Tiny Buddha

Tag: needs

  • Stop Overextending Yourself to Please Others: 6 Simple Tips

    Stop Overextending Yourself to Please Others: 6 Simple Tips

    “Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown

    In a span of one month, my beloved little red Toyota catches on fire, burning to a molten blob; I land in the emergency room with a ruptured disc after lifting a child out of her wheelchair; and I try a do-it-yourself hair highlighting kit, which leaves me looking, well, think Phyllis Diller.

    I feel confused. I have tried so hard to do all the right things. How could my life have gotten so off track?

    I am in the grip of a disorder some people might call manic compression—trying to do everything perfectly in an attempt to please everyone around me. Some of my friends seem to be enjoying life, but I’m definitely not.

    I flounder, looking for answers to this dilemma, without the vaguest inkling that I have created the situation. I call friends and bore them with my woeful tales of angst and doubt. I wake up every morning at 3:00 to wrestle with my pillow for an hour and then, as a last resort, drag my journal off the nightstand and into my lap.

    Most of what I write in that diary is page after page of questions with the same themes: Why are these bad things happening? How can I stop feeling so befuddled? Will I ever sleep again?

    You know how sometimes life sends little presents just when we need them. I was having lunch with a friend who was excited about sharing a story she had just read. She reached into her purse and pulled out a copy of Autobiography in 5 Short Chapters by Portia Nelson:

    I

    I walk down the street.
    There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
    I fall in.
    I am lost. I am helpless.
    It isn’t my fault.
    It takes me forever to find a way out. (more…)

  • 5 Tips to Recognize and Honor Your Needs in Relationships

    5 Tips to Recognize and Honor Your Needs in Relationships

    “The way you treat yourself sets the standard for others.” ~Sonya Friedman

    In what feels like a previous life, I was a serial dater.

    I looked for attention, validation, and identification in relationships. Each guy, however wrong for me, seemed like the perfect fit for my empty hand.

    Maybe I hated being around his smoking, but I brushed it off and tried to breathe the other way.

    Maybe our conversations were dull, but I thought it’d get better. Maybe I cringed at being dragged to another party, but I went because he wanted to see his friends.

    This pattern continued for years.

    I stayed in relationships that were clearly wrong for me and dated people I didn’t understand, who didn’t understand me, just to be in one.

    It wasn’t until an insightful Zen class that I even became aware of the pattern.

    As I cozied up in the gently lit room, hot tea in hand, surrounded by kindred spirits, the Zen master began the day’s lesson: needs.

    Huh. I sipped the sweet jasmine tea and listened intently, totally blown away by what he was saying. Needs? What are those? Seriously, they weren’t even on my radar.

    But they should’ve been. Needs are personal prerequisites to happiness. 

    We don’t learn to pay much attention to our needs, beyond the basics of food, water, and shelter. Television advertisements, popular culture, and the desires of others dictate our “needs.”

    But I’ll bet that, on a soul level, you don’t need a cooler car, a bigger ring, whiter teeth, or more parties.

    What do you need then? Answering this question can be one of the most powerful transformations of your life.

    It was for me. After that class I started paying attention to my needs, and very slowly, I began attending to them.

    I needed to embrace my introverted nature instead of ignoring it or boozing it out at parties every weekend. I needed alone time—space to dream, think, and be. I needed peace and quiet. Deep conversation. The freedom to spend a Friday night in without guilt.

    At first, recognizing these needs was rough. I hated myself for having them; why couldn’t I be like the other twenty-one-year-olds? Why did bars overwhelm me? Why couldn’t I socialize with his rowdy friends?

    It drove me nuts. So for a while, I continued to ignore my needs. I thought I’d just override them with more wrong relationships and parties I hated.

    But eventually, I couldn’t ignore them anymore. I came to terms with them. Being aware of my needs was making room for me to actually start taking care of them.

    It took years, but I’m finally at the point where I’m comfortable with my needs—and making them known. (more…)

  • Dealing with Stress: 2 Steps to Create Harmony and Balance

    Dealing with Stress: 2 Steps to Create Harmony and Balance

    Balance

    “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” ~Thomas Merton

    “If you have aspirin, please take it now. It might be bitter, but if you’re having a heart attack, it will help.”

    If I wasn’t already anxious, hearing this advice the nurse gave me certainly didn’t help. Fifteen minutes later, I was in the emergency room—a 34-year-old, physically-fit, overachieving, workaholic, enabling control freak—having the classic symptoms of a heart attack.

    As I sat on the hospital bed, breathing as deeply as I could into what was happening, my mind started to race: Was it being unwittingly thrust into the role of referee between my Dad and brother last weekend?

    Was it yet another significant transition in an already fast-paced and changing work environment?

    Was it worrying about where to get the money for my uninsured mother to get the health care she needed for her pre-existing condition?

    What was to blame? (more…)

  • Say No

    Say No

    Smiling Flower

    “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” ~Dr. Seuss

    As children we’re taught to just say no, and we do it with abandon.

    Want to come inside and get ready for dinner? No! Want to shut off the TV and go grocery shopping? No! Want to wear the glittery holiday sweater grandma bought you last year? You know where this is going.

    Then we get older and learn about etiquette. We get that sometimes we need to do things that we don’t want to. We understand that other people’s feelings matter and we need to consider them before making decisions.

    What we don’t always learn is how to find a balance between doing for others and doing for ourselves.

    We say we value our time, but it’s difficult when we field a million requests through voicemail, email, IM, and text.

    We know we need to hold our ground if we want to be productive—or stay sane—but we don’t want to disappoint anyone, or even worse, leave them hanging when they need us. (more…)