Tiny Buddha

Tag: Peace

  • The Power of Patience: Let Go of Anxiety and Let Things Happen

    The Power of Patience: Let Go of Anxiety and Let Things Happen

    “Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.” ~William S. Burroughs

    Patience can be a struggle.

    I know this firsthand. My experience with impatience used to be confined to overusing the microwave or skipping to the end of a long novel.

    Back then, when waiting at a traffic light for more than two minutes seemed like an eternity, I didn’t know that life would teach me several advanced lessons in patience.

    Shortly after finishing my morning bike ride I started feeling queasy. I wondered what was happening, but tried to ignore the feeling. The queasiness was replaced with severe abdominal pain, and I had to be rushed to the hospital.

    Waiting in the emergency room for hours while in deep physical pain was a first test of patience. I passed the test because I had no other option. I couldn’t wait to be told I had indigestion and to be sent back home.

    When the ER doctor came into my tiny room and announced they would need to perform an appendectomy, I didn’t ask if I would be okay. Instead, I asked, “When will I heal? How long is it going to take?”

    Smiling, the doctor answered, “Two weeks.” I panicked. I could not possibly be in bed for two weeks! But the two weeks turned into four, and by the fourth week, I had finally learned my first advanced lesson: to be humble.

    My experience recovering from surgery taught me to slow down and to listen to my body, and once I allowed myself to relax, the healing happened.

    A few years later I was tested again, and this test would prove itself to be one of the hardest challenges in my life. I lost one of the people closest to me. This was someone who I thought would always be there for me.

    Beyond devastated, I fell into a depression. It wasn’t an immobilizing depression, but it led me to a period of deep grief and sadness.

    Weeks and months went by, but my negative feelings seemed to remain unchanged. Anxiety and fear crept in. I wanted to heal, but it wasn’t happening. The most pressing question in my head was, “When am I finally going to heal?”

    People would tell me, “You’ll be fine,” or “This too shall pass.” I listened to them, acknowledged their good intentions, and understood the message they wanted to convey. And yet, healing still didn’t happen.

    I was not able to heal until I was willing to be patient with myself and my emotions. 

    It was only when I let the feelings be and stopped putting a timeframe to my healing that I created the space my soul needed to receive the answer to my question: When will I heal?

    The first answer I received is that in a universe in which everything is in divine order, things might not happen as quickly as we want them to happen.

    The second answer is that, in order to heal, we need to take down the subconscious wall of anxiety built by our impatience. Once I took down this wall, grief lost its power over me.

    When I became patient, I realized I was in control, and once I gained control, emotional and spiritual healing started to manifest.

    Regardless of how fast I was healing, I wasn’t concerned about how quickly it happened. A Course in Miracles says, “Infinite patience produces immediate results.” The result I achieved by being patient was peace, and peace was automatic healing.

    So, whether you’re trying to lose weight, take on exercise, learn a new skill at work, or adjust to a cross-country move, keep the word patience in your mind.

    Allow yourself to be still, and remember that if you’re aligned with who you really are, all the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place at the right time.

    Spend some time in silence, and listen to the voice of your intuition, which is the voice of your true self. Sometimes you won’t be able to hear that voice, so be patient. Trust that you will receive the answers you seek in time.

    Finally, celebrate the small milestones: a pound lost, a mile ran, a spreadsheet done, a new neighbor met, a happy moment. As Lao Tzu said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

  • 5 Ways to Deal with Emotional Oversensitivity

    5 Ways to Deal with Emotional Oversensitivity

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

    I’ve never been much of a sun worshipper. I’m a pale blend of Irish, Scottish, and English, so my skin goes from alabaster to boiled lobster in about twenty minutes.

    Once when I was a teenager, someone accidentally smacked me on my sunburned back.  I was in tears. She was genuinely sorry and I said I was all right, but secretly I was angry.

    Couldn’t she see how red I was? How slowly I moved? Someone with a sunburn gives very obvious signs, or so I thought. How could she not know I was in pain?

    Now I can see how my signs weren’t obvious at all. Most of us are so busy rushing through our own lives that only the most astute person can see when someone else is hurting.

    So, when someone accidentally aggravates my injury, who is at fault? Them, for not noticing I’m hurt? Or me, for not alerting them to be careful?

    The answer, of course, is that nobody’s at fault. It’s an accident. Any mature person recognizes this and, instead of getting stuck in blame or guilt, takes immediate steps to make amends and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

    This is especially true for emotional pain.

    A friend used to hurt my feelings all the time. Accidentally. His actions were never overtly malicious. Yet he was as oblivious to my signs of emotional pain as that person who smacked my sunburn had been to my physical signs.

    My emotions felt sunburned.

    He knew about a relationship from a few years earlier that had left parts of me very raw. But the “clothing” of my naturally gregarious, optimistic personality concealed how sensitive I still was, just like the lightweight summer blouse had concealed the extent of my sunburn.

    He didn’t realize that his perfectly innocent behavior triggered deep pain in me.

    In my youth, I would’ve blamed him for hurting me. Thankfully, I was mature enough to realize that he wasn’t causing my pain; he was just accidentally irritating a tender spot I already had.

    I’ve always been extremely sensitive, emotionally. I often lack the ability to articulate what I’m feeling, or what I’m sensing from others, but I feel it. Oh, boy, do I feel it.

    Once I accepted that other people usually aren’t aware of my emotional sensitivities and how easily my feelings get hurt, I quickly developed a way to examine the true cause of any pain I felt.

    I use these five questions:

    1. Was it intentional?

    Putting aside my pain for a moment, I look at the situation from the other person’s perspective.

    Did she or he intend to make me feel this way? It’s rare when a good person is deliberately cruel, and it’s obvious when a mean person is bullying. When I trust that others aren’t trying to hurt me, I can take them out of the equation and focus on what I’m feeling.

    2. What am I feeling?

    When we’re in pain, blaming the person who hurt us is a natural defense mechanism. We project our pain outward as anger, rather than turning our attention inward to heal. Are we accusing someone of making us feel worthless? Stupid? Ignored? Embarrassed? Unattractive? Unloved and unlovable?

    Naming the accusation lets us dig beneath it to find the sensitive spot it’s protecting, and see what’s really going on.

    3. What’s really going on?

    Once I identify what I’m feeling, I want to figure out why I’m feeling it. What am I really struggling with? It’s usually a repeating theme centered on my insecurities.

    For example, if someone “made” you feel stupid, maybe you doubt your own abilities and intelligence. If someone “made” you feel worthless, perhaps you don’t accept your own value as a human being.

    I often feel forgotten or ignored, because I’m an overachiever who struggles with feelings of inadequacy.

    It helps to remember that other people can’t “make” us feel anything. They can only trigger feelings and opinions we already have about ourselves.

    4. Where’s the relief?

    Once you find where you’re sensitive, an emotional salve helps ease the sting. Maybe you need to be alone for a while. That’s okay. It’s also okay to ask for help. My favorite relief is spending quality time with friends, but I sometimes have trouble asking for that.

    I used think that asking for help was a sign of weakness in me. When I helped my friends, I never judged them as being weak. They were simply going through a rough time, and I wanted to help make them feel better.

    That’s when I realized that not asking for their help denied them a chance to be my friend. I now feel that asking for help is like giving a gift. I’m giving my friends something they want: a chance to be my friend.

    Maybe I need a distraction, and we just hang out together. Maybe I need to talk through what happened, to figure out how to stop it from happening again. It doesn’t matter.  I tell them what I need, they provide it happily, and we both feel better.

    5. How can I prevent it from happening again?

    Trust your relationships enough to talk with the person who hurt you about what hurts. Chances are, the other person has no idea you’re hurting.

    This is the hardest part for me. I’m always worried they’ll think I’m whining or placing blame. Be clear that you’re not blaming them and don’t want them to feel guilty. You simply want to share the fact that you have a sensitive spot.

    Together, figure out how to avoid irritating that sensitivity, and make a plan for how to deal with it if it happens again.

    We all have our insecurities—our sunburned emotions. Accepting and caring for those oversensitive spots helps protect them until they heal. And they will heal, just like a sunburn does.

    Surround yourself with supportive friends and family. It’s SPF for the soul.

  • Transforming Panic Into Peace: 3 Steps to Relieve Anxiety

    Transforming Panic Into Peace: 3 Steps to Relieve Anxiety

    “No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” ~Buddha

    Growing up, I was one of those people much more concerned about what you thought of me than what I thought of me.

    With my focus being on how I was being perceived by those around me, it left me feeling extremely unsettled.

    I was desperate to be liked and accepted.

    “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind” was a nice idea for the fortunate, but certainly not for me.

    I was convinced that Dr. Seuss was living in fantasyland!

    This social anxiety spread to my work life, too. I wondered why I was never truly happy or successful. I wondered why I didn’t enjoy the rich relationships that so many around me seemed to enjoy.

    Then I discovered Zen.

    I read that Zen means awareness, and being with what is, as it is.

    What I loved most about Zen is its utter simplicity in recognizing what is really true. Not what is partially or sometimes true, but what’s always true.

    It didn’t compromise.

    I liked that. I wanted that ability to recognize what was always true. That sounded like real emotional freedom to me.

    Zen kept telling me truth was simple, so simple that it was often overlooked by the mind that loved to judge, condemn, compare, and resist.

    Zen meant to be in alignment with reality as it actually unfolded, not as I wished it would unfold.

    Simple indeed!

    I saw how my mind loved to complicate things. I saw how my mind resisted so much of what was actually happening.

    And I was miserable and stressed out.

    I failed to see the inseparable connection between panic and peace—and how resisting one would never reveal the other.

    However, as I began to incorporate what I was learning, I found that when I met the anxiety symptoms without running from or avoiding them, my experience began to change, too.

    They no longer had control of me.

    I had new life.

    And I wanted more of it.

    Here are the three things that dramatically reduced or eliminated the anxiety and panic I had been experiencing. Consider implementing the following and see if it brings you more peace.

    1. Meet your panic and anxiety head on.

    Zen is essentially about who we’re being in relation to something or someone, and this includes needless anxiety. It also includes this very moment. In fact, especially this very moment, as it shows up, and not as I wish it would show up.

    Inherent in anxiety and panic attacks is the belief that it shouldn’t be happening. But this is never true.

    No amount of wishing a particular moment to be different than it is can ever change that moment. Many actually think it’s a good strategy, but it rarely ever works out.

    Upon closer examination, I saw that whenever I ran from anything, that thing chased me. This included thoughts and feelings.

    I found that whenever I faced and embraced anything, it eventually dissolved and left my experience. I was encouraged because I knew I was onto something significant.

    I walked around with a new mantra: “What I run from must chase me.”

    It served as a great reminder and often snapped me back into being in alignment with what was actually occurring.

    Whatever I met head on lost its power, every time. Resistance would often magically drop away. And it was palpable.

    I learned that I can either live with the laws that govern me (and all of life) or I can resist them and suffer.

    Seeing that I couldn’t escape the consequences of how I met anything, I began to face what was facing me. And that insight, I found, was the difference between living a life of peace versus a living a life of stress.

    I began to consciously choose peace.

    In fact, any challenging situation (or emotion) that arose wanted to be met by my loving attention.

    Stress manifested only if I avoided the negative thoughts and feelings.

    If I shined the light of gentle awareness on what wasn’t at peace within me, it had to come out of hiding and release me—because I met it.

    2. Allow it to be as it is.

    Notice how your mind in its infinite wisdom will tell you that any particular thought, feeling, or experience should or could be different than it presently is.

    Is it ever true? Can it ever be true? As much as the mind will try to use logic and reason, it’s never true.

    Things are often different than they were, but they are never different than they are!

    This may seem counterintuitive, but the reality is we must first accept our present lot if we wish to experience something different in the next moment. We can’t expect to resist our current situation and simultaneously be at peace.

    It won’t happen.

    The essence of Zen is about being with whatever arises without offering any resistance whatsoever. It’s about being neutral emotionally so that we are in a position to respond appropriately.

    Alternatively, resistance is the energy that gives life to what we don’t want.

    If we simply allow our symptoms of anxiety to be as they are, we find that they don’t hang around long enough to torture us.

    By taking the backward step (as they say in Zen) into this present moment, we discover that peace never left us in the first place.

    It just seemed that way.

    Allow your anxiety to be as it is, as you look to overcome it.

    3. Be compassionate with yourself.

    Sure, you’ve heard it before. Be nice to yourself! Get off your back! Stop blaming yourself! The key to effective transformation—turning panic into peace—is to stop beating yourself up and to make yourself the most important person in your life.

    Wouldn’t you treat someone who really needed support with kindness and compassion?

    Why are you any different?

    Perhaps the greatest quality of spirit that the Buddha spoke most about was compassion, not only towards oneself, but to others as well. Compassion is the great neutralizer that has a way of dissolving old wounds, as well as new ones.

    The truth is you’re not to blame for your anxiety, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible for it.

    You aren’t “crazy” or “weak”—and you’re no less worthy a human being for experiencing it, either. Your mind may tell you different, and even sound very convincing, but is it really true?

    No, it isn’t. Not even a little bit.

    Work with yourself, not against yourself, if you truly desire to transform your panic into peace. It’s all in how you relate to your current condition. Self-condemnation only gets you more of what you don’t want.

    The truth is, you are much more than any thought or feeling that arises. Within you is the power to transform your panic into peace.

    As the Buddha said, “Be a light unto yourself.”

    Transcending anything never involves rejection, but it always involves acceptance.

  • Wabi Sabi: Find Peace by Embracing Flaws and Releasing Judgment

    Wabi Sabi: Find Peace by Embracing Flaws and Releasing Judgment

    Meditating

    “Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama

    Several years ago, a colleague and I were invited to give a presentation on mindfulness at our State Mental Health Conference. I was a novice and flattered to be asked.

    Singing bowls, which are metal and look like a mortar and pestle, are useful tools in mindfulness practice. The bowl is placed on a cushion and, when struck, makes a beautiful sound like a bell.

    The tone and pitch are determined by the size of the bowl and thickness of the metal. They’re used for various purposes, but always signal the beginning and ending of a mindfulness meditation.

    At the time I owned a tiny brass bowl that made a beautiful high-pitched tone. It was a lovely bowl, but the sound only traveled to a small area.

    Needing the sound to travel to a larger audience, I took a shopping trip to our local New Age Emporium. It was a large store with every thing you could want: art, bamboo plants, books, Buddha statues, hemp clothing, incense—and singing bowls.

    I made my way to the meditation section and was quickly drawn to a Tibetan bowl with metalwork that looked old and well used. I picked it up and felt how it nestled in my hands like a warm cup of tea.

    To quote Goldilocks, the words “just right” came to my mind. I fell in love with it, and though the bowl was a little pricey, the comfort it gave me when I held it was priceless. The singing bowl was going home with me.

    Next I needed to find a cushion. I wanted it to be deep red, green, or maybe even royal blue, but where were the cushions? I was expecting a large stack to match the number of bowls, but alas, there was only one. 

    It was magenta: not my favorite color to say the least. Magenta! Absolutely not! I am not a magenta person, and it looks so garish next to my earthy singing bowl. But if that wasn’t enough, there was something even more disturbing than the color magenta.

    The embroidered circle on the top of the cushion was off center. It wasn’t a little off. It was a lot off.

    Are you kidding, I thought. How could anyone expect to sell this thing? No wonder it’s the last one. It’s the leftover; who would want it? I can’t imagine using a “misfit” cushion for my presentation.

    It would be humiliating—almost like I left my zipper down or had toilet paper hanging under my skirt.

    I felt a physical sense of resistance when I looked at it, as if my heart had hands that were pushing it away. My stomach began to twist, and I felt a golf ball forming at the base of my throat.

    After recovering from my horror, I laid the cushion down and decided to scavenge the store. I was banking on the chance that there was an abandoned cushion misplaced. Surely in a store this big, there was one more cushion.

    I investigated as though I were a detective looking for clues. Trust me, if I had been looking for a needle in a haystack, I would have found it—but I didn’t. There wasn’t another cushion.

    I sulked back to the scene of the crime, aka “the misfit cushion,” and glared at it. Once again, the resistance began to bubble up, but this time something miraculous happened.

    The whisperings of wakefulness called my name, and gently I returned to the here and now.

    Stop I thought. If you’re going to give a presentation on mindfulness, practice what you preach. You can’t be mindful if you have fallen into the trance of being judgmental. You are being mindless.

    Observe the resistance. What does it feel like viscerally? How does it feel in your hands? Close your eyes. Hmmm, it feels like a cushion. Set the bowl on it and strike it. Oh, it sounds beautiful—what a mellow tone. The cushion is perfectly functional.

    Look closely at it…

    The solid color is magenta. It’s shiny and soft. The embroidered circle is on the bottom left hand corner, and it’s about 3 inches in diameter. Hmmm. The sides have a band of embroidery circling it. Hmmm.

    Then the insight began to pour in. Who said the circle has to be in the middle? Why is the middle correct, and off center not? Perfection and imperfection imply right and wrong, but is that true? Who said symmetry is beautiful and asymmetry is not?

    As I questioned everything I had mindlessly assumed, I realized the cushion was perfect in its imperfection and utility.

    Understanding, along with my new eyes for finding beauty in unexpected places caused me to meet my teacher, in the form of a singing bowl cushion. I held it close to my heart and welcomed it home.

    My epiphany was an example of the Japanese term Wabi Sabi, which is a hidden treasure available to us all that offers peace, balance, and freedom. 

    Wabi means simplicity, quietude, harmony, peace, and poverty as in being stripped down to the basics.

    Sabi means things that come with age or time, and taking pleasure in that which is old or well used; “the bloom of time” as someone once said.

    Put those two words together and you have a feeling similar to faith—hard to explain, but a way of knowing that represents the peaceful acceptance of things as they are, including imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness.

    Wabi Sabi doesn’t only help with changing how we see physical objects. We can practice Wabi Sabi in our relationships, in our professional lives, and in any situation where we may be causing ourselves stress with expectations and judgments.

    When navigating these life experiences, it’s important to remember:

    1. Flaws are the leveling field of humanity.

    We all have them, rich and poor alike. It is our blemishes that connect us with our humanness.

    2. Wabi Sabi doesn’t imply giving up striving for excellence, but it does ask us to accept what is true.

    It asks us to slow down and look at things deeply, discovering beauty that might ordinarily be passed over in unexpected places.

    3. Resisting judgment allows us to see the whole picture, not just the fragment that too often is allowed to run the show.

    In doing so, we make room for peace that comes with acceptance. Peace brings relief, wisdom and connection.

    4. By calling a truce with imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness, a paradox happens, and we discover harmony and balance.

    My magenta, off centered cushion; my sensei, takes its place at the top of my gratitude list and continues to teach all who meet it.

    Photo by Wabi Sabi

  • How My Anger Led Me to Forgiveness and Peace

    How My Anger Led Me to Forgiveness and Peace

    “Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on.” ~Alice Duer Miller

    As an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a relative, I had become accustomed to keeping secrets. Silence, I was taught, was a good thing. It protected people that I loved.

    So for over a decade, I carried the dark and overbearing weight of my past in secrecy and in silence, believing I was the only one in the world who’d ever experienced such abuse—until I learned from a college workshop that one in four women and one in five men fall victim to sexual abuse by the time they are eighteen.

    Shocked and convicted, a surge of emotions overwhelmed me.

    Later, for the first time, I was able to share my secret with my mother. She was devastated and we cried, but the conversation ended on a peculiar note: “You can’t ever tell your dad,” she said, “because it will destroy him.”

    It felt as if I’d finally surfaced for air after drowning my entire life, and now I was being pushed back underwater, but sadly I accepted it. As aforementioned, silence was a good thing, wasn’t it? It protected people that I loved.

    The seven years that followed proved to be the most tumultuous of my life. I battled suicidal ideation, clinical depression, anxiety, panic attacks, plummeting self-esteem, immeasurable anger and resentment, and the take-home prize of the millennia: unforgiveness.

    I was a highly-trained victim at this point, putting on an Oscar-worthy performance.

    And then one day, I’d had enough. I did what I’d always wanted to do: I got angry!

    Now before you take a baseball bat to your ex’s four-by-four, I’m not talking about the type of anger that features fist fights and flying chairs on daytime talk shows. This type of anger is a process through which you can access the power and peace that can only come from forgiveness.

    There are four steps I have experienced in this process:

    1. Give yourself permission to get angry.

    I was accustomed, as I’ve emphasized, to the golden rule of “silence.” Skeletons were better left in the closet, I thought. Unfortunately, mixed with my already existent people-pleasing ways, this was a recipe for disaster.

    In my journey toward esteeming others above myself, as many of the world’s wisest sages have taught, I inadvertently evolved into a doormat. Talk about regressive Darwinism!

    I wanted to be a good person, and so when I felt anger, resentment, and unforgiveness, I beat myself up over it. I truly believed that I was a horrible person for being angry over what had happened to me. Further, I didn’t want to be the “villain” in others’ eyes or the black sheep in the family who just couldn’t let go of the past.

    But at long last, I finally gave myself permission to feel that anger to the fullest. I gave myself permission to own my anger, and in doing so, I validated myself. I acknowledged that I wasn’t an unfeeling robot or a mindless drone—I was a flesh-and-blood human being with a deep spiritual wound that deserved proper treatment.

    I allowed myself to acknowledge that I was in pain, that it didn’t feel good, and that I was angry about it. As such, a process could then—and only then—begin. I could now travel into the deepest and darkest parts of my soul and bring light to those forgotten caverns.

    2. Share your story.

    There was a time when I believed I would never share my story with a single soul. I could’ve never imagined those long years ago how untrue that would become.

    Every time I share my story, I feel more and more powerful. I’m no longer a victim—I’m a survivor! Sharing your story is not about incriminating the wrongdoer. It’s about validating yourself, owning your experience, and committing to living your best life.

    There may be someone reading this right now who has never shared the life story that’s so burning inside their heart. Whether it’s writing down the story in your personal journal or finally telling a trusted, long-time friend, take this bold step forward. You will feel freedom like never before.

    Your story is nothing to be ashamed about. Come forth from that dark corner into the light. The weight feels lighter with every word you speak, and the story will become easier to share with each telling.

    I believe that if more people realized how liberating it feels to finally share their story, more people would in turn experience the love, freedom, and peace that they so desire and so deserve.

    3. Seek support and wisdom.

    Dealing with anger while bearing the goal of forgiveness in mind requires a life support team. You need to surround yourself with loving people who care about your personal growth and want the best for you.

    And while these people will support your need to validate yourself and feel angry, they mustn’t be people who will talk you out of forgiveness. Instead, ensure that your life support team is stocked with people who understand the power and love that comes from forgiveness and why it’s vital to your permanent joy.

    These people should also be able to ensure that you don’t act out on your anger. Getting angry doesn’t mean treating people unkindly and it’s not a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for nasty behavior and cruel words.

    You’re not excused from characterizing love just because you’re wounded. Trust me: you don’t want to live like that anyway. I can personally attest that it will only leave you feeling more deflated and defeated.

    Whether it’s friends or professional help, your support will be a safe space where you can share your struggles, open yourself up to the insight and guidance of others, and apply their suggestions to your life toward more positive and empowered living.

    4. Have the conversation.

    Once you have progressed through the above steps, there will come a time when you will want to have “the conversation” with the person who has hurt you. If you’re like me, you might be shaking your head, declaring that it won’t happen. I thought the same—until it did.

    And when it did, fists didn’t fly. Neither did chairs.

    Because I’d journeyed through the previous steps, I was able to come from a place of perfect peace. I was in control of my emotions. And I was able to lovingly explain to this individual how they had hurt me, how it had made me feel, and why I therefore struggled with extending forgiveness.

    Six months later, the process came around full circle and I was finally—finally—able to let go of the past and forgive. This didn’t mean forgetting about what happened. It meant reclaiming my life and deciding that the past wasn’t going to have any control of my happiness or my future.

    All because I’d made the choice to stop denying my anger and instead face it head on.

    What about you? Has denying anger kept you from moving toward forgiveness and peace? Try the four steps above. Go ahead, get angry (constructively)! Freedom’s waiting on the other side.

  • Reclaim Your Authentic Self: 4 Steps to Recover from Bullying and Abuse

    Reclaim Your Authentic Self: 4 Steps to Recover from Bullying and Abuse

    Sitting and reflecting

    When I was in fourth grade, a girl from another class bullied me. I was in the bathroom during class when I heard the door creak open and whooshing shut. There was silence for a moment, then the girl’s hands appeared on the top of the stall door, followed by her face.

    “Whaddaya doin’ in there?” she asked.

    I quickly covered myself and replied as nicely as I could, “I’m using the bathroom.”

    “Well, hurry up,” she said. “Because I want to go.” There were three other stalls, so I knew I was in trouble.

    I had no idea who this girl was. I’d seen her on the playground, but I didn’t know her name, and to this day I still have no idea why she wanted to antagonize me.

    I finished my business and thought about just waiting to go out until someone else came in, but she was banging things around, and I didn’t want to be trapped in the stall if she decided to crawl under the door. So I walked out.

    The first thing she did was grab my glasses off my face and throw them against the wall. I ran over to them, afraid they were broken. I knew I’d get in trouble at home if they were.

    I picked them up, and as I turned around, she slapped me hard. I fell back against the wall, not even knowing how to defend myself in a fight, but I was lucky. She turned, and with her nose in the air, flounced out of the bathroom.

    I carried the fear from that experience, and others, for many years. After growing up in a very dysfunctional family, I had no idea how to express all the feelings that tumbled around inside and threatened to engulf me.

    When I was in my thirties, I began reading books like The Drama of the Gifted Child and For Your Own Good, and I finally began letting go of thirty years’ worth of repressed emotions.

    Over the last two decades, I’ve distilled the process of letting go of old emotions into four simple steps.

    Even though it’s simple, the process is not necessarily easy because it can be painful to look at old memories and hurt feelings that have been with us for many years, or even a lifetime.

    But clearing out the “emotional storehouse” opens the mind to more possibilities, restores self-esteem, and leads to a rediscovery of the authentic self, which has been trapped underneath all the repressed feelings.

    Here are the four steps:

    1. Figure out and acknowledge what you’re feeling.

    Is it shame? Sadness? Despair? Anger?

    2. Find a private place, and let yourself express that feeling.

    Cry, punch sofa pillows, shake your fists, throw rocks into a pond—whatever helps.

    Let your body do whatever it wants to do. You can also journal, but the feelings move out faster if they’re physically expressed, because emotions are stored in the musculature of the body when they can’t be expressed.

    3. Tell yourself you can let go of that feeling.

    You don’t have to keep holding it inside. Call up the witness part of you to comfort yourself as you express your emotions, and remind yourself that what you’re feeling is not who you are; it’s only a feeling that will pass.

    If you feel like you can’t let go of the feeling, ask yourself, “Why? What do I need to look at? What is holding me back from letting go?” A past event or experience will often surface if you ask with a feeling of curiosity and let yourself be open to any answer that comes. You may need to go back to Step 2 if this is the case.

    Repeating this step over the course of several days gives your subconscious mind time to bring the issue to the surface, and you may find that it’s easier to let go of it piece by piece instead of all in one fell swoop.

    If you’ve experienced a deep betrayal of yourself at some time in your life, your processing time may be longer than someone who hasn’t had many traumatic experiences. Be sure to be compassionate with yourself as you go through the process.

    4. Help yourself remember that life can be good.

    After you’ve let go of some feelings, call a supportive friend to talk about something else, go to a movie, or join a group that’s going to a fun place. Anything you enjoy doing is fine.

    When someone hurts us, it’s human nature to hold on to the hurt because we think that somehow, if we can figure it out, it won’t be as painful. But you hurt yourself all over again when you hold on to a bad feeling—thinking about past experiences can drag you down and make you miserable over time.

    It feels much better to let them go; just let their energy drift out of your body and mind. Once you do, you can see everything a little more clearly and be a little more in touch with your authentic self.

    Of course, it’s always prudent to seek help if your emotions seem too overwhelming or if you find that they prevent you from functioning in life.

    But if you continue this process over a period of time, eventually the old feelings will become a memory rather than a shadow that lives with you day in and day out, and you’ll be living more from your authentic self than from your past experiences.

    Photo by Frank Kovalchek

  • 5 Meditation Tips for People Who Don’t (Yet) Like to Meditate

    5 Meditation Tips for People Who Don’t (Yet) Like to Meditate

    “Don’t wait for your feelings to change to take the action. Take the action and your feelings will change.” ~Barbara Baron

    I own a series of CDs called “Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical Music.” We know we should like and listen to classical music—they’re the classics after all! But when I actually find time to listen to music, I reach for Mumford & Sons, not Mozart.

    Some of us have a similar relationship with meditation.

    We know we should meditate—it has so many mental, emotional, and physical benefits, and who couldn’t use a bit of slowing down in their busy life? But when we actually find that bit of time to ourselves that could be used for meditation, we instead turn on the TV, reach for the iPad, or mindlessly page through a magazine.

    When I first became interested in establishing a meditation and mindfulness practice, I approached it intellectually: I read a lot of books, downloaded apps for meditation, and even considered taking a class at a local Zen meditation center.

    The more I learned about it, the more I knew I had to incorporate these practices into my life. So I read even more, and I did so much reading that I didn’t actually meditate!

    Why not? Well, honestly, meditation seemed a bit boring. And I didn’t think I was very good at it. I’d close my eyes, count my breath, and then start making grocery lists in my head and worrying about the un-crossed-off items on my to-do list.

    I found I loved the idea of meditation, but I didn’t want to practice meditation. I consider myself a left-brain, idea-loving gal, and if I have some free time, I want engage my mind, not quiet it!

    Has this happened to you? Is meditation your equivalent of a great classic of literature, which Mark Twain once described as something that everyone wants to have read, but no one wants to actually read?

    Ultimately, I came to develop a meditation practice in conjunction with my therapy for depression and anxiety, and it has changed my life for the better. I’ve learned that with meditation, the process of doing it, is the whole point, not checking the “done” box.

    I would like to share some tips to help those of you who, like I did, want to meditate, but don’t actually want to start meditating! Each tip combats one of the reasons we may give for not starting a meditation practice.

    1. I don’t have time!

    Yes, we are busy with careers, children, homes, and social obligations, but we all have five minutes to stop during our day and breathe.

    If you wanted to train to run a 5K, you probably wouldn’t start your first workout with a thirty-minute hard run. To begin a meditation practice, start slowly. Start with five minutes a day, then work up to eight, then to ten, and so on.

    You can also practice mindfulness meditation while eating (paying attention to the tastes and sensations as you eat), walking, cleaning, or any other task you do in your busy day. Can you find times in your day to bring meditative and mindful attention to what you are already doing?

    Additionally, you may find that regular meditation actually saves you time. By becoming more mindful, you’ll be less likely to make forgetful mistakes that take even more of your precious time to fix!

    2. It’s so boring! If I’m going to take time for myself, I am going to read and think!

    Yes, we love to think, but there is also beauty in quieting the mind. If you really want to get your thinking fix through meditation, however, there are meditative practices that engage your mind.

    For example, you could meditate on a short reading or scripture, or focus on a mantra for your meditation. Meditation and mindfulness are not just “sitting there thinking of nothing.” There are a variety of ways to practice.

    You can also find plenty of guided meditations online that give you something to focus on and help you develop your practice.

    3. I’m not good at it!

    Well, that’s kind of the point! Meditation is not about “emptying the mind,” but about observing the mind.

    If you find in your meditation session that your mind has wandered to the events of the day, or planning for the future, you simply bring your attention back to the breath. And the fact that you have noticed that your mind is wandering is great!

    It means you are good at it. You observed the actions of your mind. You are become more mindful. (And there’s a reason it’s called a practice—it’s something you’ll continually work on improving.)

    4. But when my mind wanders, it’s to planning, and worrying, and that seems far more important than meditation.

    Yes, we have to live in the world. We have to plan and organize—but not all the time. A strategy that has been effective for me (especially in yoga class) is to allow myself about five to ten minutes for the planning, thinking about what I need to do when I get home, or whatever else is occupying my mind.

    By getting it out of the way, I can then focus mindfully on my practice. When you sit down to meditate, write down those concerns or the to-do list items before you begin. Then set them aside—they’ll still be there when you’re done, and you can approach them with a fresh perspective!

    5. I don’t know where to begin!

    Take your cue from Nike and Just Do It! You won’t improve your cardiovascular health by reading about Zumba classes, you won’t start liking classical music if that CD collects dust on your shelf, and you won’t experience the amazing benefits of meditation until you begin your practice.

    Start small and go easy on yourself. In fact, it might be easier if you change Nike’s advice: don’t just do something; sit there!

    And just like with exercising, you may find that after a few weeks of continuous practice, meditation doesn’t feel like effort, but it becomes something you want to do, and something you truly like doing. Maybe even while listening to classical music.

  • How I Found Peace When Anxiety Was Controlling My Life

    How I Found Peace When Anxiety Was Controlling My Life

    “Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace.” ~Joan Borysenko

    For five long years during my mid-twenties I was a recluse.

    Anxiety so badly affected my life it became impossible for me to venture outside my front door or to interact socially with other people.

    Fear and panic would envelop my mind and body, rendering me paralyzed from doing the things I dearly wanted to do. My hopes of being a normal human being lay in tatters. Everything seemed impossible.

    Seeing my old friends on Facebook and other people enjoying life, attending parties, finding partners, getting married, having kids, and talking enthusiastically about their travels contributed to my deep reservoir of sadness.

    I couldn’t sleep before four o’clock in the morning and would often sleep my afternoons away in order to find a temporary comfort in the evening hours.

    The loneliness was overwhelming, the despair was consuming, and the anxiety was like a constantly beating drum, reminding me of time ticking away my hopes, dreams, and desires.

    The Japanese have a special word for people who withdraw from the world. I had become a “Hikikomori,” and at the time saw my life as a recluse never ending and maybe even suicide being the eventual outcome.

    Fortunately, these grave predictions would never have to be realized, for with the gradual self-cultivation of determination, I began to fight back against my anxiety disorder.

    It was extremely difficult at first and there were numerous hurdles, but over a period of a few years I managed to achieve the normalcy I had so badly wanted.

    Today I feel as balanced and relaxed as someone who has never known the horrors that inappropriate anxiety and terror can bring. My years as a recluse are long behind me.

    I want to share four techniques that I discovered and mention how I used them to vastly reduce the anxiety in my life. Each one can be, and was, practiced in conjunction with the others.

    1. Stimulate positive feelings.

    For half an hour each day, I began to practice loving-kindness meditation and developed an appreciation for the people and the world around me. I took inspiration for this from a book by the late German Buddhist nun Ayya Khema called Being Nobody, Going Nowhere.

    This stimulated parts of my brain different to those that activate the anxiety response. By doing this I was able strengthen mental muscles related to relaxation and happiness. This also seemed to lessen the space in which my anxiety was able to maneuver, thereby reducing its strength and effectiveness.

    I knew the development of love and acceptance for myself was also crucial to my healing. There’s not a lot else that is more disconcerting and destabilizing than a mind filled with self-hatred or blame.

    2. Bathe in discomfort.

    We are not very good at accepting discomfort. Whether it’s physically or mentally, as soon as an uncomfortable feeling arises we instinctively try to get away from it. The more we do this, the more our levels of intolerance increase. This can become very pronounced in the avoidance tactics most anxiety sufferers evolve.

    The solution for me was to develop a gentle acceptance of discomfort, whether it was an itch on my leg or the unpleasant feelings of apprehension. I slowed down my conscious response to the feeling and observed it for a little while without trying to fix it or run away from it.

    I bathed in the discomfort, even when I was filled with horrendous fear, rather than immediately trying to find distractions such as food, TV, Valium, or alcohol. It was very hard to begin with but I kept going, kept trying, kept persisting.

    By doing this I found I was able to handle discomfort more effectively and appropriately. Fear and panic began to slowly decrease as my mental awareness of the nature of the feelings becomes more refined.

    3. Study the anxiety.

    It’s important when dealing with anxiety to study what you are thinking and what leads to increased mental tension. Humans are very imaginative, and while this has enabled us to survive and prosper as a species, it has also left us at the mercy of our inner-creativity.

    I began to study my anxiety and my thoughts. I constantly questioned whether the fear of impending disaster was legitimate or not. Whether it was likely or unlikely to actually happen? Was it a sensible worry to engage in on that particular day? Or could it have been postponed until the following day?

    If so, then I left the worry for the next day and mentally compartmentalized it so it would not encroach on my then present reality. In the meantime, I used my energies to engage in activities which I believed would positively develop me as a person, however small and insignificant they seemed at the time.

    4. Distract your creative mind.

    As mentioned previously, the mind is great at imagining worst-case scenarios. Inappropriate anxiety and fear are fueled by the creative part of the human brain. If an anxiety sufferer allows this part to run free then all havoc can break loose.

    When fear was present in my mind, which was very often, I began to realize it was important to try and switch my thoughts away from my creative and emotional mind, and instead into the rational and logical realm of my brain.

    This effectively reduced anxiety periods in a surprisingly short amount of time by engaging reason over raw emotion.

    I managed to do this by focusing my complete attention on to logic-based puzzles or games. I did various things including reciting the alphabet backwards, solving a mathematical problem, memorizing 10 foreign language words within ten minutes, or trying to comprehend a riddle.

    Relaxation is Attainable

    Nowadays I live in a foreign country with a woman I love and enthusiastically engage in a job I find highly rewarding. When I look back on the man I once was, sitting alone in a bedroom for years on end, without a shred of hope or happiness, I can’t help but feel immense love and compassion for that person.

    Life is not easy and when you get stuck in a rut, things can quickly become overwhelming and seemingly impossible to escape. An anxiety disorder can disfigure the sense of reality one has and render the world a terribly frightening and cold place.

    However, it’s important to remember that no matter how bad the fear may feel, or how much of a stranglehold anxiety seems to have on your life, things can get better. With a determined spirit, you can move toward a more relaxed, healthier, and happier way of living.

    This will not only benefit you but also those who love you the most.

  • Letting Go of Fear and Living in Peace

    Letting Go of Fear and Living in Peace

    At Peace

    “Peace cannot be kept by force.  It can only be achieved by understanding.”  ~Albert Einstein

    I sat in the waiting room of the dermatologist’s office waiting to be seen. For years I have had skin problems, from fungal infections to dermatitis. But when my dentist noticed an indentation the size of a mosquito bite on my upper lip that had not healed in the five weeks since I had seen her, she sent an urgent message to my primary care physician.

    The next day, I was seen by my primary care physician and referred immediately to a dermatologist. The medical receptionist handed me a piece of paper with a big green dot next to the words “cancer screening.”

    The word “cancer” brought up all sorts of images:  throwing up, losing hair, and sometimes death.

    Years ago, I was diagnosed with pre-cancer. Had it finally developed into the real thing? 

    There were two other patients in the waiting room. An older woman with yellow tinted sunglasses and a full head of wavy gray hair sat completely absorbed reading a magazine article.

    A younger woman with long brown hair clutched an explanation from the medical billing department about the cost of other services, but no matter how many times she glanced at the paper, her gaze quickly flickered away, as if she was preoccupied with other thoughts.

    Had she also come to discover whether or not she was cancer-free?

    An undercurrent of agitation swam beneath the waiting room calmness, and I closed my eyes briefly and practiced breathing.

    When I was in my twenties, my mind and body wellness doctor mentioned I had a tendency to hold my breath during crucial moments, locking emotions into my body long after the event had taken place. The key was to remember to breathe during those big moments and let the feelings flow through me instead of getting stuck.

    I thought about dying and realized I was not afraid to die.  I was at peace with myself and how I had lived my life. 

    Sure, I thought about the practical things: bills, savings, and life insurance. I also thought about the impractical things: husband and children. I even thought about my legacy: my books and my paintings.

    If I died, I had enough life insurance to pay off the mortgage and allow my husband time to remarry. If I died, my children would finish growing up without a mother but not without mother-figures. If I died, the books and paintings would go on to entertain and delight others.

    What surprised me most was I didn’t have an urgent need to execute a bucket list if I was told I had only six months or a year to live. I felt no desire to quit my job, travel the world, or race a formula one car. I would go on as I had always done: following the same routine every day until there were no days left.

    Why?

    Over the years, I had abandoned the emergency living I was accustomed to as a young adult in favor of the one-day-at-a-time practice of mindfulness I had adopted as a middle-aged woman.

    Gone were the spontaneous forays into carpe diem that led me down selfish roads that hurt the ones I loved.

    Gone were the days when I would miserably brood over the things others had done to hurt me, whether unknowingly or intentionally. Gone were the fantasies of a life full of adventure at the expense of abandoning a disabled child I struggled to love.

    Now carpe diem translated into loading the dishwasher for my tired husband although it was his assigned chore. Now I no longer brooded miserably over hurt feelings, but said something immediately to diffuse misunderstanding. Now I no longer pined for foreign adventures, but cherished spending quiet moments with my disabled son.

    Sure, I had moments of discontent. Who doesn’t? But a fight with my husband no longer propelled me into arms of another man.

    Sure, I still envied people who could travel to foreign countries without rearranging the lives of everyone around them. But I found contentment in reading about their adventures, knowing how exhausting it already was to hire and train a respite worker to care for my son just so my husband and I could have a night out.

    Sure, I still had hopes and dreams for a life of abundance, but I was no longer going to discount the blessings I already had.

    If I did have cancer and if I did die from it, I would not change a thing in my life.

    I was not afraid of dying. Dying meant leaving my body, a habitat everyone must eventually leave. Who was I to ask to have my body forever?

    No one knew what exactly happened to the soul, but I suspected it would transcend whatever limits the body had imposed on me. If nothing else, I would live on through the ones I had left behind and their lives would become inextricably connected with mine.

    When the nurse called my name, I stood up and went into the examination room. The dermatologist arrived shortly thereafter and examined me.

    He didn’t know whether or not the skin abnormality was cancerous or not, but he wanted me to try an experimental drug for one month before performing a biopsy and authorizing further treatment.

    I left the doctor’s office without a firm diagnosis. I still don’t know whether or not I have cancer. And, frankly, it doesn’t matter whether or not I have it or whether or not I will die from it.

    What matters is the life I have been given.

    None of us knows when our time on this planet will be up. But we all know we have choices on how we live the moments that have been given to us right now. Our thoughts and our actions illuminate who we are and what we have to give.

    Each moment, no matter how seemingly insignificant, is wrought with hope and faith and love. 

    Breathe in, breathe out. You cannot be afraid if you live in peace.

    Photo by Frank Volachek

  • 8 Things to Do If You Want to Be at Peace with Yourself

    8 Things to Do If You Want to Be at Peace with Yourself

    “He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the world.” ~Marcus Aurelius

    How can I find peace of mind? It’s a question often asked, but rarely answered in a satisfying way.

    Some say peace of mind lies in security. Some say it’s about de-cluttering and finding stillness and calm in life. Some say it’s about acceptance and letting go. I say it’s all about what you do.

    Let me introduce myself. I’m an addict. An alcoholic since my teens, I lived most of my life on various edges.

    At twenty-one, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, as if being an alcoholic wasn’t bad enough. If you don’t know what BPD is, it is an unsettled and shifting sense of self, and it’s unbearably difficult to live with.

    I possessed a fearful and fraught mind at the best of times. Both my addiction and my BPD led me to do some pretty crazy things. Crossing a drunk person with a personality disorder is not conducive to the sort of life you would wish on anyone.

    I spent my twenties clambering out of one catastrophe and into another, doing some fairly disgraceful things—hiding, lying, hurting other people and myself. At least one hour a day was spent in absolute misery and penance, sorry for myself and for anyone who crossed my path of destruction.

    But behind the carnage, I was a genuinely good-hearted person. All through my mental illnesses, I tried to make the best of it, to be a nice person. And there was no one more empathetic than me. If anyone else had a problem, I would drop everything to run to them.

    But my mind was not somewhere you would want to take a fishing trip, let alone a whole vacation. Of all the people I hurt in my life, I hurt no one more than myself. I hurt myself by doing things that would make me feel guilt and shame later on.

    When I finally got the right treatment and got sober, after a decade of madness, I heard people speak about serenity and finding peace of mind. In early recovery, it was still an utter mystery to me.

    I saw a counselor who told me to give it time. I went to alcohol services—they told me to work a program. I listened to “spiritual folk” who told me to meditate.

    No one seemed to be giving me practical answers about how to achieve something I had been searching for all along: peace and self-esteem.

    But the answer was so simple. You create your state of mind by the things you do, and you cement that by the things you tell yourself.

    As long as I behave with integrity every day, I can feel at peace with myself.

    Things will always change. Life will sometimes be tough. People will say and do things that upset you. That’s just the nature of things.

    As long as you hang onto your integrity, no matter what is happening in your world, you can go to bed with a clear conscience. And no matter how tough things get, you can still have that wonderful sense of peace within you.

    But it takes some practice to really start to feel it, and to live with integrity at all times. Here are some tips to help you cultivate a sense of peace.

    1. Know your ideal self.

    Make a list of all the good qualities you intend to cultivate. Are you going to be kinder, fairer, more tolerant, more magnanimous, more patient, more dignified? What are your responses to difficulties going to be? What principles do you wish to uphold?

    2. Do the next right thing.

    If you’ve been struggling with your emotional or mental state like I was, it may be difficult, at first, to act with integrity all the time. You may find yourself making mistakes and sometimes behaving in a less than ideal way. In order to build up a habit of sticking to your principles, just practice doing the “next right thing” all the time.

    3. Let go of perfectionism.

    I could have made my life a lot easier if I had validated the attempts I was making to do the right thing even when things were a struggle. Instead, I beat myself up and made myself feel worse because I was angry with myself for not living right. It’s all a journey. Allow yourself to be imperfect, and yet still make progress.

    4. Make amends immediately.

    If for some reason you end up treating someone unfairly or unkindly, or doing something dishonest or mean, make amends for it as soon as you can. Don’t wait. Correct your mistakes as soon as possible, and you can find peace of mind in the fact that you have improved upon your actions and done your part to relieve any ill feeling or guilt.

    5. Practice patience.

    Other people around you may not be living in the same way that you have chosen to. It doesn’t matter; they will have their conscience to live with at the end of the day, and you will have yours. Choose to respond in a way that will give you peace of mind. Take a deep breath before reacting to people who push your buttons.

    6. Let your head and heart support you.

    You won’t have a peaceful mind if you allow negativity to dominate your thinking. Try to understand others rather than judging them. Forgive others and you free yourself. Radiate compassion and be a good Samaritan. Not only will others benefit; you’ll also add to your own sense of self-esteem.

    7. Think long term.

    It may be tempting to lose your rag when you’re feeling angry or frustrated. But think about how you will feel about yourself and your own actions later on. Will you be happy about your behavior? Will it lead to you feeling peace of mind? If not, don’t do it.

    8. Validate yourself.

    You will not get to feel that lovely sense of peace if you don’t take the time to fully acknowledge it. In difficult situations, look at what you did well. If you’ve been struggling, notice when you make progress. At the end of each day, summarize to yourself how you’ve acted well and kept your integrity.

    What helps you feel at peace with yourself?

  • Slow Down: Join the Stillness Revolution for More Peace and Joy

    Slow Down: Join the Stillness Revolution for More Peace and Joy

    Slow Down

    “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

    I recently treated myself to a retreat in the mountains, with the intention of pulling out of the busyness of every day life so that I could spend time healing and in reflective writing.

    Setting off, I anticipated an easy drive as traffic looked light, but when I reached the mountain pass, I experienced something I had never experienced before:

    I was completely blind to my surroundings.

    In fact, I realized I had driven into the clouds themselves, engulfed by a pure white energy.

    Not fog. Not mist. Just pure white.

    For a moment, I was gripped by fear, as one of my recurring dreams involves me speeding around steep, curvy roads until I lose control and drive completely off the edge.

    But I noticed the fearful energy quick enough to rein it back in and surrender to the beauty of what I was experiencing.

    In order for me to surrender without fear of driving over the edge (or into another car), I had to slow down and become hyper present and aware.

    Slow down. Be still.

    Creeping along at two miles an hour, I quickly recognized the message the universe was sending me through my experience on that mountain pass that day, and it reignited a passion in me to share this message with you.

    Our lives seem to travel at warp speeds these days, with our minds taking in and spewing out information faster than we can keep up with, and our bodies running ragged with the intention to get up early and stay up late in order to get it all done.

    Everything around us screams, “Go, go, go” not “slow, slow, slow.” Modern society simply doesn’t promote this kind of “radical” behavior.

    So it’s going to take rebels like you and me to fuel this stillness revolution.

    Yes, I wrote “rebel” because you are going against the stream, and you are most certainly going to feel a little “different” in doing so.

    Your own ego might even resist the very idea of a stillness revolution—rejecting it as being ridiculous, unreasonable, and completely insensible.

    Here’s the response from my higher self to that ego doubt (and trust me, my ego is shouting it too).

    What if creating a more peaceful and more joyful life means taking actions that seem a bit ridiculous, unreasonable, and insensible?

    There is an exercise I use that might shift your perspective called “When I’m 92.”

    You can read the below and then close your eyes to really practice the meditation or you can simply follow along now with your eyes open.

    Take 3 conscious breaths to settle back into your body and into the now.

    Imagine yourself lying in a bed in the hospital when you’re 92 years old.

    You are surrounded by love—loving doctors and nurses and most of all, your loving family

    You’ve lived an amazing life and you are filled with gratitude for all of the experiences you’ve had.

    Your 32-year-old grand-daughter, a self-proclaimed “workaholic,” rushes in, apologizing for running late, and explaining she only has about 15 minutes to stay, as she really must get back to another meeting.

    Your 92-year-old self smiles at her and radiates peace and love around her busy energy.

    She sits down and takes your frail hand, softening and opening to receive.

    The wisdom flows through you to her, as you say:

    “My beautiful grandchild, if there is one piece of wisdom I can leave with you before my soul returns to the light, it’s this:

    Slow down and be still.

    Every single moment that you spend in a space of stillness will be worthwhile and make your life richer than you could have ever thought possible.”

    Take a conscious breath—and now imagine you have become the 32-year-old granddaughter.

    As that young and busy soul, receive the energy of these words and absorb the meaning into your very core.

    Allow yourself this stillness as you’re in this meditative space right now to begin cultivating the practice of stillness in your every day life.

    When your intuition tells you that the exercise is complete, send gratitude to your higher self and 92-year-old self, then bring yourself back to this conscious moment with another easy breath (and gently blink your eyes open if they were closed).

    Take out your journal, or just a piece of paper if you don’t have a journaling practice, and free write how grounded and peaceful you felt during the above exercise.

    Allow your intuition to guide you to choose one action you can take to support your own stillness revolution.

    Perhaps, like me, you want to formally create the space for an extended period of slowing down and being still by scheduling a retreat in nature?

    Or maybe you want to begin with a simpler practice such as writing the words “Slow Down and Be Still” on a post-it note and putting it up on your car dashboard so that it can remind you of this wisdom as you hustle to and fro?

    The specific action isn’t as important as simply taking any action, so choose one and share in the comments below how you are going to slow down and play your part in the stillness revolution!

    Photo by N I C O L A

  • Silencing Your Lizard Brain: Stop Feeling Pressured and Inadequate

    Silencing Your Lizard Brain: Stop Feeling Pressured and Inadequate

    Holding Head

    “Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance.” ~Unknown

    Damn lizard brain, I hate you sometimes. Why do you always have this thirst for more? Why must you have such impossibly high expectations for everything?

    It’s good to have standards, but when is it too much?

    Things can be going great for me and I could have the entire world love me, yet it wouldn’t be enough.

    I still wouldn’t be happy even every human on Earth left me a voicemail to tell me I’m wonderful. Instead, I’d be wondering how everyone got my number.

    Why is it never enough? It’s because the moment it slows down, my lizard brain is going to eat at me again. It always wants more.

    My mind needs to be constantly bombarded with success and pleasure.

    It will tell me I’m not good enough; it will tell me how I should probably just give up, because what’s the use if I’m not constantly getting results?  

    Yesterday, I had around ten new people follow me on Twitter, six new people subscribe to my newsletter, and over twenty new comments on an article. Today, I had only four more people follow me, several others unfollow, no new newsletter subscribers, and two new comments.

    Lizard brain, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t beat yesterday’s achievements.

    The problem with this is that I set high expectations in at least 10,000 areas on a daily basis. This is draining because it is unrealistic to be able to hit all those marks and exceed all the time.

    This adds up and really affects my happiness, because there are these expectations I feel I have to meet.

    Over the years, I’ve noticed this about myself and try my best to stop my lizard brain during its peak hours.

    You probably have an annoying lizard brain too. It’s the part of you that controls you, makes you afraid, and pushes you because it says you’re a failure.

    If your lizard brain is bothering you, here are some reminders that might help:

    You can’t always win.

    I have to constantly remind myself it is simply impossible to always beat yesterday’s achievements. Think about it. If you land on the moon today, what are the odds of you going to Mars tomorrow?

    Celebrate your victories from today and don’t worry about the next day. You can worry about going to Mars maybe a month from now. You already made it to the moon, relax.

    Celebrate and truly appreciate your accomplishment.

    Besides, you can’t always win. So even when you fall just remind yourself you’re growing and you’re a work in progress. Use your failure as a motivator or a marker for where you need to be.

    You can’t always win. Accept that.

    Stop comparing.

    “The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” ~Steve Furtick

    Steve Furtick’s quote is gushing with truth. We often compare ourselves to others’ achievements and then we beat ourselves up.

    Well, chances are we’re all just comparing our weakest moments to everybody else’s strongest. See how ridiculous that is?

    You can’t possibly outshine everyone’s highlight reel. You have your own highlight reels too, but they’re not always playing. Stop comparing yourself to others because that is a sure way to feel dissatisfied.

    What you can do instead is focus on your own highlight reels and then work on your behind-the-scenes by learning from them.

    Eventually, others will be in awe at your highlight reels and they won’t even notice when you’re not at your best. It’s okay to slow down every now and then because not every day has to be breaking new ground.

    Don’t let the journey bring you down or the end of the path won’t be as great as it could have been.

    Remind yourself that no one cares.

    This is a harsh truth, but in reality, no one cares. No one will realize how many times you’ve failed or every time you smile funny. Everyone else is the protagonist in his or her own story and you’re just a side character.

    When you remind yourself that you’re not in the center of the universe and not everything revolves around you, things get easier.

    This may be the hardest part for me. For some reason, I always feel like all eyes are on me and that every micro-movement will be noted by literally everyone in the room and eyes will be rolled as I adjust my leg positions. “Ugh, who does Vincent think he is? Sitting all cool like that…”

    See how ridiculous that is? I highly doubt thirty people are constantly watching me for as little as a leg twitch. Chances are people just don’t care or are too busy with their own problems.

    Keep reminding yourself that others have things going on too. You’re not the protagonist in their book; they are.

    Meditate.

    When I’m meditating, my lizard brain just does what it wants, but I act as the detached observer. I let it talk but I don’t interact. I watch it babble on and on as I crack a smile, because when I meditate, I no longer care.

    Then I take it to the next level by focusing in on my breath. I make sure that the only thing I’m worrying about is breathing. My lizard brain doesn’t have anything on me now because it slowly starts to fade away.

    There are tons of extensive guides on how to meditate. Pick a method that seems interesting to you and try it out. You can be the detached observer or the silencer.

    What do you do to silence your lizard brain?

    Photo by Gibson Regester

  • Dance Through the Storm of Uncertainty: 5 Tips for Grace and Peace

    Dance Through the Storm of Uncertainty: 5 Tips for Grace and Peace

    Dancing in the Rain

    “Make the best use of what is in your power and take the rest as it happens.” ~Epictetus

    I am in an unfamiliar place and I find myself waiting. It is not clear who or what I am waiting for.  I then hear a gentle tapping at the door. I approach the door, but stand before it in silence.

    My pulse quickens as I wait. I make no attempt to answer the knock until a voice whispers, “It is me.”  This is when I open the door. 

    I awoke from this dream feeling a bit unsettled. I couldn’t remember the exact quality of the voice. Whether it was male or female remains a mystery. But I did recognize this dream as a metaphor for all that was happening in this particular period of my life.

    I was faced with a life-altering decision—something I had emphatically said “no” to at an earlier time.  My best childhood friend had offered to be a gestational surrogate for my husband and me after multiple miscarriages and two pre-term birth losses, but I wouldn’t even consider it.

    That is not the way nature intended it, was my initial thought. A child should be created out of love, I had said in response to her offer.

    In time, my perspective began to shift and I recognized that this was truly an act of love. A trusted friend was willing to help me in bringing a desired child into the world. Why would I not accept this beautiful gift? 

    It was easier for my husband to come to this decision than it was for me. I had to replace a long-held dream—the natural childbirth experience I had once imagined.

    This would also be the ultimate lesson in letting go. So much would be beyond my control.

    After months of introspection, research, guidance, and prayer, it then felt right to walk through this new door that had opened up to us.

    Saying yes to this process was creating an opportunity for new life. It was an opening to another experience that the hand of life was extending in my direction.

    Still, there was much uncertainty in daring to venture onto this new path of assisted reproduction. The series of legal and medical steps seemed enormous before we actually experienced them. But each step leading up to the actual procedure went better than expected.

    Now after two unsuccessful outcomes, I have had to again re-adjust to a different reality than the one I had come to embrace. It has been a process—releasing what should have been in order to accept what is.

    “The odds are in your favor,” the doctor had originally said. I knew there were no guarantees, but I hadn’t truly considered this daunting possibility. Why then was I led down this road of uncertainty? 

    I have come to see that at times there is no definite answer to the question “why?” Life is not a straight, newly paved highway where we can clearly see in the distance. Even when we intuitively get a glimpse of what’s ahead, we still have to deal with how best to get to where we hope to be.

    Instead, life appears to be more of a dance with its twists and turns. There is a rhythm and flow to each step, even though we may not yet be comfortable with all the transitions. Each movement leads to a fuller expression of our greatest potential. 

    How do we best learn this dance? Experience is the greatest teacher I know. Still, we need guidance. Life is not a solo act.

    Here are five guiding principles to assist you in your dance with uncertainty:

    1. Practice integrity, intention, and purpose.

    That is the basic choreography. It requires that you pay close attention to your beliefs, thoughts, words, choices, and actions. What lends purpose and meaning to your life? Natural talent matters, but practice is what develops skill.

    Integrity: Be honest in all aspects of your life. Seek to know who you are and who you ultimately want to be.

    Intention: Be clear about what you most desire and take steps in the direction of your dreams.

    Purpose: Know why you want this new reality. Does it add meaning to your life?

    2. Be flexible. 

    See every challenging step as an occasion to stretch. Stand tall as you grow in resilience. Breathe deeply and rise to the occasion when presented with new choreography.

    3. Know when to “freestyle.”

    Freestyle is improvisational dance. We are creative beings and while there are necessary steps to be taken, there is still plenty of room for spontaneity and artistic expression.

    Take risks and embrace your unique style. You might step on a few toes, but always remain true to what is essential in you.

    4. Trust your partner.

    Whether you practice a traditional religion or view spirituality in universal terms, trust life to lead the way. Unleash your greatest effort and then relax into the arms of grace.

    Know that there is divine order to this dance we call life. Whatever is meant to happen, will. Whatever is meant to be, will be. Do what is within your power and surrender the rest.

    5. Enjoy the dance.

    Life is meant to be fun. Lighten up and release the need to get it right the first time. Perfection is subjective and trophies collect dust. Laugh at yourself and keep moving. It will all come together. At times, better than you expected.

    Photo by Angela Gonzalez

  • Find Peace Today: Stop Worrying About What You Might Lose

    Find Peace Today: Stop Worrying About What You Might Lose

    Present Moment

    “The whole life of a man is but a point in time; let us enjoy it.” ~ Plutarch

    Take a moment to think about the last time you stared up into a clear night sky, one that was gorged with stars and seemed to go on forever—one where the longer you stared, the more depth appeared.

    How did you feel in that moment? Did you feel calm? Scared? Alone? Completely content? Did you wish you could stay in that moment forever?

    Skies like that give me an incredible sense of peace and remind me to breathe deeply and contemplate how our lives are simultaneously overwhelmingly vast and incredibly finite.

    Over the years, I have struggled with allowing people to get close to me for fear of losing them the way I had lost so many before.

    After an adoption, the unexpected death of my adopted mother, my best friend, several family members, and the smattering of broken relationships, I built a solid wall against anyone who looked like they wanted to be near me.

    I finally came to terms with the fact that in the end, most people who come into our lives will leave in some way or another—sometimes by choice and sometimes not, but their presence is what matters, not their absence.

    What’s important is realizing that each moment we have with those we love is of infinite value, and we must enjoy the time we have with them while we have it instead of being so afraid we’ll lose them that we’re never really with them even when they are here.

    If we’re so engulfed in the potential for loss, we’ll not only miss the lessons each experience can bring to our lives, but the joy it has to offer. Our happiness will sit in front of us waiting for us to recognize its face and we’ll look past it like a stranger.

    People spend an exorbitant amount of time, energy, and resources on attempting to hold back aging as it is a reminder of our mortality. It reminds us that there is no permanence, so we frantically fight to find ways to extend the length of our lives, but how many focus on deepening the quality?

    Why not slow down and realize we are immortal only in the moment we are in—this moment we inhabit contains our entire past and all of our potential and possibility for the future that may or may not arrive.

    Let’s fill this time we have now with all that we are instead of fighting for more and never actually doing anything with it. It’s like collecting a bunch of empty jars but never putting anything in them. 

    I know it can be terrifying to let go and be present in the moment because we think we have to control everything; we have to be prepared for loss, for disappointment, for heartache. We don’t want it to creep up and take us by surprise, but here’s the thing: no matter what we do to prepare, we’ll never be ready for it when it comes.

    The best we can do is fully embrace the only thing we know to be certain, and that is the current moment we inhabit. This very second as you’re reading these words, you know that you are alive.

    And no matter what’s going on in your life, your life is a miracle. Right. This. Second. Your living is an amazing orchestration of a billion and one complex systems that enables you to breathe, to think, to have a heartbeat, to learn, to grow, and to love.

    It’s hard to not fear losing others. It’s hard to not fear losing ourselves, but fear is what drives away our peace, joy, and love.

    Learning to retrain our thoughts so we don’t dwell on our fear of the unknown future and grounding into the present will help us shift our focus from loss to abundance.

    When we focus on loss, it feels as though we’re always lacking and we worry we’ll lose what we have. When we focus on abundance, we recognize that our lives are full and we cultivate the faith that each moment we’re alive, we will have what we need.

    Additionally, when we focus on abundance, a sense of gratitude seems to naturally follow. How could we recognize how full our lives are and not be grateful?

    When we are grateful for the moment we are in, we will find our lives are long enough—no matter how many years they contain.

    Photo by pdam2

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

    Letting Go of Your Past Suffering to Feel Peaceful and Free

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Know that you are not betraying yourself by moving on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Photo by @Rayabi

  • The Zen of Anger: 5 Tips to Overcome Negative Reactions

    The Zen of Anger: 5 Tips to Overcome Negative Reactions

    “When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” ~Anthony Robins

    I used to be an angry person. And I was happy about that. In fact, I prided myself on that identity during high school.

    So devoted to the young and vapid demographic, I would stand in front of the bathroom mirror and practice the eighties version of the mad dog stare. In the eleventh grade, I decided smiling wasn’t hip, so I stopped.

    I wore surly like the Goth kids take to all-black attire. My friends thought I was cool because I said what I felt and did what I wanted. “You’re so awesome, Linda—it’s like you don’t care what other people think of you.”

    Except that I did. I cared so much, in fact, that I buried the vulnerability and the emotional pain from feeling that I wasn’t in control of my life.

    The truth is that many teens don’t feel like they fit in during the tumultuous high school years.

    Most people mature and evolve as they get older. Except those who don’t. Those of us who carry the smirk and the swagger past the twelfth grade are in for an adulthood of pain and emotional suffering.

    True rebels without a cause.

    Luckily, in my twenties I had an epiphany, which led me to change my negative, brooding, fly-off-the-handle ways.

    One day during a phone conversation, my friend Rachel made a comment that has stuck with me to this day. I was blabbing on about how the car mechanic was overcharging me for a transmission repair.

    All of a sudden Rachel interrupted me and said, “Did you ever notice that you get into a lot of fights with people?”

    My stomach dropped and my cheeks were hot as I fought back tears.

    I’d like to say I heeded this message immediately. Unfortunately, it was a couple of years before I finally turned my back on angry outbursts.

    The irony is that I’ve made a career out of counseling adolescents. Many are referred to therapy because of anger management issues.

    “Anger is a completely normal, usually healthy, human emotion. But when it gets out of control and turns destructive, it can lead to problems—problems at work, in your personal relationships, and in the overall quality of your life. And it can make you feel as though you’re at the mercy of an unpredictable and powerful emotion.”

    The good news is that, regardless of where your anger originated (DNA, angry parents or family members, childhood experiences, or lifestyle), there are practical tools available to manage your anger so it does not manage you.

    I’d be remiss if I said that you’ll wake up tomorrow and feel like Calm Callie or Stress-free Steve.

    Because anger has built up over many years, you’re probably good at projecting it (“throwing” it onto others as a defense against feeling it for yourself)—and it will take time to change.

    You’ve got to own your anger. Nobody made you into an angry person. Sure Mom and Dad, childhood events, past romantic relationships, and other situations may have contributed, but the past is gone forever.

    The beautiful thing is that you have today, and today you can feel calm, collected, and in control of your emotions.

    The following five tips, when practiced regularly, will replace negative reactions and lead to a more Zen-like you.

    1. Pay attention to your morning routine.

    How we start our day affects how the rest of our activities unfold. Set your alarm for fifteen minutes earlier (don’t worry—I’ll make it up on the backend in tip #5).

    Before you get out of bed, take a couple of breaths and say something positive. For example, “Another day. Another chance for a fresh start.” When you find yourself rushing throughout the day, remind yourself “there is enough time.”

    2. Get in touch with your anger.

    Do the following exercise when you have at least thirty minutes of uninterrupted time.

    Find a comfortable seated position. Close your eyes and think of what your anger looks like. What color or images do you see? Where in your body do you store anger? Pay attention to body temperature, clinched fists, heart rate, muscle tension, and butterflies in your stomach.

    Practice deep breaths throughout this exercise, and take a break if the feelings become too intense.

    When you’re ready, open your eyes and take a deep breath. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Pick up a notepad and jot down all your angry thoughts.

    Don’t overthink this—keep the stream of thoughts flowing without editing your responses. Spend at least five minutes recording what, where, when, and around whom you feel most angry.

    Read the list and decide what are your three biggest anger triggers and/or situations. Make a circle around the top three.

    On another sheet of paper, write three strategies for remedying each one.

    For example: Problem #1:

    I can’t stand my job.

    Strategies:

    • Update my resume by Friday at noon.
    • Contact two people and network about possible job openings by Thursday at 5:00 pm.
    • Call my mentor today and invite her to lunch in exchange for business ideas. (Pick up the tab).

    Repeat this exercise frequently, and don’t worry if some of the same issues show up. Problem-solving takes practice and patience.

    3. Unplug.

    Technology encourages us to react quickly. The minute we get that text or feel the phone vibration, we’re racing to respond. Reacting impulsively is a trigger for angry outbursts. Set aside time each day to be free from checking email, social media sites, and text messaging.

    4. Train your mind to respond slower.

    Think, speak, drive, text, listen, cook, eat, and walk slower. When you slow down, you’ll feel more in control of your options and your inner life.

    Leave post-it reminders on the computer, your car dashboard, and your front door. Our brains are not trained to remember many things, so write it down.

    5. Sleep on it!

    Honestly, if I had to choose just one option to manage anger, it would be getting sufficient sleep. Sleep deprivation is a huge culprit in negative moods, including anxiety and depression.

    Commit to going to bed earlier during the week. It’s nearly impossible to make calm, measured, responsible choices if you can barely keep your eyes open.

    Bottom line: You have everything you need to change. With daily commitment, practice, and patience, you’ll increase problem-solving abilities so you can manage your anger, rather than have your anger manage you.

    Remember, living in the past causes depression. Living in the future causes anxiety. Living in the here-and-now enables you to make healthy choices to increase emotional well-being.

    And the future begins now.

  • How Taking Quiet Time for Yourself Helps People Around You

    How Taking Quiet Time for Yourself Helps People Around You

    sitting

    “I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.” ~Hafiz of of Shiraz

    “What I wouldn’t give for a few moments of silence.”

    “I really should start meditating.”

    “I know it’s important to take breaks, but I just don’t have time.”

    We’ve all heard (or made) comments like these at some point. Implicit in these statements is the idea that resting in stillness is beneficial…for the individual.

    But what if such a practice of peace is more than that? What if it’s beneficial for others in your family, your community, in every life you touch?

    When I worked as a live-in caregiver for adults with intellectual disabilities at L’Arche, I often rose early to help my housemates with their morning routines. (L’Arche is a non-profit that creates homes wherein people with and without intellectual disabilities share life together in community.)

    I came to live there after college, and it was a wonderful challenge for an introvert like me to live and work with fourteen housemates for two years.

    When I wasn’t assigned to help my housemates with their morning routines, however, I had a ritual of my own. I’d pad down the staircase in slippers, my journal in hand. I’d assemble some breakfast, and then sit down in a living room chair that faced the house’s front windows.

    Morning light would warm my skin and my spirit too. I’d sip my coffee and stare silently, content to take it all in.

    My housemates would move through their routines around me; my morning oasis was, after all, right in the midst of a fourteen-person household. I would greet them with a smile, then duck my head and keep silent. (more…)

  • 10 Tips to Help Relieve Depression and Heartache

    10 Tips to Help Relieve Depression and Heartache

    “As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” ~Johann Von Goethe

    Not long ago I was completely imprisoned within myself, feeling lost without any direction. Sleeping consumed most of my time. I had brief moments when I checked in on Facebook, only to get a glimpse of others’ seemingly perfect lives with holidays, parties, babies, and weddings.

    This made me more miserable, as I felt I had nothing going on in my own life.

    Frustration was building within me because somewhere deep inside, the dreams that I had hidden away wanted me to start pursuing them. Easier said than done of course, but I knew that hiding under my duvet cover wasn’t going to take me anywhere.

    I needed to change my negative outlook on life to a much more positive one. In this new process, I started to apply what I call the 10 “T”s to help with my feelings and fears.

    The 10 “T”s to help relieve depression and heartache:

    1. Trust yourself and the universe.

    Know that the universe has a greater plan for us than we can ever imagine. My first authentic feeling of surrender came by reading self-help books. This gave me the first push toward believing and trusting in the power of the universe. It’s the greatest comfort knowing that you are taken care of. (more…)

  • You Will Never Be Finished: Find Peace by Enjoying Where You Are

    You Will Never Be Finished: Find Peace by Enjoying Where You Are

    Touching the Sun

    “We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” ~Dalai Lama

    “I wish I could do it all over again,” said my grandmother on her 60th wedding anniversary.

    “Really?” I asked.

    A small smile crossed her face as she replied, “Yes. Because when you enjoy your life—when you really enjoy your life—it just goes by so fast. I wish I could go back and do it all again.”

    There was my 80-year-old grandmother, who, in the twilight of her years, spoke to me not of regrets.

    Nor did she tell me about all the things she wished she could have done in her life, or wished she had done differently.

    There were no shouldas, wouldas, or couldas.

    She’d do everything the same. She’d live the same life, with the same experiences, all over again.

    I wonder, how many of us will say that in the twilight of our lives?

    For many years I wouldn’t have said that. I was unhealthy. I ate too much, drank too much, and hardly exercised. I hated my job in politics and public policy, but didn’t know what else to do in my career. And despite having all these friends and family members around me, I was unhappy.

    I lived in my own “dark ages,” until shortly before my 28th birthday when I woke up. Something had to change—I had to change.

    That was three years ago.

    I’ve since lost forty pounds and three dress sizes, and kept it off.

    And last year, after working almost ten years in politics and public policy, I walked away from my job to work as a freelance writer. My new career has gone better than I could have imagined. (more…)

  • Start Healing the World: Take Responsibility for Healing Yourself

    Start Healing the World: Take Responsibility for Healing Yourself

    “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” ~Marianne Williamson

    We all have the fundamental desire to create an ideal world, where everyone is healthy, happy, and free of suffering. The habitual tendency we all have is to look around us, find out what’s wrong with the world, and then try to “fix” it.

    While it’s true that horrible things happen around us everyday, to transform the world we all experience, we have to start with ourselves. We can only create change in the world if we first start with our own individual healing.

    When we heal a part in ourselves, we also heal that part in the world. In order to heal we must utilize the power of forgiveness.

    I recall a night many years ago when I finally fully recognized how much I had been hurting myself with my persistent negative self-talk.

    I used to believe that I wasn’t good enough to have and enjoy the type of life that I wanted, that I wasn’t attractive enough to meet the kind of man I dreamed of, or that I would never reach the ability to fulfill my potential.

    Based on observing my mother, stepfather, and grandparents from an early age, I learned to feel guilty for all the good, as well as all the bad that occurred in life. I also learned to blame others, and that life is supposed to be a struggle. (more…)