Point being, I was told from a very young age on a fairly regular basis, “You can’t.” So I learned to habitually answer, “I can’t” every time someone asked me to do pretty much anything.

    What possible negative effects could this have?

    I couldn’t see it at the time, but this led to a lifetime of constantly assessing every situation based on whether it was going to speed up my untimely death or not.

    I didn’t learn how to question whether or not I liked things but whether or not it was something that was going to kill me sooner or later. In turn, I missed a million opportunities to get to know who I was as a young woman.

    All I knew and all I was told were all the things I couldn’t do all the time.

    This short-term life span turned my life into a short-term life plan. Soon enough the emotional pains of being a teenager and the new kid in high school, along with unresolved daddy issues, kicked into high gear, and I had no idea how to deal with any of it.

    So, I drank. A lot.

    The rest of high school and most of college was a blur. I got married at twenty-three because, well, time was running out for me. And then, when I was twenty-four, doctors told me my life expectancy had suddenly increased to forty.

    (If there’s one emoji to express how I felt it would be the face with the wide eyes and red cheeks that looks like he would say “Oh sh*t!” if he could talk.)

    I panicked and started trying to speed up the clock. Living wasn’t for me. I wasn’t raised to live; I was raised to die. Live all the places, have a baby, buy the stuff, laugh all the laughs, and then die.

    This is where my excessive drinking turned into full-blown alcoholism and prescription drug addiction.

    I was either going to OD or make my heart explode, but I wasn’t going to stick around. I must note that none of this was planned, intentional, or a suicide mission. In my mind at the time, I literally didn’t know what else to do, not even how to ask for help.

    So, someone asked for help for me. Rehab is a whole other blog.

    I’m thirty-nine now, well past my expiration date, and still learning how to live life today. In my drinking days, life revolved around morbid reflection. In early sobriety, life revolved around morbid projection. Today life revolves around just this day. This hour. This moment.

    When one of my coaches asks me to journal about how I want my life to look in five years or where I want my business to be long term, I still don’t know how to answer that.

    I don’t understand long term. And for the longest time, I always thought that to be a nightmarish curse. Until now. 

    My inability to see life long-term seems to be all the rage these days. There’s Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, and Deepak Chopra all preaching about being present, being here now, and being there with the spirit of love, and I’m over here wondering how long the two-week wait to hear if this gets published is going to feel or if I’ll be around to see it go live.

    When you think about it, we’re all terminal. No one gets out of here alive. Yet we all run around like we’re going to cheat death.

    We run out of joy staying married to jobs, people, and places we are no longer passionate about. We’ve forgotten how to be happy because we’ve made it so elusive.

    It only feels elusive because we’ve spent our time wrong. We’ve spent our time focusing on how we can create a living for ourselves instead of how to create a life for our hearts, and the only way to do that is to get to know yourself first.

    In designing my life by listening to my heart, I discovered a few things along the way.

    I learned that we habitually state we are human beings, but we spend too much time doing. We get stuck in the how and what next instead of being right where our feet are in that moment. I learned to create space and presence for life to happen organically instead of allowing my mind to race with perceived fears.

    Living in each moment used to mean living as recklessly as possible and constantly challenging the odds just to see if I would make it. Today, living in each moment means being driven by what my heart is calling me to do.

    I’ve learned to take the time to figure out what the voice of my heart sounds like instead of the blazing of doubt in my mind. This finally allowed me to see what felt light and right in my life and allowed everything that feels heavy to fall to the way side.

    Heart driven. Soul led.

    This journey was started by a seed that was planted three decades ago. The seed called “I can’t” grew into a self-fulfilling prophecy filled with destruction, heartbreak, sorrow, and the urge to run from everything.

    When I stopped running (drinking, using, blaming, complaining) and learned to be still with myself and all that had encompassed my life, an entirely new life was born.

    In designing my life and healing my soul, I have found that happiness can be found in big moments like reuniting with my soulmate, winning a competition, or leaping into a new career. It can also be found in the smaller moments like watching my child choose a book instead of watching television, receiving flowers just because, or just being grateful for the sunshine.

    But I have found I am the happiest and most content when I am meditating, creating a safe space for others, and playing. Playing like a child on a daily basis is where it’s at. Whether I’m writing, coaching, baking, or gluing rhinestones on anything I can get my hands on, that’s where I’m at complete peace.

    And that (happiness) seems to be the individual goal of most people I meet, but it doesn’t seem to translate into the collective thinking. That’s where I’ve found the hiccup. The getting tied up in what we see everyone else doing, where everyone else is succeeding, and then wondering why we don’t have that perfect slice of peace pie that everyone else seems to have.

    The hardest thing I’ve learned is there is no special sauce, no magical happiness-to-sadness ratio, and no one-size-fits-all solution. We each have to define happiness for ourselves.

    For me, this means doing the work. It looks like me getting brutally honest with my past, mending my mistakes, giving love to every person I meet, and telling those who are close to me what’s really going on every day.

    This connects me to you and you to me, and this is ultimately the biggest lesson I learned.

    We all want to be seen. We all want to be heard. We all want permission to be ourselves. I’ve experienced what that feels like, and now I’m living a life that I was told would never happen. I stopped believing other people’s opinions of me, my life, and where they think it should be when I realized those opinions and thoughts are about what’s missing from their life, not mine.

    There is no slice of peace pie waiting for you or for me. We each have our own pie to flavor, bake, and share. I guess that would be called Purpose Pie. I sit in gratitude every day I have found my pie and am able to share with all who are hungry.

    All of this because they told me I was going to die and the hospital chicken pot pie was nice.

  • Creating Calm in the Chaos: How I Found My Peace in NYC

    Creating Calm in the Chaos: How I Found My Peace in NYC

    “In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.” ~Deepak Chopra

    I found my peace in New York City, where I spent a year as a consultant on a temporary work assignment.

    It may seem counter-intuitive that living in a city targeted by terrorists, clogged with traffic, and punctuated by sirens and honking horns could instill a kind of tranquility unattainable in Minnesota, where I currently live. After all, Minnesota is home to over 10,000 lakes, comforting casseroles of tater tots and cheese, and generations of Scandinavians who make Minnesota “nice.”

    So, what is it about the chaos and madness of New York City, as experienced in my year of living and working there, that helped me slow down, tame my neuroses, and rediscover a quiet place not present in my Minnesota life?

    It turns out New York City is a pretty good teacher. It pushed me to my limits (and no, not just how long I’ll stay in a subway car with a puddle of piss) and taught me three big lessons along the way.

    Lesson #1: Let go.

    It seems simple, right? Who hasn’t received this advice at some point in her life? For me, letting go speaks to short-circuiting the wiring in my brain that causes me to spend far too much energy worrying about things that objectively don’t matter.

    Back in Minnesota, I get hung up on things like people taking the parking spots in front of my house or the peeling paint on my neighbor’s windows or the landscaping crew that fires up when I step outside for my morning coffee.

    I’m one of those people who adjusts the angling of picture frames and positioning of salt shakers and wipes the fingerprints off my phone screen with a persistent regularity. If I had lived in Victorian times, I certainly would have been treated for my “delicate sensibilities” and spent my days on a fainting couch or taking in the air on the Continent.

    But living in my pre-war rented apartment on 23rd street in a building with over 900 apartments, I somehow managed to not care about a lot of things that likely would have triggered me back in Minnesota. For New York makes palpable the sense that I am part of something much larger than myself and my petty preoccupations. It puts my sense of my own importance into perspective.

    My particular concern at a given moment is not more important than anyone else’s.

    You don’t like sirens at 3am? Too bad—someone’s probably fallen down a flight of stairs or needs his stomach pumped.

    You find it rude and annoying that the woman down the hall parks her cruiser bike in the hallway in a blatant disregard of apartment policy? Deal with it. It’s not worth the risk of months of awkward elevator encounters if you say something.

    In those moments, instead of giving in to my frustration, I chose to let go of my urge to control and settle into a space of acceptance, knowing that New York City will not bow to my will and neither will most New Yorkers.

    Lesson #2: Be present.

    I know, this is another lesson that is boorishly common and desperately close to being trite. And it’s a lesson I’ve been trying to ace for a long time with fleeting success.

    My mind lures me into the future, pulling me along on a subtle but sustained undertow of discontent that prompts wonder about how things might be different if I found a new job or started doing yoga again or any number of “what if?” scenarios.

    It’s not uncommon for me to read or watch something or sit in a meeting and realize that I haven’t really absorbed anything—my mind was too busy thinking of other things. Sometimes it is serious stuff, like whether I’m saving enough for retirement, but more often than not, it’s random thoughts that could certainly wait, like what if dogs could whistle?

    The city demands a certain degree of presence to avoid being hit by a cab or taken down by a commuter on a Citibike.

    For me, the splendor of being in one of the world’s greatest cities inspired me to take in all the sights and sounds (but definitely not the smells) and feel truly alive.

    I remember sitting precariously on the ledge of my 16th floor window on a warm October night with only the faintest whisper of winter in the air. I watched dogs come home from their nightly walks, saw the specks of other humans in windows across the way, listened to the hum of the bus as it let people on and off. Above us all and our millions of anonymous lives, a harvest moon shone bright, lending an intimacy to a night alone balancing on the edge.

    In those moments I became more of an observer, experiencing the world as it was in that moment, divorced from any of my misplaced notions about how I think things should be.

    New York City rewards those who pay attention, whether it is those beautiful moments of feeling connected to humanity and grateful to be alive or the ridiculously absurd things you can overhear walking down the street that will have you laughing for days.

    Lesson #3: Simplify.

    This lesson gets to my inclination toward accumulation and the sense of satisfaction I get from filling my house with beautiful things. Being married to a general contractor who likes projects, I live in a big turn-of-the-century house built for a family with servants, yet currently home to only my husband, dog, and me.

    Despite acknowledging when we bought the house that it was far more space than we needed, I found myself becoming more and more attached to my house and cultivating an unconscious belief that I need a big house and lots of pretty things to be happy and feel successful.

    Living in my little rented apartment in New York City, with its sliver of a kitchen, I learned that not only can I be happy with much less, but the weight of those possessions and responsibilities creates a not insignificant amount of stress and anxiety.

    While NYC real estate certainly brings its own burdens, I discovered the value of scaling down and living a simpler life that is focused on how I live, not where I live and what I have.

    —

    As my project comes to an end and it is time to return to Minnesota, I’m challenging myself to bring these lessons home and maintain my New York state of mind. In my own version of “What Would Jesus Do?” I need to ask myself: “’Would NY-me care?” If the answer is no, then I’m just going to breathe and let it go.

  • Introducing Backpack Buddha: Meditation Tools and Spiritual Gifts

    Introducing Backpack Buddha: Meditation Tools and Spiritual Gifts

    Hi friends! Since we’re well into December now, I imagine many of you may be either starting or rounding out your holiday shopping. If you’re not yet familiar with Backpack Buddha, I highly recommend checking them out!

    What I love about Backpack Buddha is that they not only offer beautiful fair-trade, eco-friendly products, supporting craftsmen and women in Nepal, they also donate 10% of their profits to a number of worthy causes.

    Started in 2015, they base their entire business model on good karma, and it shows in how they operate.

    Below I’ve shared a number of their products, starting with my personal favorite (which I’m currently using daily):

    Buddha Packs

    These come in four sizes, ranging from $27 to $57. I own the Himalayan Hemp #1, pictured here. Handcrafted from 100% Himalayan hemp and cotton from the foothills of the Himalayas, this practical day bag can carry up to two full mala strands in a dedicated Mala pouch, a laptop up to 15 inches, a standard sized yoga mat, and a reusable water bottle.

    The Chakra Collection

    This unique collection of chakra crystals, jewelry, and tools includes a number of beautiful options including a 7-chakra dream catcher that’s currently hanging right next to my front door and the 108-bead chakra mala pictured above ($37).

    As you’ll see if you click through to the site, each of the seven crystals corresponds with a different mantra, which can be a nice addition to your daily meditation practice.

    Each mala comes with a 7-page eGuide to help you use your beads as a medium for mindfulness, tranquility, and contentment.

    Buddha Bear’s Enlightenment Coloring Book

    As a huge coloring fan, I’ve seen some pretty cool coloring books in recent years, but none by Jim Hensen’s cartoonist. World-renowned illustrator Guy Gilchrist had a hand in Fraggle Rock, Looney Tunes, Muppet Babies, Tom & Jerry, and more, and has illustrated over sixty children’s books.

    His latest offering, recommended for kids age five to twelve, is intended to foster positive emotional growth through concepts of compassion, gratitude, and love.

    Kids will love following the adventures of Buddha Bear, whose goals are to be kind to everyone he meets, to breathe and stay calm when he’s frustrated, and to appreciate all his blessings.

    For every copy of Buddha Bear’s Enlightenment Coloring Book sold, Backpack Buddha will provide a school grade notebook and pencil for an underprivileged student, grades 2-8, in the Kathmandu valley.

    Enlightenment Journals

    While the Everyday Enlightenment Journal is designed to help you calm anxiety, find purpose, and love your life in twenty-one days, the Everynight Enlightenment Journal can help you relax your body and mind and get better sleep—and it may also inspire positive dreams.

    Above you’ll find the Prayer Flag Journal ($14), which I recently gave to my boyfriend as a gift. Made from Lokta bark paper—by hand, in a village with a 2,000-year history of making this special paper—this journal is covered in the five elements of traditional Buddhist prayer flags: sky, air, water, fire, and earth.

    Monk-Blessed Malas and Jewelry

    Blessed by monks from the Woechen Thuk-Je Choeling Monastary, Swayambhu Temple, in Kathmandu, Nepal, these unique mala offerings include the conch shell mala above ($97).

    These beautiful malas come with 108 om-engraved shell beads.

    —

    I’m a huge fan of Backpack Buddha, and their founder Leif Harum, who’s been a pleasure to connect with. I hope you, or your loved ones, will enjoy their offerings as much as I have!

    **Though this is a sponsored post, you can trust I only promote products and services I personally love!

  • How Mindfulness Is Saving My Relationship

    How Mindfulness Is Saving My Relationship

    “Mindfulness is about love and loving life. When you cultivate this love, it gives you clarity and compassion for life, and your actions happen in accordance with that.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

    I started meditating and practicing mindfulness more seriously several years ago incorporating it in to my daily routine, initially to help with my anxiety. My practice certainly helped me by leaps and bounds in overcoming my anxiety, but an unexpected side effect has been the impact it’s having on my marriage.

    We’ve not been married long, and as many couples before us have experienced, getting accustomed to this new dynamic can be at times… difficult.

    Learning to communicate and compromise isn’t always a smooth ride. He cares about being on time (or early), I care about not being rushed. I like the kitchen cleaned after dinner, he couldn’t care less. He gets stressed when he doesn’t know the schedule in advance, I feel stressed when I feel boxed into a plan.

    So we argued. And got mad at each other. And created these expectations for each other that we definitely didn’t always meet.

    But slowly I started to notice a change. It began with a change in me, my stress level, my tendency to blame, my expectations of him. I found myself more understanding, better able to let go of things that didn’t go my way, and better at communicating when an argument bubbled up between us.

    Then my husband started to change too. He’d noticed the changes in me and saw how much better I felt and how much easier communication was with me, and he started mimicking what he saw me do.

    He wasn’t letting things bother him as much. In a situation where we would have had an ugly argument, he was now starting the conversation from a place of curiosity instead of finger pointing. But the biggest thing that I noticed from him was how he was willing and able to reflect on how he was feeling and dig into why he felt the way he did whereas in the past he would have become angry at me for making him feel that way.

    What is Mindfulness?

    Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment on purpose and without judgment. This can be done in day-to-day activities like driving, eating, and in conversation. It can also be practiced as formal meditation.

    This simple practice can transform our relationship with our thoughts, give us new perspectives on life and even our own behaviors, and free us from the hold that our emotions can have on us when we identify with them.

    Here are changes I’ve seen in myself from practicing mindfulness that have led to improving my marriage.

    I’m happier.

    Stress is a salty mistress with eight in ten adults suffering daily. And anxiety is pervasive in our society, affecting roughly forty million Americans (including me for thirty-ish years). Practicing mindfulness is a time-tested and scientifically proven method of dealing with and overcoming the hold of stress and anxiety.

    When we’re stressed, feeling down or angry, we’re on the lookout for anything to prove that life is stressful or crappy, or that we’re right and others are wrong. We notice the things that bother us like dishes left on the counter, a car driving too slowly in traffic, or the way your spouse asks what’s for dinner.

    And when we’re happy, we do the same—look for things to prove why life is great. You notice the nice things, the birds chirping, that your spouse gets up without complaint on Tuesday mornings to take out the trash. It’s also easier to be more compassionate and forgiving from a happy place.

    The less-stressed and no longer anxiety-ridden me is a much better wife and partner. From a happier place, I’m not only much more pleasant to be around, but things don’t tend to bother me as much.

    I’m a better listener.

    As a person with ADD, I’ve always found listening intently in conversations to be a difficult task. The mind wanders to other topics making it difficult to be fully present, take in what the other person is saying, and retain the information for later.

    My mindfulness practice has drastically improved my ability to pay attention. It’s like brain training, building the ‘muscle’ that helps direct our attention at will.

    I’m better able to fully listen to my husband when he’s sharing with me without always thinking of what I’m going to say next or what I need to do later. He feels heard, and we feel more connected to each other as a result.  

    I’m much more aware of how I’m feeling.

    Not to say that I’m happy 24/7—I don’t think that’s possible, nor would I want that. We have a rainbow of emotions, and there are good reasons to feel them even for a brief moment.

    The act of paying attention on purpose trains the brain to notice what we’re feeling. We’re so used to just feeling our feelings, and if they’re not pleasant we either try to run from them, numb them, or lash out.

    It’s more productive and much less stressful to look at our emotions with curiosity. Label them. Then ask questions. “Ah, I’m feeling irritated. What’s that about? What’s another way of looking at this? How can I change this situation or cope with it?”

    I’m also better able to catch myself before emotions spike high. Once emotions hit their peak in an argument, the horse had already left the stable. It’s tough, if not damn near impossible to reel it back in once you’ve reached the crest of pissed off-ness.

    At this point, your brain and body are in fight-or-flight mode where it’s impossible to access critical thinking skills and takes about twenty minutes to calm enough to think clearly to make sound, logical decisions.

    Granted, those high negative emotions are drastically fewer and further between for me now with years of mindfulness practice under my belt. However, I’m only human and once in a great while I can feel those emotions rising.

    Being more aware of how I feel has helped me resolve difficult or frustrating feelings internally and avoid arguments with my husband.

    I’m much more aware of how my husband is feeling.

    Mindfulness practice increases your ability to be present, and thus not be distracted by thoughts. As a result, you become more insightful, a better listener, and more observant.

    This results in higher levels of emotional intelligence because you are able to see things from another person’s point of view to facilitate better communication. It becomes a powerful tool that makes you more effective in understanding other people, as well as contexts and situations.

    When my husband seems upset, I’m better now at putting his behavior into context and empathizing with his emotions. For example, an angry outburst from him directed at me because we should have left five minutes ago, I can see is actually his frustration stemming from a lack of control over something he values—which is punctuality.

    I don’t get upset in return anymore. Instead, I empathize with him because I better understand what is causing his emotions and don’t take them personally.

    I’m able to forgive more quickly.

    Pobody’s nerfect. Mindfulness teaches us to forgive ourselves and others as we are paying attention to the present moment non-judgmentally.

    Using mindfulness techniques, a person is able to let go of or forget about the past and not dwell on what the future can be.

    Mindfulness can be highly beneficial because we are able to let go of unrealistic or materialistic thoughts and just exist in the moment.

    It can be used to accept the feelings of sadness, anger, irritation, or betrayal that you have and to move on from them. Your path to a freer you, begins with knowing what is hurting you the most.

    Cultivating a greater capacity for forgiveness has brought me to a place in my relationships where I don’t hold grudges or dig up the past in arguments.

    I’m aware of the stories I’m telling myself.

    When something doesn’t go our way, it’s so easy to identify with the story we’re telling ourselves and label it as the whole truth.

    Mindfulness has shown me the difference between me and my thoughts. They are not one in the same. Thoughts are ideas passing through our minds like clouds in the sky. They are fleeting. They change with context.

    Because of mindfulness, when I’m upset I can more easily identify the story I’m telling myself that is making me upset.

    For example, I was hurt after my husband didn’t get up and greet me enthusiastically when I came home from a week-long business trip. He stayed sitting on the couch absorbed with what he was doing.

    I was upset and went upstairs to fume. Then I realized I was telling myself a story that my husband doesn’t care about me or love me enough. I know that isn’t true. There are a number of reasons why he didn’t get up.

    When I came back downstairs he could tell I was still a bit upset, so he asked me about it. I said, “The story I’m telling myself is that you didn’t miss me because you didn’t get up when I came home. I know it’s not true, but I’m still feeling a little upset because I would have liked it if you gave me a big hug.”

    He apologized and said he’d wanted to wait until I was settled to love on me. He was much more receptive to “the story I’m telling myself” than he would have been had I started in on him about what he’d done wrong. And I felt better when I stopped jumping to the wrong conclusion and allowed him to share his side while avoiding confrontation.

    A few weeks later he calmly told me he was upset about something and started the conversation with “the story I’m telling myself is…”

    That’s when I knew our relationship was improving because of mindfulness.

    Being able to objectively look at my thoughts and feelings allows me to reframe any situation and gives me the space to respond thoughtfully instead of reacting impulsively.

    —

    If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this experience it’s that self-love and striving for self-improvement can have a ripple effect through your life affecting those around you for the better. The better me I can become—less stressed, more compassionate, healthier, happier—the better wife, friend, daughter, and coach I can be.

  • What It Means to Live Life with Open Palms and How This Sets Us Free

    What It Means to Live Life with Open Palms and How This Sets Us Free

    “Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Roughly one year ago, I was having the time of my life.

    Everything seemed to be going well. My stress levels were at an all-time low. I was enjoying myself in a new city. Work was engaging. My meditations were deep and fulfilling.

    And when I looked back on things one year later, I was kind of, well, frustrated.

    Because things haven’t been going that smoothly lately. Don’t get me wrong; they haven’t been terrible. I’m in a loving relationship, and I’ve achieved a couple of significant milestones this year, but some aspects of life have been challenging.

    A couple of months ago I was talking to a meditation teacher who I occasionally consult when I’m having issues with my practice. I was honest about my situation, and my frustration with it.

    So I asked her what I was genuinely thinking; why doesn’t it feel like things are as good as they were twelve months ago?

    And what she told me stunned me. I mean, it really left me thinking.

    “You need to start living life with open palms. You tried to grasp onto the good times you had, and the experience has gone. But any challenges you have now will also go, you just need to hold onto them softly, with open palms.”

    The metaphor was so poignant. It made complete sense. I could feel myself grasping onto the idea of the old scenario and making dozens of assumptions about the new one.

    And those words stuck with me. They truly resonated. In fact, echoed might be a better description, because since then, whenever I’ve started to stress and hold onto my problems too tightly, the image of two open palms would arise and drift around the back of my mind, calling me to pay attention to it.

    There’s a reason why this metaphor is so accurate—the left cerebral hemisphere, which we use for focused attention, is also responsible for the grabbing motion our hand makes. The right hemisphere on the other hand (pun absolutely intended) is used for both open-minded thinking and open exploratory motions. So when someone tells you to hold on or to let go, they’re telling you what to do with your mind, not just your hands.

    So over the last few weeks, I’ve tried to reflect on what this means from a practical perspective, and while teachings like this take years to really digest, I’ve come up with a few ways in which you can start to live life with open palms, right now.

    Appreciate things momentarily.

    At first, I didn’t really understand why this was important. To only appreciate things for a split second seemed to be to under-appreciate or even neglect them. But I soon realized that when I was trying too hard to enjoy something, I ended up quickly telling myself a story about how good it was—and soon enough I wasn’t actually experiencing the object anymore, I was enjoying the idea of it.

    By making a conscious attempt to appreciate things momentarily, I’ve been able to achieve two things. Firstly, I get used to short-term experiences so when pleasure leaves, it’s okay because I know something else will come soon. And secondly, I’m able to focus on the direct experience and not get lost in my judgments about it.

    Remind myself about the transience of things.

    This is relevant to letting the momentary experiences go.

    Whenever I see a pleasure arise, whether it’s a nicely cooked meal, a Netflix show, a hot shower, or just sitting down after a long day, I try to remind myself that it will soon pass and something else will replace is.

    When I’m experiencing less pleasurable states, like physical discomfort, boredom, tiredness, or even pain, I similarly try to watch it come and watch it go, not getting too attached either way.

    Identify with my experience over my narrative.

    Though relatively simple, this idea is incredibly profound.

    My worry over whether or not I was better off than twelve months prior was largely rooted in the story I was telling myself. The story, once I had told it enough times, quickly became my experience.

    If however, I had just been focusing on the sensations I was having in each moment, there would have been no ruminating on the past, and a lot of the problems I was creating for myself simply would’ve ceased to exist.

    Don’t shy away from pleasure.

    One of the ways we protect ourselves from subtle feelings such as a fear of loss or feelings of not being worthy is by not allowing ourselves to fully appreciate positive experiences when we have them. It takes a certain kind of vulnerability to give ourselves over to pleasure, and oftentimes there is an unconscious shield between us and our experience that may manifest itself in slight muscular tension or distracting thoughts.

    I’ve made a conscious effort to focus on getting the most out of joyful moments when they come up and not holding back from completely enjoying them.

    Question my relationship to time.

    A lot of the suffering that comes from our experience arises because we can’t help but compare it to another moment in time. In my own case, it was because I was arbitrarily using the marker of a year to make judgments about how I should’ve been feeling.

    I felt that this year should be as good as or better than last year. Not only is it pointless to make the comparison, but it’s impossible to do so accurately. When we’re told to be present and not focus too heavily on the past or the future, it’s not only practical advice, it’s rational advice; our ideas about time are incredibly skewed and often dictated in large part by our emotional state in that moment.

    The ways by which I’ve been trying to live life with open palms are nothing groundbreaking. They’re tried and tested ideas that most of us have already had some exposure to. What is difficult, however, is our ability to remember these in any given moment, when they should be most useful.

    We can do this by anchoring ourselves to the ideas, whether through a mantra, a memorable metaphor, or simply just repeated exposure, as you’re doing right now reading this article.

    How have you tried to live life with open palms? Let us know in the comments. We’d love to hear from you!

  • Swipe Right on Mindfulness: My Apprehensive Journey into Meditation

    Swipe Right on Mindfulness: My Apprehensive Journey into Meditation

    “You have to be where you are to get where you need to go.” ~Amy Poehler

    I sat there and listened, pretending to be interested.

    Did he really just say he meditates every morning? Don’t roll your eyes. At least he’s really attractive. You can just ignore the hippy meditation stuff. 

    But c’mon. Meditate every morning at 6am? Who does that? How ridiculous.

    So I did ignore his hippy meditation stuff; he eventually ignored me.

    I have an endless supply of ill-fated dating-by-way-of-phone-app tales. Most of them end in a relatively similar fashion, but that’s for another blog or a cabernet-supported whine-fest with a good friend. This dating experience in particular was quite a bit different.

    Although this was the last time I dated a beautiful actor-slash-model-slash-writer, it happened to be the start of something else. Something much bigger than the initial lesson I learned—that sliding my finger across a cracked iPhone screen while waiting in the grocery line behind an adorable elderly lady writing a check for donuts was, sadly, not going to lead me to my soulmate.

    However, it would guide me to a discovery far more powerful and impactful.

    Not until years later would I look back on this casual swipe right on my handheld device as one of the most profound decisions I had made in my adult life. To say it changed the trajectory of where I was headed wouldn’t be an overstatement.

    Thanks, Tinder. I really should go back and award you those four stars. Remind me later.

    But back to this awkward date.

    Shortly before this guy began to “forget” to respond to my texts, before the “new phone, who’s this?” kick-to-the-gut, before the inevitable self-doubt blame game, there was a brief, almost forgettable moment during this date that I now fondly look back upon.

    The Start of Something New

    I was super insecure at the time.

    How does my hair look? Why did I wear this old sweater? God, he’s a GQ cover model and I look like a rejected 1999 Old Navy performance fleece ad fused with the ‘before’ Proactiv infomercial image that airs at 2am.

    My mind never stopped. I was the king of insults, and I was my favorite target.

    But somehow, amidst the relentless inner dialogue and self-destructive thought patterns, I noticed a striking presence from this guy. When he spoke, he was so focused. When he listened, he did so intently.

    Also, he was so nice. Plain and simple nice.

    I suspected he wasn’t worried about what his hair looked like. (Note: It looked perfect. Whatever.) And it seemed like he wasn’t thinking ahead about what to say next, or regretting what he had said prior. He was present. So much so, it made me very uncomfortable.

    As for myself, I had a checklist of things in my head to say as well as some predetermined witty lines that I was proud of—for real, some of them were funny. I even prepared some self-deprecating jokes about being a late-twenties directionless bartender, so I could at least claim to insult myself first if that subject came up.

    It was exhausting.

    Spoiler alert: This dating experience with Perfect Hair was short lived. But I beat myself up about it for a while.

    What did I say? Why didn’t I get my haircut? Why didn’t I get a spray tan!? I went on and on. These questions were endless and unnecessary. Except maybe the tanning one. I really should have bronzed up a bit— a little color never hurt a pale person, as my mom always says. But I didn’t. And so there I was, annoyed, bitter, single—and yes, pasty.

    At the time, it didn’t make any sense to me. I was bummed. I chalked it up to my continual bad luck and blamed the world for being out to get me. Ya know, the usual.

    Little did I know that this one date would be such a turning point in my life.

    A Seed Was Planted

    My mind was a messy field of weeds and cobwebs, but somewhere among them was perfectly conditioned soil that could harbor some new kind of life. Something about this guy stuck in my mind. And that something grew. I would continue to insult myself for the foreseeable future, but I took a brief respite from the witty yet destructive banter in my head to explore that “silly hippy meditation stuff.”

    “I meditate every morning,” I remember him saying.

    I still thought this was a ridiculous admission, but I decided to look into it. Maybe for just five minutes. What did I have to lose?

    So instead of spending further time mindlessly scrolling through my Instagram feed and wondering how I know so many people with flawless beauty who are perpetually on breathtaking vacations, I pulled up Google.

    In addition to a roll of my eyes, the word “meditation” used to elicit a visual of an un-showered, bearded hippy sitting cross-legged, surrounded by a cloud of suffocating incense smoke, chanting unintelligible words.

    It’s partly because the term carries with it some dated, preconceived ideas, sure. But I also grew up in a very conservative town a few miles down the road from the not-so-conservative Woodstock, NY, where a drive through would be a sightseeing tour of extreme body hygiene practices of “hippies” with a side of snide judgmental comments.

    That was my introduction to this world. That was my initial—and only—understanding of people who participated in silly hippy meditation stuff.

    But hold up: Meditation really just means sitting quietly and focusing on what’s going on in the moment? And breathing? That’s basically it? Is it really that simple?

    Yah, man, it’s that simple.

    There is obviously much more to it than that, of course. There are books upon books, courses and classes upon websites and blogs on meditation. But at its core, it really is so simple: Sitting and breathing.

    Why the hell didn’t someone tell me that it wasn’t this weird, silly, far-left liberal belief system? That it didn’t require a robe, facial hair, and skipping a bunch of showers. I don’t have to chant? What about sitting cross-legged? Incense and a beard? No, no, and no?

    WHAT. THE. HELL.

    It sounded so easy and was also a huge relief, because I look terrible with a beard and I’m not at all flexible.

    I had no reason not to give it a try.

    I was finally in the perfect place, mentally and physically (no beard!), for my exploration of this topic to begin.

    So I started reading. Book after book after book. With an apprehensive perspective and holed up in a coffee shop with my hand covering the title so no one could see what I was reading (Uh, It’s Game Of Thrones, bro,) I immersed myself in this stuff.

    I also realize in hindsight that telling someone I’m reading Game Of Thrones is not any “cooler” than revealing I’m exploring meditation. It’s basically a dorky tie.

    I started by seeking out authors who had the same skeptical approach that I initially had, as it helped me tread cautiously into something that could scare me away if I dove in too deep, too fast.

    Initially, I thought it was a bunch of ridiculousness. I gave up once. Twice. Five times.

    But I pushed through. I kept remembering that fleeting moment from that cringe-worthy date. How relaxed, how present, how kind he was.

    He meditated every day.

    If it worked for Head & Shoulders Model, it would work for me. I should put that on a hat.

    Ever so slowly, in the subtlest ways, I began to notice a difference. It was minimal. It was almost unnoticeable.

    I just felt… better. Lighter. Happier? Maybe. I couldn’t really pinpoint it, but it was something.

    And it was exciting.

    Everything Happens—Yes, You Guessed It—For a Reason

    At this point, my perception of this ill-fated date started to shift. Maybe, just maybe, there was a purpose of this encounter. Maybe, just maybe, it was exactly what I needed at exactly that time in my life.

    The phrase “everything happens for a reason” used to drive me crazy. Mostly because I find it’s something people usually say in lieu of giving actual advice. It’s a cop-out, really. If I tell you I was ghosted by awkward Prius guy, I don’t want you to tell me everything happens for a reason. I want you to confirm my beliefs that Prius drivers are obviously the worst and that it definitely had nothing to do with me.

    But I now believe that everything really does happen for a reason. Even the existence of the Prius, though for reasons I have yet to understand.

    And yes—even uncomfortable, no-good, very-bad dates.

    Sometimes it just takes a little surrender and hindsight to come to this realization. For me, it also took a lot of cheap red wine and years of reflecting on past decisions—and eventually immersing myself in some mindfulness practices—to confidently say I understand this clichéd phrase. There’s always a lesson to be learned.

    One of those lessons is that boxed wine gives me a bad headache.

    Everything had happened as it should—to bring me to this moment, to this blog post, to this glass of wine (from a bottle), to this place in my life where I can reflect and appreciate. And what a liberating and exhilarating feeling it is to say, “Yup, that happened. Here I am. What’s next?”

    I’ve spent most of my life under the impression that I made every wrong decision possible. That had I just gotten one thing right along the way, just one, I wouldn’t be where I am right now.

    I would be married to the perfect person. I’d have a perfect career. A perfect kid. A perfect house. A perfectly filtered Instagram feed. A perfect chicken dinner, because clearly my inability to cook a simple meal stems from some bad decision I made somewhere along the way. Everything would be perfect and my chicken wouldn’t be rubbery.

    But it’s not.

    Or is it? Maybe this is perfection. (Not my chicken, though—I still overcook it every time!)

    I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

    It’s such a freeing feeling to let go of the past, to trust in where I am, to understand that everything I have experienced, whether I can understand it now or will come to a realization at some point down the road, has been leading me to where I am meant to be. My only job is to go with it.

    Because, yes, everything is happening as it should, for a reason. Even the dates that don’t turn into what I had initially hoped they would.

    Adopting this way of thinking has led to a much more relaxed, stress-free day-to-day life. Instead of wondering why something happened, I look for what I can take from the experience. Dating has led to endless discoveries about myself, other people, the world, and perspectives I was previously unfamiliar with.

    Some monumental, some minimal.

    Some dating experiences are so profound they lead you to stumble down a path to mindfulness and meditation, while others have more minor impacts, like several years of free HBO because a certain someone forgot to change his cable password after he abruptly and inexplicably stopped talking to you. (Thanks man! Hope you’re well!)

    I’d say a more positive, mindful outlook and free weekly dates with VEEP’s President Selena Meyer are both steps in the right direction as well as perfectly fine reasons that these experiences occurred.

    I believe all moments in life—big or small, happy or sad—always provide a takeaway. Of course, the harder the journey and the tougher the struggles, the more difficult it may be to find the reason. Maybe the reason will never be apparent. Perhaps we just have to trust that our path took us into—and through—these situations for a reason.

    Not much has changed for me these days in terms of circumstances. I still go on the occasional bad date, have unexpected bummer days, and periodically find myself in inexplicable bad moods. But instead of dwelling on these moments or trying to find the reason behind them, I accept them. I trust that what seems “bad” on the surface may be beneficial in some unapparent way.

    Plus, if I always tried to find a reason, I would drive myself mad and I would have less time for my aforementioned Instagram scrolling—by the way, I need to do more sit-ups. Oh and for real, am I the only one from my graduating class who isn’t #married?

    Eyes closed, deep breath.

    It would be misleading and simply unrealistic to say that meditation can lead to a smooth life filled with endless happiness. I don’t believe that to be true, and I think that would be missing the point.

    I’m also not officially a psychiatrist—or psychologist? I confuse the two. But whichever one would be professionally informed on this subject, I am not that. Or the other one, for that matter. So I could be totally wrong about everything that I’ve just written.

    But for me, this mindfulness exploration has helped me clear out ugly thoughts and acknowledge patterns of behavior that aren’t healthy. I feel like a better person today than I was just a few years ago. I’m not nicer because I just want to be nice, but also because it’s easier.

    It’s easier to be patient, kind, understanding, and humble. It takes so much energy to be mad, hold grudges, and judge. Forgiving and letting go is freeing. Holding on to anger? Exhausting and it gives me pimples.

    A New(ish) Me

    My biggest concern with this new journey was that I would lose my edge. I’m generally a sarcastic wise-ass. I didn’t want to become soft. And I’m not talking about physically soft, because this new journey has not yet made me less vain, as I still care far too much about my physical appearance.

    But baby steps, right?

    By soft I mean I didn’t want to become an emotionally mushy pushover. I roll my eyes at those people.

    Yes, I know, I roll my eyes a lot. Again, one step at a time.

    I’m far from perfect and still have many strides to make. I’m finding the careful balance of being a mindful, better person while not changing who I am at heart.

    I still unnecessarily curse at traffic despite my most valiant efforts.

    If I realize someone isn’t going to acknowledge me holding a door open, I’ll sometimes maybe probably prematurely let it go so it gently bumps them.

    I am ridiculously impatient with people who stand on escalators. They aren’t lazy stairs, walk!

    And I firmly believe that Arbonne is basically the Crossfit of skincare and I’m not at all interested but I’m certain you’ll breathlessly tell me about it anyway.

    I am a work in progress. I’m learning every day.

    I’m single. I’m happy. I’m present. And sometimes, every once in a while, yes, I’m still a jerk.

    But a mindful jerk at that. And for this, I am grateful.

    And I owe it all to a little dating app with the cute cartoon flame.

  • The Key to Happiness: Compare Less, Be More

    The Key to Happiness: Compare Less, Be More

    “Happiness is found when you stop comparing yourself to other people.” ~Unknown

    Stepping off the bus I was in shock.

    This tiny thing? With no doors in the doorways and no glass in the windows?

    This little place? With walls that looked like they were lone survivors of war?

    I would’ve been sure it was abandoned if it wasn’t for the hundreds of little footprints on trampled soil making up the floor of the school. A giant field with two erect logs on either side served as goals for what was supposed to be a gym. I always thought these types of experiences were supposed to make you feel grateful for what you have. Yet what happened that day made me feel poor.

    Today we were painting a school in northern Costa Rica. As the second bus pulled up, children flooded the campus. Brushes in hand and paint cans open wide, the workday began. Even though none of our group spoke Spanish, communication flowed effortlessly.

    Stroke after stroke, the diligence and level of attention of these kids was inspiring. Yet what struck me the most was how happy they were. It was as if they were not even aware their school didn’t have a floor. I couldn’t understand where this abundance of happiness was coming from until I met Luis.

    Somewhere between his broken English and my broken Spanish we bridged an understanding. I asked him about his life and he asked bout mine. I was stunned when he had no idea what New York was. How could he not know New York? I tried to explain, but our language barrier made it hard to paint a picture. Moving from words to gestures, back to words, I was like a mime trying to act out a song. These kids were truly happy in a way that I never saw kids in the states be.

    Then it hit me.

    What his family lacked in their bank accounts, they made up for in happiness.

    These people did not check their Instagram feeds, spending hours a day comparing their lives to people they never met across the world. Everyone around them was relatively on the same economic level.

    These kids prioritized relationships and time outside, not their cell phones or game consoles. Their expectations were low and enthusiasm for life high. They were rich in every way I wasn’t. They were happiness millionaires with no credit limits on their joy.

    Taking it With Me

    Life isn’t made up of many big decisions, but the compounding of thousands of small ones. When looking at our credit card bills, these decisions are easy to see, but most of life doesn’t come with such a transcript.

    I couldn’t reprogram my mind instantly, short of hitting myself over the head and hoping to forget the world I knew. I wondered what small, compounding changes I could make in my life to be more like Luis. If I could identify the moments in the day where I compare myself to others and minimize that, could my happiness level rise?

    I decided to run the experiment.

    After spending three days being hyper aware of all my actions I found, on average, thirty-seven instances a day where I compared myself to someone else.  Here was the breakdown where these moments occurred:

    58%: While on social media

    33%: In the world (going to work, from work, shopping, etc.)

    10%: During a conversation with another person

    Seeing things broken out like this was eye opening. This task went from overwhelming and impossible, to actionable and realistic.

    My Results and Action Plan

    Social Media

    Even though this made up a huge percentage, I was never one to be on social media for hours a day. However, I noticed that in just one session I could rack up multiple counts of comparing myself to others. To combat this, instead of turning off social media, I changed who I was paying attention to.

    Any celebrities that added nothing to my life except their flashy lifestyles were unfollowed, deleted, and replaced by more useful content. Most acquaintances that I didn’t really know well were also removed. My feed became a mixture of close personal relationships and cool interesting things I could learn from.

    In the World/In Conversation

    These two were much harder to combat. Yet while the solution to cutting them out was far from easy, it was quite simple. Since I could not prevent myself from getting these thoughts, I would use the notepad on my phone and record the instances after they occurred. After noting each occurrence, I would write, “Compare less, be more.”

    In about two weeks something strange began to happen.

    Not only did I see a dramatic reduction in my count, but now my brain would catch itself. Right as I was about to compare myself to something or someone, the principle would play in my mind instead, “Compare less, be more.” This would instantly break my thought pattern and put me back into the present moment. This wouldn’t happen every time, but it happened more and more every week.

    After one month I noticed a dramatic increase in my happiness. I conducted the experiment again and found the number of daily comparisons were reduced to thirty-seven to nine.

    Ultimately, much of our unhappiness comes from us looking onto others’ greener grass while neglecting our own yards. We focus on comparing and competing instead of creating and being. Not having a Ferrari does not make us any less, but constantly reminding ourselves we don’t have a Ferrari absolutely does.

    When we attach our self-worth to anything or anyone, it’s no longer ours. We limit the flow of ideas and range of action as we approach life from a state of lack.

    The next time you find yourself being obsessed over something you don’t have, just remember to compare less, be more. Maybe one day we can all be as rich as Luis, the richest kid in the world.

  • Why I Stopped Trying to Fix Myself and How I Healed by Doing Nothing

    Why I Stopped Trying to Fix Myself and How I Healed by Doing Nothing

    “Everything in the universe is within you.” ~Rumi

    When I was twenty-three, I lost my job through chronic illness. I thought my life had ended, and I spent the next few years an anxious, panicky mess—often hysterical. Eventually, I took off to scour the globe for well-being techniques, and searched far and wide for the meaning of life and how to become well again.

    If you’re chronically ill, like I was, whether physically or emotionally, you’ve probably experienced the same misunderstanding, the same crazy-making “well, you look okay to me” comments, the same isolation, depression, and frustration that I felt.

    You’ve probably been on a bit of a quest for self-recovery. And so, you’ve probably also felt the same exasperation when trying to figure out which self-help theories actually work. It can be overwhelming, right? I thought so, too, but I came to find it was actually really simple!

    Searching the Globe for Self-Help Techniques

    So many people are full of advice: “Try CBT/ tai chi/ astrology/ vitamins/ rest more/ exercise more/ zap yourself with electricity/ eat better/ stop being lazy (always helpful!)/ do affirmations/ yoga/ meditation/ wear purple socks…” Okay, so no one ever actually recommended trying purple socks, but there were so many weird and wonderful recommendations that I found myself lost, which might explain why I went away to find myself!

    I traveled far and wide with my illness, training in every holistic therapy there was (which I loved; I’m curious, and well-being is my passion). But I was always searching for a ‘cure’ for my brokenness. I connected with yoga, meditation, and mindfulness on my journey, and I heard the very familiar Rumi quote: “Everything in the universe is within you.” This served only to confuse me even more as I struggled to analyze what it meant!

    In Bali, though, I felt I had found home in yoga, meditation, and mindfulness. I felt connected to myself. I felt like I understood that all I needed was within. My anxiety had gone, my panic had gone—and my chronic illness had gone, too! Then, I came home to the UK, and it immediately returned.

    I was disheartened. I still lived yoga and mindfulness—I loved it and I taught it at home—but the joy had gone from what I had once thought of as the answer. So, how was I absolutely okay in Bali and not at home? Was I a fraud? What was going on? There was so much thinking…

    What I Learned About Being Human

    It wasn’t until a year later that I discovered why, when I heard something differently. A colleague introduced me to a mentor who shared some profound insights about how the world really works.

    She explained the basic underlying reality of humanity: that underneath all of our thinking about “how to be happier” is a healthy wholeness and perfection that is already innate—without having to do anything. You see, the reason that I had felt any anxiety or panic at all was because I had just forgotten the truth of what it is to be human.

    The Power of Thought: All You Need Really Is Within

    Our human reality operates entirely through thought in the moment. Everything we feel is a result of our thinking. If we feel anxious, it’s because we are experiencing anxious thinking. If we feel happy, it’s because we are experiencing happy thinking. Our entire reality, therefore, really does come from within! It is an inside-out world.

    When we were born, we were perfect and whole, and not anxious. Then, when we gained the beautiful power of thought, we learned that the external comfort blanket was super comforting, because “it made us feel better,” right? Wrong. The blanket is an object, with no capacity to make us feel anything. One hundred percent of the comforted feeling came from our own thinking about the blanket. It’s the same with all of life.

    So, when I was in Bali, I thought I was okay because I was enjoying yoga and meditation, which I loved with all my heart. Thinking that the external could impact me, I felt 100% whole. I returned from Bali and my thinking about the external changed; it felt like I wasn’t happy, because I thought that I needed to be back in Bali. But the thinking came from me: the happiness or unhappiness was all dependent on my thinking in each moment.

    I didn’t remember this, so I attributed my happiness to the external. But it wasn’t, because we are always living in the feeling of our thinking in any moment. Everything comes from within.

    The Innate Wisdom Under Our Thinking

    The funny thing is that as much as this seemed profound to me when I heard it, it was also as if I already knew. It is innate wisdom that we just forget to tap into as we bustle through what feels a hectic pace of life.

    As I began to remember this wisdom, I found that I would start to notice my thinking; I’d become an observer of it, almost in a mindful, meditative kind of way, but I no longer needed to sit and meditate to be happy.

    New insights would come up as I stayed in the conversation about life, and more and more would drop away: the absolute reliance on meditation and affirmations in particular (though the joy returned for meditation when I realized there was less pressure to love it and just followed it because it was in my heart).

    Because under my thinking—under your thinking—is an innate wholeness that is always accessible to you in any moment, if you just see that your reality is entirely experienced through thought in each moment.

    Analysis Paralysis

    We spend hours of our lives analyzing how to be happy, how to stop being negative, how to meditate, how to be less attached, how to be more empowered, how to be more creative, how to be more whole. Don’t get me wrong, this can be interesting, if (like me) you have your own small self-help library! But it’s more important to drop out of your head and into your heart—like I did in Bali, and like I did when I allowed my thinking to just flow and stopped analyzing it.

    I still love yoga and meditation—I teach both and connect with them—but it’s to follow my heart, and I don’t need it. I’ve observed with clients, though, that sometimes it’s easy to misunderstand these concepts and get wrapped up in over-complication, analysis paralysis, denying true feelings, and forcing, trying to be ‘positive.’ This is why I ditched affirmations completely.

    Don’t Miss the Point: Clarity Through Trusting and Flowing, Not Forcing

    Some people miss the truthful essence of this beautiful wisdom. I’m a believer that we often try and force happiness and positivity through techniques like affirmations—and even in some meditation practices that suggest people need to “let go of thinking.”

    We can’t let go of thinking; it’s part of being human. And affirmations serve only to suppress our true feelings, which is dangerous. When we allow our thoughts to just flow through us instead, dancing with them through life, we create space where we would once have analyzed how to solve them; and it’s in this space where clarity can arise and we can see the truth.

    The truth is, we humans are a vessel of energy, and, I believe, part of something greater that has a plan for us—and through this human life, we are blessed with the amazingly abundant, creative power of thought. All we really need to do is let go and flow.

    All we really need to do is allow the feelings that arise from our thinking, conscious of the fact that our reality is constructed through thought. We just have to observe what comes up, embracing pleasant feelings and allowing the darkness without paying it much attention. Like an uninvited guest, it will eventually pass through, without you needing to do anything to get rid of it.

    These days, I laugh at the thoughts that come up and watch them with curiosity, marvelling at the creative capacity of beautiful brain, and knowing that underneath all of my thinking is the real truth: that I am entirely whole, perfect, and complete. Just like you. And you know what? I’ve not been anxious, panicked, or chronically ill ever since I remembered this truth of being a human living life through thought.

    I’m not suggesting that our illnesses are “all in our head” and that we can think (or stop thinking) our way to health. Everyone is different, and there are many different causes for the illnesses we experience, chronic or otherwise. But for me, everything changed when I allowed my thoughts to just flow.

  • In Search of the Sacred: Escaping Facebook’s Sticky Web

    In Search of the Sacred: Escaping Facebook’s Sticky Web

    “You leave the present moment every time you check your phone.” ~Deirdre Jayko

    Facebook was driving me to distraction! One late-winter evening, I prepped for a mood-saving hike in the snow. Magic happened on the trails in the moonlight. I decided to check Facebook for a friend’s answer to a message.

    Who knows what caught my attention, but I ended up skipping from post to post. Once I emerged from my Facebook haze, I realized it was too late to walk safely. What had I accomplished in place of my hike? What did I even read about?

    As I put away my warm clothes and went to bed, I promised myself I was going to change my Facebook usage. It was eating away at my life. I was driving myself to distraction.

    Social media usage bothers people for a variety of reasons. Drilling down on those reasons reveals a larger theme of loss of control. In spite of ourselves, we spend way too much time scrolling through mindless content. Seemingly against our best intentions (sometimes, against our will), we waste countless hours on the site.

    My frustration level only escalated once I made the decision to torch my Facebook profile. Getting off the site seemed impossibly complex! What about people I only had contact with through Facebook? What about seeing photos of relatives and friends? What about the writings and photos I loved to share? Each time I planned on hitting “delete,” I would give up and decide it was too complicated.

    Every morning, I would roll out of bed and check Facebook. The silly thing was: I didn’t want to check Facebook. It was a subconscious habit. I didn’t even realize I was doing it.

    A red notification of some type would fuel my addictive response. Someone liked my post. Someone commented on a post. A close friend posted something new or had messaged me! That little red symbol is addicting, especially if your life is stressful. It gives your monkey mind an unsatisfying play date with the inane.

    One of my passions has always been escaping to the woods for a solo hike. One cold, crisp February morning, I chucked my smart phone into the trunk and set off down the trail into the woods. I was the only human on the prowl, and it felt great.

    Clambering along, I took a hard look at my Facebook addiction. I was bothered by the unhealthy anxiety reliever and the gambling-like satisfaction of the red-symbol jackpot. Yet, it seemed something deeper was bothering me about my Facebook use. I wanted to explore this feeling in more detail.

    I sat watching squirrels scampering through the tree heights. I reflected on that slightly sick feeling accompanying social media usage. We become caricatures of ourselves on Facebook. The nature of the beast is such that experiences are condensed into soundbites for public broadcast—an exaggerated and polished version of a moment. My real-time sharing with family and friends was much different than this public sharing.  Online interactions lacked substance and depth. On some level, they are not authentic.

    Thesaurus.com shares some synonyms for caricature: cartoon, parody. distortion… mockery? And (ouch): travesty and sham. Maybe too harsh in some situations, but, honestly, these words reflect my feelings about posting.

    Instead of chilling with my squirrel friends, I would scroll mindlessly as time slipped away, as my life slipped away. I made a pact with myself to delete my Facebook account. I created a statement of intent in my journal, signed and dated it.

    I still didn’t get off of Facebook.

    A few weeks later, I cruised to work, jamming to my favorite Gordon Lightfoot songs. The open road and dreamy music made me feel young, wild, and free. Suddenly, texts from my kids began interrupting the music. I had notifications coming in on Messenger.

    As a result of some of those messages, I began fighting the urge to check my work email before I arrived. I cursed silently that I had not taken the time to learn how to disconnect the damn phone, so I could just hear my music. Constant bombardment of stimuli. Not only irritating but also unsafe.

    I turned my phone off and threw it in the back seat. SILENCE. As I watched the trees and fields skimming by, I thought about my life before all this technology. I was beyond revolted with perpetual connectivity. I drifted back to my resolve to delete Facebook.

    I practice my spirituality in the woods. My nature time is sacred time, my interface with the Great Mystery. As I added gadgets, my secret, unique, sacred relationship with the earth had seemed harder to access. Would I ever feel that connection again? A hypothesis began shaping in my mind. Would I feel more spiritual and be able to access a deeper level of awareness if I got off of Facebook?

    I thought about the sticky web that is Facebook. Not only did I have over 200 “friends” of varying levels of intimacy, I had hundreds of photos and memories all neatly time-lined for my reminiscence. I felt the stress of giving up a potential audience for my creative works.

    I was stuck in an uncomfortable spot for several weeks. I wanted to get off Facebook to test my hypothesis, but I inexplicably felt trapped on the social media. I began to realize how I was being manipulated in an unhealthy way.

    I couldn’t torch my Facebook despite my great desire to plunge deeply into my spirituality. I was hooked. I hate being hooked or controlled by anything. So, I redoubled my efforts.  I developed a plan to get off Facebook in steps.

    In the first step, I deleted people I really didn’t know. I quickly deleted about thirty people. It felt good to finally start on my goal. I focused on being more in tune, being more aware, being more spiritual.

    As I whittled down my friends, the people became more intimate. People that mattered in my “real” life. I started getting confused about who to delete next and how to delete them. Should I send them a note? Would that be strange? Should I make a public post?

    I stalled for another couple of weeks. I was acutely aware that social media traps people and creates a labyrinth of complexities, a maze of prisons. I didn’t like how that made me feel.

    A few weeks later, I opened my journal to write. My signed pact stared back at me, forcing me to address this disturbing phenomenon of being trapped on Facebook.

    That evening, I curled up on the couch with a cup of coffee. My sole intent was to reduce my social media presence. I sent a private message to select people, explaining I was leaving Facebook and providing my contact information.

    A few wrote back, asking, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” My ego raised up a bit. Wow, they think something has gone wrong in my life. I should stay on Facebook to prove nothing is wrong. I slayed that ego dragon and pressed on with my quest.

    As I mass deleted my friends, Facebook acted like a real creature, bombarding me with more “people I may know” than ever before. It made me wonder if the site is programmed to recognize when someone starts deleting friends. Maybe not…but the new potential friends were very intriguing.

    How did they manage to target my profile with these people? I was tempted to click on some of the new profiles but moved on towards the goal. At times, the process of deleting friends felt great, but mostly I felt a sense of loneliness.

    Eventually, I had no friends. I experienced a mix of relief, sadness, and anxiety.

    Even the shell without friends proved a sticky trap. I belonged to groups that only posted on Facebook. I also had “liked” very entertaining pages. Could I give up Randy Rainbow videos, and adorable pictures of cows and elephants from the Gentle Barn and the Elephant Sanctuary? Yes, I can access their websites when I need a fix. I ‘unliked’ all my awesome pages.

    The hardest sacrifice was abandoning all my kids’ pictures and my life experiences neatly time-ordered. I pressed on because I wanted a deeper, more authentic life.

    I was ready for the final step—deletion! I couldn’t find the deletion button. Deactivation is not the same as deletion. All your info is stored and ready to be resurrected. I didn’t like this privacy issue, and I didn’t want the option to reactivate! I found it easier to google “delete Facebook account” and follow a link from a separate website, than try to find the instructions on Facebook.

    Finally, I found the delete account button and smelled freedom. Like a creepy, ex-partner who decides he isn’t going to be rejected, Facebook notified me deletion would take two weeks, and I could hop back on anytime in that two weeks.

    Thinking back on all the sticky traps of Facebook and the recent media attention on privacy breaches, I thought, “Why do we allow this? Why are we okay with this?” It is not authentic or satisfying to live this way.

    The first afternoon free of Facebook felt super!  A few days later, I felt similar to when I left home for a new job in a new city. Kinda lonely and lost, but ready for a new adventure. I definitely missed my friends back in Facebookland. I wondered if I would ever talk to some of them again.

    I jokingly asked my kids, “Do I still exist?” Sometimes, I caught myself clicking through news sites more often, simply out of habit. I realized some of my clicking provided a method of anxiety relief. The other sites just didn’t have the addictive quality of Facebook, and I eventually quit the mindless clicking.

    As the days move on, I notice subtle differences in my thinking. I feel a soft, calm sensation as I drive to work or create projects. I notice light patterns as the day shifts to dusk. I am more present in my own life. I feel a novel sense of boredom from time to time. Surprisingly, I really like feeling bored. It has stimulated my creativity and my humor. You have to work a little harder when there is nothing to do.

    One morning, I was goofing around with my dogs on the couch, playing with their paws, scratching their ears. I had not really connected with them in that manner in a long time. A kind of bored goofiness came over me that had been destroyed by the constant clicking. I felt like a little kid, lazing on Saturday afternoon. Boredom is not a bad thing.

    I also became really aware when my loved ones were ‘hooked up.’ It seemed weird that they would be so intent on staring at screens. It should seem weird, shouldn’t it? We’ve been deconditioned to this insanity.

    Occasionally I have moments of discomfort about my exodus. What about when my son graduates? Or, I have an article published? Or I travel to an exotic location? What if I take a killer photograph or observe a rare animal in the woods? Who will know?

    I guess I’ll share these experiences, successes, and photographs during lunch with my close friends and around the table with my family. At this point in my life, that feels so right to me. My smoother, more relaxed, unplugged mind is savoring the days I have left.

    I went to the woods today. I walked quietly and softly on the earth. I left my iPhone at home. The perfect scene for a photo and an unexpected animal sighting went uncaptured. With no phone to grab, these snapshots won’t be shared with the masses. How refreshingly beautiful.

    A little squirrel scampered on a tree, chattering to me. It was so quiet, so calm in the woods. I became lost in the moment. I felt that deep, sacred connection with nature that is so precious to me. I transcended into that other world, the world that remains hidden from a noisy mind. A place void of anxiety, of ego, of caricature. A place rich with connectedness, with earthiness, with authenticity.

  • Why Creativity Is the Path to Mindfulness, Happiness, and Peace

    Why Creativity Is the Path to Mindfulness, Happiness, and Peace

    “Mindful and creative, a child who has neither a past, nor examples to follow, nor value judgments, simply lives, speaks and plays in freedom.” ~Arnaud Desjardins

    No human being lives without experiencing the duality of life.

    Good and bad. Love and hate. Life and death. Acceptance and rejection. Success and failure. Joy and jealousy. Compassion and judgment.

    So why do we spend so much time trying to pretend that it’s bad to experience all of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly?

    Even our weather men and women tell us it’s a going to be a bad day because it’s raining or snowing. I mean, come on! The earth rejoices when it rains; snow is a natural part of our eco-system.

    Why do we try so hard to suppress the difficult feelings and experiences in our lives? Because our brains are wired that way? Because we were traumatized? Because our parents, teachers, and God knows who else told us to?

    Does it really matter, as we heal, who, where, and why?

    I remember the first time I heard the quote “Thoughts are things.”

    I knew instantly that if that was true, I was in trouble because I had a lot of thoughts I wasn’t proud of and never voiced out loud. I was taught at a very young age not to “rock the boat” or be “too dramatic” and the worst, “Your mom is unhappy because of you kids.” Yikes!

    So, when things got bad at home or at school or at church, they got stuffed. In me. In my heart. In my gut and in my head.

    On the outside I looked fine. Cute, bubbly, artistic, smart. But on the inside I was scared, confused, and anxious, and did not have a clue how to interact comfortably with people.

    I tried really hard (unsuccessfully) to fit in.

    Luckily, I had the outlet of art. I drew, I painted, I sewed, I made batiks—whatever I could get my hands on in the art department at the Catholic High school I went to, or whatever my mom would let me touch at home. She was an amazing seamstress, but, with eight kids, had neither the time nor patience to teach me. Luckily I’m old enough that we had “Home Ed” in high school, so I learned to sew well enough that my mom would let me use her sewing machine.

    Being creative got me through high school and into college with no major consequences. I wasn’t insecure, lonely, or in need of an outlet. I didn’t drink too much, I wasn’t promiscuous, and I didn’t do drugs.

    Fast forward a couple decades and I can tell you that eventually, I did experience the consequences of trying to drink my thoughts and feelings away. 

    I stayed pretty creative as long as I could, but, as life goes, I grew up, got married, had kids, and started to work.

    The turning point was when I lost my family of origin after some dramatic, painful events that I’ve chosen not to discuss publicly. (I learned the hard way that going over and over painful past events is not helpful to my healing.)

    I could not deal with what was going on inside of me.

    I started to drink more and more to squash what I was feeling.

    Within a few years, the addictive gene in me eventually cried out “GOT YA!” and I was lost.

    And this is what led me to the finding peace through being creative again. My crisis. My breakdown.

    An intervention with beautiful, sober women who didn’t know me but wanted to see me find myself again led me to being creative again.

    These women had been learning how to draw and paint from a friend who eventually became my sponsor.

    When I saw what these women had painted, with no artistic experience, it triggered something good inside me—the memory of being creative. (Yes, people, we can have good triggers!)

    “Whatever this is, I’m in!” I said, and I was on my way home. Home to my true self.

    They introduced me to an art form I had never heard of before, mandalas. I had no idea what a “mandala” was. Never heard of it and didn’t care. The mandala teacher had a studio full of every art supply you can imagine and space for many women to create. I was in heaven!

    As I drew and painted my first mandala, my creative mind took over and the crazy thoughts in my head stopped.

    I didn’t realize it then, but being creative again forced me to be what we all strive for when we think of being mindful: calm, serene, awake, and aware. 

    My goal was to have fun and be creative again, but what I got was far more than that.

    I reactivated the divine creative energy we are all born with.

    When I’m engaged in any creative activity, my “monkey mind” settles down. My inner critic has little to say. I’m not regretting the past or fearing the future. I’m in the here and now. I’m centered, relaxed, and rejuvenated.

    I got really curious—what’s was going on?

    Why had engaging in creative endeavors become so significant in my life? Why did it feel like that had been the single most important thing in my healing (after being sober, that is)?

    The Interconnectedness of Creativity and Mindfulness

    So began my research into creativity and mindfulness.

    I discovered that Carl Jung used art therapy with his patients. He encouraged the spontaneous drawing of mandalas. He believed that by just letting his patients draw with no interference, they would heal things in their psyche without even knowing it.

    “Most mandalas have an intuitive, irrational character and, through their symbolical content, exert a retroactive influence on the unconscious. They therefore possess a ‘magical’ significance, like icons, whose possible efficacy was never consciously felt by the patient.” ~Carl Yung

    I stumbled upon a new book about the power of doodling called The Doodle Revolution, by Sunni Brown. In her book, Sunni cites a lot of very famous people who used doodling to help them think better and retain information. She challenges all the parents, teachers, and bosses who say, “Stop doodling! Get serious! Grow up!”

    “There is NO SUCH THING as a mindless doodle,” according to Sunni.

    CNN reports creative activities impact the body in a way similar to meditation. It’s like yoga for your brain.

    This was also about the time that “adult coloring” became a billion-dollar industry. Why are millions of adults coloring, I wondered?

    The more research I did, the more obvious it became.

    Our society is craving sanity. Coloring reminds us all of the days of childhood when it was okay to pick up crayons and zone out for a bit. Having “adult” coloring books has given millions permission to stop, color, and find peace.

    What I personally experienced while being creative was mindfulness; my brain was quiet yet active while painting, collaging, sewing, drawing, coloring, baking, and crafting.

    Being creative somehow taught me the skill, if you will, of paying attention to me, of being mindful.

    As it turns out, when you are being creative, you are using both your creative self and your analytical self, your left and right brain hemispheres at the same time. This not only quiets your mind, it engages it.

    You are creating without angst. It kind of just happens.

    My creative self was reawakened. I was allowing myself to be me, to feel me.

    Having something creative “in the wings” became important, something to look forward to. Downtime became fun instead of something I dreaded.

    This is not say that being mindful instantly became an easy process for all the other times when I was not doing something creative.

    Having gone through some pretty traumatic years, it was “normal” for thoughts of dread, unworthiness, sadness, and shame to rumble through my mind, like the undercurrent of a river, when I was engaged in mundane activities.

    Being alone cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, doing bills, and working was still wrought with angst and despair.

    I began to yearn for that calm, serene mindfulness I felt while being creative at all times in my life. So I engaged in more creative activities and hung out with people who were on the same path of healing. I began to create a new “family” of people who supported and loved me. 

    I found and became active in a spiritual home. I started to naturally attract friends on the same path of becoming more creative, more mindful, more spiritual, more compassionate and successful in all areas of life.

    I read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and learned how important it is to notice it all—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

    “Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Wow, it’s okay to have “bad” thoughts. It’s actually normal. It’s hard. And I learned that it’s my responsibility alone how to handle it.

    I’ve subscribed to helpful blogs like TinyBuddha.com and mindful.org.

    I started doing Bikram (hot) yoga.

    Ninety minutes in a hot room doing yoga brought up a lot of difficult memories. But I stayed with it. I stayed in the room even though I was terrible and even though I would sometimes cry during the thirty-second rest periods between poses as I processed memories of hating my body and feeling ashamed and remembered being teased for being fat.

    I began meditating.

    At first I could only meditate with music or a guided meditations for five to ten minutes. I meditated like this sporadically for years.

    Just recently I started meditating in the morning and before bed at the suggestion of my life coach. She suggested two to five minutes, silently, in the lotus position. I said, “I can do at least ten I’m sure.” Much to my surprise, ten minutes was easy so I progressed to fifteen, then twenty, then thirty.

    I am now meditating for thirty minutes, alone, no music, sitting in the lotus position (as best I can) twice a day. This I consider a miracle. Meditating like this has also allowed more memories to gently come up and dissipate. Wow.

    Being mindful is not always an easy road, but it’s a much better path than trying to stuff painful memories, feelings, and thoughts down. 

    It’s much easier than trying to drink them away.

    I know this to be true.

    Being mindful has helped me be comfortable with my thoughts. Okay, that’s not always true—I still sometimes get angry and want them to go away, but I don’t dwell as much, I don’t lash out as much, and I am most definitely a happier, more peaceful person.

    The Process of Being Creative Triggers Memories—Good Ones

    If you activate your divine creative energy, you are activating the positive, shiny aspects of yourself. You remember happier times. You feel accomplished. You’re happy with yourself. You smile more (and people smile back)!

    As you then become more mindful, perhaps through yoga and meditation, the difficult thoughts and feelings are balanced with the positive, creative, and happy aspects of you.

    You take responsibility for your life. It’s fun to be with you.

    You realize that you are the person you’ve been waiting for.

  • Introducing Buddha Groove: Meditation, Yoga, and Inspirational Gifts

    Introducing Buddha Groove: Meditation, Yoga, and Inspirational Gifts

    Hi friends! I hope you’re all enjoying the holiday season so far. Since I know a lot of us spend the beginning of this month looking for the perfect holiday gifts for the people we love, I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce you to Tiny Buddha partner Buddha Groove.

    A family-owned business, Buddha Groove was one of Tiny Buddha’s first sponsors many years back.

    Buddha Groove partners with artists all over the world to offer products that feed the spirit, inspire the mind, and revive the body. Many of their designs originate from artisan traditions in places such as South America, India, Indonesia, Tibet, Nepal, Thailand, and several other world regions. Buddha Groove also partners with many independent artists across the U.S.

    Their wide assortment of spiritual and wellness items and meditation gifts include…

    Buddha statues, like this:

    Translucent Blue Buddha Statue

    Cold Cast Bronze Medicine Buddha Statue

    Meditation malas, like these:

    Chakra Wrist Mala

    Knotted Amethyst Meditation Mala

    Singing bowls, like these:

    Blue/Gold Tibetan Singing Bowl

    Blue/Gold Tibetan Singing Bowl

    Spiritual jewelry, like these pieces:

    Breathe Pendant

    Abstract Chakra Figure Pendant

    Books and coloring books, like these:

    Inspirational Quotes Coloring Book

    Mindfulness Guidebook for Kids/Parents

    Yoga gifts, like these:

    Namaste Blessings Card Set

    Yoga Frog Figurines

    Although I consider myself a minimalist, I know that creating a tranquil environment can go a long way in fostering a sense of inner peace. And I also know that it’s much easier to be mindful and consistent with my meditation practice when I have lovingly chosen tools to support me.

    The same is true of the people we love. What better gift to give than a gift that aids in creating calm and comfort?

    Buddha Groove offer free shipping within the continental USA and ships internationally through a third party company. They also offer no-hassle returns within 30 days on all items except media, books, cards, and products containing plants.

    You can browse their full collection here and read a long list of reviews from happy customers here.

    I hope you’ll enjoy browsing through their site, and also hope you find something that speaks to you for the spiritually inclined individuals on your holiday gift list!

    **This is a sponsored post containing affiliate links. That means that a small percentage of each sale supports Tiny Buddha and helps keep the site going.