Tiny Buddha

Tag: Mindfulness

  • How I’m Healing from the Pain of Growing up in a Dysfunctional Family

    How I’m Healing from the Pain of Growing up in a Dysfunctional Family

    “Don’t try to understand everything, because sometimes it’s not meant to be understood, but accepted.” ~Unknown

    As a child, I never had the opportunity to develop a sense of self. I had a father who was a drug addict. A mother who was abused by my father. And later, we had my mom’s possessive and controlling boyfriend. It was tough finding a consistent role model in the mix.

    I was one of four kids and we grew up in a trailer, sharing one bunk bed among us all. As children, we often would brutally fight with each other. We all wanted our own space and sense of self, but there wasn’t enough to go around.

    With our mom working so much, her boyfriend would watch us. He seemed to enjoy punishing us. I remember feeling so afraid. I didn’t want to do anything wrong. I wanted to have his love because it felt like the only way to be safe. I never felt good enough, not to my mom, dad, or the boyfriend.

    Starting in my teen years, codependency started really kicking in, and I wanted my mom for everything. I unknowingly was part of her triangulation between me and my sister. We both craved her love and wanted to have her favoritism.

    As a wild child, my sister was stuck with my mom’s negative self-projections, I received the positive. As the years progressed, these roles flipped, and I suffered a sense of rejection and confusion as to what I had done wrong.

    Life was hard and I couldn’t live with the fear and shame, so I learned to unplug from my feelings. At the same time, these unprocessed feelings would cause outbursts of anger. I started feeling entitled to anger. It felt like life had kicked me so hard as a child, why wasn’t it getting easier? Why was it getting worse?

    My learned dysfunction kept me yearning for connection but fearing it and pushing people away at the same time. I wasn’t capable of trusting others in a healthy way. With each loss, I took on more shame and perceived failure.

    As I struggled through life, I was oblivious to the amounts of shame my family dynamic had me carrying. My mother’s triangulation and manipulation created an environment where she was justified in lashing out with no accountability. Everyone else was to blame for her poor reactions to situations.

    As my mom and sister became a team, I became the problem who needed to learn how to accept and love them unconditionally. There was nothing wrong with them treating other people poorly. It was okay for them to deceitfully hide family secrets (e.g.: Mom drove home drunk from the bar and doesn’t remember getting home), because I wouldn’t agree, so they were justified.

    I felt like I was on an island, broken and unable to figure out what was wrong and how to fix myself because the “rules” of justification changed so swiftly, and always in their favor.

    Having no sense of self and being completely enmeshed with my mom and sister, I felt beyond broken each time I was accused of not being able to love unconditionally. I was worthless and a disgusting human being who was incapable of even a basic emotion that everyone else had.

    It took a lot for me to see that love for my mom was making me feel close only when she was going through tough times, making me part of her someday club (our motto: “someday” will never happen for us).

    My sister learned to use her money to express her love. She would take me to dinner and give me her quality hand-me-down clothes. While I was grateful, it also became justification for her to do crummy things toward me, usually when she had been drinking.

    While sober, if she had a problem, she’d choose to “forgive.” The only problem is that she hadn’t really forgiven me because one night while everyone was having fun, I might get tired or I didn’t think a joke was funny or I looked at her the wrong way, and it would all come flooding out—every stored feeling she had been holding back for days or weeks.

    If either my mom or sister hurt me, the expectation was that I should just get over it. There was no need for them to take accountability because “we are human” and “I am happy with who I am.”

    I wanted to be loved and accepted but couldn’t ever really find my place within my family because the dynamics were so volatile. I was suffocating in the conflicting feelings. I felt angry but ashamed. I was unhappy and felt worthless.

    When I hit bottom and I couldn’t see one thing in my life that gave me worth, I knew that I needed to make changes. I reached out and got help from a therapist and joined a local support group.

    As I am separating from the dysfunctional patterns, the things that have helped me are:

    1. Ask for help.

    Dysfunctional family dynamics often create shame around the idea of talking to others. It’s seen as exposing family secrets and going against the unit. Nobody should suffer due to things out of their control. Reaching out helps you find the compassionate outlet you deserve and need.

    I have been in therapy for about two years now. It has been the only time of my life where I have been able to experience consistent, reliable, and healthy direction. It has supported me in learning how to have self-compassion and make healthy, but tough choices.

    I didn’t want to accept the reality that my mom and sister will likely never truly see me for me. My role as a scapegoat is brutally necessary for the emotional “economics” that occur within my family.

    Therapy helped support me in my choice to find myself outside of my family of origin. There was much pain in going from seeing my family every weekend to now living a life outside of them. It required radical acceptance and the knowledge that I am unable to change anyone but myself.

    I was lucky to have a kind, compassionate, reliable therapist to guide me as I dealt with each of the emotions that came up during this time.

    2. Accept others as they are.

    As a scapegoat in a dysfunctional family unit, I have learned to accept my situation for what it is. I have to set my expectations for what others are capable of giving.

    We have no control over others or their view of the world. All we can do is accept a situation for what it is and assess if it is healthy for us. Once I accepted that my mom and sister do not really see the family dynamic as dysfunctional, I was able to free myself of the anger and need for control. They are blind to the ways they protect themselves emotionally and unwilling to have an open mind about it.

    There is sadness, but I see that the relationship dynamic causes so much pain for me, and I cannot fix this on my own. While I am compassionate toward the pain they must be carrying, I see that I cannot continue a relationship that is built on dysfunctional habits.

    3. Know your worth.

    As an enmeshed individual, my worth was defined by external sources. I wanted my mom, sister, brothers, friends, coworkers, and acquaintances to validate me as a good, worthy person. I desperately needed to feel like others liked me enough to feel I had worth.

    I now know that we all have worth, and it’s our individual responsibility to maintain this worth from within.

    I have a tough inner critic, so having a consistent mindfulness practice has helped me establish my worth. It is hard to find worth when you are caught up in your own head, believing the negative thoughts going through it. Mindfulness helps me turn away from these thoughts and label them as just that, thoughts.

    The more we tune out our negative self-talk, the more we can acknowledge our mistakes and learn from them without sinking into a low and getting down on ourselves. With this brings the awareness that our mistakes do not diminish our worth. Our worth is inherent. A mistake is just a mistake.

    4. Learn what healthy love looks like.

    Our family of origin doesn’t always teach us what healthy love looks and feels like.

    In dysfunctional families, each person loves based on their limited capacity to process their own emotions. When someone has to keep reminding you that you are unconditionally loved, ask yourself, how do I feel right now? For me, I felt hated and restricted to being what was easy for my mom and sister.

    Love should connect you with your inner joy. We all feel down at times and cannot rely on others to make us feel good about ourselves at all times. But I do feel that when someone loves you unconditionally, you shouldn’t feel lost. The joy of this love should be consistently present and help carry you through the tough times (e.g.: disagreements, hurt feelings, etc.).

    When it comes to my mom and sister unconditionally loving me, I have had to accept that they love me the best and only way they know how while hiding from their shame. If they lash out, they are not able to carry the shame and embarrassment of their own actions. They cannot validate my feelings or experience in any way. They need me to carry this responsibility for them. This is not unconditional love.

    —

    As you move through the necessary steps to separate from learned family dysfunction, please remember that you didn’t learn these things by yourself and you will not unlearn them by yourself, nor should you.

    Oftentimes things like depression or anxiety are a hurdle. Building a community is scary but necessary. This can be reaching out to a therapist or searching for support groups in your local community.

    For years I struggled thinking that I could fix what was wrong with me on my own. It wasn’t until I reached out and got help that my mind was able to open up, process traumas, and make lasting changes.

  • How I Saved Myself by Surrendering When Everything Fell Apart

    How I Saved Myself by Surrendering When Everything Fell Apart

    “And here you are, living despite it all.” ~Rupi Kaur

    “I surrender!” I said this mantra out loud as my life was spiraling out of control.

    I had spent a summer in college as a camp counselor separated from my fiancé. He sent me no letters and did not keep in touch. Still, I held on. By the time I came back home, we were broken. I had also realized he was emotionally abusing me. It took that separation to make me see it.

    I realized I had been truly alone in the relationship. I was never lonelier than being with someone who refused to listen to me. A summer of independence brought me a new love of solitude, but it also made me realize I didn’t have a soulmate in him after all.

    I was forced to face that this life wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t perfect. But… I was enough. I needed to believe that to keep moving.

    When I said my mantra of surrendering, I was on a rollercoaster of emotions. I didn’t know where my life was going. The wedding planning ended. He called it off through text. I was left emotional and without closure. I didn’t know what would happen next. I just decided to be curious rather than try to control it.

    I woke up to the fact that I didn’t have to know everything. I had to just trust. This both terrified me and propelled me forward. I didn’t know if things were going to be okay, but I knew I would make meaning out of whatever would happen.

    I wanted to teach youth how to surrender too. I figured that would be my legacy since it had healed me of so much in life.

    I had already applied to graduate school, and I would start at Brandeis very soon. I was worried about being on top of it all while going through this heartbreak. I was a Type A student, president of four clubs and an honors student. I didn’t exactly have time for love back then, but I didn’t realize I had a choice to let my ex go if I wasn’t satisfied. I put too much effort into trying to make it work when it wouldn’t.

    I didn’t see that my effort to make everything work was actually blocking better things from coming my way. In other words, I had to stop holding on so tightly to life. I had to let go. I had to surrender to survive. I had to go with the flow to find my flow. I had to learn how to be happy for no reason other than to simply be.

    When I did that, my whole life opened up for me. I practiced radical acceptance and realized my place in this world mattered. I stopped white-knuckling through my problems and pain. I stopped waiting for love and decided to love myself. I started to see myself as capable and good no matter how others mistreated me. I decided by letting go, I would not give up. I made a promise to myself to always be authentic.

    Life didn’t go as planned. I left Brandeis MAT program for teaching because I realized I didn’t want to be a high school English teacher anymore. It was the hardest decision of my life because I also did not have a backup plan.

    So, I surrendered again. And again and again through it all.

    I surrendered when I found other ways to help youth. I surrendered through a bipolar breakdown and a relapse to the hospital years later. I surrendered when I went on disability and all expectations of my life were changed. I surrendered through bad side effects to meds and awful doctors. I surrendered all through my life because I knew despite how hard things could be, I was still doing good. I was still helping others. I was still waking up each morning appreciating being alive.

    It came down to the simple things. I didn’t need certain labels or popularity. I needed to rest, to do nothing sometimes. To breathe. To just live.

    I saw myself as rising in my own ways.

    I realized I couldn’t look back. Here’s what I held onto instead:

    1. Finding Purpose

    When I let go of my need to control, I became more mindful. I started to think about how I wanted to spend my time. Was it for achievements or authenticity?

    I had nothing, so I had nothing to lose when I left Brandeis. Serendipitously, I had a branding internship the same time a brand manager of a large TV personality discovered me. The internship taught me how to manage my own image and ideas while the manager wanted to simply own me like a puppet master.

    I had a choice. I could live on my own terms or have someone take over my life. I turned down advances from this man. I wasn’t going to fall for the same red flags as I did with my ex-fiancé. I let go; I surrendered.

    I decided to make my own way and live authentically as a person, not a brand, sharing my story along the way. I used my mental health journey to help end stigma and my writing for sharing insights on life.

    I did not let walking away from the brand manager stop my story. Instead, I redefined it for myself. I was enough as I was. I didn’t need anyone to discover who I was meant to be. I would live my life for me.

    My purpose became in proving him wrong, that I could make it on my own. Then, it became for me, to show myself I was worth it. I focused on living in the moment and just following my passions without a plan. That’s what saved me. But it wasn’t the only thing.

    Purpose dawned on me one day while I was simply walking my dog through the woods in my backyard. I listened to birds chirping. I grounded myself by looking up at the blue sky. I touched the bark on the trees. I felt my inner voice beckoning me to love this life as it was, not as I wanted it to be. I didn’t have to do anything. I just had to be in this moment. That’s all life was asking of me.

    It took simplicity to make me realize my purpose wasn’t just a to-do list. It wasn’t fixing everything. It wasn’t mastering every skill. It wasn’t making things work when they wouldn’t.

    I had to separate myself from the “shoulds.” I had to find the gift in what I was going through. In taking the time to do nothing but think, far away from a stressful schedule, I realized that my purpose was to be happy without needing a reason to be. That took a different kind of bravery.

    2. Forgiveness

    I wasn’t able to move on from the injustices of my life very easily. I had anger in me from living under others’ control and abuse. I had loss, which I felt every day, etched into my skin. I knew what it was to be alone. I had settled too often and always saw the best in people.

    I grew up walking on eggshells surrounded by abusers. It was an endless pattern I stopped in my twenties. After my ex-fiancé left me, I found a new type of strength. I realized the only power anyone could ever have over me was the one I consented. No one could steal the core of who I was. No one could take certain things away. No one could define me but me.

    I took my power back through forgiveness. It didn’t happen right away. I meant “I love you” to my ex, but then I realized it was governed in fear. Fear of doing this life on my own.

    Sometimes life makes you continually face the very thing you’ve been avoiding. You keep getting redirected to it even as you resist. You find yourself with the same lessons you needed to learn before.

    There’s a quote that reads “You repeat what you don’t repair.” Well, I was there. I was back there constantly in my anger and hate of those who I thought stole something from me.

    But when I decided to forgive them, I released it. I gave it back to the universe and pulled my heart from the chaos. They didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t for them. It was for me. I had to let them go and surrender so I could heal myself. I forgave myself in the process, too, for not knowing enough, for not seeing the truth.

    My heart wanted to hold onto the anger so that I could do something with it. I soothed it, though, with self-compassion. I made meaning of the events of my life by helping others through similar things.

    That meant I had to say goodbye. Goodbye to those who didn’t know me enough to love me right. Goodbye to the me that was in survival mode and didn’t know I could just let go and live. Goodbye to the dark nights of the soul where I felt like giving up and suicidal ideations crossed my mind. Goodbye to the past. Goodbye to the insecurities. Goodbye to the pain. Goodbye to the worst of it all.

    And then I said it. “I forgive you.” I salvaged myself from the wreckage of the storms I had suffered. I pulled myself out of the ruins of an old life. I realized I was the one who decided my fate. I was the captain of my soul. I was finally free.

    3. The Reason

    I found my way by allowing myself to go on the detour. I realized that I was meant to go down the wrong road so I would be sure of the right one. My road was brilliant, one of authenticity, that uplifted me above all that I had gone through. I was able to look at my life and see what really mattered. I suddenly knew what I was here to do.

    I was here to share my gift. Any insight I could. To love.

    I started volunteering, writing, speaking to youth, and advocating for mental health awareness.

    I stopped living in the stigma of struggling and became open about my story.

    I surrendered to what was happening.

    I stopped fighting every little thing that came my way.

    I didn’t need to know what would happen with the lives I touched and the good things I did along the way. I just had to follow my path hoping others would follow it too, making it a little easier for someone else.

    All I had to do was surrender—be still, quiet my mind, allow rather than resist, let go, and find myself even when losing it all.

    Surrendering isn’t easy. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things we can do. That’s because we want control. But sometimes, surrendering is seeing uncertainty as beautiful. We don’t have to know what lies ahead in order to move forward.

    What will you do when you surrender, stop fighting reality, and allow yourself to live in your life as it is?

    Can you improve a situation, share a kindness, give to a greater cause, become a better you, and build a better world? Can you dream of doing such things? That is the first step to resilience. Focus on the beauty found in the broken situation and in you. Focus on the light you can bring into the darkness.

    It doesn’t take away from the horror of any hardship to believe in yourself and your ability to make change from it. That takes its own grieving time. But during that time, you can’t let it consume you. The tragedy that befell you, the heartbreak that happened, the hurt inside that you can’t let go… they are indeed senseless. Hence, it is imperative you don’t get stuck on asking why, as many do.

    Instead of viewing yourself as a victim, it’s time to be a victor. Overcome the odds. Let what hurts and irks you be the fuel to your fire.

    Hardships do not define us.

    What you have been through, your circumstances, do not define you.

    There will be days where you need to prioritize self-care and forgiveness for who you had to be to get to this point. Maybe you were white-knuckling through the pain in your self-care journey, maybe you did what you did in order to survive, but the good news is that today is a new day for you.

    Hold space for the sacred gift of simply being alive on those days.

    It works like a cycle. You will feel all the emotions on the spectrum, which means you will feel anger and sadness and doubt, but you will also feel joy and love and hope again the longer you hold on, the more patience you practice with yourself.

    A reason not for why this happened but why to go on will come to you.

    That reason is everything.

    When you want to give up, that’s when you say, “I surrender,” which isn’t the same thing. Giving up is shutting down. Surrendering is letting go.

    When you surrender, you don’t need things to work out a certain way. You accept life as it comes, which leads to a breakthrough. When you give up, you breakdown. Surrendering is the sacred step to realizing your full potential. It’s realizing you are your own hero, and you must not stop now.

    When you let go, you realize everything could change tomorrow. All it takes is choosing this very moment and living it. Mindfully surrendering is about releasing your fears and doubts so you can see clearly and letting the light come through.

    Don’t wait for life to change to create peace, joy, and purpose. Choose to make the best of what you have in your life, right now as it is. Surrender. Say the words, and it will change your life.

  • How Happiness Sneaks Up on Us If We Stop Chasing It

    How Happiness Sneaks Up on Us If We Stop Chasing It

    One day a man met a hungry tiger. He ran. The tiger chased him. Coming to a cliff, he jumped, catching hold of a tree root to stop himself falling to the bottom where, horror upon horror, another tiger waited to eat him.

    He hung on for dear life to that thin root.

    Then a little mouse appeared and started to nibble at the root. The mouse was hungry and the fibers started to snap.

    Just then, the man saw a ripe red strawberry near him, growing from the cliff face. Holding the vine with one hand, he picked the strawberry with the other.

    How sweet it tasted! How happy he was!

    Buddhist Koan

    There’s no good time to have a heart attack. They really mess up your plans.

    The timing of mine could have been worse, though. I guess I should be grateful.

    It didn’t seem that way: alone, midnight, searing pain in my spine, chest, arms. Raw fear.

    At least I was at home. That’s something to be grateful for.

    Three months earlier I’d been directing a show in India. Then a short trip to run a corporate training in Malaysia. I was home in the UK for less than two weeks before I’d flown to China for more corporate work.

    Back from China, I drove north to Scotland to sort out my mother, moving her into a care home. A lifetime of books, pictures, clothes, and memories distilled to… almost nothing. How do you fit a lifetime into a small room?

    Through all those trips, in airports, mid-workshops, late in the night, I’d had shooting, crippling, breath-stopping chest pains, which I always found some way to ignore. They passed.

    I was in my fifties and fit. I was fine. There’s always some explanation, other than the obvious, when the obvious is too scary to face.

    The day of my heart attack, I drove eight hours from Scotland to England and, exhausted, collapsed to bed.

    I was woken by pain at midnight. At least I woke. That too is something to be grateful for.

    It wasn’t a good time to have a heart attack, but it could have been worse.

    There’s a lot I can be grateful for.

    “Looks like a heart attack,” said the paramedic, studying an ECG print-out in the back of the ambulance. “Let’s get you to the hospital to confirm.”

    “Yes, a heart attack,” confirmed the doctor, some time before dawn. “We’ll find you a bed and work out what to do with you next.”

    “Not a good time,” I thought, wires taped to my chest, old men wheezing and muttering in the other beds. “I’m due in Greece on Tuesday.”

    My clogged arteries didn’t much care I’d booked my flights. Things happen when they happen.

    ***

    I was in the hospital for ten days. There were daily discussions about how to treat me. My heart attack had not been very bad, but not very good either.

    Open-heart surgery or stenting?

    In the end they couldn’t decide, so they left it up to me. Open-heart surgery is more invasive but maybe safer in the long term. Stents could be done in an hour and I could go home. They might not be enough though.

    My choice.

    I chose stents. Attention to my body is the foundation of what I do. I couldn’t bear the thought of being cut open. At least, I couldn’t bear it as long as there was some other way.

    A good choice?

    Time will tell.

    I had to wait four days between decision and surgery. Four days in the hospital when I should have been in Greece.

    The morning after I chose my treatment, I experienced something very strange. Not another heart-attack, though it happened in the region of my heart. I discovered I was happy.

    Not happy about anything. Not happy because of anything. Just happy.

    Completely, unconditionally happy.

    I’d woken at 5am. It was June, so already it was light. The hospital was quiet.

    Sunlight streamed through the window, and I lay looking at the tree outside. My bed was curtained-off, so I was wrapped in privacy.

    I started reading my book, relishing the early hour, and being left alone.

    A bird sang outside.

    I felt spacious.

    I was happy.

    It was simple. It was quiet. There was a bird in the tree outside, singing, because that’s what birds do.

    All that existed was a very quiet “now.” Book, sunlight, scrubby early-morning birdsong.

    I was alive.

    I didn’t know for how much longer, but in that moment, I was alive, and that was enough.

    ***

    Two months later, I spent a week on an island off the Atlantic coast of Ireland. I was taking myself through a disciplined rehabilitation.

    Each day I walked a little further.

    I ate well and slept a lot.

    I worked my stress and anxiety, which I’d ignored for decades.

    A small Irish, Atlantic island in summer is warmer than in winter, but not much else changes. There’s wind and rain and wild beauty. I walked, morning, noon, and night. Each day I went further, took more risks. Slowly, I learned to trust my body again.

    On the third day, I stood at the top of one of the larger hills. There was a gale blowing off the sea, and the rain was sheeting down.

    It was viciously cold.

    My waterproof jacket had given up, and spiteful rain ran down my spine.

    I sheltered behind the hilltop cairn, and muttered, “This is vile.”

    Then a warmness of the heart.

    “I’m happy again,” I thought. Once again, not happy because, or happy to, or happy that, or happy for… Just happy.

    ***

    A few times in the eighteen months since, I have felt it.

    A moment of simple happiness.

    What is it?

    We spend so much time seeking happiness through achievement:

    If I can afford this house, I’ll be happy.

    If I am in relationship with this person, I’ll be happy.

    If I get this job or pass this exam…

    If I live by the sea…

    If I had more friends…

    If I had…

    If I…

    We seek happiness from outside. We see it as a consequence of things beyond ourselves. As if happiness was a perk of a new job, a company car, or access to the gym, or some secret room in a house we want, one day, to occupy.

    But happiness is not a by-product. Happiness is.

    We seek happiness from outside, extrinsically, ignoring that it lives only inside. Happiness is intrinsic.

    The things that come to us from outside, extrinsic rewards, are not in our control. To rely on them for happiness is to put ourselves at the mercy of fate and luck. If we find happiness within, though, it is truly ours. We can learn to nurture it.

    The new house, job, love, car, will not make you happy, though they may distract you from your dissatisfaction for a while.

    Only embracing happiness in this moment will make you happy.

    Like a grouchy old house cat that will not let you pet her, spurns the food you lovingly put out, and hisses if you get too close, happiness will, unexpectedly, curl up on your lap and comfort you from time to time.

    Does that mean that we cannot make ourselves happier? That happiness is arbitrary and we must suffer until it visits us?

    Though we can’t force that grouchy old cat to come, we can learn to sit quietly, giving her space and encouragement. We can learn to quieten our mind and allow the happiness of being alive—in this moment—to enter us. We can invite happiness in, by opening to it.

    Not doing things to become happy. Letting ourselves be happy.

    If I stop seeking outside of myself and start experiencing what it is to live this moment, then happiness might curl up in my chest and comfort me.

    Happiness lives on a mountain in a summer gale. It sneaks into an early morning hospital room. It is here now if, between one word and the next, I pause my typing, and I wait.

    It lives inside me, not in things I want, or think I need.

    It’s here.

    Now is a good time to be happy.

    Now is the only time there is.

    I am grateful I am here, now.

    I am grateful that, somewhere inside me, now, there’s happiness and if I stop looking for it out there, perhaps it will come to sit on my lap.

    How sweet it tasted! How happy he was!

    Buddhist Koan

  • Why We Need to Be Present to Enjoy Our Lives, Not Just Productive

    Why We Need to Be Present to Enjoy Our Lives, Not Just Productive

    “Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living.” ~Maria Popova

    I was high on productivity. I had one full-time job, two part-time jobs, and a side hustle. I was getting everything done. Sounds perfect, right?

    Then I started hating my life.

    I had read enough books and articles to tell me how I was not doing enough. Enough self-help gurus had told me that what I needed to do was max out every single hour I had to be minutely close to being “successful.”

    My co-workers often got intimidated by my jam-packed calendar. I don’t exaggerate when I say that every minute of my life was scheduled. Sheldon-level scheduled, with dedicated “bathroom breaks” and everything.

    I ran three to-do lists: daily, weekly, monthly. This was my way of setting out for maximum efficiency. I said “yes” to my boss so often I had become his favorite. Work-life balance, what’s that?

    Tasks were flying off my list like never before—so many horizontal breakthroughs! I wore this as my badge of honor for a while, this art of getting it all done. And why not? I was rewarded for it in money, praise, promotions, awe.

    But then it didn’t feel so great. Instead, I became downright miserable.

    Why Busyness-Productivity Is A Mirage

    I don’t claim that productivity is bad. Doing fulfilling work by minimizing distractions and getting deep focus is truly rewarding.

    But it is crucial to stop and question why you’re doing what you’re doing. It is necessary to pause and reflect on the value of your tasks and actions. Otherwise, productivity translates to useless busyness.

    When I became this productivity freak, I never stopped to ask if any of the things I was doing were giving my life meaning. I was doing a demanding full-time job that didn’t provide me any purpose. My days became a blur of mindless task completions. My mind, heart, and soul were absent from my work. Any given Monday didn’t look so different from a Tuesday three weeks prior.

    And it wasn’t even like I was happy.

    I was meeting all my deadlines, but I was spending no time with my family. There were enough accolades to prove all my achievements but not enough art to fulfill my soul. I answered every email I received within twenty-four hours, but I hardly focused on long-term self-growth.

    On the outside, my life never looked better. But on the inside, I was worse than I had ever been. Distraction, schedules, irritability, and deadlines were the monsters that ruled my life.

    After a month-long burnout, I hit the problem nail in the head. I knew I needed to move on. But how? I resolved to take a calculated leap of faith. I found a client willing to pay me for my freelancing services for at least two to three months and made a thick emergency fund by cutting out on expenses. Then, I quit the unfulfilling full-time job and gave my heart to work that I truly found meaning in. I stopped making productivity my goal. I opted to choose presence instead.

    Presence > Productivity

    I read Annie Dillard’s, The Writing Life, in which she memorably wrote, “how we spend our days, is of course, how we spend our lives.”

    After reading this book, I realized that productivity would only be fruitful when coupled with presence. I knew then that presence was what would make my rewards meaningful.

    What is presence? Presence is the art of being in the moment, the luxury of pausing, the virtue of stillness. It is being alert, aware, and alive to this moment.

    There’s a reason why our culture runs for productivity instead of presence. Productivity helps us shut away from reality. It keeps us “busy” into a future that is yet to manifest.

    It is so much easier and convenient to take the shield of productivity against the beautiful, buoyant, and sometimes disruptively painful present.

    Performing one task after next gives us an excuse to not fully live, not completely concentrate, not unbiasedly accept.

    I used to be that way—trying to avoid the truth that I was not finding my work meaningful. I wouldn’t accept that this job was emptying me slowly, living in denial of a reality I was living. Was I not getting things done? I was, more than ever before. But was I happy? I had never been more unhappy with my own choices.

    Being productive every minute of every day meant I could avoid the fact that many of my friendships were depleting, toxic, and unhealthy. I was lying to myself that it was all to have a good social life. In reality, I would go out of my way to avoid being alone, to avoid answering the big questions pertaining to my life that can only be answered in solitude.

    But coupling our actions with productivity and presence can have an astounding effect on our lives. It can make every task we do driven with intention, purpose, and meaning. Presence is what helps us reap the internal rewards that come with doing fulfilling work.

    Choosing Presence

    If you are anything like me, choosing presence over productivity can take some practice. Productivity was my normal mode of operation. It was easy; it came naturally. But opting for presence in my actions wasn’t so simple.

    The art of being present and intentional in all my tasks was like writing with my non-dominant left hand. I searched for help and stumbled upon Tim Ferris. He often says to think of your epitaph to cut through all the noise and maze of productivity. It is a way to find out what truly matters to you by getting a super-zoomed out version of your life.

    As morbid as it sounds, that is what I did. I imagined what I would like to carve on my epitaph, and the important stuff came into a laser-sharp focus:

    I needed to write. I needed to make time for solitude, for serendipity, for hobbies. I wanted to create more memories with my family. I wanted to let go of draining friendships and put all my energy into relationships that filled me with fulfillment, meaning, and growth. Taking it one step at a time, I decided to hand in my resignation. I landed my first writing gig in under two weeks.

    And hey, it’s not like I don’t struggle to write with my left hand anymore. But I am growing each day. It takes some practice and effort to make room in your calendar to “be present.” I am learning to be uncomfortable by turning the volume down of “getting things done.”

    I have noticed that it is the minor changes that count. It is taking a little more time to craft that email mindfully. It is that courageous “no” to a project that can help you surpass your quarterly KPIs but take away from your family time. It is choosing to take a soothing fifteen-minute walk break over checking off another mindless to-do list task.

    Presence is a process. It requires the discipline to focus on the present moment when productivity pushes you to see a non-existent future. Presence is your un-busy existence of utterly unadulterated joy. It is your creativity’s cradle. It is your time to just be.

    So do it. Make the hard choice. Live your life with presence to help you find joy in the now instead of pushing toward some destination in the future. None of us really know where the future will bring us, but we can all choose to enjoy the scenery along the way.

  • How 10 Minutes of Daily Meditation Can Calm Your Mind and Relax Your Body

    How 10 Minutes of Daily Meditation Can Calm Your Mind and Relax Your Body

    “Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of these things and still be calm in your heart.” ~Unknown

    I began the morning with a meditation. After taking my dog out and brewing the coffee, I sat in my sunny living room, my little dog Frankie nestled beside me. I perched cross-legged, a blue pillow on my lap for warmth. I closed my eyes and began to focus on my breath.

    When ten minutes passed, I raised my hands in appreciation. “Thank you for this day. Thank you for my family and for our health. Give me strength, wisdom, and love.” Then I extended my hands forward, “So that I may give strength, wisdom, and love.” Finally, I stretched both arms out sideways, wiggling my fingers in my peripheral vision, a reminder to be fully aware. This is how I start every day.

    It wasn’t always this way. My older brother Marc tried to get me to meditate when I was fourteen. Although he was a patient teacher, I didn’t understand the point of the exercise.

    “Let’s sit together. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breath.”

    “Why do I have to do this?

    “Just sit, Lise. It’s good for you to learn. We will do it together.”

    “OK, but why?”

    Marc tried, but I resisted. I stopped meditating as soon as he went back to college.

    Years later, as part of my psychology training, I took classes which touted meditation as a stress-reducing technique. During the classes, there were demonstrations which I always enjoyed. I sat back, breathed deeply, and felt a deep flow of relaxation inside me. But, back home, I had no follow-through. Once the classes were over, so was my meditation.

    My breakthrough into daily meditation happened in 2020, one of the few good things that arose from that dreadful year. I was home, virtually every minute of my life. I didn’t have to dash from of the house, brave traffic, and arrive at the office by 9:00. Mornings stretched more languidly. It was easier to find those ten minutes to breathe every morning.

    Now I sit every day. I scan through my body, noting points of tension, areas of pain and pressure. Simple awareness of the tension shifts any pain, and my body settles.

    My mind, free from my constant to-do lists, drifts along, as if floating on the waves of a gentle sea. I hear the sounds of the house around me, the heater outside, working mightily to warm our home; Frankie the dog beside me, sighing. My stomach muscles unclench. I notice thoughts drifting in. I don’t attend to them. The thoughts fade away. Peace.

    Of course, that’s when meditation goes well. Sometimes every minute slogs on. My scalps itches. “I forgot to return that phone call,” I think, and my body tenses into high alert. “Oh no, I have to write that woman back!” My throat tightens. “What if that editor doesn’t like my submission?” My stomach jams into a knot. I cannot let these thoughts go. “I suck at meditation. Why can’t I just breathe? When will these ten minutes be over?”

    Sometimes meditation goes like this. It isn’t always peaceful, and it doesn’t always feel good. The key, I’m told, is to keep at it. Like any skill, the more we practice, the better we get at it. It is no accident that we say one “practices meditation.” I didn’t get decent at writing in one year either.

    If you are like the fourteen-year-old me, you might be asking, why meditate at all? There are so many benefits I don’t even know where to begin; here is a partial list. Meditation…

    • Soothes anxiety: When you learn to focus the mind, your thoughts don’t spin off into anxious “what-ifs,” spiraling into anxious ruminations.
    • Calms anger: Focusing on breathing calms the mind, stopping our internal tirades over people who have wronged us.
    • Improves the immune system: The body is not designed to be in a constant “fight or flight” mode. When we are tense, our immune system works poorly. When we relax, our immune system resumes its work.
    • Lowers blood pressure: Meditation is a proven technique for improving hypertension.
    • Manages emotional reactivity: This is a big one. It is easy for me, sensitive soul that I am, to feel hurt and wounded by other people. Meditation allows me to detach from the provocations of the moment, and to tap into inner peace. Once I have calmed myself, I find freedom from reacting emotionally. I can bring more thoughtfulness and wisdom to my relationships.

    Happily, the benefits of meditation extend past the ten minutes into the whole day.

    Now that I practice regularly, I notice when my shoulders leap to attention. With mindfulness, I can lower those shoulders down.

    I notice when my stomach tenses up, and I can breathe that tension away.

    I notice when my mind anxiously swirls around my to-do list and I can tell my mind to relax.

    The awareness that comes from a regular ten-minute mediation follows me throughout my day, helping me stay calmer and more serene.

    A while ago, I was getting ready for a radio interview, as part of my recent book promotion. I had an hour to spare, and I thought I’d make a quick phone call to an insurance company.

    This “quick” phone call dragged into an infuriating forty minutes. I was on hold, listening to inane music, on some incessant torture loop. Finally, the customer service rep came on, but we had with a terrible connection. I could barely hear her, as she was undoubtedly on another continent, and I couldn’t understand her either.

    After a brief exchange, which I barely fathomed, she declared she couldn’t help me. I got off the phone in disgust.

    “I’m so aggravated! I just wasted an hour on the phone with this stupid company and now I have an interview in fifteen minutes. What a colossal waste of time! I have this radio interview and I am so upset I can barely think!”

    My husband gazed at me. “Why don’t you do your meditation thing?”

    I glared at him. I really just wanted to righteously complain. But my husband was right; I was a wreck.

    I sat in my bedroom and closed my eyes, focusing on my breath. Immediately I sensed my body’s distress. My heart rate was elevated. I breathed rapidly. My shoulders were raised and my stomach was in spasm.

    “My god,” I thought. “My body is completely dysregulated, all from one stupid phone call.”

    Quietly, I focused. I felt my muscles relaxing and my heart rate slowing. I ended the meditation, feeling like a different woman, and started the interview with a smile on my face.

    That is the power of a regular ten-minute meditation practice.

    Let’s be clear. Everyone, no matter how busy, has ten minutes to spare. You can do this, and build yourself a calmer, more peaceful life, in a healthier body.

    One final tip: it is best to find a regular time of day for your meditation practice. Do your breathing every morning, or every bedtime, or every evening after work. Otherwise, you will keep putting it off until later. If you are like me, you might even put it off for forty years.

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

    How a Numb, Phony Zombie Started Singing Her Own Song

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The answer is: YOU’VE STILL GOT IT!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Instead, I grew anxious, critical, and discouraged.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    That was one of the darkest times of my life.

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

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

    I realized I needed a different way to approach life.

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

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

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

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

    Fencing helped me rediscover play and leave perfectionism behind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Free 7-Day Sleep Challenge: Meditations, Tips, and Tools for a Restful Night

    Free 7-Day Sleep Challenge: Meditations, Tips, and Tools for a Restful Night

    Does stress cause sleepless nights, or does a lack of sleep cause stress?

    Both have been true for me, especially since becoming a parent, and I’m guessing for you too.

    When life gets challenging, it’s hard to shut your brain off at night.

    You know it’s important to get a good night’s sleep. You know you feel better in the day when you’re well-rested. But it’s hard to relax, physically and mentally, when you have a lot on your mind. It’s like there’s a tornado inside your head, and all the sheep-counting in the world couldn’t pull you out.

    And when you haven’t gotten adequate rest, it’s hard to function and deal with, well, anything. You feel on edge, easily irritated, and perhaps both foggy and jittery—like you can’t think clearly, and yet you can’t stop thinking… because you have a lot to do and figure out, and you can’t afford to stop just because you’re tired.

    If you’ve experienced your share of restless nights and exhausted days, and you’d like to improve your sleep routine, I highly recommend the 7-Day Sleep Challenge, from Mindfulness.com.

    This challenge was designed to help you make good sleep a lasting habit so you can become a healthier, happier you.

    Led by mindfulness teacher and international speaker Cory Muscara, the challenge provides daily emails with practical advice to quickly improve your sleep, nightly audio coaching sessions, and a corresponding meditation for each, to guide your mind and body toward better rest.

    This FREE 7-Day Sleep Challenge is for you if:

    • You can’t go to sleep at night, and you wake up tired
    • You wake up in the middle of the night and lie there for hours trying to get back to sleep
    • You feel reactive throughout the day and small things set you off
    • You don’t have the energy to do the things you enjoy
    • You frequently complain about lack of focus and poor memory
    • You are ready to make good sleep a habit

    Benefits of Better Sleep

    When we get the recommended seven-plus hours of sleep, we enjoy a wide range of benefits:

    • Increased focus and productivity
    • Strengthened immune system
    • Lower risk of heart disease and stroke
    • Decreased risk of diabetes
    • Improved memory
    • Decreased stress, anxiety, and depression
    • Balances excessive weight fluctuations
    • Decreased risk of chronic diseases

    Life is just plain better when you’re well-rested.

    You feel calmer, more energized, and better able to focus and enjoy your day, and you’re far less likely to say and do things you’ll  later regret. Which means good sleep not only boosts your physical and mental health, it can also improve your relationships.

    And odds are you’ll also feel better about yourself when you’re showing up as the person you want to be—not an easily irritated zombie who can’t wait to collapse into bed (only to toss, turn, and stress about how few hours you have left to sleep before another draining day).

    Ready to sleep your way to a healthier, happier you? Click here to take the FREE 7-Day Sleep Challenge and get the tools you need to wind down and fall asleep more easily and get the restorative rest you need to be your best!

  • How I Reclaimed My Life When I Felt Numb and Unhappy

    How I Reclaimed My Life When I Felt Numb and Unhappy

    “All appears to change when we change.” ~Henri-Frédéric Amiel

    The biggest life-changing moment in my life would have looked unremarkable to an outsider looking in.

    I was at a point in my life (my late twenties) where everything seemed to look good on paper. I had a great job, I was living in downtown Seattle, and I enjoyed the live music scene. Aside from not being in a relationship, I thought I had “arrived.”

    The only problem was, I was miserable, and I barely acknowledged it. A part of me knew that I wasn’t happy, but I tried to run away from that feeling by playing guitar, writing, or watching live music as much as I could.

    My other avoidance tactics were working long hours at my day job or socially drinking at “hip” bars in the city.

    But every time I came home, there I was. Still grappling with my feelings and trying to understand why happiness was so fleeting.

    I had also recently broken up with someone that I cared about but knew was not healthy for me. She was a heavy drinker, and because I tended to just blend in with my partners, my drinking had increased substantially when I was with her, and I felt horrible (physically and emotionally).

    It was a messy ending, and it left me even more confused. I should be so happy. “Why aren’t I?” This nagging thought haunted me for several months.

    Moment of Awareness and Choice

    One afternoon, I came home from work and mindlessly went through my routine. Dropped my bag off by the door. Changed into comfort clothes. Went to the refrigerator and opened a beer.

    I then plopped on the sofa and turned on the television. This was my routine for several mind-numbing months.

    When I reflect back on this moment, I can see that I was absently flipping through every channel available through the cable box. Interested in absolutely nothing. I would take a tug on the beer in one hand without even tasting it while changing channels with the remote in another hand.

    I was literally in a trance and not really processing anything. I was running on autopilot, without any conscious awareness, as channel after channel flipped by.

    And that’s when it happened. It was like the background noise in one part of my mind suddenly became amplified. I could hear thought after thought running through my mind like a CNN news crawl.

    The shocking part, for me, was how negative these thoughts were. “You’re no good. Nobody loves you. You’re a failure. You’ll never find someone who loves you. You’re not worth it.”

    I also had the realization that I’d heard these thoughts before but had chosen to stuff them down or mute the volume through distraction.

    But here they were. Loud and blaring. I was forced to face them once again.

    I was in a state of disbelief for several minutes while some choice expletives escaped my lips.

    Once the shock wore off, there was an overwhelming sense that I had reached a huge fork in the road.

    One choice led to stuffing these thoughts back down to wherever they came from and going back to sucking down a beer mindlessly watching television.

    And then, magically, a second choice came out of nowhere. Stop everything and just sit with these thoughts.

    I remember simply saying, “Huh!” out loud. I never realized that I had choices. I was programmed to run and hide.

    I became aware that this was a prodigious moment for me. I could feel chills run through my entire body.

    The choice was: Go to sleep again or just be present and experience these thoughts.

    Something deep within me knew which path to choose. It was the strongest sense of knowing I had ever experienced. I also knew that if I didn’t get on this train right now, I may be lost forever. It almost felt like a life-or-death decision.

    It was in that moment of choice that I finally gave in. I stopped resisting and avoiding. I chose to sit in the discomfort and not run away and hide anymore.

    The Choice to Pursue “Better”

    As soon as I made the choice to stay and be with these negative thoughts, my body jumped into action. As if someone else was not at the controls.

    In one long, swooping motion, I turned off the television, went over to the kitchen sink, and dumped out the rest of my beer. I then took a deep breath, walked to my living room, and sat cross-legged on the floor.

    I’d never meditated before but had heard of it. I was strongly interested in Buddhism when I was in college but never took the steps to explore what it was all about. I figured there was no better time than now to just try it.

    All I know was, in that moment, I made the firm decision that I was just going to sit and be with my thoughts. No matter how intense of a ride it would be or how crazy just sitting in silence seemed to be.

    I still remember those first moments of being in silence. It was a bittersweet experience. The bitter side was experiencing all of the mean and nasty thoughts running through my mind at full volume. There didn’t seem to be an end to it.

    But there was also a sweetness in the silence that was bathing my experience. There was a peace here that I had never experienced before. It was like being cuddled in a warm bosom, and I soon felt the negative words less scary to be with.

    I can’t remember how long I sat in silence on that first day, but it was at least a couple of hours. I remember opening and closing my eyes several times. I was checking to make sure I was still in my living room.

    It was like figuring out if you can trust wading into a lake you’ve never been to. Slowly, step by step. And certain moments I needed to take open my eyes and just allow myself to feel comfortable before going further.

    There were also moments where I felt “myself” leave my body, which honestly scared the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks out of me. It was such a foreign experience. Even though I could feel some sort of a chord holding me to my body, I had never experienced being able to pop out and look down at my cross-legged self below. I was both intrigued and a bit freaked out at the same time.

    But I then started to hear a different voice coming in. A gentler voice.  One assuring me that everything was okay.

    I was guided to just be with the process and that I would eventually get comfortable and not need to pop out of my body. And for the first time in a long time, I started to relax.

    Eventually, I noticed that by letting my thoughts just float through, they would start to fade away until there was just sweet silence, and then more thoughts would come back at a lower volume. I still had no idea what I was doing, but I was feeling better and that was all that mattered.

    I didn’t realize it, but just sitting with my thoughts was making a statement. I was now broadcasting, “I want to learn how to be happy and more loving. I am not going to run away anymore.”

    From that moment on, I came home from work every day and just meditated. I got rid of my cable box and allowed myself to be open to new opportunities. I was guided by a friend to hire a life coach and started to address things in my life that prevented me from experiencing happiness.

    For example, I realized that I’d deadened my ability to tap into emotions because I worked in the aerospace industry, where it was all about facts and data.

    By using my new friend, awareness, I started to identify emotions that I had never really processed, examined, or tried to heal. One particular healing moment was visiting the anger I held from going to an all-boys Catholic high school. I was one of the smallest kids and got picked on from time to time.

    I didn’t even realize how much anger was simmering below the surface. It wasn’t until I was aware of it and then had permission to express my feelings, that I was finally free of my long-held anger about being teased and bullied.

    I also faced the fear I’d developed after being in an airplane crash at nineteen and had a beautiful moment of release with tears flowing like the Nile. It never occurred to me that I held onto to so much trauma and that it was begging to be released.

    The more I became aware of my past and released it, the lighter and happier I naturally became. I caught myself whistling to work one day, something that I hadn’t done in years!

    I also got into Buddhism and energy healing and soaked in all forms of spirituality that interested me. It was a joyous time of learning and trying.

    But ultimately, I knew that just learning was not enough. I needed to practice the ideas of love, healing, and forgiveness in the world.

    “Leveling Up” with Awareness and Choice

    When I look back on that moment where I finally stopped and chose a different way to be in the world, I recognize that was the most defining moment in my life.

    Sure, I have attended many spiritual workshops, retreats, and trainings and have had “mountaintop” experiences. But they never would have happened if I hadn’t made the choice stop and be completely present with my thoughts.

    Our minds are constantly in and out of awareness (awake) and unawareness (asleep). It takes diligence and practice to stay awake and to make loving choices.

    Think about how much of your day you’re actually aware of your thoughts or habits vs. when you are on “automatic pilot” doing tasks or zoning out over social media.

    Here are some ways to remain aware and at choice throughout your day:

    1. Set a goal for the day. Something like: “I want to be aware of my thoughts at work and think lovingly.” Set an hourly reminder on your phone to check in throughout the day.
    2. Put a post-it note with the words “Awareness and Choice” next to your work space or area where you spend most of your time to remind yourself to be present with your internal experience. Place it where you will see it often.
    3. Schedule meditation “dates” throughout your day. See if you can sneak in five five-minute meditations throughout the day. Set reminders if you need to.
    4. Pick someone in your life that you have a hard time being with (especially at work). Have a conversation with that person and watch your thoughts. Choose to see them differently in the moment (as best as you can).
    5. At the end of the day, review the thoughts you had about yourself or others. Go back to times in the day where you were hard on yourself or someone else. Replace those thoughts with ones you would rather have said to yourself.

    Awareness and choice are a powerful duo that can change your life for the better. Both are needed. Awareness is taking in what’s present. Choice is taking steps to move your awareness in your intended direction.

    Look to see where you can benefit from awareness and choice in your life. Then set your compass toward happiness and enjoy the journey!

  • Easing Anxiety: How Painting Helps Me Stop Worrying

    Easing Anxiety: How Painting Helps Me Stop Worrying

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    For me that peace began with painting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    **Artwork by the author, Jen Picicci

  • How Spending Time Alone Helped Me Overcome My Loneliness

    How Spending Time Alone Helped Me Overcome My Loneliness

    “If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.” ~Jean-Paul Sartre

    I have spent most of my life surrounded by people, which is probably why I never realized I was lonely. For the majority of my adult life, the only quiet times I had to myself were the very start and very end of the day. Otherwise, my mind was inundated with chatter, notifications, and distractions.

    This constant noise let me mask the depths of my loneliness. I was bombarded with texts and distractions at all times, but I lacked deeper connections. As the years passed and I grew busier and busier, I found that I actually took steps to reduce my alone time. I’d watch TV until I fell asleep; I’d check my work emails first thing in the morning.

    Looking back, the situation was obvious—I was terrified of being alone with my own thoughts—but at the time, I just thought I was being productive, or simply didn’t like being bored.

    I didn’t realize my problem until my laptop suddenly broke. One chilly afternoon, when I was curled up on the sofa, ready for some New Girl, it unexpectedly powered off, and I was faced with my own reflection in the black screen. My phone was out of charge.

    Without distractions, work, or social media filling up my mind, I came to the abrupt realization that, despite all my activities and invites, I was deeply lonely. And that was making me profoundly miserable without even realizing it.

    That afternoon, I found out I was terrified of being alone. I looked at my relationship with myself and found it lacking.

    The prospect of being stuck in my own company was so scary to me that it jarred me into action. I’d gotten so good at filling my mind with chatter, I didn’t know who I was when I was alone. I was definitely one of the many Americans who spend more than five hours a day on their phones, according to a 2017 State of Mobile report—never really alone, after all. But I didn’t know how to start being less lonely.

    I didn’t want to only rely on others, so I made a plan to build my relationship with myself.

    I decided then to be mindful about my intentional alone time. First, I figured out when I had space to be with myself. Then, I identified the times I found it hardest to be alone. Finally, I picked out the obstacles.

    That left me with a solid three-point strategy: I had roughly three chunks of time during the day when I could have mindful alone time. My mornings and evenings were roughest for me. And my phone was the primary driver in stopping me from my goals.

    My plan was to have three sections of alone time: active alone time, time meditating, and time doing something that didn’t involve a screen. But before I did any of that, I had to remove the biggest obstacle: my phone.

    Even though it kept me connected to the world, it was holding me back from developing a deeper relationship with myself. I spotted that I used it most in the morning and the evening, so I invested in an old-fashioned alarm clock and decided on a strict no-screens-after-9:00pm rule.

    Normally, my morning started with me staring at my phone’s notifications. Instead, I got up and went for a fifteen-minute walk in my neighborhood. At first, it was boring—I was desperate for distraction. But the more I did it, the more I found myself capable of noticing birdsong, thinking about my plans for the day, unraveling the tangled feelings of the day prior, and looking forward to my first cup of coffee.

    I also worked in a five-minute meditation. At the time, meditation was new for me, so I figured that five minutes would be short enough for me to start getting into the habit. I quickly realized I needed to invest in an app to do guided meditation, which really helped me stay consistent and get actual benefits from it.

    Finally, I filled my evenings with reading and painting. Both of these activities are manual, which meant that I couldn’t check my phone while I was doing them. I was able to rediscover my love of books, and while I’m not very good at painting, the process of producing tangible art helped patch the gap in the evenings when I normally would reach for my phone.

    Research proves that loneliness is harmful for your physical and emotional well-being, but you don’t necessarily have to look outside yourself to cure your loneliness.

    All my habit changes pointed to one final conclusion: You can’t depend on others to feel better about yourself. Learning to be okay with being alone was crucial to my journey with myself. You can’t begin to work on real relationships with others until you have a solid relationship with yourself.

    For me, it took one crucial moment to bring home the reality of the situation. From there, I needed to actively carve out alone time—not just time without other people physically present, but time without distractions, notifications, phone calls, or emails.

    Time that belonged just to me.

    Finally, it did take tweaking. I tried to do it with my phone, but realized it was impossible, so I removed it. I originally tried to do a half-hour walk, but the time away from any devices stressed me out. When I began meditation, I thought I could do it without an app, but found I spiraled into negative thought patterns or fell asleep.

    My point is, I didn’t get it right on the first try. The most important thing for me was that moment of realization. From there, I was able to keep trying until I found methods that worked for me. The results were amazing in the long run. I have a better image of myself, and I’ve found my relationships with others have improved.

    Because I’m dedicated to feeling my feelings instead of drowning them out in a blur of notifications and escapes, overall, I’m more present and self-aware than I used to be, which helps keep me more self-accepting and centered. Nowadays, when things get rocky—and that does happen, as an unavoidable part of reality—I’m able to draw from my reserves and go with the flow.

    It was uncomfortable, it was difficult, it was frustrating, but it’s definitely been worth it.

  • The First Thing You Need to Do If You Want to Change Your Life

    The First Thing You Need to Do If You Want to Change Your Life

    “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    There are two ways to live life.

    One is a more reactive approach, where you fight back when you encounter challenges in your personal or professional life. The other is a more proactive one where you are mindful of the trends within you and around you and ready with your surfboard whenever a big wave hits!

    The only difference between the two is awareness.

    Awareness empowers you to make conscious choices based on an understanding of yourself and the situation, to notice what your choice created, and to then choose again. This is why awareness is powerful. By becoming aware, you are snatching control back.

    Merely observing your thoughts and behavior can spur positive action.

    Big words. How am I so sure?

    Just by tracking my sleep, I was able to gain insights into what aids my sleep and what disrupts it.

    When I started tracking my food, I realized calories don’t matter but macros do. I then changed how I consumed food.

    Journaling allowed me to observe my mental chatter and learn from it. It made me aware that most of my anger and frustration stems from lack of sleep, food, or water.

    Tracking my finances made it easier to make tough calls with my spending.

    I didn’t make these changes overnight. They took days and months of being aware before the changes actually happened.

    Awareness is knowledge. Knowledge gives you power. Power makes it easier to change.

    In the absence of awareness, you react mindlessly to your surroundings because all you have is the movement of thought. Your reaction will then depend on your past experiences and conditioning.

    If in the past, you dealt with stress by eating, you are going to reach for your favorite snack. If your past experience taught you to raise your voice to get heard, you will easily shout when you are being ignored.

    You start to believe what you are experiencing is reality when actually you are experiencing the narrative your mind created as a reaction to what is going on around you. Without awareness, you confuse what is happening in your mind with reality. You are at the mercy of the conditioned mind.

    “Awareness is all about restoring your freedom to choose what you want instead of what your past imposes on you.” ~Deepak Chopra

    Most of us are clueless about why we do what we do, how we present ourselves, and how others perceive us. And we get stuck in negative patterns as a result.

    Here are some ways you can improve your awareness so you can improve your life.

    Practice self-reflection.

    This allows you to take a step back and ask probing questions of yourself. As Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

    Ask yourself: Why did I react this way? Why is this making me sad? Why am I so against this viewpoint? Where did this belief come from? 

    Doing this will allow you to make stronger connections. It will make your convictions stronger and give you the fuel to argue your viewpoint in a civil manner. It will also make you aware of your bad habits and thought patterns.

    For instance, self-reflection has taught me that I have a tendency to eat unhealthy food when I haven’t gotten enough sleep. I also have a tendency to shut myself off from people when I am angry instead of talking to them calmly. Knowing this about myself, I am able to catch these unhealthy habits and choose healthier responses.

    Journal.

    Journaling is a great tool for self-reflection, since it helps you understand and challenge your thoughts and beliefs, and it’s also an incredible stress reliever. It acts as a brain dump. Think of this as a parking lot for your thoughts. Just like your back feels lighter when you take off your heavy backpack, your mind will feel lighter and less stressful once you dump your thoughts on a piece of paper.

    You can do this once a week, once a day, or even once every fortnight. All you need is a diary and a pen to get going. Trust me, nobody is so busy that they cannot take five minutes in a day to journal.

    Take personality and psychometric tests.

    Whereas a personality test can give you insight into why you do the things you do, a psychometric test can help you asses your skills, knowledge, abilities, and characteristics. I am not a big fan of these, but there are scores of free tests available online. You might find yourself agreeing or disagreeing with the results, but they will give you some food for thought.

    Since they’re all based on some sort of questionnaire that you answer, I would recommend taking more than one to get a broader understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, and behavior patterns.

    Ask for feedback.

    There is a catch to this one. You need to be willing to take the feedback someone gives you without being offended or getting into an argument. If you can ask probing questions from them to dig deeper, even better!

    If you are uncomfortable with people pointing out your mistakes and shortcomings to your face, you can ask through email. This way you have time to digest what people write before responding and will be less likely to react defensively.

    Step out of your comfort zone.

    Once you become aware of your limitations, the next step is to push them and face your fears.

    I used to hate talking to large crowds or presenting in front of people. Nothing made me sweat faster!

    Since I was aware, I decided to tackle this by joining a student organization in college where my role was to go to different classes and present about the organization in efforts to recruit more students. It wasn’t easy, but within a year, I wasn’t sweating anymore!

    For you, this might mean setting a boundary with someone after recognizing your habit of letting people take advantage of you or applying for a job you’ve been interested in after recognizing that you usually hold yourself back with fears of not being good enough.

    This is how awareness changes your life: when you not only recognize what you’re doing and why but consciously choose to do something different.

    —

    Awareness makes you stronger. With awareness, you are able to bounce back faster after adversity. You are conscious of your insecurities and shortcomings. You have gone through the cycle enough times to understand what triggers them and how you can recover from them.

    For example, in my case, when I am feeling sad and depressed, I know I can recover if I take a nap or go workout. It helps me shake off the bad mojo.

    Awareness allows you to empathize with people. You can relate to the other person because you know the signs, having experienced them yourself. It becomes very easy to step into the other person’s shoes instead of judging them. In fact, it will come naturally after a while.

    Your agility increases because of your awareness. You can pluck yourself in and out of any situation when you want and are able to adapt and pivot as needed on much shorter notice. In other words, you are able to move, think, or act quickly.

    The pursuit of self-awareness also leads you to your blind spots. It uncovers the unknown and makes it known, so at least you are aware of it, even if you are not able to act on it right away.

    When I look back, I have been blessed to have experienced many moments of awareness discovering things either by myself or because someone in my trusted circle caught it. I am pretty sure when you look back, you will also be able to spot those moments where your transformation first began because of the awareness bringing it to light.

    The wheels of change begin to move with the first sign of awareness.

  • How to Make Everything Easier by Accepting the Present Moment

    How to Make Everything Easier by Accepting the Present Moment

    “The power of now can only be realized now. It requires no time and effort. Effort means you’re trying hard to get somewhere and so you are not present, welcoming this moment as it is.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    Eight years ago, I was very depressed. I wanted nothing more than to stop feeling this way and dreamed of escaping my body. I had struggled with depression for many years, and I was terrified that I might feel that way forever.

    Someone recommended I do a mindfulness-based course. This turned out to be the one of the most helpful parts of my journey. The therapist suggested I needed to learn to sit with my feelings instead of resisting them, but this terrified me. I was afraid of my feelings, and I thought that accepting them meant accepting they would be there forever.

    But as I practiced the skills of mindfulness and distress tolerance, I noticed that when I accepted my emotions they often shifted more easily. Or at least I didn’t make them worse by worrying about them. I realized that I had been making the depression and anxiety worse by resisting my feelings.

    Connect to the Present Moment

    I’m guessing this is a common struggle, and the solution can feel counter-intuitive. Many people fear that if they let themselves feel their emotions they will be taken over by them. However, when I make space for my emotions without acting on them, sometimes there is pain and I might cry, but it is a clean pain rather than a mental anguish, and it doesn’t last as long.

    I also find that connecting to the present moment helps me create a little space in my mind when my thoughts start stressing me out.

    It’s easy to get caught up thinking about the past, worrying about the future, or wishing the future would hurry up and arrive. When I notice this happening now, I ground myself in the present moment by listening to the sounds around me, noticing my feet touching the ground and my breath flowing in and out, and I feel calmer.

    Observe Your Thoughts and Emotions

    I’ve learned to observe my thoughts instead of attaching a story to them. Emotions can’t last forever on their own. I heard that the natural lifespan of an emotion is about ninety seconds. But we can keep them alive for longer by thinking about them, being afraid of them, and resisting them. Emotions, like everything else in life, come and go.

    Once I had the ability to create distance from my thoughts and not be consumed by my emotions, I was able to take action to make my life better, even when I didn’t feel like it. I did my best to embrace life as it was instead of focusing on how I would like it to be.

    This doesn’t mean I didn’t still struggle at times, but embracing the present moment helps me get through these times more constructively. I don’t think my relationship with my partner would have worked if I hadn’t already started learning these skills before we met.

    Stop Resisting the Present

    Fast forward a few years and I am in Colombia, South America, where my partner is from. I was visiting his family when Covid-19 hit.

    Like many people, I no longer had the freedom and independence that I was used to. Instead of living in the city like we had expected, we were staying in his parents’ town, and my partner was working from home. I didn’t have the option to join a Spanish class or get a job like I had planned, and at times I felt lost. After six months of this I was getting desperate, but I couldn’t travel home to Australia even if I wanted to.

    During a tearful conversation, my partner suggested that maybe I was resisting the situation too much. There was nothing we could do about it, and I was just making it worse for myself by resisting reality.

    The next day my sister suggested I read The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. It totally changed my perspective. I was reminded that in the present moment in front of me everything was actually okay. It was when I thought about the future that I got into a dark place.

    Stop the Mental Time Traveling

    Just like when I was depressed, I thought, “I can’t take this anymore! How long is this going to go on?” And just like then, when I accepted the current situation it didn’t seem as bad. I started to enjoy the free time and relish my time there knowing that nothing lasts forever, good or bad.

    I read books, did yoga, lay in the hammock, and studied Spanish. These were all the things that I was doing before, but it felt different. I wasn’t resisting being in Colombia anymore, I was just there. I stopped wishing to be back home or worrying how long it would be. And that allowed me to enjoy the beautiful, unique things about that season.

    I slowed down and let myself stare up at the trees and listen to the birds. I enjoyed the chance to get to know my in-laws and my fiancé’s culture. Sometimes now, when I stop and listen to the silence, I feel a deep sense of peace and joy.

    Take Action When You Can

    Now, if there had been something that I could have done to change things, of course I would have done it. I’m not advocating for passive submission or fatalism. Sometimes we need to take action, set boundaries, and be proactive. In fact, when you stop resisting the present it allows you to see things as they truly are. This can empower you to focus on the actions you can take right now rather than focusing on the future.

    But when there is nothing we can do, accepting this present moment is often more powerful than worrying about all the moments to come. You’ll know what to do when the time to act arrives.

    Surrendering Saves Energy

    If you are struggling with a situation that you can’t control, can you come back to your body and what is around you here and now? Can you make space for any emotions that are present and allow them to move through you? Focus on the one breath you are taking right now. What can you feel, see, smell, taste, and hear?

    Surrendering to the present is like floating on your back instead of thrashing around in the water trying to get out. Trust that eventually you will drift safely to shore. This not only saves energy, it allows you to enjoy any positives in your current situation, because just like the difficult things the good things won’t last forever either. The present moment is all we have, and in a way it’s all that is real.

    It’s a Practice

    I’m not naive enough to think that I won’t have any more bad days. That’s part of being human, especially when we’re tired, hormonal, or stressed. I may forget this lesson and need to learn it again in a new context. I suspect it’s something I will be practicing for the rest of my life, and that’s okay. But I hope that next time I will be able to catch myself a little sooner when I am resisting instead of simply being in the present moment—where I inevitably find peace.

  • How to Safely Enjoy the Pandemic Holidays

    How to Safely Enjoy the Pandemic Holidays

    “Surreal” is the word that keeps coming to mind. Life has felt like an alternative universe for quite a while now, and it feels even stranger during the holiday season.

    After a year of much sacrifice, reality is requiring us to forgo traditions we hold dear and distance ourselves from people we may feel we’ve already gone too long without seeing.

    And many are navigating the season with a sense of grief—for lost loved ones, lost purpose, maybe even lost hope.

    Maybe that’s not you. Maybe you are full of gratitude for everything you have, and now appreciate even more because of the pandemic.

    That’s also me, on some days.

    Some days I look around and feel undeniably blessed to have my health, my family, and all my needs met.

    On other days, I feel the weight of these long, isolating months and mourn for lost time with people I love and the family celebrations I will miss with my parents and siblings, who all live together, across the country from me.

    You may be in a similar position, oscillating like a pendulum between gratitude and grief. And you may be debating how to approach this season, logistically, mentally, and emotionally.

    Whatever your unique situation, I hope this checklist helps you approach the weeks ahead safely, with peace, hope, and joy, wherever you can create it.

    1. Caution

    This is the big one, and the hardest one to swallow and follow. It’s been a trying year, one marked by loss and heartache for many. We’re tired of it all and want this pandemic behind us—but it isn’t yet. So as much as we’d like to throw caution to the wind and end the year celebrating with all the people we love, we all need to do our part to protect ourselves and the people around us.

    Not the most exciting way to start this list, I know, but just figured I’d get this one out of the way!

    If you haven’t already seen the CDC guidelines for holiday gatherings, you can find them here.

    2. Communication

    As I imagine you’ve experienced as well, different people hold vastly different perspectives on what constitutes “caution,” and some are willing to take greater risks.

    For example, my extended family got together with at least four different households on Thanksgiving—including some who are regularly exposed to masses of people, some without masks—and they will do so again on Christmas. That’s a risk I wouldn’t be willing to take, but I’m also 3,000 miles away, so it’s a choice I don’t have to make.

    If you’re considering gathering with family, it’s essential to clarify where everyone stands, what precautions everyone’s taking in their daily life, and what precautions will be followed on the day itself. Don’t assume you know how anyone thinks unless they’ve clearly communicated it, because it’s quite possible you’d be wrong.

    3. Empathy

    This can be a tough one. When people make choices that may seem reckless to you, or they push beliefs you just can’t agree with, you may feel hurt, frustrated, or even outraged. It’s hard to separate a person from their choices, especially when it involves something as emotionally loaded as pandemic safety, and it’s hard not to take it personally if their choices seem selfish to you.

    I have been here recently, and I took it very personally. I got upset, I criticized, I judged. What I didn’t do is change anyone’s opinion, or in any way better the situation. I realized then I needed to empathize with the people who see things differently than me. Even if I wouldn’t make the same choices, I needed to understand the feelings behind them and focus on that.

    This doesn’t mean we need to condone decisions we don’t agree with, or in any way put ourselves at risk. It just means we accept what we can’t control and choose love over righteousness, however warranted it may feel.

    4. Self-compassion

    Odds are things haven’t been easy for you. Even if you are healthy, have a job and a roof over your head, and haven’t lost any loved ones, this year probably took a toll on your mental health. I know it’s taken a toll on mine.

    You may feel lonely, discouraged, overwhelmed, impatient, or even downright depressed right now. You may also feel frustrated to have to change your usual holiday plans, at a time when you could really use a little extra love, joy, and connection.

    It’s okay to feel frustrated. It’s okay to feel whatever you’re feeling, even if you know you’re fortunate. It’s hard to be far from people we love, especially around the holidays, and to miss the traditions we value most. Be extra gentle with yourself and know it’s okay if your gratitude is mixed with a wide range of complex emotions.

    5. Acceptance

    I know how tempting it is to live each day in resistance, especially when you’ve lost a lot, or when things seem unfair. I know how easy it is to get caught up in how things should be or were supposed to be or would be, if only…

    What I don’t know is what you specifically have been through or what you’re feeling right now. So please know I am in no way suggesting acceptance is easy, or that I’d be able to do it easily if I were in your shoes.

    I can only speak to the general idea of acceptance, and how it frees us mentally when we stop fighting reality. I know that when we accept what we can’t control, we’re free to focus on the things we can control and make the best of them.

    I also know I feel better about the person I’m being, and ultimately better about life, when I come from a place of acceptance—even if it takes time to get there. I’m lighter, more present, more accessible to the people around me, and more likely to see opportunities where before I only saw unfairness.

    6. Perspective

    As with everything in life, this is all temporary. Things won’t always be this way. These challenges, these feelings, they won’t last forever. We will eventually get through this and will be able to live more freely. Though life won’t be exactly the same for many, we will find a new normal and new reasons to smile as we adapt to life as it evolves.

    It may be hard to see that now. It may seem like this earthquake of an experience will send shockwaves for years, and we’ll never find our footing again. But we are amazingly resilient as people. Odds are you’ve been through some deeply trying experiences in your life, and you’ve come out stronger, wiser, and maybe even enriched for having gone through what you’ve been through.

    Trust that, odds are, you will not only get through this, you will have many more reasons to smile, and many more holidays to celebrate with the people you love. This one year will one day be a crazy story in all of our rearview mirrors, so long as we keep driving, cautiously, on this somewhat treacherous road before us.

    7. Ingenuity

    One of the gifts of any challenge is that we need to be a little more creative, which can in itself be a source of pride and joy. If you’ve ever made a full meal on a day when you really needed to go grocery shopping, you know what I mean! My mother has a special phrase for this: “Not bad for a throw together!”

    Think of this as your throw-together—your chance to do more with less, to find beauty in simplicity, to make the best of what you have and maybe even start new traditions.

    I’m guessing you may have mastered the art of online connection this year. So now take it to the next level. How can celebrate in creative ways with people from afar? And how can you honor the people right in front of you, even if they’re only some of the ones you love?

    As for me, I’m planning to focus on the excitement of my son’s second Christmas, since I think he’ll appreciate it more this year. I’m going to ask my brother to Zoom-watch A Very Brady Christmas with me, since we’re dorks and watch it every year. And I’ll Portal with my family on Christmas morning when they open the gifts I sent them, so it will be kind of like I’m there.

    8. Mindfulness

    So here we are. At the end of a strange, painful year, staring down months more of uncertainty and potential stress and struggle. No one would fault us for looking back—it’s like there’s a massive multi-car pileup behind us; it’s hard not to gawk. And no one would be surprised if we anxiously looked ahead, worrying about the potential for more accidents down the road.

    But right now, many of us are sitting safely in our cars, with heat and music and at least one person we love to play car games with and pass the time.

    I realize this isn’t true for everyone. You might not have your needs met right, and you may feel unsafe in your home. If that’s you, please know there are resources out there to support you. You can find some here and here.

    If that’s not you—if, like me, you’re relatively fortunate and have a lot to appreciate and enjoy if you choose to be present—make the choice. As best as you can.

    If it’s hard, be good to yourself. Then try again. Try to see the beauty right in front of you, even if you have to look a little harder. Try to hear the magic in the music that’s playing even if you wish you could belt out the lyrics with someone who’s far away. Take some deep breaths, take an inventory of everything that’s going well, and then just let yourself be here, in this moment, enjoying whatever’s here to be enjoyed.

    —

    I think one of the gifts of especially trying times is that we’re reminded of things that are always true, but we often forget: That life is short, nothing is guaranteed, every moment with the people we love is precious, and each day is ultimately what we make of it.

    I know it’s easier for some than others to make the best of the life they’re living, because life is different for all of us. But I also know when I remember these things, I feel a lot more present, peaceful, and alive. And that’s the best way to appreciate the life we’re currently living—to choose to fully live it.

    —

    To help us all be a little more mindful, I’m currently running a holiday sale for my newly launched Mindfulness Kit, which includes four aromatherapy-based products for peace and relaxation and three FREE bonus guides for daily calm.  

    For a limited time, it’s available for $29 (usually $45). I know many of you have already gotten a kit for yourself and for holiday gifts for friends and family. If you haven’t yet, this may be the perfect time to give it a try or gift it to someone who could use some relaxation and relief. I hope it brings a little serenity to you or the people you love!

  • When Life Feels Too Hard: How to Mindfully Get Through the Day

    When Life Feels Too Hard: How to Mindfully Get Through the Day

    NOTE: This post contains a giveaway – details at the bottom of the post!

    “If today gets difficult, remember the smell of coffee, the way sunlight bounces off a window, the sound of your favorite person’s laugh, the feeling when a song you love comes on, the color of the sky at dusk, and that we are here to take care of each other.” ~Nanea Hoffman

    I am currently exhausted. Absolutely beat. I’ve taken on more work than I can comfortably accomplish in my available time, I’ve been feeling under the weather for a while, and my eighteen-month-old son is in yet another sleep regression.

    Whether I’m caring for him or working, I am almost always doing something, seven days a week. And like many of us, I feel I have very few outlets for fun and relaxation, even if I do find the time, given the limitations of the pandemic.

    I know I have little to complain about. I am relatively healthy, and so are the people I love. I have all my basic needs met. And I have a lot to appreciate. But still, my days feel overwhelming and hard.

    Maybe you can relate—and maybe for you it’s even worse.

    Maybe you’re struggling with mental health issues from months of isolation. Or you’re trying to figure out how to pay your bills because you’ve lost your job or some of your hours. Or you’re dealing with a sick loved one, and the responsibility feels like far too much to bear.

    If you’re in that overwhelmed place right now—if you’re frustrated and burnt out or at the end of your rope—I get it. I really do. And I don’t have any simple answers for those very real, and perhaps seemingly insurmountable problems.

    I can say, though, that things aren’t always what they seem. And no matter what’s coming down the road, there are a few things we can all do to help ourselves get through this day. Our sanity intact. So we’re less harried, more grounded, and better able to handle whatever the future may bring.

    Here are a few mindful ways I approach the day when everything feels like too much:

    1. Only do what you can accomplish by single tasking.

    I find it incredibly hard to be present when I have to do multiple things at once because I feel like I’m failing at all of them, and inevitably get caught in my head, judging myself and my efforts.

    I also don’t enjoy anything when I’m overlapping tasks—even if some of them could otherwise be enjoyable, like spending time with my son or writing. It’s like having twenty tabs open in my mind, with music and video clips and Netflix shows playing simultaneously. All good things, but not all at once!

    Even in normal times, parents in particular have to multitask—there’s just so much to do between childcare, housework, and actual work. But still, I’ve realized I can ask for help with a lot and simply let some things go. I can wash the dishes later. Or make a non-cook lunch. Or not do some of the little things I’d like to do but don’t actually have to do for this site.

    This isn’t easy for perfectionists. We want to think we can do it all—and do it all well. And if we can’t, we’re hard on ourselves. But I’ve begun to tell myself, at the end of the day, if I can’t reasonably accomplish everything on my to-do list, the problem isn’t me, it’s my workload.

    So do one thing at a time, and if you feel you simply can’t, ask yourself if that’s really true, or if you’re just attached to your busyness—because you feel productive, or it gives you a sense of control, or it allows you to avoid emotions you maybe don’t want to face.

    2. Allow yourself to enjoy the little things.

    It sounds cliché, and I know it is, but this really is a lifesaver. When your days feel overwhelming, those little moments can go a long way toward creating a feeling of balance, even if life isn’t so balanced right now.

    Take the five minutes to savor your tea or coffee instead of scrolling and swiping your way through it. Dance to your favorite song and belt out the lyrics, really feeling them in your heart. Take a few minutes to look at the moon and stars at night and get lost for a minute in the evening’s beauty and the vastness of the universe.

    The other night, after a particularly taxing experience with my son, I noticed that the moon looked like someone had painted it. It was truly stunning—full and far more orange than usual—and I can’t remember having seen it quite so beautiful ever before.

    So I stared. I didn’t try to stop thinking, I just did because it was so spectacular. And after a few minutes I felt calmer. I had meditated without even trying simply by appreciating something I may otherwise have missed—despite it being massive and right up in the sky for me to see.

    Take a little time to be amazed by something you won’t enjoy unless you consciously choose to focus on it. See the things you can’t see when you’re rushing. Hear the things you can’t hear when you’re stressing. Get so caught up in your senses that everything else seems to stop for a moment—because things don’t actually stop. So we have to be the ones to do it.

    3. If you start worrying about the future or regretting the past, make an inventory of your current strengths.

    Hard days are infinitely more difficult when we relive hard days past or worry about potential hard days coming. But our minds are like magnets to negative things when we start indulging defeatist thoughts. It’s like we put on a grey filter and then look back and forth through time with a dark, depressing spotlight.

    So instead of rehashing the past or worrying about the future, focus on all the strengths you have right now that will prevent you from making the same mistakes and help you handle whatever is coming.

    Think about all you’ve overcome and how that’s shaped you. Maybe you’re resourceful, or adaptable, or open-minded. Maybe you’re determined, or disciplined, or empathetic in a way that helps you connect with people and create strong support systems.

    Instead of worrying about what the world can do to you, find strength in who you’ve become because of what you’ve been through—and trust, in this moment, that you can rely on those strengths to serve you well, no matter what the future holds.

    And then, even better: Find a way to use one of those strengths right now.

    The other day I started worrying about my plans for early next year because a lot is up in the air right now and—as always—there’s a lot I can’t control.

    Then I remembered that, because I have put myself in many new situations throughout my life, I am always adaptable and resourceful. I find a way to make things work and make the best of things, even if I don’t always trust I will be able to do it in the future.

    So right in that moment, when I was feeling overwhelmed and spread too thin, I chose to make the best of my situation by putting on music I enjoy and taking a break from work to watch my son dance. The day wasn’t perfect, but that moment was, because I made it so.

    4. Practice tiny acts of self-care.

    There was a time when I had abundant opportunities for self-care. Pre-baby, I could easily do an hour-and-a-half yoga class and also fit in a walk on the beach and maybe even a bath.

    These days I am more likely to do ten minutes of stretching or five minutes of deep breathing to ocean sounds (since I no longer live near the beach) or take a mindful shower.

    There was a time when I thought those things weren’t worth the effort. I’m an all-or-nothing person! But a day with twenty-five minutes of self-care, spaced out, feels far better than a day with no self-care at all.

    Here are a few more of my favorite tiny acts of self-care:

    • Reading one chapter or a few pages of a book for pleasure
    • Doing a facial mask to feel cleaner and rejuvenated
    • Doing absolutely nothing for five minutes—just sitting and letting myself be
    • Calling someone I love to catch up
    • Lying with my legs up a wall to soothe my muscles and relax my mind
    • Applying lotion to my hands and massaging it in to relieve tension
    • Eating something healthy or drinking a green juice instead of having a processed snack
    • Doodling for a few minutes and reconnecting with my creative brain
    • Checking in with myself and asking, “What do I need right now?” Then giving it to myself, whether it’s a break, a glass of water, or a walk around the room.
    • Doing something I enjoyed a kid, like making up a stupid dance to a song I love

    5. Practice radical self-appreciation.

    I find that hard days are a lot easier when I’m easier on myself. Not always easy to do when the day feels hard because I often find a way to blame myself for the difficulty. Like I’m just not good enough or strong enough. Or I didn’t make the right choices, and that’s why things feel so hard now.

    To counter this, I try to imagine I’m watching someone I love living my life and think of what I’d tell them if they felt overwhelmed or down on themselves.

    I have even gotten into the habit of mentally calling myself “sister” sometimes—kind of weird, I know—because I am always highly empathetic toward my sister.

    So when I’m struggling, I might say, “Sister, you’re doing great! No one I know can do as much as you, or as well!”

    And then as a more preemptive act of self-appreciation, I try to check in with myself throughout the day to note things I’m doing well. And sometimes it’s not about doing, but about being.

    Great job being understanding when you really wanted to judge.

    Good on you for being thoughtful when you could have been swept up in your own stuff.

    Way to go on cutting yourself some slack—right now—even though you feel like you sucked at life today!

    I know from personal experience that hard days feel even more draining when we beat ourselves up every step of the way. It’s like walking through a storm carrying your own flailing, screaming twin on your back.

    The storm won’t be any less ferocious because we’re kinder to ourselves, but the journey is much less taxing when we consciously choose to love ourselves through it.

    —

    **This was post was edited to remove a giveaway that has since ended.

  • How Curiosity Can Improve Your Relationships and Your Life

    How Curiosity Can Improve Your Relationships and Your Life

    “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” ~Albert Einstein

    When speaking to a parent recently, she said, “I have made it a rule that my kids read every day for an hour. There are no two ways about it. They now do it and it is great, but I have noticed that they have stopped asking questions, they have stopped being curious, and they look dull, and that bothers me.”

    Strange that reading would dull their curiosity instead of sparking it. But beyond that, this conversation got me curious—about curiosity.

    Why is it important to be curious? And is it even possible to stop being curious?

    Do you remember when you were a child, just grabbing anything and everything and looking at it from all angles, exploring what it was?

    Do you remember being obsessed with asking “Why?” till the crack of dawn because you were fascinated with the mystery?

    Do you remember feeling the wonder in your eye, the sparkle of fascination as you looked at an ant or a worm as if it were magic?

    As I think about it, I feel like there are two fundamental aspects of living—“being” and “doing.”  Curiosity, I feel, is a quality of “being.”

    Curiosity is taking the time to know something, to revel in the moment with wonder and fascination, to go beyond the limitations of the mind, time, perceptions, rules, and expectations.

    A curious mind is a mind that expands and grows, a mind that is fascinated with life, that is fully alive and bubbles with questions and wonders. It is a mind that is keen and observes and is limitless. It is a mind that is sharp and sees beyond the obvious.

    People with curious minds seem to lead fuller lives. If you think about it, they are likely to explore and seize more opportunities because they’re curious about where it could lead, they are likely to connect with more people because they are curious about who and how they are, and they try more new things because they’re curious about how much they can do.

    I actually think we are born curious, born in wonder, born into this magical place of being. So then, at what point do we stop being curious?

    My answer was—when we get caught up in the “doing”!

    Running from pillar to post, taking care of family and work, making ends meet, keeping up with the demands of the world and the ones we place on ourselves, it is not so difficult for the balance of life to tip toward “doing” and more “doing.” Curiosity can take a back seat and monotony can set in sneakily.

    Curiosity, in my opinion, is that polish that adds a shine to each and every single activity, to the “doing.”

    Like Brian Grazer says in his book A Curious Mind, we are born curious and no matter how much battering curiosity takes, it’s right there, waiting to be awakened… and that, to me, is fantastic news.

    So if you would like to awaken your curiosity, feel fascinated, and share this fascination with others, here are a few simple tips.

    1. Drop the label.

    This is a story about the famous Nobel Prize Winner, scientist Richard Feynman. One day when walking in the garden, he asks his father, “What bird is this?” His father says, “It is a brown-throated thrush” and then goes on to say the name in many different languages. Then he looks at Feynman and says, “Now you know absolutely nothing about the bird except the name.”

    A label closes the mind to an exciting world of possibilities.

    He is an “alcoholic,” She is a “liar,” I am a “failure”—all these are labels that can trap us into one way of perceiving the world around us and, in fact, our own selves too.

    There is a lady I know whom I had unknowingly labeled as “annoying.” Every single time she would call, I would say, “She is so annoying.” So it was no surprise that I would get annoyed because I was interacting with the label I had given her and closed doors to any other way of experiencing her.

    Dropping the label helped me notice that she is so much more—she is funny, she is loving, she is dedicated, she is curious, and much more! Now I still get annoyed sometimes, but it is not the only way I experience her. It feels like a buffet of experiences with her, and I feel freer within myself and more loving toward her, and we in fact share a few laughs every so often.

    And all I did was get curious and ask myself, “What else is she?”

    So how do you describe the people and relationships in your life, your work, your circumstances, yourself?

    And what if you could drop the label of something you think you already know? Look at it as if it were new, as if you knew nothing about it. Drop the label and allow your mind to journey through a world of possibilities. What else could it be? How is this happening?

    Think wild and think free!

    2. Go beyond the limitations of “I am bored” and use the power of “but.”

    Have you found yourself saying, thinking, or feeling “I am so bored”?

    Boredom, in my opinion, is poison to curiosity. It limits the mind.

    Oftentimes, feeling bored is not the problem. The problem is when we stop at that and look no further, when we close the door to an exciting world of possibilities.

    A little trick is to trick the mind using the power of “but.”

    Every time you find yourself saying, “I feel bored,” quickly and emphatically add the word “but” after it.

    I am bored, but let’s do something fun! I feel bored, but how do I even know I am feeling it?

    “But” negates everything that is before it and brings focus to what is after it.

    Even if you don’t find a filler after the “but,” just say “but”… and pause…. and see what happens next. Leave that door open.

    If you think about it, “I’m bored” is such a useless thing to say, isn’t it? We like in such a vast world, and we have barely seen anything, how could one get possibly bored? Look at any situation with curious eyes and allow your mind to wander and create what you want to experience.

    3. Question everything with pure fascination.

    Why are the trees green? Why do birds fly? Why is the sky blue? Why am I not getting that pay raise? Why can’t I lose those ten pounds I want to lose? Why am I doing the job I do now?

    The key is asking questions with pure fascination, as if you were trying to solve a mystery.

    Remember, millions of people saw the apple fall, but Newton asked “Why?”

    Growing up, I was teased about having a flat-ish nose. I felt like I had to have a sharp nose, and my grandmother and I would try to stretch my nose out every morning with oil, as if it were made of clay. Then one day, I remember curiously asking her, “Why is a sharp nose better than a flat one? Do they smell things better?”

    Now, I don’t remember what she said, but I can tell you that I love my nose now and am quite curious and fascinated by what a funny thing it is.

    Can you imagine looking at life, relationships, and work with pure fascination? The world becomes a playground of endless possibilities for the mind that is curious and fascinated.

    So what is one thing in your life you could be fascinated with and curious about, and how could that change things for you?

  • 5 Things You Need to Know If You’re Interested in Meditation

    5 Things You Need to Know If You’re Interested in Meditation

    “The fruit of meditation is not the absence of thoughts, but the fact that thoughts cease to harm us.” ~Bokar Rinpoche

    My inspiration to start meditating came from one of the most unlikely sources—a Star Wars movie.

    When I saw the wise Jedi Master Yoda meditating, I thought that there had to be something more to this than merely sitting silently with your eyes closed.

    Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to find out for myself.

    That was over six years ago. Since then, my life has changed for the better in both subtle and profound ways.

    It has considerably improved my mental clarity and focus and made me feel grounded in my life. The number of unhelpful thoughts in my mind has significantly reduced, and it’s helped me to become more present in my daily life and less on autopilot.

    The relationship with my family members has vastly improved, as I had the habit of being particularly reactive around them. Now that I’ve built the habit of recognizing thoughts and letting them pass, I’m better able to stop myself from unconsciously reacting. Which means I’m more likely to respond from a rational place and less likely to do and say things I regret.

    It’s also made it easier for me to deal with cravings and urges, and I’ve developed a kind of will power and self-control that I have never had before.

    However, it hasn’t always been easy. And in some ways, I made it harder on myself.

    Here are some things I’ve learned over the years of practicing meditation that I wish I knew when I first started out.

    1. Be easy on yourself.

    When it came to meditation, this was something I had trouble with.

    On far too many occasions, I would find myself lost in my thoughts or drifting in and out of sleep while meditating, and I’d then become frustrated.

    It took me years of meditating before I finally realized that being frustrated or hard on yourself for not being able to meditate doesn’t make anything better.

    One of the main reasons why we find meditation difficult is because we enter it with a goal-oriented mindset, expecting our minds to calm down within a very limited timeframe.

    It’s the failure to meet our own expectations that can make meditation frustrating.

    Instead, be willing to be extra patient and easy on yourself and let go of all expectations. This will not only make your meditation sessions a lot easier but also make them more effective.

    Always remember to be kind to yourself. If you struggle, accept it and let it go. After all, there is always tomorrow or the next meditation session.

    2. Take deep breaths.

    Many of us meditate to find some peace from our thoughts, but our thoughts can be loud and overwhelming. Taking a few deep breaths can make it easier to calm the chatter in your head before you sit down to meditate.

    Deep breathing activates our parasympathetic nervous system, which helps to promote a state of calm and relaxation in our body.

    A simple breathing exercise you can use is the 4-7-8 technique.

    • Inhale slowly through your nose, to a mental count of four.
    • Hold your breath, for a count of seven.
    • Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound, to a count of eight.
    • This completes one cycle. Repeat it for ten times or more according to your preference.

    3. You have to put in the work.

    If you want to progress in meditation and have a calmer mind, you have to put in the work.

    Having a sense of discipline and routine goes a long way. If you decide to meditate for fifteen minutes each day, stick to it no matter how distracted your mind is when you sit down to meditate.

    Many times I would cut my meditation short or sometimes skip it all together when it seemed difficult to sit down and be still. But skipping one or two days can make it much harder to meditate the next time around and can make you prone to skip many more.

    Ever since I began exercising (physical workout) daily, I’ve understood some days you are not going to feel like doing it, but once you do it you will always feel better, and the same applies for meditation.

    Make it a point to show up every day, no matter what mental state you are in, because you always feel better by the end of it.

    4. Stop chasing experiences.

    As you meditate daily, after a while, you may start to have different kinds of experiences such as seeing different colors and visuals, experiencing your whole body vibrating, and even feeling intense energy in your chakras (energy centres).

    During some meditations I would feel so happy and at peace, and I would start craving these kinds of experiences.

    The problem is that the more you meditate with that kind of mindset, the more distracted you will be during meditation, then the inner chatter gets even noisier.

    While meditating, it’s always best not to chase any experiences, since you will most likely be disappointed if that’s what you are after.

    5. You are not your thoughts.

    The first time I read The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, I didn’t really understand what the book was all about.

    However, after reading it for the second time a couple of years later, the main message hit me and has since had a life-changing impact on me—the fact that you are not your thoughts.

    Here is how Eckhart Tolle puts it:

    “The most decisive event in your life is when you discover you are not your thoughts or emotions. Instead, you can be present as the awareness behind the thoughts and emotions.”

    Understanding that the thoughts that pop into my head during meditation are not mine, I realize that I’m under no obligation to follow them while meditating. I can simply observe them and let them pass. And that’s where I find peace.

    —

    Practicing meditation has allowed me to slow down and savor life without the urge to be always doing something or require constant stimulation.

    If you’ve never meditated, you may find it hard to see yourself as someone who meditates and may feel that it’s not your thing.

    Try it for yourself and find out. Who knows, you just might get hooked.

  • Free Recreate Your Life Story eCourse ($97 value) with Tiny Buddha’s Mindfulness Kit

    Free Recreate Your Life Story eCourse ($97 value) with Tiny Buddha’s Mindfulness Kit

    **Today, Monday the 30th, is the last day to get the Recreate Your Life Story eCourse as a free bonus with Tiny Buddha’s Mindfulness kit!

    Another surreal holiday in the books, for those of us in the US that is.

    I hope you all had a love-filled Thanksgiving, even if that love was sent from afar.

    I was 3,000 miles away from my family, though fortunate to be with my boyfriend’s parents.

    After I ate way too much tofurkey and pie I spent a little time reading all the comments on this week’s giveaway post, and I felt both sad for all the pain so many of you have endured this year and inspired by your strength and wisdom.

    I know that for many, 2020 has brought an onslaught of disappointment, struggle, stress, and loss. And for others it’s been a continuation of years of pain, just with a totally new flavor.

    I know a Mindfulness Kit won’t magically make everything better, but if I could give one to everyone who entered, I gladly would.

    Since I unfortunately don’t have the means to do that, and I know many of you commented that the kit would be helpful to you, I’ve decided to do what I believe to be the next best thing.

    My Offer to You

    From today until Monday, November 30th, I am giving away my bestselling Recreate Your Life Story eCourse as a free bonus to anyone who purchases a Mindfulness Kit.

    The course usually sells for $97, and from what I’ve been told it’s helped many people create major internal and external change.

    I created this course several years back because I wanted to share what helped me move forward and transform my life after years of depression, bulimia, and self-loathing.

    I distinctly remember a time when I felt particularly lost and hopeless, and I couldn’t imagine ever feeling excited about my life, or proud of myself. My story felt like cement encasing me—like a trap of infinite victimhood and failure I could never possibly escape.

    Then one day, when I was looking for hope, but doubtful I would find it, I stumbled across a quote that changed everything for me:

    “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.”

    I haven’t had many sudden epiphanies in my time—I’m generally a slow learner when it comes to life’s biggest lessons—but this one hit me fast and hard.

    I realized then that I didn’t have to be defined by any of what I’d been through, or what I’d done in response. Instead, I could focus on what I was going to do next, and in doing so shift my narrative from pain and shame to healing and pride.

    My life could be defined by my next choice, and my next choice didn’t have to look anything like the ones prior. And not only did my future not have to look like my past, I could change how I saw my past—and myself. I could literally rewrite my story through the power of perspective and paint myself not as the victim or villain, but as the hero.

    That’s what this course is all about. It’s about choosing to view yourself and your life through a more empowering lens so you can take back the reins and live the story you want to live from this point forward.

    It’s about replacing despair with hope and self-judgment with self-compassion and moving forward on a new path that excites you, as someone you feel proud of.

    I think after this year we could all use a little help to move forward, stronger not in spite of what we’ve been through, but because of it.

    I believe this course can help with that, which is why I’m offering it as a free bonus with the kit.

    I also believe the kit is a nice complement to the course. With four aromatherapy-based products, a daily mindfulness practice guide, and three expanded digital guides, it can help you find a calm center within you as work on letting go of the past and creating a new narrative for yourself.

    About the Mindfulness Kit

    The products include:

    • A Soothing Bath & Shower Gel
    • A Lavender Essential Oil Roll-On
    • A Relaxing Pillow Spray
    • A Lychee Flower Scented Candle

    The digital guides include:

    • How to Make Your Shower Mindful, Blissful, and Rejuvenating
    • 5 Breathing Exercises to Calm & Focus Your Mind
    • How to Do a Bedtime Body Scan for a Peaceful Night’s Sleep

    I designed this kit to help make mindfulness fun and relaxing so that we’re better able to make it a habit. Self-compassion is a huge part of the course, and I can’t think of anything more self-compassionate than taking a little time to simply be. Without the weight of our worries, fears, judgments, assumptions, and grievances.

    How to Get Your Kit and the eCourse

    1. First, you’ll need the Mindfulness Kit. You can grab one here.

    2. After you complete your transaction, you’ll receive a purchase confirmation email. Forward that to me at email@tinybuddha.com and I will personally send you a promo code for the course within 48 hours, along with instructions to get signed up.

    3. Once you sign up for the course you will have lifetime access and can start whenever you’d like!

    If you purchased the kit within the last week, I am happy to honor this offer for you. Just forward me your purchase confirmation email and I will send you a code.

    I am sorry to say that the kit is still limited to the US, but I do plan to offer international shipping at some point, and when I do, I will extend this offer again for those of you outside the states.

    I hope the kit and the course bring you all a little peace, a lot of hope, and abundant possibilities for the future!

  • How to Get Out of Your Head and Show Up for Your Life

    How to Get Out of Your Head and Show Up for Your Life

    “If you think there’s something missing from your life, it’s probably you.” ~Robert Holden

    Most people would agree that thinking too much can cost you your peace, your happiness perhaps—but your life? Surely that’s a bit of an exaggeration.

    I’ll explain with a story.

    I remember taking my daughter to the park one day when she was around three years old. Like all kids of that age, she was thrilled and mesmerised by her surroundings—the insect crawling up the blade of grass, the ducks squawking in the pond, the dog chasing the frisbee nearby.

    She was fully engaged with the life around her—fully present in the moment.

    All of a sudden, she pointed up to the sky and shrieked, “Airplane!”

    Her shrill voice snapped me out of my reverie and, looking up at the plane high above us, I became aware of my surroundings for the first time.

    I noticed that we’d actually arrived in the park. Although my body had been there for several minutes, I had just arrived.

    Prior to that, I was a million miles away, deep in thought about something or other, totally oblivious to my surroundings.

    Life is always happening now, but, distracted by our thinking minds, we fail to notice.

    Your Body Is Here—Where Are You?

    As soon as we wake up each morning, the mind TV automatically switches on and starts broadcasting our familiar programs.

    And through habit, we give it our full attention. We find the mind’s content way more compelling than the life around us.

    My days used to go something like this. Maybe you can relate?

    I’d be gulping down breakfast and thinking about my to-do list for the day or how the traffic was going to be on the way to work. The next thing I knew, I’d be staring down at the empty cornflakes bowl in front of me, with no recollection of having eaten it.

    I’d totally missed out on the wonderful taste and texture of the food in my mouth, not to mention the warm sun streaming in through the window and the beautiful song of the skylark outside.

    The body would then be driving the car to work while I was busy replaying the conversation I’d had with my sister the night before, missing the clouds, the trees, and the beautiful sky along the route.

    Next thing I knew, I’d be pulling into the car park at work, with no recollection of having driven there.

    The body would then be sitting at its desk, but again, I was somewhere else—counting the days until the weekend or making plans for our next holiday.

    Robert Holden, director of The Happiness Project, sums it up beautifully with these words:

    “If you think there’s something missing from your life, it’s probably you.”

    The Past and Future Have No Life of Their Own

    Being lost in past and future mind-movies pulls our attention away from the present moment, away from life, away from reality.

    The past and future have no reality of their own. What happened yesterday or what may happen tomorrow exist only as ideas in your head.

    The moment is always fresh and alive. The movies that play in our heads are old and stale. They are devoid of life.

    Thinking too much costs you your life.

    When we spend too much time lost in our thinking minds—rushing from one appointment to the next—life, which is always happening now, flashes by unnoticed.

    The days, the weeks, the months, the years all blur into one, as the preciousness of each living moment is lost to a lack of presence.

    We’re left wondering where all the time has gone and why we feel so dissatisfied, unfulfilled, and disconnected.

    Taking time to be more attentive to each new moment as it arises is the key to experiencing more peace, connection, and aliveness, regardless of what is going on in your life or what you believe it should look like.

    When we are absorbed in the present moment, contentment happens by itself. We need not look for it. It is a by-product of being present.

    Out of Your Head and Into Your Life

    So how do you get out of your head and back into your life?

    Present moment awareness is key. This is where life hangs out!

    And the good news is that, because the mind can only be in one place at a time, you don’t have to actively try to stop thinking. Bring your attention to the present moment and thinking will stop automatically.

    To my mind, mindfulness practice is the simplest and most effective way to achieve this.

    Although I had been practicing and teaching other forms of meditation for many years, I became curious to learn more about the mindfulness approach and signed up for an eight-week course.

    During the course, there was one particular exercise, “walking meditation,” that had a lasting impression on me.

    As we walked slowly and silently through the lush gardens of the retreat center, we were invited to be attentive to the present moment—to feel the ground beneath our feet and pay close attention to every little movement and sensation in the body, as we mindfully placed one foot after the other.

    We were instructed to give our full attention to each of the senses, one by one.

    This is what I wrote in my journal afterward:

    “Being attentive to the intricate patterns and colors of the leaves, the spider busy at work on its web, feeling the texture of the grass under the soles of the feet and the gentle breeze on the skin, smelling the soil, the herbs, the fragrant moss, listening to the gentle crackle of twigs underfoot and the rustle of the wind in the trees—transformed what, at first sight, appeared to be a lovely garden, into Narnia, the magical kingdom!”

    It is both astonishing and humbling to really notice the enormity of what is going on around us and within us in every moment—when you pay attention.

    The wondrous transformation of the garden happened through a shift in attention alone. Nothing new or different appeared on the outside. Everything was exactly as before.

    And we can bring this quality into every aspect of our lives.

    We are normally so distracted by the thinking mind that we fail to notice the immense richness that is present all around. Being attentive to the fullness of what each moment contains, as children are, naturally instils a sense of wonder and joy within.

    Our True Home Is the Present Moment

    I’ll finish with these beautiful words about walking meditation from Buddhist mindfulness teacher, Thich Nhat Hahn:

    “Walking in mindfulness brings us peace and joy and makes our life real, enjoying peace in each moment with every step. No need to struggle. Enjoy each step.

    When we practice walking meditation, we arrive in each moment.

    Our true home is in the present moment. When we enter the present moment deeply, our regrets and sorrows disappear, and we discover life with all its wonders.

    Breathing in, we say to ourselves, ‘I have arrived.’ Breathing out, we say ‘I am home.’ When we do this, we overcome dispersion and dwell peacefully in the present moment, which is the only moment for us to be alive.”

    When the mind is quiet, we are able to engage directly with life, as children do. When we really pay attention to the richness of the present moment, we become enthralled with life, as children are.

    Too much thinking will cost you your life.

  • 7 Morning Mindfulness Practices to Help You Have an Awesome Day

    7 Morning Mindfulness Practices to Help You Have an Awesome Day

    How often do you feel energized, grounded, and excited for the day when you finish your morning routine?

    And what is your morning routine?

    Are you one of those people who sleep as late as possible, pound some coffee and a processed breakfast, and then rush to get into work on time? (No judgment—I’ve been there! Gas station java and pop tarts for the win!)

    Or do you leave yourself a cushion of time so you can ease into your day feeling centered and invigorated, through some combination of self-care activities?

    In recent years I’ve leaned toward the latter because I know the way I spend my morning sets the tone for the rest of my day.

    Admittedly, it’s easier on some days than others. When things are going well, and I feel good about myself and my life, it’s not too hard to do things that are good for me, even if I only have a few minutes.

    But it’s when we’re not feeling our best that we need self-care the most. Especially in the morning, when our choices have immense power to shape the twenty-four hours ahead.

    For me, the most important choice is to practice mindfulness.

    Mindfulness is essentially non-judgmental present moment awareness. It’s simply being where you are. Grounding yourself in your body and choosing to let thoughts naturally pass instead of getting caught up in them.

    It’s a great practice any time of day, but particularly in the morning, since it enables you to create the kind of energy you want to take into the tasks and interactions ahead of you.

    There are limitless ways to practice mindfulness, but here are some of my favorites:

    1. Mindful check-in

    I imagine a lot of us hop out of bed and get into the morning without really checking in with ourselves to see how we’re feeling.

    Check in to see how your body feels—if you’re holding tension anywhere or if any part of your body needs a little extra love, whether that means stretching your legs or giving yourself a hand massage.

    Check in to see how you feel mentally and emotionally—if you feel anxious about anything that’s coming or you’re holding onto any thoughts or regrets about yesterday and could maybe work through them with a little journaling.

    And most importantly, ask yourself: What do I need? It might not be the same as what you needed yesterday. You might need to chug some water, or connect with someone you love, or listen to a song that always makes you smile. None of these things takes that long, but they can all make a huge difference.

    2. Mindful morning mantra

    Because I want my son to feel excited about his days, and to know that he’s a valuable human being, I’ve gotten into the habit of telling him, right after he wakes up, “Welcome to the day, the day is lucky to have you!” (I probably sound like the teacher from Peanuts right now, cause, you know, he’s one and a half, but in time he’ll understand!)

    Recently it occurred to me that I could just easily say this to myself, either looking in the mirror or just in my head when I first open my eyes. So I tell myself this, then take a few deep breaths and let these words marinate in my brain.

    It’s a much nicer greeting to the morning than a bright screen in my face. And it’s a way to proactively and mindfully nurture what I want to feel: excited, valued, and confident.

    3. Mindful shower

    Our morning shower is a perfect opportunity to engage with our senses, clear our mind, and visualize our worries washing away down the drain.

    Whenever we engage our senses we’re pulled into the present moment, and there’s no sense more powerful than the sense of smell. The part of the brain that processes smells is linked to the part of the brain associated with memory and emotion. Which means the right scent can provide comfort, calm, and healing. And lavender in particular isn’t just relaxing, it’s also scientifically proven to help with anxiety and a number of physical ailments.

    You might find a different scent appeals to you. You might prefer hot showers, or cold showers, or a combination. What’s important is that you allow yourself to be fully present with the experience—to feel the water cascading down your back, to tune into the sound of the drops hitting the floor, and to give yourself this time to simply be, in this moment of solitude.

    4. Intention-setting practice

    Many of us go into our days with lengthy to-do lists, and it can easily create a sense of overwhelm.

    I like to set a morning intention based on both something to do and something to be, because this reminds me of what’s truly important, and takes the focus off productivity.

    For example, you could set the intention to do an act of kindness and be gentle with yourself. Then you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment when you complete the act of kindness, and you’ll not only feel good about having done it, you’ll feel good about yourself no matter what else you do, because you’ll be honoring your intention to be gentle with yourself.

    5. Mindful breakfast

    Particularly in the morning, when we have a lot to do, and perhaps get into quickly, it’s easy to scarf down our food without even really tasting it. And it always occurs to me how silly this is. It’s not like savoring our food takes much time. It literally adds seconds to the experience—a few extra minutes at most.

    In my family we joke that we don’t chew our food, we just kind of gulp it down. So this is where I start. I chew more. I fully taste what I’m eating. I close my eyes as if it’s a super decadent chocolate.

    Choose to eat without multitasking—no phone or TV on in the background. And give yourself permission to just enjoy eating. Like when you were a kid and finally got an ice cream cone after begging for an hour. You took big, long licks, you let it drip down your hand, maybe you snarled when someone asked if they could try it because you were just that into it.

    You could also imagine this is the last time you will ever get to eat this particular meal. I find that always mindful eating far easier!

    6. Yoga or stretching

    If I could take an hour-long yoga class every morning, I would, because nothing feels as good for my mind and body as yoga. It’s like a mental cleanse and a really good full body yawn-stretch all at once. (Do you that too—yawn-stretch?) It releases tension both in the mind and body and creates a feeling of lightness all over.

    If, like me, you don’t have the time for a full class, you could instead do a few energizing poses, while focusing on your breath. Yoga Journal has a great list of recommendations here. Or you could simply stretch in whatever way feels good to you, breathing deeply as you move your body.

    7. Gratitude journaling

    You probably see this suggestion a lot, and for good reason: identifying our blessings boosts our mood, increases our overall life satisfaction, and makes us feel more optimistic. When you find things to appreciate, even when life feels hard or stressful, it’s like shining a spotlight on all the reasons life is worth living and deemphasizing everything that hurts.

    But you don’t need to put pen to paper to reap the benefits. You could write one thing down and put it in a gratitude jar so you can pull a random blessing out any time you need a pick-me-up. You could share a morning blessing on social media, to connect with other people in the process. Or you could try the email approach I recently adopted with my sister…

    Though we didn’t keep it going long, for a brief time we emailed each other daily one thing we were grateful for, one thing we were excited about, and one thing we were proud of ourselves for. I found it was a great way to help each other be our best selves and nurture positive emotions.

    —

    Let’s face it: Every day is different, and some mornings are harder than others.

    Sometimes we wake up wishing yesterday was a dream and hoping today will be over fast.

    Sometimes we wake up feeling indifferent about the twenty-four hours ahead because we’re just not excited about our day.

    And other times we wake up feeling eager and motivated, thrilled about the upcoming day and ready to make the most of it.

    That’s life, for all of us. That’s the full range of human experience, all kinds of days mixed up together like white specks drifting around in a snow globe.

    We can’t control that our lives are always in flux, and that we won’t always wake up feeling happy or positive. But we can choose to do something every morning that enables us to be and do our best with what is, whatever it is.

    And it all starts with mindfulness. Coming home to our body. Giving ourselves permission to simply be. And then, when we feel a strong sense of stability within us, going out into the world to do. Whatever it is we do. Ready to find the joy in our day and knowing we can handle whatever’s coming.