Tiny Buddha

Tag: Mindfulness

  • We Can Make the World a Better Place, One Interaction at a Time

    We Can Make the World a Better Place, One Interaction at a Time

    “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” ~Marcus Aurelius

    Now more than ever, the world needs good people.

    While driving home from a job interview the other day, I listened to Joe Rogan talking about how he treats strangers who act mean or hostile to him, for apparently no reason at all.

    His modus operandi is essentially, “Let it go. You never know what kind of day the other person is having.”

    This resonated with me exceptionally well. It’s one of the big things I’ve been focusing on in the latter half of 2017—being nice to people no matter what the scenario.

    I consider myself an above average kind person. I’m always appreciative and friendly with servers at restaurants. I thank the pilot every time I walk off a flight (after all, for a few brief hours he is 100% in control of my life). And, I smile when greeted by a stranger.

    But, I am beautifully flawed much like the rest. Occasionally, emotions get the best of me. When my ego gets offended, instead of acting with love and kindness, my gut reaction turns to anger and “how dare he!”

    I’ve practiced being a good human being for as long as I can remember. Now, I’m determined to keep that persona, regardless of the situation.

    My Dance with the Devil

    A few short weeks ago, I just so happened to be in a scenario that tested my new philosophy.

    It may shock you when I say that I was driving a vehicle when this happened. Road rage is so uncommon these days, right?

    Anyways, my fiancé and I had just pulled into the parking lot of the Target a few minutes down the road. We were in a hurry to travel to her parents’ place in the mountains, kicking off a relaxing weekend away from home.

    The plan was to drop her off at the front then park the car. We were just stopping in for coffee and a few little things for our journey.

    As I pulled up to the pedestrian crosswalk, the mega-sized truck in front of me slammed on its brakes, forcing me to do the same.

    Instinctively, I threw my right arm in front of my fiancé while simultaneously blurting out an expletive. In the blink of an eye, my anxiety went from a one to an eight.

    I looked around to find the cause for his sudden stop, but I saw nothing. No pedestrians. No other cars (besides me). No stray animals.

    As the truck turned left and the driver came into clear view, I did something that immediately made me feel like a bad person: I flipped him the middle finger.

    Making the World a Better Place, One Interaction at a Time

    With all the hate, corruption, violence, and bullying that goes on in the world, why add more fuel to the fire?

    Did I really need to flick that guy driving the truck off? I mean, what if he had just gotten a phone call that shook his world? My ignorant act of hatred might be the exact opposite of what that guy needed in that moment.

    As Joe Rogan and many other individuals wiser than me would say, you never really know what kind of day that person is having.

    I felt terrible for doing it. I still feel bad about it, but I know I need to move on. In quite literally a millisecond of weakness, I slipped up.

    We all have egos that demand people treat us with respect. When the ego gets bruised, it’s extremely important to take a brief moment to decide how you want to respond instead of reacting impulsively.

    The world doesn’t need more hate. It needs more love, compassion, and kindness.

    If the other person was mean to you, it’s not a reflection of who you are as a human being; it’s likely something going on in their life. That person might be the happiest, most loving individual on the planet and could just be having the worst day ever.

    By choosing to respond with kindness, you make the world a better place. Maybe that person realizes the error of his ways. Maybe he doesn’t. It really doesn’t matter.

    What matters is that you took on an act of unkindness and refused to give it more power.

    You want to improve the world we live in? Don’t focus on solving world peace, global hunger, or stopping corrupt politicians. Instead, focus on the day to day interactions you have with everyone around you.

    Just imagine if all the rest of us would do the same.

    How I Started Being Better

    Being someone who responds to hate in a loving way is by no means a simple task. Your ego will want to defend itself, and you will find yourself reacting poorly, like I did.

    There were a few things I started doing that helped make me a better person, but one thing stood above them all. Practicing mindfulness, primarily through meditation, was the game-changer for me.

    Mindfulness gives you the extra “pause” you need in your life to properly defuse those tricky situations.

    It’s not really something that can be explained, but you’ll know what I’m talking about when you begin your own practice.

    My experience with meditation has always been a rollercoaster, practicing consistently at times and falling off the wagon at others. But now, I’ve made it a point to meditate every day.

    Among plenty of other benefits, it makes me a better person, and that’s something I’ll never take for granted again.

  • Boost Your Happiness: 10 Mindfulness Tips for Busy People

    Boost Your Happiness: 10 Mindfulness Tips for Busy People

    “There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Do you ever feel as though you would be happy if only things were a little different?

    You know that happiness is important, but you keep putting it on the backburner because there simply isn’t enough time to prioritize your own inner joy.

    And at the same time, you know that meditation would help, but you can’t even imagine where you’re going to get the spare time you need to sit still and meditate.

    In an ideal world, we would schedule moments every day in which to cater to our health needs, because health and well-being are paramount. Yet despite our best efforts we will inevitably face those times when we’re busy every minute of the day. I know I’ve been there.

    A few years ago I moved country while pursuing life as a freelance journalist. I was working non-stop for a less than minimum wage, and I had zero time to focus on my mental health.

    Life became unbearably stressful. And while I knew that I could stop the stress if I meditated, I simply couldn’t work out how I would ever get the time to do it.

    My happiness drifted further and further away. Stress built. Anxiety hit hard. And with zero free time I simply couldn’t find a way out of my misery.

    I knew meditation was the key. I just didn’t have the time for it. So I made a choice. Instead of meditating the old-fashioned way, sitting still doing nothing, I would find ways to meditate while still being productive. That way I could work on my happiness while still doing everything I needed to do.

    The key was mindfulness.

    By simply being present and living in the moment, I could meditate while getting things done.

    This was a total game-changer for me. Suddenly I had all the time in the world to practice mindfulness because I could do it while still being productive.

    I was mindful day and night. I would eat meals mindfully, walk mindfully, read my email mindfully… whatever I needed to do I would do mindfully.

    Suddenly I had gone from having no time to meditate to making mindfulness an integrated part of my life.

    All mindful moments were helpful at this time. But there were ten mindful practices that I found particularly valuable. And even though today I keep a much healthier schedule and make sure not to spread myself too thin, I still use these practices.

    Whether you’re going through a busy time or looking for an alternative to traditional seated-meditation, you can use these techniques to boost your mindfulness while saving time.

    1. Walk mindfully.

    Walking is one of the most relaxing exercises in the world. But it can be all too easy to ruin a good walk by thinking too much. When walking, be mindful of the world around you, paying attention to your five senses. Alternatively, meditate on the feeling of movement in your legs, which is a practice used in Zen walking.

    2. Eat mindfully.

    Eating mindfully is one of the most wonderful things we do for both body and mind. When we eat mindfully we become more aware of the food we are eating. This makes us more appreciative of food and of the digestive process, and also makes us more likely to eat healthily. Take time eating meals, and focus on the food.

    3. In a queue? Meditate.

    Here’s a great time-saving tip. When you’re in a queue, meditate. You’re standing still doing nothing anyway, and you could be there for a good few minutes, so why not make the most of the time?

    Close your eyes and focus on your breath. Or, if you don’t feel comfortable with your eyes closed in public, gaze at a wall or something else that is not distracting, and focus on breathing. This is a great way to actually make use of time that would otherwise be wasted.

    4. Meditate on the bus.

    This is my all time favorite mindfulness practice. I’m frequently using the bus in order to help cut emissions, and my trips range from half an hour to well over an hour. That’s time that would be utterly wasted. But by meditating I actually get something out of my time on the bus.

    Personally, I’m always happy to sit with my eyes closed and look a little bit funny doing so. But if you prefer not to draw attention to yourself, keep your eyes open and simply drop your gaze to a forty-five-degree angle. Now focus on your breath.

    5. Exercise with body and mind.

    Oftentimes when we’re exercising the body thoughts are still ruminating in the mind. Big mistake. Physical exercise can be used as training for both body and mind. All we need to do is focus while we exercise.

    Some exercises are more conducive to this than others. Yoga, tai chi, and Qigong are all excellent mind and body exercises, and running can be another good choice. Other exercises such as weight-lifting and competitive team sports are less appropriate.

    6. Actually watch the TV.

    How often do we have the TV on without actually focusing on it? We’ve got some random show playing in the background while we’re thinking of what to make for dinner or what we have to do at work. This creates a rift between our reality and what’s occurring in the mind. And this is detrimental to mental health.

    When watching the TV, actually set aside an hour or so in which to genuinely watch a show. Focus on the show. And when it is over turn off the TV.

    7. Lie down in body and mind.

    Lying down is, of course, an act of rest. But too often when we lie down we rest the body while still working the mind. How many times have you gone to bed worrying about the next day? Such moments are not genuine rest, and they certainly are not conducive to good sleep.

    When lying down with the body, we should lie down with the mind too. To do this, focus the mind on the body. Focus on the body at rest.

    Begin by focusing on the crown of your head. Notice what sensations are there. Is there any tension? If so, imagine breathing fresh air into that area. The fresh air relaxes. It carries away the tension.

    Once the crown of your head is relaxed, move down to your forehead and repeat the process there.

    Continue one step at a time, progressing through your eyes, nose, mouth, neck and so on, all the way to your feet.

    Your entire body will now be utterly relaxed. Focus on it. Be mindful of your entire body. Particularly be aware of the sense of relaxation. Keep the mind there, your consciousness evenly spread across your whole body.

    This is lying down in mind as well as in body. It is an immensely relaxing experience and one of the best ways of refreshing the mind.

    8. Really listen.

    Everyone loves a good listener, and listening can be an act of mindfulness too. All we need do is pay absolute attention to the person speaking. When doing this, we do not judge their voice or what they are saying, and we do not worry about how we are going to respond; we simply focus on the sound of the other person’s voice.

    9. When working, work.

    Let’s be completely honest, most of us do not focus on work 100% unless the boss is standing next to us. Instead, we’re thinking about how we want to get out of the office, how we’d rather be at home or out having fun. But dreaming about not working while we’re at work simply makes us miserable.

    When we focus the mind 100% on the work we’re doing we come to actually enjoy our jobs. So, when writing, write. When selling, sell. And when listening to that angry customer’s complaints, listen. This will stop work from feeling like a chore and make it a pleasurable, mindful experience.

    10. Listen to the kettle and meditate on the drink.

    As an Englishman, my kettle is turned on far too many times throughout the day, and I do delight in drinking far too much tea. (It’s usually green, so at least I’ve got that going for me.)

    One way to make a cup of tea or coffee even better is to meditate on it. Meditate on the sound of the kettle when it is boiling. Focus on the process of making the tea or coffee. And drink mindfully. This will make you appreciate the drink more, while also increasing present-moment-mindfulness.

    —

    Mindfulness needn’t take time. We can be mindful while doing the things we need to do. And in the process, we can boost our happiness and health without losing time.

    The ten tips we’ve looked at provide ways to boost mindfulness while saving time. And there are many similar tips.

    What is your favorite way of being mindful?

  • 5 Reasons Why I Tried Mindfulness and How It’s Changed My Life

    5 Reasons Why I Tried Mindfulness and How It’s Changed My Life

    “We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.” ~Jack Kornfield

    Almost two years ago, I kept seeing the word “mindfulness” pop up everywhere I was looking, and I had no clue what it was.

    I kept seeing blog posts with titles like How Mindfulness can Help You at Work¸ How Mindfulness can Help You in Relationships, and How Mindfulness can Help You in the Bedroom.

    Then, I saw a short video explaining mindfulness. It was a monk drinking coffee, and the narrator was talking about how much better the coffee tastes when you think about the beans being grown, the people who harvest the beans, and everything else that goes into making your simple cup of coffee.

    Everything I was seeing from pop-culture blogs made it seem like this thing called mindfulness was this snake oil that could solve all of life’s problems. Although I was skeptical and had no clue what I was getting into, I decided that I was going to keep an open mind and see what mindfulness was all about.

    For me, it was a quick and easy sell from the moment I started practicing because everything just “clicked” for me.

    As someone who tries to encourage everyone to give it a try, I’ve learned that people don’t often have the same experience. So, if you’re someone who is thinking about trying the practice or giving up, I hope this will give you some motivation to keep moving forward.

    1. Time is our most valuable currency, and we can’t waste it.

    In June of 2012, I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure at the age of twenty-six, and the doctors told me there was a slim chance that I’d live more than another year. Well, here we are five years later; I’m alive, and I’ve been able to watch my son grow into an amazing young man. My heart is almost completely back to normal, and it’s blown my doctor’s mind.

    With this second chance at life, I made a commitment to myself that I was going to experience every day to its fullest with a goal to waste as little time as possible, because tomorrow isn’t promised.

    I know, my situation is a little bit more extreme than most, but I believe this is something we can all get behind. We’ve all had unexpected tragedy in our life from losing a job, a relationship, or a loved one. Since tomorrow isn’t promised, we need to make the most of today. I thought that this was exactly what I was doing until I discovered mindfulness.

    When I took my first course on mindfulness, some questions started to come up that I had never even asked myself because I didn’t realize they were questions that needed to be asked.

    • When was the last time I sat in awareness of simply noticing gravity keeping me grounded on Earth?
    • My breath happens twenty-four hours a day, seven days per week, but how often do I notice it?
    • How many times do I drive from point A to point B without noticing one part of my experience because I’m stuck in my head?

    These last five years I thought I was making the most of each day, but there was so much that I was missing. I mindlessly drive to work, eat food, have conversations, and engage mindlessly in many other situations. Mindfulness helps keep me fully present and engaged with as many moments in my life so I don’t miss anything.

    2. Mindfulness is backed by science.

    I’ve been an extremely skeptical person my entire life. Maybe it stems from the trust issues I developed as a kid. My father always taught me that if it sounds like it’s too good to be true, it usually is.

    In order to sell me on trying anything new, I need some very clear-cut evidence and scientifically backed research that this thing is going to work. Like I said, my time is extremely valuable to me, so I’m not going to waste my time trying something that doesn’t have any evidence to back it up.

    Around the same time that I discovered mindfulness, I also learned that I’m fascinated by neuroscience. One of the most interesting parts of the brain is the prefrontal cortex. While it’s the youngest part, it also has some of the most important responsibilities, including:

    • Emotional regulation
    • Impulse control
    • Body regulation
    • Making logical decisions
    • Empathy
    • Connectedness to others
    • Self-awareness

    The problem with us as humans is that our limbic system (our primitive instincts to react) often overrides the prefrontal cortex. However, scientific evidence shows that a regular mindfulness practice helps strengthen that part of the brain.

    Basically, if I wanted to get stronger biceps, I know which weight-lifting exercises I could do. If I wanted to increase my stamina, I’d probably do some cardio. So, if I want to improve all of the abilities listed above, I should practice mindfulness because it strengthens the prefrontal cortex. I can debate with the best of them, but I’ll never argue against scientific evidence.

    3. My mind is a boat without an anchor.

    I am one of those people with a mind that never stops. This is something that I’ve dealt with since I was a kid. I don’t think it’s any form of ADD, but I have a brain that’s constantly planning, coming up with new ideas, and trying to find solutions to problems.

    This is a gift and a curse. The way my mind works has helped me excel at many different jobs because my brain is wired to always think about how I can improve what I’m doing. The issue is that there’s a time and a place for this, and when I’m in the middle of a conversation or doing an important project with a mind that takes off, it can get me into a bit of trouble.

    I also noticed that sometimes my mind would end up in the weirdest places sometimes. I could be sitting at my desk at work, and after zoning out for a few minutes, for some reason I’m thinking about a scene from a 90s TV show, and I’m wondering how I got there. It’s like driving your car to buy groceries and somehow ending up at the park and thinking, “How on earth did I get here?”

    I always thought that I was one of the only people this happened to, but it’s extremely common. Our brains have tens of thousands of thoughts per day, and my mindfulness taught me that’s alright. It becomes a problem when we don’t notice where our thoughts are taking us.

    By using different anchors like my breath or anchor words like “thinking,” I’m able to catch my thoughts drifting sooner rather than later.

    I often say that instead of my mind taking me five hundred miles off of its course, now it only takes me about five miles off course.

    This has also allowed me to find humor in my own thoughts, which helps me out incredibly with self-esteem issues.

    I have a brain that can quickly turn an anthill into a mountain. For example, maybe I said, “Good morning!” to the receptionist when I arrived at work, and she didn’t reply. My mind used to start over-analyzing that situation immediately with thoughts like “Maybe she’s mad at me,” “I wonder what I did wrong,” and “I wonder if I’m about to get fired because nobody here likes me.”

    My mind used to take a hard turn to the off-ramp leading to crazy town, but now I can catch it and simply giggle to myself about where my mind went to.

    4. Mindfulness helps you deal with emotions in a new way.

    One of my mindfulness instructors discussed how nobody teaches us, when we’re children, that life and emotions can be intense, and I immediately related to him in that aspect. My emotional regulation has been off since I was a child. I don’t just feel things; I FEEL things.

    I think of my emotions as being on a line that goes from -10 to +10 with 0 being in the middle. Whenever I felt anything, positive or negative, it was always at a -10 or +10, and both of these can hurt me.

    Learning about mindfulness taught me what equanimity means, and that’s something I knew that I needed in my life. I always had issues not just getting sad, but getting depressed. I wouldn’t get worried; I’d get anxiety. I wouldn’t get angry; I’d get furious. And whenever I started to like someone, I’d fall head over heels in love with them.

    My other issue was that my expectations would cause me to cling to optimism at a +10, and if the situation didn’t pan out, I’d fall to a -10 because I was up too high.

    The Buddhist teaching talks about how grasping can lead to suffering, and it made sense. I would grasp at emotions whether they were positive or negative. In both situations, this was like holding onto a hot coal for far too long.

    Maybe I was letting something from earlier in my day ruin the rest of my day. Maybe the exciting plans I had for after work was distracting me from getting my job done. Mindfulness helps me simply notice what my emotion is, and let it be exactly what it is in that moment.

    This is easier said than done with good emotions, but what about the bad ones? The practice also teaches me about impermanence and that no negative emotion is going to last forever.

    Now, I’m able to sit with my emotion and turn toward it and accept it. I can see my emotion as a leaf that’s gently floating down a stream past me. Knowing that my negative emotion will eventually pass allows me to embrace it without trying to resist what I’m experiencing in that very moment.

    5. It helps my son.

    As a parent, we’re always looking for something to do with our children, and mindfulness is something that helps me be a parent and helps my son manage his thoughts and emotions. I was practicing for about six months when I realized how beneficial it would be for my son to begin practicing with me.

    We were on vacation in Southern California visiting my best friend. On the last day of the trip, we took my son to the boardwalk, which was full of everything that he loved. He could play video games at the arcade, eat some boardwalk junk food, and spend time at the beach. Unfortunately, he was having a very bad day, which started as an attitude problem and evolved into him breaking down in tears.

    I had been trying everything to cheer him up on this last day of our vacation, but nothing was working. I thought maybe he was hungry, so we got food. My head told me he was being ungrateful, which can trigger my negative reactions. I thought maybe we were doing too many adult things, so we tried the arcade, but that didn’t work. What was wrong?

    He was tired, but he didn’t realize it.

    My son was seven at this time, and I have to remember that he doesn’t have the knowledge or experience that I do.

    Everything he’s experiencing is new for him, and not only is it difficult for him to communicate his feelings to me, but oftentimes he doesn’t even know what he’s feeling. When we finally sat down and took a minute, he explained that he was extremely tired and he didn’t sleep the night before.

    As soon as we returned from that trip, I started teaching him mindfulness, and I’ve seen him change so much over the last nine months. He’s able to identify his emotions much sooner, and he has his own tools to calm himself down.

    He realizes when he’s worried about the future, and he uses his breath to come back to the moment. He loves doing loving/kindness practices and sending kind thoughts to his little brother, friends, family and sometimes complete strangers. He even did a presentation on mindfulness for his 2nd grade project!

    I thought that I was happy and content with life before, but my life has grown exponentially better with my consistent practice. Each day, I learn more about myself as well as life.

    If I ever stopped growing from my practice, I’d probably stop, but my experience as well as the experience of others shows me that we continue to grow each day. So, whether you’re at a lull in your practice or thinking about trying mindfulness, just keep moving forward toward enlightenment.

  • How to Relax in Meditation When You Have a Busy Mind

    How to Relax in Meditation When You Have a Busy Mind

    “The Tao is always at ease. It overcomes without competing, answers without speaking a word, arrives without being summoned, accomplishes without a plan.” ~Lao-Tsu

    As a longtime meditator and participant in the awakening process I am constantly on the lookout for hints that illuminate the path. I am open to these hints regardless of their source, so many of my teachers have been young children.

    We may have many differing reasons to practice mindfulness and meditation. Regardless of the specific motivation, all meditators experience distraction and mental rebellion from time to time, and it can be quite frustrating. Many new meditators never get past the frustration and ultimately give up before they see the fruits of their efforts.

    Although I never had a formal meditation teacher, I became engrossed in my own meditation process at a fairly young age.

    Fortunately for me, I learned a lesson from an unexpected teacher, fairly early in the process, who helped me to transcend distraction and mental rebellion during meditation and throughout daily life. I’d like to share this lesson with you in hopes that it helps you to get more out of your meditation and life.

    My wife regularly visited a large park in Tokyo for weekend strolls, picnics, and to walk the dogs. One day at the park a young Japanese girl unwittingly became my teacher.

    We had agreed to meet a friend, Yuuji, for a picnic one Sunday. Yuuji brought his wife and his eight-year-old daughter, Kotomi, and we brought our dogs.

    One of our dogs, Leila, is a Chinese crested dog, which is a small breed. Kotomi really loved dogs and wanted to walk one of ours, so we let her take the lead for Leila.

    Kotomi was so excited to walk a dog for the first time! It would also be Leila’s first walk with a stranger.

    My wife taught Kotomi how to hold the leash, how to keep Leila next to her during the walk, and so on. Kotomi listened and nodded that she understood.

    Our little Leila was always great on walks, but as my wife handed Kotomi the leash, Leila looked at me incredulously. Clearly this was going to be a battle of wills.

    Leila totally ignored Kotomi’s lead and began sniffing here and there to her heart’s content. Kotomi, feeling Leila’s weight on the leash, pulled the leash over her shoulder and leaned into the walk, forgetting all technique.

    Not wanting to submit to this stranger, Leila leaned back against the leash and bucked against the girl. Kotomi just kept moving forward as if Leila wasn’t even there.

    I kind of felt bad for Leila, but she wasn’t experiencing any physical harm. She was testing her new walker, which is not uncommon for dogs that have never been walked by anyone other than their family members. Curiosity had me, and I wanted to see how this scenario would play out.

    Leila put up a great fight, but it was all for naught because Kotomi seemed oblivious to it. She was just excited to be at the park. I wondered if she had forgotten that there was a dog on the other end of the leash.

    The dog fought; Kotomi just moved forward.

    After five minutes, I began to wonder how long Leila could keep up her fight. Ten minutes passed with Leila still locked in resistance mode, so I considered taking the leash myself. But then, like the flipping of a light switch, Leila joined the walk.

    Just like that, she surrendered to Kotomi and began smiling as she walked next to her new friend. For the rest of the day she was the perfect dog. She sniffed, wagged her tail, and even let Kotomi pick her up, the first stranger ever to do so successfully.

    Kotomi had won a fight that she never even took part in! She just moved forward mindlessly.

    After this experience I began applying the “forward motion” principle to my meditations to astounding effect. I just gave up any expectation that my mind was going to cooperate and instead simply moved forward.

    How does that principle play out in meditation?

    You know how it can be in meditation: The mind gets distracted again and again. There may be some physical aches and pains that the mind clings to. Then the mental resistance starts with statements like, “I’m not doing this right,” or “I have too much mental noise,” or “I don’t feel like meditating today, I’ll do it tomorrow instead.”

    But now is the only time that we ever have! Tomorrow never was and never will be. It’s a figment of the imagination. Either we are moving forward in the moment or we are not.

    Admitting the reality of now, I decided to sit in meditation for the allotted time, regardless of how my mind felt about it. I was not going to let distraction or frustration have any power. I determined to let the mind fight the good fight, while I moved toward my goal of deeper relaxation and clarity.

    My mind was worried about work-related issues, reminding me of things that I already knew. Here’s what happened.

    “Did you check the tests for grammar errors?” I took a deep breath, tensed my entire body and released it, relaxing my body and expanding my awareness globally.

    “Don’t forget to print the tests first thing tomorrow morning!” I tension-released again, going deeper still into relaxation, opening awareness again in every direction.

    “Remember to ….” In midsentence I tension-released into spaciousness.

    I began to notice that my mind would go into little frustrated narrations when a thought arose, “Jeez, another thought,” or “Ah, again,” or “When is this going to stop?” Then it occurred to me that my reactive opinions of thoughts are also thoughts, so I decided to relax and expand at each such occurrence.

    After a few minutes of expansive releasing, secondary thought ceased, but there was still the feeling of frustration when primary thoughts arose. I then included feelings into my breath-releases.

    In short order, thought felt far away. Although thought still occurred, there was no feeling that it was my thought.

    The breath-release-expansion continued at each distant thought, and after a time overt thought and emotion ceased entirely.

    What was left were just little blips of thought and emotion, unformed and out of context. They came up out of the unconscious like little ripples in the stream of awareness.

    There was a sudden insight into how the mind worked. Thought begins with these tiny little blips that the mind reacts to habitually by stringing them together with memories, effectively creating narratives, stories, and images that pull awareness out of the present.

    It was like seeing behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz, only to find a weak-willed con man at the controls. A debilitating illusion was broken.

    Silence.

    The lesson of moving forward worked! Just like every little step that Kotomi had taken in the park, I moved forward, step by step, into a timeless clarity that was interrupted only by a beeping alarm. Thirty refreshing minutes had passed.

    So, when you sit down to meditate, decide how long you are going to be there and be there for that allotted time, relaxing ever deeper into expansiveness. Accept that the mind will sniff here and there and rebel. Just keep moving forward through relaxed awareness into spaciousness.

    Eventually something unexpected may happen. Before long the mind begins to follow your intent, silencing quickly.

    When you stop fighting the mind, something else unexpected may happen. You may also cease to concern yourself over the mind’s assumptions, opinions, narrations, regrets, instant replays, and so forth.

    Once there is insight into the mind through direct experience, there is no longer any need to fight or correct it. The dog will come along once it tires of the fight, and before you know it, you will have a new friend who supports your meditations—and your life.

  • Mindful in May: Get More Present and Help Fight Global Poverty

    Mindful in May: Get More Present and Help Fight Global Poverty

    It’s that time of year again! I’m excited to share that Mindful in May, the world’s largest online mindfulness fundraising campaign, has launched.

    Join thousands of people across the globe and learn from the world’s leading teachers and well-being experts in this comprehensive one-month program.

    For a limited time you can get a free taste of the program by accessing an exclusive video interview with Joseph Goldstein, one of the world’s leading mindfulness teachers, and also download two free guided meditations.

    Get free access to this teaching and learn more about Mindful in May here.

    The Mindful in May program includes:

    • Access to a world-class online mindfulness program delivered to your inbox, starting on May 1st
    • Downloadable guided meditations
    • Exclusive video interviews with world leaders in the field including Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Daniel Goleman, Tara Brach, James Doty, Mark Nepo, Sara Lazar, and many more
    • Daily emails to support you in making meditation a habit
    • Access to a private online community to keep you accountable and support your daily practice
    • An opportunity to help make a positive difference in the world by transforming the lives of those in need of clean water

    Whether you’re new to meditation or looking to reboot your practice, Mindful in May will help you create greater ease, calm, and well-being in your life—and through your involvement, you’ll help transform the lives of those in need of clean, safe drinking water.

    One in ten people on the planet struggle to survive without access to clean water, with one child dying every ninety seconds from a water-related illness.

    When you register to Mindful in May, you’ll be invited to make an optional donation or get sponsored and dedicate your month of meditation to transforming the lives of those in need.

    Register for Mindful in May today ($39 for early enrollment) and meditate to make a difference.

  • Three Unexpected, Life-Changing Lessons I Learned at a Silent Retreat

    Three Unexpected, Life-Changing Lessons I Learned at a Silent Retreat

    “Every moment is a choice to begin again.” ~Unknown

    By day three of the five-day silent retreat I found myself wondering, “Why did I do this again?”

    The pain of sitting in lotus position for eight hours a day was testing my patience. I was frustrated that my mind would only be still for a few moments, before interrupting itself with commentary on the fact that my mind was still, and I wasn’t feeling any spiritual awakening—although not being a particularly “spiritual” person, this wasn’t entirely surprising

    So why had I decided to go on a silent retreat in the first place? I had wanted to experience meditation without distraction and to take my practice to another level.

    Going into the silent retreat, I had worries and questions circling: Will the silence be tedious? What will the other people be like? Are the teachers going to be cult-like leaders? Will I uncover some past trauma buried away deep inside?

    Of course, of the things I worried about, none of them came true. Instead, what I found challenging and what I learned the most from were things that I hadn’t even considered: desire, expectations, and judgment.

    Desire

    If you’ve ever wondered what drives your behavior, you can thank the power of desire for that. And you certainly learn a lot about desire when you’re at a silent retreat.

    Silent retreats are set up so that you never need to verbally communicate, which means that almost every minute of the day is scheduled for you, all your meals are prepared, and all external stimulation is removed. This creates a perfect storm for your desire to run wild, fantasizing about all the things you can’t have or do.

    I never noticed how much I’m driven by desire until I spent a significant portion of the retreat daydreaming about different foods I wanted to eat. By day three I was writing lists of foods I was going to eat when I finally was “free” again.

    I didn’t understand why I felt so compelled to do this until our evening teachings the following night, when I realized it was because I was struggling with desire.

    That night we learned that what we’re often really craving is not the thing that we desire, but the reprieve we feel once we have relieved ourselves from the yearning of desire. This realization actually freed me from my wants, and allowed me to instead laugh at the simplicity of my humanness and my clear love of rice paper rolls.

    It also made me realize that when we’re able to see what’s driving us, we have the space to observe our experience and choose how we respond, rather than being at the mercy of invisible desires. Instead, we’re able to consider what it is we really need, rather than simply what we want in that moment.

    Since the retreat, I’ve been more mindful of when desire is driving me and it’s certainly helped my bank account, particularly when I’m having a moment where I think, “I just need these shoes” without really knowing why I “need them” so much.

    Not that there’s anything wrong with buying shoes, but I’ve been able to see more clearly when my desire to buy shoes is coming from a place of wanting to feel better about myself, when I want to feel like I’m keeping up with others, or when I want other people to think I’m cool.

    I’ve come to realize that while buying shoes might make me feel good in the moment, it isn’t going to build the foundations of lasting self-confidence.

    Instead, I now find it much easier to pause and acknowledge, “Aha, this is just desire” and recognize that really, I have enough and I don’t need things to be enough.

    Expectations

    I’ve always known that having really set expectations can cause all sorts of problems, but the experience of the silent retreat cemented this for me.

    My biggest problem was that I expected my meditation practice to somehow transform itself into something other than what it currently was. Of course, setting this expectation didn’t mean that my meditation practice changed at all; instead, it just left me feeling frustrated that I wasn’t experiencing something different. Ironically, meditation is all about experiencing whatever arises in that moment.

    I didn’t even know what it was that I expecting to change. But I learned that when we’re searching for something, we’re blinded by the act of searching, and we miss the subtle changes that are unfolding before us. It’s often not until we let go of what we think should be changing that we can really notice and appreciate what has changed.

    I also came to realize that expectations can really cause a lot of suffering. Now, looking back, I recognize that my expectations took me away from the beautiful sounds of the Balinese jungle, from the stillness that was there, and the joy of simply being.

    When I let go of my expectations, not only did I start enjoying meditation more, I realized how powerful it could be to let go of expectations.

    Despite having this realization, I’m still constantly surprised at how often my expectations get in the way of me being able to live peacefully. I often find myself expecting friends to behave in certain ways, and when they don’t, I feel deeply disappointed. But really, there’s no reason for me to expect them to behave differently, as they are simply engaging in the same behaviors that they have over the past fifteen years.

    What I’ve taken from this is that the solution isn’t to disregard expectations, but to be mindful that your expectations aren’t too far removed from reality. I’ve found looking at the facts of a situation helpful in managing my expectations and instead, delighting in the unexpected.

    Judgment

    No matter how much we try not to be, we’re naturally judgmental. And I know this cannot be changed, but what I really noticed on retreat was the effect it had on my mind and my body, and how different my experience could be if I practiced letting go of judgment.

    One evening I found myself really judging another girl for using social media while at the retreat. We had been asked to not make any contact with the outside world, and this of course included no use of social media.

    At the time, I assumed that her use of social suggested that she wasn’t taking the retreat seriously. As these judgments raced through my mind, I noticed how much my body tensed up, how irritated I felt, and I could almost feel my mind narrowing as I focused on how their behavior was “wrong.”

    Yet, when I opened myself up and tried to accept her behavior, I was freed from my own prison of judgment. When I allowed myself to be curious rather then judgmental, the experience transformed for me.

    Instead of feeling irritated by her and closed off, I instead felt open and compassionate, and frankly just a lot less bothered by her. Being open and curious allowed me to move on and let go, relieving the discomfort of being judgmental.

    It certainly wasn’t an easy thing to do, and I had to remind myself time and time again to keep opening, but the felt difference between the two was unbelievable. It was actually much more physically and emotionally pleasant being non-judgmental than being judgmental.

    I really noticed this for myself when I was back in New York, sitting in a Broadway show. I caught myself totally distracted by the judgmental commentary happening in my head. It was the same old story, comparing my body to those of the performers, and my poor old thighs were the victims of my self-criticism yet again.

    When I noticed how deeply I was caught up in worrying about the size of my thighs, I decided it was a good moment to practice what I had learned on retreat. I started saying to myself over and over, “Let go, be present.”

    It was such a relief to allow myself to let go of judgment, and instead I was open to connect with feelings of joy as I started clapping along to the songs with the rest of the crowd. Not only this, letting go of the judgment allowed me to be more accepting and compassionate towards myself.

    So all in all, while my meditation practice didn’t change as I expected it to, I certainly learned a lot on the silent retreat and took a lot away with me, all which was delightfully unexpected.

    My three takeaways were that:

    1. Desire is just a creation of our mind that we don’t need to follow. In fact, just acknowledging it can relieve us from the power of our desire.

    2. Letting go of expectations allows us to be present and enjoy what is already here.

    3. Being open and curious frees us from judgment, allowing us to be accepting and compassionate toward others, and ourselves.

  • 5 Simple but Powerful Practices for a Happier, More Present Life

    5 Simple but Powerful Practices for a Happier, More Present Life

    “There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that?” ~Ernest Hemingway

    It was a Wednesday afternoon, just like any other. I’d spent the last three hours bent over my laptop at a coffee shop, trying to nail down the revisions to a research report that was already three days late.

    I’d been distracted all afternoon, checking my e-mail every five minutes for news about a proposal I’d submitted a few weeks earlier. When I’d found nothing to satisfy me in my inbox, I’d stumble over to Facebook, paging through memes about the world’s impending doom that seemed custom designed to me to make me feel as gloomy as possible.

    Finally I called it quits and drove home in a funk. I walked into the kitchen, where my wife Lisa was cutting vegetables for dinner. She looked up when I walked in. “How are you doing?” she asked, reading my face.

    I thought about that for a moment. I knew I had a happy life. There were a million things to be thankful for: a supportive relationship, fantastic kids, good health, and the fortune to live in a beautiful corner of a free country.

    But I didn’t feel any of that just now. I felt just a vague cloud of irritation and impatience and stress.

    “I’m feeling sort of blue,” I confessed. “I’m trying to make my company work and I don’t know if I’m going to get this project and the world is stressing me out.”

    I looked up at Lisa, expecting her to offer me a word of encouragement or a reassuring smile. But her face did not show sympathy. It showed irritation.

    “I’m tired of hearing about all the things in your life you aren’t satisfied with,” she said.

    “What are you talking about?” I said. “I’m just feeling kind of blue. I’ll feel better when I get some more work and finish my book and maybe get to travel more, that’s all. Those are all normal, human frustrations. Then I’ll be perfectly happy.”

    She raised her eyebrows skeptically. “You haven’t been happy since I met you.”

    “I have too!” I listed a bunch of happy moments from our ten years together: our wedding day, our honeymoon trip to Spain, my fortieth birthday party. Of course I’d been happy. And I had every reason to feel blue right now. Lisa obviously didn’t know a thing about me.

    “Fine,” she said. “If you say so.” We pretty much left it at that, and went on to our evening routine, eating dinner and washing dishes and reading bedtime stories.

    But as I tucked the girls into bed that night, something about the conversation stuck with me. I knew she was by my side. I knew she supported me in whatever I did. And I knew, too, that she knew me pretty well. So why was she so wrong about me this time?

    Two weeks later we flew with our two girls up to northern Idaho for our annual trip to visit Lisa’s family. We would spend the first two nights camping in a pine grove behind her dad’s log house, within view of Lake Coeur d’Alene. We set up our tent in the dappled afternoon sun, ready to spend a week as far as we could get from phones and computers and commuter traffic.

    The next morning we walked down to the lake, arms full of beach towels and sunscreen. I held the girls’ hands as we walked over the slick rocks to a small stretch of sand beyond, and they darted into the lake, laughing and splashing.

    The scene seemed picture-perfect. But I still felt that strange cloud, that feeling of not-quite-rightness. I was removed from the day-to-day stresses of work, but something was still off.

    Maybe Lisa was right. If I wasn’t happy at work, and I wasn’t happy here, then where was I happy?

    And then, in a flash of recognition, I saw what was in my way.

    I was afraid.

    I was afraid of being present in this moment, and only this moment.

    When I was working, I was afraid to just be there, focusing on the task at hand, satisfied with wherever I was in the long process of building a career.

    And now that I was on vacation, I was afraid to be here. I was afraid to stop worrying about work for a moment. If I truly allowed myself to acknowledge that all there was to life was to be found right here, right now, then what if that moment did not stand up to the hype? What if all I found here was emptiness, meaninglessness?

    But when I looked right into that monster of fear, something surprising happened. It disappeared.

    When I allowed myself to truly be in the moment, I saw that it wasn’t empty, but full. Full of the smell of sunscreen and seaweed and pine trees. Full of the sound of gulls squawking in the sky overhead, the rumble of a dump truck on the dirt road in the distance, the shrieks of kids’ laughter floating above it all like a melody line in a symphony.

    It seemed too simple. It was a cliché I’d read a million times in mindfulness magazines and self-help books. Be Here Now. It made sense, but somehow had always remained at an intellectual level.

    The “future,” I saw, will never really arrive. I will always be waiting for something, for some answer, some sign that what I’m doing is good enough and that I’m good enough. Ten years from now, I may be on the New York Times bestseller list and enjoying my vacations to Maui with Oprah, but I’ll still be waiting for the future.

    In truth, I’d been dissociating from the present my whole life. It was a bad habit that probably began as a way of trying to avoid the trials of an often difficult childhood, and was only reinforced when I tried to evade the darkness of the depression I felt in my early twenties. Those hard times were far in the past, but I was still holding on to the patterns they helped create.

    Lisa had been right after all. She knew me more than I gave her credit for. I had a happy life, I realized, but I needed to own it, to reach out and grab it by simply being here.

    I stood for a moment watching the scene as the brisk lake water lapped at my toes. Then I held my breath and dove under, straight into the present.

    Tips For Being Present

    Changing a lifetime’s mental habits is an ongoing process, not a one-time quick fix. Our brains are built to reinforce behavior that feels safe and comfortable, even when that behavior hurts us more than helps us. Here are some tips that I’ve found helpful in the ongoing quest to live in the moment.

    1. Look inward for reinforcement, not outward.

    When you feel stress or anxiety, resist the urge to look for external reinforcement. External reinforcement is the sugar high of emotions; it comes in a quick blast and then fades, and then you need another hit. All those seemingly harmless behaviors—checking e-mail, reading news blurbs—are ways of leaving the present. They are ways of trying to get external reinforcement that this moment is okay.

    The present lives in us, not outside of us. We do not have control over the outside world, but we do have control over what is inside of us. When you feel the need for reassurance, remind yourself that all the resources you need to be present and at peace are inside you. Remember that they have always been there, and they will always be there.

    2. Control your information stream.

    Put your news consumption on a diet. Put your phone away. Regulate your use of external information for emotional support, especially from social media. Facebook, Twitter and the rest can be wonderful ways to connect with friends. But overuse them and they begin to make you feel disconnected instead.

    3. Write down your goals—and then throw them away.

    Goal setting is a great way to prioritize what’s important to you. Just remember that goals are about the future. Once you’ve identified them, let them float away into the future, where they belong. The real rewards are not in attaining your final goals, but in working towards them. And that only happens in the present.

    4. Embrace gratitude.

    At regular intervals take a few moments out of your day and list five things you feel grateful for. Gratitude is an amazing weapon against anxiety, and it is a powerful way of reminding ourselves of the power and value of the present.

    A great way to immerse yourself in gratitude is to perform acts that help other people. Volunteering and acts of kindness help us focus on others, rather than ourselves, and are an amazingly effective tool for living presently.

    5. Practice mindfulness.

    Develop a simple, repeatable mindfulness habit. If meditation is your thing, spend fifteen minutes each morning in quiet contemplation, simply being present. The core of my contemplative process is running. It’s my way of burning out the noise and anxiety of the future and the past (which do not exist) and bringing my awareness back to the present. Experiment and figure out what works best for you, and then make it a habit.

    —

    We sometimes get so detached from the present moment that it seems like foreign territory, and lowering our defenses to allow it in can seem scary. When we let go of the future and allow ourselves to be in the now, we are actually committing an act of bravery. Diving in may be hard, but it’s the only way to find the true richness of life.

  • Getting to Know Yourself: 5 Ways to Discover Your Joyful True Nature

    Getting to Know Yourself: 5 Ways to Discover Your Joyful True Nature

    “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” ~Aristotle

    Four years ago I left a corporate career, belongings, a nice home, and family and friends, ejecting myself from the outer world and fiercely diving into an inner journey.

    Jumping into the deep end of the pool—an inner terrain I was wildly unfamiliar with, having been very oriented to the outer world—has been quite the adventure.

    I wasn’t totally sure what I would be looking for (myself possibly?), but something about the way I had been living my daily life, with angst in the backdrop, told me that this was the right move.

    Extreme, and yet right.

    Having been steeped in a spiritual practice and inner work these past four years, it is clear to me that one of the biggest purposes this type of journey serves is to help us really meet ourselves. It pushes us to take responsibility for understanding ourselves, our patterns, and habits so they don’t unconsciously run our life and relationships.

    Some would call this mindfulness.

    With mindfulness—a loving, non-judgmental moment-to-moment awareness—we have a tool to personally mature, become more intimate with our inner workings, and create space to cultivate wisdom.

    To take it a step further, in knowing the depth of our body, heart, and mind, our ego can drop away and we can show up more present for life.

    Or, as Dogen says, “To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away.”

    This process of actually studying the self—sounds great, right? Who wouldn’t want to know themselves at a deeper level? But how do we actually go about this?

    Through my committed journey of self-discovery—including months of meditation retreats, weekly somatic coaching sessions, living in a Zen Center the past four years, and working in an industry that supports this work—I’ve discovered five valuable tools that help in getting to know ourselves:

    1. Becoming familiar with the mind, its relentless habits, recurring stories, intricate workings

    Take the time to totally stop and get to know the mind. Know that you can witness all that arises without having to react or do anything with the content of what’s arising. Instead, you can watch it and see how thoughts, sensations, feelings, and images come and go, like clouds passing by in a vast sky.

    The mind is a phenomenon that is always producing thought, and oftentimes, they are just that—thoughts, not truth. When we learn to bear witness to our experience, we learn that we do not have to identify with it.

    Instead of thinking “I’m not good enough” and feeling down or “It won’t work out” and feeling anxious, we can observe what’s going on in our minds and choose not to get caught up in it.

    There are countless resources out there to help you start a meditation practice, which will help you develop mindfulness. You can find a local sitting group or utilize online resources. Two of my favorites are HeadSpace and UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center.

    2. Getting to know your younger self—the child you, teenage you.

    There is so much wisdom in these earlier versions of yourself.

    A friend and I recently discussed how we need to let go of the past in order to be our highest and best self. While I think this is true, I don’t know if it’s possible to consciously let go of the past without first knowing it.

    Growing up, I had rough teenage years in a broken home. After my mom died when I was twelve, my new step-mom created an unsafe, chaotic environment. As a teenager, I was defiant, sassy, rebellious, fierce, independent, and angry.

    Not until recently, when revisiting the past, did I realize that I felt ashamed of teenage Cat and thought she no longer served a role in my life. I had this belief that I needed to “grow up” teenage Cat instead of meet her.

    When I asked her for her wisdom in meditation, she had so much to tell me. While I saw that certain patterns from that teenager version of myself no longer served me, I also recognized warriorship, strength, and survivorship that are all large parts of who I am today.

    By meeting and honoring her, I could transform her from the “useless, rebellious teenager of the past” to the fierce, courageous risk taker who protects this precious life.

    I invite you to find an old photo of a time in your childhood—any age range—and ask that child what wisdom s(he) has to show you. Let yourself be surprised by what comes forth.

    3. Meeting grief 

    Oh, grief. The word itself seems to have a sigh and unfamiliarity automatically built into it.

    In our American culture, we don’t frequently acknowledge this natural wellspring in life. But there is tremendous value in doing this; as Rumi wrote, “Joy lives concealed in grief.”

    My sense is that many of us spend our days avoiding the grief we have all experienced from being human—our broken hearts, crushed dreams, and dashed hopes. And this grief, unfelt, accumulates.

    The past several years, I’ve shed more tears than I ever thought possible, and my life is better for it. Grief has a way of clearing out the staleness of the heart and opening it; of healing wounds that continue to hurt only because they have not been attended to.

    You don’t have to go hunting for grief to know yourself. If you naturally allow yourself to find compassion and patience for yourself, it will show itself. And while you may have this belief (like I did) that once it starts, it doesn’t stop, the truth is actually the very opposite.

    Once this grief is felt, there is a clearing that makes room for joy. And a clearing away of old stories and unexamined ‘stuff’ is a beautiful way to know the self; it makes room for the true nature and effortless joy within us to arise.

    4. Getting clear with the ego

    “You need to get really clear about your small self,” a Zen teacher told me not too long ago.

    I would’ve been terrified by her directness months before this, but at this time in my life, I felt ready to meet truth.

    One way to get to know the self is to really understand where we get caught. For example, I saw that I worried about what people thought. Because of this, I couldn’t really show up authentically and instead showed up in the mask I thought would be most liked.

    Another small self (aka ego) I saw was the part of me that’s drawn to status and power as a way to feel safe and secure. I also recognized that growing up, I’d formed the belief that certain classes of people with particular material possessions, degrees, and job titles were better than other types of people.

    Ultimately, I have found that our small self is steeped in old, dated, unexamined stories and beliefs that keep us fearful and suffering.

    Find the courage to get to know the conditioned parts of yourself that constrain you and get you stuck. Be gentle. There’s no need to judge it or shame it; all these parts of yourself are welcome, and all is okay when held with compassion and patience.

    In my experience, you can usually feel this somewhere in your body—for example, the way the jaw or hips tighten when a certain stressed pattern arises.

    5. Finding honest relationships—those you trust who are committed to self-awareness in the same way you are

    The reflections and support from a good friend, a therapist, a spiritual teacher, or coach can be an invaluable resource. Without the resources I’ve sought out over these past few years, this journey of knowing myself wouldn’t have been possible.

    It is with the compassion, love, and support we receive from others when we show up honestly that we begin to learn how we can meet ourselves in the very same way.

    —

    We all have access to knowing ourselves. We’ve just layered ourselves under habits of thinking, avoiding, running, and being busy and distracted instead of meeting what is—our beautiful, joyful true nature.

  • Meeting Grief with Mindfulness: How Embracing Pain Opens the Door to Joy

    Meeting Grief with Mindfulness: How Embracing Pain Opens the Door to Joy

    North of Blue Girl

    “We shake with joy, we shake with grief.  What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body.” ~Mary Oliver

    Mindfulness is a way of relating to our experience that opens us to the totality of it—that is, we learn to embrace it all, the joy and the heartache. But some experiences are harder to be with.

    It’s difficult to be with physical or emotional pain, and we often retreat to the mind in search of distractions. But when we are able to fully be with our experience, something that feels like magic happens.

    It was a Thursday morning at 5am when I received news of my mother’s illness. She was septic and in the ICU at her local hospital.

    I knew that sepsis was serious, but also that it’s treatable, especially for someone her age (sixty-nine). So after speaking with my aunt, who was with her, I went about my day.

    I nagged my kids to put on their shoes, as per usual, then got them off to school and ate breakfast. I had a lot to do that day. I also had plans to help a friend move some boxes to her new apartment. The thought of my mom in the hospital accompanied me like a curious stranger throughout my morning.

    It was an odd day in late April. The sun was out, but it was colder than what is usual for that time of year.

    I was standing outside near my car as my friend and her husband hauled some of their boxes up to the stairs to their new apartment. The quality of the air caught my attention—it was so clean—and I wandered over to a small field between two houses.

    Standing there, I thought of my mom and the gravity of her situation. It saturated my body, and mind and seemed to demand my full attention, as if imploring me to stay and be it.

    For a moment everything fell silent. Looking out at the field, it sparkled from tiny flakes of snow that had touched its surface and liquefied. There were a few goats munching contentedly on grass.

    I breathed in deep. I felt my feet on the ground and the breath entering and leaving my body. My eyes filled with tears and there was a deep knowing about the seriousness of my mother’s condition, despite overwhelming belief from others that she would get through it.

    “I feel like this is it,” I cried to my husband the following day.

    The evening before, her cardiologist had come bounding into her room while I was on the phone with my aunt. We had been weighing whether and when I should travel there, but we’d decided to wait a couple of days to see how the infection responded to treatment.

    When her doctor came in he was nothing but optimistic. “Her heart is strong!” he bellowed, loud enough for me to hear through the phone. Despite his unwavering optimism, something was off. She was almost completely unresponsive, despite her stable vital signs.

    “Your mom always seems to get better,” was my husband’s response. And he was right. She’d had poor health for many, many years. Nothing terminal, but a lot of chronic, autoimmune conditions.

    “I think she’s going to be fine,” he said.

    “I don’t know. This time feels different.” I said.

    I booked a ticket to the US to leave a day later. The plan was to stay one night with my dad, then pick up my little brother in Chicago, and together we would make the six-plus hour journey down to El Paso, TX, where my mom had been living for the past two years to be closer to her sister.

    The morning after arriving in Chicago, as I was organizing myself to leave to pick up my brother, my aunt sent a text asking me to call her immediately. My mom had gone into cardiac arrest. “They’ve been trying to resuscitate her for the past twenty minutes,” she said “Do we keep trying?”

    Suddenly I was there, standing in my body inside of that moment I had so feared as a child. Not only was I facing the death of my mother, but I had been given the gavel to make the decision to release her from life. It wasn’t a difficult decision, just utterly heartbreaking. I could hear every sound in the room, including the sound of my own heart beating powerfully.

    “Let her go,” I managed to say.

    I hung up the phone, told my dad she was gone, and went outside to fall apart.

    A few minutes later, my aunt called back. They’d managed to bring her back, though it wouldn’t be for long. Their hope was to keep her alive long enough for us to say goodbye. So my aunt had both my brother and I talk into each of her ears from two different phones.

    We could hear each other speaking as we told her the last things we would ever wish her to know. The hissing and beeping sounds of the ventilator and heart monitor played in the background.

    “Mom, I promise you, Aaron will never be alone,” I cried. (She had always worried so much about him.) “I am and will always be his family. I love you and I will miss you, and I promise that my children will know you. Please know that you can go now, if you need to. We will be okay.”

    “Mom,” my brother cried, “Thank you for making me the man that I am today. Man, I’m going to miss you so much. I love you, mom.”

    She was gone, but our trip to Texas was still ahead of us. I must have cried in every shop, restaurant, airport check-in, airport terminal, and bathroom we went that day.  

    At the airport in Chicago, while waiting to board our flight to Atlanta, I studied a woman sitting across from me. She was sitting perched at the edge of her seat, holding an iPad. Her hands were older and painted with liver spots and wrinkles that revealed their character.

    They reminded me of my mom’s hands, which were always adorned with mismatched rings of turquoise and fake gold. I had even taken a picture of her hands once so that I would always remember their contours.

    I imagined this woman as my mother—the version of her that was alive and healthy and traveling to see me in Switzerland, which is something that in my eight years here she would never do.

    I held onto my brother and cried. In silent moments, I thought of her and I thought of the difficult life she had lived, and I cried. I faced the truth, and I cried.

    Grief is such an urgent and forceful energy. It’s immediate and demanding when it arrives. In fact, it is so powerful a human emotion that some cultures have rituals around grief that enable them to confront and express it, and the storm within our bodies and minds that it stirs up. 

    The truth is, grief is the word that we use to describe the indescribable, visceral heartbreak we feel in the face of loss. The pain of that loss is so big that it demands expression.

    “How about unabashedly bawling your eyes out. How about grieving it all one at a time.” These are lyrics from a song that speaks to this experience. “Thank you, India,” by Alanis Morrisette.

    The questions in the song are rhetorical invitations to consider what it might be like if we were to embrace it all—the pain, the sadness, the love, the joy, the grief. All of it. Without the evaluation of our experience, without our thoughts adding layers of guilt, shame, or embarrassment when the urge arises to express it. Despite the thoughts that tell us that to be strong means to not break down.

    The truth is that a powerful emotion, when embraced, is the stuff of magic.

    And yet there’s really nothing magical about it. It goes something like this: The energy of an emotion begins to build within us and we have a choice: meet it at the door and engage with it, or turn our backs to it. Turning our backs doesn’t make it go away.  

    When we can meet grief at the door with mindfulness, the grief is allowed its full expression. We experience the emotion just as it is. Our bodies become animated by it; our chest rises and falls, our eyes fill with salty tears that soak the clothing we’re wearing. Like a wave it rises and rises, only to fall away again.

    The thing is, our body is actually calmed by the expression of grief, if we allow it. And the calm that follows is like a return to the flow of life and has the quality of magic, but it is also a real physiological phenomenon.

    Some people turn grief away at the door, while others invite it in to make itself at home in our lives. Our ability to work with grief mindfully means to simultaneously meet the powerful force of grief when it arrives, and let it move through us, unimpeded by the thoughts that would turn it into a story about our sadness.

    Behind each wave of grief that I met with mindfulness was this vast space that opened up around my experience; and beyond the grief was this sense of joy and gratitude for this precious life.

    In the end, the infection broke my mother’s heart. For a woman who could “never be loved enough,” this was not insignificant. Her death was painful due to the numerous medical interventions they’d attempted to save her in the last days of her life. She suffered a lot, both mentally and physically, in her life and in her death.

    There were, in fact, many truths about that experience that were very painful to be with. So many moments during that trip that brought me to my knees. I was between devastation and celebration, anger and frustration, and utter acceptance over the events of my mother’s life and death. But all of these truths I held at once in the presence of mindfulness.

    The wide open space of experience that mindfulness made possible taught me how inadequate any definition of what she was to me seemed.

    Stories that had told of both the good and bad aspects of being in relationship with a person were turned on their heads, and the good and bad seemed to blend into something much more nebulous and value-free. A rich tapestry of a life lived on this planet and all that comes with that experience.

    Some months later, grief still comes to the door now and again seeking expression. It follows an image, or accompanies a song. I meet it with mindfulness and allow it what it needs. And once it has passed through me, it’s no longer blocking the doorway. I can see out to where joy is still standing.

  • The Benefits of Meditation: 10 Minutes to Peace, Clarity, and Focus

    The Benefits of Meditation: 10 Minutes to Peace, Clarity, and Focus

    “Meditation teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.” ~Unknown

    Do you feel overwhelmed at times? Or slightly lost? Do you struggle with anger, anxiety, or low self-esteem? Are you left with a mind that doesn’t seem to want to slow down?

    If the answer is yes, rest assured that you are not the only one. There are many who feel the same way.

    This is exactly how I felt five years ago. I was working hard as a musician, and I felt like I’d hit a brick wall. The harder I pushed with gigging, practicing, and writing, the more I felt my creativity take a dip and my overall happiness decline.

    I remember feeling exhausted, and my life feeling heavy and serious. I felt burnt out, and the worst part was that the harder I tried, the more disconnected I felt. It was a classic case of burning the candle at both ends.

    I was trying to be more creative and found that the opposite was happening.

    Overwhelming, worrisome thoughts and feelings would arise, and I wouldn’t know what to do with them. One after the other, they kept coming.

    I was very critical of myself at this time. I felt frustrated, stressed, and often, very low, with fear constantly knocking at the door.

    I started wondering, “Am I the only one feeling like this? Why do I feel this way? What’s going on?”

    Society had taught me that once I achieved what I wanted, I would be eternally happy. But I met people who had achieved their goals and amassed great wealth, and were still hugely stressed and unhappy. How could this be?

    In Our Lowest Moment Lies an Opportunity for Personal Transformation

    I recognized then that I was constantly blaming the outside world for things not going the way I wanted. I believed that life should make me happy. I slowly began to see this was far from the truth.

    One day, I said, “Enough! Stop blaming other people and circumstances and take a good long look in the mirror.” This was hard at first, as a part of me still wanted to point the finger, but I knew this wasn’t going to serve or help anyone, least of all me.

    I started reading a load of books, taking courses, and researching human behavior, covering topics such as psychology, self-help/development, emotional intelligence, spirituality, biology, and more.

    After all this research, I realized that in order for me to be happier and more productive and have a better quality of life, I had to take a step back and realize that being busy isn’t cool, it’s a lack of priorities; that being stressed and feeling sorry for myself wasn’t the right path; that happiness is actually closer than I may have thought. The journey had begun…

    An Inner Win to a Greater Outer Win

    I have discovered that we can overcome our negative thoughts and feelings and deal with all of our challenges with a greater understanding and a sense of ease.

    The secret is that first we must feeling centered within (our thoughts, feelings, and emotions), and then we can move to what our outer purpose is. This enables us to deal with challenges from a place of inner calm.

    If the mind and body are working together, we have a much greater chance of knowing what we want and how to face it, rather than constantly trying to fill the void within with external gratification. External gratification can be beautiful, but first we need a strong foundation, anchoring our drive so that it can serve us and the people around us in an authentic way.

    You deserve to live an amazing life. You deserve to be inspired. You deserve to be free and to live a life on your terms. And you can do all these things.

    Transformation starts with ourselves, so in order for us to move into a happier state of being, we first need to be kind to ourselves, and to have a little bit of discipline and the willingness to awaken our greatest selves.

    Creating Some Well Deserved Headspace

    Imagine you’re watching your favorite play. During the show many different scenes occur; there’s a love scene and moments of anger, tragedy, and betrayal, along with a whole load of excitement.

    Now, imagine that during the play, you run onto the stage and cause a load of confrontation because you don’t like one of the scenes and want to stop it.

    Once you jumped up there you’d probably feel a little foolish, and might leave with your tail between your legs, feeling baffled and confused after turning and seeing an angry audience now wanting their money back.

    Well, what if you viewed the mind in the same way? Let’s say you’re sitting at home, minding your own business, when an angry thought suddenly arises.

    It may have a character and there may be a storyline within it—something that happened that bothered you or something someone did that upset you. What do you do? A lot of the time, we get sucked into our negative, angry thoughts and are left feeling worse than we originally felt.

    We have metaphorically run onto the stage in our minds, and the angry audience is usually our close family or friends.

    Now what if I told you that you don’t even have to go into the angry thought? You can simply watch it and let it play, like you would at the cinema or the theater. You simply see it, with little judgment, and let it pass. The seeing of the thought is the beginning of liberation.

    This is one of the first major steps toward a healthier, happier mind. By simply seeing the thought, we begin to disassociate with it, leaving space for it to pass while we continue with our day.

    Mindfulness Meditation

    Mindfulness is the day-to-day seeing of the mind, called “awareness” in many circles. If we are mindful, we see our thoughts and let them come and go like scenes in a show.

    By simply seeing the thought, we are then left with a choice: to let it go or hold onto it. We then need to ask ourselves, do I want to react angrily, or do I want to let it go and deal with the situation constructively?

    Meditation is training for situations like these. This can simply be a ten-minute space in your day where you may sit, or a part of the day where your attention is focused entirely on what you are doing.

    You may have already had moments like this when you exercise, when you are in an intense state of creativity, or when you’re entranced by a beautiful sunset.

    You are focused, present, and not distracted. If we can develop this in our practice, we’ll be better prepared to handle challenges in our everyday life.

    Meditation can be seen as a little woo woo. The thought of a bunch of monks in robes come to mind, or maybe lit candles, bells, gongs, and floating off to some eternal bliss. We need to let go of the clichés to realize how much benefit it really has. The value it can add to your life is immense.

    Who Is Using It and What Are The Benefits?

    Mindfulness and meditation have really taken off in the west, with major businesses, military centers, schools, and celebrities all getting involved. The big question is “why?” Why does a major company like Google have its own meditation rooms and courses?

    Let’s dig a little deeper into the health benefits so you can see the potential of just taking ten minutes out of your day for your great self.

    10 Ways Meditation Benefits Your Day-to-Day Life, Work, and Relationships

    1. It lowers your stress level and improves your focus and attention.

    2. It reduces worry, anxiety, and impulsivity.

    3. It increases empathy and helps you develop positive relationships.

    4. It can improve your information processing and decision-making skills.

    5. It increases positive emotions.

    6. It improves your memory.

    7. It enhances your ability to set aside mental chatter.

    8. It decreases feelings of loneliness and helps reduce social isolation.

    9. It increases feelings of compassion.

    10. It increases grey matter in keys areas of the brain associated with compassion and awareness.

    Getting Started

    What do I do? Where do I start? What type of meditation do I do?

    I asked all these questions when I sat down to do my first meditation. There’s so much information out there, and it can be overwhelming at times, so I want to keep it simple and actionable.

    First, find a comfortable place to sit; it can be a chair or the end of your bed. If you can find somewhere that has few distractions, that will be helpful. Next, close your eyes and begin to focus on your breath.

    Write on your to-do list when you intend to meditate, or couple it with something you do regularly (i.e.: brushing your teeth, before/after a shower). This will help you make meditation a habit.

    3 Tips for Once You Begin Meditating

    1. Expectation

    Don’t expect the mind to stop. The point of meditation is not to stop your thoughts, but rather to clearly see the mind with clarity and non-judgment.

    Think of your thoughts as passing cars on the road or clouds in the sky. Remember, it’s a skill, so at first you may be a little shocked by how many thoughts there are. But don’t worry—this is perfectly normal. The mind will, with time, begin to free up a little and the thoughts will lessen. Ahh, peace!

    2. Effort—Finding the Balance

    We can’t force our mind to be quiet. Think about when you can’t sleep, so you say to yourself, “I can’t sleep,” and you start to try harder. What happens? Ironically, you struggle to sleep. So the idea is to have a nice amount of attention and focus but an equal balance of relaxation and rest.

    3. Unveiling Happiness in the Now

    Once we have a healthy balance of expectation and effort, we can then move to the realization of stillness. This is the realization that happiness is already here, in this moment now. This will become clearer once you are into regular exercises.

    Rather than trying to create peace within, we simply realize it’s already here. This is one of the first steps toward internal mastery.

    When Should You Do It?

    I normally recommend you do it first thing in the morning, but that’s only if that works for you. Everyone has different schedules, so choose a time when you know you’ll have ten minutes free.

    Common Road Blocks

    Watch out for the classic excuses, such as “I don’t have time to do it.” Yes, you do! As Tony Robbins once famously said, “If you don’t have ten minutes, you don’t have a life.” If you want to awaken your greatest self, give yourself that well-deserved mini break, so when you come back to your routine you’re rejuvenated and ready for the rest of the day.

    “I’ll do it tomorrow” is another classic, and it never happens. There is no time like the present, so just do it!

    And finally, the ultimate excuse: “This all sounds to be good to be true; this will never work for me.” We now have so many scientific studies to back up the benefits, so give it a go, follow it along, and enjoy them.

    Whatever the excuse may be, I promise you that slowing yourself down for ten minutes can begin to change your whole world dramatically.

    I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t like a bit more peace, focus, and clarity in their life, and it’s all here for us, right here, right now.

  • A Daily Self-Care Ritual for Anyone Who Feels Lost in Life

    A Daily Self-Care Ritual for Anyone Who Feels Lost in Life

    “When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.” ~Jean Shinoda Bolen

    We all get lost sometimes.

    So lost that we lose track of who we are, where we’re going, what we want, and how to give ourselves what we need to feel nourished and healthy.

    I’ve been there many times, enough times to realize that it’s an inevitable part of life, to realize that it’s okay to get lost.

    The triggers? They’re never predictable.

    Some are subtle and prolonged; some are brief but so huge they knock me off my feet and leave me reeling from shock: the pain of not fitting in at school as a teenager, the sudden death of my father when I was away at university, my first serious breakup, the time I found myself in an emotionally abusive relationship but couldn’t work up the courage to leave, a betrayal by a friend that made me question if everything that we shared was even real.

    At times like these, when I find myself down on my knees, the first thing to go out the window is my motivation to take care of myself.

    I either eat too much or stop eating. I stay in bed all day. I don’t drink enough water. I drink too much alcohol. I become unkind to myself. I lose patience with myself and others.

    It just feels easier to not care.

    It was only in recent years, when I hit my mid-thirties, that I became aware of how repeating this cycle of behaviors wasn’t serving me in any way. In fact, they were keeping me stuck in a negative place and holding me back from healing and moving forward.

    It’s been during this time that I decided to break that cycle and give my intuition the voice and attention it deserved by making the following self-care steps a part of my life.

    I give myself permission to not feel motivated all the time.

    I always thought that motivation was this bright, powerful flame of desire that would drive me to do what was good for me, no matter what.

    After all, if something was important enough, I should want to do it all the time, right?

    Not really.

    As time passed and I gained more experience in life, I came to realize that there will be highs and there will be lows where I’ll feel like jumping off the moving train because it feels like too much work to stay on it.

    It’s important that you recognize this and allow yourself to be in this place without feeling guilty about it. Give yourself the space you need to breathe and be still, then gradually start easing yourself into taking the steps you need to get to where you want to be.

    I set an intention for the day the minute I wake up.

    When life has knocked you off your feet and you aren’t sure where to go, the thoughts that go through your head in the first few minutes of your day can mean the difference between getting closer to the path of healing or drifting further away from it.

    Instead of allowing negative thoughts to take center stage in my mind the way they used to, I now guide my thoughts to these two steps the minute I wake up:

    • I think of three things that I’m grateful for, and then…
    • I set an intention for the day ahead. This can be something as simple as keeping my spirits up throughout the day, or something more challenging, such as coming up with ten actionable solutions for a difficult situation that I may be facing.

    Your intention doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated. It just has to be meaningful to you.

    I prioritize getting enough restful sleep.

    Over the past few years, I experienced several violent break-ins into my home, and at the same time was struggling to deal with an emotionally abusive relationship.

    As a result, anxiety became a constant companion, making it difficult for me to fall and stay asleep.

    Now as I heal, doing my best to make sure that I get enough sleep each night has become a priority for me, and this means having a pre-sleep ritual in place:

    • I make sure my computer is turned off by 8 p.m. and that I head to bed at the same time every night.
    • I don’t drink coffee, but I love tea, so I stick to caffeine-free teas after 4 p.m..
    • I spend an hour before I plan to go to bed doing something that helps me let go of the stresses, excitement, and chaos of the day, and this typically means spending time with my dog and family, reading, talking to a friend, or going through a soothing yoga sequence. Within this hour, I also spend five to ten minutes questioning any stressful thoughts that I might have, with the help of Byron Katie’s “The Work” so that they have less power over me and are less likely to keep me up during the night.

    If you’re finding it difficult to sleep restfully for at least seven hours a night, I encourage you to start putting together a pre-sleep routine that will help calm your mind and body down to make falling and staying asleep feel easier.

    I focus on building mindfulness.

    Having been an emotional eater since my teens, it can be easy for me to fall back into my old pattern of turning to food for comfort when stress and anxiety get the better of me.

    This is why nurturing mindfulness is an important part of my daily routine, especially when things get rough.

    Rather than numb myself with food, alcohol, compulsive shopping, or some other habit that helps me avoid facing the difficult emotions I’m experiencing, I acknowledge their presence, the discomfort that they’re stirring up in me, and what the old me used to do when they came up.

    I then consciously make the decision to not give in to those old habits—habits that I know will ultimately drag me down and hold me back from getting back on my feet.

    If you’re struggling to give up a habit that you know isn’t good for you, here’s my challenge to you: Every time you’re tempted to say yes to that box of donuts, bottle of wine, or pity party, ask yourself, “Is this going to make me stronger?” If your answer is no, move away from it.

    I make gentle movement a part of my day.

    I know I can’t be happy and capable if my body isn’t healthy and strong, so I make time three to five times a week to exercise.

    If I’m not in a good place and am running low on energy, I can’t make it through an intense workout that involves heavy equipment, so I shift gears and go slow with my own body weight instead.

    Fitness isn’t always about going hard and fast all the time or getting flat abs—it also means being able to listen to your body and spirit so that you can add purposeful movement into your day that helps you build the resilience you need to deal with the anxieties of everyday life.

    I learn something new that will strengthen me from the inside out every day.

    Whenever I feel stuck in a rut or painful place, I often have my gut telling me that it’s because I may not yet have the necessary skills, insights, or right mindset to heal and break free from it.

    This is why I set a goal to learn one new thing every single day by reading a book, blog post, listening to a podcast, or even connecting with someone who has more experience than I do so I can approach life or a particular situation that I’m in from a fresh perspective.

    The internal shifts that happen don’t have to be huge, but they do add up in a way that makes a significant difference to my life: I gradually become stronger, gain more clarity, and start feeling more confident about taking that first step in a new, healthier direction.

    No matter how low or lost you feel right now, I want you to know this: There’s always a way out and up, and it will always start from within you.

  • 9 Mindful Social Media Practices That Will Make You a Happier Person

    9 Mindful Social Media Practices That Will Make You a Happier Person

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    “The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” ~Steve Furtick

    Social media is not a full (or even sometimes real) portrayal of someone’s life. If you forget this, you fall into the trap of comparing your life to what someone else chooses to share.

    This is dangerous.

    Comparing can lead to feelings of inadequacy, envy, and even hatred toward others. These kinds of feelings, if left un-dealt with, can lead to stress, anxiety, and depression. Or, if you are a person who already struggles with anxiety or depression, having these kinds of negative thoughts all the time could make it even worse.

    I used to struggle with low self-esteem and negative thoughts. I didn’t deal with this and ended up having severe anxiety and depression. My life was turned upside down. I had panic attacks daily and felt overwhelmed almost every single day.

    I let it get unbearably bad before I did anything about it. When I did decide to make a change, I did a number of different things in order to take control back of my life. One of those things included committing to a consistent mindfulness and meditation practice.

    My health and life literally depended on me learning how to be more positive and mindful, and social media wasn’t helping.

    As I started to become more and more aware, I realized that there was a lot of negativity consuming me from being online all the time. All those images of perfect bodies, perfect friendships, and perfect relationships were leading me to assume that my life wasn’t perfect.

    I was always thinking in terms of lack, what I didn’t have, and what everyone else seemed to have. 

    Thinking like this all the time made me sick, in the literal sense.

    My life and feelings dramatically improved when I began to apply the teachings of mindfulness to every aspect of my life, including the way I operate on social media.

    The things I am about to share with you will help you to integrate mindfulness more deeply into your daily life. They will turn your daily social media experience from a negative to a more positive one.

    The first thing you need to know is that when the mind is left unattended, it doesn’t do a great job of taking care of itself. If you are not consciously making an effort to choose positive thoughts about others and yourself, you may, by default, end up thinking negatively.

    So, if you are scrolling through Facebook or Instagram and you do not have awareness of your thoughts, it’s likely that your mind will come to negative conclusions and assumptions about others, and also yourself, such as:

    “She is so much prettier than me.”

    “Wow, she has a good body. I need to look like her.”

    “He has everything going for him. My life is so boring.”

    “Why would he post that?”

    “What an attention seeker.”

    Sound familiar?

    The second thing you need to know is that what you think and say affects how you feel. Positive thoughts lead to positive feelings and negative thoughts lead to negative feelings.

    Now that you know these things, we’re ready to dive in. Here are my top nine ways you can be mindful on social media and consequently, become a happier person.

    Before You Begin

    1. Set an intention.

    Before you get on social media, stop, take a breath, and remind yourself that your goal is to have a positive experience.

    2. Remind yourself to stay present.

    The only way to truly be happy is to be present, and the more you can apply this to your life, the less negativity you will feel. Notice your hands touching the screen, feel your body sitting on the couch or chair, and focus on your breathing as often as possible to avoid getting lost in your thoughts.

    3. Take the time to clean up your feed.

    Unfollow people that regularly complain or post negative content, and consciously choose to follow more positive people and pages. This will make a world of difference if you end up scrolling through unconsciously, because you will unconsciously be taking in uplifting information.

    I used to wish that I looked like anyone but myself. I used to look at other girls with deep envy, wishing I had their perfect skin and bodies. Because my mind could not control itself, I choose to unfollow all fitness inspiration people in my feed and filled it with positive words and inspirational content instead. You get to choose who you follow. Make sure you choose well.

    When Posting

    4. Let go of your attachment to the outcome; don’t expect a certain number of likes.

    Unconsciously, you might think that likes = validation and that the more likes you get the more liked you are as a person, or that if you don’t get likes that you’re not liked as a person.

    The amount of likes you get has nothing to do with who you are, how attractive you are, or how many friends you have. Remember, some people actually pay for likes! They mean nothing.

    Notice if you have this belief about likes. Do you feel differently about a situation when you get fewer likes? Do you compare the amount you get to the amount someone else gets?

    These are all things we need to start to become aware of. You will feel happier when you have confidence and believe in what you’re posting, and when you don’t feel the need for it to be liked. Just simply reminding yourself that you don’t need this image or post to be liked, before posting, can be really powerful.

    5. Post positive content or things that are helpful. Avoid complaining.

    This is in relation to posting and also commenting. Ask yourself, Is what I’m posting positive? Is it helpful? Try not to complain or engage in arguments or negative conversations. This will drain your energy.

    Make it a habit to compliment one or two people or express your gratitude to one or two people each time you go online. Without sounding so cliché, I would like to strongly recommend that you take the time to spread love and good vibes when you are online, not just because it is good for others but because it’s good for your health!

    I’m not suggesting that we should pretend that bad things don’t happen, or that we should hide or suppress our feelings. We should, however, ensure that we do our best to see things in a positive light to avoid spiraling further down a path of negativity.

    6. Challenge your initial reaction to criticism.

    If you receive a negative comment, take some time to reflect upon whether or not there’s truth in it. It’s not easy, but try to detach from your ego and be honest with yourself.

    If it’s true, express your gratitude to that person for bringing it to your attention. If it’s not true, forgive and delete or forgive and don’t engage. I heard this tip from Gabby Bernstein, and it has completely changed my experience on social media. It just makes life so much easier!

    When Scrolling

    7. Practice non-judgment.

    We all know we need to do this, but do we actually do it? It can be helpful to remind yourself of the consequences of judging. When you think negatively about others, this makes you feel bad, not the other person.

    Remember that negative thoughts lead to negative feelings. If you want to feel good, you have to start thinking good thoughts about others on a regular basis. If you catch yourself judging someone else, make an effort to find three good or positive things about that person.

    8. Realize that envy is a call for inspiration.

    Instead of seeing others with envy, look at them as a person to be inspired by. If someone has achieved what you want to achieve, then that means it’s possible for you to achieve that in your life too!

    9. Be curious about the stories your mind makes up.

    You can do this as an experiment: Scroll through your feed for five to ten minutes, with your full attention, and notice all the stories your mind makes up.

    When something comes up, ask yourself if it’s helpful for you to believe that story. Is it helpful for you to think you’re not good enough? Is it helpful for you to judge that other person’s choices or life?

    The mind thinks things that we wouldn’t want others to know. We have to acknowledge that this content is there and be non-attached to it at the same time.

    It’s important to be curious about the mind instead of judging it or getting frustrated by it. This is one of the most important things to know if you want to be a more mindful person.

    Your frustration on top of your judgment only makes things worse. It’s only by learning to accept yourself and others that you can bring a sense of peace and happiness to your life.

    By integrating mindfulness into your social media experience, you can decrease anxiety and stress, eliminate negativity, and live a happier and more fulfilling life.

  • 5 Breathing Techniques to Melt Your Stress Away

    5 Breathing Techniques to Melt Your Stress Away

    “Feelings come and go like clouds in the sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Breathing techniques are now such an important part of my daily routine. I couldn’t think of starting a day without doing my breathing exercises.

    I usually combine these with my morning meditation, which, through sheer perseverance, I have made into a habit and have been doing for the last few years.

    Almost everywhere you look, you can find stress—at work, at home, on the road. It’s hard to avoid it and even harder to not get sucked in.

    I used to let stress get the better of me on a daily basis through an incredibly stressful and demanding job. That was until I realized the dangerous effects it was having on my body.

    I worked in video production as a producer, where there was a new type of stress every single day.

    There were so many cogs that all had to fall perfectly into place for the production to move ahead, not to mention the number of people who would depend and rely on me. The deadlines were tight, and to make sure that every stage of production was complete, I often had to work long hours.

    This was an incredibly stress-inducing job, and so often I felt myself getting overtired and angry due to the workload.

    Stress can make it near enough impossible to control your emotions. I found the more stressed I became, the more irrational I would become.

    Stress is also strongly linked to diseases, and chronic stress can give these conditions the green light to flood your body. Stress has been linked to cancer, lung disease, fatal accidents, suicide, and cirrhosis of the liver.

    Not to mention that stress can make you gain weight, look older, and ruin your relationships.

    After understanding that I was a very stressed person, often attracting stressful situations into my life, I decided to learn stress-combating techniques.

    The best methods I discovered were various breathing techniques. They’re quick to do and have amazing results.

    Now, if I ever feel myself getting stressed or am about to enter a stressful situation, I simply stop for a moment and use one of my breathing techniques. This instantly calms me down and has an immediate effect on my state of mind, allowing me to think clearly and rationally.

    Breathing is used in meditation as a method to relax the body fully and achieve a clear state of mind. We are extremely lucky that such a powerful tool, like breathing, is something that we can regulate and control ourselves.

    Practicing breathing techniques will not only give you beneficial life tools, but they are also a great starting point for your meditation journey.

    The techniques I have shared are simple and easy to learn. Some will bring calm and inner peace, while others can be used to kick-start your mental awareness and vital energy.

    Abdominal Breathing

    Abdominal breathing slows your entire body down; your heart rate and blood pressure reduce with each controlled deep breath you take.

    Your aim during this technique is to focus on your diaphragm, not your chest, as you breathe.

    To begin, place one hand on the chest and the other on the belly.

    Breathe in through your nose enough for your diaphragm to inflate with enough air to produce a stretch in your lungs. Then exhale slowly.

    Make sure each breath is deep and steady.

    Repeat this technique with seven to ten breaths per minute for ten minutes.

    Alternate Nostril Breathing (aka Nadi Shodhana)

    This technique will unite both sides of your brain while bringing calm and balance.

    To begin, sit in a comfortable meditative pose; this can be on the floor, on a chair, or on a sofa, wherever is most comfortable for you.

    Now, hold your right nostril down with your thumb or one of your fingers on your right hand. Breathe in deeply through your left nostril.

    When you’re at the peak of inhalation, let go of your right nostril and cover the left. Then, exhale through the right nostril. Continue with this technique for as long as needed until you feel calm and focused.

    Because this method connects your brain on a deep level, you shouldn’t practice this technique before going to bed.

    Instead, if you need to prepare for a big presentation or a difficult job interview, or you’re in any kind of nervous situation, take a few minutes practicing alternate nostril breathing to calm yourself. Doing this will help quiet your mind so that you can be the best version of yourself without having to worry about the nerves!

    Not only will you experience calm and balance, but you will also feel focused and super energized.

    Relaxing Breath (aka “4-7-8”)

    This technique is used to completely relax the body and nervous system. It can be used in many different scenarios—when you feel internal tension, when something upsetting happens, or simply to help you relax before sleep.

    Before you begin this technique, ensure you are sitting comfortably with your back as straight as possible.

    Place the tip of your tongue behind your upper front teeth where they meet the gum ridge. You will need to keep your tongue here for the duration of the technique.

    Start by exhaling fully. Usually, because of where your tongue is placed, this would make a natural “whoosh” sound.

    Inhale quietly for a count of four. Once reached, hold your breath here for a count of seven and then exhale fully for a count of eight. This is one full breath. You should aim to do four or five full breaths each time you practice this technique.

    Stillness in Breath

    If you are able to focus on your breath for long periods of time, then this technique is for you.

    This breathing awareness variation doesn’t involve any counting, merely observing.

    To begin, sit comfortably, close your eyes, and begin observing your breathing pattern.

    Once you have settled into the process of observing your natural breathing rhythm, turn your awareness to the point at which the breath switches from inhalation to exhalation. Then observe as it changes from exhalation to inhalation. Notice that there is a gap, or still pause, between the breaths.

    If you find that your mind wanders during this variation, simply keep guiding your attention back to this still pause between each stage of breath. The more you practice this technique, the more it becomes a continuous experience in which you will find peace.

    Stimulating Breath (aka Bellows Breath)

    Bellows Breath is used to invigorate your senses and sharpen your mind. If practiced well, you will raise your vital energy and feel an increased level of alertness.

    To begin, sit comfortably. You don’t need to be in a certain position or sit anywhere in particular for this technique.

    Inhale and exhale rapidly through your nose. Try to keep your mouth shut and as relaxed as possible. Aim to keep your inhales and exhales equal in duration but as reduced as possible.

    For beginners, you should start by practicing this technique for a maximum of fifteen seconds. As you become more comfortable, you can increase this time by five seconds each time you practice until you reach a full minute.

    Like alternate nostril breathing, this technique connects with your mind on a deep level and shouldn’t be used before you go to sleep.

    Next time you feel like you need an energy boost, instead of reaching for caffeine, try this technique and see how invigorated you feel afterwards!

    —

    By practicing breathing meditation for ten to fifteen minutes a day, you will be able to reduce your stress and anxiety levels significantly. You’ll start to experience calmness of the mind, the turbulence of day-to-day worries will simply fall away, and feelings of happiness and fulfillment will rise from within.

  • When Mindfulness Hurts: Feeling Is the Key to Healing

    When Mindfulness Hurts: Feeling Is the Key to Healing

    “You start watching your breath and all your problems are solved. It is not like that at all. You are working with the heart of your experiences, learning to turn towards them, and that is difficult and can be uncomfortable.” ~Ed Halliwell

    Can mindfulness be bad for you?

    I had been expecting it: Once you become a regular at it, mindfulness permeates all aspects of your life.

    I only sit in meditation for twenty minutes daily (and a full hour on Sundays), but I carry its effects with me the rest of the time, elevated levels of awareness and all.

    This is not to say that I constantly float on a blissful cloud. In fact, this sudden increase in mindfulness, even for someone used to deep introspection and resolutely committed to lucidity, comes at a certain cost. What I hadn’t expected was the actual weight of mindfulness.

    Three months into the daily practice of mindful meditation, I had to admit that it was not solely eliciting the deep serenity I had hoped for. In fact, I realized that in some ways, I actually felt less happy than before.

    I couldn’t precisely put my finger on it. All I knew was that things seemed heavier, more raw. How could that be? Wasn’t mindfulness supposed to help me transcend the vicissitudes of life? What was I doing wrong? Was I the only one in that odd situation?

    I decided to do some research. It didn’t take long before I discovered evidence that mindfulness can indeed have “side effects.”

    A quick online search showed me that I’m actually in very good company. Mindfulness, and the practice of meditation, has reportedly entailed significant “downsides” for a number of enthusiasts.

    We come to mindfulness in the hope that it will constitute the path to peacefulness, often unaware that this path is paved with cracked and bumpy stones. Only after stepping onto that road do you realize how uncomfortable the process can be.

    Just like therapy, meditating is difficult, sometimes painful.

    The first and most obvious reason is that sitting still, quieting the mind, and focusing on the breath presents a real challenge. Many beginners and non-beginners complain of an overwhelming restlessness or, on the contrary, of an irresistible tendency to fall asleep (I belong to the latter category).

    The second reason is that mindfulness has a way of annihilating our blissful ignorance. It offers an unexpected and unparalleled insight into our areas of vulnerability, the sides of us that we are not always prepared to welcome nonjudgmentally.

    To get the most of it, one must recognize that the practice of mindfulness is dirty, hard work.

    According to Willoughby Britton, a Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University Medical School, the downsides of mindfulness range from mild to severe, and can manifest in various ways—from unexpected anger and anxiety all the way to depression and psychosis.

    Mindfulness can exacerbate a number of mental health conditions, bring back to the surface traumatic memories, or simply force you to deal with things that had conveniently been swept under the rug.

    Whatever your initial levels of stability (or instability), a lot can emerge in the first stages of the regular practice of meditation. Ready or not, you have to deal with it. It is disconcerting at best. In my case, it was sometimes downright depressing.

    Picture a handful of Band-Aids applied to different spots on your body. Each Band-Aid conveniently covers an injury that you’re happy to ignore (or so you think).

    Mindfulness is like peeling off the Band-Aids, one by one. It hurts.

    Then you discover what’s under them: A bad cut here. A big bruise there. The occasional infected wound. A few badly healed scars. Mindfulness makes it hard to ignore that you are, under all those Band-Aids, actually hurting, or at least not entirely recovered.

    To add insult to the injury, mindfulness has a way of preventing you from applying new Band-Aids. Things that we considered pleasant, and that help us deal with life’s vagaries, lose their appeal once we become aware of their true purpose and associated costs.

    We use, in our daily lives, an arsenal of strategies, often without knowing it: thinking patterns, daily habits, activities we view as pleasurable “add-ons,” such as eating, shopping, staring at a screen, and so on. We don’t perceive those “pursuits” as Band-Aids. Aren’t they the spice of life?

    The regular practice of meditation and a more mindful approach to life, however, sheds some light on our dependence. Any behavior that resists modification might indicate an addiction, even if it was just to chocolate, new running shorts, or social media.

    I am now, more than ever, aware of my coping mechanisms, aware that rather than making life interesting, they mostly patch up an aspect of my existence that requires attention.

    If I feel bored, tired, or stressed, no amount of sweets, sports gear, or Internet surfing will truly fill the void or fulfill the need.

    Where I would mindlessly resolve to an old habit, this new knowledge stops me in my tracks. I pause, observe, notice the underlying emotion or sensation.

    If I’m under work-related stress, such as a quickly approaching deadline, or a recalcitrant passage to translate, I will often have a sudden craving for sweets, or feel the pressing need to check my Facebook page. It’s not a coincidence, I know that now, but I needed mindfulness to realize it fully.

    Now, instead of walking to the cupboard or opening a new tab in my browser, I stay put and take a deep breath. I skip the coping mechanism and refrain applying a new Band-Aid or replacing an old one.

    Even my thought processes are modified. When certain situations repeatedly elicited the kind of stress that requires a Band-Aid, I was forced to reconsider, at least to a certain extent, the choices I had been making in various areas of my life: my career path, other types of commitments, and even some relationships. I realized I had too much on my plate and that I needed to respect my limits.

    Accepting the fact that I indeed have limits was no small feat. Even if I have long been aware of some of my “rationalizations” and “compensations,” I have never faced life with such clarity, honesty, and courage. I am proud of it. I am also unsettled.

    In spite of this, I am still fully committed to continue with my mindfulness practice. The cans of worms I am opening can be a handful, but I was carrying them anyway, and they were wearing me down. I choose to deal with them.

    Things might feel very raw, but they also feel very real. I can already sense a new level of lightness and freedom on the other side of this demanding exercise.

    I invite you to give it a try too. As we move along in our mindfulness practice, I trust that we can all find our own sweet spot, the place where an increased awareness meets a renewed sense of well-being.

    For many, this will mean starting slow. When you incorporate mindful meditation into your life, don’t go for the three-day retreat right away. Not only will it be too demanding, it might even backfire.

    Instead, simply find a quiet place where you can sit for at least five minutes, in silence, every day, and focus on the breath.

    You may feel uncomfortable at first, as the feelings you formerly numbed or avoided emerge. Don’t let that deter you. If you embrace the discomfort, you’ll eventually gain the clarity needed to acknowledge and heal old wounds, break unhealthy patterns, and generally step onto the path to a more authentic life.

  • 21 Easy Ways to Create a Calm Mind (Without Meditating)

    21 Easy Ways to Create a Calm Mind (Without Meditating)

    “Learn to calm down the winds of your mind, and you will enjoy great inner peace.” ~Remez Sasson

    While juggling a full-time job and my writing, I found it easy to lose track of the days. Weekends ceased to exist, and my life ebbed and flowed between working and writing, the two constantly blurring into one another.

    I dragged myself from day to day without a moment’s rest in between. When I did rest, I’d feel guilty for taking a break from working on my dreams, and it didn’t take long for the guilt to turn into frustration.

    I wondered whether I’d ever reach my dream of writing full-time, if and when it would ever come.

    I intended on using every free moment I had from my job to write, without realizing the true consequences of what I was doing. And by constantly pushing myself forward, I never gave my mind the space it needed to shape and form my thoughts; I never allowed myself to simply be, which resulted in all kinds of mental blocks and frustrations that met my writing progress head-on.

    I was on my way to burnout, and fast, and I knew I needed to make a change. So I turned to meditation. It helped me become more mindful throughout the day and approach my writing from a new angle of clarity.

    As I began to incorporate mindfulness into my daily routine, I found it easier to give myself permission to relax and unwind from the pressures of my day job, rather than simply filling every moment with something more to do.

    Mindfulness Goes Beyond Meditation

    While meditation can help you become more attuned with your mind, you already possess all the tools you need to reap the benefits of a quiet, calm mind.

    By simply tuning into the small things in life, you can work your way towards a greater happiness and fulfillment in your own life. Here are twenty-one ways you can boost the quality of your mind without meditating.

    1. Create a mindfulness mantra.

    As Eckhart Tolle says, “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have.” Every morning I remind myself that my new life starts today, which helps me step into the now and connect more deeply with the present moment and separate myself from the worries of my mind.

    2. Remind yourself you’re not your thoughts.

    Whenever a negative thought occurs in your mind, simply identify it as a “thought” or “feeling” and move on. You’re not scorn or regret, and you’re not self-doubt or anger. You’re separate from your thoughts, and they’re separate from you, so why dwell on them?

    3. Accept that thoughts arise naturally.

    And if you can’t change them, then why bother trying to replace them with different and “better” thoughts? Don’t beat yourself up over something you can’t control, but don’t ignore them either; simply move past them and choose not to identify with them, even as they cloud your mind.

    4. Breathe.

    Take a long breath through your nose and breathe it out through your mouth. This can help to calm you and remind you that your thoughts are a small part of the infinitely vast world around you.

    5. Thank someone in any way you can.

    Even the small act of saying “thanks” to a cashier can reconnect us with the present moment, and it can also prevent us from becoming stuck in our own thoughts, which block us from enjoying life as it comes.

    6. Smile at a stranger.

    Smiling helps focus our attention outward to the people around us, and by reconnecting with this gratitude for others, we can connect more deeply to the present moment and remind ourselves to simply be.

    7. Go for a nature walk.

    Go for a walk and fade into the environment around you, and listen for sounds you’d otherwise have missed.

    8. Keep a daily gratitude habit.

    Keeping a gratitude journal helps pull us away from the stress of the day. It also forces us to appreciate life as it comes and find the good in every day.

    9. Leave your phone on silent all day.

    You can also turn off your phone’s notifications, as these can be distracting and pull you away from the present moment. Your messages will still be waiting for you there later when you’re ready to go through them.

    Turning your ringer off can also stop each disruption from clogging your mind and blocking you from the peace of mind you could be having throughout the day.

    10. Eat slowly.

    Focusing on the texture and the taste of what you eat can help remind you that while all feelings are temporary, it’s important to truly experience the moments as they come, rather than letting them pass you by.

    11. Drink tea.

    Tea can help calm your nerves and slow down your thoughts and connect you more to the present moment.

    12. Take a bath.

    Baths can help you relax by forcing you to take a step back from the bustle of the day, and they can be a great way to let your worries fall away as they fade into the heat of the water.

    13. Listen to instrumental music.

    It’s proven to boost your ability to focus, which can raise your quality of mind and help you relax when your thoughts won’t stop coming.

    14. Tackle one of the most stressful things on your to-do list.

    While it’s important to be mindful despite the demands of your day, don’t avoid completing a stressful task on your list if it’s giving you unneeded anxiety. If you need to finish your taxes, for example, but keep putting them off, then it might be useful to complete them to get rid of the stressful thoughts that come from procrastinating.

    15. Have a deep conversation with somebody you know.

    Fully focus on the other person and listen to what they have to say. By not simply waiting to say our piece, we can help pull ourselves out of our own heads and connect more deeply to the moment by showing appreciation to the people we talk with.

    16. Watch your favorite show.

    It’s important to take time out of our day to reward ourselves, and indulging in a simple pleasure like watching a show we like can help us step away from our worries and enjoy our free moments from the bustle of life.

    17. Write a haiku or any restrictive poem.

    This can challenge you to be creative in ways that free-form writing can’t do, and can help you recapture a moment in your life that was pleasant but fleeting.

    18. Do a word puzzle.

    Crosswords can help your mind be creative and can boost your intelligence, as well as the overall clarity of your thoughts. They can also provide a break from your daily routines, all while being fun to complete.

    19. Do the dishes.

    Doing the dishes can be a great way to take a break from life, and also be productive while you’re at it. Cleaning dishes can help you feel great, and it pulls you away from your current thoughts, which, in turn, can give your mind permission to relax and recharge from the stress of the day.

    20. Stare at a piece of art you love.

    Whether it’s the Mona Lisa, a poem you like, or a drawing that your spouse made, nothing is off the table here. Art is subjective, and it can help you feel and fully embody the moment by showing your appreciation for the work of others. (Just don’t think about why you like something, as that’s not important here).

    21. Pet a dog or cat.

    Feel the fur beneath your hands and the softness of their skin. Petting an animal can help release our tensions and connect us to the moment, and can pull us away from our thoughts.

    Sometimes we’re so busy focusing on ourselves that we forget to enjoy the moments as they come. We become trapped in the confines of the day-to-day and the span of our own goals, and we forget to enjoy the beauty of life and the little things.

    Being more mindful helped remind me that all good things come with time, and there’s no sense in working so hard if you don’t enjoy life as it comes. It helped me escape the pressures of my job and embrace my writing without allowing it to consume my life, and it helped remind me to enjoy life again by tapping into the power of the present moment.

    We All Have Time To Be Mindful

    Mindfulness doesn’t have to be time-consuming or all-encompassing. You can easily use any of these techniques throughout your day to calm your mind and keep yourself fixed in the present moment and free from your worries.

    Just don’t forget to stop once in a while and breathe it all in.

  • How to Create Happiness in Zero Easy Steps

    How to Create Happiness in Zero Easy Steps

    “To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life.” ~Jill Bolte Taylor

    I was fifteen when I first noticed that I was depressed. That was also when I became seriously interested in happiness.

    How can I get my hands on it? Where does it come from? Why does it seem so natural to some people?

    I wrestled with those questions for quite a while.

    Fast forward to ten years later and things look a lot different for me. Happiness is now a default instead of a rare state. What a relief.

    A few key lessons have made a world of difference. I’d like to share the most important one today.

    Two Kinds of Happiness

    One kind of happiness comes with positive experiences. It’s conditional. It comes when good things happen and leaves when bad things happen.

    The other kind doesn’t depend on the occurrence of any particular event. It is sustainable and unconditional. It exists underneath both desirable and undesirable experience. It is the canvas on which other emotions are painted.

    It’s also the kind with which most of us are unfamiliar. Why is that?

    My theory is that most self-help, personal development, and psychology resources focus on the first kind of happiness.

    They tell us how to make changes to our habits and routines that improve our lives. They talk about the role of thought and point out that if we change our thoughts we have a different experience.

    There’s nothing wrong with these strategies. I feel fortunate I found them when I did; they got me out of my initial funk and gave me some breathing room.

    And yet, my current experience shows me that there’s something even more satisfying on offer:

    Happiness that doesn’t require work or practice. Happiness that doesn’t have to be learned or earned. Happiness that emanates from a part of us that is untouched by negative thinking, bad habits, or traumatic events. The kind that is synonymous with peace and follows us around wherever we go.

    So…How Do We Get There?

    The difference between conditional and unconditional happiness is how we get there.

    The path to conditional happiness is self-explanatory: certain conditions must be met. It depends on completing your morning routine. On having situations break in your favor. On achieving success. On thinking positively.

    Thinking positive is great, but trying to make it an ongoing habit can be incredibly taxing and neuroticism-inducing. Sometimes positive thinking is as stressful as the negative thinking you’re trying to escape! Controlling thoughts is hard.

    Thankfully, in the second approach, we don’t have to.

    That’s because unconditional happiness is independent of the type of thoughts you’re having. Tapping into this state involves seeing the way our minds and thoughts work together to create our experience. Positive change comes naturally with insight into this system.

    Understanding The System

    Here are a few basic observations about the mind:

    • It constantly produces thoughts.
    • Thoughts come to leave, not to stay.
    • We bring thoughts to life with our consciousness. When we believe and latch onto thoughts, they look real, and we live out the experience of those thoughts.

    Have you ever been walking on a trail, seen a shape that looks like a snake, and freaked out… until you realized it was a stick? It was a stick the whole time. But your experience changed drastically as your thoughts changed drastically.

    The principle in this example is true all the time: We’re living in the feeling of our thinking, not the feeling of the outside world.

    That alone could be (and is) the subject of a book.

    But it becomes most profound when the goal is change.

    Doing Less

    When we think negative thoughts, conventional wisdom says we must change or get rid of them. It’s the strategy most of us adopt.

    However, if the mind is constantly producing new thoughts, that means thoughts will change on their own. It isn’t our job to change our thoughts.

    We often obstruct thoughts from naturally passing in and out of our consciousness. One of the ways we do this is by resisting them; it’s a way of holding on to them. When we allow them to, they pass through on their own, like clouds in the sky.

    We don’t have to reprogram old thought patterns or adopt new beliefs.

    When consciousness shifts away from the content of what we think and to the fact that we think, we stop being mesmerized by thoughts. We see that they’re arbitrary and meaningless until we believe them.

    This allows healthier thought patterns to implant themselves automatically.

    With little annoyances and minor distresses, it can be easier to see the transient, arbitrary nature of thought.

    It’s hardest to see, however, in the really problematic areas of our lives. Pain from childhood trauma, destructive psychological patterns, unhelpful habits we learned in dysfunctional families.

    Although it’s harder to see in those areas, the principle is not any less true. These areas cause the most suffering because we thrash against our painful thoughts about those experiences. We drop out of the level of consciousness where thoughts don’t have inherent meaning, and into the level where they’re real and hellish.

    In these areas, the river of our lives becomes whitewater and we fight madly to escape. But even here, the truth remains: Thoughts look real and scary, and cause suffering—until they pass. It will suck for a bit, until we end up in a calmer part of the river. Which we always do.

    Remember the scary snake we encountered on the trail earlier? The fear and pain disappear when you see that it’s a stick. This transformation is possible with any of the pain that we experience over and over again.

    As we stop latching onto painful thoughts by seeing that they come and go on their own, our consciousness around a certain problem rises. And over time, even the worst of experiences are seen differently, in a way that sets you free. We get through the hardest of times without getting stuck in them.

    Back to Happiness

    How does this all fit into being happy?

    Here’s how it has helped me:

    When I remember the way things work—the mind produces thoughts, I experience thoughts as consciousness, which brings them to life, and thoughts float in and out on their own—I get less scared of my experience.

    I used to be seriously afraid of emotions like sadness, jealousy, and my personal demon, depression. I would not only feel those emotions, but I’d feel emotions about the emotions. I was nervous about being sad. Sad about being depressed. Judgmental about being angry.

    Of course, emotions look scary when we decide there are some we’re not supposed to have.

    That second layer of meaning is a way of fighting against myself. What a waste of energy.

    When I saw that doing so kept me trapped in pain, I naturally started to do it less. Since I see that it’s coming from thinking—and that it’s not my job to fix my thinking—I can relax. I know that in ten minutes, or tomorrow morning, I might feel different.

    The more you see the transient, thought-created nature of our experience, the more a simple happiness wakes up. And since it’s not in opposition to negative experience, it can remain there underneath any emotion on the surface.

    This is available to all of us, all the time. It’s just a matter of looking in a new direction, and seeing how our experience is created.

  • 8 Meditation Mistakes to Avoid if You Want to Feel Calm and Peaceful

    8 Meditation Mistakes to Avoid if You Want to Feel Calm and Peaceful

    “Three things you cannot recover in life: the word after it’s said, the moment after it’s missed, and the time after it’s gone.” ~Unknown

    Do you meditate?

    I do. I come from a Buddhist family, and meditation is like an heirloom to me.

    I didn’t start meditating until I was an adult. But when I did, I meditated diligently. From forming a meditation habit to getting the latest meditation app, I’ve done it all.

    And one day I got a little worried.

    I didn’t feel much difference. I didn’t feel calm and peaceful like I was supposed to feel.

    In fact, I didn’t feel anything.

    Nothing has changed. I was still the irritable, depressed person that I was. Meditation felt like a waste of time.

    Later, I was shocked to discover how many mistakes I was making.

    I want you to avoid these mistakes so that you can meditate efficiently without wasting your time as well.

    1. You don’t embrace distractions.

    I used to hate distraction. I’d use earplugs, lock my door, and yell at everybody to shut up before I meditated.

    By all means, minimize distraction. But realize no matter what you do, something’s going to bother you. If you’re like me, you become more irritated each time you get distracted or interrupted. This is counterproductive.

    The whole point of meditation is to observe distractions as they occur, and not to be carried away by them. Embracing distraction is part of the practice. When you do, you’ll feel much more laid back, and everything else will fall into place.

    2. You only meditate with external aids.

    When meditation was popularized, meditation apps, meditation music, and guided meditation also became a fad.

    These external aids direct your thoughts and get you relaxed and concentrated. If you have difficulty meditating traditionally, they’re certainly viable alternatives.

    However, a big part of meditation is facing your inner thoughts on your own. This cultivates insight and wisdom. If your thoughts are being guided externally, you’ll miss out on an opportunity to self-realization.

    If you want your practice to be well-rounded, you should devote some time to meditate with only your mind and body, even if you do enjoy using apps or guided meditations.

    3. You seek escape in meditation.

    I used to abuse meditation to suppress my strong negative feelings. As long as I concentrated only on my breath, I could stop myself from thinking about my problems.

    But then I learned that focus isn’t a hammer of suppression; it’s a ray of light. The light of your meditative awareness will bring up your problems in the form of thoughts. It’s your job to face and neutralize them in the process.

    When strong feelings emerge, put your awareness on those feelings before returning to your focus. Otherwise, you would be suppressing your emotions to the detriment of your mental health.

    Observe the feeling, let it grow, and it’ll naturally dissolve.

    4. You’re doing the wrong meditation for your body type.

    If you feel physically or mentally uncomfortable while meditating, you may be doing the wrong meditation.

    I have a slight nose condition. Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to breathe comfortably through my nose. At those times, meditation became torturous because I would strain my tracheal muscle badly afterward. I decided to drop breathing meditation soon after.

    Meditation is not a battle. Fighting discomfort is neither healthy nor helpful. There’s no reason why meditation shouldn’t be comfortable. Stop doing your current meditation if you’re in a similar situation.

    5. You don’t try out other types of meditation.

    No one meditation technique is superior to one another. For example, most of us meditate to cultivate mindfulness. Breathing is not the only way to do so. Many meditation techniques can achieve the same purpose.

    There are mantra meditations, visualization meditations, walking meditations, contemplation meditations, as well as various schools of Vipassana meditations for you to choose from.

    After I dropped breathing meditation, I tried many other techniques and finally settled on mantra meditation. It felt much more natural to me.

    Learn different techniques from credible teachers. Try out the ones that appeal to you.

    If you’re already content with your current meditation, great. But remember you always have the option to explore different meditations. Maybe you’ll find one that you love even more.

    6. You don’t stick with one meditation technique for long enough.

    While you should explore different techniques, avoid switching around all the time.

    If you do, you wouldn’t be familiar enough with a technique, and there won’t be enough time for its benefits to come to fruition.

    Practice a technique until you know it inside out before you determine whether you should move on or not.

    The exception here is that if a meditation clearly makes you physically or mentally uncomfortable, you should stop right away.

    7. You have unrealistic goals.

    I used to meditate to reach “enlightenment.” Needless to say, I didn’t get there.

    And I thought it would make me at least a tad calmer, or give me some obvious health benefits. I didn’t get both.

    I was expecting too much. And it drove me crazy.

    Don’t expect too much, and don’t expect anything too soon. Meditation is not the magic cure that could banish all your stress and turn you into an enlightened being in just a few days, months, or even years.

    Remember, the masters meditated day and night for decades to reach where they are.

    Unrealistic expectations prevent you from focusing on your practice. When you have high expectations, you focus on results instead of the process. This is counterproductive, as it takes away the present moment awareness that meditation offers.

    Whenever I find myself expecting, I remind myself that I’m not trying to get anything from meditation. As I do so, the practice becomes much more enjoyable. And in the end, by releasing my expectations, meditation does make me more peaceful.

    8. You never learned how to meditate.

    If you don’t study meditation thoroughly, you won’t be able to discover your own mistakes. And if you continue your practice with these mistakes, you’ll waste your precious time at best and injure yourself mentally or physically at worst.

    Read a wide variety of books on meditation, watch videos and listen to lectures by different teachers, join a meditation forum online or social group in person. Expand your knowledge constantly. Use that knowledge to improve your practice regularly.

    If you can afford it, it’s best to learn from a trustworthy and reputable teacher. A good teacher will not only guide you through advanced meditations safely, they will also help you save a lot of time and avoid most mistakes from the outset.

    Guidance from a teacher is necessary if you’re interested in meditations using mantras or visualization. Some of these meditations are potentially dangerous to your mental health.

    Until you can get a teacher or become knowledgeable enough, stick with basic meditations. Avoid visualizations, contemplations, and esoteric mantras you don’t understand.

    Meditation Has Never Felt So Good

    Now that you know what to avoid in meditation, you’ll able to make much more progress than I have in a much shorter time.

    With this knowledge in mind, identify your mistakes and correct them.

    Then meditation will no longer feel like a chore. You’ll actually want to sit down and meditate. Not because you think you should, but because it feels so good. And you can be assured that no matter what happens during the session, you’ll remain peaceful, calm, and happy.

    Yes, it is possible.

    So get to work, and let a whole new journey begin.

  • Learn to Reduce Stress: Mindfulness eCourse by Thich Nhat Hanh

    Learn to Reduce Stress: Mindfulness eCourse by Thich Nhat Hanh

    Meditating

    Stress can be overwhelming, and sometimes crippling.

    Not only does stress suck the joy out of our days and keep us awake at night, it can also take a toll on our bodies.

    Headaches, chest pain, digestive problems, hair loss—they’re all potential consequences of stress, not to mention serious conditions like heart disease and diabetes.

    Then, of course, there are mental consequences. We feel anxious, restless, and irritable, and often scared and discouraged. Like there’s too much to do and we don’t have enough time or skills to do it.

    Everything feels urgent, like life is a series of catastrophes to sidestep and fires to put out. It’s an exhausting way to live.

    At least, it was for me.

    And I knew I was creating a lot of problems for myself—that my stress stemmed not from my circumstances but rather how I chose to respond to them. Life felt like a ticking time bomb, but I was both the bomb squad and the madman holding the detonator.

    To cope with this chronic tension, we often turn to quick fixes that actually create more problems than solutions. We shove it down with food, or spew it out with angry outbursts, or numb it with drugs and alcohol.

    But it’s still there, bubbling below the surface, just waiting to erupt.

    Life is always going to involve situations that we find stressful. We’ll lose jobs, loved ones, and eventually, our health. People will cross our boundaries, push our buttons, and leave us high and dry when we need them.

    There will never be a time when life feels simple or easy.

    We can choose to live in constant fight-or-flight mode, as if life is a string of crises; we can turn to Band-Aid behaviors to temporarily dull the pain; or we can take responsibility for learning a better way.

    What is that better way? Mindfulness.

    Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and our surrounding environment.

    When we’re practicing mindfulness, we’re rooted in the present moment—not dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.

    As a result, we’re able to reduce our own suffering and bring more joy and compassion to both ourselves and others.

    To say that mindfulness has changed my life would be a massive understatement.

    There was a time when I felt powerless to my overactive mind, and worse, I had no idea I was causing myself pain. I thought my response to adversity was the only possible one. I thought I had to be outraged, depressed, and anxious.

    I still feel those feelings at times, but I now know how to observe them, learn from them, and release them so that they don’t consume me.

    You can do the same, and I know just the course to get you started.

    A while back, I connected with someone at Udemy, a site that currently serves over 11 million students through more than 40,000 online courses.

    They introduced me to a number of courses that might interest Tiny Buddha readers, including one entitled Mindfulness Practice for Joy & Compassion by Thich Nhat Hanh

    This master Buddhist monk teaches students how to release suffering and heal the body through mindfulness techniques like walking meditation and breathing meditation.

    Thích Nhất Hạnh is a Zen master, scholar, poet, and peace activist. He’s written over sixty books and was nominated for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Hahn’s course will help you learn to:

    • Embrace suffering and move through it
    • Ease anxiety and relieve tension about the future
    • Use suffering to generate love and compassion
    • Avoid sickness with mindful consumption

    You will walk away from this course knowing how to meditate, reflect, transform, and make a positive impact on your environment.

    As you may have gathered through reading the site, I am highly selective with what I choose to promote here. I pride myself on only sharing products, books, and courses I would personally recommend, and this program certainly fits that criteria.

    All you need for this course is a computer or mobile device with an Internet connection. You don’t need any prior knowledge of Buddhism or meditation.

    And as a bonus, Udemy has offered a 30% discount for Tiny Buddha readers, bringing the cost from $50 down to $35 (from now until July 1st).

    If you’re tired of feeling mentally exhausted, Thich Nhat Hanh’s course may be just what you need to find peace. You can learn more about Mindfulness Practice for Joy & Compassion by Thich Nhat Hanh here.

    —

    Continue your quest for knowledge with Udemy. Udemy offers thousands of courses on all kinds of topics, from business to writing to software engineering. 

    Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means I earn a percentage of all sales. Posts like these help support the site and keep it going.

  • 7 Steps to Create More Love and Happiness in the Present Moment

    7 Steps to Create More Love and Happiness in the Present Moment

    “The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.” ~Abraham Maslow

    It was 4:00am, but I was wide awake. I wanted to be a great achiever, a great partner, and a great parent. Instead, I had turned into an irritable insomniac who no longer knew how to relax.

    I was trying to do everything perfectly and be everything to everyone. Demands kept piling up. This made it tough to focus on the present moment.

    A wandering mind is less happy than a mind focused on what it is doing, according to scientific research. For most people, a wandering mind dominates about half of the time spent awake. That encourages over-thinking, anxiety, and other emotional distress, while limiting the quality of work and play.

    At the time, I didn’t realize how focusing on many different things at once limited my ability to be fully present in my relationships. I also didn’t realize just how crucial relationships are to happiness.

    The Harvard Study of Adult Development tracked people for seventy-five years. People who thrived weren’t those who gained wealth and fame, but those who nurtured great relationships with family, friends, and community.

    What’s the key to nurturing great relationships? Presence. Love flourishes in an atmosphere of kindness, patience, forgiveness, trust, and hope. This is helped by presence and responsiveness in the moment. Anxiety and impatience don’t provide a fertile soil for love.

    I’ve gradually developed a way of being more present in each waking moment of a busy life. It’s made me much calmer, kinder, happier, more relaxed, confident, and more attentive to family, friends, and even strangers.

    Think of your mind as a computer screen with many tabs open. How can you close all the tabs except one, and focus on that? Here’s what works for me.

    1. Clarify what you value.

    Identify your top core values, those things that make life worth living for you. For example, I most value love, health, peace of mind, contribution, and self-actualization. Your list might be a bit different.

    It’s okay to fantasize about being atop some metaphorical mountain. However, it helps to make values, rather than goals, your “mountaintops.” Then you can keep living by your values even if you don’t succeed at one of your goals. For example, you might not yet be able to take that dream round-the-world trip with your partner, but you can still give them your undivided attention for a little time each day.

    This approach boosts motivation and peace of mind. It also plucks fulfillment out of the distant future and brings it into the present moment, enabling you to focus on the now. When your days and minutes express what you value, you become more confident that there’s nothing else you should be doing at any given moment.

    2. Identify your options.

    What are the goals and projects you could pursue? How does each measure up against your top few core values? How much of your time does each require?

    For example, a passion of mine is to help people live with more calm, energy, and brainpower. I started a group, then more people wanted to join. I could have increased the number of groups, but that would have required too much time, eating into my personal relationships.

    I explored other options and decided to start a learning center online. This allows me to contribute more, without sacrificing what I value.

    3. Focus.

    Focus on the top few goals/projects that emerge. Form a clear idea of the next step toward achieving each goal. The solutions to life’s challenges can nearly always be reduced to a simple next step, and another, and so on.

    If you chase too many goals or projects at one time, you might be pulled in different directions, be constantly pre-occupied, and get nowhere. A better way is to focus more boldly, so that your life becomes as simple as taking the next step, with full presence.

    Once you recognize your core values, it becomes easier to say no to attractive options that don’t fit you well enough. For example, I once said no to a surprise offer of an amazing job in another country. The time was not right to uproot our family. I kept what I valued.

    4. Allocate time.

    Allocate blocks of time to each next step according to the importance of the goal to you. Allocate sufficient time regularly for relaxing with family and friends. Allocate some time regularly for planning, worrying, and problem solving.

    Allocating time allows you to steer the ship of your life instead of letting circumstances throw you around.

    For example, I used to be a champion worrier. Then I started setting apart blocks of time for worrying and problem solving. Now worry has to wait for its turn, freeing me to be more fully present when I’m with loved ones.

    5. Act with full presence.

    Throw yourself into each next step at the allocated time. Inhabit each moment of that “next step” fully, as if there was nothing better to do, nothing else to think about, and nowhere better to be.

    This practice calms me. It helps me to work and play better.

    When the allocated time is finished, move on to another “next step,” perhaps for another goal or project. Give that new “next step” your complete, undivided attention during its allocated time.

    Inhabit the moment fully even when you’re not busy pursuing a goal, such as during your planning and problem-solving time, or relaxing with family or friends, or enjoying a hobby.

    I love how this approach frees me to have a bit of fun every day instead of just during vacations. That renews me and restores my equilibrium, amid a busy life.

    6. Save non-urgent problems for later.

    When a non-urgent problem comes up, make a note of it and deal with it later, during your planning, worrying, and problem-solving time. Only when an urgent and important problem comes up need you drop everything else and deal with it.

    What if your children or boss continually bombard you with supposedly urgent and important demands? Guard a little time to refresh and recharge yourself. Your children will eventually grow more independent, and you might consider changing your job.

    7. Review.

    Review how things are going from time to time. If necessary, review the goals and projects to check whether they’re still well-aligned with your values. Sometimes a new opportunity may deserve attention, or your emphasis might need to shift.

    Think of your life as a ship that tends to veer off course. That’s quite common. Your reviews can then gently steer you back on course, toward your core values.

    —

    This seven-step process has replaced a racing, anxious mind with more focus in the present moment. I now enjoy warmer relationships, better work and play, and greater confidence that I can cope with whatever life brings.

    You can inhabit the present moment easily when you’re confident that there’s nothing better for you to do, nothing else to think about right now, and nowhere better to be. This seven-step process will allow you such confidence.

    You don’t have to get this perfect. You just need to get it roughly right, and then adjust your course during your reviews.

    You can then be more present when you’re with family, friends, and others, fully enjoying your time together. Everything that really needs doing will eventually get done, in its allocated time.

    You’ll also become far more secure in dealing with challenges and problems, because your self-image will change.

    You may have felt like a chronically overloaded person. Now you’ll feel more confident about picking your battles, breaking a big problem into small pieces, and patiently eating even a metaphorical “elephant” one morsel at a time. Life needn’t be more complicated than taking one small step at a time.

    You’ll also deal more confidently with disappointments and failures, since you may fail at a particular goal but continue to express your core values through other goals and projects.

    Regrets will dim, because you’ll become more confident that the way you spend your time is an expression of your cherished values, regardless of any particular outcome.

    You’ll also start to achieve much more, with less struggle. But the main satisfaction will come from living a meaningful life that expresses your cherished values in each waking moment.

    This works powerfully for me. You might want to try something like this. If you do, be prepared for more peace of mind, confidence, love, and happiness in each moment.

  • Happiness Hacks: 10 Ways to Infuse Your Life with Joy

    Happiness Hacks: 10 Ways to Infuse Your Life with Joy

    Happy

    “There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    Life seems complicated these days.

    We’re all busy pursuing happiness, yet how many of us ever reach that goal?

    Success, money, and busyness are top of our priority list, yet deep in our hearts we’d prefer time, love, and security.

    It’s the age of making a living, but perhaps at the cost of making a life.

    What really makes us happy, and how do we find it?

    I spent many years trying to fit in, to be someone else, to pursue the dream of success, in my jobs and my relationships.

    I collected material things, often at the cost of what really mattered, and I was left unfulfilled as a result.

    I quit my corporate job and left my long-term relationship to go on a journey of self-discovery. Here are my top nine happiness life hacks, from my experience and the things I’ve learned along the way.

     1. Authenticity: Be who you are, not who you think you should be.

    We live in a world where we are surrounded by ideals, and with a tendency to compare ourselves to others, it’s no wonder so many of us feel like we’re not enough.

    I’d tell myself that writing was a hobby, not a “real job.” I sought approval through promotions and success through status, neither of which made me happy.

    To find happiness, we must be true to ourselves, live our own dreams, and be proud of what makes us unique. So, instead of comparing yourself to others, look to see if you’re fulfilling your own potential in accordance with what you value.

    2. Self-care: Respect yourself.

    Health and happiness are inextricably linked; you can’t have one without the other.

    Our nutrition is so important, as is getting enough sleep and regular exercise. In a world where lifestyle-related disease is at epidemic proportions, taking care of our own health is increasingly critical.

    Yoga, meditation, and regular walks help me look after myself and keep me strong. These practices were key in helping me overcome corporate burnout.

    Sometimes these practices seem too basic, and we ignore the simple principles of good health. It’s often the last thing we prioritize and in our busy lives. But taking time out to care for our health is fundamental. Without our health, we can achieve very little.

    3. Mindfulness: Live in the now.

    Our minds are so busy, and with the evolution of technology, we are now connected 24/7. We never switch off. As a result, we are spending less time in the present.

    Our thoughts are consumed with rehashing the past or worrying about the future.

    The past has gone and we cannot change it, and the future never arrives. The only time we have is now—the present—and of course, this is life.

    In a world where multitasking is seen as a necessary skill, being mindful is the opposite. It’s slowing down and focusing on one thing at a time, one moment at a time.

    Mindfulness is acceptance of what is, without judgment; being yourself, at home with yourself; and seeing the beauty in every moment. It teaches us to slow down and notice more. This leads to a true happiness that arises from within, independent of external circumstances.

    4. Resilience: Learn from experiences.

    Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “The art of happiness is also the art of suffering well.”

    To be happy, it is critical that we embrace the tough times, too. They come to us all. It’s how we deal with them and bounce back that impacts our happiness. This is our resilience.

    We spend much of our time trying to avoid the bad times and cling to the good, yet both will always come and go. Embracing this and shifting our perspective is key to happiness.

    5. Appreciation: Be grateful.

    In our consumer-driven society, it’s all too easy to focus on what we can get, and to be never feel fulfilled. This leads us into constant craving. Like a bottomless bucket that can never be filled, we always want more.

    I learned that happiness is not about getting what you want; it’s about loving what you have.

    There are many things we are lucky to have, yet take for granted: fresh air, clean water, warmth, shelter, family, and food. It’s not until these things are taken away that we realize how fortunate we are. Gratitude helps us remember our priorities and focus on the things that matter.

    6. Simplicity: Let go.

    We feel we need to have things in order to be free, when in fact it’s the opposite. Our struggle to hold on to things brings the very pain we are trying to avoid. We are terrified of letting go, for fear we’ll have nothing, but this is the true path to living well.

    When I went from a corporate job and material wealth to having nothing and living simply, it put things into perspective for me. After all, everything material we have can be lost tomorrow.

    The irony is, if you’re asked what you most value, it’s likely to be the things money can’t buy—things like love, health, and family.

    There are also things within us that we need to let go of. This can be hurt or anger from the past, or limiting beliefs about ourselves. These things hold us back, and like heavy baggage we carry around with us, they break us down.

    7. Self-empowerment: Look within.

    We have a tendency to look for inspiration externally, in our teachers or gurus, yet we have infinite potential within.

    Often, these people help us tap into our inner well, but so do other ordinary people in our life, along with our own experiences.

    We are capable of amazing things if we stop doubting our abilities. It’s often during our biggest challenges that we find out just how much strength we possess.

    8. Compassion: Reach outside yourself.

    Happiness is less about survival of the fittest and looking after number one, and more about collaboration and acts of kindness. Doing good makes us feel good. The best jobs I’ve ever had were voluntary, unpaid roles helping others.

    Our natural response to seeing someone in distress is the impulse to help. We care about the suffering of others, and we feel good when that suffering is released.

    Feeling like we’re making a difference in the world and helping those who need it brings us joy and meaning.

    9. Enjoyment: Do things you love.

    We need to earn a certain amount of money to provide the basics, and few of us are lucky enough to have a job we love. However, we all still have a whole life outside of work with which to create happiness.

    Instead of just making a living, be sure to make a life. Do things you love every day, spend time with those who nourish your soul, learn new things, take time out for you.

    This can involve small things, like a chat with friends, a walk on the beach, or a cup of tea in the garden; or the bigger things, like enrolling on an art course, traveling to that place you’ve longed to visit, or writing that book.

    10. Challenges: Try something new, something that scares you.

    Sometimes we’d like to change things, but it’s just too hard. We know we’re unhappy where we are, but the alternatives are too scary. We prefer the devil we know, and the familiar feels secure, even if it doesn’t make us happy.

    For me, leaving my relationship, changing careers, and speaking in public all left me gripped by fear. I was afraid of the unknown, and also failure. But it’s only by facing these fears that we are able to grow into the people we’re capable of being.

    To get somewhere you’ve never been, you might have to do something you’ve never done. Life begins at the end of our comfort zone!

    —

    Life doesn’t have to be complicated. Happiness shouldn’t be hard, but we often make it so.

    One of the things I’ve discovered is that we are responsible for our happiness, and it comes from within—which is great news, because it puts us in control and makes it possible!

    It takes work, and it may not be easy, but small steps in the right direction put us on the path to happiness.

    Try focusing on one of these life hacks each week and see how your life changes.