Tag: past
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Overcome Limiting Thoughts: 5 Ways to Be Happier and More Present
“The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans. The present is our only reality.” ~Robert Pirsig
Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by unpleasant thoughts and feelings? Do they show up like an uninvited guest when you’re least expecting them?
About eight months ago, I quit a lucrative corporate job in finance to follow my passion, writing.
Like most things in life, this decision came with a cost.
And all the angst that comes with it.
A few months into my venture, I noticed my angst had become a large part of my mental world. I worried I’d run out of money, that my dream of being a well-paid writer wouldn’t materialize.
I’d admonish myself for leaving a perfectly secure job to chase a pipe dream. “What were you thinking?” I’d say to myself, “I mean, how stupid could you be?
Eventually, I noticed something interesting.
All the obstacles to my happiness were about imagined future scenarios (i.e.: I will never earn a living again), or doubts about past choices (i.e.: Did I make the right choice by leaving a lucrative corporate job behind?).
None of them were rooted in the present moment.
In fact, they stole my present moments like thieves in the night.
Eventually, I realized that if I didn’t deal with these feelings, I’d snap. I had to find a way to deal with these obstacles to my happiness that kept me from taking positive action in the present.
So I did what anyone would do: I turned to Google.
I researched various approaches of dealing with my feelings that held me back from acting in the present.
I discovered meditation and daily mindfulness practice as a powerful solution, and subscribed to various mindfulness blogs.
A few months down the track, I came across this post by Lori Deschene.
Lori’s words around letting go of emotions (dealing with the mental demons once and for all) struck a chord with me:
“Feel it fully. If you stifle your feelings, they may leak out and affect everyone around you—not just the person who inspired your anger. Before you can let go of any emotion, you have to feel it fully.”
The truth is, you can only let go of feelings after immersing yourself in them.
Sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it?
But that’s the one thing that always works.
The following are five great ways to overcome the obstacles to happiness and feelings that keep you from living fully in the present.
1. Fully embrace your feelings with openness, even the negative ones.
That’s right.
Embrace your feelings fully in each present moment and let them pass when they’ve run their course.
So, if you’re feeling fear, feel it fully in the now. Without reacting to it.
Watch the fear as it manifests in your body. Fear manifests as butterflies in my stomach and tingling in my forearms.
How does it manifest in yours?
Remember, the only way to truly let go of feelings is to allow them to run their natural course with conscious awareness.
2. Use journaling to create mental spaciousness and increase your ability to let go.
This is quite effective in slowing the mind down.
Most writers would agree that seeing your thoughts appear on a page before you is therapeutic.
Writing also increases your ability to detach from the immediacy of painful thoughts and feelings.
Journaling is a great way to bring awareness to your destructive thought patterns, so you can change them.
At the end of each day, write down what you learned from the day. What upset you and what made you feel fantastic? If something upset you, how much of that was based on your interpretation of the situation, which arose from your assumptions about it?
How often do you journal?
3. Use your breath to bring your attention back to the present moment.
Mark Twain famously said, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”
So many of our fears (future projections) never actually come to pass.
And anyway, the past and the future live only in our imagination—in this present moment.
When your mind is fully in the present, you can’t engage in fearful thoughts about the future or regretful thoughts about the past.
So, focus on your breath in this present moment.
The benefits of doing this are as follows:
- It brings your attention back to this moment.
- It engages your mind in something non-conceptual.
What’s your breathing like right now? Is it deep? Shallow?
4. Recognize that your reaction to events dictates your life experience, not the event itself.
In his book called Your Erroneous Zones, Wayne Dyer explains the importance of separating our reactions to thoughts from the thoughts themselves.
Imagine this.
Cal agonizes over the idea that his boss thinks he’s stupid. He loses sleep over it. It’s the bane of his existence.
Now, let’s say Cal had no idea that his boss thought he was stupid.
Then he wouldn’t be unhappy, right? How could Cal be unhappy about something he didn’t know?
The point: Cal’s boss’ opinion isn’t making Cal unhappy. It’s Cal’s reaction to his boss’ opinion that’s making Cal unhappy.
By taking ownership of his reaction of his own thoughts, Cal can take charge of his mental world.
He can choose to react differently to his boss’ (low) opinion of him. Cal can choose to give his boss’ opinion less importance by recognizing that it’s one person’s opinion among many.
Paradoxically, this would actually enable Cal to see it as constructive criticism and better himself as a result.
Think about the last time you were upset. What were you telling yourself about the event that upset you? Were you upset because of your reaction to the event or because of the event itself?
5. Discover how your underlying assumptions are secretly affecting your life.
Our underlying assumptions, of which we are often completely unaware, are responsible for a lot of self blame and distress.
Let’s go back to my example at the start of this post.
My feelings of fear, anxiety, and worry were all based on an implicit assumption that my writing career should have taken off within six months. My assumption just wasn’t valid. Getting traction as a writer often takes years.
My underlying assumptions were wrongly implying that I had failed without me realizing it.
Once I recognized the absurdity of the underlying assumption, the feelings of fear around never being able to launch a successful blog dissipated immediately.
What are the underlying assumptions that have you judging yourself harshly?
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Conquering your demons isn’t easy, but nothing worthwhile is.
Sure, it’s often uncomfortable to embrace your feelings fully, or to be mindful of how your underlying assumptions are sabotaging your life. But each of us has the capacity to do it.
The question isn’t, “Can I do it?” but rather, “Will I do it?”
If you want to live a full life, resolve to set yourself on the path this very moment. Right now. Don’t put it off for another second.
You have to realize that this life is yours to be lived to the fullest. And only you can determine your attitude toward letting go of self-defeating thoughts and behaviors.
So take a deep breath. Breathe in this moment. And give it your best.
Right now!
Happy yoga woman image via Shutterstock
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We Can Be Happy Despite Pain from Our Past
“Think of all the beauty that is still left in and around you and be happy.” ~Anne Frank
At first glance, the happiest person I’ve ever met appeared to be a simple man. There didn’t seem to be anything particularly sophisticated or spiritual about him.
Srulik was five-feet tall, with a big round belly and a wide smile permanently plastered on his face. He enjoyed the small things in life: a good joke, a familiar television show, a wholesome meal. He radiated such joy, and was so unassuming in his demeanor that one would assume he was blessed with an equally simple and joyful life.
Many years ago, when I was only ten years old, I remember coming home one day particularly distraught.
My class had just learned about the Nazi Holocaust. At the sink, my mother was washing dishes. I started telling her about what I’d learned in school, when she gently cut me off and, in a matter-of-fact kind of way, said, “Oh, your grandfather is a survivor. You should talk to him about it.”
“Wait, which one?” I asked.
“Grandpa Srulik,” she answered as she continued scrubbing a pot.
I was flabbergasted. What? Him of all people? How could that be? He is always so happy. It just didn’t make any sense.
I was only a child, and yet I could feel that something out of the ordinary was happening here.
Later I learned that, indeed, volumes of psychological research confirms that a difficult past leads to a difficult future.
No need to go as far as the Holocaust. Common problems we suffer in times of peace and plenty, such as bullying and poor attachment to our parents, can have serious psychological consequences, preventing us from enjoying our lives many years after the problems go away.
Veterans often suffer from severe post-traumatic stress, and Holocaust survivors in particular are known to suffer from a wide array of emotional problems after the unspeakable horrors that they suffered. Who would expect anything else?
And yet, there was my grandfather, happy as ever—smiling, telling jokes, and laughing his heart out. I had to know what enabled him to survive so wholly.
“How do you manage to stay so happy?” I said during one of our conversations.
“You need to learn to be happy from any success,” he told me. “Any success at all. When some misfortune happens, we need to view it with humor and think of it as temporary. Think of something else.”
“I view everything with optimism, it’s very important,” he added later.
His secrets boiled down to gratitude, the power of positive thinking, and optimism. I must admit, I have heard it all before. But, suddenly I saw it in a whole new way. Can things such as gratitude and optimism help us overcome even the most tragic of traumas? How powerful are these principles?
When Grandpa Srulik was ten years old, the Nazis came into the Polish town of Nowosiolki, and gathered up his family—the only Jewish family in town.
With the entire town watching, a Nazi pushed Srulik’s father against the brick wall of his house. Then, the Nazi grabbed hold of his mother and pushed her hard against the wall. Next, he did the same to his brother.
Realizing that he was next, Srulik picked up his heals and ran as fast as he could through the thick crowd surrounding his house. Behind the river across from his house, he suddenly realized that he was alone. He had escaped the Nazis. He decided to hide in the bushed until morning before returning home.
The next morning, Srulik overheard three women doing laundry in the river. This is when he learned that, the previous night, his mother, father, and brother were shot dead into a hole in the ground. Devastated, utterly alone, and on the run from a powerful enemy, he tearfully mourned their loss.
Yet through this pain, he never lost hope. He shared with me that even in that terrible moment, he believed with all of his heart that he would find a way through this challenge, monumental as it was.
But, things got worse before they got better. Several weeks later, Srulik was discovered and imprisoned in a Nazi ghetto.
There, he saw Nazis throwing live infants against walls and witnessed the murder of thousands of innocent people every day. He nearly died from starvation and disease, and narrowly escaped the Nazis’ bullets on numerous occasions.
Against all odds, optimism carried Srulik through this unimaginable horror. Every day, he told himself that the Nazis would be defeated and he would be free.
Through the years he spent running and hiding from the Nazis, Srulik never forgot to be grateful for the small rays of light that lit his path.
He recalled with delight the wonderful homemade pickles that a young Polish woman gave with him when he had nothing. He never forgot the kindness of a German cook, who, instead of reporting him to the authorities, shared his delicious soup.
Srulik held onto his positive attitude for years after the war. He was grateful for all the kind people he had met along the way, the orphanage that took him in, and the opportunities he had to earn an education.
Until his last day, Grandpa was able to find something positive in every situation. “Even good weather counts,” he taught me.
Despite an incredibly difficult past, Srulik grew up to be a joyful, contagiously positive man. Having had the most difficult past of anyone I’d ever known, my grandpa was, and still is, without a shred of doubt, the happiest person I’ve ever met.
If gratitude, positive thinking, and optimism helped him lead a happy life, then imagine what these principles can do for the rest of us. Surely, there is hope for all of us, no matter what lies in our past.
Man with raised hands image via Shutterstock
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You Are More Than Your Past and Your Pain
“We are like the little branch that quivers during a storm, doubting our strength and forgetting we are the tree—deeply rooted to withstand all life’s upheavals.” ~Dodinsky
I began struggling with anorexia and bulimia in high school, a development that, in part, stemmed from sexual abuse.
I internalized my struggles and made them a part of me, leaving me with feelings of shame, guilt, unworthiness, and despair. I had completely lost connection with my authentic self and instead, took on the roles of “ruined,” “broken,” and “worthless.”
If you had asked me who I was three years ago, I would be stumped. I would get as far as my name and follow it with “I have an eating disorder.” Even after my recovery, my eating disorder was still a big part of my identity.
I became the protagonist, but my “self” was more about the plot than actual character development. I allowed myself to be defined by external events and situations instead of unveiling my raw authenticity, values, and assets.
My true self was masked by what had happened to me. Somewhere within the storms of my life, I lost myself and adopted a lesser, superficial version of Kelly.
I felt fragile and unsteady, walking on eggshells and avoiding anyone or anything that may elicit a potential hurt or disappointment.
I began numbing myself from unpleasant feelings, and consequently, pleasant feelings as well. I felt empty inside and weighed down with memories of my past. My life was robotic, predictable, and lacked both meaning and direction.
The thoughts I had adopted about myself became my truth. I believed, wholeheartedly, that I was nothing more than my eating disorder, my trauma, and my circumstances.
It’s easy to take pain, disappointment, and unfavorable life events and internalize them. We struggle with these unpleasant experiences and let them weigh us down when we fail to separate ourselves from them.
By making our past hurts a part of our being, we carry with us unbearable emotional baggage and become overwhelmed by grief, resentment, and anguish.
It is vital, then, to find separation between who we are and what has happened to us.
The best analogy I have come up with to visualize this separation is to view myself as a tree. After struggling for years with pain from my past, I began looking deeper into my being, digging up the roots of what really lies within.
The rain and wind of life’s troubles seemed to uproot me and bend my branches to the point of breaking, and the aftermath of these emotional storms left me feeling scattered, weak, and exhausted.
I found an everlasting steadiness when I began viewing my true self as the trunk of the tree—the unshakable core.
Within this strong and centered point lied my authenticity—my heart, my values, and the myriad of quirks that made me, me. This part of me is protected with layers of bark, which the storms can no longer penetrate.
Instead, the rains of my pain, disappointment, and unfavorable life events became external, rapidly beading off and nourishing my roots, no longer making me feel shaken, but nurturing me for growth.
This is not where the pain ends; this is where it begins. We are shaped by our experiences, not defined by them. They are, in a way, part of us.
Some of these reminders stay with us longer than others. They are the leaves that cover our branches. Some fall as winter comes, and time kisses our wounds; and yet others stay with us through the seasons.
They are each unique and beautiful in their own way, shielding us like an umbrella of strength, protecting us from internalizing similar hurts in the future.
Whether bare or full, a tree is a tree. Whether hurt or healing, the external experiences of life cannot change the constant steadiness that is our core—our heart, our unshakeable sense of self.
Who you are is not what has happened to you. The lost are never really lost; even after years of struggling with anorexia and bulimia, and losing myself to my experiences, something still existed deep within, waiting to be found again: the true Kelly.
I encourage you to dig deep, to penetrate the soil, and follow the roots to your heart. There you will find the eternal essence that is you.
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Letting Go of Yesterday and Using the Gift of the Present
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.” ~Alice Morse Earle
Did you make a mistake yesterday? Or did something bad happen to you a few weeks ago? Are you still dwelling on it, doing all you can to move on? Then this post is for you.
Why? Because I want you to know that you’re not alone.
Just like you, my past wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. No one in this world has a past that is sparkling clean and error-free. We’ve all made mistakes. That’s life. And that’s what makes us human.
About eight weeks ago I received an offer to study for my diploma in fitness in Melbourne. Having lived in Sydney for ten years, receiving the offer was a dream come true, but not because I got accepted for the course. It’s because I’ve always wanted to live in Melbourne ever since I was a teenager.
I accepted the offer thinking it was a great opportunity. I did not consult anyone; I merely did it for myself. I didn’t even have the slightest clue of what the course was about, where I was going to stay, and if it made sense financially.
This turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
A day after I accepted the offer, I told my parents. They’ve never tried to talk me out of doing anything I wanted to, but this time Mum was a little hesitant.
She wondered why it was last minute and stressed how I hadn’t even arranged anything. I, on the other hand, justified my decisions by telling her and everyone else around me that it was a good opportunity, although I knew I probably couldn’t afford the move.
A week later, with a few hundred dollars in savings and slight credit card debt, I made the trip down to Melbourne with my selfless parents, who decided to help me find an apartment and settle in.
Things went well. I found a nice place and generally liked Melbourne, but something felt off. As hours turned to days, I felt more and more restless and knew something wasn’t right. My finances backfired on me and soon enough, everything went down.
After living a few days in denial, I allowed myself to let go of anger about what I’d done and replace it with self-compassion.
I then did something I should’ve done even before I decided to move—I spoke to my mother and told her I wasn’t in a great financial position and it wasn’t the right decision for me at that point in time.
A day after, I turned the apartment down, rejected the offer, and drove 540 miles home, with an added financial stress that was completely unnecessary.
You may have experienced something similar. Perhaps you were as silly as I was to do things without thinking. Or perhaps things were worse for you. We make mistakes. Everyone does, and I want you to know that it is okay.
The clock ticks forward, and soon enough the mistake that you made a second ago is history. It might take days, months, or years to learn and address the consequences of the mistake, but every day forward is an opportunity to make things right.
Worrying about it does not get you anywhere. Thinking about how to learn from the experience and make things better is a good start. But actually doing things to learn from the mistake is the fundamental part of really moving forward.
If you’re having a hard time letting go of yesterday and seizing today, remember:
Yesterday is History
Yesterday is history.
It’s done. Record it into your history book and close it.
Yesterday could have been the best day of your life.
Your long-term partner proposed, or you landed a raise at work. Maybe you met someone who you feel is good for you. Remember it fondly but don’t live in the past. Instead, let your happy memories push you forward when times get tough.
Yesterday could have been the worst day of your life.
You might’ve lost your savings or someone you held close to your heart. Although it might take some time to move on from any tragedies you faced yesterday, every day forward will get better.
Yesterday you made decisions; they may now seem good, they may seem bad.
But that was yesterday. If you stay positive, you can choose to make the best of your decision today.
Yesterday cannot be changed.
It is indeed too late to change the things you did in the past, but it’s not too late to change the things you’re planning to do today. Learn from your mistakes and act on what you’ve learned.
Tomorrow is a Mystery
Tomorrow is a mystery.
It hasn’t happened yet, so don’t sweat the small things. Be kind to yourself; it has the power to make you happy.
Tomorrow depends on the choices you make today.
Dream and start doing things to work toward that dream right now.
Tomorrow is not certain.
Life can make a 180-degree change in less than a day, and we cannot control them. We can make plans, but plans change. Anticipate and remember that.
Tomorrow is an opportunity.
If you did something great today, you have the opportunity tomorrow to create something better. If you did something that seems bad, you have the opportunity tomorrow to make it good. It’s your choice.
Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.
So don’t waste today worrying about what will happen then. Life’s too short to dwell on things that are uncertain.
Today is a Gift
Today is a certain opportunity.
You can use it to decide where you want to go in life. If you don’t love what you’re doing, use this opportunity to change something.
Today can be the first day of the rest of your life.
Create new habits, surprise yourself, and put a smile on your own face by doing things you love.
Today you can be better than you were yesterday.
And you know you can be better than you were yesterday.
Today you have the power to make great choices for your health, body and mind.
You are strong enough today to say no to that can of soda. You are strong enough today to remove yourself from negative people. You are strong enough, period.
Today is your only chance to experience this present moment.
It will never come again
Don’t beat yourself up for what has happened in the past. We’ve all made mistakes; failure is imperative to leading a successful life. Learn from yesterday by doing things today that have the power to make tomorrow great. I know you can.
What are you doing today to make full use of the gift given to you?
Photo by Eddi van W
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How to Redefine Yourself by Letting Go of the Past
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” ~Maya Angelou
When I was eight years old, my mom had her first mental breakdown. The illusion of a typical suburban family shattered as the household descended into chaos. When the counselors and child protective services stepped in, I knew: I was undeniably different.
When you’re a child, family life is the classroom through which you learn how the world works. Once my mom was hospitalized, I realized how very different my lessons were.
Mortified, I retreated into a world of my own, one in which I wouldn’t have to try to formulate responses to questions I couldn’t possibly know the answers to.
As the years passed, family life grew more chaotic. Addiction and mental illness sunk their teeth deep into the flesh of my family, wrenching apart the bonds that held us together.
By the time I graduated high school, I felt like my family life had completely imploded and my sense of self imploded with it.
I moved out of my parents’ home as soon as I was able to and quickly set to work creating a “normal” life. I bought a car, then a house, and earned my degree. I spent more than six years in an unhealthy relationship for the sake of stability.
I can’t pinpoint the moment I realized that I was acting out a story that did not belong to me.
I had buttressed myself with stability and material comforts not because they were the things I truly wanted, but because they were the things that I could hold as evidence that I had survived my tumultuous past and developed into a responsible adult.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was driven by shame. I was ashamed of my family and I was ashamed of myself. In a culture where addiction and mental illness are stigmatized, I couldn’t bear the fact that those two illnesses, in some ways, shaped the framework through which I viewed the world.
So I hid myself behind the story I had created of who I was. The narrative I shaped began with a girl who was victimized, then broken. Eventually, I began to identify as a survivor, but for many years, I didn’t realize that I was much more than that.
Shame is insidious. It disguises itself as a desire to be a better person, a commitment to moving on. Meanwhile, it burrows deep into your soul and makes a home there until the day that you break open and expose it to the light.
It was heart-wrenching to uncover the truth. I had labeled myself a survivor because I was unwilling to acknowledge the pain that I carried within me. I defined myself by my experiences, and so created a life where every action was driven by my past.
I had to let go of the lies I told myself in order to become my most authentic self.
All of my past experiences have certainly contributed to my perception of life, but I know now that those experiences do not have to shape my present.
I can acknowledge the pain of past experiences while still choosing to experience the present from a place of joy. That choice was made simple by taking just one step: I let go of the labels I had given myself.
I could choose to live life as any number of things: a victim of abuse, an adult child of an addict, a survivor; or I could choose to live my life free of labels: a person who has lived a wide variety of experiences and is open to all of the new experiences that life has to offer.
I found so much freedom in becoming myself.
I no longer make decisions out of fear. Rather than analyze every situation through a framework created by years of dysfunctional relationships, I trust my instincts. I take care to notice the stories I tell myself and I consciously choose whether or not to believe them.
Take a moment to listen to your own narrative. How do you define yourself? Write down a short description of who you are and where you come from. Then, take an honest look at your narrative and decide if that is the person you want to be.
We are all poised to create the lives we want, but we must first uncover and discard the beliefs that no longer serve us. Let go of your labels and greet each day open to the possibilities of who you might be. Your potential is limitless.
Photo by Jesus Solana
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Why Forgiveness Is a Gift to Yourself and How to Release the Past
“Forgiveness does not change the past but it does enlarge the future.” ~Paul Boese
On a snowy winter day in the dark month of January, I got hit by a car. My left leg was immediately amputated. A darkness started growing in my seventeen-year-old heart that day.
Harvey was the man driving the car that hit me.
Because of Harvey’s decisions, I didn’t have my leg. Because of Harvey, I walked in pain. Because of Harvey, I lost my confidence as an attractive woman.
At the trial two years later, Harvey and I weren’t allowed to talk to each other. I saw him at the defendant’s table with his head cast down in shame. He never looked me in the eye. In fact, Harvey never apologized to me.
I was a strong woman who didn’t let my disability keep me down. I tried to pretend that I was as capable as two-legged people. I learned how to ski, kayak, rock climb, backpack, scuba dive, and sky dive.
I spent just as much energy stuffing my anger, depression, and grief. I was terrified that, if given half a chance, they would eat me alive.
I felt like two women. The one the world saw was capable, strong, independent, and inspirational. The other woman I reserved for myself. She was sad, insecure, and boiling with anger.
During my twenties, I had three significant romantic relationships. Although each one of those men told me how amazing I was and how much they loved me, none of them wanted to marry me. I assumed it was because of my leg.
Harvey took marriage from me as well.
When I was truly honest with myself, I had a vague understanding that my depression and anger, which I usually expressed inappropriately, could have contributed to my failed relationships. I decided it was time for counseling.
Therapy was a time for me to finally grieve. I realized how fear controlled me and how post-traumatic stress dictated my life. I started to understand the magnitude of my negative feelings—toward the Universe, toward life, and toward Harvey.
Over many months, I learned appropriate ways to express sadness, anger, and resentment. My emotions didn’t eat me alive as I had feared. Actually, I became alive when I started to truly feel them.
On the fifteenth anniversary of the accident, I was alone in my apartment, nursing my depression with some wine. My thoughts turned to Harvey. Did he know what today was? Does he remember me? Then I was struck by a bolt of brilliance. I’ll call him!
If he isn’t going to call me to apologize, then I’ll call him and rub it in his face how he ruined my life.
I didn’t think twice. I jumped up off the couch, found his number, and dialed. The phone rang once. Twice. Five times. I ended up leaving a message.
At work the next day I could hardly concentrate, and by the time I got home from work, I was a bundle of nerves. Would he call?
And then the phone rang.
“Hi Colleen, this is Harvey.”
I screamed at him, “Do you know who I am? Do you know what yesterday was?”
“Oh yes,” he said through his sobs. “I remember you. I think about you all the time.”
My heart lurched. He thought about me all the time? Then why didn’t he contact me?
Harvey and I conversed and connected and ended the call with an agreement to meet.
In preparation for our visit, I spent a number of sessions with my therapist preparing to give Harvey a verbal lashing. I was ready to shame him for what he had done to me.
When the day finally came, Harvey and I saw each other across the hotel lobby. Tears welled up in his eyes as he walked toward me.
“Hello Colleen,” his arms opened wide. “Can I give you a hug?” What? You want me to give you a hug? Wouldn’t a good chest beating be more appropriate? The nice girl in me gave him a hug.
During the four hours we spent together, instead of screaming at him for everything he had taken from me, I listened. I heard how the accident happened from his perspective—and he heard how it happened from mine.
We rehashed every moment leading up to the impact and, in doing so, we realized that, given all the same conditions, given our mutual naiveté, if placed in the same position again, we may very well make the same decisions.
I listened as he talked about how his life was impacted by the accident. He was just a twenty-one-year-old married guy at the time of the accident. Afterward, anytime he saw someone who reminded him of me, he broke down and cried—or became mean. His marriage suffered; he and his wife eventually divorced.
At the end of the visit, when Harvey and I parted, I gave him a hug. That time I wanted to.
Back home, when I realized I was able to see the situation through Harvey’s eyes, I felt a freedom I had never known before.
When I made the choice to let go of the past and forgive Harvey, I felt empowered. I didn’t see it then, but looking back I can see that when I harbored bitter feelings toward Harvey, I was hurting myself more than anyone.
Harvey and I saw each other a year later when I was visiting his town for a conference. While at dinner, instead of re-hashing the accident again, we talked about our lives. We came to the table ready to pick each other up off that roadway that had held us captive for so long.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that just a year later I finally met the man who would become my husband. We married a year later and soon started our family. When I was able to let go of the past, I was finally able to create the future I had always wanted.
Do my bitter feelings and resentments still surface? Absolutely. But now I don’t allow them to define me as a victim. I allow them to remind me to forgive. Again. And again. And again.
I’ve learned that forgiveness is a journey. When our heart becomes too heavy with the burden of our bitterness, there are distinguishable steps we can take that lead us to inner peace.
What about you? Is there something in your past that is hard to forgive? Do you want to let this go? Do you want to live more fully into your potential by releasing the past? If so, try these steps:
1. Acknowledge your feelings related to the situation and actually feel them.
Move through them. For fifteen years anger, depression, resentment, and bitterness were subversive hijackers of my life. Once I learned how to acknowledge and feel these emotions, they not only lost their power, they subsided.
2. See the situation from the other person’s perspective.
Our myopic view of the situation keeps us stuck in the past. If possible, have a conversation with your perpetrator. If that’s not possible, imagine the situation from your perpetrator’s point of view. What story can you tell that might explain the situation from his or her perspective?
3. Release your bitter feelings.
Remember, you were not born angry, sad, or vindictive. Let go of these accumulations and allow yourself to return to your pure humanity.
4. Make the choice to forgive.
Yes, forgiveness is a choice. It doesn’t just happen. And you may need to forgive a transgression again and again until that becomes your new normal.
Forgiveness is not about condoning another’s actions. When forgiving another, we are not absolving them of restitution. Forgiveness isn’t even about the other person. The choice to forgive is always a gift we give ourselves.
Photo by Okinawa Steve
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How to Deal with Regret: 8 Ways to Benefit and Move Forward
“Stay away from what might have been and look at what can be.” ~Marsha Petrie Sue
When I look back at some of the most painful moments of my life, I see myself sitting alone, feeling either immense shame or regret.
It’s bizarre how we can get so offended and angry when other people hurt us and yet repeatedly choose to torture ourselves, far worse than they possibly could, through repeated mental rehashing.
For the longest time, my biggest regret revolved around missing out on life.
From a distance, people always thought I had everything going for me. Up close, you could see the cracks in that facade. No matter what I got, I was painfully discontent and depressed, and often isolated in fear.
I remember my last night in NYC at twenty-five, sitting in a tiny boxed-up efficiency studio apartment that I rented in a low-income building. I’d been in the apple for two and a half years, and my greatest accomplishments were barely noticeable to anyone but myself.
Granted, they were big ones: I’d quit smoking, formed a yoga practice, and begun the slow uphill climb to liking who I was.
But the list of what I didn’t do often felt far more compelling: I didn’t form many real friendships, I never had a storybook NYC romance like I dreamed about, and I never even once auditioned for a play after growing up on the stage.
I went to NYC to convince the world I was strong, then I broke into a million little pieces and, in stubborn resistance to “giving up,” spent two years trying to glue myself back together.
For a long time I regretted that I went to the city where dreams come true and did absolutely nothing to go after mine. Then I realized something: I was not that girl anymore, and in another second, I would again be someone new.
At any moment I could let go of the weight of who I’d been and allow myself a better chance of becoming who I wanted to be.
What I did or didn’t do could either paralyze me further or motivate me to do something now—something not conceived in reaction to past disappointments but born completely anew from a moment of strength and empowerment. (more…)
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Go Do: Let Go of the Past and Future and Live in the Present
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” ~Einstein
“Go do, you’ll learn to just let yourself fall into landslide. Go do, you’ll learn to just let yourself give into low tide. Go do!”~Jonsi
I recently heard from a friend whom I had not heard from in over two years. He sent me an email just to check in and see how I was doing, congratulate me on my recent marriage, which he had heard about, and let me know that he had faced some hardship over the past couple of years.
He had been, simply put, stuck. To my surprise, he also mentioned that some words I had sent him in an email, many moons ago, had stayed with him and encouraged him over the years.
What were those words? “Don’t even talk about dreams. Think of it as actually the moment, the doing.”
At the time, my friend was facing a very common fear: what to do with his life. He had dreams like we all do. He had goals he wanted to accomplish.
This is something we all face at some point in our adulthood and with my friend, that fear of what’s to come, what may be, was holding him back from simply doing anything. In that way, he found himself feeling so stagnant that depression was taking hold.
Funny, I had not remembered ever saying that. Nor did I recall our correspondence, but upon reading the words, I thought, Wow, I still say that to myself now! Keep doing… cause it’s all about the journey.
These are all things we’ve heard before. I had said nothing new.
The thing is, we all have dreams and goals. But when we get caught up in the small things around us, we forget the big things. At the same time, when there are so many big things to potentially bog us down, we forget to enjoy the small things in life.
So how do we find the balance and keep moving? How do we have big dreams, and still obtain them? How do we experience the day to day? How do we go do?
In my early twenties I was briefly married to a man who was one person before marriage and another person after. During our marriage he was extremely abusive, dangerous, and to be frank, downright selfish and mean.
During that time, despite everything else going on in my life—the day-to-day stresses, hopes, demands, and needs—I was still in fear for my very own life, whether it was at stake in reality or not.
At the time, I didn’t realize this fear.
I spent three dreadful years married to this person and trying to do anything and everything I could to avoid being exactly where I was.
I would come up with excuses to be out of the house or out of town. I was telling myself I would leave or that I could change my husband, and in the worst way, I was not allowing myself to emotionally recognize the true danger of the situation I was in.
Why? Because I was terrified. Terrified my marriage would fall apart, terrified to tell my friends or family, terrified I would be looked at as the ‘poor victimized wife,’ and even more so, terrified to confront my husband for fear of what he might do.
Had I known then how important living in the present was, I likely would not have stuck around in that marriage for so long.
When we are in crisis situations, even stressful situations at work or school or at home, our bodies tell us to fight or fly. Mine did both while I was being abused. But more importantly, and on a conscious level, I was denying myself the one thing I needed most—to see where I was and accept it.
I would not allow myself to see the danger and weight of the situation I was in. I feared the abuse and would not allow myself to face it because of my fear.
Now, let’s take this example and move it into something perhaps a bit more relatable.
Consider the stresses of a demanding job. Consider monetary problems—too many bills and too little cash. Consider a fight with a loved one or confusion on where to go in life or what to choose for your career.
In any stressful situation, of the many and hundreds of situations that abound our lives, there is truly only one answer that I’m aware of that applies to all these open ended questions. That is: go and do.
When times are tough it is easy to get caught up in the toughness and remain there.
Whether that means you stick to your guns in an argument or ponder your dreams rather than take action, either way you’re stuck. You’re stagnant. But, if you remind yourself to go and do, then you move.
I won’t say forward because I don’t know if we are ever moving forward; perhaps we are just swarming around in an eternal grain of sand. Perhaps life is just a string of present moments, neither past nor future. In any case, the movement, the doing, is the living.
Had I allowed myself to be in the dangerous moments of my marriage, mentally accepted that my life was in a situation of abuse, and at stake lay my happiness, my well-being, my peace of mind, I would have not stayed stagnant in that marriage for so long. I would have made a change. I would have gone.
Had my friend not spent so many years questioning what he should be doing, he would have just done.
The key is to recognize every moment and keep moving.
It is an oxymoron to be in the moment and always moving from the moment, but such is life and it is a truth that cannot be denied if we are in search of peace.
The world is ever moving. Ever changing.
Living in the moment means doing or feeling or seeing or recognizing what’s right in front of you. The important thing is to let yourself experience everything—the good and the bad—and once you experience it, then you let it pass.
We get caught up in our pasts because we did not allow ourselves to live those pasts when they were present.
Take my example. After finally extraditing myself from an abusive environment, I lived with PTSD for the following six years, reliving over and over everything that had happened to me once before.
Take my friend; had he been doing and changing and living rather than pondering what’s to come, he would have done what he is finally doing now.
Now he is just, simply put, exploring life. He is not setting ultimatums saying, “I must be here and have xyz by this point.” Rather, he is in the moment and recently took some time for himself, volunteering at a Buddhist retreat in California.
Instead of worrying so much about where he would be, he is taking time to be now, living and relishing in his current situation.
You have to live in the moment so that it can pass. You have to face your fears, so they too can pass. And since it must pass, we must feel its presence, good or bad, while it actually is present, for it too will haunt us, for better or for worse.
Whether you are fighting abuse, fearing your future, worried about school or a test or a meeting at work, stressed about money, losing sleep over love, no matter what is on your mind at any given moment, the point is to be aware of what you’re feeling, what’s around you, and in all cases, to continue to go do.
We so often get caught up in the stress, the worry, and in some cases, so caught up in avoiding the danger or real fear in front of us, that we forget to just live. So try to balance and stay on your bike. Remember to live each moment, let it pass, but keep moving and enjoy the next. As Jonsi said, just “go do.”
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How Pain from the Past Can Be a Gift in the Present
“When something bad happens you have three choices. You can let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.” ~Unknown
Don’t hate your past. No matter what it contained or what it did to you, the past shapes who you are, not just for the things you felt damaged you but for the lessons you can take from it.
I love working with the people I call the world shakers. They’re the people who want to make a difference in the world so that they leave it in a slightly better way than they found it.
I love these types of people because they’re so driven by their heart and passion for others. They’re kind. They value people.
You know what else these people have in common? They have empathy for others and a desire to make the world a better place. Not in a showy, “give me the Nobel Peace Prize” kind of way (although a bit more showy-ness wouldn’t go amiss!) but in a gentle, modest way.
Do you know what really amazes and inspires me about world shakers? They’ve had their own hurts, challenges, and heartbreaks but instead of letting those things harden them and make them brittle, they’ve allowed themselves to stay open and vulnerable.
They’ve taken those things that have wounded, battered, and pierced them and transformed the experiences into fierce empathy for others.
They can’t walk past the person who’s struggling because they know how it feels to struggle. They have a way of recognizing the human condition in all of us.
They turn it outward and use it as a learning experience, one that enhances their ability to empathize and drives their conviction to change things for others.
It could be the mother who refuses to pass on the cycle of abuse she experienced to her own kids, or the teacher who bans the world “stupid” from her classroom because she can remember how much it crippled her to hear it as a child.
It could be the man who gives coffee to the homeless guy every day because he can knows what it’s like to feel like no one cares about you, or the recovering addict who works with troubled teens to try and save them the pain of his experiences.
World shaking is often driven by a need to make things better because of the pain we’ve suffered ourselves.
Still, I still have to catch myself when I bemoan the things that have happened to me over the years. Like everyone, I’ve had my share of unpleasant, difficult, and down right heart breaking experiences.
For the longest time I was angry at the world because I’d experienced them. I hated the mistakes I made. I berated myself for my screw-ups and stupid choices. I felt defined by them—embarrassed and soiled—like I should be wearing a T-Shirt with the words “Damaged Goods” on it.
One day, a very wise person said these words to me:
Everything that has ever happened to you is the perfect preparation for the person you’re destined to become.
And everything flipped.
Those things that I had regretted so much had shaped me. What’s more, I had a choice in it. I had inadvertently used those things that had happened to me as things that drove me forward. Many of the things I’d become interested in, my passions, and my values were driven by those very experiences.
I’m a passionate advocate for reducing the stigma associated with mental health issues, and I started my whole journey of learning about personal development and emotional resilience because of my own battles with stress-related illness.
I help people find joy, passion, and a sense of purpose at work and that’s undoubtedly because I spent so many years in jobs that didn’t suit or that where I didn’t feel I was making a difference.
I’ve also struggled in jobs that really did suit me because I didn’t know how to handle the stresses and challenges our work can bring. I didn’t understand the importance of asking for help, having strong support networks, actively managing stress, and making sure I wasn’t mentally giving myself a hard time too often.
Having to take a break due to burn out and stress felt horrible at the time it happened to me. But during that time out I studied, trained, and read—a lot!
I realized that resilience is a practice, not some innate skill that you either have or you don’t. I learned how to develop my own resilience and that made me immensely driven to help others do it, too.
My dark times also forged my sense of empathy, a key skill I bring to my work. If I’d had the “charmed” life I’d originally wanted, would this have been the case? Somehow I doubt it.
All of the lessons I’ve learned led to wisdom that can only be gained through experiencing life’s ups and downs.
Hard lessons learned are deep lessons. They shape us. Most of us are familiar with the term post-traumatic stress, but did you know there is also a phenomenon called post-traumatic growth?
It’s the ability to grow through adversity—to come out the other end stronger, clearer, and with a renewed zest for life.
I think that’s what many of us fail to recognize in ourselves, that those dark times, far from diminishing us, can give us the most profound of gifts—the gift of recognizing human life in all its messy, painful, courageous glory.
We can take those gifts and use them to be a beacon to others to say, “It’s okay. I’ve been there. This too will pass.”
And that surely is a real gift worth giving.
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Are You Holding Yourself Back with a Story About the Past?
“The distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” ~Albert Einstein
One morning I woke up inexplicably sad. I sat on my bed trying to make sense of how I felt and what could be behind it. Intuitively, I grabbed one of the many books lying on my night table and opened it in a random place.
What I had in my hands was A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle, and the chapter was called “Breaking Free.”
Tolle explains how we tend to be unconsciously engaged in stories from the past and habitual thoughts about them and how we avoid the feelings associated with them.
Avoiding uncomfortable feelings instead of allowing them to wound us is not the answer, Tolle warns us; emotion is a response to what is happening in the mind.
Our ego clings to false stories that create fear, anger, jealousy, and other emotional responses because it feeds on the past and future for its existence.
The best thing we can do to reduce the impact of these emotions is acknowledge them.
Uncomfortable emotions bring the precious gift of making us aware that we’re trapped in thoughts, beliefs, stories, and old interpretations of ourselves. By being present with our emotions, we can break our identification with them and release the past.
Reminded once more that every emotion is a messenger of something else that’s running deeper, I allowed my sadness to just “be.”
I could see how my past beliefs of being unwanted, undeserving, and punished were dominating the scene. I was living a past story as if it were happening today with an intensity that surprised me.
I realized then that the stories we tell ourselves are a mixture of “old emotions” and experiences we have come to feel as our identity.
“The Unwanted Me” is a personal story that has pervaded my life for too long, making me feel terrified about showing what I have to offer and taking pertinent actions.
From an early age I felt that I was somehow “different.” My environment was one of noisy activities—hanging out, watching TV, or playing video games—while I enjoyed reading, silence, nature, learning, being by myself, and engaging in artistic or volunteering activities.
I was an extroverted introvert; I loved to talk about things I was passionate about, and others mocked me for this.
The rejection made me disappear into a very rich but lonely inner world. As I grew up, I developed an inquisitive mind and artistic tendencies, which seemed to aggravate and scare my relatives and acquaintances even more than my “nerdy” style.
How could I feel so inspired and touched by things that drove others nuts? The battle to correct and bring back on track this lost sheep became so fierce and devastating that it ended with me having to leave home to be able to pursue my dreams.
Finding my way to who I was included not only being homeless and broke but also feeling enormous amounts of guilt and shame for the disappointment and pain I was causing my loved ones by doing the “wrong things.”
It took a lot of hard work to get where I am now. Long nights filled with doubts about my abilities and choices made the call for becoming an artist a painful one.
The pleasure and wonder I felt for the arts became tainted by the belief that there was something inherently wrong with me and I was being punished for challenging traditional points of view.
What I understand today is that I was struggling not only with the “real” day-to-day challenges but also with this invisible past story silently sabotaging my efforts. This is the reason why I feel so tired and frustrated sometimes.
I have actually enjoyed the benefit of having good people in my life and even recognition, but because I was unaware of a hidden script running the show, it took me loads of effort to believe people actually appreciated me for my qualities instead of pitying me.
I felt left alone many times in my life, which was both the result of the old pattern of being unwanted and punished and the fuel that kept the pattern going.
I know better now than to let the old story run wild instead of building the one I want to live. Whenever I feel this way again, I can ask myself: Who is speaking? Is it the real me, or my old “unhappy,” “unwanted,” “unworthy” (fill the blank) story?
Knowing what story we are telling ourselves helps us learn, little by little, to trust life and build the sense of self-worth we need to succeed and be fulfilled.
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A Letter from Your Future Self
“The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now.” ~Robert G. Ingersoll
Dear Past Me,
Remember that day when you thought all was lost? When you thought there was barely any point in carrying on?
The bank account was dangerously low.
You were arguing with everyone close to you.
The roof was leaking.
It felt like everything was a struggle and the so-called abundance of the Universe was nowhere to be seen.
You were going over the mistakes you’d made.
The money you had lost.
The opportunities you had missed.
You were going over angry conversations and thinking about how right you were and how wrong they were.
You were searching for forgiveness but holding onto the unfairness of it all.
Remember how low you felt?
You actually spent more time than you care to admit wishing you didn’t exist.
You thought at least that way, nobody would miss you and you wouldn’t cause them any pain if you had never existed.
Dude.
Seriously?
You do realize now that you wasted a bit of time with that ridiculousness, right?
You wished for a lightning bolt of awareness to hit you in the head.
You were hoping for a finely tuned droplet of self-aware genius to magically transform your heart.
The Universe provided because in the next few moments, you read this:
The average person lives to be 76 years of age, which is approximately 28,000 days.
28,000 days.
That’s when it hit you.
Every day is truly precious.
Months seemed to come and go.
Years flew by.
But days. Days were made up of habits.
You woke up to your own habits at that point.
How much time had you wasted drifting into jealousy?
How many hours had been lost sinking with regret or crying over disappointment?
If you added up the hours you’d filled with worry, regret, anger, sorrow, and guilt, how many days would it equal?
It was terrifying to even consider.
You shifted.
You found three ways to live in each day that have changed you forever.
1. You are not your feelings.
When anger or hurt hits your heart like a ton of bricks on a hot summer day, it can feel like it consumes you.
The more you resist, the more you fight it, the bigger it gets.
Allow the pain to be there. Talk to it. Realize that you are the witness that is doing the talking.
2. Meditation.
It seems like everyone talks about meditating.
Once you made it a non-negotiable part of your life, everything else shifted for you.
Think of it like brushing your teeth or taking a shower.
You can sit quietly anywhere. In your car. At your desk. Just close your eyes and breathe.
It will help you to be in the day.
3. Forgiveness.
As much as you’re struggling with your own crapola, everyone else is going through his or her own lessons as well.
As soon as you leaned into forgiveness, you felt better.
You stopped resisting.
Forgiveness gives you flow.
And when you flow, BOOM—you’re in the present moment again.
I want you to wake up to what you have right now!
I want you to know that no matter what, today is beautiful.
It doesn’t matter if it’s pouring rain, pounding snow, or penetrating sunshine.
Weather is neither good nor bad. It just is.
Today is what you make it, and I want you know that here and now, in this future moment that I’m writing you from, love is the only thing that lasts.
Whether your current moment is filled with sorrow or bursting with joy, this too shall pass.
Find ways to make today into a beautiful painting of kindness toward yourself and toward others, and you will reach the end of your 28,000 days with a knowingness that you lived well.
What day is it today?
It’s the best day ever.
Love,
Future Me -
Make Peace with Your Past: Find the Good and Embrace the Lessons
“It’s not the events of our lives that shape us but our beliefs as to what those events mean.” ~Tony Robbins
Daughter of an alcoholic. Welfare recipient. Teenage mother. Non-college attendee. Poor decision maker. Unhealthy relationship participant. Financial disaster. Evictee.
All of these statements described me. They also propelled me into action, transforming me into an over-achieving perfectionist. Yet they still weighed me down because I felt like I had to constantly prove I was better than my past—better than the circumstances from which I came.
It took a lot of effort.
It took a lot of energy.
It was a burden.
I gained a lot of knowledge, built a tremendous skill set, and developed expertise. I was successful on the outside, but on the inside I felt like nothing more than a fraud.
I avoided events where the question of what college I attended may surface.
I avoided situations that would put me in the company of highly educated people, for fear that their vocabulary would be beyond my understanding and I would appear stupid.
I avoided conversations about any topic that I did not feel a level of expertise in discussing.
I avoided talking about my past and my history.
Avoidance became a whole new skill set—one that I executed with a level of mastery. At some point I began to realize this game of charades was not in alignment with my core values of honesty and integrity.
I began to realize that the energy I was putting into creating a false image of myself was taking away my ability to live my life fully and openly.
I began to realize that in order to move forward, I had to come to terms with my past, to extract the good, to carry forward the lessons learned, but to leave behind the all of the garbage I’d outgrown.
Good like…
The kindness and generosity shown by to me strangers, neighbors, family, and friends when I was in the greatest need. The people who cheered me on and believed in me when I did not believe in myself. The few who knew my biggest, darkest secrets and loved me anyway.
Lessons like…
Understanding that no matter how much you want something for someone else, the only person you have control over—that you can change—is yourself.
Accepting the fact that when you blame other people for what is wrong with your life, nothing is ever going to get better.
Realizing that no matter how bad a situation seems in the moment, someone else is surviving, sometimes even thriving, in much more difficult circumstances.
And also…
What you believe about yourself and your limitations will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And, it doesn’t matter how “successful” you seem on the outside if you are miserable on the inside.
When my perception shifted, so did my life. Today I embrace who I am—all of me—the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I am grateful for all of the experiences I’ve encountered.
I realize that I was judging myself far more harshly that anyone else ever could.
I let go of the belief that I had to hide from my past.
I let go of the belief that I was “less than.”
I let go of the belief that I was not worthy.
I no longer pretend.
I share openly and, in claiming my story, it not only helps me but also helps others on their journey. It gives them the courage to share their truth, to stop hiding and start living.
Recovering perfectionist. Student of life. Woman of strength. Overcomer of obstacles. Seeker of growth. Embracer of truth. These are the descriptors I’ve added to my life story. The rich and messy truth of my past makes possible the true success of my todays.
What beliefs are you clinging to that are holding you back? Where in your life are you feeling like a fraud? What are the tough and painful lessons that you can be grateful for today when you look through this new lens of perspective?
Reflect. Journal. Dig deep and find the answers. It’s in this process—in your truth—that you will find true happiness, success, and self-acceptance. It’s where healing begins. It’s where you will find peace.
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Be More Childlike: Life Can Be Beautiful If You Let It
“Children see magic because they look for it.” ~Christopher Moore
Take a moment to close your eyes and imagine a beautiful, warm, sunny Sunday afternoon. Where could you possibly be—at home, on a beach, or waiting at a bus stop?
Which of these three scenarios is the most appealing? Most of us would probably choose the beach. However, true enlightenment can be found in all three.
Recently I was waiting for a bus. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny Sunday afternoon. At the bus stop were three ladies. One was and elderly lady in her twilight years, the other was in midlife, and the final one was just a young child.
The lady in her twilight years was laughing with the child and having fun, in between complaining to the child’s mother about having to wait over thirty minutes for a bus.
When talking to the child, the mother in midlife was stressed and impatient. She too was complaining to the lady in her twilight years about the delayed bus.
The child was enjoying being outside, chatting, laughing, and having fun with the elderly lady. She had no concept of time or impatience. She displayed no distress in reaching her destination.
Observing this interaction, I asked the elderly lady if she needed to be somewhere. She said, “No, I’m going home but I actually have nothing to go home for.”
Checking my transit Smartphone app, I attempted to reassure everyone the bus was due in five minutes.
The child’s mother hurriedly said, “No, no. It’s not coming! I’ve been here over thirty minutes and I also have checked the internet.”
How did she know the bus wasn’t coming? Well, her experience told her it wasn’t. She was focusing on the past, and more specifically, a past experience. An experience she’d chosen to make significant, real, and relevant to the present.
I understood how she felt. I’d spent many years thinking that nobody loved me or wanted me after several of my relationships had failed. It was very much like waiting for the next bus, without much hope of it coming.
The older lady said, “This city is going to the dogs!” She’d made a judgment. One that condemned a whole city to doom based on the delay of one single bus.
The older lady was focusing on the future. A future she was predicting based on a single thought she’d had; a future for a whole city. Words we use are significant for they communicate our thoughts, feelings and beliefs.
The young child was in the present. Living in the moment and enjoying her interaction with other human beings, a balloon in her hand, free of judgment and thought.
She seemed happy with the warmth of the sun and a Sunday afternoon at a bus stop.
Then the bus came. The driver opened the door and apologized for the delay, explaining that construction had held him up.
At every stop we encountered, people boarded and complained about the delay to their destination. Throughout this time, the child was oblivious to this, still in the present.
When I got off the bus several stops later, two more were right behind. Two more buses carrying people from A to B.
Buses sometimes come in threes because our journey in life isn’t always the same; it isn’t always predictable. Three buses at once is a blessing, three vehicles for you to choose from, three choices instead of one.
You see, the journey did have beauty. It had a child finding magic in an interaction with another human being, in the warmth of the sun, in the opportunity to stop and play. Unfortunately, some of us sometimes get caught up in getting from A to B.
We sometimes don’t appreciate what’s right in front of our eyes. Sadly, on this day, the mother missed a few precious moments of her daughter growing up.
It made me think of my parents and how I missed them. They are in their eighties and live 6000 miles away. Each day I miss them growing older.
I feel like they are slipping away, and there is sadness in me not being there to hug them and hear their stories each day.
I made a resolution to call them more often, to visit them more often, despite the distance and cost (mere details in the grand scheme of things).
The older lady worried about getting home when she was in no hurry and had expressed nothing to get home for. Sometimes that’s the problem; we don’t have something to travel to.
Like a meteor hitting the Earth, it reminded me of a painful time in my life, when I had nothing to go home for. It was after a particularly bad break-up that scarred me for a number of years.
At that time in my life I was running from hurt, but had nowhere to go. I really understood what the elderly lady was feeling. I could wear her pain. I wanted to simply hold her, tell her she would find a new path. Perhaps I should have been brave and told her that?
As we grow from child to adult, at some point we stop imagining. We stop dreaming. We focus on the details of everyday life that are inconsequential.
A bus is a vehicle. It simply gets us from A to B. We can choose if we want to appreciate the journey.
Appreciate your travels today. There is beauty in every one of them.
Whenever you find yourself getting annoyed, impatient, or frustrated with your journey, ask yourself these questions:
What’s the hurry? What can I appreciate right now? What opportunity has this delay given me? What am I really being impatient with? What am I missing by being this way?
What would a child do right now? What’s truly important to me and what action should I take that I haven’t been?
Powerful questions ground us. They make us reflect, think, and discover. They get us to challenge our assumptions and confront our thoughts.
Do something childlike on every journey you take. Skip to the supermarket. Sing in the elevator. Stop and look all around you. Just see, hear, and appreciate. Life can be beautiful if you let it.
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Tiny Buddha’s Recreate Your Life Story eCourse Launches Today!
If you’re new to the site, you may be wondering who I am. Hi there! I’m Lori, and I’m the founder of Tiny Buddha.
If you’re not new to the site, you may be wondering where I’ve been, since I haven’t written much lately.
There are a few reasons for that. For one, I’ve focused a lot more on curating and editing blog posts from other community members. Secondly, I’ve been traveling, as I mentioned in a post in April.
But aside from that, I’ve spent the last several months working on my first ever eCourse, Recreate Your Life Story: Change the Script and Be the Hero, with my partner Ehren Prudhel.
The last time I remember feeling this excited was September 9, 2009. It was the day tinybuddha.com first appeared on the web—then a site with just a few pages, a handful of quotes, and only two other blog contributors.
After spending more than a decade depressed, isolated, and anxious, and several more years in a process of self-discovery, I felt that unique blend of exhilaration and fear that comes from finally trying something new and putting yourself out there.
Now, nearly four years later, the site has grown into a community of more than 650 writers and millions of readers—all connected by a common intention to embrace wisdom and growth.
I believe this course I’m presenting to you today can be a powerful tool to support those intentions.
It’s a fun, creative course blending self-help and film that can help you let go of the past so you can feel free, happy, and unlimited in the present—and confident about creating the future.
There’s a whole lot more about the course at recreateyourlifestory.com, including the brand new trailer:
Interested in learning more? Visit me at recreateyourlifestory.com! -
Use Self-Acceptance to Learn from the Past and Let It Go
“The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” ~Ralph Blum
We are all familiar with the concept of “releasing the past.”
As one who has experienced lots of events in my life that I’ve been anxious, at times, to let go of, I’m very familiar with this concept.
We want to be present to fully experience everything in our lives, without being tethered to what has already occurred; we want to be ready, willing, and in the moment so we can take what comes at its face value. (Just in case you’re wondering, for me it’s a work in progress!)
We do not want to evaluate our current and future experiences based on a past that we may, or may not have, enjoyed.
I didn’t start to seriously consider my own desire to let go of the past until I came out of a really bad relationship.
Part of my personal process of healing was some intense internal questioning and exploration of the experience. I started considering what I might actually want from a relationship, and what qualities I’d prefer in a partner.
I realized I was thinking of what I wanted in terms of what I didn’t want.
These “don’t wants” were all things I’d already experienced in the previous relationship. I recognized that I was actually anxious and nervous at the idea of the “don’t wants” occurring again, and that’s when I realized it was time to let go.
This experience, and others, also helped me to realize that the desire to “release the past” is at odds with the common admonishment that we learn from it.
When we are small, we learn by trying over and over (and sometimes over and over and over) again. We did not use a spoon correctly on the first attempt; nor did we walk without falling on our diapered butts many times. This is an absolutely normal part of the learning process.
We were not born with the tendency to judge ourselves for how many times over we try; that came later. At some point, “attempts” became “mistakes,” and the self-judgment kicked in.
This occurs in conjunction with recognizing the cultural belief that responsible people learn from their mistakes. This is a concept we value very highly in our human tribe. There is often great negative judgment placed on people who, it is perceived, make the same “mistakes” over and over.
Most of us want to avoid feeling judged (by ourselves and others) and the unpleasant emotions that come with it, so we readily accept that we must learn from our errors.
One of the ways we try to do this is by maintaining the related images and inner dialogue of the past in our present consciousness. Think of it as the past being front and center, right in our faces.
It’s tough to let go of something that we are also maintaining a hold on so we do not forget it, and therefore repeat it.
How can we move forward, both with releasing the past, and learning from it?
Self-acceptance.
When we consciously desire to let go of an old experience, what we are often actually saying is, “I’m not okay with what happened and I want to pretend it never occurred.” Not a lot of acceptance in that sentence, self or otherwise.
What if we replace it with, “I’m not happy with what happened, but I accept that it did, it’s done, and I trust myself enough to leave it in the past, where it is.”
Re-framing the “I’m not okay…” phrase with a little self-acceptance has a very different sound and feel.
Similarly, it’s tough to learn from our mistakes when we are busy beating ourselves up over them.
Acceptance of whatever occurred (your own bad behavior or someone else’s) can ease the process.
There is a huge difference between learning from one’s mistakes and constantly berating oneself about said mistakes in an effort not to repeat them.
I think we all want to live in the now—enjoying, noticing, appreciating, learning, and embracing our lives without the miscellaneous paraphernalia of the past coloring our perspectives and creating expectations that don’t support us.
Stepping fully into the present is a wonderful gift to give ourselves. What are some tools you’ve found helpful when letting go of the past?
Photo by truds09
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Lessons from Regret: The Time is Now
“Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown
“Six weeks ago the doctors told me he had six weeks to live. I don’t think he is going to survive the night.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” I whimpered, my voice barely above a whisper. ‘We don’t have any time left.”
I didn’t think that as a 19 year old, seeing my father die in a hospital was going to be something I would experience. Wasn’t he meant to grow old and grey, with me taking care of him?
Nevertheless, in the early hours of the following morning, when the rest of the world was lying in a quiet slumber, I was sat at my dad’s bedside, holding his hand while it slowly grew cold. I wasn’t willing to let go, as letting go would mean accepting what was. I wasn’t ready for that.
My dad and I had always had such a difficult relationship. I was the rebel teenager and he was the frustrated father who just never knew what to do with me. In the end, when the cancer had really taken over, he just gave up. He knew I wouldn’t be his problem for much longer.
As the weeks and months passed, it became easier to be without him. But the one thing that followed me was the regret I felt—of not trying to understand him, and not making our relationship better.
The older I get, the more I realize that that period of life was meant to teach me some tough lessons—lessons that have stayed with me to this day.
If you want to say something, say it.
Don’t wait for a good time. Life is beautiful and cruel in that it doesn’t tell you when your last day on earth will be. (more…)
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10 Happiness Tips for People Who Have Been Hurt
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” ~Unknown
Maybe someone hurt you physically or emotionally. Maybe you’ve survived something else traumatic—a natural disaster, a fire, an armed robbery. Or maybe you’ve just come out of a trying situation, and though you know you’ll eventually recover, you still feel pain that seems unbearable.
Whatever the case may be, you’ve been scarred and you carry it with you through many of your days.
Most of us can relate on some level to that feeling. Even people who excel at taking personal responsibility have at least one story of having been hurt. Though some of us have endured more serious situations, you really can’t quantify or compare emotional pain.
To a teenager who just had her heart broken, the pain really seems like the end of the world. In fact, Livestrong estimates that every 100 minutes, a teenager takes their life—and that the number of suicides in high-income families is the same as in poor families.
Presumably, not all of those teens have suffered incomprehensible tragedies. What they have in common is pain, born from different adversities and circumstances.
When you’re hurting some people might tell you to “let it go,” as if that’s a valid solution. They may say “it’s all in your head” and assume that reasons away the pain. But none of that will help you heal and find happiness from moment to moment.
Like everyone, I’ve been hurt, in both profound and trivial ways. I’ve had to to acknowledge my feelings, process them, and then find ways to work through them so I could let go and move on. Here’s what helped me do just that.
1. Define your pain.
It’s not always easy to identify and understand what’s hurting you. Some people even stay in abusive relationships because it’s safer than acknowledging their many layers of pain: the low self-esteem that convinces them they deserve abuse, the shame over being treated with such cruelty, and the feeling of desperation that convinces them there’s no real way out.
The first step toward finding happiness after having been hurt is to understand why you were hurt, to get to the root of everything that makes the memories hard.
2. Feel and express that pain.
There’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to communicate how you feel to the person who hurt you, and if you can, there’s no guarantee they’ll respond how you want them to. Say what you need to say anyway. Write in your journal. Write a letter and burn it. Get it all out.
This will help you understand why you’re hurting and what you’ll do in the future to avoid similar pain, so you can feel empowered instead of victimized.
Research has actually proven that people who focus on lessons learned while journaling find the experience more helpful than people who don’t.
3. Try to stay in the present.
Reliving the past can be addictive. It gives you the opportunity to do it again and respond differently—to fight back instead of submitting, to speak your mind instead of silencing yourself. It also allows you to possibly understand better. What happened? Where did you go wrong? What should you have done?
Regardless of what you think you should have done, you can’t do it now. If you have post-traumatic stress disorder, you may need professional help to avoid revisiting the incident. If you don’t, you need sustained effort. Fight the urge to relive the pain over and over. You can’t go back and find happiness there. You can only experience that now.
4. Stop rehashing the story.
Sometimes we tell a sad story over and over again as a way to avoid moving on from the past.
It may seem like another way to understand what happened, or maybe it feels helpful to hear someone say you didn’t do anything wrong and you don’t deserve to hurt. And it’s okay if you need that for a while.
But if you do this for years it keeps you stuck living your life around a memory and giving it power to control you.
No amount of reassurance will change what happened. You can’t find happiness by holding onto a painful story and letting it control your life. You can only find happiness when you let it go and make room for something better.
If telling your story empowers you and helps other people, then by all means share! Only you know where you are mentally and emotionally and whether telling your story is hurting or helping you.
5. Forgive yourself.
Maybe you didn’t do anything wrong but you blame yourself. Or maybe you played a role in creating your current situation. Regardless of what happened, you need to realize that what you did is not who you are. And even if you feel immense regret, you deserve to start today without carrying that weight. You deserve a break.
You can either punish yourself and submit to misery, or forgive yourself and create the possibility of happiness. It comes down to whether you decide to dwell or move on. Which do you choose: anger with yourself and prolonged pain, or forgiveness and the potential for peace?
6. Stop playing the blame/victim game.
Maybe you were a victim. Maybe someone did horrible things to you, or you fell into an unfortunate set of circumstances through no fault of your own. It still doesn’t serve you to sit around feeling bad for yourself, blaming other people. In fact, it only holds you back. You can’t feel good if you use this moment to feel bad about another person’s actions.
The only way to experience happiness is to take responsibility for creating it, whether other people made it easy for you or not. You’re not responsible for what happened to you in the past but you’re responsible for your attitude now. Why let someone who hurt you in the past have power over your present?
7. Don’t let the pain become your identity.
If everything you do and all your relationships center around something that hurt you, it will be harder to move on. You may even come to appreciate what that identity gives you: attention, the illusion of understanding, or the warmth of compassion, for example.
You have to consider the possibility there’s a greater sense of happiness in completely releasing your story. That you’d feel better than you can even imagine if you’d stop letting your pain define you. You can have a sad story in your past without building your present around it.
8. Reconnect with who you were before the pain.
It’s not easy to release a pain identity, particularly if you’ve carried it around for a long time. It may help to remember who you were before that experience—or to consider who you might have become if it hadn’t happened.You can still be that person, someone who doesn’t feel bitter or angry so frequently.
If you want to feel peaceful and happy, start by identifying what that looks like—what you think about, what you do, how you interact with people. Odds are this process will remind you both how you want to be and how you don’t want to be.
9. Focus on things that bring you joy in the moment.
You don’t have to focus on completely letting go of your pain forever; you just have to make room for joy right now. Start simple. What’s something you can enjoy in this moment, regardless of what pain you’ve experienced? Would sitting in the sun bring you joy? Would calling your sister bring you joy?
Don’t think about the totality of the rest of your days. That’s a massive burden to carry—haven’t you hurt enough? Just focus on now, and allow yourself a little peace. You’ll be surprised how easily “nows” can add up when you focus on them as they come.
10. Share that joy with other people.
We often isolate ourselves when we’re hurting because it feels safer than showing people our vulnerability. What we fail to realize is that we don’t have to feel vulnerable all the time. We can choose certain people for support, and then allow ourselves time with others without involving our painful stories.
You can share a meal, a movie, a moment and give yourself a break from your anger or sadness. You don’t have to carry it through every moment of your day. Don’t worry—if you feel you need to remember it, you’ll still be able to recall it later. But as you allow yourself pockets of peace, shared with people you love, you may find you need that story a lot less.
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To be clear, you have a right to feel whatever you feel. And you don’t have to rush through your sadness or anger. We all need time to process our feelings. But there comes a time when we need to consciously choose to heal, let go, and move on. It’s a process, and it won’t be easy. But you deserve it.
Everyone deserves to feel happy. Everyone deserves a little peace. One more thing we all have in common: we can only provide those things for ourselves.
Photo here.
**This post has been expanded to clarify a few crucial points.
