Tiny Buddha

Tag: Pain

  • Emotionally Overloaded: Are You Taking on Too Much of Other People’s Pain?

    Emotionally Overloaded: Are You Taking on Too Much of Other People’s Pain?

    “All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” ~Havelock Ellis

    I would have done anything for my friends, until one of them nearly broke my heart and spirit. He was my best friend. We felt like platonic soul mates.

    We had a standing lunch date every week, called each other terms of endearment, cried together, laughed together—the standard best friend things.

    Then, tragedy struck him. Over and over.

    His long-time partner left him. Then he lost his executive-level job. Next, he had a string of major medical issues that put him in the hospital.

    He needed ongoing weekly treatments to stay alive. His restricted schedule and constant pain made him unable to find work. He ran out of money.

    One day he cried all through our lunch, and then asked for a loan so he could pay his bills that month. I gave him more than he asked for and plenty of time to pay it back.

    He needed an organ transplant ASAP, so I got tested to be a living donor.

    I listened and was there even when my mood and physical energy were drained because of his tears and constant complaints about his life being “a mess.” How could I not be there? He was going through hell.

    But so was I. But I felt like my problems were nothing compared to his, and he needed me because he had very few other true friends and a completely estranged family. We were best friends. It was my job to keep him company and to try to help him in any way possible.

    And then, one day he never confirmed our lunch like usual. He never showed up at all, and would not return my calls and texts. I got ahold of his other friends and family, and the following two weeks were possibly the worst of my life.

    He had turned to drugs to cope with the pain. It turns out he had been putting on an act in a lot of ways. The money I loaned him was probably to buy meth. I felt betrayed, confused, but mostly scared and panicked. I couldn’t lose him.

    I did everything in my power over those two weeks to help him. I got in touch with his family and landlord.

    My phone was constantly buzzing with calls and texts, alerting me to his increasingly bizarre behavior—passing out in his hallway, urinating off the fire escape, casing the hotel next to his apartment for money and food, throwing all of his possessions into the dumpster and putting items out on the sidewalk to be taken away.

    He was trying to end his life. Numerous calls to police and wellness checks resulted in no benefit; he would appear of “sound health and mind.”

    He was smart, and had been involuntarily committed to the psych ward months earlier after a friend thought he was a danger to himself. He knew the right answers to give, and blamed his physical condition on his disease.

    He’s an adult, I was told. No one could force him to get help. But I kept trying every trick in the book to make him see the light and keep fighting for his life.

    Then, he cut me out. He stopped communicating entirely. I received a cashier’s check, no note, in the mail for the remainder of the loan. After years of almost daily contact, he was gone.

    And then, he died.

    The stages of grief hit me hard and fast. But one emotion hit me hardest of all: guilt. I felt I had missed something that would have saved him, like I had not done enough. But mostly I felt guilty because part of me felt relieved I could finally stop worrying about him. I could refocus on myself and healthier friendships.

    I had begun dreading many of our lunch dates. Would he be “a mess” again, crying in public, full of pessimism, unable to hope for a better tomorrow? I started taking on these emotions. Friends pointed out to me that my mood plummeted after time spent with him.

    Being his friend had simply become way too heavy a burden than I was able to carry. He was beyond help, because he chose not to help himself. He taught me three valuable lessons that have transformed the way I approach relationships.

    1. Trying your best to help someone is more than enough.

    Make a genuine but practical, self-caring effort. Sometimes you can’t do anything to help.

    2. If you start suffering ongoing, negative consequences from a relationship, it’s time to reassess.

    Maybe you need to be open about how the relationship is affecting you. Maybe you need to step back a bit and treat the relationship more casually. Or maybe you need to walk away.

    3. Everyone’s struggles are valid and important—especially your own.

    Don’t think that your issues aren’t serious or worthy of your attention just because someone you care about it going through “bigger” things. You can’t take care of anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself.

    If you have someone in your life who needs help, it’s okay to help carry part of their load temporarily, but you need to unload if it starts weighing you down too much. A best friend is their own best friend first.

  • Learning to Trust Again When You’ve Been Hurt in the Past

    Learning to Trust Again When You’ve Been Hurt in the Past

    “The only way to know if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” ~Ernest Hemingway

    In a world where it seems as though all we hear about and see is how one person betrayed another, how do we allow ourselves to trust someone to get close at all, let alone trust them to be near the most fragile parts of us?

    Over the course of the last year, I’ve been working as an intern-counselor at a residential high school with around seventy teenagers. Many of them have come from unbelievably challenging backgrounds where they have had to learn to not trust anyone as a matter of survival.

    Imagine having spent your entire life always having to watch your back literally and figuratively, not just because there are strangers who may want to harm you, but also because even those who are supposed to be close to you could turn against you in an instant.

    How difficult do you think it would be to let down the defenses that kept you safe and in some cases, alive, for so long?

    In my own world, I’ve struggled with allowing people to really know me because for most of my life, it felt as though I was burned every time I did.

    Over time, I learned how to seem friendly but kept virtually everyone at a distance, and those who got too close I rapidly pushed away, sometimes completely out of my life.

    I was already struggling to put my pieces back together after several major tragedies in my family, and allowing others in meant (the possibility of) compounding my heartbreak. I just couldn’t handle anymore at the time.

    Eventually I began to open up, but each time found myself wondering why I had been so naive again.

    Then there came a point where, slowly but surely, people began to enter my life who showed me what it meant to be able to trust—trust them to show up, trust them to listen, trust them with commitments, and the biggest one of all, trust them with my heart.

    These people came in the form of friends who are now my family and have had my back in countless ways over the years, and the most surprising and recent of all, a man who is not only telling me, but showing me, what a man does to express his profound interest beyond just the physical.

    If I wouldn’t have begun to take down my walls, I may have never found these amazing people. They didn’t appear because I had perfectly learned to trust already. They appeared because I was willing to learn to trust, even if imperfectly.

    As I’ve been learning to trust and lower my defenses, I’ve been working with my students to do the same.

    Their stories are different in that many of them have come from a history of abuse and/or gang related activities. But we share a similar outcome in struggling to realize that what once protected us is no longer needed, and in some cases, is actually hurting us further by isolating us from the love we need to heal and move forward.

    It’s like taking too much medicine; sometimes a certain amount is necessary to get better, but beyond that it can break our systems down.

    We each come to crossroads in our lives where we have to make the decision to let go of our old survival mechanisms in order to grow and make room for something better.

    Sometimes what used to protect us becomes what harms us and stifles the capacity for our lives to be open and full of joy, love, and peace.

    When it comes to trusting each other, we have to accept that our past is not our present. We have to be able to recognize that what hurt us before is not necessarily what is currently standing before us—even sometimes when the situation looks frighteningly similar, and sometimes even when it’s the same person.

    Does this mean we won’t ever get hurt again? Nope. That’s a part of life. People will let us down, and we will let them down, but that doesn’t mean our efforts to disassemble our defense mechanisms are in vain.

    If we never allow ourselves any vulnerability, we lose out on the opportunity to make incredibly deep and meaningful connections that open up our lives in ways that couldn’t happen any other way.

    Those connections draw out the very best within and create a new reality—one where we learn that the only way to know if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

  • After Tragedy: 3 Reasons And 21 Ways to Find Joy Again

    After Tragedy: 3 Reasons And 21 Ways to Find Joy Again

    “Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” ~Bernice Johnson Reagon

    My brother died suddenly, at just thirty-nine years old. One moment he was in the midst of a regular working day. Half an hour later he was gone. Twenty-four hours later he was buried.

    With things happening so fast, I found myself alternating between paralysis and intense waves of pain, anger, guilt, sorrow, and devastation. I guess we all felt this way. Only it didn’t quite look like we all did/

    In between waves of sadness and silence, my brother’s children were playing and having fun and enjoying an ice cream as if nothing had happened.

    It wasn’t just because they didn’t quite understand what was going on. I mean, none of us could really understand this. If you’ve ever experienced a tragedy (and who hasn’t?), you know exactly what I mean.

    Rather, the children were merely being themselves. They were simply going with the constantly changing flow of their emotions and expressing it spontaneously. That’s what children do.

    And so they expressed the wonder of being alive as wholeheartedly and as immediately as they expressed the pain of missing their beloved father.

    We, the adults, were only able to feel and express the latter.

    Does it mean that we are made of different stuff than children, then?

    Not really. It’s just that most adults have great difficulties dealing with certain emotions and situations, and the name of the problem is “judgment.”

    Back then, while watching the children play I found myself kind of baffled. I didn’t really judge them. And yet, there was judgment there. Because, in the face of such loss, joy feels inappropriate.

    I’m sure you know what I mean. Whether we’re confronted by personal tragedy, an act of terror, a natural disaster, or genocide, joy just doesn’t seem to be the right response.

    Even if there might be glimpses of it here and there, we fear that expressing joy might be mocking the tragedy. But that’s not necessarily true.

    In fact, countless people (including myself) have experienced deep joy right in the middle of tragedy, and not just in glimpses.

    Don’t get this wrong. You’re not joyful because of the tragedy. You are joyful because you are “heart-broken open,” as Kristine Carlson calls it.

    In this sudden state of openness there is a sense of deep love and a degree of emotional nakedness that we don’t usually expose to each other. Being in such a space together, being so present, so connected with each other, so united across all differences, is indeed joyful, in a mellow sort of way.

    And yet, many who experience such joy keep it secret, simply because it feels wrong somehow, even if nothing could be more right.

    Remember, “Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” And discovering who you are includes discovering that you are all your emotions, not just some of them.

    So let’s replace the idea that joy is inappropriate with something that is closer to truth!

    3 Reasons to Bring Joy Back into Your Life

    Reason #1: Joy is your nature.

    Joy flows from the same source as love and peace; it flows from your heart.

    Would you want to deny your loved ones your love and your peace? Of course not. Then please, don’t deny yourself your joy either.

    Don’t push it, either. When sadness comes, allow your tears to flow. When joy comes, allow your smile to shine. That’s how it is supposed to be. It’s your nature; it’s who you are.

    Reason #2: Joy is your light.

    Joy is the light within.

    Would you want to deny your loved ones that light? Of course not. Then please, accept it for yourself as well. When it shines, you can see the path in front of you, even if just one step ahead.

    One step at a time, toward light—isn’t that a fine way to respond to tragedy?

    Reason #3: Joy is your power.

    The deep joy flowing within you is a healing force. Its warmth has the power to melt the inner paralysis. Its energy has the power to fuel your journey toward a life in alignment with your heart’s desire.

    Would you want to deny your loved ones that? Of course not. Then don’t deny yourself the power of your joy either. Because your heart’s true desire is to live, and to feel joy.

    But how? After tragedy, how do you even open your heart and mind to joy?

    It depends on who you are. In other words, discovering who you really are also means finding your way back to joy.

    In that spirit let me present to you some of the infinite numbers of ways in which you could bring joy back into life. Perhaps even more ideas will show up in the comments section.

    In any case, I invite you to look at all these ways as possibilities, nothing more. Ponder them for a while, and then find out which one you feel most drawn to.

    Pick that one, and then start practicing joy in this way, daily. Here they come, in no particular order:

    21 Ways to Bring Joy into Your Life

    1. Spend time with children (there are children everywhere).

    2. Discover something refreshing (or surprising).

    3. Feel your body (you are a miracle of life).

    4. Read a novel (fiction, stories, not the usual self-improvement stuff).

    5. Travel (any distance).

    6. Look for smiles in people’s faces (on the street and on TV).

    7. Write thank you notes (to yourself too).

    8. Create a rhythm for your daily life (simple things will do).

    9. Exercise (in a way that makes you smile).

    10. Help someone (with something you enjoy doing).

    11. Find a color that makes you feel good (and wear it).

    12. Enjoy your spiritual practice. (Enjoy!)

    13. Spend time with nature (plants and pets are nature, too).

    14. Do something creative (just for yourself).

    15. Accept help from people (strangers, too).

    16. Learn something new. (What have you always wanted to learn?)

    17. Listen to music (and let your body move along).

    18. Walk barefoot (slowly).

    19. Savor simple pleasures. (What’s that?)

    20. Give yourself a break (in every sense of the word).

    21. When you have a choice, choose joy.

    I believe most of these suggestions are pretty self-explanatory. If in doubt, just ask in a comment and I’ll respond ASAP.

    Also know that once you decide to allow joy back into your life, joy will show you the way.

  • We Can Control How We Respond to Things We Can’t Control

    We Can Control How We Respond to Things We Can’t Control

    Deep in thought

    “When we can no longer change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ~Viktor Frankl

    Every year, March 13th is difficult for me. This year, I marked the day with a long hike in the woods near my house and an extra-long hug for my wife, Kathleen. My sisters and I called each other and just said his name out loud. Wherever he is, we want him to know he is gone but not forgotten.

    March 13th would have been my brother Jimmy’s 64th birthday. He only made it to 26.

    But March 13th is also a time to reflect on what Jimmy meant to me, because although his death was a tragic event, it inspired me to choose a better life.

    April 23rd, 1975. A day that will be in my consciousness as long as I breathe.

    It was my sister Elizabeth’s 17th birthday and the day that my brother Jimmy, whom I worshipped, died.

    I was 11; Jimmy (as I said) was 26. My other older brother Robert (I am the youngest of eight) broke the news to me and my three other closest siblings, Michael, Madeleine, and Elizabeth.

    Robert told us and then held me in his arms as I screamed, “That’s not true! Jimmy can’t die! It’s a mistake!”

    But it wasn’t. He was gone, and my life changed that day forever.

    This devastating change was not my choice, but what I did next was. It was always my brother’s dream that his seven other siblings would escape our abusive father. I knew that, to honor Jimmy, I would never go back home.

    My mission from that day forward was to grow up and take control of my life. In the darkest moments—fighting with my foster parents, for example—I would say to myself, “Stay strong for Jimmy.”

    My path was far from smoothly paved; many bumps lay ahead. But I knew at that early age that whatever the universe threw at me, I could at the very least control my reaction and my journey forward, out of darkness into light.

    We choose to quit jobs, get married, adopt an animal, but of course there are many life events we don’t choose—a divorce, an accidental pregnancy, or the death of a loved one. Yet we can still choose how we deal with and react to these occurrences in our lives. 

    During tough times, our emotions run the gamut: denial, anger, fury, despair, numbness, isolation, desperation. In order to heal, we must feel. But we have a say in what we do with our feelings. 

    There are no right or wrong reactions, only what serves us and what doesn’t.

    It may help you to be angry and express your rage; it may help to be alone for some time. What is crucial when moving through a crisis is maintaining self-awareness.

    Check in with yourself daily, perhaps through meditation or journaling, and ask yourself: Where am I today? Is this helping me? What might be the next phase of this transition?

    While we have to relinquish control over the circumstances, we can still maintain our connection to ourselves. We can work with this knowledge, to paraphrase Victor Frankl, to face the challenge of changing ourselves.

    “Change” has become a dirty word in today’s world; advertisers avoid it because consumers associate the word with challenge and difficulty. 

    But whether we like it doesn’t really matter—life-altering events will change us, in one way or another. Instead of tuning out to avoid the pain, dealing with and even embracing tragedy and its consequences gives us an active role in guiding our own change and growth.

    Transformation is all around us. Transitions are the birthing pains, alternately exhilarating and difficult, that can bring wondrous, challenging, beautiful changes into our lives.

    What change are you dealing with now, and how are you responding to it?

    Photo here

  • Tragedy Can Help Us Find Our Life’s Purpose

    Tragedy Can Help Us Find Our Life’s Purpose

    Alive

    “Sometimes in tragedy we find our life’s purpose. The eye sheds a tear to find its focus.” ~Robert Brault

    Just over two decades ago, I happened to be planted in the Midwest. Chicago. The southside to be exact. A location once recognized as a haven for successful black people handling their business while their kids frolicked throughout the streets, making up secret handshakes, basking in the sun and enjoying their youth.

    And then, as the years progressed, things began to change; our haven was becoming less safe.

    As if a nebulous cloud began to form over our neighborhood with a torrential rainstorm of bullets impending, some parents forced their children to stay inside as the lightening and thundering began to rain down.

    The unfortunate news is that some children of varying generations were left out in the storm, with many, many lives lost due to senseless violence. And I wondered, “Why me?” Why do I deserve such shelter while so many of my brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles must brave the storm and suffer?

    “Why was I so blessed?”

    You see, I may not have grown up with the riches of the world, but I was indeed wealthy—inundated with support, guidance, education, and love. I was recognized as “one who would make it out,” and indeed I did, but not without the scars, physically and emotionally, to show for it.

    As I journeyed forward, attending a top twenty university, my erudite persona led many of my classmates to believe that my younger years were a cake walk—that I must have come from a rich, wealthy and white neighborhood. But in fact, I was born amongst my own, tender brown, beautiful skin.

    But still, my peers did not believe me. I was in a battle. Lest did I know, it was much with myself.

    So I began to fear and hate where I was from so much that I often cried to my mother, screaming that I did not want to return home during the summer months. But I had to anyway. So I did—in mental steel shackles—going straight from work to the gym to home everyday in fear, feeding the hunger of my hatred even more.

    I was such a frustrated young man who had the world in the palm of his hands, but who had not yet recognized its power.

    It wasn’t until I began traversing that palm that I realized there was a much bigger world out there and that many more people had gone through far more than me, and interestingly enough, still had enough umph to persist and fight on.

    So I decided to give it a shot. Try it out. Test it out and venture to places, near and far away, discovering more of the world while discovery myself. As I did, the pain of Chicago traveled with me. A few years ago, right after I moved to the Dominican Republic, I received this email on January 7, 2010 from my mother:

    Hey babe. Some sad news, Cody was killed on Sunday right down the street. He was with Marlon in a car and a guy walked up and shot them both, but Cody died on Monday with 14 gunshot wounds. So sad. I love you.

    And then later again that year, a few days after I followed my dreams of moving to Los Angeles, I received a phone call from my mother stating these words:

    Marlon was killed just up the block from our house. He was with some people and someone came up and shot him in the neck and back. Be Careful. Love you.

    Out of all the people in my life that had passed on, why were these two more significant?

    Sure, we did not stay in the best of contact past high school, but we shared something much stronger—something much more powerful: childhood dreams. 

    As we played football and baseball in the abandoned lot directly across the street from my house, we dreamed of growing up to become the likes of Randy Moss and Derek Jeter. We had huge dreams—dreams that we knew would one day come true.

    But after I lost both of them, the dream deflated and the big question: “why me—why am I so freakishly blessed?” returned, until I was asked an even greater question: “Why not you, Alex?”

    Instead of counting your blessings and asking why you are so blessed, why don’t you live a life focused more on sharing those blessings?’

    “Sometimes in tragedy we find our life’s purpose. The eye sheds a tear to find its focus.”

    I cried a lot and it was not until others helped me meditate upon it and realize that all the bad and unfortunate events in my life could be leveraged as lessons to help me, instead of destroy me. And indeed, they did, but it took time—years.

    The shedding of those tears did in fact help me find my life’s purpose while understanding life’s purpose, which is to teach us, to expand us, to challenge us, to grow us—to evolve us to show us that nothing is permanent in life, and to be grateful for this year, this day, this moment.

    Gratitude, once taken into practice, can change your life.

    And now, I can honestly look back with a better understanding of my past while holding gratitude for what was and what is. I choose to trust the struggle moving forward, because the more I go through and learn, the more I can help others.

    And the same goes for you. You have the power to help others.

    We are not only here to share our stories of heroism, happiness, and jubilance, but also to share our stories of hurt, pain, and sadness to be an extra shoulder to cry on and to show others that there is someone out there that not only knows their pain, but also feels it.

    So today, I ask you: what lessons have you learned from the hardest times of your life and what would you say to the person who is going through something similar right now?

    Because I guarantee there are some individuals reading your comments that could really use the love and encouragement.

    —

    This article is dedicated to Cody, Marlon, to the children of Chicago (of all generations) and to the world.

    Photo by Leland Francisco

  • 4 Lessons on Surviving and Thriving When Times Are Tough

    4 Lessons on Surviving and Thriving When Times Are Tough

    Joyful

    “Every day may not be good, but there’s something good in every day.” ~Unknown

    Five months ago, I was sitting outside with a friend when a mosquito bit me under the arm. I went to scratch the bite and felt a lump on the side of my breast. My doctor sent me for a mammogram, ultrasound, and fine needle biopsy. I had breast cancer.

    I am a 44-year-old single mother of two beautiful young girls with primary custody. I am also Director of a psychology practice and self-employed.

    The day I was diagnosed was the day I lost the carefully constructed control I thought I had mastered in my life. I juggled many balls in the air every day, and they all came falling down.

    I strongly believe in salvaging good from bad, but I struggled with finding the silver lining. The fear and anxiety waiting on test results to find out if the cancer had spread were crippling, and I was haunted by dark thoughts of death.

    I was lucky. The cancer had not spread, as far as they could tell. The tumor was contained and I had a genetic test done that showed minimal benefit from chemotherapy, assuming I had lumpectomy surgery, radiation, and then took a hormone drug called Tamoxifen for the next ten years.

    I think I have found the silver lining in this journey, and my dearest hope, over and above the cancer being gone for good, is that I hold onto these lessons:

    1. Let go.

    My life before breast cancer was highly organized, disciplined, and controlled. Every spare moment was productive. I saw clients back-to-back, I ferried my daughters to activities, I crammed my weekends with social events, and I had multiple to-do lists for each facet of my life.

    I have spent the past five months going where medical people tell me to go, doing what they tell me to do, and waiting. The radiation has made me extremely tired and my brain is simply not functioning.

    I returned to work three weeks after surgery in an advanced state of denial, and kept on trying to be the old me but finally accepted I was not.

    I don’t do very much now. I go to radiation treatment each day. I come home and do some household chores and then rest. For hours. I may read a book, listen to music, play the piano, I even started a painting. I then pick my girls up from school and spend time with them. And it is a revelation.

    Control is an illusion. Letting go of control is liberation.

    2. Stop asking, “Why me?”

    Why not me? That is the profound answer I have come up with to answer this most difficult of questions. Bad things happen to good people and life is not fair. The test is genuinely is how we cope with the adversity thrown at us.

    I am proud of how I have coped with having breast cancer. I have remained psychologically intact, albeit bruised and battered, and allowed myself to be vulnerable. I have dealt with the spectre of dying and have gotten my affairs in order just in case. I also now have a bucket list, and I am crossing things off one by one.

    The purpose of life, I have decided, is not to be happy. It is to realize our potential, to love and to be loved, to do new things and take calculated risks. I do not want to get to the end of my life, be it next year or in forty years, and have regrets.

    The biggest regrets are the things we did not say or do. So focus on what you can do instead of dwelling on why there are some things you can’t.

    3. Ask for support.

    I have never been good at asking for or accepting help. I have asked people to come to appointments with me, to pick up my children, to come and sit with me while I cry. I have never been good at crying either, and I have had crying jags that lasted hours since being diagnosed.

    I had friends over one day and as they were leaving, I slid to the floor and could not get up because I was sobbing so hard. They bundled the girls and me, took us to their home, and looked after us, me weakly protesting that I was fine. The loss of control and identity associated with melting down felt soul destroying.

    So many wonderful people have offered to help, and I am learning to say, “Yes, thank you, that would be lovely.” And it has made me and my relationships stronger, not weaker.

    Sometimes we have to ask for what we need and accept being vulnerable.

    4. Practice gratitude.

    In the blur of normal life, I think we are all guilty of wanting more. We forget to be grateful for what we have, and at its most fundamental, that is life. I would love to be able to write that I am now genuinely grateful for my life, but this would not be entirely true just yet. I slip into denial at times and fall back on old habits, but I am learning.

    I am grateful for the immense generosity of my parents, my friends, and my boyfriend, who have given of their time, money, and emotional energy. The parents at my children’s school who delivered us meals. My work colleagues, who have kept my business going, and acquaintances who have contacted me to express their concern.

    I have let go of the disappointment I felt over those people who I expected to be there for me but were not.

    I have also found myself grateful for things that I took for granted. For my beautiful children, a vase of flowers in the hallway, a good cup of coffee, a flock of birds on my walk, or the ability to pay the bills. I am grateful that I am not dead.

    Mindfulness and gratitude let us stay in the present and ward off anxiety, which comes from living in the future.

    I obviously do not know what the future will hold. My chance of dying from breast cancer related illness is a lot higher than average, but I am so lucky. I am lucky to be alive, and so are you.

    Every day we are not in the ground is a good day, a chance to remake ourselves and our lives into things of value and beauty. Tragedy and trauma can have silver linings. Sometimes it is hard to find them and even harder to hold on to them, but I am holding on tight.

    Photo by geralt

  • Forgiving People Who Show No Remorse: Have You Suffered Enough?

    Forgiving People Who Show No Remorse: Have You Suffered Enough?

    “That which I do not forgive in you, lies unforgiven within myself.” ~Buddhist Proverb

    When I decided to forgive the driver that killed my nine-year-old son, I struggled to believe I could or should.

    In the beginning of my grief I had so much anger toward her, and because she was not showing remorse, I wanted to find ways to punish her so that she would be in the same pain that I was.

    She did not come forward to say she was sorry or try to meet up with me after the accident, and this was hard for me to understand. Trying to cope with my overwhelming grief, as well, it was easy to stay angry with her.

    It was about six months after our son’s tragic death when I began to read a few books on grief, and read that forgiveness is an important factor in moving forward.

    In order for me to even think of forgiveness, I first tried to understand the driver’s emotions, thoughts, and feelings. When I realized she also had a story of her own, forgiving her actions became plausible.

    Even though I had never met her, friends of mine had heard she was not doing well emotionally. Not long after the accident she began spending more and more time in her room, feeling overwhelmed by her guilt, and she began to withdraw from her three sons and her husband.

    They felt they had lost their mother. When I heard this, it shifted my image of her. I realized she was a mum, too, who was also experiencing overwhelming feelings, and so this softened my anger.

    Still, there was nothing easy about forgiveness. It took courage and a true consciousness of will to let go and allow myself to come to a place of peace about the accident.

    When I began to write a letter to the driver, I tried not to think too much about what I was doing and was surprised how the words flowed. I was ready to forgive.

    After finishing the letter I knew that I would have to send it without being attached to an outcome. I knew it was about a release of emotions for me, and that I couldn’t be concerned with whether she would thank me or not.

    A few weeks after sending it, I began to feel lighter, and over time I began to feel less agitated and angry toward her and more compassionate about her journey.

    I thought less about my anger and seeking justice, and focused my energy on healing and growing through my grief, even though she never replied to my letter.

    I want you to know that forgiving doesn’t mean that you have given the message that what someone did was okay. It just means that you’ve let go of the anger or guilt toward someone and yourself, and that gives you both freedom.

    Yes, it is difficult. I have found it is my daily practice of meditation and yoga that has overtime enabled me to let go. Allowing time in stillness each day helps slow the negative and guilt-ridden thoughts.

    I’ve also learned to consciously shift from negative thoughts about the accident to positive memories. We may not be able to choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we think about them.

    When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link into freedom.

    We need to learn to forgive ourselves too. When we have wronged others with our words or thoughts, we need to forgive and let go of our guilt and remorse.

    Whenever you feel yourself clinging to guilt or anger, go to a place of stillness and take some deep relaxing breaths. Imagine the person you want to forgive (or seek forgiveness from) standing in front of you.

    Tell them exactly how you feel or what you wished you said before. Then either ask their forgiveness or forgive them.

    Now, visualize the other person receiving those words, and see that they have accepted this offer. Then take a deep breath in and as you let go, see your guilt or anger lift from both of you, and see yourself surrounded in light. Thank this person and then release them in love.

    When we hold onto anger and pain in our hearts, we stop the flow and love and abundance into our lives.

    Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky notes that when we feel wronged, our first inclination is to respond negatively, and this is a natural feeling for most people. You can’t convince those in deep anger that forgiveness will help free them from pain.

    It seems that most people need to experience a great deal of suffering before they will relinquish resistance and accept—before they will forgive.  The question is: How long will you suffer before you feel it is time to work on forgiveness?

    I encourage you to consider it now, because while we are trapped in our past hurts we cannot live fully in the truth of this moment.

    When I released my anger toward the driver, I believe I released it for my family too, and unconsciously this brought us closer together and has helped us move forward in our grief.

    Denying forgiveness blocks the flow of love and positive energy within you and around you.

    If you’re feeling heavy and burdened, and are ready to stop suffering, know that when you lift the weight of your pain, you are lifting it for all your loved ones, and this is a powerful gift to give.

  • 7 Steps to Prevent Getting Stuck in an Emotion

    7 Steps to Prevent Getting Stuck in an Emotion

    Stuck-In-Feelings

    “Life is a process of becoming. A combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” ~Anais Nin

    I bought an ice cream cake for my family to thank them for giving me the time and space to write the first draft of my novel. My husband took photos. I selected my favorite shot as the wallpaper on my computer to remind me of this milestone.

    I was happy and joyous for a week. The second week I fell into despair—hard—and stayed there for months and months and months.

    I could not edit the novel I had completed and I could not start something new. I was stuck. A terminal sense of doom clouded my days and fogged over my nights.

    Eventually, I sought help from a counselor who specialized in treating creative people. Her diagnosis was grief. Some people go through the grief process when they complete a creative project, she explained.

    Apparently, I was one of those people.

    I had fallen into the trap of believing I could sustain the triumphant joy and deep satisfaction I had received upon completing the first draft of my novel and remain in those victorious feelings forever. When I couldn’t, I fell into depression and stayed there.

    I had experienced a kind of death.

    The counselor recommended that I allow the grieving to unfold naturally without force. That meant I had to give myself permission to be depressed. I had to sit with the feeling, day and night, and not wrestle with it.

    Weeks later, I finally emerged from the darkness of despair into the light of hope. I discovered the strength to edit my novel. When that was finished, I started looking for a publisher.

    I had experienced a kind of rebirth.

    Since that first bout of depression, I’ve written and published four books. Each time I finish the first draft, I grieve again. But over the years, I have learned how to process my feelings and create again.

    Here are seven simple steps to help you move through your emotions without getting stuck:

    1. Learn acceptance.

    Acknowledge what you are feeling without judgment. Offer yourself reassurance that it’s okay to feel whatever it is that you are feeling, no matter what anyone says or thinks.

    If you ignore what you’re feeling or pretend to feel something you don’t feel, the charade will prevent you from moving through the emotion. You will remain frozen in denial. The feeling will take hold and anchor you like a dead weight.

    By accepting what you feel when you feel it, you release the possibility of getting stuck.

    2. Practice patience.

    Some feelings last a few moments. Others last a few hours or a few days. Some feelings can last a whole year or longer.

    Let the feeling stay as long as it needs to; don’t force it to leave. It will only come back until it is done.

    3. Seek help early.

    It’s okay to seek help for dealing with a difficult emotion. If you find yourself overwhelmed, call a friend who can listen and offer advice or hire a professional who can provide expert insight.

    It’s better to get assistance as soon as you need it rather than waiting until you are stuck with an emotion you cannot release.

    4. Avoid self-medicating habits.

    Don’t try to mask the feeling. Drugs, alcohol, food, gambling, and shopping may temporarily relieve you from the pain of your emotion, but they will not solve your problem.

    Self-medicating habits create a labyrinth around your emotion. They offer the illusion of freedom while imprisoning you. Eventually, you’ll have to face what you are feeling head on without the benefit of an addiction to cushion the impact.

    By refusing to indulge in avenues of escape, you will learn the invaluable skill of self-reliance. You will grow confident in your ability to process your emotions quickly and efficiently no matter how joyful or painful they may be.

    5. Develop a routine.

    A consistent routine provides the foundation to build a life. Without it, chaos takes over. Feelings will either run rampant or hide in dormancy, both of which are unhealthy.

    Wake up at the same time every day. Schedule your meals. Go to sleep at the same time each night.

    Make sure you have quiet time for prayer, meditation, or reflection. Include hobbies on a regular basis. Spend time with your loved ones on a daily basis.

    The more structured your routine, the more likely your emotions will flow.

    6. Introduce something new.

    Once you have developed a routine, add something new. Boredom leads to apathy, which can encourage an emotion to take root and not let go.

    Variety leads to excitement. Trying something new keeps things fresh and alive.

    Take a class or join a club. Visit somewhere you have always wanted to go. Be adventurous.

    7. Honor the past, present, and future.

    Life is more than random moments. It’s a journey of self-discovery on a continuum of time. You can easily get stuck in an emotion by dwelling on the past or not paying attention to the present or worrying about the future.

    Embrace the whole spectrum of your life: the past with its history, the present with its immediacy, and the future with its potential.

    If you only think of the past, you’ll be stuck in the mire of what once was and miss out on what is going on all around you right now.

    If you focus only on the moment, you will neglect to remember the lessons you have learned through past experience and fail to pay attention to any future consequences. If you only dream of the future, you will become lost in fantasy without a compass to guide you there.

    By honoring the past, present, and future, you can truly live each moment to its fullest.

    Emotions are meant to come and go, not stay with you forever. By following these steps, you will train your mind and your body to process emotions in a healthy manner, leaving you free to explore the next chapter of your life.

    Photo by www.hansvink.nl

  • Lessons from Dogs on Being Present and Healing After Loss

    Lessons from Dogs on Being Present and Healing After Loss

    Dog

    “If you learn from a loss you have not lost.” ~Austin O’Malley

    Every experience, including every loss, has something to teach us even when we are not up for a lesson.

    Losing one of my pets has been a chance for me to reflect on the value of the present, and has strengthened my commitment to engaging in each moment and not letting my worries and anticipation erode the possibilities of the now.

    In December, my fourteen-year-old golden retriever passed away. Ripley was an incredible companion who saw me through several jobs, moved with me five times, and outlasted my longest boyfriend by over ten years.

    If I was sick, she would curl up on next to me and ask for nothing until I felt better. If I was sad, she would push her head into my hand and offer as many dog kisses as I could stand. If I was just being lazy, she would bark at me until I got off the couch for a walk or a fierce game of tug.

    I was fortunate that she was a happy, vibrant dog up until the last few days of her life when she simply slowed down and passed away peacefully.

    The decision to let her go wasn’t easy but it was uncomplicated, and I felt a sense of clarity throughout the process of saying goodbye.

    What I didn’t anticipate was the depth of loss I have experienced since she passed. And I certainly didn’t know that my other dog, Keaton, would help me so much through the loss and guide me back onto my path.

    Ripley died a couple weeks before the holidays, which meant the weeks following were hectic and spent with people closest to me who understood the significance of my loss.

    After the holidays, Ripley’s absence started to sink in at the base level of loss that shows itself in the shift of your daily routines and spotlights the silly, simple ways that someone or something becomes ingrained in your life.

    It’s then I realized that as much as letting her go hurt, it wasn’t her actual passing that was the most difficult. It was going to be the gap created by her absence that would hurt and challenge me the most.

    The pain of saying goodbye was nothing compared to the poignant ache that was created once she was gone.

    Keaton is a tall, goofy, five-year-old golden retriever, and from the day I brought him home as a puppy, he pledged his allegiance to Ripley with the dedication of a novice cult member.

    When she passed, he spent the first week searching the house and whining in what I projected onto him as sadness; so there was some sort of transition happening that he could not have anticipated.

    The week before she died was filled with lasts—the last time they ate together, the last time they wrestled playfully growling fake growls, and the last time they banished the squirrels from the yard like a superhero and her faithful sidekick.

    And all the time he was sharing those experiences with her, Keaton wasn’t wondering when she would leave or what it would be like without her. Whatever he experienced was free, unmitigated by what might happen and unscathed by concerns if it was going to ever happen again.

    He reminded me of one of my favorite poems, The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Barry. In particular, one line reads, “I come into the peace of wild things, who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.”

    Keaton and I are going through the loss in our own canine/human ways, but he never wasted time worrying about the possibilities, the future, the maybes and what-ifs that can rob us from a full experience.

    Whether those experiences are good, bad, joyful, funny, challenging, exhilarating, or exhausting—they are the beautiful arenas in which we exist, triumphing and screwing up just the same. Keaton’s moments with Ripley weren’t perfect because the squirrel was caught (they never caught one); they were perfect because they happened.

    How often do we step ahead of the moment and step toward concern, negativity, and anxiety? How easily are we drawn away by our thoughts of what might happen next? How hard is it, once we’ve taken that step away from the moment, to step back into the present?

    We are all on a path toward greater mindfulness (we’re all reading Tiny Buddha, right?) and the universe is always offering simple reminders and lessons that might lead us to profound change.

    I was crushed when Ripley passed, and was in no mood to look for lessons or even accept them. Perhaps thinking about Keaton’s experience with Ripley and then without her gave me the perspective from which I could accept the lesson being offered.

    My dogs have been great teachers, reminding me that disarming the anxiety of what may be, and the pain of what has been lost, frees me up to more fully engage in the present and challenge myself to bask in the joy of each moment. And that each of those experiences is invaluable.

    There will never be another moment just like that, no matter how good or bad, and that makes it precious.

    Every time I would let the dogs out, Ripley would stand at the edge of the deck, bark confidently, and then wait to see which neighborhood dogs would respond. All the while, Keaton never barked. The day after she passed, I let Keaton out and as I turned to go back into the house, I heard a deep, unfamiliar bark.

    I turned to see Keaton standing on the edge of the deck, looking across the yard with his ears up and tail wagging.

    Ripley was gone and Keaton was stepping up and into the moment. In that simple bark, he reminded me the best way to honor what has passed is to step into the present fully with my ears up and tail wagging.

    Photo by thezartorialist.com

  • How Death Teaches Us to Live Fully: 7 Enlightening Lessons

    How Death Teaches Us to Live Fully: 7 Enlightening Lessons

    “We meet but briefly in life, if we touch each other with stardust, that is everything.”  ~Unknown

    We had baked chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy that evening. It was the kind of hearty meal that warms you up on a damp March night.

    As I said goodnight, I couldn’t have imagined that in just a few hours I would return to my parents’ house and everything would be changed forever.

    But so it goes. Nothing in life is permanent.

    I’ll never forget that phone call. I felt everything drain out of me and then it seemed as though everything stopped. My mind couldn’t seem to absorb that my father had died.

    I kept saying, “But we just had dinner.” “He was getting better.” And,  “Everything was okay”

    When I arrived back at my parents’ house, it was surreal.

    The quiet conversation and enjoyable meal we’d enjoyed only a few hours ago had been replaced by a chaotic, confusing scene.

    I remember flashing lights, lots of people running around, the sad scared faces of those I loved, and tears, lots of tears.

    I was a wreck at the funeral and not sure if I could speak, but as I stood at the podium, a strange peaceful feeling come over me. A sort of clarity and profound realization. A deep connection to life that I’d never felt before.

    Nothing helps you understand the fleeting beauty of life more than death. Nothing helps you understand what is important in life more than death.

    And most important are the people in our lives. The connection, the bond, the love, the nurturing, the stories, and the memories that we share.

    These are the great gifts of life, and death teaches us to grab hold of them, because we know they won’t last forever.

    I thought I knew life but I didn’t, until that day.

    Enlightening lessons death can teach you about life:

    1. The power of love

    A few months after my father died, I found myself stuck. I was angry that he died and angry that I couldn’t do more to help him. With the loving support of the people in my life, I was able to move past the anger and start to focus on the time we had together.

    The power of love saw me through those dark days.

    If you’re struggling after the death of a loved one, reach out for support and pay homage to your loss by letting your love shine. Although they are no longer with us, our loved ones live on in our hearts, our minds, and our dreams.

    Love is universal and transcendent; it knows no boundaries and reaches far beyond the physicality of this world.

    2. The power of impermanence

    Have you ever experienced a loss and felt like you were losing control? You desperately try to pull in the reigns, but you can’t.

    We all like to have a sense of control, and a certain degree is important in terms of our survival. If we don’t organize our lives, follow rules, and work within the structure of society, we’ll find ourselves in a state of chaos.

    When someone dies, you realize that life is not permanent and that nothing will last forever no matter how much control you try to exert. This is actually what makes it so profound.

    Life is like a rainbow. The light and rain form its beauty, and then it fades. The gold is the shared journey and the profound expression of our lives.

    3. The power of acceptance 

    The grieving process is difficult.

    I remember being in denial and saying things like, “I can’t believe it’s true.” I spent a lot of time being mad at the world and myself.

    I bargained by thinking, “If only I’d done this” and “I should have done that.” The void of depression took the form of, “I am so sad; I’ll never get past this.”

    And finally, I accepted that he was gone and I needed to move forward.

    During this process I resisted the reality of my loss. The stages of grief gave me time to come to grips and handle what had happened.

    Ultimately, the resistance melted and I was able to lean into life again. You can’t move forward without acceptance. 

    4. The power of transformation 

    Loss and struggle hold the seeds of transformation. I don’t think anybody wants to experience pain. I know I sure don’t.

    But as I have experienced loss and struggle in my life, I have noticed a pattern: I get stronger, and the seeds of that struggle result in growth.

    Life is a continual process of struggle, transformation, and growth. Although it may not always seem obvious, if you look at growth you can always trace it back to the struggle that preceded it.

    You may be hurting now but something good is on the horizon.

    5. The power of awareness

    It is possible to go through long periods of life without ever expanding our consciousness.

    Prior to my father’s death, my conscious awareness was limited. I was in a safe, secure bubble, casually going about my life.

    I didn’t question life and I didn’t question the choices I made. I was not fully aware; I was not on purpose. I did not have a sense that my time was limited, nor did I get that life was a gift.

    Death can initiate the process of expanding your awareness, because it challenges you to question your view of life itself and what you do with yours.

    6. The power of presence

    So much of life is consumed by the struggle to survive and compete.

    I spend most of my time trying to cover my family’s basic needs, striving to succeed, and wading through the bombardment of materialism.

    When I find myself getting distracted by the “stuff” in my life, I try to take a step back and focus on the warmer, more soulful parts of me that make me feel alive and present. I take time to get away from the noise and distractions, and focus on spending time with the people in my life.

    The paradox of death is that it points to what it means to be alive. Aliveness has to do with experience, connection, and full expression. What makes your feel alive and present? 

    7. The power of connection

    Have you ever stepped outside your ego and connected to something bigger than you?

    When you’re on purpose or following your calling, you are guided internally, and yet you are also connecting to something beyond you.

    This is the experience I think most of us would like to have, but we get stuck in our ego-based thinking.

    Life events like death humble us and open us up to the possibility of waking up and stepping outside our ego. This gives us a chance to connect to something bigger than ourselves and do what is truly important.

    —

    Death is powerfully enlightening, but you don’t have to wait for someone to die to change the way you live.

    Each day you have an opportunity to create a life with purpose and meaning. Commit to being fully alive and expressing your highest self.

    Life is brief. Use it to spread a little stardust.

  • Stay Motivated To Make Lasting Changes With These 5 Simple Steps

    Stay Motivated To Make Lasting Changes With These 5 Simple Steps

    I see the light

    “The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” ~Ralph Blum

    We all face obstacles. Maybe you’re unhappy in your career, but don’t know what else you’d like to do with your life. Maybe you’re unfulfilled in your relationship, but don’t know how to communicate this to your partner. Or maybe you’re struggling to make ends meet financially, and don’t know how to get out of debt.

    A few years ago, my life was in complete shambles. My marriage had fallen apart, I was unfulfilled at work, I felt disconnected and misunderstood by family and friends, and I was in an all out battle with my physical body as I suffered through the aftermath of a decade’s worth of dysfunctional eating habits.

    My entire life felt like one big obstacle, and unfortunately, when we feel like this it’s easy to lose track of who we really are and what we really want in life.

    Whether it’s family, friends, career, finances, or a combination of all the above, if left ignored these obstacles can quickly grow to feel insurmountable.

    We begin to feel overwhelmed, stuck, and anxious, which manifests itself as lack of motivation, procrastination, and a slew of behaviors and symptoms that represent our avoidance of facing these obstacles head on.

    Well, with every day that passed, more and more pieces of my life began crumbling around me. I knew something needed to change, but what? Where would I start? What did I want?

    I knew I couldn’t fight the entire war at once, so I spent many hours asking myself these questions and trying to figure out which battlefield to walk onto first, if any. Eventually, I decided to tackle the obstacle I’d been battling the longest: I decided to focus on building a better relationship with my physical body.

    We all have that one hurdle that rears its ugly head over and over again, and for me, that hurdle was my diet.

    At the time, if you’d asked me “Why do you want to build a better relationship with your physical body?” I would have responded with something like this:

    “Because I’m in physical pain.”

    While this was a good enough reason to choose this as the first obstacle to tackle, it didn’t hold weight for very long. Pretty soon, I found myself losing motivation, and asking myself the question, “But why?”

    “But why is it important to overcome this physical pain?”

    Since all the dysfunctional behaviors surrounding my eating issues were familiar, and I’d been dealing with the physical pain for so long, I actually found comfort in it.

    So I knew this lack of clarity was a recipe for disaster, and a surefire way to quickly lose motivation. I needed to go deeper to uncover the real reason why I desired to change this area of my life.

    Eventually, I came up with this:

    “Because my eating habits are affecting all aspects of my life: My career, my physical health, my relationships and social life.”

    This answer was definitely more honest, but once again, it still wasn’t good enough to warrant the hard work and dedication I knew it would take to overcome this obstacle. The people in my external environment had grown to expect these strange behaviors from me, and even aspects of my career had been based around some of my dysfunction.

    So once again, I found myself asking the question: “But why?”

    “But why does it matter that your eating issues are affecting your career, your physical health, your relationships, and social life?”

    And that’s when it hit me; that’s when the real motivation behind my desire to change rose to the surface: “I’m lonely, unfulfilled, scared, and I have no clue who I am anymore.”

    Bingo. Just like that, I uncovered the real source of pain surrounding this obstacle in my life. All of a sudden, there was a new fire fueling my motivation and desire to change.

    With this new clarity, I was able to craft a clear picture of what I actually wanted in my life: I wanted to feel connected to the people and situations around me. I wanted to feel connected to myself. And I wanted to stop living in fear.

    Once I uncovered the real motivation behind my desire to change, I slowly started to realize that each and every obstacle I was facing in my life stemmed from the exact same pain! I somehow knew that by attacking this pain at its roots, I’d be able to overcome all these obstacles at once.

    And this new clarity about what I didn’t want was the motivation I needed to help me finally develop a clear and honest vision of what I actually did want in my life.

    So now it’s your turn. Here are 5 steps to gain more clarity about why you want to change, and what you want in life:

    Step 1:

    Pull out a piece of paper and a pen.

    Step 2: 

    Ask yourself the question, “What’s one area of my life that I’d like to change?” Write this answer on the top of the page.

    Step 3:

    Look at your answer. Now ask yourself, “But why is this important?” Write this new answer below your previous answer.

    Step 4: 

    Repeat step 3 until you uncover the real reasons motivating you to change. Keep going deeper. You’ll know when you’ve gotten to the root cause of your pain.

    Step 5:

    Based on what you uncover, develop a clear vision of what you want in your life. Use this new awareness and motivation to help you remain committed to this new path.

    Remember: Saying “I’m unhappy at work” or “I feel unfulfilled in my relationship” isn’t deep enough. Keep going!

    We all face obstacles in our lives, but if we’re willing to do the tough work of asking ourselves “why?” these obstacles can truly become the gateways that lead to greater clarity and new beginnings. We can use this clarity to gain a deeper understanding of what we really want in life, and to motivate us to make lasting changes.

    Photo by Lel4nd

  • Recovering from the Pain of Bullying and Finding Confidence as an Adult

    Recovering from the Pain of Bullying and Finding Confidence as an Adult

    Waiting

    “If your number one goal is to make sure that everyone likes and approves of you, then you risk sacrificing your uniqueness, and therefore, your excellence.” ~Unknown

    I envied the clusters of kids at recess, playing games from which I was always excluded, not just because I couldn’t play them, but also because I was the class outcast. I envied them, the ease with which they moved; their grace, speed, and precision as they ran, kicked, danced, dove. Things I could hardly hope to do.

    But it wasn’t just my Cerebral Palsy. It was something that wasn’t really about my looks or behavior or the fact that my day-to-day life was so utterly different from theirs.

    It was everything: the thick, black boys’ shoes that I wore because they could fit the orthotics strapped to my legs, and the long white knee socks that I wore with them, their cuffs folded over the Velcro straps to prevent chafing.

    It wasn’t anything you could put your finger on, something that could be explained or proven; it was in the tone of their voices, in the endless, hated laughter.

    I couldn’t honestly complain to a teacher or a principal that they were making fun of me because of the silly lunch bag I carried, couldn’t make a scene because I was the only one out of thirty kids who didn’t receive an invitation to a classmate’s birthday party or a dopey paper heart on my desk at Valentine’s Day.

    In twelve years of public school there were maybe three incidents that involved actual contact abuse: a shove, a chair pulled out from under me when I went to sit down. One time, while working on a group project, I chimed in with a comment, and one of the girls twisted my arm and told me if I spoke again, they would kill me.

    The rest of the time, it was subterfuge, gaslight incidents, “pranks” that were anything but comical.

    They would rifle my coat pockets, not to steal anything valuable, but for ammunition: every tiny detail of my life was mocking-fodder, something to be laughed about behind palms, whispered through textbook pages; nasty comments and caricatures doodled on notebook paper and passed when the teacher wasn’t looking.

    Those girls were suspicious of something they didn’t understand, and jealous of what they thought of as special treatment. When they paid attention to me at all, it was pointedly catty. The rest of the time, they were cold.

    They would rearrange things in my desk when I was out of the room, hide things or simply mess them up. I was too damnably, painfully shy to confront them; the few pathetic times I managed to bring it up they feigned utter innocence and acted like I was crazy.

    It became almost a relief to be ignored, even though it was incredibly lonely. When you are abused every day, to be passed over feels like a gift. I didn’t know how to articulate my loneliness. 

    Like when I sat alone at lunch because the other girls wouldn’t “let” me sit at their table. When I sat alone with a book at recess, the yard monitor told me, “Stop reading and talk to somebody; how do you expect to make friends if you don’t hang out with the other girls?”

    She didn’t get it. None of them did, those harried, overworked authority figures. They had too much to do to pay attention to one friendless kid, and one so quiet, so polite; they had other students to deal with, the troublemakers, the ones constantly sentenced with detention, the ones from troubled families who were cutting class and already smoking at age eleven, who mouthed off and were on the verge of flunking.

    So they forgot about me.

    My parents tried to solve my problems. There were years when there were meetings with principals, guidance counselors, and the school psychologist several times a month. The bureaucrats of the school system just wanted the situation to go away.

    The school board tried to make it seem like it was my fault: I was just an awkward, oversensitive kid who needed to get along better with her peers. The guidance counselor, a Pollyanna optimist who had smiley faces all over her office and gave equally vapid advice, told me to try harder, she was sure that the girls wanted to be my friends. She was useless.

    My parents said that I would find my niche in college, that kids would mature and see how special I really was. They tried to help me. But no matter how carefully I dressed like the cool girls, or tried to talk like them, watched the “right” TV shows and read the popular books and bought pop CDs and the cute accessories that they all wore, it never worked.

    I even tried to bribe those kids to be my friends, a memory which still, after all this time, leaves me feeling a mixture of anger and shame. Anger at them for their pointless cruelty, for making me cry at night in bed, shame at myself and my behavior. I was like a woman throwing herself at a man who has absolutely no interest in her even though she is in love with him.

    They rejected me, and I tagged along after them. I found out when their birthdays were and left little gift bags on their desk. My pitiful attempts at friendship only led to more rejection, more laughter.

    Later on, when the anger surpassed the shame I felt, I longed to scream at them. Some brilliant, caustic kiss-off, an aggressive statement that would leave them shocked and gaping. I wanted to hurt them the way they had hurt me so many times.

    So often I was embarrassed by the specter of my Cerebral Palsy, the spasms, the startled jerks and twitches, my ugly leg braces, and the way everything had to be done for me, like I was an infant.

    When I dropped a heavy textbook in the utterly silent classroom, it hit the ugly industrial linoleum with a thud that seemed to echo, and my body burned with shame. The teacher gave me a dirty look for daring to disrupt the class, and the students tittered, no doubt whispering about what a spaz, what a weird, clumsy thing I was.

    I hated myself for my blind devotion to the clique, and my desperate overtures of friendship.

    I hated myself for being a skinny, ugly little freak with big glasses and unruly curls and braces on both my teeth and my legs. I hated those girls for their careless, stinging words and their easy perfection.

    Whenever I have a bad day, when I feel fragile and insecure, when my manuscript has been rejected or I am having an “ugly” day where my skin is broken out and my hair won’t behave, it all comes back to me, and the memories make me cringe.

    I spend more time than I want to admit thinking about those years when I was the class geek, eternally uncool, a scapegoat for adolescent insecurity. I spent years trying to be someone else, and when the futility of that finally sunk in, I spent years trying to figure out who I was.

    I am no longer a victim. I have a certain measure of confidence in my choices and my work, and I have scraped a veneer of self-assurance from self-help books and years of therapy.

    I recently purchased a bumper sticker that says, “There Is No Alternative To Being Yourself.”

    When I consider my life, I do not regret my own hard-won authenticity. I regret the times I tried so hard to be what I’m not. 

    I think I simply got sick of struggling to fit into some mold that was entirely the wrong shape for me. It was so much less painful to do what felt right for me, to dress how I wanted, to say exactly what I felt even when nobody else agreed, and not worry about whether they did or not. It is incredibly liberating not to care.

    There is no magical, fast-acting cure-all for alleviating loneliness and developing confidence. And the truth is, I don’t really know how it happened. I read self-help books, I saw therapists, and I had an incredible support team of family and friends who loved me and helped me believe in myself.

    I know how painful it is, and the only thing I have to offer is my honesty, my truth. I hope that my story provides some comfort and solidarity to those who need it.

    Photo by Jenna-Carver

  • How to Bounce Back from a Hard Time and Come Out Stronger

    How to Bounce Back from a Hard Time and Come Out Stronger

    “How we remember, what we remember, and why we remember, form the most personal map of our individuality.” ~Christina Baldwin

    Look in the mirror. Who returns your gaze?

    Is the face looking back at you a fulfilled being, or a mere shell of longing for something better?

    If you would’ve asked me these questions a year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you.

    Fresh out of college and on a mission to convince my ego of its importance, I began down a path that, unbeknownst to me at the time, would teach me more about myself than I’d ever committed to learning before.

    It taught me who I am.

    As I suffered through recovery from a brain tumor, the wild emotional rollercoaster of becoming a tech entrepreneur, social insecurities, and the straining of interpersonal relationships, my ego assumed the form of a beaten and battered soldier, pushed to the brink of surrender.

    And that’s when the magic happened.

    Three things occurred in this process. If you’re going through a hard time, these may help you come out the other side better and stronger.

    1. Understand your limitations.

    Before my tumor diagnosis and the ensuing melee between my thoughts and the reality of the outside world, I had never really needed to push myself. Success came easily.

    Sure, I worked hard, but nothing like the excruciating mental work and rapid maturation of emotional intelligence required to successfully trudge through to the other side of those trying years.

    I had no need to test my limits before I was actually challenged.

    But amidst the storm, I learned that I’d just begun to push. There was still a lot of room to grow—and nothing to be afraid of.

    So I decided to perform another form of slow torture on myself.

    I started a company.

    Eighteen months later, I was broke. Like “barely pay the rent, eat only oatmeal, and do laundry once a month” broke. Things didn’t work out financially, to say the least. But on the flip side, starting that company was the most incredible, educational thing I’ve ever done.

    I spent eighteen months pushing myself to the brink of what I considered possible—doing things that I never could’ve foreseen myself doing.

    Yet I did them, all in a short amount of time. At times the impossible became possible. Or it was just outside my reach. But I saw it.

    It was as if the mere act of doing opened my eyes to an invisible line that I could not cross, but I could push back—further and further until eventually I was in new, uncharted territory.

    We all have a line like that—our limit. It awaits acknowledgement, and it becomes an opportunity.

    2. Understand your value.

    Before pushing my limits, I never had a grasp on how much value I bring to the table.

    For example, I’ve always been good at science—heck, I’ve got a degree in neuroscience—so I allowed myself to be grouped into a certain categorization, one that I wasn’t particularly content with.

    Because I’m also an artist. With engineer tendencies. And Asperger focus. And I love business, innovation, and technology. And writing about issues as seemingly mundane as fitness by reaching in and pulling them out by the heart, Temple of Doom style.

    I didn’t understand my value before because I had never taken the time to give it away. You cannot give that which you don’t have.

    Taking the time to push boundaries and dive headfirst into things that scared the heck out of me—voluntarily or involuntarily—forced me to reassess just how valuable I actually am.

    I can do a lot of things! And I’m sure you can too.

    Many people fall into the trap of not knowing what their gifts are, or what value they can bring to others.

    And they never actually take any action in terms of seeing just how much they have to give.

    Sitting in a room thinking about what gifts you may have will not help anyone. Going out into the world and succeeding or failing at something will. A gift is meant to be given. How can you know your gifts until you try to give something, anything, to someone else?

    Don’t make the mistake of underestimating your worth.

    It is far better to overestimate yourself and fail, to take that learning experience and recalibrate your direction, than to underestimate your potential and miss out on opportunities in the process.

    When I finally accepted my gifts and embraced the idea that I could use them to not only make a living, but also to create a meaningful life—a congruent existence that mattered—I was instantly free to explore.

    Free to pursue. To create. To add value.

    Will I continue to overreach? Fall flat on my face? Fail?

    Of course; only a fool would expect not to. But at least I can rest easy knowing that I’ll never again under-reach. I’ll never regret a chance untaken.

    Because heck, I’m going for it, and you should too!

    3. Surrender yourself.

    Life is a journey.

    And when, after climbing mountains and enduring valleys, you’ve come to that point in the trail where you’re weathered and beaten, your feet pulse from the incessant pounding, and your mind screams to please stop, you realize that you’ll never reach the end of this journey alone.

    That alone, you’re too insignificant to go on.

    That’s when you surrender yourself.

    You don’t quit, no. Instead, you acknowledge your role in the big picture. That’s when you learn your place in relation to all other things. And you can relate your purpose to the plans of that kingdom.

    So when I fully absorbed the fact that I am here to serve others, to use my gifts selflessly, and in turn reap the goodwill I sow, well, I gained a purpose.

    For the first time ever, life became so overwhelming that I realized I couldn’t go through it alone, like I had been. Growing up, I barely talked to anyone, including my parents. I began reaching back out to them, finally asking for help, and a strong bond resulted.

    I also always focused on my gifts as something to be cherished and cultivated for my own purposes—so I could be outstanding or excellent at something. But this was leaving out a key ingredient to true success: context.

    Without someone else to receive it, a gift is nothing more than a selfish toy. Something we use to amuse ourselves.

    To truly find your relation to other things, you must first surrender your self. Start relying on other people for help and support. Start giving freely of your gifts. Define a religious purpose. Self-discovery is a long, arduous process, but the alternative, complacency, is fatal.

    We already have far too many ill-defined shells of individuals floating through life, not making a difference, not making an impact, and, quite frankly, not even living.

    Ghosts.

    What we need is more warm bodies.

    More passionately congruent, ambitiously purposeful individuals—people who know that what they do matters.

    People who understand their value and limitations, and have not only brushed up against their dreams, but embraced them.

    So from here I breathe my challenge to you: Will you realize that you matter?

    Photo by Zach Dischner

  • Embracing Pain: Life’s Gifts Often Come Wrapped in Sandpaper

    Embracing Pain: Life’s Gifts Often Come Wrapped in Sandpaper

    “The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.” ~Unknown

    “How did you get so wise?” My friend’s voice on the other end of the telephone line was genuinely curious.

    I took a moment to think, wanting to be just as sincere in my response as she was in her inquiry. I felt the words climb up from the depths of my heart and ride a breath of truth as they passed through my lips.

    “I cry a lot,” I finally responded.

    Believe me, I wish there was another way. On my personal journey—and there are surely others who walk a similar path—life at times sweeps me up in a wave of utter brokenness, and washes me onto new shores of beautiful transformation, grounded wisdom, and unconditional love.

    There is a longstanding slogan in Alcoholics Anonymous that pain is the touch point of all spiritual progress.

    Somehow our moments of deep despair and gut-wrenching desperation serve as evolutionary portals to a higher level of grace and resolve. The breakdown itself is the gateway to the breakthrough.

    Don’t get me wrong. I do not go chasing after anguish like an adrenaline junkie with a death wish. Just because turmoil shows up as an unexpected guest at my front door that doesn’t mean I graciously invite it in for tea and cookies.

    I avoid pain—internal and external—whenever possible. I’ve given birth to two beautiful children and both times I asked for the labor-numbing drugs. If I so much as stub my toe on the bedside table or get into an spat with my husband, I reach for my favorite quilt and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for comfort.

    I have heard there are two types of pain in the world—welcomed and unwelcomed.

    Suffering is defined as unwelcomed pain. I am beginning to understand that, like enduring labor, the more I am able to stop resisting pain’s vice-like grip and breathe through the ark—noticing its build, peak, and subsiding—the less of a hold it has on me.

    Just like birthing my babies, on the other side of the pain is the promise. Some of life’s greatest gifts come wrapped in sandpaper.

    Here are a few of the treasured insights I have received on the other side life’s tribulations. I hope they renew your strength, affirm that you are not alone, and shed a hopeful light on your dark moments.

    Pain strengthens you. 

    In order to build a muscle we lift the weight. But first there is a breaking and bleeding of the capillaries. The healing of the wound is what develops the muscle; injury precedes strength.

    Pain refines you.

    It takes pressure to make a diamond and fire to purify gold. Nothing cleanses the soul like a good cry. Tears wash away the impurities of fear and attachment and clear the channels for love to freely flow.

    Pain lightens the load.

    Growing up my mother would often say, “When you are down to nothing, life is up to something.”

    Navigating painful moments can feel like squeezing yourself through a tight corridor. There is no room for excess baggage. At the peak of agony I have learned to let go of the “stuff” in my hands—my stories, my fears, my judgments—in order to hold on for dear life.

    Pain qualifies you. 

    Nothing qualifies a person to step up to a big vision for their life like pain. When I count the cost of the rejection and disappointments endured on the journey to living my dreams, it creates a worthiness and grounded resolve that my toughest critics cannot chip away.

    Pain connects you.

    One tragedy unites people in a far deeper way than a thousand moments of laughter. Falling apart independently and collectively healing has launched powerful, life-changing movements like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.). Pain becomes purpose when it is shared.

    Like the peaks and falls on a heart monitor, the valley low moments are just as much a confirmation of life as the mountain highs. Lean into pain’s sting. Allow yourself to be placed on its potter’s wheel and transformed into all you can ever hope to be and more.

    Remember, life is never happening to you, it is always happening for you. Always.

    Photo by sue jan

  • 3 Ways to Feel Good When Things Seem Bad

    3 Ways to Feel Good When Things Seem Bad

    “It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.” ~Pema Chodron

    Have you ever had something happen in your life that completely changed everything?

    Wham. Suddenly you haven’t left your bedroom in days, you can’t remember what it feels like to shower, and it’s clear the only friend you can really count on is your cat. 

    And whether it’s a major life-suck event or a minor one, the question is: How can I feel contented and calm when things don’t go to plan?

    That is what this post is about. Because a while back I had a M. A. J. O. R. Major event. It went like this:

    I’d just graduated from college. I had a Masters Degree. In science. Human nutrition science, in case you’re wondering. I was excited about life!

    Sure, I had a ridiculous door-to-door research job and my roommate was annoying, but I had plans—I’ll move in with my boyfriend, get a better job, travel, start a family, hang out with all my amazing friends, and live an awesome life.

    But then I got sick. The kind of sick where raising your arms above your head makes you want to take a nap. And instead of starting the amazing life I’d planned, I moved home with my parents.

    It was a shock, to say the least. Before that, I was tough. I hiked. My friends liked me. I stayed up late. I wasn’t a sick person.

    And while my parents are sweet and kind, living in their basement in small town New Zealand, watching daytime re-runs of Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, and hanging out with a fluffy cat called Whisky was not the plan.

    It wasn’t so bad at first. But months went by, then years, and it seemed no matter what I did, I was still sick.

    I thought, why did this happen to me?

    I cried. A lot. For seemingly no reason. And if someone asked why I was crying, I’d say, “I’m just so tired.” I cried so much some days that I’d go home and laugh with my sister on the phone over who I’d cried in front of that day. It was comical.

    That was a few years ago now. And, of course, the whole experience turned out to be a huge gift. They often are, in my experience, anyway, but that’s getting ahead of things.

    Here are three insights that helped during those “you’ve got to be freaking kidding me” times:

    1. There’s a healing side to pain.

    When a challenging event happens—a breakup, a sickness, or having your leopard pink car seat covers stolen—the human mind, being what it is, thinks this is why you feel badly.

    You hear it all the time: “Oh, you poor thing for losing your car seat covers.” Or, “She’s such a rat to do this to you.”

    The truth is, it’s your perception of the situation that makes you feel bad. This means that no matter how crumpled-in and dysfunctional you feel, you’re not. It’s just your thoughts that are a bit wonky. And actually, your thoughts on this were always wonky; the situation just exposed them.

    Take my situation. Everything I’d based my self-esteem on was gone: work, grades, friends, boyfriend, the ability to sit up straight for more than half an hour.

    I thought I was upset because I was sick, when the truth was, my situation had triggered every negative belief I had about myself. Things like:

    “I’m only lovable if people like me.” “I’m only worthwhile if I’m busy doing things.”

    I so strongly identified with all the things I did that when you took them away, I felt miserable. I’d been given the opportunity to see what I really thought about myself.

    Someone could have told me “you’re worthy and lovable,” and I might have intellectually known this, but I didn’t feel it.

    What I began to realize was that behind the pain, over time, my faulty beliefs were shifting. My sense of self-worth was beginning to heal by itself.

    The pain is the faulty belief system being ripped out by its roots. You feel like you’re losing something dear. The trick is to understand that it’s just a faulty belief going away. And beneath it lays a pocket of self-love that you haven’t previously been able to access.

    As poet Kahlil Gibran says, “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.”

    2. Pain fades when we let go of expectations.

    Most of us live in an intellectual way. We make plans for our life and then we try and follow them through. We think we know the best way for our life to proceed.

    The truth is, a large part of our pain is caused by an attachment to our expectations.

    For example, one of the reasons I felt so bone achingly sorry for myself was because I had a plan for how to have a good life—and it didn’t include Dr. Quinn.

    I thought success came from going to college, getting a good job, and having a family. No one said anything about spending all this time in bed. But actually, it was the best thing for me.

    To illustrate you how powerful your expectations are, try this exercise:

    First, imagine you’re me.

    Now, imagine you’d grown up thinking the best way to have an awesome life was to spend five years in bed cross-stitching cushions. That it was something everyone did.

    “Oh yeah,” you’d say to your friend, “I’m just off to do my five-years-in-bed years.”

    And they’d be like, “Oh cool. I hear you learn such amazing things, like how to feel self-assured, and you get clarity on your life direction, and you start to feel that inner calm we’re always reading about.”

    Seriously.

    Now think about your current situation and imagine that for your whole life, you believed that what is happening to you was going to happen. And not only that, but it’s the absolute best thing to happen.

    So much of the pain we feel is because we can’t let go of how we think life should look. Your mind thinks it knows the best way for your life to work out—but simply put, it doesn’t; the plan it had was flawed in the first place.

    Your mind can only see your life as it’s showing up right now. There is a bigger picture.

    3. You’re doing fine.

    Learning about personal awareness and healing can be such a helpful thing, but remember, there’s no right or wrong way to feel.

    Feeling grateful and “being positive” and so on is perfectly fine, and sure, it can be helpful, but if you don’t feel like it all the time, don’t worry about it.

    Instead of attaching a judgment to how you’re feeling or what you’re thinking, try just noticing it.

    I believe the act of simply noticing and accepting how things are, right now—no matter how messy and dysfunctional they seem—is the most powerful, healing thing you can do.

    Photo by Dahl-Face Photography

  • Get Past It Instead of Getting Even: Revenge Isn’t Winning

    Get Past It Instead of Getting Even: Revenge Isn’t Winning

    “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

    The first thing many of us think of after someone has wronged or disrespected us is how to get even—how to hand out a dose of that person’s own medicine in an attempt to feel totally vindicated.

    Most of us have thought about revenge at one point or another.

    Maybe it’s a co-worker, a classmate, a family member, or even a boyfriend or girlfriend, but regardless of the relationship it’s often an instinctive reaction when someone attacks the deepest, most fragile part of ourselves

    Does this really accomplish anything positive?

    We might gain some personal, though temporary satisfaction, but it does little to ease the pain others have inflicted upon us.

    I recently received an unexpected email. While the sender was certainly a surprise, the content of the message and its motivation were not.

    The sender was my father, and in what has become my parents’ only way of communicating with me over the last few years, it was a familiar message filled with anger, blame, and defensiveness.

    Though this wasn’t the first time my parents had defamed me in this way, it still saddened me for much of the next few days.

    Children, especially adolescents, are known for “mouthing off” to their parents while growing up, but it’s hard to imagine this coming from someone who taught you that this was disrespectful.

    My relationship with my parents has become difficult to maintain as a free-thinking adult.

    I suppose some might say that we should always forgive family members for their faults, especially parents.

    But regardless of the relation, at some point you grow tired of others not telling the entire truth; tired of having to defend yourself; tired of being referred to as the cause of someone else’s issues.  

    Growing up I had a great deal of respect for my parents. They provided for all of my worldly needs, taught me invaluable lessons and skills, and maintained a true sense of family and tradition within the walls of our home.

    Yet something was missing for me, as I was burdened by an inner need to always seek my parents’ approval and acceptance, which rendered me incredibly insecure and anxious growing up.

    Eventually, I became completely dependent on them for emotional stability and continual guidance. I didn’t love and trust myself enough to be the keeper of myself, so I allowed my parents to fill that role for me.

    As I evolved into an adult, found someone who loved me without conditions, and began to develop a deep appreciation for the person I was, I realized I no longer needed the family dynamic that I was so dependent on for so long.

    My parents, however, had a difficult time understanding that I was no longer that insecure, anxious, easily manipulated little boy trying to find his place in the world. I was now an adult, ready to chart his own course.

    We started arguing regularly, and many times rather than deal with the repercussions, I would just say I was sorry and return to how our relationship had always been.

    This dynamic continued on for many years until one day I offered my opinion and perspective on a complex, delicate matter they were considering. I questioned their motivation and feared the possible outcome, and thought voicing my concern would be appreciated.

    I was truly stunned by their reaction.

    Letters, emails, character attacks—they even posted hateful comments on a newspaper’s website I contributed to frequently, dragging my name through the proverbial mud in an effort to convince people that I wasn’t the man I proclaimed to be.

    I never expected something so heinous from my own parents. I was so taken aback, hurt and angry that my first thought was how to get back at them—to do a little mud-slinging of my own in an attempt at destroying their character, just as they had done to mine.

    Then I stumbled upon the following quote, and suddenly everything I thought I understood changed.

    “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” ~Gandhi

    How could I possibly be so naïve to believe that seeking revenge on my own parents would make my actions any better than theirs, let alone change the course of what had already been done?

    My revenge would only keep the wound open longer, perpetuating my bitterness and squandering my time on something I couldn’t change. Though never easy, acceptance is key in putting the pain behind you and moving forward with your life.

    I began to ask myself: Will I find any inner solace by propagating my anger? If I succeed at getting even, will it really change my reality? Does it make me the better person to do to them what they’ve done to me?

    As difficult as it was, instead of arguing and trying to defend myself, I simply said nothing. No replies, no rebuttals, no communication, nothing to engage us in the kind of negative confrontations we were accustomed to.

    I’ve learned that living without the drama that so many people thrive on is the only way to live a meaningful life.

    I’m far from perfect and those feelings of retribution still creep up now and then, especially when I get an email or letter as I did the other day. But each time the thought pops into my head, I begin to realize something:

    Regardless of how justified you might believe you are in seeking your revenge, it’s important to remember that life isn’t a game and simply getting even doesn’t mean you’ve won the battle; it just means you’ve lost your self-respect.

    It’s taken me a while to accept that I probably will never see my parents again. Yes, there will be times when I miss the family unit I remember from when I was a little boy; but then I’m forced to remind myself that things will never be as they were again.

    It saddens me that my parents are missing out on getting to know the man I truly am, instead of the insecure, anxious little boy they’re convinced still exists.

    In truth, I would not be the person I am today without them—a person of character and integrity who’s managed to touch the lives of many, even theirs I’m sure.

    In my heart I forgive them for everything that’s gone on, and the peace that provides me is much greater than the fleeting satisfaction of seeking revenge.

    Though it might seem impossible, even the bad things that happen in life have a funny way of leading us to a better place. At least, they did for me.

    Photo by joybot

  • Letting Go of Your Past Suffering to Feel Peaceful and Free

    Letting Go of Your Past Suffering to Feel Peaceful and Free

    “Letting go give us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    I stood alone in what had been my childhood bedroom, staring at the dresser with a familiar discomfort. My fingers clutched at the handle of the second drawer from the top and pulled hard, straining from the weight of its contents.

    I reached in with both hands, the drawer with its quarter inch plywood base teetering dangerously on the edge of the frame, and lifted them out, one by one.

    Unicorns, fairies, rainbows, mystical maidens, all disappeared as I placed the journals into the cardboard box I’d asked my mother to bring to me.

    She watched wordlessly as I carried it through the house and to the front door, then said simply, “I have to say, I’m not sorry to see those go.”

    In that moment, my mother was keenly aware of something that had eluded me for most of my life. And now, at the age of 28, I was ready to let go of something I had always been attached to, something that had caused me so much pain throughout all of the years I had been writing in those journals: my former self.

    Writing has always come naturally to me. As an only child and a classic introvert, I found it far less intimidating to share my thoughts with a blank sheet of paper than with another human being. 

    I began to journal actively at the age of twelve, filling page after page each night with my tales of prepubescent woe.

    I continued this practice until I was halfway through college, dedicating over a dozen spiral-bound volumes to a verbose body of work seeking to prove my hypothesis that my existence was pointless and that nobody loved me.

    My writing habit was far more destructive than therapeutic. It was much easier to validate my own negative emotions than it was to challenge my perceptions, ask others for help, or work to make meaningful changes in my life.

    The more I wrote about my problems, the more I allowed them to consume me. My suffering became my identity, and I didn’t know who I was anymore without it. 

    During high school, I sunk into depression and surrounded myself with other deeply unhappy people. For four years, we alternated between bonding over how miserable we all were and turning against each other in predictable cycles of emotional manipulation and abuse.

    Every night, I sat alone in my room committing all of the day’s events to paper. I chose to not only relive these painful experiences, but to continually remind myself of them.

    Mercifully, high school is designed to end. When it finally did, I cut off connections to my high school friends, but the shame that had allowed me to form those friendships followed me to college.

    It graduated with me, accompanied me to work every morning, and multiplied exponentially after the end of my first long-term relationship at the age of 25.

    It would take three years of therapy and endless support from the loving souls I now choose to surround myself with for me to realize just how much of my own suffering I have caused.

    For the better part of my life, I have chosen to view the world through a negative lens. I have resigned myself to feeling like a victim of my circumstances, instead of applying that energy to changing my perception of them.

    That night, I carried the box of journals home with me, ripped the pages from their bindings, and fed them to my shredder in small digestible stacks. I forced myself to avoid the temptation of rereading what I had written, and returning to the past.

    Watching the brightly colored words slowly disappear between the blades, I felt no remorse, only a deep sense of freedom. Ten years of writing filled four garbage bags, and their last measurable impact on me was the trip I had to take to the dumpster.

    It took me 28 years to release the attachment I felt to my journals, but I’d like to share what I learned from the process:

    Release the judgment you feel toward who you were in the past. 

    I no longer judge the young girl who worked so hard to define herself on the pages of those journals. I wish I could write to her now and tell her that she is loved, and that she does not have to wait for things to get better—that she already has everything she needs to be happy.

    I wish I could show her all that she has to be grateful for, and tell her that I am proud of who she is, and who she will become.

    Know that you are not betraying yourself by moving on.

    I have often been afraid to stop talking or thinking about the past experiences that caused me suffering because I mistakenly believed that they were a part of me. I have to keep reminding myself now that my desire is to live in the present, not the past.

    While those experiences—along with the ones I remember more fondly—have helped to shape who I am today, they are not my identity.

    It is unnecessary for me to feel any more guilt releasing them than I do giving away a shirt that no longer fits me. Remember that you are more than the sum of your thoughts and experiences, and that while you do not need to judge them, these are things that often tie you down from being in the present moment.

    Share the experiences that cause you shame with people you love and trust.

    I have not always found it easy to trust other people, and in the past, when I was not burying my emotions in my journals, I was putting my trust in people who did not treat it with much care or compassion.

    However, I am grateful for those experiences because they allow me to recognize that I am truly fortunate for the loving and compassionate relationships I have today. I have become friends with people who encourage me to share myself with them, who do not judge me for the things I think and feel, and who support me through the process of release.

    In a world where it is all too easy to form superficial connections, I encourage you to take the time to cultivate your real-life relationships. Focus on sharing raw, human emotions with a friend or partner, and on listening to them with all the passion you desire when you are sharing.

    In addition to helping to build trust between you, the courage you show in being open and vulnerable may allow your friend or partner to release one of their own burdens. There are very few things that are more rewarding and life affirming than being present in that way for someone you love.

    Photo by @Rayabi

  • Helping Others Helps Us All: We’re All in This Together

    Helping Others Helps Us All: We’re All in This Together

    breaching

    “Pain is not a sign of weakness, but bearing it alone is a choice to grow weak.” ~Lori Deschene

    I, like many of you I’m guessing, am a wanderer. A student of the soul. At times it can be a bewildering path. Most days I give thanks for the adventure. Many others I wish for clarity and certainty.

    But though I am a wanderer, I am not aimless: I have a path as deep and true as any other. I simply have no map to guide me, only my intuition, and the myriad teachers that cross my path: people, places, books, ideas, synchronicities.

    I have learned to trust my inner senses. When I am on my path, my life feels good and right; off it, I am aware that I am scrambling through the undergrowth and finding my way at the edge of cliffs.

    For a long while I wondered what this path actually was. What was it that defined some actions as “right” for my soul direction, and others “wrong”? Especially when many of them seemed to appear synchronistically, out of the blue, and were counterintuitive.

    The idea of a “path,” or what Lao Tzu calls “the Way,” works for me.

    It’s as though there is a channel through life that is “right” for each of us to take. An invisible highway of least resistance in the midst of white noise, which resonates at the same frequency that we do and seems to draw us forward, exerting some sort of magnetic pull.

    When we are on it everything makes sense, we find flow better, we feel right in ourselves, we have a sense of something larger than our own small ambitions guiding us.

    I have begun to see that the path, this invisible pull to our souls, is in fact our own personal way to wholeness: our own unique healing prescription.

    Our path, I have learned, takes us through the experiences, thoughts, and meetings that will heal every aspect of our selves, even, and especially, those that are hidden from our conscious awareness.

    The words “whole” and “heal” come from the same root. To reach wholeness, we must heal from the wounds and distorted vision that life and our perceptions have wrought on us.

    Therefore, each healing path must be unique, as each of our woundings is unique. And yet they each share many similarities, because in the end we are all humans and our stories cross over.

    This is the part that many of us miss. We are so focused on “finding me,” on healing ourselves, that we walk on our individual paths looking down at our feet. We forget the fellow travellers around us. And this is where our ability to fully heal is lost, because we cannot do it alone.

    The emphasis in Western medicine, the self-help and personal development movements is very much on the individual. “You’re the most important thing in your life” messages have trumped the greater truth, which is that we are tribal creatures and herding mammals.

    We are only as strong as our weakest members. The fate of us all lies in all our hands.

    If you see a group of migrating birds, a shoal of fish, or a herd of wildebeest, there is a constant communication going on between them. They move as one, navigating canyons and predators.

    They listen for the calls of others, and they listen to the instinct within. Both guide and steer them. Both have equal weight. But the overriding aim is to find the path and stay on it together, to find the safe way, the yielding way together—to get through together.

    One day last week, feeling frustrated at myself and the seemingly disparate roles that I could not quite reconcile, I had a realization of immense clarity; I could not let go of any of them because they were all actually different facets of the same thing: healing.

    The internal guidance system that leads my work as a writer, teacher, editor, and artist; my roles as mother, daughter, partner, and friend, are all one big journey of healing myself, and sharing that process with others for their own healing.

    My instinct to heal and to help others heal are equally strong driving forces that determine my whole life.

    This is what I love about all of my heroes: their dedication to healing, and their willingness to reflect on their pain and share what they have learned.

    Then I zoomed out and saw it from a much larger perspective—that this is some human instinct, a basic herd instinct—the need to help to heal the herd, to keep us all together, all moving in the same direction. 

    Like the race that an African tribe does, the aim of which is not who wins or runs longest or fastest, but that everyone finishes together.

    Sue Monk Kidd reflects on this herd healing in her beautiful book, Dance of the Dissident Daughter.

    She recalls watching a nature program about whales and seeing these behemoths throwing themselves out of the water and crashing down on their backs.

    The narrator shared that naturalists believe that breaching, as it is called, might be their way of communicating when the seas get rough. A spectacular way of creating strong vibrations in the water, marking their route so that the others in their group would not get lost.

    She reflects on how women do this too, an example that I feel applies to all humans:

    “Women must have the whale’s instinct. When we set out on a woman’s journey we are often swimming in a high and unruly sea, and we seem to know that the important thing is to swim together—to send out our vibrations, our stories, so that no one gets lost.”

    So here we are, the waters are rising on this precious Earth of ours, the storm waves crashing. Many of our global population are tired, have lost our bearings. But the instinct is strong. Many of us who are aware of the need for healing are calling out, breaching: “This way, this way!” we call.

    We share our stories, show our healing, so that others might find their way onto the path of healing too. So that person by person, community by community, country by country we might find a better way to live. So that we can find healing for our whole herd, and a path, a way through.

    Sometimes I doubt myself. I wonder why I do my work. But now I know. I do it for me just as much as I do it for you.

    I speak or paint or write or dance with One Billion Rising, because I am adding my vibration, which is the most basic thing I can give. Because I yearn to the depths of my soul to be healed. To be free from suffering. To see those I love and those I don’t know free from suffering too.

    So I ask you, every time you feel the instinct rise, like a whale breaching in the center of your soul, with the urge to reach out and share words of love, gratitude, kindness, forgiveness, appreciation, hope, and healing, do it.

    Every time you feel the desire to give a stroke, kiss, hug, gift, or smile, but you think it makes no difference, or that you don’t have time, do it.

    It matters. More than you could ever know.

    In fact, it’s really the only thing that does.

    Photo by Nesbitt Photo

  • How to Deal with Uncomfortable Feelings & Create Positive Ones

    How to Deal with Uncomfortable Feelings & Create Positive Ones

    “Hope is the feeling that the feeling you have isn’t permanent.” ~Jean Kerr

    For most of my life, I was a fugitive from my feelings.

    Psychologists suggest that we are driven by two connected motivations: to feel pleasure and avoid pain. Most of us devote more energy to the latter than the former.

    Instead of being proactive and making choices for our happiness, we react to things that happen in our lives and fight or flee to minimize our pain.

    Instead of deciding to end an unhealthy relationship and open up to a better one, we may stay and either avoid confrontation or initiate one to feel a sense of control. Instead of leaving a horrible job to find one we love, we may stay and complain about it all the time, trying to minimize the pain of accepting the situation as real—and enduring until we change it.

    From a very young age, I felt overwhelmed by pain. As a pre-teen, I ate my feelings. As a teen, I starved them away. In college, I drank and smoked them numb. And in my twenties, I felt and cried my eyes red and raw.

    I sobbed. I wailed. I shook and convulsed. And I wished I’d never chosen to feel them, but rather kept pushing them down, pretending everything was fine.

    Except when I did that, they didn’t just go away—they compounded on top of each other and built up until eventually I exploded, with no idea why I felt so bad. (more…)

  • The Gifts of Empathy: We’re Not Alone with What We’re Feeling

    The Gifts of Empathy: We’re Not Alone with What We’re Feeling

    Hugging

    “In separateness lies the world’s great misery, in compassion lies the world’s true strength.” ~Buddha

    When asked why I write fiction, I used to say, “Because I enjoy writing and revising sentences” or “Because I like practicing an art I’ll never perfect” or “Because I love to read.” All those reasons remain true, but my answer has changed.

    The most important reason I write stories, and read them, is to practice empathy.

    Strange how we often feel empathy more easily for fictional characters than for real people. One reason is that sometimes we get to know fictional characters more deeply than our family members and friends.

    Too often in real life we keep aspects of our true selves hidden and miss an important opportunity to connect with other human beings.

    How many times has this happened to you? You run into a friend, sometimes a close friend, who says, “How are you doing?” and you say, “Good! How are you?” and the friend says, “Good!” Meanwhile, you’re not doing well at all, and later you discover that your friend hadn’t been doing well.

    Recently, I tried something different. When a friend asked how I was, I told him the truth—that I’d had a difficult week.

    He said, “I’m sorry to hear that. I know a few other people who had a rough week.” He waited to see if I wanted to share more, but didn’t prod. Then he said, “Hey, I hope you have a better week next week.” I could tell that he meant it, and that made me feel a little better, a little less alone.

    I’m not suggesting that we all become confessional and reveal our secret struggles, fears, and pains with everyone we meet. But I am suggesting that you don’t have to feel alone. When you take a chance and share a hidden part of yourself with someone, it’s amazing how often people respond with, “Me too.”

    Here is the most important thing to remember: Whatever you’re feeling, someone else has felt it. Whatever you’re going through, someone else has gone through it. You may feel alone, especially if what you’re experiencing is very frightening or painful, but you are never alone.

    I was having dinner with a close friend the other night, sharing with him about a difficult time in my life, the most difficult, when I had hurt someone I love very much. (more…)