Tiny Buddha

Tag: passion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Instead, I grew anxious, critical, and discouraged.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    That was one of the darkest times of my life.

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

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

    I realized I needed a different way to approach life.

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

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

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

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

    Fencing helped me rediscover play and leave perfectionism behind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Why Chasing Happiness Won’t Make You Happy

    Why Chasing Happiness Won’t Make You Happy

    “Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder.” ~Henry David Thoreau

    Most of us are always on the lookout for a big breakthrough—a point in our life where the beam balance tips to maximal happiness so we can enjoy everlasting bliss. What can we do to get there?

    Our pursuit of happiness is like a coyote chasing a roadrunner. But what happens? Just like the roadrunner, happiness slips out of our hands every single time. This leads us to a few questions…

    What if the pursuit of happiness is never-ending? Have we ever considered the caveats of chasing happiness? To save you from months of misery, I’ll share a little of my life experience. From being a typical college kid to suffering from depression, it was my pursuit of happiness that brought me down.

    The Obsession Phase

    It was 2018. I was obsessed with smartphones, and my average screen time per day was ten hours. Getting stuck in a vicious cycle of Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for hours left me miserable and sluggish. In a vain attempt to gain my life back, I deleted all social media accounts. Every social media app went right out the window.

    Fast-forward fifteen days later, my daily screen time still averaged around eight to ten hours. I was the most hard-core addict you could ever find. It wasn’t a good sign, and I desperately wanted to relieve myself from the clutches of my smartphone. So this time I did something different: I sold my smartphone and got myself a shabby Nokia 3310.

    It was a “life-altering experience.” It filled me with eternal joy right away, and… okay, I’m gonna stop lying. I just wanted to pretend to be an Instagram influencer who ditches their phones for thirty days and claims the experience to be life-changing! As if it could be that easy.

    The truth is, quitting my smartphone sucked. Over seven hours of free time with nothing to do. I felt like my head was gonna shatter into a million pieces. I was bored to tears during the first few days, and I spent much of my time staring at my friends with their shiny little companions. Days rolled by…

    One fine day an idea for a short story popped in my mind. It was about a young girl who lost her boxer dad in a fight and lives in poverty with her mother. She’s guided by a guy at school, and they develop a sort of “brother from another mother” relationship. He lifts her up, and she does the same when he falls back.

    With nothing much to do, and with zero expectations, I started writing.

    Every evening after college, I raced to the library to write my story. Weeks passed and I finished my first draft. Guess what? I published it too… packed with tons of typos and errors, but still, I did it!

    Luckily, my compassionate friends overlooked my errors and still read the entire thing. And they (kind of) liked it. Not that I was some writing prodigy or whatever, but it wasn’t bad for a first timer. This kindled writing dreams in me… and things started going downhill from here.

    I was disillusioned that success and fame would make me happy. With this false belief, writing became my new drug of choice. Fast forward a few months, I would wake up as early as 4:30 in the morning and then would work till midnight.

    It wasn’t that I’d write all the time; I’d spend most of my mornings procrastinating, sitting before my desk or banging my head on it for ideas. I fixated on the idea that more work = better chances of success = better chances of becoming happy. The lack of sleep, bit by bit, was taking a toll on my body, and I was turning into an impulsive, depressed, insomniac zombie.

    Though I sat before my laptop for almost one-third of the day, I could have achieved the same amount of work in a single hour. I got carried away with my false definition of success, and this distanced me from my friends, which I’m not proud to admit.

    But a book intervened and saved me from becoming a zombie who feasts on his roommate’s brain for breakfast. The chapter on the importance of sleep made me realize how dumb I’d been. I finally understood the workaholic madness I was under.

    The Recovery Phase

    I started sleeping seven to eight hours per night, despite my fear of becoming less productive. I wrote for enjoyment, started hanging around with friends, went to movies, and took a few short trips as well. But none of this was possible in my workaholic days. It was all work-work-work.

    A week later, I realized I got more quality work done in one to two hours than I was able to achieve in eight, when I was getting poor quality sleep. And with each passing month, things got better and better. This got me thinking…

    “Why am I so happy even though I’m working less? Why am I happy even though I’m not trying to be happy?”

    That’s when I stumbled upon this idea.

    How Happiness Works

    Psst… I am gonna tell you how happiness works. (Cue drumroll) Happiness is an effect, not a cause nor a destination. Let me explain…

    If you’re trying to be happy, you think of it as a destination—somewhere to get to in the future after you do all the right things. Now think of all the moments you were happy: When you passed an exam after multiple attempts, hung out with your friends, celebrated your birthday, danced at a party, played a sport, went on vacations. All these things have two things in common.

    • The activities themselves generate happiness.
    • You don’t set out to achieve happiness. Instead, you enjoy the activity.

    I hung around my friends and went to movies because I love doing this stuff. This generates happiness. I never intended to become happy by watching a flick, I just wanted to enjoy a movie, and I felt happy as a result.

    Chasing happiness is counterintuitive.

    Think back to your childhood days. Did you ever sit by yourself debating what makes you happy? If you’d find happiness by playing cricket or LEGO blocks? You did things if you liked them, not because you intellectually decided they were the key to happiness.

    Even if you successfully find happiness after a long chase, I bet it won’t last long—I didn’t say this, science does—thanks to hedonic adaptation, the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.

    So instead of asking what makes you happy, ask what do you enjoy doing?

    I enjoy the following things. Maybe something here could work for you.

    How Can You Enjoy Life More?

    Passion

    Cultivate a love for something. Research shows having a passion increases our eudaimonic well-being. Art, music, writing, gardening, cooking, programming, dance, designing are a few examples out of a million. If you are trying to find your passion, there are a couple things you need to know,

    -Passion never turns up at your doorstep. You have to create it. This means that you keep working on random things that in turn produce your love for an activity, not the other way around. Only after writing three short stories and fifteen sh*tty blog posts did I discover my passion for writing.

    -The only reason to be passionate about something is because you love the activity in itself, not because you can make money out of it. And it’s totally cool if you don’t make money out of your passion—when you follow your passion it doesn’t feel like work, right? I still love writing and hope to hold on to it forever. It’s not my love for writing that ruined me. The desire to be famous and chasing happiness did that.

    Strive for Work/Life Balance

    Whether you’re eighteen or eighty, you won’t be happy if you overwork yourself, nor if you spend all your time binge-watching TV shows. Always try to have a balance so you have time to get things done, time to enjoy things you love, and time to simply be.

    Channel Your Stress Well

    It’s easier to binge Netflix after a tiring day at work. But how about working out, taking your dog for a walk, watering your plants, or taking your kids to an ice cream parlor? Find things that you enjoy and channel your stress that way instead of mindlessly scrolling social media. 

    Socialize

    Human beings are social creatures, so let’s act like it. Go on a family trip, plan a game night with friends (virtual or in person), or simply have dinner with your family together. Odds are, when you’re laughing with people you love you’ll be so present in the moment you won’t think about anything, let alone finding happiness.

    Take care of the body you live in

    Good rest powers you up for a great day, whereas sleep deprivation destroys your mood and your health. So sleep well, and workout at least three times a week to get your blood and endorphins flowing. You needn’t bench 300 pounds. A fifteen-minute jog would do the job.

    —

    So to summarize: Stop chasing happiness, it makes your life worse. Engage yourself in activities that you enjoy in a variety of fields, e.g.: socializing, passion, hobbies. Sleep well and stay human. Zombies have a terrible reputation on our planet, so don’t become one.

  • If You Think You’re Not Good Enough to Pursue Your Passion

    If You Think You’re Not Good Enough to Pursue Your Passion

    “I think something people need to understand is that others disliking you is not a bad thing. When you are embodying your true authentic self, it creates fear in people who still operate from the ego. If you want to grow, heal, and evolve you have to let go of wanting to be liked.” ~Audrey Kitching

    Since I was a child, I have always felt a huge need to express myself and let my inspiration flow. I was a creative and playful kid, with a vivid imagination and an enormous passion for writing.

    As a teenager, I became interested in music and wanted to be a drummer. It was a spontaneous decision—my intuition suggested to me that, behind those rhythmic patterns that fascinated me, there was something more.

    Something meaningful, spiritual, something that was calling me so strongly that my soul wanted to resonate with it.

    Knowing that, I asked my parents to take drum lessons, but they eventually convinced me that I was dreaming too big. I began to think that it was too late to start, I would never be good at it, and that playing the drums was something that only privileged people, perhaps with a big soundproofed room, and the right amount of talent, could do.

    I gave up on my aspiration and decided to follow my father’s suggestion to take guitar lessons, which would have been more practical and easier to afford.

    I thought it could be an opportunity to learn how to play the songs I loved the most, but after a few months of early excitement, my interest started to decrease because I spent most of the time doing arpeggios and playing sheet music without feeling it.

    After almost two years taking classes, I realized something astonishingly simple, yet powerful: I was following a path someone else had chosen for me! How could this have led me to joy and fulfillment?

    Immediately after that, I gave up on the lessons. Since then, I have played sporadically, mostly alone. Thanks to video tutorials and the right amount of effort, I’ve managed to get a good technique and to play my favorite music. But, several times, a thought snuck into my mind.

    You’re not good at music.

    The cheerful kid had been replaced by an insecure teenager trapped in the painful process of growing up. I was pulled down by what the others were thinking about me.

    For some years I was verbally bullied and mocked from peers and schoolmates, for no apparent reason—I was just trying to be myself. This created emotional and psychological pain and made me believe that I was different and didn’t fit with what others expected me to be.

    I went through dark times and repressed my creativity, thinking that I couldn’t give birth to anything valuable or worth being enjoyed. I subconsciously believed that I would have never been as good as others.

    With the support of the right people, and through a long and painful introspective journey, I eventually realized that what made me repress myself were sneaky and dangerous limiting thoughts.

    More than ten years later, I had the first glimpse of what I could have become if I’d connected to my innermost passions.

    After moving to live in Spain I met some guys who owned a rehearsal room. When I first entered the room, my instinct immediately led me to the drum kit. Before that night, I had played the drums only once, but the idea was still fascinating to me.

    Soon after, a thought popped up. When I was twelve I really wanted to become a drummer, what became of that dream? After many years spent denying my passion, it was time to become the architect of my own life, as I knew that I’m the only one responsible for my happiness.

    A few weeks later, I was able to find a teacher and start taking lessons. The first time I stepped into the classroom I was a bit nervous because an unpleasant dialogue was taking place in my mind.

    “What if he notices that I don’t have a musical ear?”

    “My level of Spanish is not that high. How could I understand him?”

    “Will I ever be able to continue my lessons, or will I be kicked out on the first day because I am hopeless?”

    As soon as I started playing, my fears simply dissolved. My heart felt light and joyful. When the lesson was over and the teacher smiled at me, the negative rush of thoughts was replaced by shining and optimistic affirmations.

    “I may not have a good musical ear, but I have an amazing sense of rhythm.”

    “I could understand everything he told me; my Spanish is good, after all.”

    “I am not that bad, and I’m sure the next time will be better.”

    That happened four years ago. Since then, I’ve never stopped drumming. Here are some of the most meaningful lessons I have learned in that time.

    Talent is not something we are born with.

    Better said, talent is something that very few people are born with.

    My timid attempts at learning guitar made me believe that I should give up on music because it wasn’t my thing.

    Similarly, when I decided to take drums lessons, I thought I could never improve, because it was too late. I was told that all the good drummers started learning when they were children, that becoming good at drums takes way too long to start when you’re an adult.

    Time proved to me that my opinions were wrong. I spent the initial months practicing however I could, doing my homework on pillows, in the office, during my lunch breaks. A few months later, I was rewarded with one of the most amazing gifts I ever received—a friend of mine asked me to join a band.

    Like many times in my life, the negative self-talk was about to tell me I was not talented enough to play with other people.

    It was time to stop that destructive inner dialogue that had been pulling me down for a long time.

    I was mature enough to understand that no one was restraining me but myself: I was creating boundaries that didn’t exist.

    I joined the band for about five months and had a great time, mostly because, for the first time in my life, I was playing with other people.

    Thanks to this opportunity, the idea of being bad at music was replaced by a genuine sense of self-confidence.

    Learning doesn’t require us to be a specific age; we just have to be in the right mindset. The world is full of sprightly and passionate people who realize they have a huge enthusiasm for something later in life and want to enjoy this passion. They know they’d have regrets if they didn’t, so they just start doing it.

    We tend to think that if someone is successful, it’s because they were born with a unique talent that we will be never able to develop.

    We try to escape introspection, avoid analyzing our resistances, and justify our lack of attempts and passive behavior by thinking that we’re not as lucky as the successful people we admire. That might look like self-defense, but that’s actually self-sabotage. We have to be brave enough to understand and overcome whatever is pulling us down.

    My negative self-talk was keeping me away from trying something new: I’m not talented. I will never learn how to play because I’m not able to recognize and sing the notes. I am not creative; I can’t make music.

    Those limiting thoughts, coming from my past experience of being verbally abused, had been with me for a very long time, and I was almost convinced that they were true. I never considered the possibility that they were just thoughts.

    At one point, I felt exhausted, my energy was drained, and I could not move forward.

    I started observing my inner dialogue as if I was a spectator and my thoughts were part of a movie, together with sounds and people that surrounded me. I imagined them coming and going, like trains in a station. I finally came to realize that they didn’t define me—my thoughts are part of me, that’s for sure, but they don’t define me. The difference is huge.

    Thanks to consistent practice, I became aware that my mind was tricking me. I was not less creative than others; I had just believed it was true.

    To live in the present moment is to really live.

    For many years, I struggled with anxiety and overthinking. My mind constantly wandered somewhere between my painful past and a scary future. Then I developed yoga and mindfulness practices, which helped me significantly. For the first time in my life, I was able to connect to my emotions and feel a peaceful relaxation of body and mind.

    But it was when I first experienced a strong sense of aliveness and a deep awareness of the present moment that I realized that my whole life I’d been living on autopilot.

    The first time this happened was during a jam session with my band. I was sweating, my hands were shaking, and my legs were tired, but my whole body was flooded with endorphins.

    I was feeling good, my mind was focused and not involved in that hectic monkey dance that kept it busy all the time. My movements were fluid, gentle, and meaningful. And, the most surprising thing of all, I was not thinking any thoughts!

    For a moment that could have lasted ten seconds, a minute, or even more, I felt eternal. I was not aware of time. I was simply living.

    Sometimes, this wonderful sensation comes in unexpected ways—I never thought I would achieve this enlightened state in the middle of a jam session, with loud noise all around me!

    This happened because my whole self wanted to be absorbed into the process of doing something it really resonated with.

    If you are feeling lost or purposeless, take some time to talk gently to yourself. Listen to your soul and explore your most genuine passions and desires so you can connect with them, start doing what you love, and experience this enlightened sensation.

    To me, this feeling is one of the things that make life worth living.

    Follow your intuition, and this will lead you to happiness.

    When I stepped into that rehearsal room, sat behind the drum kit, and started to play, I felt like I had been playing all my life.

    My desire had been pawing behind the surface for a long time. When I finally became conscious of it, I couldn’t wait a second more. I had to give myself permission to be creative.

    Playing music increased my self-confidence. I stopped comparing myself to others and began to get to know and love myself. We can’t express ourselves if we don’t know who we are. My raised inspiration led me to write more regularly, and with a higher purpose. My light started to shine so brightly and inspire the people around me.

    Being a drummer made me cherish everything done with love, passion, and effort.

    We all are unique, and the way to fully express ourselves is to open our hearts and souls and let creativity flow through our bodies.  

    It could be through music, poetry, painting… anything. Don’t limit your creative process. Expand yourself. Express yourself.

    If there’s something you want to do that you’ve postponed for a long time, don’t wait any longer. Don’t let the fear of failing and judgment define you. Negative self-talk is ego-driven. Don’t trust it. Dig down below the surface, listen to your primal instinct, and practice positive thinking.

    Be receptive, stay open to new experiences, and never say no to the opportunities that may develop your potential, as you never know which one could lead to an important turning point in your life.

    Trust your intuition and follow your heart, and everything will flow in the direction of your happiness.

  • When You Dance with Discomfort, Surprising Things Can Happen

    When You Dance with Discomfort, Surprising Things Can Happen

    “I wish for a world where everyone understands that discomfort is the price of legendary. And fear is just growth coming to get you.” ~Robin S. Sharma

    For years, I felt like the most incredible dancer. Whenever I heard music, no matter where I was, I would start moving, at first slowly and then, as the music started to infuse my soul, with increasing abandon. In that moment, I was filled with passion, and I completely let go. It was me and the music—no-one and nothing else. I was in another world.

    When I danced in front of others, I would take great delight and bask in all the applause showered upon me for sharing such a passionate performance. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Why would I? Dancing brought so much happiness into my life, and I felt free every time. That’s all I wanted: joy and freedom.

    But, no matter how many times I danced, it always ended in the same way: I would come crashing back down to earth with an almighty thud. You see, it wasn’t real. The dancing, the applause, the joy and freedom I felt; it was all a figment of my imagination. It had been going on for over five long years.

    The truth is, I wanted to dance not just in my head but for real. I wanted to take classes and learn to dance to the best of my ability, but I was too scared. I was scared of being ‘past it.’

    I believed that no-one my age took dance classes, or at the very least, only a few. And I didn’t like the idea of being the oldest in the class trying to keep up with the younger ones and only managing to look like some fool.

    But my desire to dance eventually overtook any fears I had. It’s as if the desire took on a life of its own, and the more I dreamt about dancing, the stronger my desire burned, until the point where it burned so strongly that it finally set my fear alight.

    And with my fear going up in flames, the ongoing thoughts that had such a hold on me weakened, and I found myself scanning websites for classes in my area. Finally, after all those years of being held back by fear, I booked myself onto a course. I was finally going to dance for real.

    I never expected to step into the studio and dance in the same way I danced in my head. I was a complete beginner after all. I certainly harbored a secret desire to pick up my chosen dance style effortlessly and without making barely any mistakes but of course, that didn’t happen.

    My perfectionist side reared its head often. I knew I had a long way to go and that I would make many mistakes but still, I wanted to dance properly, and I wanted instant gratification. My understanding that it would take time and my inner ‘Ms Perfection’ clashed greatly, but I kept going.

    Watching the other students in my class and falling into the comparison trap didn’t help. Even though it was a complete beginners’ class, everyone had different abilities. Some stumbled a lot, others seemed to pick everything up without having to think about it, or so it seemed, and still others looked as though they may have had some previous dance experience, perhaps in a different style.

    I would look at them and often wish I could be like them, but that was usually when I believed I wasn’t progressing quickly enough. That would lead to me becoming increasingly angry with myself and spoiling my own enjoyment of the very thing I had been wanting to do for years.

    The one thing I was relieved about the most, however, was not being the oldest, which happened only once and even then, it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would.

    So there I was, fully immersed in my weekly dance class and loving every moment, when I wasn’t getting frustrated with myself, and all I could think about was other classes I could join. I never for one second imagined that there would be a bonus to following my heart’s desire, and I never expected to want to push myself further.

    As for the final surprise before the year’s end, I never would have thought it could have been possible. I thought that was it; I busted through my dancing fear—or rather, my desire engulfed my fears on my behalf—and I was happy.

    The bonus came in the form of a clearer mind, which makes sense, considering that I no longer spent hours stuck in my head dancing and then constantly thinking and worrying about why I couldn’t do it for real.

    And then, because I felt the need to stretch myself a little further, a few months down the line, I found myself enrolled on a drama course. Me, taking drama classes. It was, in fact, a course for the more quiet person, so although it was a slightly adapted version of what you might consider a traditional drama class, I did it, and it was a big deal for me.

    But the biggest surprise was quitting refined sugar. I always had a slight sweet tooth, but after thirty days of being on a wheat-, grain-, dairy- and sugar-free program, I didn’t want to go back.

    I was proud of the fact that I managed thirty days without sugar and wanted to continue, even if it were simply to see how long I could keep going. And to this day, nearly four years later, I’m still added-sugar-free and don’t feel the need to change anything. All this, I believe, came from honoring my soul’s calling.

    Would I have taken a drama class if I had never initially taken dance classes? I don’t think so. Would I have started a thirty-day wheat-, grain-, dairy- and sugar-free programme and continued with my added-sugar-free life? I don’t believe so. Why? Because dancing led to me wanting to grow in other areas. I was already expressing myself through dance, so wanting to improve how I expressed myself verbally followed.

    Because I was feeling good about the exercise I was getting each week through dance, I wanted to focus on my health even more. It now scares me to think what would have happened had I not ‘got over myself.’ I would have remained stuck in my head, pretending.

    I would never have given drama classes a second thought, and I probably would have kept on eating more refined, sugary foods than I had wanted, experiencing the uncomfortable sugar highs and lows. I’m overjoyed that I allowed my desire to take over and help me to ignore my fears of taking dance classes. So here’s to following our soul’s calling and allowing it to enrich our lives.

  • Never Apologize for Being Too Much

    Never Apologize for Being Too Much

  • What to Do If You Want More Purpose, Passion, and Meaning

    What to Do If You Want More Purpose, Passion, and Meaning

    “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.” ~Joseph Campbell

    Do you ever feel like there’s got to be more to life? More purpose, passion, meaning—whatever your word of choice is?

    It’s happened to me twice. The first time was during the early years of my legal career, and the second time was just a few years ago (after battling an aggressive breast cancer).

    Each time I craved more meaning, yet these two experiences couldn’t have been more different.

    When it happened to me as a young lawyer, I didn’t know what to do.

    I’d wanted to be a lawyer since I was ten years old, and there was purpose behind the choices I’d made up to that point. Decisions that had gotten me where I was, such as:

    1. Majoring in economics (with a business minor) in college because I wanted to be a business lawyer, and
    2. Choosing corporate finance law because my ability to quickly see patterns and solutions was beneficial to structuring deals.

    In the early days of my career, I had a deep sense of fulfillment. But over a period of four years, that gradually changed.

    I didn’t realize how bad it was until the morning I stepped off the office elevator and suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. I was having a panic attack.

    I walked to my office, shut the door, and cried. That’s when I admitted to myself that I felt trapped in a purpose-less life that I’d worked hard to create.

    And that brought questions such as: How could I have once felt passionate about this life? Had I been wrong? If not, what had changed?

    After allowing my self-doubt to paralyze me from doing anything for a few months, I finally decided to do something about it.

    I wrote down a laundry list of things that I didn’t like about my life, which included:

    • Regularly working eighty-plus hours per week (for over a year)
    • Averaging only five hours of sleep per night
    • Feeling like I was easily replaceable and wasn’t making enough of an impact in the work I did
    • Not having spent meaningful time with friends in over a year
    • A wandering mind that was almost never present
    • Snapping at my husband (a lot!) for no real reason and being sour with peers who interrupted my work

    My list of woes was embarrassing, and I didn’t like who I was becoming. But it provided me with a roadmap for how to fix my problems. Moreover, it helped me recognize what purpose really is.

    Up until that point, I’d been looking externally for solutions and thought that I needed to find my true calling.

    The idea that purpose comes from one thing is a myth. And so is the idea that you find your purpose. You don’t find it; you create purpose in life by:

    • using your strengths to make an impact (in an enjoyable way),
    • aligning your life around your core values, and
    • having a sense of belonging.

    Let’s talk about what these mean and how I course corrected in each area.

    1. Utilizing your strengths to make an impact (in a way that’s enjoyable)

    Most people understand that purpose comes (at least partially) from making an impact. But there’s more to it than that.

    If you want to make an impact that’s meaningful, then you need to utilize your skills to the best of your ability (and that requires that you enjoy what you’re doing). That’s how you get and stay motivated.

    My problem was that I felt like my strengths weren’t being fully utilized in the work I was doing—and that I was stuck in the same role, stagnating.

    So, I asked to do more and sought out work from new people. Eventually, I changed firms to work in a different area of corporate finance that was better suited to my abilities.

    2. Aligning your life around your core values

    Core values are principles that make you uniquely you. They affect how you see the world around you and how you make decisions (even if you’re not consciously aware of it).

    When your life doesn’t align with your values, you’ll feel like something’s missing.

    One of the biggest reasons I was so unhappy was because I wasn’t living according to several of my core values. One of my values is family—not only was I not spending much time with them, but I wasn’t exactly present when I did.

    Another one of my values is to connect (which, for me, means connecting deeply with those around me and to stay connected with myself). My quest to do more and work harder make that almost impossible.

    I felt disconnected from family, friends, and peers alike. And my lack of sleep and high stress made it difficult to understand my own thoughts and emotions.

    To fix this, I first set work boundaries and reduced my workload.  Then, I prioritized self-care and time with family and friends.

    3. Feeling that you belong

    Having a sense of belonging is key to happiness. It brings meaning to your life.

    Belonging includes feeling needed, accepted, and loved. To have a sense of belonging requires active effort on your part. It requires that you seek to connect with other people that give you a sense of belonging.

    Unfortunately, the way in which we live often disconnects us from one another. We choose technology over in-person contact and hurry through life to get to the next thing.

    That’s what I had been doing. I was disconnected from those who had always understood me, and even worried that they wouldn’t understand what I was going through. But how could they when I rarely saw or talked to them?

    Luckily, this was fixable—the things I was already doing to better connect with family and friends helped to increase my sense of belonging. Plus, I rejoined organizations that I’d previously been too busy for (and missed).

    This experience gave me a blueprint to follow for life.

    One that helped me figure out why I craved more meaning in life after battling breast cancer (turns out that how I defined one of my core values—service—had changed). But the second time was different because I was confident that I could figure it out.

    It’s easy to get caught up in society’s expectations while climbing the ladder of success that’s set before you. Don’t let that happen, as you’ll likely lose yourself.

    Instead, use the blueprint above to help you create a life that’s meaningful to you.

  • Everything Seems to Be Falling Apart… Because It Is

    Everything Seems to Be Falling Apart… Because It Is

    “A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because its trust is not on the branch, but in its own wings. Always believe in yourself.”  ~Unknown

    If you’ve ever stopped and thought, “What the hell am I doing?” or “How did I end up here?” believe me when I tell you that you are one of many—including me.

    Feeling lost is stressful enough, but what about when we disappoint ourselves more than anyone around us? What do we do when we have no sense of direction or purpose, and dwindling confidence in ourselves?

    I haven’t yet figured it all out, but that’s just fine. That’s the point exactly, that we don’t have to figure it all out right now. You can be hurting and healing at the same time, they’re not mutually exclusive.

    I found myself in what would be one of the darkest moments of my life at the ripe age of twenty-five. My girlfriend of five years and I split up as I was planning to propose, an F4 tornado destroyed my hometown, and I quit a successful job in advertising all in a matter of months.

    The truth is, I wasn’t happy in my relationship (even though I told myself I was over the years and through a myriad of fights). I wasn’t truly happy in my career. And I was missing a lot from life in general.

    So I took a hard look at myself—twenty-five, single, jobless, and feeling empty. Not empty in the lonely sense of the word. Empty in that I would wake up in the middle of the night and not see her next to me. Empty in that all my peers were on life’s highway setting goals for themselves, breaking them, and setting new ones thereafter.

    Every opportunity that I had been afforded, I took advantage of and excelled in. But I never found that one thing that fueled the fire in my heart. I don’t think I ever discovered my passion. By twenty-five, surely I must have been getting close, right?

    Many of my friends knew exactly what they wanted to do from a young age. Deep down, I envied that. To know my purpose was what I longed for. So why was I not one of those that automatically knew?

    I don’t yet have that answer, as you might’ve intuited, but I have found two things to be true thus far:

    1. Yes, some people know what they want early in life. But they are the exceptions to the rule.

    Many successful people we know today found success later in life. Stan Lee started the Marvel Universe at thirty-nine, Charles Darwin wrote On the Origin of the Species at fifty, and Grandma Moses began painting at seventy-eight years old.

    Then there are the countless people you’ve never heard of—and probably never will—who found meaning and passion later in life, or found it, lost it, then found it again.

    2. Maybe we are meant to do more than one thing.

    It’s our understanding of success that helps us define when we’ve reached it. Rather than think of success as one destination, we can choose to see it as the car ride from spot to spot, each equally exciting.

    So how do you recover when you feel as though life took you, chewed you up, and spit you back out? You don’t… at least not really.

    I stumbled upon a great quote a few days ago that read, “When people say recovery, you typically think of returning to how you were before. But there is no going back. You do not merely recover, but reinvent yourself. You become something completely different from what you were before.”

    I read that over and over until I felt the wisdom shiver itself into my bones.

    Many times we take a step back from situations to recover, when in fact what we may need to do is reinvent ourselves if we can no longer return to what we used to be.

    It’s not a negative thing, to reinvent who you are. In fact, it’s one of the most liberating experiences you will ever have. You just have to let yourself.

    If you’re anything like me, you are your own biggest critic. And although this can help us keep ourselves accountable, it can prevent us from broadening our horizons. We internally set limits for ourselves based on past experiences, thinking that we can only go as far as we’ve already been. When you learn to let go of the things that no longer serve your purpose but only hinder you, then can you truly soar.

    Let yourself gain new talents and explore new things outside of your comfort zone.

    Sometimes it’s important to let go of the oars and simply float the river. So often we try and paddle upstream when in reality we’d be better off letting the river guide us downstream, to where we haven’t been before.

    Think back to every missed opportunity that you were disappointed with. Many (if not all) of those so called missed opportunities were actually guideposts. Even the accomplishments that didn’t last served their purpose. They were not meant to last, they were only meant to change you.

    What if I would’ve gotten married? I would have never had the opportunity I have right now to move away to Colorado and explore new horizons.

    What if that Tornado wouldn’t have hit my hometown? I used that as a chance to rebuild my home from the ground up, when I wanted to remodel anyway.

    And if I had stayed in the security of advertising? Sure, things would be financially stable, but instead I chose to finally pursue my passion for teaching.

    So yes, every single experience in life is an opportunity for growth, whether it lasts forever or not.

    I had a baseball coach in high school who would always say, “We learn more from the games we lose than the ones we win.” I carry that with me to this day. Maybe it’s because we analyze more when we lose, or maybe it’s because it forces us to change our game plan for next time. But trust that next time, you’re starting from experience, not from zero.

    So trust that when everything seems to be falling apart, new things are coming together. But you have to be open to embrace them. Simply float the river. The point of life is not in the destination, it is in the journey. But we are led to believe that life is serious and that it must be leading us to some grand destination.

    I’ve found that life is more like a dance. No dancer points to a spot on the dance floor and says, “That’s where I must end up at.” The whole point of the dance is the dance.

    So I’ll leave you with three things that I’ve found help me on this journey I find myself on:

    1. Name three good things about your day.

    At the end of each day, speak aloud three good things that happened. They don’t have to be grand, just the little wins we often overlook. I helped my friends move, I beat my time in the mile, etc. These help remind me that in the middle of the storm, there are still accomplishments in the day and things to be thankful for. That, in turn, can change your mood and set the tone for tomorrow.

    2. Exercise and eat healthy.

    How you feel is tied closely to the food you consume. Make it a point to eat healthier and to exercise. This won’t only improve your mood, but also your self-confidence and overall health.

    I’ve found that whenever life throws challenges at me, one constant that I can count on is the gym. When I’m working out, nothing outside of those four walls matters. It’s my escape, if you will.

    3. Keep a journal.

    Although life is about the journey, having a sense of direction can anchor us when we’re feeling lost.

    Write down what you want (out of your next relationship, out of life, etc.). Jot down your thoughts, fears, and feelings as you sit with uncertainty and find a way forward. Journaling is cathartic and can help ease much of the pain. It can also help you feel a sense of progress. One of my favorite things to do is to look back on old entries, which can help me see how far I’ve come.

    So no, this isn’t the end for you. You will survive and you will look back one day and be so proud of yourself for doing what you thought to be impossible. How do I know? Because if you’re reading this, you still believe in yourself. You still have hope that there are exciting new chapters left to be written, even if you don’t yet know what to do, or how.

    As I stated at the beginning, I don’t have it all figured out just yet, but that’s okay. I don’t know where this journey will lead me, but I know it will be exciting and filled with adventure. And in the process, I hope that you too, will find whatever is it that fuels that fire in your heart. Don’t give up, don’t give in.

    So yes, ultimately everything seems to be falling apart, but I’m finally starting to see that it’s because something better is coming together. Trust your journey, and even if the branch breaks when you sit on it, your wings will help you soar to new heights.

  • How I Found Hope and Inspiration After Years of Quiet Desperation

    How I Found Hope and Inspiration After Years of Quiet Desperation

    “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” ~Henry David Thoreau

    How many years do we live with a sense of quiet desperation, faking the connection we have with ourselves? Why do we deny ourselves authentic living and exchange our time for mindless living?

    Over the years, life silently and slowly eroded my identity away. By the time my son was twelve years old, I’d completely lost touch with reality. I was always busy trying to be everyone’s hero and creating this perfect little world around me. While juggling the responsibilities of being a wife and mother, I’d lost my individuality.

    Life had brought me to unchartered territory, a place I had never been before. I could no longer silence the cries of my quiet desperation, the yearning to break free from what everyone wanted me to be.

    The weight of being a perfect mother—having laundry done and feeding my family home cooked meals daily—seemed more than impossible. The goal of being an amazing wife was like climbing Mount Everest; I had no energy left when it came to my husband. Because I’d excelled in my career, they thought I could handle more, so they’d doubled my workload.

    I was suffering. The despair was a disease I learned to live with every day, but this day was different. The pain of my confusion and mental starvation was agonizing.

    I found myself on my knees having a mental breakdown.

    I can still feel the tenderness of my hands after I spent almost two hours pounding my kitchen floor, screaming at the top of my lungs, “I can’t do this anymore!” I was shaking uncontrollably from the anger I could no longer suppress. It was a long and painful journey down to the bottom of my soul.

    My tears seemed never-ending. I could barely breathe as my emotions began smothering the little air I could take in. I felt like I was drowning, being suffocated at my own will..

    My mind wandered to thoughts of suicide. My brain fantasized about not having to make decisions, meet deadlines, or deal with the uncertainty of life. I pondered if I could really take my life as an answer to my silent depression.

    I could not calm myself down. I could barely even open my eyes enough to see my hands beginning to swell from the pain of hitting the floor. I felt my husband physically lift my body off the floor, but my soul remained lying there.

    The decades of living in quiet desperation had surfaced.

    I was a shell of a woman whose soul had left her years ago. I had abandoned all my internal needs—time alone, boundaries at work, and space to reconnect with my writing.

    My exhaustion had left me paralyzed. My eyes were dark and my heart was empty of any spirit or ambition. The beautiful glow I once possessed seemed non-existent. The only things visible were fatigue and hopelessness.

    My husband cradled me in his arms, gently stroking my hair while telling me, “It’s going to be okay.” I didn’t believe him. Instead, I worried about the time I was wasting crying when I could have been checking things off my to-do list.

    In that moment, as I wept like a child in my husband’s arms, I realized the root of my suffering.

    There was no major catastrophe in our home or tragic event. I was simply tired of holding it all together and figuring it all out, every day. I was living life in constant “ready” mode, like a soldier in war.

    I had to be ready for tomorrow, prepare for next week, and be on guard for next month. As a responsible mother and wife, I was always trying to get ahead of the schedule by meal prepping, doing laundry for the following week, paying bills early, and preparing for any hiccup that might come up.

    I was serious all the time. I remember my boss describing me as intense, which bothered me at the time, but now I understand. I saw every action as proof of my success or failure; each gauged whether I was excelling or being lazy.

    I never took the time to feel the present moment because I was so worried about the next one. I never truly connected to what was going on within me because the future always mattered more than the present.

    I spent decades “preparing.” To-do-lists, goals, and deadlines spun a web around me until I was fully cocooned, unable to breathe.

    On this particular day, the air had run out and I was gasping for a few more breaths. I had two choices: ask for help or die trying. Either way, something had to give.

    I could no longer live this way, in a hamster wheel of predictability and repetition. I was a robot on autopilot doing the mundane tasks that filled up time slots on a weekly planner. There was no connection within me, just a hodgepodge of work, errands, a few holidays, and parenting.

    After this breakdown, I spent life in a fog, unable to answer my own questions. I was sick inside and had been silently bleeding for years. I needed to heal. I made the decision to take the time I needed for my own recovery. The first step in returning to my soul was to put myself first.

    As I plunged into the depth of my inner self, many things became clear. The carefully spun web of my former life began to shed, and I began exploring new ways of living.

    These five things saved me, healed me, and put me back on a path to authentic and balanced living.

    Just stop.

    Stop everything. The running, rushing, hustling, and moving. Just stop it all. Time will not stand still until you make a choice to break the routine.

    I never took the time to be in the moment because I was always rushing to the next destination and looking to check off the next box on my to-do list. I was running in an eternal mental marathon with no real winner. I was trading the beauty of life for mundane tasks without ever stopping to smell the roses.

    I had to stop the mindless living at all cost. This was the first step in reclaiming my power. It was the first call to action that I demanded of myself. If I did not practice controlling what I did with my time, I would never be able to rescue my soul.

    Cultivate passion.

    My soul constantly yearns to be in harmony with my mind and heart. These three facets of my identity are vital, crucial to my well-being. When they are uncoordinated, exhaustion easily seeps in along with negative thinking and fear. I become an easy target, not anchored or stable.

    My weapon against uncertainty is my passion for writing. When I don’t cultivate that which makes my soul sing, I die a little each day.

    We all have something we do that causes us to lose all sense of time. You cannot ignore this innate ability or talent. It’s simply part of you. Take the time to find it, reconnect with it, and cultivate a relationship with it. It’s your eternal escape. It’s your ace in your back pocket, the answer to most of your confusion. You will find many of your answers when you connect and unite your soul, mind, and heart together.

    Rest your soul.

    Let’s face it, there will be very demanding days where you are juggling many things. The flow of life can get complicated at times, but in order to regain your center, you must take time for your soul to rest and recharge, without any guilt. You wouldn’t run your car twenty-four hours a day thinking it can do more by staying powered on. Everything and everyone needs downtime.

    I used to wrestle with the idea of downtime and often confused it with laziness. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Resting is the most efficient way to keep your spirit aligned. Don’t try to be a hero and neglect your own needs as a human being. Oddly enough, the better care you take care of yourself, the better you are to others.

    Seek connection, not perfection.

    My need for perfection was insatiable. I used to label it as my Type A personality, my overachiever tendency, or the fact that I simply wanted the best of everything.

    This way of thinking often led me to isolation, anxiety, and a heighted sense of depression. However, in my vulnerable state of lying on my kitchen floor having a breakdown, I didn’t have the strength to hold the wall up anymore. The wall that separated me from having true friendships and connections had to come down. It just wasn’t worth the effort of trying to make everything look perfect when it really wasn’t.

    I didn’t need perfection to gain happiness; I needed the connection and the closeness that only real relationships bring. So I exchanged the pursuit of perfectness for the ability to be vulnerable with others. It was finally okay for me to say, “I am a hot mess, and I don’t have a clue how to put myself back together.”

    Allow inspiration to emerge.

    Denying the fact that I was living under a cloak of desperation led me to a higher realization about life. Sometimes in the lowest points of our lives, when all seems to be falling apart, life is actually falling into place.

    When the walls are caving in, the air is getting scarce, and you can feel the weight of suffocation, something happens. Your pain transforms, your agony evolves into something bigger, and you realize that a new you is about to emerge.

    My desperation was the pathway for me to rediscover my inspiration. The dark valley I found myself in led me to higher grounds. I don’t push away the struggles or hide from hard times. Instead, I remain patient, allowing the pain to bring forth a new chapter in my life. Sometimes you need to take a few steps back in order to take giant leaps forward.

    Today, I live from a connected heart space, one that is fully aware and conscious of the energy I hold within me.

    Today, I seek to stay centered. It is here I feel most alive and the happiest.

    Today, I can thank the years of desperation I lived, for I am now on the path to living the best version of myself.

  • How to Live a Life You Love (Even If Others Doubt You)

    How to Live a Life You Love (Even If Others Doubt You)

    “Not all those who wander are lost.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien

    I will always remember those words.

    I had just decided to ditch my old life. Instead of pursuing a cushy career as a lawyer, I wanted to create a business as a freelance writer because it felt like a fulfilling thing to do.

    “You’ll never make it work. You’ll regret your decision,” a loved one told me.

    Those words pushed my buttons. I felt scared.

    What if I would regret it?

    Was I stupid, even delusional, for thinking there was an alternative to living a pre-planned life with a secure nine-to-five and a mortgage?

    Maybe I did think too much of myself, my abilities, and my potential? Maybe I was setting myself up for disaster?

    How to Find the Courage to Live a Life You Love

    Doubt is everywhere, isn’t it?

    People around you expect you to live your life in a certain way.

    Go to a good school, get a job that pays a comfortable salary, buy a house…

    And if you don’t? If you break the norm and live life differently? Whether that’s driving around the country in an RV, becoming a full-time yoga teacher in the Himalayas, or starting a passion project…

    Let’s put it this way. You will see a lot of raised eyebrows and hear a lot of surprised questions and doubtful side-remarks.

    I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Comments like:

    “Why would you want anything other than what you already have? Don’t be so ungrateful.”

    “There is no way that will work out.”

    “Are you sure this is the best thing to do? Wouldn’t it be better to just stick to where you are now and see how it pans out?”

    The problem with constantly being questioned by everyone around you?

    Well, let’s take me as an example. When I heard those doubtful words (and many like them), I took them to heart.

    I subconsciously started believing them and created what in psychology is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you believe something about yourself, that influences what you do and, consequently, your results.

    For example, if you internalize what others say about your choices, you won’t believe you can succeed. And that means you won’t, because you’ll never even get started.

    But here is the good news:

    You can get past all that doubt. You can find the courage you have within you to not only take a step forward but also to live life fully without looking back. Here’s how:

    1. Find positive examples around you.

    Think about someone who has succeeded at what you want to do—someone with a similar background, resources, skills, etc., or even fewer advantages.

    If they have succeeded, why couldn’t you?

    Let me tell you a secret (shh, no one else will know!):

    If someone else has done it, you likely can, too.

    I realized this early on.

    While, yes, the people around you might not understand how you can succeed, it’s enough that you do.

    This was a tool I used to stay confident and focused whenever someone told me (or hinted) that I should give up on my dream.

    I sought out and thought about people who had already made it happen.

    People who weren’t so different from me.

    If they could do it, I could, too.

    2. Send love and light to everyone around you.

    In Eat, Pray, Love, Liz Gilbert gets the following advice to get over David, her ex:

    “Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it.”

    One of the biggest insights I had was that people don’t doubt us because they want to hurt us.

    No. Instead, they’re probably concerned about us.

    After all, if all their life they have only seen one thing work, it’s hard to see past anything but that way of life.

    Or maybe they’re projecting their own fears and insecurities on us.

    The thing is:

    We love security above almost anything else.

    If you defy that security, it makes you odd.

    So when they doubt you, it tells you nothing about your own abilities, but everything about their own fears and insecurities.

    However, their words can have a purpose. Maybe it’s to shatter your ego a bit so that you can come out of it stronger. Or it’s to give you a few bumps along the way so that you won’t get comfortable and take things for granted.

    Whatever it is, use the advice that helped Liz live in peace to get past their words.

    Send them love and light, then drop it.

    3. Words don’t define you. You do.

    Here’s the thing:

    Other people’s words define you only if you let them.

    At the end of the day, you create your own reality.

    Words are just words. You might say someone is “too straightforward,” but someone else might be appreciative of that person’s honesty.

    I can’t tell how much this helped me move past all the doubt.

    Yes, there were people expressing their subjective reality.

    But it didn’t have to be mine.

    I realized that I get to define who I am and what I’m capable of. And so do you.

    For example, if someone told you that you are “too emotional,” that doesn’t mean that you are too emotional or that being emotional is even a bad thing. That’s just their perception based on their unique set of beliefs, experiences, and projections.

    So how do you remind yourself of what a miracle worker you are?

    Write down all the things you appreciate about yourself. They could be qualities you like or nice things others have said about you.

    Every morning, look at that list.

    Someone that awesome has a high chance of succeeding with whatever they choose to do, right? Or at the very least, that person will learn, grow, and have one hell of an adventure.

    4. Become that supportive person you want in your life.

    If you’ve been allowing doubters to hold you back, it’s time to start letting supportive people into your life.

    People who cheer you on and make you believe you can do everything you want to do, and more.

    Well, it can all start with you.

    When I started offering encouraging words to others, I began attracting people who gave appreciation back.

    The most striking example was when I emailed someone whose writing I had found online and enjoyed. I told her how much I appreciated it. She wrote me back and thanked me… and we’ve been friends ever since! Not only that, but she’s had an incredibly positive impact on my life by being extremely supportive and encouraging.

    That’s it. These four steps helped me get past doubt, find my courage, and live life as I want to live it.

    Today I’m able to work and live anywhere and live a flexible and (in my definition) free life. I couldn’t be happier that I stuck with my decision.

    What’s that one thing you’re keeping yourself from doing?

    Practice these new mindset shifts daily. Soon enough, you will find that courage you have within you to live life exactly the way you want to live it.

  • It’s Not Selfish to Want to Thrive, and I Now Know I Deserve It

    It’s Not Selfish to Want to Thrive, and I Now Know I Deserve It

    “To create more positive results in your life, replace ‘if only’ with ‘next time.” ~Celestine Chua

    I’m twenty-nine-and-a-half and I’ve finally committed to pursuing my dreams of becoming a singer/musician/songwriter, actress, and screenwriter.

    But most importantly, I finally feel allowed to live the life I want to live.

    I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression on and off since I was fifteen. My coping mechanism always looked the same: isolating myself in my room, listening to music, and making up stories or music videos to go along with songs. I loved to refine these little scenes, repeating the songs over and over again for hours.

    Sometimes, the highlight of my day was when I got to go back to my room and listen to that song again—when I got to go back into my dream world.

    I didn’t realize then how much I preferred this dream world to my own reality. I’d become disengaged from my friends and family. All I wanted was to go home to my imagination.

    Recently, I learned of the term “maladaptive daydreaming,” a mental condition in which a person is in a state of intense daydreaming that distracts them from their actual life. Some say this condition has roots in OCD and ADHD/ADD.

    I’m still unable to confirm if I had this or not. But I do know that daydreaming was a coping mechanism I was heavily dependent on to keep my mood up. Because otherwise, my reality always depressed me.

    I had dreams of singing on stage, writing insightful scenes, and creating beautiful films. But it all seemed too selfish. Like I shouldn’t feel allowed to “indulge” in my fantasies. Also, it felt self-centered. How dare I want to be the center of attention?

    When I finally woke up and got tired of my daydream state, I instantly regretted how much time I had “wasted.”

    I would try, obsessively, to make up for this time by scheduling productive activities in my planner. They were reasonable, too: Exercise for just thirty minutes. Read just ten pages of that book you’ve had on your shelf for three months. But no matter what activity I tried to start, I always ended up back in my comfort zone: my dream world.

    At first, it was just hours at a time that I lost when I had originally wanted to do my homework. Then it was weekends when I had planned to start a new hobby. And then weeks, months, and years passed. I mostly existed in my daydreams. Reality was just that other thing I had to do during the day.

    Somehow, I still managed to maintain a somewhat normal-looking life on the outside. I actually worked great jobs in marketing and nonprofit, exercised a lot, and generally stayed healthy. I took quite good care of myself. Most of my reality wasn’t too hard. But I still didn’t love it.

    I only did what made me appear “together” and “secure.” I didn’t live passionately.

    When I was around twenty-six, I finally took a first step toward what I really wanted to do by signing up for singing and acting lessons and starting to learn screenwriting. However, I was still holding back. Why? I still didn’t feel like I deserved it. It still seemed selfish.

    Also, people made me anxious. I grew up in an Asian household where gaslighting was the cultural norm, so I was extremely sensitive. I hated being teased and felt fake whenever I hung out with my friends. I didn’t like engaging socially or presently for too long because I felt like I was losing myself.

    Only later did I realize that many other people were like this. But back then, trying to find solace in anything outside of my dream world just didn’t feel safe. I preferred to daydream a life where people were easier to digest.

    At about twenty-eight, I started to get weird digestive issues. It started with gastritis, a condition in which the stomach is inflamed. It didn’t seem too bad and I thought it’d go away after taking medication. Then came the kicker, the persistent fireball that demanded I pay attention to it: acid reflux.

    If you’ve experienced chronic acid reflux, you know the struggle. Doctors can’t seem to find a consensus as to the best cure.

    I cut down on spicy foods, acidic foods, the usual suspects. This barely seemed to help. Everything seemed to trigger it. I was freaking out every other night before I went to sleep. What if this never stops? How much damage has this done to my throat? Will I eventually get throat cancer?

    And the hardest question I had to face: Will this damage my vocal cords? Will this deter my singing?

    I had been taking voice lessons, as I was told I had a lovely singing voice, and I was doing well, but I shied away from performances.

    Now that there was a risk of not singing to my full capacity, I finally wanted to pursue my true potential. I couldn’t just dream it anymore. I had to take action, while I had the chance

    For about a year, I pushed my doctor, nutritionist, GI doctor—anyone who could find a cure—to help me. They kept treating me like I was stupid. I was simply anxious. That’s all, right? They kept telling me it was just stress, but the condition worsened.

    I then developed a bacterial issue in my small intestine as a result of the medication that was supposed to help stop my acid reflux. Then I found out that my gallbladder wasn’t working properly.

    I was furious. I cried to my parents every night. I was terrified to eat anything. In addition to avoiding acidic foods, I cut out gluten, dairy, and foods that would give me bloating (which was, well, quite a bit). I basically had a panic attack every time I ate.

    Was this punishment? Was this really all a result of the anxiety that had festered and grown after years of running away from life to my dream world? Had I neglected myself?

    Then came my twenty-ninth birthday. I hated my birthdays. They were just another marker of another year I had wasted not living fully. But I decided then that this year would be different.

    So, I made my plans again. And of course I had false starts and re-starts, but I’ve kept at it. I went to therapy. I took acting classes and humiliated myself (in a good way). I signed up for a singing showcase. My singing voice, despite the bit of damage done so far, has sounded better than it ever has before. And I’m starting to make friends I feel comfortable with.

    It was alarmingly apparent that my doctors weren’t treating me right, so I began telling them off, realizing in the process that I was fighting for my best reality. I was demanding to feel deserving.

    I now know I don’t just deserve to live healthy; I deserve a life where I thrive. It is not selfish. It is vital to one’s well being.

     I’m now working with an integrative health doctor who has recommended natural remedies and all but entirely cured my health problems. I also credit myself for a large portion of that. I do daydream still, but now I utilize it as a motivator for my creativity instead of retreating into my mind as a way to avoid life.

    I’m grateful for all forms of my existence—from my imagination that has the beautiful capacity for daydreams, to my physical body that does everything it can to heal itself.

    I often wonder, though, why did it have to take a threat to my vocal cords for me to finally start singing? And why did I have to become sick before I could appreciate my body’s capabilities and start taking care of it?

    Maybe I had to be shaken awake from my daydreams before I could start living fully and making my dreams a reality. I had to learn it the hard way, but I now know this to be true: We all not only deserve to thrive, we need to thrive in order to be our best, healthiest selves—but only we can make it happen. And it starts with believing we’re worthy and pushing ourselves to take a chance.

  • When You’ve Lost Your Passion for That Thing You Once Loved

    When You’ve Lost Your Passion for That Thing You Once Loved

    “Do it with passion or not at all.” ~Rosa Couchette Carey

    If you’ve ever had a passion for something, you are probably well aware of the peaks and valleys that are natural side effects of pursuing the thing you love most.

    Whether it’s music, writing, sports, fitness, or anything else, sometimes you lose sleep because the thing you love keeps you up all night, and some days you just feel tired and uninspired. There are ebbs and flows in following your passion, which is completely natural and healthy.

    But what happens when the “valleys” stay valleys? Maybe you have a few days when you don’t feel excited. When the thing you once loved feels more like a job than something you look forward to doing. Then, maybe those few days turn into a couple of weeks. Maybe even a couple of months.

    As time passes, you start feeling sad and frustrated. The activity (hobby, career) that once was a burning fire in your heart no longer is. You may even begin to feel guilty for not feeling love for that thing anymore. After all, you did love that thing before. Nothing about it has changed.

    You may become frustrated with yourself, wondering what’s wrong with you for not feeling excited about something that brought you so much joy in the past.

    What began as a strong, bright, and hopeful fire is now a much smaller flame. You try to fan the flame, attempting to make it bigger and trying harder to bring it back to its former glory. But you end up becoming more and more tired as it becomes clearer that the fire is dying. 

    Some passions become a part of who you are. They become etched into your being, your identity, and your sense of self. So once that passion fades, a moment of panic may set in. You may feel anxiety or deep depression at the thought of no longer doing that thing that once defined you.

    As a professional dance instructor, I’m thankful to say that I have been able to turn the thing I love into a career. However, I went through my own peaks and valleys in dance.

    My personal dance journey has gone something like this:

    Walk into a ballroom dance studio one night. No dance experience or intention of becoming a dancer whatsoever. Attend the social anyway, just for fun.

    Dance with one of the dance hosts. Dance with others. Dance the night away. Feel happy and inspired. Fall in love with whatever this new feeling is.

    Sign up that night to take ballroom dance lessons. Train in dance for five years. For those five years, forgo everything else that regular early twenty-somethings do to focus solely on my passion.

    Leave my old studio to accept a teaching opportunity at a new studio. Begin making a living doing the thing I love.

    At this point, I feel happy. I don’t feel the burning passion that I felt when I was training and dancing just for myself and my own enjoyment. But it’s okay. I feel satisfaction in knowing that I am helping others to feel that same passion, which gives me a sense of fulfillment.

    I continue teaching at that studio for two years. Little by little, I begin feeling drained. I convince myself that it’s “natural” to feel drained all the time, that it’s just part of the job.

    Coworkers tell me that it’s “not supposed to be fun.” I try to find humor in it. I continue teaching. Slowly, I no longer enjoy it. I no longer want to dance. I no longer feel good about teaching others how to love dance when my love for it isn’t genuine.

    One night, fate steps in. I visit another studio to dance socially, just for fun. Just for myself.

    I feel renewed energy. I see dancers who are much better than I am. I feel humbled and challenged.

    I decide to start working here. Initially, it gives me a new feeling of hope and excitement. However, just like anything else, passion needs to be sustained from the inside—if it comes from outside factors, it can only last so long. Which is exactly what happens.

    Just like before, I begin to feel slowly uninspired. I long to feel something. But I don’t understand why I don’t. I feel sad. However, this time, I don’t deny it or fight it. I realize that I need to do some inner work. I need to figure out whether I should hold on or let go.

    When passion fades, it can be a very difficult thing to accept. It might seem almost impossible to take a step back from that former passion. You may feel a loss of identity and wonder who you are without it, regardless of whether or not it inspires you anymore.

    But from personal experience, I can say that stepping back, even just temporarily, is one of the best remedies. When something you once loved leaves you feeling bored, stressed, or uninspired, it’s often a clear signal that some inner work and reevaluation need to take place.

    Don’t be afraid of your gut feeling. When something no longer brings you the joy it once did, it’s often the soul’s way of saying, “It is time to take a break.” 

    For those of you who become so emotionally and spiritually intertwined with the people, places, and activities you love most that the very thought of taking a couple of steps back sends you into an identity crisis, I am here to say that I understand. I know the discomfort.

    But your soul knows better. Your innermost self knows when it’s time to create a little space.

    And here’s the good news: By giving the thing you loved some space, you are allowing one of two things to happen:

    One: You are giving yourself time to recharge and recover. Sometimes, this is all you need. You may have simply needed a little time off to get inspired again, and you may return back to that passion at a later time with inspiration, energy, and clarity.

    Or two: If you don’t return back to your first passion, you are creating room for a new joy to eventually take its place. You’re giving yourself the opportunity to explore other hobbies and interests. And if you don’t find the “new thing” right away, don’t panic! You will. Your heart knows. It may take time, but you will be guided, once again, to that new thing.

    For me, it turned out that I needed to take a different approach to my dancing.

    For one thing, I needed to focus on my strengths as a dancer and dance teacher rather than compare myself to those around me. Comparison had left me with feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, which, in turn, made me not feel much motivation for dancing in general. I realized that I felt much happier when I focused on my strengths, as well as my own growth and progress.

    Secondly, I realized that I needed to spend more time dancing for myself. Not teaching group classes or private lessons. Not hostessing. Just going out and dancing. When I danced for myself, I felt joy again. I felt full of passion and purpose.

    This led me to realize an important lesson: You can only give as much love to something as what you currently have inside of you. If you don’t feel happy on the inside, how can you expect to make others feel happy and excited?

    Self-care and balance are essential elements in pursuing anything that you love.

    So if your passion is currently causing you to feel burnt out, tired, or stressed, don’t be afraid to give it some space. Don’t feel afraid to take a few steps back, breathe, and focus on something else for a little bit. Everything will be okay.

    By letting go, you are allowing the universe to work its magic and fill that void—either with renewed love and energy or with a new passion that you would’ve never imagined.

  • Create a Little Bit of Bliss Every Day

    Create a Little Bit of Bliss Every Day

    “Follow your bliss and let the magic of life happen.” ~Janelle Jalbert

    Is there something you always wanted to do as a child, and for whatever reason didn’t do? Is there something that you have wanted to do for years? Perhaps it is something that didn’t seem practical. Maybe you felt you wouldn’t be very good at it or you didn’t have the time or the money.

    You can ignore the urging, submerge it, and choose not to follow through on it. But it will show up again and again, and sometimes in the oddest places. For me it was in the toy aisle at a local department store.

    Here’s what happened.

    My husband and I walked into a popular department store, looking for the toy and game shelves. We wanted a board game we could play with our young grandchildren. I assume there was some kind of bland elevator music playing, but I didn’t notice it until it changed to an upbeat dance tune.

    The beat caught my attention, and my feet, seemingly of their own accord, started to move to the rhythm. A minute later they started to tap dance.

    As a child I wanted to learn to tap dance, but for some reason I never expressed that desire. Perhaps I was afraid of looking big and heavy in a dance costume, or feeling awkward on my feet. Whatever the reason, I never told my mother, I never took lessons.

    The desire to tap dance stayed with me, most times submerged beneath school, friends and family. As a teenager I learned one tap step from a friend, Shuffle Off to Buffalo, and enjoyed shuffling and tapping just for fun.

    That’s as far as I went with it. There was always too much else to do. Besides, what would I do with it even if I learned how to tap dance?

    Fast forward through fifty years and there I was in the toy aisle, tapping and shuffling my feet. My husband, tolerant man that he is, just smiled at me. But my feet surprised me that day.

    I’d love to be the kind of person who can just break out in song and dance and not worry about what other people think of me. I’m not. For me to dance in the aisles of a department store is unusual.

    Add to that the fact that I’m a sixty-four-year-old grandmother with an arthritic knee and ankle. I danced anyway and laughed at myself.

    Back home again I went to the kitchen to prepare dinner. My husband sat at the counter reading a magazine. He said something to me and I looked over at him. The words “Take a Chance—Dance” headlined the page I saw in his hand in bold letters.

    Okay, I thought, perhaps my feet and the Universe are telling me something.

    “Bliss is doing that which fulfills you. Action that touches you deeply and fully. Bliss is active. Bliss is…following your dreams, desires, or heart.” ~Angie Karan

    The next day I searched out a how-to tap dance video on my computer. I was delighted to discover a number of them specifically designed for absolute beginners.

    I chose one, set the computer up where I could see it on the dining room table, and learned the first basic steps of tap dancing, shuffling and tapping around my dining room floor in my sandals.

    My inner child was ecstatic. I smiled and laughed, stamped, shuffled, and tapped.

    My husband walked in, no doubt wondering what all the stomping was about. “I’m learning how to tap dance!” I beamed. He smiled, shook his head, and left the room. I kept at it.

    The emotional lift I felt from just those few minutes learning dance steps stayed with me all day. I smiled whenever I thought of it.

    Our bliss may come in small packages. It may look like a subtle urging that has been with you since you were a child.

    It may not be your life purpose, or even life changing. It may simply be something that allows you to express the childlike happiness that is within you. Something that many adults have forgotten is there.

    I have no idea what learning to tap dance is going to do for me, or where it will take me. I do know that it is time for me to allow the desire that has been within me for years to express.

    These longings stay with us for a reason. It is our soul talking to us through the language of our desires.

    Why does my soul want me to tap dance? I don’t know. I do know that it’s fun and good exercise, and that’s enough for now.

    What is your soul telling you? Let’s find out with a simple exercise.

    Gather paper and pen and give yourself a few minutes of quiet time.

    At the top of your paper write, “When I was a child, I loved to…”

    Complete the sentence with a list of the things you loved to do as a child.

    Now write, “When I was a child, I always wanted to…”

    Complete the sentence with the things you wanted to do as a child but didn’t or weren’t able to do.

    How many of these activities are part of your life today?

    If your favorite thing to do as a child was to create models of rockets with plastic blocks, how are you expressing your love of creative construction in your life today?

    What if you always wanted to go horseback riding as a child but only got to go once, and that love of horses is still with you? Could you sign up for horseback riding lessons today?

    Perhaps you tell yourself you don’t have time or money for pursuits that are just for fun. Perhaps you tell yourself that you’ll get to that later. But if not now, then when?

    Life zips by us while we are busy doing, doing, doing. Allow yourself to enjoy the journey. Listen to the urgings you feel inside. Don’t wait for some time in the future when you’ll have more time, money, or more accomplished. Do what you can to live a little bit of your bliss each day.

    Now, if you’ll just excuse me, I have to Shuffle Off to Buffalo.

  • How to Reach Your Goal (And Why Three People Showing Up Isn’t Failure)

    How to Reach Your Goal (And Why Three People Showing Up Isn’t Failure)

    “If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you believe it won’t, you will see obstacles.” ~Wayne Dyer

    I’ve been part of a social meet-up group for the past few years, one that’s helped me through tricky times like quitting my job, dealing with anxiety, and having my first baby. When I first joined the group, there were three people who attended the events. (Yes, you read that correctly—three people!)

    There were lots of people in the group itself, but only three of us would regularly attend monthly events. It meant that if one of us couldn’t make the meet-up, we would have to cancel the whole thing (or it would be a rather intimate evening).

    And yet, in the last year, the monthly attendance has quadrupled. (Admittedly, that only takes us to twelve people… but that’s still a 300% increase!)

    Not bad in a year (and anyone who’s organized an event knows how hard it can be to get people to actually show up). And we’re talking twelve “regulars”—people who love the meet-ups, and who come back time and time again, enthusiastic and inspired.

    Plus, our attendance is still growing, and interest is mounting. Who knows where we’ll be in a year’s time!

    As we tested out ways to increase our numbers, I realized that the lessons I was learning could be applied to life—not just to meet-up groups. I started using them in my own life, with great benefit.

    I realized that anyone going after a goal or project could use these strategies (and most of us are going after a goal, in some form or other).

    So here are five lessons I learned about getting what you want, as taught to me by our small (but ambitious) meet-up group:

    1. Be patient; play the long game.

    When we set out to increase numbers, we didn’t get disheartened if we didn’t see results straight away. We knew the long game was the most important thing. The first meet-up had four attendees. The next one had five. Then we went down to four again. It took a year for us to get more than ten regular members, and to really notice how the group had changed.

    A year can sometimes seem like a long time when you’re pursuing a goal or dream. But the time will pass anyway! Why not spend it doing something you love or are really passionate about?

    2. Do things that scare you every now and then.

    One of the ways we increased attendance was by messaging every single member of the group—to say hi, tell them about the monthly events, and to ask if there were specific reasons why they hadn’t attended in the past.

    At first, this felt scary. Are we bothering them? Will they tell us to go away? Or will we hear something bad about the events? It’s daunting reaching out to people you don’t know, and putting yourself out there.

    And yet, more often than not, it’s the best thing we can do! Let’s face it, if the things you’re doing currently aren’t working, then you might as well change it up. Try something new. What have you got to lose?

    Pressing “send” on that email, or saying yes to that call might feel scary for a few minutes, but imagine how great it would feel if you got the thing(s) you wanted. Are a few minutes of discomfort worth it for long-term progress or growth? I’d say so.

    3. Remember that things grow exponentially (one thing leads to another).

    The best thing about taking action is the snowball effect: your action sets off another action, which sets off another. And before you know it, you’re storming ahead.

    With our group, as more members attended, we could post more photos of our events (that didn’t show the same three people hanging out!) And as more people saw our photos and started coming to events, they told friends about it and invited them too.

    It’s the same with goals or projects. You might nervously share a few of your blog posts and think nothing is happening; you’re not gaining any traction. But you never know what’s happening out in the ether. Perhaps one of your posts resonated with a local professor, who shares it with her colleagues, who share it with their friends…

    The fact is, you never know what’s going on behind the scenes. So take an action step, and then another, and let the momentum build!

    4. Ask for help.

    No one does anything worthwhile alone. There’s always a team involved.

    The three of us emailed group members, posted on our Facebook wall, and spread the word however we could. We contacted friends. We held brainstorming sessions for ideas. We sought advice from peers and local event leaders.

    The best thing about asking for help is that most people want to help. In fact, they love it! Think about the times that you’re asked for advice. Do you get annoyed by it, or does your chest puff out ever so slightly?!

    Use the resources around you. Don’t be afraid to do so—because when the tables are turned, you may well be able to help in return.

    5. Be passionate about it.

    I’ve left this one till last because it’s the most important one, in my opinion. Be passionate about what you’re doing.

    The three of us in the group really believe in what we’re doing. We love holding the events. We love the sense of community we’ve created. And we’re so passionate about what we’re doing that we work on it—willingly—in our spare time.

    If you’re working on a goal or project and not feeling passion toward it at all, why are you doing it? Are you doing it for someone else, or to look good?

    Things are so much easier when we enjoy doing them. So choose wisely. Choose things you’re passionate about. And then during the tough times or dips (which do happen) you’ll be more likely to keep going, and you’ll feel even more committed when you come out the other side.

  • How to Keep Going When You’re Not Good at Something New

    How to Keep Going When You’re Not Good at Something New

    I believe the people who are the most satisfied in life are those who feel the most alive.

    We generally feel most alive when we propel ourselves out of our comfort zone and seize new possibilities for meaning, excitement, and passion. But unfortunately, we’re wired to do what feels easy and safe, and it rarely feels easy or safe to be a beginner.

    No one wants to feel like Bambi taking his first wobbly first steps—weak, inept, like he could fall over at any time.

    And no one wants to feel as vulnerably exposed as Napoleon Dynamite during his awkward “Vote for Pedro” dance, an audience of underwhelmed peers staring blankly back at him, possibly judging in their heads.

    We want to feel competent, confident, and proud. Like we know what we’re doing and we’re doing it well. But that’s not usually how it works when we’re just starting out.

    Recently I’ve been helping produce a new podcast called Next Creator Up, a show that helps people get out of their own way and create what they want to create. In the first episode, Ehren Prudhel, my partner in many things, interviewed singer/songwriter Kelley McRae.

    After spending years touring, Kelley wanted to focus more on connection, community, and giving back, and ultimately started Song Rise Arts—a non-profit through which she helps underprivileged youth share their stories through song.

    Though her interview was full of aha moments for me, one thing that really stuck out for me was a discussion about getting a win quickly.

    She shared how she helps her kids complete something on day one so that they feel proud of themselves and motivated to continue.

    It’s such a simple idea, and yet incredibly powerful.

    Think about it: How many times have you tried something new and hard, felt overwhelmed, and then decided it wasn’t for you?

    I remember when I was really into step aerobics in my twenties. I liked to stand in the front row in class so I could see my form in the mirror.

    Since I’d been taking classes for months, I never felt insecure being front and center. In fact, I felt confident and proud of myself for hopping around up there with such precision of movement—so much so that it blinded me to the potential consequences of stationing my newby friend right beside me in the spotlight.

    Looking back, I can’t believe it didn’t occur to me that she likely wouldn’t appreciate being quite so visible while learning something new.

    Sure enough, she struggled throughout the entire class, every misstep reflected back to the whole group in the mirror; she felt discouraged and embarrassed; and she never again came back.

    I’ve had many similar experiences like this myself.

    Like the time I decided to learn to cook. One would think, after my aerobics experience, I would have recognized the importance of starting small and safe. But no.

    I didn’t try an easy recipe for one simple dish. I tried a four-course gourmet meal, burned most of it, then decided to go back to sandwiches and frozen food. Because I just wasn’t meant to cook.

    Then there was the time when I first tried painting. It would have made sense to find a class for beginners or a YouTube tutorial for something basic. But instead I overspent on art supplies, including a massive canvas, and quickly felt discouraged when I realized my piece looked like something I’d painted blindfolded. And drunk.

    In both situations, I expected instant perfection and set myself up for failure—not just in the moment but also in the long-term. I went from someone who could learn to cook and paint, in time, to someone who was afraid to try. Because I sucked at both… or so I thought.

    I now understand the importance of creating an early win, and continuing to create small wins over time, which I’ve learned requires me to do the following:

    • Adopt a growth mindset
    • Start small
    • Hold reasonable expectations
    • Avoid comparisons
    • Give myself credit

    If you want to feel more alive, and have identified a way to stretch into new territory, this is the path to seeing it through.

    Adopt a growth mindset.

    This is a crucial first step because you have to believe in your capacity to grow and improve, or you likely won’t allow yourself to keep going after your first imperfect attempt.

    Psychology professor Carol Dweck coined the terms “fixed mindset” and “growth mindset” over thirty years ago after studying thousands of kids and recognizing two opposing belief systems that influenced their efforts and their outcomes.

    People with a “fixed mindset” believe that success is based on innate ability—meaning you either have it or you don’t, and if you fail, it’s confirmation of the latter. It means you’re not talented enough, smart enough, or good enough, so there’s no point in trying any further because you’ll just make yourself look bad.

    People with a “growth mindset” believe that failures are part of learning, and if they keep trying, they can get better over time. Because they believe this, they keep showing up and eventually confirm their own belief. They may feel embarrassed when starting out, but they understand this is just part of the process.

    It turns out growth truly is possible for anyone. Research in brain plasticity has shown that through repeated practice—at anything—we can build new pathways in our brain, enabling continued progress.

    I remember when I was in Amsterdam, where more people ride bikes than drive cars. I had never ridden a bike in a street before, or ridden a bike at all since childhood, and I struggled to start up again whenever a red light turned green.

    On my first day, I was holding up bike traffic at an intersection as I tried to get myself going, so I turned my head and told the biker behind me, “Sorry, I’m not really good at this!” With a huge grin, he responded, “Not yet!”

    And he was right. By the end of my month there, I was stopping and starting like a pro, something that couldn’t have happened if I kicked my bike to the curb in resignation on day one.

    So before you go into this new thing, whatever it is, no matter how hard, recognize that ineptitude is just a starting point, and if you put in the time, even just a little every day, you will eventually see results. 

    Start small.

    When we feel a sense of accomplishment, it activates the reward center of our brain, releasing the neurochemical dopamine. Because we feel good, we’re then driven to do more.

    And the thing is, we don’t actually need to achieve massive success to feel a sense of accomplishment. Even a small win—like writing one section of a blog post or signing up for a class—can motivate us to keep moving forward.

    This isn’t relevant only when pursuing passions and professional goals; the same principle applies with everything you might want to improve in your life.

    If you’re struggling with depression or anxiety, applying one lesson or tool from therapy or personal research can help you feel encouraged and inspire more healthy choices.

    If you’d like to improve your financial situation, unsubscribing from one store newsletter or bringing lunch instead of buying it can empower you to make more smart money decisions.

    Or, if you’re trying to improve your health, walking ten minutes on a treadmill or smoking one fewer cigarette today could help you find the motivation to keep taking tiny steps forward.

    This was actually the most helpful approach I used when recovering from bulimia. The treatment centers preached abstinence, and for good reason, I know—setbacks can have fatal consequences when you’re putting such strain on your heart.

    But I was too far in to simply stop, and every slipup created massive shame, which then led to more slipups. So instead of expecting perfection, I told myself to do one fewer disordered behavior today, and to do at least the same tomorrow, or one fewer than that if I could.

    Sure enough, I eventually started to feel proud of myself, my pride built momentum, and through that momentum (along with continued therapy to address trauma from my past), I slowly healed.

    Hold reasonable expectations.

    In order to start small, you have to be willing to let go of any unrealistic expectations about what you should be able to accomplish.

    This isn’t always easy to do. We live in a culture that promotes extraordinary natural talent as an indicator of worth, and celebrates “overnight success” as the ultimate sign of accomplishment.

    But the truth is, even people with natural talent need to work hard to excel at their craft, and “overnight success” usually happens after months and years of work that no one knew to recognize, because it wasn’t public.

    So let go of the idea that you should be anywhere other than where you are. Release yourself from the burden of believing your current skill level says anything about who you are as a person, or what’s possible for you.

    If you’re going to expect anything as you start doing something new, expect that:

    • You may not be very good at it.
    • You may feel embarrassed if other people are watching.
    • You may follow every small win with (what feels like) a small failure.
    • You may feel frustrated and wish you could do more than you can do.
    • You may not be able to live up to your own taste level (another insight from Kelley’s interview).
    • You may want to give up because it feels too hard.
    • You may make slower progress than you’d like.
    • But if you accept all of the above and keep showing up anyways, you will eventually see results.

    Avoid comparisons.

    There’s a quote I love that reads, “Don’t compare your chapter one to someone else’s chapter twenty.” I’d extend this further to include, “Or someone else’s chapter one.”

    It’s tempting to judge ourselves based on someone else’s capabilities or accomplishments, especially since they’re in our face all day, every day, on social media. But all this does is feed into our insecurities and doubts and leave us feeling inadequate and discouraged.

    We’re all starting from different places, with different backgrounds, strengths, and skill levels. And we all have different wants, priorities, and values. Maybe you value balance, so you’re moving more slowly than someone else who works around the clock and deprioritizes family time and sleep.

    You could compare yourself to that person, but would it really be a fair comparison?

    And even if you are making a fair comparison, does it actually serve you in any way?

    I’m not going to lie; knowing this doesn’t always make it easy for me to stop comparing myself to other people.

    I sometimes see people who seem to be doing better, question if maybe they’re just fundamentally better—not just at whatever they’re doing, but also as people—and then get stuck in a cycle of shame and self-judgment. And sometimes this all happens so quickly I don’t even realize I’m doing it.

    If you find it hard to avoid comparisons, then maybe a better goal, for now, is to avoid comparison triggers.

    If you know you get down on yourself when you look at a specific person’s Facebook updates, unfollow them. If you can’t read about the greats in your niche without feeling like a failure, don’t read about them.

    Keep your eyes on your own path so you’re less apt to convince yourself your small wins are insignificant.

    Give yourself credit.

     A small win only has value if you acknowledge it, so stop and create some self-satisfaction by asking yourself the following questions:

    • What did I do right or well?
    • Why was this impressive or noteworthy for me specifically, based on my unique personality, past, and challenges?
    • What fears did I have to push through to do this?
    • In what way did this push me out of my comfort zone?
    • Why is this small win actually a big win?
    • What would I say to a friend or my child if they had a small win like this?

    Proactively choose to build yourself up for doing whatever you did, no matter how small, and you’ll be more likely to do the same, or even more, tomorrow. Then you’ll give yourself more credit, feel even more motivated, and slowly, over time, become the person you want to be and do the things you want to do.

    —

    If you’re interested in hearing the podcast episode I mentioned at the start of this post, you can find it here, along with detailed show notes.

    I’m incredibly proud of Ehren, the show’s host, who’s pushed himself outside of his comfort zone with this new venture, and has been collecting small wins over the last several months leading up to this launch.

    And I’m beyond inspired by Kelley McRae, a talented musician and brilliant teacher who’s making a tremendous difference for low-income kids by enabling them to tell their stories through song.

  • Why I’m Done Standing on the Sidelines of Life

    Why I’m Done Standing on the Sidelines of Life

    “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done. Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal.” ~Bruce Lee

    It’s easy to criticize others.

    It’s easier to sit outside a situation than be in it.

    Ironically, it’s easy to belittle someone else’s efforts without making any real effort ourselves.

    The safe side of the ropes is an easier choice than committing to being in the ring, truly baring something. It’s also a softer option.

    It’s much harder to have skin in the game.

    It takes guts, and a healthy degree of get up and go, to put ourselves out there. To put our work and ideas out there with no guarantee they will gain any traction. To commit ourselves to competition, with no guarantees our hands will be raised in victory.

    Personal Experiences: The ‘Writer’ Who Never Writes

    I know all about living on the safe side of the ropes, as for too many years I was a ‘writer’ who never wrote.

    Some people are blessed to know what they want to do with their lives from an early age. They follow that path, committed to making it work wholeheartedly. No backup plan required.

    I’ve never been that person. I’ve tried; I’ve tripped and fallen into all sorts of ways of earning a living. And I eventually landed in a space that fits my lifestyle for the most part, with the amount of freedom I have, and also pays me well for my time as a consultant and company of one (me).

    The downside is that this career path doesn’t always fulfill me. There is a creative gap at times.  I have ideas that don’t always belong in my client work but burn away at me anyway.

    Writing has always been something I’ve been drawn to. I’ve read books throughout my life and have always appreciated the beauty in a perfectly framed run of words.

    Much earlier in my life I had a few unspectacular efforts to write some articles. Some work ended in print, but most didn’t make the cut. Even back then, perhaps fueled with a young man’s inflated ego, I fancied myself as something of a writer but lacked the work ethic or skills to back up my ideals.

    I wasn’t willing to commit myself to the craft, not even close. I wasn’t willing to have ten ideas rejected by editors so the eleventh would possibly be accepted. So, other than crafting business cases or technical process documents for consulting clients, I didn’t write (creatively).

    I occasionally promised myself I’d write, I even postured that I could do better than those who did, but I continued to remain passively on the sidelines.

    Until one day, the inertia all became too much. Yes, the safe side of the ropes was easier to some degree, but it was also uncomfortable. An itch was being left unscratched. I decided it was time I put my skin in the game.  

    So I started a simple blog. Two blogs, in fact. One based on some of the ideas that had been burning away at me and one based around haiku. (I also fancied myself as a poet who, you guessed it, rarely wrote any actual poetry!)

    Did the world stand up and take notice? Of course not. In fact, I look back now and think my initial efforts were pretty awful and unstructured (some would argue my writing remains that way). However, something magical did start to happen in me.

    The creative itch and ideas that had gnawed at me started to see light. I started to commit more time to writing. I started to make it a priority in my days and weeks. I strived to get better.

    This process all started eight or so years ago. The blogs have changed (one being retired), but my writing has continued. Books have followed. Writing has become an important part of my life. An important way for me to express myself and share something in me that may have remained covered up otherwise.

    Is it how I pay all my bills now? No, and I’m really not sure that’s the point. Committing myself to the process of making my work the best it can be, of trying to make today’s work better than yesterday’s, is reward in of itself. I have invested myself in the process.

    Do I still dream of a day where I’m a full-time writer and the words I labor over support my lifestyle fully and pay for my travels? You bet I do. However, I’m also going to keep turning up to write regardless.  I’ll carry on turning up to write until I feel I have nothing left to say, and then I’ll stop. And, to be clear, I hope I never stop while breath remains in me.

    I’ve realized that the very act of putting skin in the game is reward enough. I’m in the (writing) ring, baring a little and sometimes a lot of myself. It’s hard work at times, but it’s also exhilarating.

    The Nobility of Applying Ourselves

    There is risk attached to putting ourselves in the mix. Daring where others dare not. Committing ourselves when others second guess, or stand on the sidelines. But there is something to be earned in putting ourselves to the test. It’s where we will often learn most about ourselves. It’s where we grow. Sometimes it’s even where we define ourselves.

    To test ourselves is to learn to trust in ourselves. Whether we try and succeed immediately, or more realistically, try and fall down, pick ourselves up again, and then succeed, each time we apply ourselves we bolster the habit of getting out of the blocks. We learn to embrace, and revel in, taking action. We liberate ourselves.

    Putting ourselves to the test can take many guises. It could be a first public speaking engagement, it could be a first marathon, it could be a first child, it could be flying solo with a business idea, it could be signing up for a competition. It could involve testing ourselves physically or mentally (and often both at once).

    There is honor to be found in applying ourselves. There is respect to be found in trying to be the best we can be. There is reward to be found in the toil of striving to get better, little by little, regardless of the outcome.

    Our Choices Shape Us

    The choice is ours to make.

    We can live a passive life, never truly putting ourselves out there, and possibly shooting down the efforts of others. We can live a life of itches never fully scratched. We can leave dreams left un-chased.

    Or we can commit ourselves to an all together different route.

    We can commit to try harder, to do better, to be better. We can bare something of ourselves to the world. We can put our skin firmly in the game. We can seek to make an impact in our own small but significant way.

  • Fellow Dreamers: If You Feel Like a Fool, You’re on the Right Track

    Fellow Dreamers: If You Feel Like a Fool, You’re on the Right Track

    “Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.” ~Brian Tracy

    I’m a fool.

    Well, it’s more accurate to say I’ve been a fool often, and I’m ashamed.

    My life, no different from many, has had some successes but also many setbacks and outright failures. I suppose this is just another way of saying I’ve lived.

    The problem is that I’ve allowed my mistakes, errors, and failures to hold me back.

    We’ve all felt like a fool before, but when has doing so made it more difficult to be the you you’ve always wanted to be? To try the things you’ve wanted to try? To live the life you’ve wanted to live?

    I’ve never mentioned this to anyone before. Not my mother, brother, best friends, my girlfriend, or even a random person I’ve met in another country who would never see me again nor remember my name. Why? Because I was a fool and I’m ashamed.

    I’m ashamed, not because I’ve made a fool of myself, but because I allowed it to rob me of what could have been.

    In college, which now seems like forever ago, I decided I would finally act on my musical impulse. I had long loved music, and nearly anything that could be played on a guitar. I had finally decided I would take one step to learning how to play.

    So, with one of my elective credits, I enrolled in a Guitar 100 class. I didn’t rent a guitar, just in case I didn’t like it. I’ve always been in the habit of just jumping into things, perhaps a little too recklessly. I get excited! I just bought the guitar, a big ole case, a box of picks, then rolled into class, wide eyed, dreaming of the day when I would play my favorite songs, or better yet, write and play my first hit.

    It was a night class, and it was the first one, so the class was packed. It was in a large room, there must have been sixty or more people. Everyone had a guitar in hand.

    The instructor showed us a few basics, such as where to position our fingers. Then, he said to the class, let’s do the fun part; let’s strum.

    The room all at once came alive with the joyous and playful sounds of sixty strumming guitar hopefuls. Everyone was into it. We were strumming, and strumming, and strumming. People were having a blast, you could see it on their faces. There was an electricity in the air. We were all making music, but then it stopped.

    Well, everyone but me.

    I was so excited, off in my own world of acoustic joy, that I missed the instructor’s signal to stop. The result was fifty-nine other silent guitars, and me strum, strum, strumming away.

    Once I noticed I was the only one jamming, I quickly stopped, but the class laughed.

    They weren’t being mean. In fact, it was funny. Years removed I could see, as if it were part of a movie scene, how funny it would be to have a guy in Guitar 100 jamming with his eyes closed as if he was on the verge of becoming the next Clapton, while everyone else was awaiting their next lesson.

    But at the time, it felt devastating. I’d made a fool of myself, and they all saw it. I thought to myself, I can’t go back to this class. I’m a rookie, bound to make more mistakes, bigger mistakes, even more embarrassing mistakes. I couldn’t sit next to the same people again, and wonder what they were thinking.

    So, I quit.

    I never played the guitar again. My new guitar went straight into storage. I finished the class that night, but never went back. When friends or family asked me why I stopped, I would say, well, my fingers hurt. I have soft hands, and I didn’t have time anyway. That was true, but it wasn’t the truth.

    I’ve never been so ashamed. Not for making a fool of myself, but for quitting over something so ridiculous. What would life have been like if I’d learned how to play?

    I let the cascading rumination and fears and insecurity rob me of what could have been. I used a simple mistake as an excuse to quit and took my shame and ran away.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about the guitar recently because I’m now trying to do something that matters again.

    Very soon I’ll submit my new podcast to iTunes, and soon after that, I’ll launch.

    It almost didn’t happen. The process wasn’t easy. In fact, I’ve looked like a fool a few times. I’ve been considering a podcast for a couple years. In fact, I’ve had the URL for Next Creator Up for over a year. I even conducted one of my interviews six months ago.

    I’ve nearly quit, multiple times. I’ve had a lot of excuses, some truer than others. There are nearly a million podcasts, why would someone listen to mine? It’s not unique enough; it won’t stand out. I’m not an expert. I’m not funny, successful, interesting, I’m not “fill in the blank.”

    I’ve wanted to be a host since high school. I grew up listening to sportscasters and watching The Tonight Show. They got to discuss cool ideas, interact with inspiring guests, and tell fun stories.

    That has been me without a mic. I love talking with people, listening to their stories, and learning from their experiences.

    But just loving something and wanting to be something are not enough. You’ve got to be willing to push past feeling like a fool.

    My first guest had to listen to me “ah” and “um” myself into incoherent statements, followed by ridiculous questions. Thankfully you can edit a podcast.

    Another guest saw that I didn’t press record, after my illustrious introduction. Rookie mistake.

    But every time I’ve interviewed a creative professional who has put themselves out there—put their ideas, thoughts, and feelings on the line—I’ve been inspired. I’ve learned something from each guest I’ve interviewed so far, but more than that, they’ve kept me going.

    I was once working on a screenplay where the mentor character said to the protagonist, “If you’re afraid to bomb, you’ll never blow up.”

    I never realized until recently that that was meant for me. Also, it should come as no shock that because that script was so personal, I was afraid to finish it. And, yes, the main character played the guitar.

    More than anything in life I’ve been afraid to put myself out there. To be vulnerable publically. I could talk to anyone, but not with a mic. I could make a crowd laugh, but not on cue. I could act, but not on camera. When it mattered, I didn’t show up.

    I would always tell myself that the next time, I would do it. I would make it happen. There was always a next time. I let myself of the hook.

    I suspect I’m not the only one who’s done this. No one wants to feel exposed or open themselves up to judgment. No one wants to show how much they care—to put their heart and their passion on the line—and then fail, publicly.

    So we hide. We hold off. We wait for a better time. The perfect time. As if that’s really a thing.

    We sit clutching our creative scars—the harsh words from unsupportive people, the bad experiences, the false starts and failures, all the times we’ve felt foolish—and we use it all as an excuse to hold ourselves back.

    We don’t want to feel those uncomfortable emotions again. But those emotions are the gateway to beauty, innovation, and fulfillment. Not just fulfillment for us, but for all the people who’ll be inspired by what we have to share. People whose lives could be changed for the better because of us, if only we pushed through our initial discomfort.

    I want to push through that discomfort. I want to show my passion, because everything beautiful in this world came from someone who cared more than they feared. Or at least acted like they did.

    Next Creator Up is the living embodiment of what I hope to be and whom I’ve been running from. It’s a call to arms. The path of most resistance that I’ve been resisting. It is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I’m doing it.

    It’s April Fools’ Day, and we are bound to hear of or be a part of a fun, practical joke or zany gotcha, or be party to or even the victim of a prank. And it’s all in good fun.

    But for the rest of the year, if you feel like a fool, I hope you know you’re not alone, and I hope you don’t give up. I hope you play your music, make your art, and explore your passions and talents.

    So today, let’s agree to be okay with feeling or looking a little foolish.

    Instead of being ashamed for strumming a little too long, or tripping over our words, or doing whatever we do imperfectly, let’s see it as a sign we’re on the right track, because we’re showing up and putting ourselves out there. We’re pushing through our fear, knowing it’s the only way to be the people we want to be and do the things we want to do.

    We all have something to say and something to give. We all have a passion and a gift. So let’s stop hiding and share them.

  • Sensitivity Means Passion, Not Weakness

    Sensitivity Means Passion, Not Weakness

    “The fact that you’re struggling doesn’t make you a burden. It doesn’t make unlovable, undesirable, or undeserving of care. It doesn’t make you too much or too sensitive or too needy. It makes you human. “ ~Daniell Koepke

    A while back, during one of my therapy sessions, I became acquainted with the word “dysthymia.”

    I was puzzled at first, but as my therapist dug deeper into the subject, I realized that complex-sounding term was, in fact, a birth name to the grizzly monster that has been shadowing me for years. It’s more commonly known as persistent depressive disorder.

    I can’t exactly remember the onset of an extended period when I felt lower than usual. It might have sneaked in unnoticed in my early teens and grown out of proportion since then. It might have been born with me. I have no idea.

    All I know is, I’ve had a pervading sense of hopelessness long enough to convince myself that something was wrong. It’s only natural for a child to feel threatened by the world around them. At least that’s how I felt, day in and day out.

    I was told it would only be a matter of time until I grew out of it and became a self-assured woman. Well, I’m twenty years old and this day has never come, and I’ll tell you, the old times were paradise. I was lucky to have my parents’ back in every situation, and the thought of loosening my grip on their protection with the passing years was a scary prospect.

    Inevitably, I grew up and things didn’t get any easier.

    My generalized fear mingled with an endless hunt for the meaning behind words, people’s actions, and even life itself. The existential nature of these questions made it impossible for me to get concrete answers, which overloaded my brain with the untold possibilities, thus fueling an anxiety disorder.

    Being an avid gobbler of pills and a depression sufferer herself, my mother suggested that I went to a psychiatrist. As expected, at sixteen I left the doctor’s office with an antidepressant prescription in hand, as I doubted both my sanity and worth.

    In a different session, I can recall my therapist drawing a chart of sorts, in order to illustrate my situation: she traced three parallel horizontal lines and named them “euphoria,” “neutrality,” and “depression,” from top to bottom.

    She then drew a squiggly line with stable highs and lows, yet mostly focused in the area between depression and neutrality.

    What that means is I’m bound to feel down most days, with the occasional bout of gloom and/or cheerfulness, depending on the situation. The mood sways aren’t fickle; they’re usually curbed into the same spectrum, but still, sometimes I wish the ups would last longer.

    “Don’t worry, that is very common in highly sensitive people,” she said to me. “Now that you’ve named that feeling, it will become easier to deal with.”

    At the time, that wasn’t helpful at all. Why did my personality have to be built this way? Would I have to deal with this for the rest of my life? That’s not what I came here for!

    I developed an unhealthy habit of comparison, as I envied the life of every extroverted and confident person I knew, even if that meant scrolling through their social media pages (which, let’s face it, makes everyone seem at the top of their game on a daily basis).

    For months on end I tried to stick to a fully positive lifestyle. Spoiler alert: I was doing it wrong. It took me a while to recognize that I didn’t have to be happy all the time nor rebuff my icky moments in exchange for a phony, dimmed spark of sunshine. I felt something was missing.

    I was in denial. I was rejecting myself, whom I’ll have to spend the rest of my days with whether I want to or not. Little did I know, refusing who I was wouldn’t do anything for me; it would only hinder the process of acceptance.

    All I had to do was skew my perspective, bit by bit. And I did, with the help of unexpected sources and events.

    Sensitivity Means Passion

    During a recent conversation with my brother, I came to the slow realization that I might have underrated what can prove itself to be a powerful attribute.

    His girlfriend had broken up with him, and his devastation was painful to watch. However, his main objection was that he felt guilty for “feeling too much while she felt way less.” I could identify with him at that moment.

    He would beat himself up and judge his past actions, wishing he could go back and suppress the excess emotion he poured into the relationship. Anyone who’s familiar with him would advise him to never change for a girl, and that the right one would see this supposed “defect” as a major quality.

    Being his twin sister, of course we’d share some traits– besides in appearance. And that’s it: we feel too much. Too much of everything, whether it be the pain of a heartbreak or the delight of succeeding at something, for instance.

    In discussing life’s matters, we’ve both agreed upon the fact that oftentimes we may be taken up entirely by emotion, to the point where even gazing at the stars opens our minds to an immensity of otherworldly interpretations. How amazing is that?

    Besides, we’re eager seekers of beauty in the little things and lovers of kindness. That depth in our mindset is what allows us to express everything so thoroughly, especially through writing and other kinds of art.

    What was supposed to be a wallowing session ended up giving us a different view of ourselves. Needless to say, we finished the conversation feeling way better than when we started it.

    See It for What It Is: Just A Trait

    About three years ago, something interesting came in the mail. One of my aunts resides in England, and she sends gifts every so often. This particular time, she had a special present for me.

    It was a book, but not just any book. It was a self-help book called The Highly Sensitive Person, written by Dr. Elaine N. Aron. It had highlighted passages and comments scribbled all over it, as if Auntie wanted me to pay special attention to them.

    I might have rolled my eyes at first, but that’s part of my proud nature. Also, never in my seventeen years had I read a self-help book, so I decided to give it a reluctant try in case she asked about it later and I had to whip off a review. I started reading, and to my surprise, it felt like staring at a mirror.

    The book, first published in 1996, promotes the de-stigmatization around sensitive people, often mislabeled as weak, shy, and even antisocial, to name a few labels. It has offered me the best advice I’ve been given, from someone who has been through similar struggles.

    It counts on interviews with hundreds of people like me—perhaps like you, too—who have offered their experience as HSPs. Their stories prove that we are not alone and that being sensitive makes us unique in our own ways; we just have to make an effort to see that amidst the haze of society telling us we’re somehow abnormal.

    I can relate to my aunt on many levels, especially because we have strikingly similar personalities, which is always a recurrent topic during family reunions. At some point in her life she had the same doubts I do now—she felt unfitting and lost. She gets me, and she made sure I had that in mind by giving me that book.

    “Think about the impact on you of not being the ideal for your culture. It has to affect you—not only how others have treated you but how you have come to treat yourself.” ~Elaine N. Aron. Ph. D.

    For the first time in a while, I accepted my wholeness. I felt an overdue relief in being myself, comforted to know that being dysthymic and highly sensitive by no means indicates than I’m worse than everybody else.

    I’m still coming to terms with my fragile essence. I haven’t left therapy or the medications, and I may need them for the rest of my life, who knows? Even so, in researching alternative ways to cope with my anxiety I stumbled across several posts that swore by meditation, so I decided to give it a shot—and it worked like magic!

    I meditate for at least ten minutes daily, and the practice has helped diminish common anxious and depressive symptoms, such as a fast heartbeat and racing thoughts. This happens due to meditation’s scientifically suggested power to positively modify our brains—yes, it’s possible! If combined with consistent daily activities such as exercising or anything that sparks creativity, it becomes a strong healing method.

    The good news is, my sensitivity has ceased to be a problem. Whenever it wants in, I won’t slam the door, I’ll just invite it in for a cup of coffee instead. Maybe acceptance is all it needs to rest cozy in my chest.

  • What to Do If You’re Tired of Feeling Half-Alive

    What to Do If You’re Tired of Feeling Half-Alive

    “Who you are is what you settle for, you know?” ~Janis Joplin

    I spent several years in a state of light depression without noticing.

    Why was it only “light”? Because I was functional: I went to work every morning, I managed to feed myself (mostly with convenience food, but still). My house was reasonably livable, though far from sparkling clean. And I wasn’t particularly sad, nor was I ever even remotely suicidal. It was simply like my life had been wrapped in a thick layer of cotton wool, with nothing much ever getting through to me.

    Why didn’t I notice? Because I told myself I liked it this way. I was honestly convinced that I was happy going to work every day, coming home in the evening. and then sitting down to read or play a computer game.

    I’d kicked my friends out of my life, and any required travel was an inconvenience, even if it was to see my family. I preferred being alone, and if it hadn’t been for my online gaming friends, I would have had no social contact at all.

    I’d become highly proficient at appearing “normal” to my colleagues at work. I even invented friends I was seeing at evenings or weekends so they wouldn’t think I was a loner. To be honest, I can’t even remember how I justified this to myself; in hindsight, it seems like I refused to even think about it. Denial can be one of the symptoms of depression, and I was very good at lying to myself.

    The Awakening

    There was an outward reason for my isolation, and that’s a sum of money I was paying back from a near-bankruptcy years earlier. I simply didn’t have the cash for a lavish wardrobe or nights out on the town because every cent I earned went into repayments. But that’s only half the truth—if I’d wanted to see friends, I could have met them for home-cooked dinners, after all.

    The truth is that I used my financial situation as an excuse, yet another reason not to see the depression that had swallowed me whole. Thankfully, the shell began to crack when this reason/excuse disappeared: I had finally paid back all my dues and began thinking about leaving behind my soul-eating, high-pressure job and moving back to the place where my soul feels at home: the West (of Ireland).

    I found a work-from-home role and made the big move across the country. I now had much less money every month, but you can’t possibly put a price tag on the quality of life in the absence of stress. I began to sleep better, eat better, take an interest in my environment again—it was like my entire being was breathing a slow, deep sigh of relief.

    In the following months, I re-connected with my friends, started dancing again (something I’d loved to do all my life, but “forgotten about” during the dark years), and, feeling rested for the first time in years, got curious about trying out new things.

    Healing Through Passion

    It took a lot of time. I needed to heal physically as well as psychologically; my body was in the worst shape it had ever been in, not just because of the pounds I’d piled on from all the junk food, but also from spending the last years in a sitting position, apart from walking to the car and back.

    I slept. I fell in love with whole, gorgeous foods. I took up mindfulness meditation. Then I slowly, very gradually started exercising, and when I say “slowly,” I mean five minutes of stretching on some days and nothing else.

    These first few months were mostly about well-being, feeling good and comfortable, which astonished me because I hadn’t even realized how long these feelings had been absent.

    As the healing progressed, my emotions returned. I’d been numb for years, but now I remembered that I’d always been a highly sensitive and highly emotional person. There were some very dark weeks to get through, in which I mourned all the wasted time and some actions I was ashamed of, such as not being there for my best friend when she needed me. Gradually, I made it through the swamp, and on the other side, I re-discovered my long lost enthusiasm.

    I have some rather unusual interests, and now I threw myself into them. I signed up for training in traditional archery and historical sword fighting. I kept exercising and dancing every day. Suddenly, I began to experience levels of happiness the likes of which I wouldn’t have thought possible a year before.

    What I’ve Learned

    I wish I could tell you that I lived happily ever after, but that’s just not how human lives work (and anyone who tells you differently is usually trying to sell you something). The point is not to be eternally joyful, in any case; it’s to experience the full spectrum of human emotions and to show up and sit with them as they occur.

    Striving for happiness and joy is a worthy pursuit, however. Like most things, it’s a habit that can be cultivated. I’ve learned that one shortcut to happiness is passion, or rather, radically prioritizing your passion (or multiple passions).

    I know this isn’t something that’s encouraged in our society. We’re brought up to be responsible and put duty first; work for a living, pay the bills, be a good citizen. While I don’t debate that these things are important, I’ll humbly submit that we’ve got the priorities wrong. What good is making a living when you’re just going to exist and survive, rather than thrive?

    The lure of mediocrity is strong. I see it all around and it’s most pronounced in my own story. If settling were an art then I’d be its master; I was prepared to settle for such a reduced version of my own life, I find it barely recognizable even from the distance of a mere three years.

    The Pursuit Of Happiness

    The way to fight this is to remember what truly matters in life. Our own well-being, our loved ones, and that elusive state, happiness. To leap out of bed every morning, looking forward to doing things that light me up, is something I’ll never, ever take for granted again.

    In order to achieve this state, we need to radically and consistently fight against the current that threatens to pull us back into settling. Life isn’t meant to be “all right” or “not so bad.” It’s meant to be ravishing, beautiful, and filled with joy.

    Whenever I feel myself slipping, I pull myself back up by putting a passion front and center. It takes some courage to say “no” to anything else until my passions are looked after, scheduled, and happening. Only then will I look at social commitments and distractions. The only thing I consider with a comparable priority to passion is my work—but then, the work I do today is a passion, too.

    I certainly don’t know everything, but I do know this: If I don’t fall in love with life all over again at least once a week, then I’m doing it wrong. It may feel like constantly pedaling a bicycle up the hill, but boy is the view from the top worth the effort.

    How You Get There

    If you feel like you’re just getting through your days, take some time to discover what needs to be in place in your life for you to prioritize passion. For me, it was the job and where I lived, but what you need to do might look completely different.

    Take some time to “audit” every area of your life—work, finances, self, relationships, health—and find out where you need to make changes in order to accommodate your passion(s).

    You may not be able to do everything at once, and that’s fine. It took a long time for me to be ready for my radical downsizing. You may also need to accept that there are some things you can’t change any time soon—if, for example, you’d like to move but you need to stay where you are for your family. The point isn’t to change everything, but rather to change something.

    Make a realistic plan to put all your steps into practice, and set down a time period for them too. Get the support you need, be it from a professional coach or from friends or loved ones.

    Just be sure to insert passion today while working toward your plan. If all you do is to plan, you postpone your joy to the future and never achieve it in the present moment.

    It’s always possible to find pockets of time. Be ruthless with this! Cancel other commitments if necessary, because your well-being comes first, and being joyful also enables you to be a better partner, parent, friend, or co-worker to others.

  • What to Do If You’re Not Passionate About Anything

    What to Do If You’re Not Passionate About Anything

    “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” ~Unknown

    I’ve always believed in the benefits of having a healthy, strong body.

    I admit, as a young adult my healthiness was driven predominantly by fear. Fear of being fat. Fear of being sick. Fear of missing out at events (aka FOMO).

    So, I went to the gym, I ran, I dieted, I had strict rules, and if I followed them I’d be okay… or so believed.

    From my daughter’s perspective, I wasn’t much fun to live with. She preferred reading and dabbled in ballet and horse riding. But the gym? Definitely not. Running? Hell no!

    So, I did what any fear-driven mom would do. I exerted my will. I forced her to participate. Because I knew better! Didn’t I?

    I coerced, cajoled, and even threatened.

    In my limited view, she was simply being lazy. Nothing that a bit of “discipline” couldn’t fix, right?

    She’d eventually do it. Begrudgingly. Just to get me off her back. And, no surprise, she hated it (and, probably, me too).

    With hindsight, I now see just how much I contributed to her deep-rooted dislike of physical sports. Guilty as charged.

    Over the years, as we both grew up (yup, me too), I learned about passions. And about how different it supposedly feels to participate in anything from a place of “passion.” Until then, it was theoretical. Something I had yet to experience.

    And then I found trail running.

    Yes, I already loved running (on tar), but running in nature, preferably on a mountain, transforms the experience. Completely.

    When I’m running on a trail, I’m fully engaged in the moment. I’m in awe of my surroundings. And I totally lose track of time.

    That’s what passion feels like.

    No rules, no effort. Just pleasure.

    I was thirty-seven when I “found” my passion. I wasn’t looking, it found me. When I was ready. When I allowed it.

    The wiser side of me realized that this formula applied to everyone. Including my daughter.

    I needed to drastically change my approach with her.

    So, I eased up on my controlling ways. It was her path to walk, after all. Whether she found her passion (or not), was none of my business. I simply backed off. It was hard.

    A year or so ago, my daughter announced that she was taking up surfing. Completely out of the blue.

    She’d never really been an avid beach goer. Or outdoorsy. It simply wasn’t her thing.

    So, not surprisingly, I was fairly skeptical. I assumed she’d been influenced by a friend, or was following a trend. This would be another hit-and-miss.

    But she wasn’t influenced. And it wasn’t a hit-and-miss.

    In fact, she loves it. Completely.

    Yup, I was wrong. Dead wrong.

    And, for once, I was pleased I was wrong.

    About six months in, we were chatting, and she announced, very excitedly, that she’d had an epiphany of sorts.

    I immediately zoned in. I love epiphanies!

    “’I’ve realized that surfing is actually exercise!” she said.

    “And yet I still love it!” she said further.

    This was big! She was thrilled!

    You see, until that moment, surfing had been simply a way to have fun. No rules. She hadn’t associated it with any of the limiting and uncomfortable feelings that automatically accompanied any form of exercise in her world.

    In fact, to put “love” and “exercise” in the same sentence was foreign for her. In every way.

    And that is the message here today.

    That when you’re passionate about anything, it’s easy. And fun. It’s something you anticipate. Feel eagerness for.

    And here’s your biggest clue.

    When you’re engaged in your passion, time, literally, has no meaning. Hours fly by, without you realizing they have.

    So, here’s the big question: how do we find our passion?

    I believe it’s easier than you think…

    Firstly, call off the search!

    When we’re searching for something that we feel is missing, our vibration is often one of lack.

    From lack, we approach opportunities with agendas, attachments, and expectations.

    And we’re so busy evaluating every experience that we forget to really engage it.

    We get caught up in our thinking.

    “Is this it? Is this my passion?”

    Relax! Don’t take it all so seriously.

    Secondly, start noticing and following your interests.

    What are you curious about? What do you find intriguing?

    What did you find fun when you were a teenager? That’s often a clue.

    Maybe playing a musical instrument? Participating in school theatre productions? Or singing? This list goes on…

    Explore those things.

    But do it for fun. Without the above agendas, or attachments.

    And thirdly, be open to new experiences.

    If we haven’t yet found our passion(s), it’s not yet in our current reality, obviously.

    Which means we need to try new things. Yay!

    So, be courageous. Be adventurous. Be curious.

    Say yes to invitations.

    Book clubs. Dinner. Hiking. Art galleries. Even dog shows!

    Just say yes.

    You can never tickle your fancy if you never grasp the feather.

    —

    Passions really are worth finding. And indulging.

    They’re the icing on the cake. The cherry on the top!

    They add value and depth to our lives.

    We all have them.

    And we can recognize them if we simply allow ourselves to.

    What have we got to lose?

  • The Difference Between Letting Go and Running Away

    The Difference Between Letting Go and Running Away

    “It’s about our ability to leave our death on the battlefield of life. Or having the strength and courage to give them our love and to bring them back.” ~Edward Frenkel

    It took me almost twenty years to realize that running away from ourselves isn’t the same as letting go. That realization, as with so many others, came at a time when I was at one of my lowest points.

    The day everything changed began as one of the worst of my life.

    I was struggling with the breakup of a long-term relationship. We’d been due to move in together when I discovered he’d betrayed my trust so badly that remaining in a relationship was impossible.

    I was working long hours in a job I’d grown to hate and I was exhausted. I was barely sleeping, and when I did it was the kind of nightmare-filled, fitful sleep that took forever to return from.

    I’d wake up each morning feeling as though I’d been in a battle as I slept. My fatigue was so overwhelming that I could barely manage to keep my house clean and parent my son.

    I was beat, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

    My son was staying with his grandmother for the weekend, and once I no longer had to hold it together for him the floodgates opened. It was more than the loss of the man I’d believed I would spend the rest of my life with; it was the knowledge that my life had become passionless across the board.

    I wanted to live a creative life, to sustain myself and my son via spiritual and creative expression. But I felt blocked at every turn and I could no longer hold in my grief and desolation.

    I spent hours wandering from room to room in my silent house. Every now and then I would curl up on the floor and howl uncontrollably. Eventually, I couldn’t cry any longer and I wrapped myself in my duvet and put videos on autoplay, hoping to distract myself into numbness.

    That’s when it happened. I was half-listening to a talk by the mathematician Edward Frenkel. I’d heard it before and enjoyed it, but this time something he said utterly gut-punched me.

    He said:

    “Do you leave your deaths on the battlefield of life, or do you have the strength and courage to give them your love and bring them back?”

    And that was when I knew Edward Frenkel and I had something in common. We both knew something about dying.

    Frenkel described a time in his life he had only recently begun to understand. It was a moment when he was sixteen and he was refused a place at university in Russia because of his Jewish heritage.

    Despite going on to become wildly successful in his field, he spent years disconnected to the sixteen-year-old adolescent inside of him. To the pain of that moment when his dreams were crushed.

    As I listened suddenly she was there again. The girl I had tried to forget. The girl I had left on my own battlefield.

    I’d spent years training as a contemporary dancer. I won scholarships and top roles in performances as well as competitions in choreography. I was young, talented, passionate, and obsessed.

    One dance school called me more than others and I dreamed of finishing my training there. The day of the audition, on my seventeenth birthday, I traveled to that dance school, floating on a wave of excitement, nerves, and a sense of ‘rightness.’ Of knowing this was exactly where I needed to be.

    The process was emotionally brutal. Only five people out of a cohort of over forty were called to the next stage after doing group classes and individual solos. The rest were told to go home, as they’d been unsuccessful.

    I was one of the five. I waited in the corridor for my physical exam and interview. The instructor told us to relax, we’d passed the dance part of the audition and now it was just wrapping up the formalities. We talked about what it would be like in September when we started.

    I went home and slept in a kind of peaceful joy, knowing my dreams were coming true.

    Three days passed and the letter arrived. I began to tear it open, barely registering that it didn’t look quite right.

    It wasn’t a thick envelope, stuffed full of information about course equipment and places to live; this envelope was small and thin. Inside was a letter that simply said they regretted to inform me I had been unsuccessful.

    And that was the day a part of me died. She stayed dead for a very long time.

    I wasn’t as strong as Edward Frenkel, who continued with Math. I know nothing about his home life, but mine at the time was awful.

    Layers of trauma from a close relative’s mental health issues were taking their toll. I’d witnessed multiple suicide attempts and holding it together for my mother, who was struggling to cope, had torn into my psyche.

    Dance had been my refuge from all that. The one thing that had never let me down. The one thing I trusted, believed in, and knew with everything I had I would do with my life.

    The shock of the rejection floored me. I didn’t know what to do. I cried, once.

    And then? I ran.

    I wasn’t strong enough to pick myself up and audition again the next year. Instead, I ran away. I ran to an older, abusive boyfriend. I ran to university instead of dance school. I ran to drugs. I ran to self-harm that lasted right up until the day I became a mother.

    That day almost twenty years later, as I listened to Edward Frenkel’s words I realized that at aged thirty-six I was still running. Part of me had died that day; the part of me that was filled with creative passion and obsession. The part of me that felt a spiritual flow and call so deep there were no words for it.

    I’d spent years putting a band-aid on the pain. I busied myself with little creative projects, even danced a bit as a hobby. I’d told myself it was okay and I had to let her go. Let go of the passion I’d once felt, the sense of rightness and surety.

    But I was kidding myself. I hadn’t been letting her go all those years. I’d been running away from her, running away from the pain of rejection. And not only that, the fear of rejection was still so great I was running from my current creative dreams.

    That day my head began spinning. Could I go back for her? For that girl I’d left dead on the battlefield of my life? How could I, after so many years of rejecting her?

    I paced my room for a few more minutes and then slowly something shifted. I picked up the phone and I called a good friend. That night we drove to the beach.

    I’ve always had an affinity for the sea. It’s where I feel the most alive and peaceful. The stars were out in the clear night sky and pools of water on the sand held the moon’s reflection. I walked alone to the water’s edge and quietly I began to talk to that girl.

    She was angry. Hurt. I’d rejected her and denied her existence for so many years. But slowly, she began to listen.

    I told her that yes the dream we’d had was over and I was sorry for running away from that dream. I told her I was sorry for running away from her. I told her I loved her. Deeply and completely. And, I told her that if she wanted, we could create a new dream together.

    There were a few moments of silence and then I felt her. She was inside me, still. And I realized that all those years I’d been trying to forget her, to ‘let go’ of her, to surrender her passions, when what I really needed to do was embrace her.

    In order to let go of the pain, I had to accept it, allow it, and integrate it and my past self into who I was now.

    Killing her had done nothing for me. It was only by having the strength and courage to give her my love and bring her back to me that I could stop letting the shattered dreams of the past rule my dreams in the present.

    That night I slept properly for the first time in weeks and when I woke up I knew what to do.

    For so many years I’d played at the edges of a creative career. I’d told myself it was “unrealistic” or I’d get round to it “one day.” But I was lying to myself.

    The truth was I’d been so afraid to feel the rejection of my passion again that I sidelined every opportunity that came my way.

    This is what happens when we cut ourselves off from our passions in an attempt to protect ourselves from pain. Because we’ve been hurt, we try to stay safe by remaining wherever feels comfortable, even if that comfort is actually preventing us from accessing potential joy. But without risking pain, we prevent ourselves from growing, and the irony is that by holding ourselves down to ensure we don’t fall we actually create far more pain in the long run.

    When we go outside of our comfort zones and risk falling it opens up a whole new world of purpose, excitement, and engagement.

    Realizing this was difficult but liberating.

    A year after that morning I’d quit the job I hated and was making a living from writing, my other great creative passion. It wasn’t easy. Facing down every objection my mind could throw up about why I should just go back to what was familiar was challenging and sometimes exhausting. Sometimes it hurt like hell. To date, I’ve had my writing rejected more times than I can count.

    But with each rejection, she’s there. I hold her close. I tell her I love her.

    Together we dance. Then we begin again.