Tiny Buddha

Tag: Perspective

  • 5 Questions I Ask Myself Nightly Since My Father’s Sudden Death

    5 Questions I Ask Myself Nightly Since My Father’s Sudden Death

    “Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.” ~Langston Hughes

    Nine years ago, I was sitting mindlessly in my office cubicle in Omaha, Nebraska, when the receptionist called to inform me that my dad was in the lobby.

    I walked out to greet him: He was happy, smiling, and donning one of his favorite double-breasted suits. He was there because he needed my signature on some tax preparation forms before he handed them over to his accountant. My dad always took care of things like that.

    It was a Friday in February, late morning. We briefly discussed getting lunch but ultimately decided not to in the interest of time. We would see each other over the weekend, anyway. After all, we were planning a trip.

    A week prior, my dad told me he wanted to take me to Vegas for my thirtieth birthday. I’d never been to Vegas. There were things to discuss, hotel rooms to book, concert tickets to buy.

    I signed the tax forms, thanked my dad, and walked back to my cubicle. I don’t remember anything else about this day. It was, in fact, just like any other day. It was ordinary. Humdrum, you might say.

    But the next day…

    The next day is forever seared into the pathways of my hippocampus, every detail a tattoo on my mind’s eye.

    Because the next day…

    That’s the day my dad died.

    I remember the morning phone call I got from my sister.

    9:38 a.m.

    I remember running to my car, half a block up Howard Street, and then another block down 12th. I remember the whipping wind and the stinging cold. I remember the saplings lining the streets of downtown, their branches brittle and bare, scratching the ether like an old lady’s fingers.

    I remember the seventeen-minute drive to the hospital.

    I remember the hospital, the stairs, the front desk, the waiting room, the faces, the hugs, the tears, the complete and utter shock.

    I remember that my mom wasn’t there.

    Three times we called. Where is she? Why isn’t she answering? Who’s going to tell her?

    It seems like our lives are defined by days, even moments, like these—the most joyous or the most unbearably tragic.

    I miss my dad.

    I miss his ridiculously big heart, which we were told was the thing that killed him.

    I miss the lingering scent of his cologne, a sort of woodsy, leathery blend that comes in a classic green bottle. I miss his laugh, which could range from a barely discernible chuckle to a jolly, high-pitched guffaw. I miss seeing him in my clothes—the shirts and shoes and jeans that I wanted to throw away because they were clearly going out of style.

    I miss the things I never thought I’d miss, the quirks and ticks and peccadillos that drove me crazy—like the way he’d crunch his ice cubes or noisily suck on a piece of hard candy in an otherwise quiet movie theater.

    I wonder if I chose to write this today instead of tomorrow because writing it tomorrow could prove too difficult. Or if I chose to write this after nine years instead of ten years because ten years is one of those nice, round numbers we use for milestone birthdays and anniversaries and other such occasions we’re supposed to celebrate. Or maybe because ten years is a whole decade and a whole goddamn decade without my dad just seems too strange to fathom.

    When I think of the last time I spoke with my dad, I can’t help but also think of that Benjamin Franklin quote—the one about how nothing is certain except death and taxes.

    But only one of those things comes with any sort of predictability.

    Studies have shown that our brains are wired to prevent us from thinking about our own mortality. Our brains shield us from the existential thought of death and view it as something that happens to others but not ourselves.

    So, most of us, perhaps because of our biological wiring, rarely even think about the unfortunate truth that we’re going to die, and we have no idea how or when.

    On the other hand, some of our greatest ancient philosophers actually practiced reflecting on the impermanence of life—otherwise known as Memento Mori, which literally translates to Remember you must die.

    “You could leave life right now,” wrote Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations. “Let that determine what you do and say and think.”

    Personally, I don’t think about my own demise a whole hell of a lot.

    But there’s a reason I decided to pack up my things and move to a new city six years ago.

    There’s a reason I decided to make a career pivot five years ago.

    There’s a reason I decided to quit my day job at almost forty years old and start working for myself two years ago.

    Because nine years ago, death did a number on me. I had one of those unbearably tragic days that seems to define our lives.

    And now, before I go to bed each night, I ask myself:

    Was I a decent person today?

    Did I challenge myself today?

    Did I have any fun today?

    What am I grateful for today?

    If I were on my deathbed, would I have regrets?

    Asking myself these things helps me live a more fulfilling life—the kind of life that I want to live. And I’m proud of what I’m doing here, right now. I think—at least I hope—my dad would be too.

    I still haven’t been to Vegas, though.

  • Why You Should Stop Looking for Your Purpose and What to Do Instead

    Why You Should Stop Looking for Your Purpose and What to Do Instead

    “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” ~Pablo Picasso

    Twenty years is a long time when you know you’re meant to be doing something, but you don’t quite know what it is or how to go about doing it.

    To cut a two-decade story very short, I found the seeds of my purpose when volunteering in a hospital playroom with pediatric cancer patients in Romania one summer when I was twenty years old. And, though I have made many an attempt over the years, I am only now beginning to truly live the purpose I’ve felt a fire for these past two decades.

    Purpose anxiety is a common twenty-first century affliction. 

    So many of us today seem to struggle with this quest of finding our purpose. And then there’s the other side of that search; when you actually find what it is you’re here to do, how do you go about living it? And if you feel called to do something that feels so much bigger than yourself, how do you go about living up to that vision?

    I have struggled with both the before and after of finding my purpose. In the end, it took one small change to terminate my two-decade to-and-fro, and to finally start living my purpose  Though it might seem such an insignificant detail, what kept me stuck for so long was the word purpose.

    Purpose is just a seven-letter word, but it has a huge emotional charge.

    Purpose conjures up so many ideas, ideals, shoulds, and fantasies before you even start to consider what yours is. The pressure is on from the get-go. And this pressure isn’t conducive to finding it.

    The other thing about the word purpose is that it seems to live outside oneself—like something lost that you have to find. Another commonly used word for purpose is calling. It has the exact same effect. It’s like something is out there somewhere, guiding you to it, and you have to go on a search to find it.

    What finally set me free was changing the word purpose to another.

    I clearly remember the moment when I made this change in vocabulary and it all just clicked. I was, maybe quite cliché, looking out onto the horizon while walking along the beach and at the same time wrestling with my purpose-related demons.

    That day I seemed to see deeper than ever before into my patterns of self-sabotage and self-doubt, my fear of failure, and what failing would mean to my self-worth. And I remembered something I had heard recently about coming at life from the perspective of what we can give instead of what we can get from it.

    I realized that the dark clouds of fear and doubt had made me lose sight of the reason I was on this path in the first place. And I knew I had to get back to my purpose roots—to get back to just giving.

    The simple word swap was from purpose to gift.

    From that very moment I stopped chasing my purpose and started focusing on giving my gift.  With such a profound change in my attitude and action from such a simple change in terminology, I started reflecting on how powerful each word was and what shifts in perspective came from the switch.

    Here are three lessons I have learned from replacing the word purpose with gift.

    1. You finally end that external treasure hunt.

    When you change “What’s my purpose?” to “What’s my gift to share with others?”, the magnitude of the question diminishes. Your gifts live within you. You don’t have to look elsewhere to find them.

    So it no longer feels like a treasure hunt with no tools; instead, it becomes a realization that a purpose isn’t a mystical calling that visits us one day in a beam of light. It is quite simply a path of giving our gifts to the world.

    2. You realize that you don’t need to live just one true purpose.

    The trap of looking for our purpose is that we assume it’s just one big treasure chest that we are on a voyage for.

    When I made this subtle change in vocabulary, I suddenly saw that not only did I know what my gift was, but I realized that I had multiple gifts that I wanted to share (including writing). When we look at it as sharing our gifts, we realize that there are so many ways we can live purposefully, and that it can all be part of our purposeful journey through life. So the anxiety of “but is this my true calling?” diminishes.

    3. Those feelings of self-doubt or fear around doing something bigger than yourself break away.

    Over those twenty years my purpose had taken on a life of its own. If fact, you could say that living my purpose had become my purpose! I had built it up so much in my mind that, in the end, it felt an almost impossibility to make come true. I can’t tell you the number of times I froze at the first hurdle for fear of not living up to the 4D vision I had in my head. I felt incapable of bringing my purpose to life.

    But the day I flipped purpose on its head and started seeing it as merely sharing my gift with others, I instantly knew that I was so very capable of that. And the fear, self-doubt, cold feet, and self-sabotaging all just seemed to fade.

    So for anyone reading this who identifies as a purpose-seeker, I invite you to try being a gift-giver instead.

    Because after all, the point of purpose is to live it, not look for it.

    What gifts do you have to share with the world?

  • How to Thrive in Life after Surviving Cancer

    How to Thrive in Life after Surviving Cancer

    “Have a little faith in your ability to handle whatever’s coming down the road. Believe that you have the strength and resourcefulness required to tackle whatever challenges come your way. And know that you always have the capacity to make the best of anything. Even if you didn’t want it or ask for it, even if it seems scary or hard or unfair, you can make something good of any loss or hardship. You can learn from it, grow from it, help others through it, and maybe even thrive because of it. The future is unknown, but you can know this for sure: Whatever’s coming, you got this.” ~Lori Deschene

    Isn’t it amazing how some days are etched in your mind forever and other days are just lost in the wind? One day that is etched in my mind forever is December 27, 2006. This is the day I was told I had breast cancer. While breast cancer is common, being twenty-six years old with breast cancer isn’t that common.

    So here I was, twenty-six years old with breast cancer saying to myself, “Well f*ck, that sure throws off the plans I had for basically anything.” I quickly fell into fear, worry, and “why me?”. I will spare you the details of treatment; it wasn’t any fun. I lost my hair and my dignity and fell into depression when life returned to “normal.”

    Whatever normal is, I was living it. However, nothing was normal. I didn’t know how to live without a doctor’s appointment to go to. I mean, all I wanted was an end to the endless appointments and here I was without them, and I couldn’t figure out what to do.

    So, I took lots of naps because I was exhausted, or so I thought. Well, it turns out I wasn’t exhausted; I was depressed. I was alone with thoughts of wondering when my cancer would come back. I was sucked into a pit of despair that I had never seen before. Who was I becoming? The person who sat in their pajamas all day while I worked from home—yep, that was me.

    I wanted to scream, “I survived cancer, now what?” Where was the manual on how to live after cancer? Who helps me get back to living? I just go back to what I was doing, as if nothing happened? I was tired of saying to myself, “But I’m supposed to feel better, right?”

    As the stream of appointments, scans, lab draws, and phone calls from friends and family continued to slow, I tried hard to be well and remain optimistic. Continue doing my job, walking the dogs, and dragging myself to the gym. Life just didn’t seem real, and depression overwhelmed me for days or weeks at a time. A quick nap turned into a four-hour slumber; my physical body was healing, and my mental body was spiraling downward.

    The difficulty of shifting back to life was not what I expected, and thank goodness for friends. My dear friend Rebecca asked if I wanted to run a half-marathon, but my visceral reaction was no. Then I learned the race took place one year to the date after I finished chemo, so I thought, “Heck yea, take that cancer!” It was perfect timing. One foot in front of the other, I trained for my first half-marathon.

    I kept myself going by trying to run when I could. Running was my go-to mental health fix pre-cancer, and it was starting to work post-cancer too. I remember there were days when I would drag myself to run and come back home in minutes. Then there were days I felt like I had superpowers and it felt so good.

    Rebecca and I crossed that finish line, hand in hand, and celebrated with margaritas and Mexican food, my other go-to mental health fixes.

    So why do I feel inclined to share my story? It’s not just about cancer, depression, running, and margaritas. It’s about making something good come from something bad. 

    Cancer taught me a lot of things. The biggest lesson was to control what I could. That looked like taking a long way home instead of sitting in traffic, not getting worked up about long lines in the grocery store, taking risks like rock climbing in Utah, trying new things like fly fishing in the mountains of North Carolina, singing in my car on the way to work to pump myself up for the day, going on camping trips with my girlfriends, and leaving behind a soul-sucking career.

    I can’t say I am exactly happy I had cancer, but I can’t imagine life without it. It’s a love/hate relationship. Looking back, it was an opportunity for growth and learning that I can do hard things. It was a reminder to focus on being truly alive.

    There is not a guidebook for cancer survivors, no way to time travel to the person you were before your diagnosis, no way to return your body unscathed, or quick way to restore your trust in your body again.  It’s a journey that you must figure out for yourself, one minute, hour, and day at a time.

    You must accept what has happened and discover a new self.

    I learned more in the year after cancer than I had in the previous twenty-six years. You don’t need a cancer journey to do this.

    Life is short; learn to live life to the fullest. However, if cancer is part of your journey back to living, you are not alone in your quest to learn to live again. You can do this. One tiny step at a time, you will learn to truly live again. You will stumble back and take huge leaps forward.

    You can have a life full of purpose, happiness, gratitude, and adventure. Don’t merely survive cancer, thrive after cancer! What are you waiting for? Let’s do this.

  • The Two Sides of Gratitude: When It Helps Us and When It Hurts Us

    The Two Sides of Gratitude: When It Helps Us and When It Hurts Us

    “When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. When life is bitter, say thank you and grow.” ~Shauna Niequist

    Imagine if you had a tool that, with no effort or change on your part, could cast a glow around you, exposing hidden gems within your everyday life.

    You do! It’s called gratitude.

    It has the power to light your way through tough times. And it can multiply the good. Of the many tools I use daily, I love gratitude the most. It is so simple to implement and immediately effective. It’s a powerful way to change the world—through seeing, not doing.

    I’ve invested a lot of thought, time, and deliberate action into creating the life I want. But building a life is one thing; relishing it is another.

    Having gratitude allows me to squeeze every last bit of joy from what already exists around me and within me, creating more with no extra effort. Few things in life are simple, practical, and magical.

    Without gratitude, our tendency is to focus on what’s missing. Life is what we choose to see. Without gratitude, we might waste a lifetime searching instead of enjoying.

    Using this practice keeps me out of dark places. There are days when I find myself in an emotional fog for reasons I cannot explain. I used to dwell in those moments, or days, weighted down and powerless. Though I wanted to feel like myself again, I would retreat within rather than allow myself to engage with the world and resurface.

    Gratitude has forever changed that. I possess a knowing (stemming from a consistent gratitude practice) that gifts are all around me, and I use them like a ladder to climb out of my hole. Gratitude shows me I always have choice.

    I choose to want to feel better and then I ask for what I need—a hug, time, inspiration—and then I allow myself to move on. Spending so much time in awe and appreciation for life allows me to see beyond my temporary state. I no longer confuse my present state with my true state of being—joyful, grateful.

    Gratitude doesn’t eliminate all the icky feelings and thoughts, but it absolutely makes me more resilient. It is my springboard. Not only am I aware of my shifting mood, but I actually take the action I need to take in order to come back to my true self.

    Gratitude and I go way back. As a first generation South Asian, it was instilled in me to always see the blessings around me. My family worked hard to give me a leg-up in life: a life with love, education, and opportunity.

    Gratitude also complements my positive nature. But it took me years to realize gratitude also appealed to my younger self because I was a pleaser, a peacemaker, a don’t-rock-the-boater. It turns out gratitude was also a great tool to keep me small. I used it as a ceiling.

    As my dream job turned into a nightmare, I confused fear for gratitude. I could not bring myself to seek a solution because it felt ungrateful. I was so thankful for the opportunity that I endured a hostile work relationship with a superior that belittled and disrespected me. I am not a complainer, I told myself. This is the price I pay for my dream, I thought.

    Gratitude allowed me to settle for less.

    I have avoided conflict by exercising gratitude. In difficult situations, it gave me an out. Have you ever said or thought the following?

    “It could be worse.”

    “At least they didn’t …”

    “I’m so grateful for this job/partner/friend. Who am I to complain?”

    In all of these scenarios, I wasn’t wrong to see the upside. Things absolutely could’ve been worse. But they also could have been opportunities to practice enforcing boundaries, to see my own self-worth, and to imagine new possibilities.

    I wasn’t able to see it then, but it’s clear now. Gratefulness is a powerful tool, but it should never be a way of accepting less than we deserve. It should amplify us, not diminish us. It should be our springboard.

    Gratitude is a way for each of us to find joy, not a way to make excuses for others.

    Yes, I have a loving family, but that’s no excuse to allow or accept disrespectful behavior. Yes, I work for an amazing company, but no, I don’t have to accept a toxic work environment. Yes, I love my partner, but I am worthy of a healthy relationship and love.

    It can be so easy to slip into limiting beliefs, tricking ourselves into thinking we are grateful when we are actually unhappy. Many of us have more than we need and are aware of how many are in need in our communities, near and far. But we serve no one by making ourselves small.

    How do you know when gratitude is limiting or a springboard? Know this: More is never made from less. Putting yourself below someone won’t create lasting joy, love, peace, or happiness.

    Practicing true gratitude requires understanding that we are equals. No one is better. If you hold yourself to the same (not higher or lower) standards as someone else, then gratitude will be your springboard.

    Gratitude is also a way to find what you’re looking for within your current life. It often requires little to no change. When we’re unhappy or unfulfilled we often think we need to get rid of things, maybe start from scratch somehow.

    But the truth is, what we’re looking for is often already in our lives. We must simply possess (or practice) the ability to see it.

    Gratitude also slows things down for me which, in this day and age, is precious. Being able to identify the gifts I have means knowing what’s important to me and taking the time to cherish them. It’s the ability to find my why—why I work hard, why I sacrifice and give of myself… why I am here.

    That’s a lot to gain from one simple act of seeing. How grateful I am to gain so much from a simple practice.

  • You’re Bent, Not Broken: A Mindset Shift That Can Change Your Life

    You’re Bent, Not Broken: A Mindset Shift That Can Change Your Life

    “Bent but never broken; down but never out.” ~Annetta Ribken

    I lived for a long time thinking I was broken beyond repair.

    Let me rephrase: I thought I was unloved, unworthy, scarred, and broken. What a package, right?

    It started young, never feeling like I was good enough for anything I did. Being the youngest of the typical modern recomposed family in the eighties, I never knew on which foot to dance and always thought I needed to bend left and right to be seen and loved.

    I carried this baggage under my badge of anxiety, feeling like no one and nothing could ever make me happy, that no one could love the real me, that nothing could ever make me feel worthy.

    It reached a point as I was entering my forties when all I wanted to do was disappear. I wanted to not be who I was. I wanted to die.

    I thought that was my only solution.

    I believed the world would be better without me.

    What I didn’t understand then is that by thinking I was broken, unworthy, unloved, and all the other awful things I told myself daily, I was pouring salt into old wounds that had no chance to mend until I stopped the self-loathing.

    The more I told myself I was broken, the more I was breaking my soul. The more I told myself I was unloved, the less I loved others and opened myself up to love. The more I told myself I was unworthy, the more I interpreted others’ words to mean the same.

    I didn’t know what I could do. I didn’t know how to get out of the storm I was stuck in. I didn’t know what could help me live in the moment and stop hurting from the past or getting scared of the future.

    How do you get out of hurting so much you want to die?

    For me: writing.

    It was the only thing I could do.

    I was losing friends left and right, closing up like an oyster, hurting myself and others with my words and actions—but my pen and paper were my salvation.

    I bled tears and words until the day I could take a step back.

    The pain, the feeling of being broken and unworthy was still here; I could barely look at myself in a mirror, even less love anyone properly. But as I was playing with my pencil not finding words for a poem I needed to write to survive, I kept pushing into a crack it had. And I pushed my nails into it, and I played with it, and picked at it and some more not really thinking what I was doing, desperately trying to find words, until the pencil broke in two.

    No, let me take responsibility—until I broke the pencil in two.

    I looked at the two pieces in my hand.

    I had played with that pencil’s crack until I broke it.

    My fingers kind of hurt, but I smiled.

    This wasn’t me. This couldn’t be me. I really didn’t want this to become me.

    I wasn’t two parts of one entity.

    I was still one.

    And if I was still one, I wasn’t broken, I was just scarred. I was just bent.

    From that moment on, everything shifted.

    I wasn’t broken, just bent. I could learn to love myself again.

    It became like a mantra I repeated daily.

    And if I wasn’t broken, just bent, then maybe I wasn’t unlovable but loved by the wrong people. And maybe I wasn’t unworthy but only surrounded by people who didn’t recognize my worth, or maybe I was blind to my awesomeness.

    And if I wasn’t broken, if I stopped playing with my wounds, then maybe the healed scars could tell a story. And if I could tell my story and help others in any way, maybe, just maybe my pain and hardship and years of anxiety and depression could become more than a feeling of brokenness.

    So maybe I wasn’t broken. Maybe I was indeed just bent.

    It was hard to say it out loud, it was hard to explain, but the moment I shifted my mindset, I felt a relief.

    I knew then I could rise from the traumas I’d gone through. Even the smallest ones.

    I could give myself a second chance at life by healing and sharing my story.

    I wasn’t broken; I was made to break the shell of my past and show that if I could do it, you could too.

    Because here is my biggest secret: I am no one, and I am everyone.

    My story is the same story as most of yours. I didn’t deal with my traumas, and they caught up. I thought I had dealt with the past by putting a bandage on it when I really needed an open soul surgery.

    I thought I could wear a mask and be loved for who I thought people wanted me to be, but this made me feel unloved to the core.

    I thought I was broken when I was only bent by circumstances I needed to untangle. I thought I was unworthy but I was capable of creating art with my scars and shining a light on the most common depression story ever to tell others they weren’t alone and could get out of it too.

    So don’t tell yourself that you are broken.

    Don’t think you need an extraordinary story to help others find their light.

    Don’t believe you are no one, because we are all no one, and we are everyone.

    I’m not a life coach, I’m not selling classes, I’m not even trying to save your soul. I’m just like you, trying to find a light of love and joy. And together, we are healing, and we have a story to write. A story about the power of choosing to see yourself as someone with strength, value, and purpose.

    Change your mindset today. See yourself as just bent, and don’t try to straighten yourself up.

    Allow yourself to be bent, and let the shift happen.

    Broken is irreparable.

    Bent is not.

    It’s not a big difference, but it might change your life.

  • Why Judging People Hurt Me and 5 Things That Helped Me Stop

    Why Judging People Hurt Me and 5 Things That Helped Me Stop

    “It’s very easy to judge. It’s much more difficult to understand. Understanding requires compassion, patience and a willingness to believe that good hearts sometimes choose poor methods.” ~Doe Zantamata

    In the past, judgments kept me safe. They reassured me that I had worth. That I was right. That I was good. I believed I knew the “right” way to live.

    I felt I could clearly see the truth of matters. I didn’t understand why others weren’t always able to grasp the truth that I saw. However, the real truth was that my inner world was full of turmoil.

    Since adolescence, I went about my day with a certain level of tension in my chest. It was almost imperceptible, but always there. I felt I was constantly fighting the world, the universe. I tried to control it, to mold it to the way I saw things. I judged anyone who didn’t follow my vision of right and wrong.

    I spent a lot of time arguing and judging. Politics, religion, even school board meetings—they all elicited strong judgments from me. Judging others felt OH SO GOOD for a minute. That’s the kicker. Inevitably, though, the negative energy of the judgments left me feeling irritated or angry.

    Why was I judging so much? Because I believed that missteps should be punished. My judgments were just that. I thought punishments were critical to learning. To growing.

    The reality was that the person I was judging was mostly unaware of my judgy thoughts. My judgments weren’t resulting in positive change. When I sat down and actually thought about what punishments accomplish, I realized that no one needs to be punished in order to change. I saw that I was operating from a false “truth.”

    What I hadn’t understood was that the only person I was punishing when I judged was myself. I was poisoning my body, my mind, even my soul, with anger.

    What is clear to me now is that when I judge, I create division. When I judge someone, I am saying “I’m here and you’re over there.” I’m thinking, “I’m right and you’re wrong.” The problem is—they are thinking the same thing!

    I experienced the wisdom of the introductory quote in what turned out to be a pivotal moment in my spiritual journey.

    I was a witness to an unpleasant argument about vaccines between two friends. I started to feel the tension in my chest increase. I began to judge and felt the need to jump in and share my “right view” with them.

    Then I centered. I became still. And I saw two moms who were scared. Two moms who loved their children. Two moms who were just trying to do their best. The tension fell away. I stopped judging and felt compassion for my two friends instead.

    My inner world changed. The tension was replaced with expansion. I felt peaceful. I felt love.

    There is a concept in Buddhism called “the right view.” The “right view” is often described as the perspective that doesn’t cause suffering. I’ve also heard it described as “all views, or none at all.”

    I’ve learned that we filter all external information through our own personal experiences, knowledge, and traumas before coming to a conclusion. Our inner world and patterns determine our reactions. This is why we can all receive the same information and still come to different conclusions. None are right, and none are wrong. They are just different paths.

    In the past, I would have tried to convince you that my path was right. I wouldn’t allow you to be who you were. I wanted you to be who I wished you to be. I would have judged you.

    I don’t know about you, but when someone judges or shames me, I don’t change. I dig my feet in. It’s not a very effective communication technique.

    Instead of judging, if we try to understand each other and allow each other to be who we are, we foster acceptance rather than division. We have compassion rather than judgment and our inner world changes. We feel an inner peace within.

    It’s important to note that not judging someone doesn’t mean you condone what they’re doing. It also doesn’t change the consequences of their actions. It just allows you to keep your inner world peaceful.

    So, how did I get here?

    First, I learned to meditate and find that place of stillness within me.

    Second, I learned how to find that place of stillness with my eyes open. These first two steps allowed me to create a space between an event and my emotions. This moment (or space) allowed me to respond rather than react. In this moment, the truth will often become clear.

    Third, I practiced catching myself judging. I would take a moment and hold the person in compassion instead. I would try to understand them. I would allow them to be who they are rather than who I wished.

    Fourth, I saw that punishments don’t work. Judging others or ourselves doesn’t facilitate growth. It creates tension and division.

    Finally, I discovered that judging ties you to the past. To past patterns, reactions, and impressions. I’m judging based on my personal past experiences. I learned to let go and to forgive things in my past. I knew if I didn’t, nothing would change.

    The result was inner peace. My chest doesn’t feel tight anymore. In fact, it feels like there is an open, shiny jewel in place of the tension. Love flows through me daily. I see the bliss of the present moment. I spend less and less time in the past.

    When someone says something hurtful to me now, I try to pause and center. I bless them. I know when people are suffering that suffering often spills out onto others. I hold them in compassion. I understand that they are doing the best they can.

    I’m also not perfect. I do still catch myself judging. I am also doing the best that I can.

    I challenge you to try leading with compassion. First, compassion for yourself. We are all learning and growing. Then compassion for each other. See what happens to your inner world.

    It is easy to judge; it’s much harder to try and understand.

  • Why We Don’t See Other People Clearly and How to Start

    Why We Don’t See Other People Clearly and How to Start

    “If I had the chance I’d ask the world to dance, but I’d be dancing with myself.” ~Billy idol

    Spending long periods of time alone—as I’ve done while traveling solo over the past year—is an eye-opening experience.

    Without the distractions of my normal routine and relationships, I’ve been able to take a good look around inside my very own head. And the more I do this, the more I realize that what I experience as my world is just a reflection of my own psyche. In reality, I’m dancing with myself all the time.

    This crucial awareness is usually hidden by the fact that other people seem to be the cause of my experience.

    Most of us think that we’re dancing with others: friends, lovers, colleagues, family. But watching myself now I see that—all on my own—my emotions and moods still wax and wane.

    I still have long conversations in my head about the past, present, and future, what should and shouldn’t be happening, and how I should and shouldn’t be feeling about it. Even without a cast of supporting characters, my dance card is full.

    The truth is, whether we know it or not, we’re always dancing with ourselves.

    Even if you’re physically in the presence of others all day long, your real dance partners are your own projections: memories of past hurts, worries about the future, thoughts and guesses about what is happening (and what other people are thinking) right now.

    It’s impossible to see the other person clearly, let alone have a real relationship with them, when all these other projections are crowding the dance floor.

    What’s more, everyone around you is doing the same. Many of the seemingly inexplicable things that happen in relationships are caused by one or both people reacting to a projection.

    You treat the other person as if that projection were true, even though they have no idea that the real reason you’re upset is because of something your last girlfriend said three years ago.

    Remember the old expression “he was beside himself with anger?” Even when we sincerely believe that our relationships are open and honest, how can they be if we don’t actually know the cast of characters we’re relating to?

    The only thing we can do about this is to remember that it’s happening.

    The more aware we are of our own projections, the more we learn to acknowledge them, the more we are able to look past them and begin to see the reality of the other person (or the reality of ourselves that lives behind the projections of the mind).

    It’s harder to do this when we’re always busy. It’s scary, too—life seems simpler when we can just look outside of ourselves for the causes of our emotions, and blame others, or change something “out there” instead of inside of ourselves.

    This is what has been happening to me as I spend so much time on my own. Though I often feel the urge to escape into busy-ness, or company simply for the sake of company, I try to hold myself here instead, in this place that vacillates from bliss to panic, and just get to know myself as my own true dance partner.

    I’m learning that the vacillations are just a part of life, not something that requires a reaction.

    With other people, it’s all too easy to miss this lesson in the rush to react. I’m learning how much the way I perceive other people is dictated by my own expectations and prior experience. How little clarity I actually have when I view them through this unacknowledged veil. How little I actually know myself when I constantly substitute exterior perception for my own interior reality.

    I’m learning that reality can always (and only) be found on the inside.

    Dancing with myself is a skill that I’m slowly and purposefully developing. I want to know myself intimately, so that I can automatically adjust my rhythm and steps when the music or mood shifts.

    I want to stay open and balanced even when my emotions are turbulent, letting them move through me as part of the dance without sweeping me away.

    I want to become so familiar with my own projections that I never mistake them for someone else’s reality again. And I think that learning this first will also let me dance more skillfully, more kindly, more lovingly with life, and with others too.

    Although spending a long time alone can be a great crash course in these skills, not everyone has the opportunity (or desire) to try it.

    Learning to dance with yourself while in the midst of daily life will require more vigilance and attention, because the dance floor is so crowded. You will bump into more things—other people’s projections as well as your own. The trick is to keep coming back to your own experience:

    • When do you feel calm and centered?
    • When do you feel “beside” yourself, being pushed or pulled by circumstances and reactions rather than directing your own steps?
    • If your emotions feel out of control, can you step back and watch without being sucked under?
    • When it’s someone else’s emotion, can you let them have it without needing to rush in and fix everything?

    It’s beautifully simplifying to do this. Instead of keeping track of everyone else in the dance and trying to direct their steps, you only have to listen for your own interior rhythm and balance.

    When you lose the thread—and you will—just go back to listening inwardly. It doesn’t go away, we just lose track of it when we don’t pay attention. Gradually (I think) we’ll know it so well that we can track it even when the dance gets hectic.

    Though dancing alone can feel strange and lonely at first, the loneliness comes with a peace I rarely felt when I was constantly trying to fit myself into someone else’s steps.

    When other people join me now, I try to remember that they are in their own dances too, interacting with their own projections. If we’re really lucky we’ll find people (or teach the people we love) to dance with themselves alongside of us. The ones who can’t will find other partners, and that’s all right too.

    Your first, last, and most important dance partner will always be yourself.

  • The Beauty in Her Baldness: Why My Mother Was Still Radiant with Cancer

    The Beauty in Her Baldness: Why My Mother Was Still Radiant with Cancer

    “Beauty doesn’t come from physical perfection. It comes from the light in our eyes, the spark in our hearts, and the radiance we exude when we’re comfortable enough in our skin to focus less on how we look and more on how we love.” ~Lori Deschene

    For as long as I can remember, my mom had long shiny silky black hair down to her knees. It was magical in the way that it attracted people and inspired curiosity and connection.

    Everywhere we went, strangers approached her, usually timidly at first with a brief compliment, and then, after receiving her signature friendly head nod and open smile, they relaxed and the questions and comments would pour in as if an unspoken invitation to connect was made and accepted.

    “How long did it take you to grow your hair?”

    “How long does it take to wash it?”

    “It must take forever to dry.”

    “Can I touch it?”

    “Wow, it feels like silk! Annie, come feel her hair!”

    “Does it ever get caught in anything?”

    “You must spend a lot of money on shampoo.”

    Regardless of the comments or the duration of the conversation, everyone always walked away smiling, their step a little livelier, as if the world had suddenly become a better place.

    My mom has a warm, open aura about her. When we’re out in public, she has a way of making people feel instantly valued and appreciated. My sisters and I call it “mom’s juju,” some kind of mystical power that brings out the good in everyone and everything.

    She makes eye contact with strangers and if someone doesn’t avert their eyes away quickly, she nods her head slightly, as if bowing down to them in respect, and offers them a big, generous smile that immediately warms them, causing them to smile back.

    She has a radiant inner happy glow that’s contagious, and over my fifty years of knowing her, I’ve witnessed people shift from closed off and rigid to open and free in a swift, instantaneous moment. It’s almost as if they’ve suddenly been released by a heavy clamp that was holding them down and they stand up taller, happier, lighter… even if only for a moment.

    Mom’s juju makes people come alive.

    It’s ironic that she’s an introvert like me, and I often think about this when I’m out in public.

    I confess that I go into “robot mode” where I forget I’m human and that everyone around me are humans too. I usually do this when I’m short on time and have a specific, focused goal, like grocery shopping.

    I avoid eye contact and deliberately close off my energy, especially when I don’t want to be approached, bothered with small talk, or exchange energy with others. I just want to shop; I don’t want to connect, chat, or stay any longer than it takes me to get my food and leave.

    But my mom, she’s different. She reminds me that I love people and enjoy connecting with them too. She reminds me that it’s more important to connect soul to soul, human to human, than to check off that next thing on my to-do list. She reminds me of the true meaning of the word, “Namaste,” and is the living, breathing embodiment of it.

    The divine in me sees the divine in you.

    When she nods her head upon greeting someone, she’s bowing to the divine in the other person.

    Most people think she’s bowing because it’s an Asian tradition, but to my mom, it’s more than a rote action imposed by a tradition, it’s a gesture of genuine love and respect because she truly does recognize the divine in everyone. And in her recognition of them, they too recognize it in themselves, even if only for a moment, even if they can’t explain it or understand it. They feel different after having the exchange with her.

    My mom’s hair was often the icebreaker for this exchange. It provided an opening for people to approach her.

    Like the sirens in Greek mythology whose singing lured unwary sailors on to the rocks, her hair lured people into a glimpse of their own divinity. They thought they were drawn to her hair, but they were drawn to their own beauty and divinity inside them. The hair was just the seductive song.

    No one knew this, of course, not even my mom.

    To my mom, her hair became something that defined her and her beauty. In a world that has the capacity to tear down anyone’s value, my mom’s hair made her feel unique, exotic, special.

    She enjoyed the attention that people lavished on her hair, and eventually, her self-worth became wrapped up in it, in the same way she would wrap her hair around her neck several times when she was cold.

    In late 2011, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.

    Beyond the fear of dying, my mom said that the idea of losing her hair was more difficult than having cancer, and she visualized not only surviving cancer, but surviving it with all her hair intact, despite what the doctors and nurses said.

    If anything could break the rules of science and chemotherapy induced hair loss, we thought, mom’s juju could.

    But after several weeks of chemo, her beautiful long hair started falling out in clumps. It left bald spots that made her look even more sickly and frail, and we realized there are some things mom’s positive juju couldn’t affect.

    Cancer has a way of ravaging you and it doesn’t care who you are or how you feel about it

    On one ceremonious and tearful morning, my mom surrendered to cancer’s command and asked my oldest sister to shave her head.

    It was an emotional, traumatic, and beautiful moment of loss, acceptance, and renewal, all swirled into one, as she watched her hair fall from her head onto the floor, piece by piece, like pieces of her identity falling away from her, and in its place, something different.

    Something clean and pure and unhidden.

    She looked in the mirror and saw herself for the first time—the person she was without the thing that she’d thought made her, well, HER. There was a bald woman staring back at her and she looked even more special, unique, and beautiful.

    I don’t know what my mom was expecting to see after losing her hair. Perhaps there was a part of her that didn’t expect to see anything, as if once she lost her hair, she’d somehow cease to exist. Her identity had been so entwined with her hair that she thought she might be gone too, once the hair was gone.

    But she wasn’t. She was still there. She survived.

    This realization freed my mom. She no longer wrapped her identity (and uniqueness and beauty) around her hair. Cancer made sure of that, it had given her no choice. Any illusion of an old, outworn identity had been swept away with the dead hair on the floor and tossed in the trash.

    She found her new identity—an identity that was based off her inner beauty, not her outer beauty. She discovered she was unique and beautiful without it, and she radiated an inner knowing of this so much so that people started complimenting her on her baldness.

    And she responded with the same signature head nod and grin, but this time, as a free woman, no longer bound by physical illusions of beauty.

    She had become truly free.

    This was the gift of mom’s cancer.

    Cancer has a way of ravaging your false identities and reminding you of what’s real and true.

    Now, eleven years later and cancer free, my mom’s hair has grown back. It’s not the same as it once was, thick and shiny black silk. It’s now thin and gray.

    But a renewed person has emerged, with an even more powerful and radiant juju, and the beauty inside her shines brighter than ever.

  • 5 Important Life Skills I Learned in Grief After My Husband Died

    5 Important Life Skills I Learned in Grief After My Husband Died

    “Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Even though you want to run. Even when it’s heavy and difficult. Even though you’re not quite sure of the way through. Healing happens by feeling.” ~Dr. Rebecca Ray

    When my husband died from terminal brain cancer in 2014, I learned all about deep grief. The kind of grief that plunges you into a valley of pain so vast it takes years to claw your way out. In the beginning, I didn’t want to deal with grief because the pain was too intense. So, I dodged grief and circled around the pit of despair, trying to outrun or outwit it.

    My biggest grief fault was imagining an end. In my naiveté I figured I’d reach a point where I could wash my hands of it and claim, “Whew, I’m done!” But that’s not how grief and living with monumental loss works.

    Grief doesn’t like to be ignored. The hardest lesson for any griever is learning that grief never goes away. You just figure out how to make room for it.

    A few years after my husband died, I kept seeing the quote “what you resist persists.” It was like grief sending me a message to stop running and pay attention.

    This message reached me at a critical time because I was exhausted from avoiding the pain, so I decided to let myself feel the sadness and see what happened instead. I stopped asking, why me? and started asking, what am I supposed to learn from this? Instead of evading grief, which was too grueling anyway, I let grief teach me what I needed to know.

    Much to my surprise, amid the discomfort and sorrow and suffering, I learned a whole new way of living.

    I didn’t realize I was morphing into a new, more self-actualized me because it’s hard to see the changes happening in real time. You can’t possibly appreciate your progress until you look back at how far you’ve come.

    With the benefit of hindsight, I can see how grief’s guidance taught me the following important life skills I never would have learned without it.

    How to Accept My Feelings

    Prior to my husband’s death, I didn’t have time to feel my feelings. I kept busy with distractions, and whenever a tsunami of emotion surrounded me, I shut down.

    The mistake I used to make was thinking my emotions meant something about me as a person. I convinced myself that sadness meant I was weak, and I couldn’t possibly be healing if I still cried over my husband’s death years later. I thought, I must be an angry person because I get angry so often, or something must be wrong with me because I feel overly judgmental sometimes.

    Because grief brings with it a whole slew of emotions, it forced me to get better at feeling everything. With practice, I started naming my emotions, and I uncovered what I was feeling and why. Instead of labeling my feelings as good or bad, I accepted them as nothing more than the brief emotional surges they are.

    I took a deep dive into all the self-help guides I could find to determine that every emotion has its place. We feel things so we can process what’s happening in our lives, learn from it, and eventually express its meaning. None of my feelings were better or worse than the others. None of them meant anything about my healing or how well I coped.

    I learned I’m not an angry person, I’m just a person who occasionally feels anger. I’m not a judgmental person, I just feel judgmental sometimes. And sadness doesn’t mean I’m weak. It means I’m a human being experiencing a human emotion.

    It took me a while to believe that my feelings were nothing more than blips on the radar screen of my human existence. If it weren’t for grief, I might not have uncovered the secret to accepting all my feelings –they mean nothing about me as a person.

    If I’m being honest, I still get angry way more than I want to. But I don’t keep busy with distractions anymore. I feel my feelings when they come up, let them pass through and thank them for giving me an opportunity to understand myself on a deeper level.

    How to Be More Vulnerable

    In the past, I rarely admitted when I made mistake, when someone hurt me, or when I was afraid. As far back as I can remember, people viewed me as strong, brave, and determined because that’s what I portrayed. Few people ever saw the anxious, disappointed, or terrified side of me.

    So, it was no surprise after my husband died, when card after card poured in with the same sentiment: “I’m so sorry for your loss. But I know how strong you are. If anyone can get through this devastation, you can.”

    It comforted people to think I was “strong” enough to endure my loss. As if “strong” people grieved less than their more fragile counterparts. But their condolences were of little comfort to me after I learned a very basic principle of grief; it doesn’t discriminate. It tests the mettle of everyone’s soul.

    Grief forced me to expose myself emotionally. I had to show my vulnerable side because fear took over and I didn’t know how to conceal it anymore. It seeped out of my pores

    The upside of exposing my vulnerability was building deeper, more authentic relationships. I never knew how much people craved to see the real me until I noticed a favorable shift in my personal connections after I admitted my fear, shame, and regret. When I was honest about the intense stress of grief and the toll it took on me, others trusted me with their innermost secrets too.

    I much prefer letting others in now. I never want to go back to keeping people at arm’s length and pretending to be someone I’m not. I did a grave disservice to myself by appearing so aloof for so long. Before my husband died, I got away with it. After he died, there was nowhere left to hide.

    I’m not afraid of being afraid anymore. I can readily admit now when I’m scared. I also admit that I cry and break down and throw an occasional temper tantrum when life gets to be too much.

    If it wasn’t for grief, I would’ve never known the benefit of letting others see the real me.

    How to Ask for Help

    As a person who avoided feelings and shunned vulnerability, I never knew how to ask for help. Not that I didn’t need help. I just hated asking because I assumed people would say yes when they secretly wanted to say no.

    I didn’t want to be a burden on anyone.

    After my husband died, I needed help with lawn maintenance, household repairs and childcare, among other things. I realized quickly I couldn’t do it all on my own and it took everything I had in me to ask for help because it was such a foreign concept.

    One of the biggest things I learned on my grief journey is that healing requires honesty. And honesty requires practice. When people said, “let me know what you need” I understood what they really meant was, “I have no idea what to do! I feel so helpless and I’m begging you to please just tell me what you need, and I’ll do it!” People aren’t mind-readers, so I practiced being as honest and explicit as I could.

    It took me a while to get good at asking for help. But I appreciate how wonderful it is for the person on the receiving end to get specific instructions. People want to help and now I let them.

    My healing heart and relationships have vastly improved by implementing this one simple change.

    How to Settle in with Uncertainty

    I used to think I controlled the universe—until my husband died. Control is an illusion, and that truth smacked me upside the head the day his doctor diagnosed him with terminal cancer.

    I’ve never liked uncertainty. I’m not a spontaneous person. My world works better when I know what’s going on and no one has any surprises up his or her sleeve. But after my husband’s diagnosis, we lived each day with uncertainty because we knew for sure he would die from his disease—we just didn’t know when.

    The twelve months between his diagnosis and death were pure torture. However, we settled in with uncertainty anyway because we had no choice. Instead of focusing on the when of the future, we made the most of the present.

    After he died, I learned that grief and uncertainty go hand in hand. When you’re grieving, you don’t know what emotional wave will hit you from day to day. You go through life without the security of knowing what will happen next because something terrible already happened and it could happen again. And you can’t control it. This is both a blessing and a curse.

    The curse is the uncertainty, of course, but the blessing is you get to take the responsibility of the world off your shoulders. You surrender because you understand you were never in charge, anyway.

    Now, I welcome the peace of surrender and not knowing. I discovered it’s easier to live in the moment instead of focusing on things outside of my control. Talk about lifting an enormous burden! I ride the emotional waves as they come and remind myself to stop forcing things and just let them be.

    Whenever the control urge starts to churn and makes me think I have a chance to influence an outcome, I imagine my husband tapping me on the shoulder and whispering, “remember how we used to surrender? Please do that with me until this feeling passes.”

    How to Allow Others to Have Their Own Feelings

    When I got better at feeling my feelings, allowing vulnerability, and settling in with uncertainty, I also learned one of the most important life skills—how to let other people have their own feelings, too.

    Because I know I’m not in charge and I don’t control the Universe, I know I can’t control what other people think or feel either. If grief has taught me anything, it’s that everyone has their own way of doing things and thinking about things and expressing their feelings about things. And none of it means anything about me.

    I used to get upset when someone else was upset or get offended if someone else offended me. I tried to fix people and things to make everyone happy because I thought it was my responsibility to help others live in harmony.

    Death put the kibosh on that distorted way of living.

    I no longer had the time or inclination to teach everyone how to live in harmony because my world was one breath away from potential collapse. I had to concentrate on myself. When I focused on getting my mind right, making peace with grief, and learning how to handle my feelings, I understood it was an inside job. No one else could do it for me. And I couldn’t or shouldn’t try to do that for anyone else. Everyone comes from their own level of understanding about themselves and the world.

    It took me a long time to understand this because it took me a long time to understand me.

    Now I don’t pretend to know what or how or why someone else should think or feel a certain way. When other people tell me how they feel, I believe them.

    It’s not my job to try and change someone else’s feelings any more than it’s their job to try and change mine.

    The Way It Is Today

    I don’t wish my monumental loss on anyone, but looking back now, I see how my crooked, confusing, and soul-crushing path taught me essential life skills I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

    Even though I’ve had my fair share of hard days and months and years, I became a more compassionate and considerate person with grief’s guidance. I changed my worldview because pain changed me. And these days, I surrender to what is instead of trying to change circumstances outside of me.

    It’s only after spending time with your pain that you develop an understanding of its purpose. I never thought I’d find an upside to grief because I thought grief was all about death. But I found out that grief teaches you about more than just death and surviving loss.

    It teaches you how to live.

  • How Shifting Your Attention Can Be the Cure for Anxiety

    How Shifting Your Attention Can Be the Cure for Anxiety

    “Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.” ~Paulo Coelho

    “Am I focusing too much on my anxiety?”

    This very question weighed heavily on my mind as I found myself in yet another bout of anxiety. I was playing professional baseball at the time, and I just couldn’t seem to free myself from the constant and unending worrisome thoughts racing through my head.

    A lot of these thoughts centered around how I would perform the next game. What my teammates were thinking of me, whether they saw me as a valuable part of the team. I often thought about why I was playing baseball and if I was wasting my time.

    All of these worries did nothing but lead to further thoughts, centering around much of the same, leading to a terrible cycle.

    This was not the first time I realized the presence of anxiety in my life. It has been something I’ve dealt with for as long as I can remember.

    In college, I even worked with a sport psychologist who taught me coping mechanisms to alleviate the anxiety I felt surrounding baseball.

    We addressed my self-talk, with him generating a routine I could use the night before games. He also focused heavily on process goals. As focusing on the process, rather than the outcome, is a major way to reduce anxious thinking.

    After completing a master’s in psychology and beginning work as a mental performance coach, I felt as though I had a solid understanding of how to cope with anxiety. Why was it then that I once again found myself in its grasp?

    Well, the truth is, no matter how strong you build your mind and how much work you put in, anxiety will still find its way into your life. Some time or another, those pesky worrisome thoughts will enter your head.

    What matters is how long you allow those thoughts to stick around. And what’s interesting is, sometimes the more we try to rid ourselves of anxiety, the more we invite it to stay.

    That is the mistake I made, and why, after all my years of work and learning, I found myself faced with great difficulty.

    Energy Flows Where Attention Goes

    Have you ever heard this saying before?

    I’ve heard different interpretations of its meaning, but one I really resonate with is, wherever we place our attention will be amplified.

    This means the more we focus on our anxiety, the greater the strength we give it.

    So if we want to not feel anxious, one of the worst things we can do is try to not feel anxious.

    When I recognized I was giving my anxiety too much attention, I realized what needed to happen instead. The decision I made involved the same techniques I’m going to show you later in the article.

    For now, I want to address just a little bit about why we focus so much on anxiety in the first place.

    Can’t I Just Will It Away?

    I’m the first to admit to having fallen into this type of thinking in the past.

    Whenever I would grow overly anxious before a game or experience anxiety in my daily life (which was all too often), my natural response was to try and force the anxiety out.

    But that only worsened the problem. I remember feeling the anxiety actually grow within the more I tried to get it out.

    So why do we continue to believe we can rid ourselves of anxiety through focusing on it?

    The main reason is due to the fact we are anxious people in the first place. Do you know how hard it is to stop thinking about something? Especially when that which has captured your attention is as powerful an emotion as anxiety.

    So, one, the easiest option is to grow anxious over the anxiety, thus focusing on trying to will it away. Two, anxiety is a scary feeling. Having uncontrollable thoughts that lead to a dizzying feeling of dread is not fun.

    As a result, we try to get rid of it as quickly as we can. Removing our attention from the anxiety and trusting in some other technique does not feel as safe as simply focusing on how terribly we feel and hoping the anxiety will go away.

    But as I already said, giving too much attention to our anxiety only makes it worse. So, what can we do instead? The answer lies in attention, the shifting of attention that is.

    The Power of Shifting Your Attention

    Since we know where we place our attention is where our energy will be directed, a shift in focus can drastically improve our mental state.

    When I questioned whether I was focusing too much on my anxiety, it became clear to me that I was obsessing over why I experienced it, where it came from, and how I could get rid of it.

    So, I decided to make a switch and instead, give my attention to how I wanted to feel. This meant focusing on ways to feel confident, relaxed, and so on.

    Do you see the major difference? Understanding that everything is heightened based on how much attention we give it, you realize it’s only hurting you further to focus on what you don’t want.

    Once you accept the anxiety you feel, it’s now time to turn your attention onto how you wish to feel instead. Always focus on things in the affirmative rather than the negative. Pay attention to how you want to feel, not how you don’t want to feel.

    To become more relaxed and confident I employed the use of meditation and visualization.

    Using Meditation and Visualization to Train Focus

    I sit for mindfulness meditation twice a day and just relish in the moment.

    I have found the practice so powerful in training my mind to focus on the present moment. Not only has it taught me to give attention to feeling relaxed and calm, but the more present I am, the less anxiety I feel.

    That’s because anxiety, by definition, is a child of the future. To feel anxious means you are worried about what may happen or something not happening the way you wish.

    To practice mindfulness meditation, simply follow these steps:

    1. Get into a comfortable position with your back straight. I prefer sitting on my knees, but feel free to sit in a chair if that’s more comfortable.

    2. Set your timer. You do not want to be wondering if you’ve meditated long enough. Give yourself five to ten minutes if you’re a beginner. Choose a calming alarm, as you don’t want to be startled out of your mindful state.

    3. Close your eyes and begin breathing deeply and rhythmically. Focus on your breath and as your mind wanders, simply return your focus, without judgment. Thoughts will keep coming. The goal isn’t to stop them. It’s to allow and observe them, then let them pass.

    I also use mindfulness is during the day. Whenever I feel anxious, I’ll pause and take a few breaths to center myself in the present.

    I usually add some count breathing into this—breathing in for a count of five and out for ten.

    Visualization has been an equally powerful tool in training my mind to manage worrisome thoughts.

    After my meditation is complete and I’m relaxed, I visualize myself full of confidence, calm, and relaxed in different scenarios where I typically feel anxious.

    Once again, I am not seeing myself as not anxious, but rather as the way I wish to be.

    Usually, I’ll decide on one situation each day and visualize it in detail—what’s going on in my environment, who’s around me, what they’re doing. This allows me to mentally practice facing these situations with ease.

    Throughout the day, whenever I feel anxious, I bring this image back into my mind, reminding myself to operate off my ideal vision of myself rather than my past conditioning.

    These techniques have been tremendously helpful in shifting my attention off anxiety. And the less attention I give to feeling anxious, the less hold anxiety has on my life.

    If you are struggling with anxiety, I encourage you to ask yourself the same question I did, “Am I focusing too much on my anxiety?” You might be surprised by how your anxiety eases when you stop giving it so much attention.

  • Choose Joy and You’ll See the World with a Brighter Perspective

    Choose Joy and You’ll See the World with a Brighter Perspective

    “We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.” ~Joseph Campbell

    It’s been just under five years now since I had a head injury that changed my life forever.

    Unfortunately, I spent more than two years going to multiple kinds of therapy and doctors several days a week and ultimately had to stop working. I was devastated.

    I loved my career as a special educator and school administrator. I’d been in classrooms since I was twenty years old, and here I was at fifty-seven, suddenly unable to return to a school in any capacity because of a head injury.

    The first two years, when I wasn’t being transported to therapies and doctors, I was mostly in bed or on the sofa.

    To be honest, it wasn’t just because I was physically hurting so bad—it was because I was emotionally hurting, too.

    I have had a headache every day since that horrible day almost five years ago when the head injury occurred. I have problems with dizziness, vertigo, fatigue, and sleep.

    A neuropsychologist diagnosed me with executive functioning, processing, memory, and recall delays.

    But even these problems were not as bad as the emotional anguish, and the hurt in my soul, once I realized I would never be able to go into a classroom again.

    And sadly, I learned the hard way.

    It was the first Grandparents’ Day at my grandson’s school after my head injury. My husband took off work and picked me up from home, dropped me off at the school doors, parked the car, and then escorted me to our grandson’s classroom.

    I always loved Grandparents’ Day at schools where I worked, as well as at our grandchildren’s schools. I loved greeting the grandparents when they arrived at my schools; some of my most treasured moments were when students would introduce me to their grandparents.

    We always made a big deal out of Grandparent’s Day with our own grandchildren, and I was thrilled to be attending this year because it was one of my first ventures out of the house for anything other than medical appointments.

    I continued to have balance problems, anxiety, panic attacks, vision issues, headaches, and other symptoms from post concussive syndrome and post traumatic stress disorder.

    But my husband was my best support person, so I thought I’d be okay for this outing.

    Until I found myself backed into the corner of a crowded classroom with dozens of grandparents and students, and no way to get out.  And I had a full-blown panic attack.

    Difficulty breathing, sweating, shaking—and near syncope.

    My husband excused us quickly and escorted me through the crowd and out of the classroom immediately.

    I was unable to stay.

    I was devastated.

    The next time it happened, I was attending a basketball game at our granddaughters’ school where they were cheerleading and dancing.

    I thought I could handle the crowds until suddenly the stands started filling up around me and another panic attack left me sweating, shaking, and having trouble breathing.

    Again, my husband escorted me through the crowd and out the building—unable to stay.

    As the appointments became fewer and farther between over time, and the doctors claimed I was improving, I continued my counseling appointments for PTSD.

    I was becoming much better at using coping skills we had practiced weekly for more than two years. But I still struggled.

    I was now doing my physical therapy and vision therapy at home, so I didn’t go to those appointments anymore. I wasn’t seeing the specialists or doctors as often as before.

    I was seeing my counselor remotely because of the pandemic, so I didn’t even get out of the house for that weekly appointment.

    Around the two-year mark, I knew something had to change. The joy in my heart and soul had suffered long enough. In fact, it was probably lost for a while. I needed to find it again.

    I was living half of a life. My career was over because of the head injury, and I was going to retire. My social life was stagnant because I couldn’t drive or be in large crowds.

    But I knew my life was not over and I had much to live for.

    I made the conscious decision to crawl out from under my rock! I was done living a life of seclusion and self-pity without joy in my heart and soul.

    I knew I had to find, and choose joy, from here forward. I was going to work hard on changing my mindset and not allowing what happened to me to control my life.

    As I was coming out from under my rock, friends and family noticed a change. I would explain that I was taking back my life and choosing joy again. People were super proud of me. In fact, I was proud of me.

    But I sometimes discovered that the concept of choosing joy didn’t always resonate with people. They didn’t seem to have the spiritual foundation necessary to understand what I meant.

    So, I started explaining exactly what I was doing—choosing joy as a lifestyle. I shifted my attention and mindset from what had happened to me to all the wonderful things around me—flowers, animals, music, sunshine, and smiles.

    I practiced compartmentalizing like I had done as a school administrator. I used strategies from my counselor to help me put what happened behind me. I had to focus on positive things rather than negative things.

    I made it a point to laugh more—watching more comedies and scheduling time with fun people. It took a lot for me to ask friends or family to drive because I was always the driver—but I did it.

    I even laughed about the mess my house had become during my down time and decided to just pronounce “Bless this mess!”

    Little by little, I worked on cleaning the house and getting organized again. Fortunately, my husband was very patient and understanding during those difficult times. Clothes piled up, bills piled up, and mess piled up.

    I focused on an attitude of gratitude and controlling what I could control—my attitude, my words, my behavior, and my responses to life. I also accepted my imperfections rather than beat myself up for not being perfect (or being able to work anymore).

    The more I talked about choosing joy, the more empowered I felt to take back my life. And I could see and feel more joy around me every day.

    I spent time outside and spent quality time with my family (and my cats). I planned family get-togethers again and learned to live with my headaches and panic attacks.

    I accepted that IT’S OKAY TO NOT BE OKAY.  If I had to cancel something because I was having a bad day, the world would not fall apart. I accepted this fact. And so did my family and friends.

    My whole life shifted.

    My mindset shifted.

    And I felt the joy return to my heart and soul.

    I have now been able to see the value of being retired and love it! I have started making jewelry again. My house is cleaner and more organized than it’s been in twenty years. And I am more functional than I’ve been since the head injury.

    Not because I’m all better but because I have a better mindset. I am choosing joy and it changes everything!

    Some days are better than others.

    It’s still like that.

    Almost five years later.

    But I no longer live under a rock—or in bed under my covers!

    I’ve learned through it all that choosing joy is a lifestyle concept. And I’ve been living it as I recover from my head injury and take back my life.

    I’ve become empowered and confident again because I control how I see the world.

    Joy is a lens through which you see the world. Choose joy and you will see the world from a new perspective.

  • One Question I Ask Myself Monthly Since Coming to Terms with Death

    One Question I Ask Myself Monthly Since Coming to Terms with Death

    “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live.” ~Norman Cousins

    On September 23, 2015, Loukas Angelo was walking to his after-school strength and conditioning class just a few hundred yards from Archbishop Mitty High School.

    He was approaching the outdoor basketball courts when he ran out into the street and was struck by a car traveling around thirty miles per hour. The impact sent Loukas flying down the street, and he was immediately transported to the closest hospital where he remained in critical condition.

    I remember sitting on the couch later that afternoon when my phone started blowing up. Feeling curious, I shoved aside my history homework and decided to see what was going on.

    Multiple people had sent some variation of the same text, “Yo. This is so sad. Did you hear about what happened with Loukas…?”

    Confused and a little bit scared, I turned to Twitter and started looking through my feed. I was absolutely floored by the tweets that were being sent out by my friends and our high school’s Twitter page.

    Similar to tragedies like the Boston Marathon, or 9/11, it was one of those moments in life where you’re always going to remember exactly where you were when you found out the news.

    It was almost inconceivable to think about the fact that I had walked across the same exact crosswalk where Loukas was hit just fifteen minutes prior.

    All throughout the night, support poured in from social media sites. The hashtag #PrayForLoukas was trending #1 on Twitter in my local area for several hours. I’m not a particularly religious person, but for the first time in years I said a prayer for Loukas before going to bed.

    The next day at school was one of the most eerie, heart-breaking days of my life. I arrived at Archbishop Mitty High school that day to a campus that was completely silent. Although there were plenty of people walking through the campus, no one said a word to each other

    As I walked toward my homeroom class, I remember seeing one kid carrying a ridiculously oversized backpack. It looked like he was at the airport preparing to leave for a month, and I let out a slight chuckle imagining what it was like to carry that thing around all day.

    However, my smile was wiped off my face completely when I stepped through the door of the classroom.

    Every one of my classmates was sitting there emotionless. Stone-faced. Not saying a word to each other. I sat down and did the same, as we were all preparing for an assembly in the gymnasium that was set to take place in about fifteen minutes.

    The 1400 students funneled into the gymnasium and took their seats. You could hear a pin drop.

    Our principal got up and gave a very powerful speech, which concluded with him leading the entire school in a prayer for Loukas. After a few others got up and spoke, the assembly concluded with a one-minute-long moment of silence.

    The day after the assembly, the news broke that Loukas had passed away after being in critical condition for around forty-eight hours.

    On September 25, 2015, Loukas Angelo lost his life at the age of fourteen years old

    Coming To Terms with Your Mortality

    As we go about our day-to-day lives, we are inundated with thousands of thoughts, most of them the same thoughts that ran through our head the day before.

    But very few of these thoughts, if any, are about our own mortality.

    It’s a little scary to think about the fact that you and everyone you know will perish from this world.

    No one knows when, but one day you will draw your last breath on this earth. Some people have the luxury of preparing for it, while others like Loukas have no idea that it’s coming.

    But at some point, death comes for each and every one of us.

    We all know this deep down, but it seems like so many of us live like we have unlimited time on this earth.

    We put off spending time with family even though they can be taken from us at any given moment.

    We refuse opportunities to get out of our comfort zone even though we have no idea how many of those opportunities we’re going to be given.

    In other words, most of us go through life without coming to grips with our own mortality.

    When Loukas passed, I obviously felt sorrow for his friends and family, who have to carry that burden around for the rest of their life.

    But mainly, I thought about Loukas.

    Given the nature of his death, he didn’t have any time to reflect back on his life. And given how young he was, if he did have that opportunity there wouldn’t be much to think about compared to someone on their deathbed at seventy or eighty years old.

    Yet, I couldn’t help but imagine what he would be thinking about in his final moments had he been given that opportunity. What regrets would he have? What moments would he replay in his head over and over again?

    Eventually, I started asking myself those same questions. It was a pretty cruel exercise that I was putting myself through, but it felt like a way to extract some meaning out of a terrible tragedy.

    As I imagined what it would be like to contemplate my existence at the end of my life, I didn’t feel happiness or satisfaction. I felt regret and shame.

    One common theme that permeated my consciousness was fear. I was only seventeen at the time, but I realized that essentially all of the regrets I’d have on my deathbed were a direct result of being afraid.

    Fear of rejection. Fear of failure. Fear of judgement.

    It was a brutal wake-up call. For the majority of my life, I had missed out on opportunities and experiences due to fear.

    I was here alive and breathing, but I wasn’t truly living. Merely existing, acting as if the end was never coming.

    How to Let Fear & Death Guide Your Actions

    I’m twenty-two now, and since then my approach to life has been simple.

    Twelve times per year, I do a monthly check-in with myself and ask myself one simple question:

    At this very moment, what am I avoiding in life because I’m afraid?

    The answers to this question inform me of exactly what changes that I should be making in my day-to-day life.

    Most people run from fear, but my suggestion is to lean into it. It’s actually an incredibly accurate predictor of the changes that you should be prioritizing in your life.

    It’s different for everyone.

    Some of you may be afraid of changing careers and pursuing something that you love because of the uncertainty that comes with changing professions.

    Some of you may be afraid of improving your social skills because that involves battling with the fear of rejection.

    Some of you may be afraid of moving to a different city because you’ll have to leave friends and family that you care about.

    If you have the courage to actually ask and answer the question, your fears will tell you exactly where your focus should be. It’s almost as if they’re calling out to you, saying:

    “Don’t forget about me. If you don’t take action, I’m going to torture your thoughts when you get to the end of your life.”

    Facing your fears is hard. Staying somewhere you don’t belong is even harder. But nothing compares to the pain of getting to the end of your life and knowing that you let fear stop you from doing the things you truly wanted to do.

    Just like Jim Rohn said, “We all must suffer one of two pains. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is that discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.”

    So I highly encourage you to ask yourself the question above each month and write down whatever comes to mind.

    Pick one of the things that you write down and make it the biggest priority in your life. You can’t fix everything about your life at once, as focusing on everything is the same thing as focusing on nothing.

    But once you’ve narrowed your focus, you can start taking small steps every day to overcome that fear.

    If you’re afraid of social interactions and have been for years, start saying hello to people as they walk by each day.

    If you’re afraid of starting a workout routine, start by walking for two minutes each day.

    These initial bursts of momentum that don’t seem like they make any difference are ultimately the foundation upon which your biggest changes take place.

    Do the things that you think you cannot do. Let the pain of not facing your fears override the pain of letting them fester for years and decades.

    Your future self will smile down at you.

    #LiveLikeLoukas

  • How a Simple Action Word Can Guide You Through Even the Hardest Days

    How a Simple Action Word Can Guide You Through Even the Hardest Days

     “Our intention creates our reality.” ~Wayne Dyer

    What if you only had one thing you needed to accomplish today? One over-arching objective that encapsulates the multiple items on your to-do list or the meetings on your calendar? One word that you set in the morning and carry throughout the day to stay in focus and on purpose?

    Actors know that in order to convey a story well, they have to play an action versus an emotion. There has to be a verb involved in order to act. This might include something like provoke, seduce, destroy, or flatter, versus trying to portray an adjective such as humble, confident, or sad, which read neither truthful nor clear on stage or film.

    Simple action words, kept at the forefront of thought, can be powerful allies in keeping our thoughts, intentions, and actions clear as we move throughout the day.

    If you have a morning meditation, study, or stillness practice, the action word can come out of inspiration gained there and can be targeted to what the need of the day is calling for. Words might include focus, bless, or harmonize to name a few.

    What matters is that the word sits as an overlay atop the to-dos and the schedule for the day so that it infuses all of those seemingly disparate actions with a unified purpose, intent, and energy.

    If you hold a verb like harmonize at the top of your mind as you go about the activities of your day, you’ll see how the action of that verb seeps through in your tone, what you say, and how you treat people.

    I have seen action words come in handy when working with public speakers and executives giving presentations because they help to focus the energy, the intention, and the message.

    Most people don’t get up in front of others just to hear themselves speak. Most have an objective that is often obscured by data or too many slides. Identifying an action word at the outset of content creation, and keeping it top of mind as the story develops, is a simple and powerful way to keep a talk on track and achieve the objective the talk wants to achieve.

    Examples might include: motivate them to make their number, inspire them to serve in their community, or educate them on the hazards of too much sitting.

    I remember a time pre-Covid, where holding one word simply helped me to breathe through a perfect storm week of overwhelm and over-scheduling.

    I was in the middle of a tight-turnaround project with a grueling Fortune 10 client that demanded late nights. I was in tech week for a play opening in Silicon Valley. I was preparing a talk for an L.A. entertainment company, which required air travel, and I was trying to be present for a much-needed (and non-refundable) workshop getaway with my husband.

    While all of these commitments were of my choosing and were essentially positive when viewed separately, they were crashing and colliding in my mind. I couldn’t find the hours or the space that each seemed to need.

    My habitual physical reaction to such overwhelm is to lie awake in bed consecutive nights ruminating, catastrophizing, and fixing. And we all know that fixing anything in the middle of the night or during a day following a night of no sleep is about as effective as pouring hot water into a chocolate teapot.

    The word I leaned on? Surrender. I had to surrender the outcomes I wanted, or believed I needed, in order to relax and breathe.

    A wise mentor once used a golfing analogy to say that all we can do is execute the perfect swing and let the ball go where it will. By surrendering, I was allowing the balls to go where they would. I would show up and do the best I could do with each piece one by one as the demands arose and release the outcomes. The word surrender is also a powerful antidote to cortisol surges of stress. And it’s a great word to hold before bed if sleep stress is an issue.

    Holding an action word in mind can be applied to problems and demands as they crop up during the day. Try applying a word like release to traffic jams, cranky customers, or impatient bosses. Calling up the word to the forefront of thought can re-focus how you want to show up in the world. Or the moment. Scribble it on a post-it note and stick it to your monitor, workspace, or dashboard where you can prominently see it to be reminded throughout the day.

    In our distracted, hyper-connected world, sometimes the simplicity of one little word can help to cut through the mental static.

    Be.

    Serve.

    Listen.

    Simple in form, powerful in practice. Choose a word and lean on it for a full month. Or pick three verbs that define your year. Or change your mind at lunchtime and come up with a new verb for the second half of your day. The only rules are to choose something, keep it alive in your thinking, and ensure it is a verb so that it’s actionable.

    My favorite three verbs right now? Connect. Release. Love.

    What are yours?

  • The Magic of Rewriting Our Most Painful Stories

    The Magic of Rewriting Our Most Painful Stories

    “When you bring peace to your past, you can move forward to your future.” ~Unknown

    It amazes me how things that happen in our childhood can greatly impact our adult lives. I learned the hard way that I was living my life with a deep wound in my heart.

    My father was a very strict man with a temper when I was little, starting when I was around seven years old.

    He had a way of making me feel like all my efforts were not enough. If I scored an 8 in a math exam, he would say, “Why 8 and not 10?” and then punish me. It was a time when some parents thought that beating their children was a way to “put them in place” and teach them a lesson. All this taught me, though, was that I was a disappointment.

    His favorite phrase was “You will never be better than me.”

    As I got older, his temper cooled down a bit, but one thing didn’t change: his painful remarks. “At your age, I was already married, had a house, a car, two daughters, and a piece of land… what have YOU accomplished? See? You will never surpass me.”

    It was his way of “inspiring me” to do better with my life, but it had the opposite effect on me. It was slowly killing my self-esteem.

    When my father passed away, I was seven-year-old Cerise all over again. At the funeral, I asked him, “Daddy, did I finally make you proud? Did I do good with my life?”

    This was the trigger that made me rethink what I was doing with my life. I had to stop for a moment to look at the past. This can be very difficult to do, but sometimes we need to face those painful events in order to understand the nature of our poor decisions and behavior.

    It helped me realize that, unconsciously, I was looking for my father’s approval in the guys I dated. And you know what? It got me nothing but disappointment and heartache, because I was looking for something that they couldn’t give me.

    Inside, I was still that little girl looking for her father’s love.

    When you are a child, you are considered a victim, but when you are a grown up, it is your duty to heal from what was done to you. You just can’t go through life feeling sorry for yourself and complaining about the hand you were dealt. This just keeps you stuck in a sad, joyless life and jeopardizes your relationships.

    In my case, I had to give that little girl the love she so needed in order to stop feeling lonely and stop making the same mistakes.

    The only approval that I needed was my own! When I realized that, I started learning to love myself—regardless of my accomplishments—and I also developed compassion toward my father because I recognized that he was raised the same way he raised me.

    He probably also felt he needed to be the best at everything he did in order to win his parents’ approval. And maybe he thought if I wasn’t the best at everything I did I would never be valued or loved by anyone else.

    Understanding this enabled me to forgive him, break the cycle, and finally let him go.

    So, what makes us slaves to anger, resentment, and abandonment issues? I think it’s the way we keep telling the story in our heads, and this is something that we can transform.

    Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting we sweep things under the rug and pretend like nothing happened. We cannot change the past, and certainly we cannot turn a blind eye to it, but we can modify the way we retell the story to ourselves, and this can be a step toward inner healing.

    I decided to give the difficult parts of my childhood experience another meaning. I edited the way I tell myself the story, and this is how it sounds now:

    “My father was a strict man because he wanted me to succeed in life. He taught me to give my best in every task assigned to me; he didn’t make things easier for me because he wanted me to become strong in character and to find a solution in every situation. Daddy constantly challenged me because he wanted me to develop my potential to the fullest so I could face life and its difficulties.

    I’m certain that when my father departed from this world, he did it in peace knowing that he left behind a strong and brave daughter.”

    This is now the story of my childhood, and you know what? I think I like this version better! It’s helped me close the wound I had in my heart. My childhood left a scar, but it’s not hurting anymore.

    My gift to you today is this: Close your eyes and picture a pencil. Do you know why a pencil has an eraser? To remove the things we don’t like, giving us the freedom to rewrite them into something that we feel more comfortable with.

    You can’t change the facts from your past, but you can change how you interpret them, so feel rewrite as much as you need.

    Your wounds will hurt a lot less when you broaden your perspective, try to understand the people who hurt you, and change the meaning of what you’ve been through.

  • Why I Now Believe Everyone Is Doing the Best They Can

    Why I Now Believe Everyone Is Doing the Best They Can

    “You just never know what someone is dealing with behind closed doors. No matter how happy someone looks, how loud their laugh is, how big their smile is, there can still be a level of hurt that is indescribable. So be kind. Even when others are not, choose to be kind.” ~Andrea Russett 

    Everyone is doing the best they can. When they can do better, they will.

    “I disagree,” you say. “I see people who are not doing their best all the time!”

    Before the year 2006, I had a ton of complaints about the world and the people around me, including my parents, friends, and coworkers. I felt no one cared. Or at least didn’t care enough to try to do better. People seemed to do the bare minimum to get by or only what benefitted them directly. They didn’t care about how they affected others. They certainly didn’t care about me.

    I had issues with my family I couldn’t make sense of, such as how my parents treated me, the way they communicated or lack thereof, and how they were never there for me. Everything I experienced in my family seemed like the direct opposite of how parents love their children was publicized.

    Outside of my own family dynamics, I saw others with a variety of their own family issues. From financial struggles, household duties, to resentment and neglect, even abuse.

    My view of mankind and my hopes to find happiness were dark and pessimistic.

    I went to therapy, attended workshops, tried support groups, but nothing really answered the burning question I had in my mind: “Why do people continue to behave the way they do when they can change? WHY?”

    Then in 2006, I attended a three-day workshop hosted by the late Dr. Lee Gibson. It changed my perspective forever.

    Lee, as we all lovingly called him, was a brilliant behavioral psychologist who taught from a spiritual and energetic foundation. It was my first experience seeing everything from a holistic point of view, and I was hungry for more. I still practice all of his teachings today.

    Among all the Leeisms he shared, it was the insight, “Everyone is doing the best they can. When they can do better, they will” that sparked a lightbulb in my head. It would free me from an emotional trap I had created for myself.

    I will admit, it took me some time to fully grasp and embrace that perspective. I was not going to let everyone off the hook that easily. Every moment I was hurt, ignored, and betrayed flashed before me. What about my uncaring parents, my condescending boss, or my selfish boyfriend? Why should I give them the benefit of the doubt?

    Then it occurred to me that I was, in fact, doing my best at the very moment but still felt sad, angry, not good enough in many areas of my life. Not because I wasn’t trying, or didn’t want to be better, but because I didn’t always know the exact right things to say or do every step of the way. I was filled with confusion and uncertainty a lot of time, bombarded by my own emotional past. And as far as I knew, I had never chosen a lesser option if I knew there was a better way. Turned out I was the first person I needed to give that benefit of the doubt.

    If others are going through similar struggles, bound by emotional pains and egotistical voices, then I can surely believe they are as helpless as I was in breaking free of those patterns until they are aware and have the right tools to do so.

    Life events are arbitrary, and most of us don’t get to practice each scenario over and over again until we get it right (like in the movie Groundhog Day). We are often put in a position to respond to whatever is thrown at us unexpectedly. All we have to go by is what we learned at a young age from our guardians or mentors. Even if we suspect they were not the best ways, we are still unsure what the best ways are.

    It was as if a weight was lifted off my body. My mind felt more open, and I began a sort of social experiment by slowing down, observing the way people react in different situations from an outsider’s point of view, and freeing myself from taking anything personally.

    What I discovered was when I positioned myself at a place of compassion and objectivity, I became less reactive to others’ reactions. The knowledge of everyone is doing the best they can but can’t help themselves gave me a sense of power—a power to disengage from their personal struggles and maintain focus on my own powers.

    Shortly after that shift of perspective, my relationship dynamics began to shift as well. The people around me gradually put down their weapons and began to relax and open up about their internal struggles. They even started to take an interest in how I felt and expressed remorse in how they behaved in situations. It was unbelievable!

    I won’t lie in saying all my relationships have flourished. A few of them remained the same or faded away, while others were brought closer than ever because of my newfound perspective.

    For me, the greatest outcome was knowing that the few relationships that could not progress was not because of my rigid condemning stance of “Why wouldn’t you try to be better?” And that was a new level of emotional freedom.

  • 14 Daily Happiness Habits to Adopt Right Now

    14 Daily Happiness Habits to Adopt Right Now

    “The biggest lie we’re told is ‘Be with someone who makes you happy.’ The truth is, happiness is something you create on your own. Be with someone who adds to it.” ~Unknown

    That’s what we all strive for, right?

    Happiness, I mean.

    I used to think that happiness was about my external world. If things were going well for me (in my career, social life, relationships, etc.), then I was happy. If things weren’t going well, which things often weren’t in one area or another, I felt frustrated, angry, or defeated.

    Later, I realized that long-term happiness isn’t about external events. It starts from within and most importantly, it’s a skill to be learned and developed.

    To live your best life, you need to realize that happiness doesn’t happen to you—it happens because of you. That doesn’t mean if you do all the right things you’ll feel happy all the time. No one feels happy all the time. It just means your choices influence how you feel, and if you make healthy choices you’ll likely feel good more often than not.

    To help you create a happier life, I’ve put together fourteen habits you can adopt right now. Read them, ponder them, and let them move in with you. Use this list to start building habits that will help you cultivate happiness, no matter your current situation.

    1. Look for the silver lining.

    It’s said that every cloud has a silver lining. Sometimes they’re hard to find, but in my experience, they’re always there.

    When one of my friends passed away a few years ago, I had a hard time finding the silver lining. Life just seemed unfair and brutal.

    After a few months I decided to channel all that frustration, anger, and sadness into making a life change. So I quit my job and went traveling for a year. What happened to her made me realize that life can be short, and I wanted to make the most out of mine. That was the silver lining for me.

    2. Water your own grass.

    It’s so easy to compare ourselves these days. Just by turning on the TV, opening social media, or by having a conversation we can fall into the trap of comparison. That’s not how we build a happy life. We do that by watering our own grass, not by looking to our neighbors’.

    So, acknowledge what other people have and use that as inspiration to get to where you want to go. Keep your eyes on your lane and build, create, and nurture what you want more of.

    3. Move the phone away from the bedroom.

    For many people, the last thing they see before falling asleep is their phone. It’s also probably the first thing they see when they wake up. (Confession: I’m guilty as charged when it comes to this.)

    By checking your phone first thing in the morning you allow other people, apps, and email notifications to dictate how you feel. You start the day being reactive instead of deciding for yourself what to focus on.

    Get yourself an alarm that isn’t your phone (or at least put it on airplane mood). Then create a short bedtime and morning routine that makes you feel good. I like to spend a few minutes visualizing, meditating, or appreciating to set my attention straight.

    4. Setup feel-good reminders on your phone.

    Oh, this is something you have to do right now! Go to your phone calendar and set up one or two daily reminders to yourself. At 9am every morning I get the notification “I’m enough” to remind myself that no matter how I’m struggling or what other people think or say, I am enough!

    At 1pm another affirmation pops up saying “I deserve the best and I always get it.” This one always makes my heart smile because it reinforces my worth and compels me to consider how my present circumstances might actually be in my best interest.

    Treat your future self nicely by setting up at least one feel-good- daily reminder. It will help you to change course during the day, if needed.

    5. Go for a walk in nature.

    I’ve quite recently realized the power of connecting with nature. This is a place to reconnect and ground yourself.

    Fun fact: Nature is said to have a natural frequency pulsation of 7.83 hertz on average (the so-called Schumann resonance).

    This frequency (7.83 hertz) is supposedly also the brain’s average alpha frequency. The alpha state is where we feel relaxed and calm. Pretty epic, right? So, make it a daily habit to walk in nature and tune yourself into a happier and more relaxed version of yourself.

    6. Take 100% responsibility.

    This is always a game changer for me. I often avoid responsibility at first (much easier to turn to blame, criticism, or excuses, right?) But you can’t change a situation if you don’t first take 100% responsibility for it.

    Look at any area in your life that you’re not fully satisfied with (your finances, health, career, love, social life, etc.). Then decide to take full responsibility for changing it. It might be true that someone else is to blame for a situation, but the only way you can change things is by taking responsibility for what’s within your control.

    7. Stop complaining.

    Oh, it’s so easy to complain.  To look at what isn’t working or what other people are doing wrong and to criticize and condemn. But that doesn’t solve any problems.

    If you don’t like something, change it. If you’re unable to change it, your only option is to change your attitude about it. Next time you feel like complaining, ask yourself what you can be grateful for in this situation. For example, if a bus driver is rude to you on the way to work, you can choose to focus and give thanks to the fact that you are able to ride the bus to work.

    8. Communicate confidence through your body.

    Our body reflects how we feel. If you are nervous and anxious, you can be sure that your body is mirroring that. You might flicker with your gaze, speak quietly, or hold a posture that signals insecurity.

    The positive thing is that this mirroring also happens the other way around. So start communicating to your mind by using your body. Stand up tall and straight, look other people into the eyes, and speak up. Tell your mind, by using your body, that you’re safe, appreciated, and comfortable where you are.

    9. Spend time on what matters.

    If we want a happy life, we have to fill it with happy moments. This means spending time on things that matter and with people that matter.

    What do you love doing? What brings you joy and happiness? Which people do you feel great being around? Make sure to carve out time every day for what brings you joy.

    10. Spend less time on social media.

    Oh, social media! Just by opening our phone, we can step into the lives of thousands of people.

    Social media can be great in many ways. It can help us to get inspired, connect with people across the world, and share special moments. But it can also lead to feelings of lack, inadequacy, and exclusion.

    Be conscious of your mood before engaging in social media. Ask yourself: Am I in a place where I can use it to my benefit? Or am I in a place where it can trigger me negatively? In short, make sure you control your social media experience, not the other way around.

    11. Give yourself space during the day.

    It’s so easy to get caught up in the busy-ness of life. To focus on efficiency, productivity and getting shit done. But not making space for yourself during the day will not only create a sense of stress and urgency, it will also stifle your creativity, intuition, and ability to reflect.

    So, if possible, be smart about how you set up your day. Give yourself more time than needed to complete a task. Allow it to take an hour and a half instead of an hour. For me, not rushing through tasks has resulted in greater clarity, satisfaction, and (to my surprise!) productivity.

    12. Become a master at shifting perspective.

    This is my go-to, every day! Whenever I feel bad about a situation, I know there’s another, more beneficial perspective available. For example, if I have a hard time falling asleep, I can either focus on me losing sleep (oh, the horror!) or on the fact that I can handle a night with less sleep and that it’s not a big deal. (And yeah, that’s usually when I fall asleep).

    In short, look at any challenging situation and try to find a better-feeling perspective. For example, did you get into conflict with someone? Then this might result in you understanding each other better next time. Do whatever you can to scout out the learnings, upsides, and positive aspects of any difficult situation.

    13. Give the gift of allowing someone to help you.

    When was the last time you asked someone for help? We tend to believe we have to be strong and independent all the time. But the truth is we’re not wired for independence—we’re wired for collaboration.

    In general, people like helping other people. So, why not give someone the gift of allowing them to help you? Ask for their input, advice, or help to move forward. Not only will this add value for you both, you’ll also get closer by helping one another.

    14. Turn contrast into clarity.

    In life, we experience contrast and difficult situations on a daily basis. Here is the good news: Negative experiences are clues to what you want. A strict and rigid work schedule might tell you that you want more flexibility. Exercise that feels boring or overwhelming might tell you that it’s time to scout a new and fun workout routine.

    Contrasts show us what we don’t like. Your job is to acknowledge the dislike and then to turn your head in the other direction. Ask yourself: What do I want instead? How can I make that happen?

    Small Daily Steps Toward a Happier Life

    It’s easy to get overwhelmed when it comes to making changes. So, set yourself up for success by taking action on one of the points I mentioned above. Choose one that makes you excited and once you’ve mastered it, move on to the next point.

    Don’t leave your happiness in the hands of chance and external circumstances. Instead, take charge and cultivate happiness from the inside out.

    Take small steps to develop habits of happiness and you’ll contribute to making this world a better place.

  • Instead of Fearing Change, Get Excited About Progress

    Instead of Fearing Change, Get Excited About Progress

    “Progress is impossible without change.” ~Walt Disney

    I want you to look in the mirror and tell me what you see.

    Do you look older? Does your skin have more wrinkles? Do you notice dark circles around your eyes or white hair on your head?

    You are looking at massive changes from a decade ago. A lot of it you probably don’t like—changes due to your body growing older. Changes that you cannot resist.

    Now look in the mirror again. Do you notice a more confident person? Someone who is self-assured, optimistic, and happy in life?

    It happened to me a few weeks back when I was getting ready for an interview. For my preparation, I was talking to myself in the mirror, and as I paused, I had this moment of mindfulness in which all I noticed was my confidence, optimism, and positive energy.

    This one epiphany completely shifted how I looked at change.

    That day in the mirror, I saw progress. I saw a shy anxious kid—one who was afraid and bullied— completely flip the script on its head to become a confident, happy, and self-assured human being.

    We all react differently to change. Some of us seek it. Some don’t mind it but won’t actively go looking for it. And others don’t like it.

    Regardless of where we stand, I can bet that none of us like it when change is forced upon us. So we fight it because we feel out of control, and the unknown generally feels scary. But what if taking back control was all a matter of perspective?

    Change is automatic. It happens whether we like it or not, and we have no option but to face it. It is up to us to make the most of it. We decide how we react to it and what we do with it.

    Think Progress, Not Change

    All progress equates to change, but not all change equates to progress. You losing your job is change. You deciding to pursue a career that’s more in line with your values and passions is progress.

    Progress makes us happy. It makes us want to jump out of bed every day with intent and purpose. Progress pushes us forward. It has to be worked on. Unlike change, it is not automatic.

    When I look back at all the progress I have made, it always makes me pause and smile and fills me with joy. It also renews my intent toward my own development.

    You cannot sit on your ass and hope to progress. It requires movement. It demands you put in the hours. And in the process, it pushes you to grow. To become someone capable of handling any problems that come your way.

    Progress, in the end, pays you back tenfold! And it all starts with change.

    Change Can Be Distressing, Progress a Blessing

    For a lot of us, change is a constant source of worry. I don’t have to look very far for examples. My parents get stressed even at the smallest sign of change.

    If you are anything like my parents, at the first sign of change, you start to rumble and complain. Instead of thinking of how this change will benefit your life, you start to think about all the ways in which it will impact you negatively.

    This is evident in the vocabulary we use when we talk about change—scary, hard, overwhelming. It’s also evident in our behavior toward people who push us to change—we may recoil, resist, or even resent them.

    In that moment when we are facing or going through a lot of changes, we have the opportunity to recognize and get excited about the progress we can make, but instead, we often choose fear.

    When we focus on the excitement of progress, change feels a lot less scary and we feel inspired to take action. Because like survival, curiosity is one of our greatest instincts. We get energized when we imagine fun new possibilities and focus on what we can control to create them instead of worrying about what’s out of our hands.

    The next time you’re faced with a change you didn’t choose, instead of asking:

    Why me?
    What did I do to deserve this?
    Why now? I am not ready for this…

    Ask yourself:

    How is this pushing me to progress?
    What new experiences and opportunities will this bring?
    What can I do to be ready for this?

    It’s all a matter of perspective. Viktor Frankl, the famous Holocaust survivor understood this better than anybody else. In his book, he writes:

    “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”

    In one of my previous posts, I shared how I used to rumble and complain. It was easy for me to play the victim card and think only about the negative impacts of change, completely overlooking the good it might bring.

    When I first moved to the US, I hated my life there. I was forced to move against my wishes. I went from a carefree eighteen-year-old kid to someone who had to work minimum wage jobs to help pay the bills and save up for college.

    In that moment, I hated it. I was angry and frustrated and constantly biding my time looking for an escape. But now when I look back, I recognize that my work ethic came from working at a Subway for five years. It helped me grow from an introvert to someone who can easily start a conversation with any stranger at one arm’s distance. Coming from a country where English is the second language, it sharpened my English-speaking skills.

    The change, in hindsight, led to progress.

    When a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, you see progress. And isn’t it beautiful?

    Maybe it’s time you started to look at change in your own life in the same light. You can think of it as losing the safety of your cocoon, or as an opportunity to transform into a beautiful, colorful, magnificent butterfly.

    The choice is really yours….

  • What Helps Me Get Strong When Life Gets Hard

    What Helps Me Get Strong When Life Gets Hard

    “It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.” ~Marcus Aurelius

    In 2016 I was about to graduate with high honors from a top university. I had mastered Mandarin. Eleven months before graduation, I had secured a job from a reputable accounting firm. I was in a stable relationship with one of the most gorgeous girls on campus. Life doesn’t get any better than this for an international student 1o,000 miles away from home.

    Slowly, things began to change. Three months before graduation all three members of my family fell gravely ill. When I wasn’t awake talking on the phone with them, I was awake worrying myself into insomnia, anxiety, and stress.

    Two months before my graduation, the recruiter who’d agreed to hire me wasn’t returning my calls nor replying to my emails. I started to entertain loads of self-deprecating thoughts. Little by little, I was descending into oblivion.

    Finally, the big day had arrived. It was my graduation day. Pretending that everything was fine, I put on a big smile and went to the ceremony. Needless to say, there was a fire of frustration and anxiety raging inside. Soon I wouldn’t be able to conceal it any longer.

    The atmosphere of the auditorium was filled with laughter and excitement from relatives, teachers, and students. Deservedly so. That day marked the end of countless sleepless nights, embarrassments, exams, and reports. To everyone, it was like the end of a forty-hour marathon in the Himalayas.

    Paradoxically, the smile, chatter, and exhilaration of my classmates and their loved ones only added to my woes. I became more and more anxious with each minute that passed.

    Suddenly, I was reminded of all the pains my mom had gone through to get me to where I was. When my dad left her because she didn’t agree to abort me, she took it upon herself to move forward with the pregnancy and raise me.

    Without a proper job nor a stable source of income, she did everything in her power to ensure that I had a solid education. I would have given anything to have her celebrate such a happy moment with me.

    Fearing that I may embarrass myself and spoil my classmates’ happy moments, I left in the middle of the ceremony and rushed back home. I locked myself in my room and cried my eyes out for hours on end.

    I came to a point when I couldn’t eat, sleep, or enjoy any activity. For the first time, I was experiencing what psychologists call “anhedonia.” No beautiful movies, social gatherings, or sports appealed to me. As I isolated myself, I became more and more lonely.

    On November 10, 2016, at 10pm, the only person that was around during those troubling times decided to put an end to our relationship. Normally, that would have been just another breakup. But to me, it was a breaking point!

    Given the grief and pain I was enduring at that time, I had no mental steam to cope with another rejection. The pain that was already eating my soul became even more unbearable. That night and the seventeen days that followed, all I could think of was to simply end it all.

    The Turning Point

    Eighteen days later, on November 28, 2016, I decided to open up to a pastor and her wife. For the first time, I counted all my pain and griefs to this couple who gave me their undivided attention for three hours non-stop.

    That night, I went home with a renewed sense of hope. It felt like a big weight had been lifted off my shoulders. For the first time in eighteen days, life seemed to have more potential for joy than it ever did.

    Back to my room in front of my computer, a video by Nick Vudijic on how to overcome hopelessness made its way through my screen as if by magic.

    Halfway through the video, a feeling of resentment and shame was washing all over me.

    How could someone without limbs have such a positive outlook on life? I understood that there must be more to happiness and peace of mind than the challenges of life.

    I was determined to find out what I needed to do to help me navigate life’s difficulties without losing any sense of pleasure or hope. In the subsequent months, I would discover what it takes to turn disappointment into achievement, desperation into inspiration.

    Focusing on Your Blessings

    I’ve heard it said that counting your blessings is an effective way to deal with challenges of life. It sounded too good to be true to me—and incredibly difficult. How can someone count their blessings when they’re obviously in a total mess?

    Still, I took a piece of paper and challenged myself to write ten things that I was grateful for. Within minutes I was all worked up writing positive aspects of my life that had previously eluded me. I may have been anxious, but I wasn’t hospitalized, I had a roof over my head, I had friends that cared for me. My mom may have been sick, but she was alive.

    It became clear to me that my attitude toward my problems was clouding my judgments and preventing me from seeing the beauty of life. I realized that no matter what you are going through there are always a thousand reasons to be happy.

    I’m not saying that feeling down or frustrated is unnatural, that you shouldn’t feel sad when you are going through hardships. Rather, regardless of how dark a situation is, there is always a silver lining. You simply have to search for it.

    I don’t expect you to agree with me. All I’m asking is that you put this claim to test and prove me wrong. You have nothing to lose but a world of peace and relief to gain the minute you put pen to paper counting your blessings.

    Put Your Problems in Perspective

    As I continued to write my blessings first thing in the morning and before retiring at night, the happiness and peace of mind I experienced became contagious to anyone I came in contact with.

    People from all walks of life became attracted to me in ways I never dreamed of before. They were looking for my advice on how to cope with their own life challenges.

    Gradually, it dawned on me that some of these people were going through troubles that were way bigger in magnitude than my problems.

    I will never forget how much pain one young student felt when she told me the story of her parents. At twenty-four, she found out that her parents had an open marriage and her mother was seeing another man aside from her father. Neither of her parents dared to tell her until she found out herself.

    People in Asia, where I live, are very conventional, and most families would not openly live this type of arrangement because of how it would be perceived by society. The shame and betrayal she felt were so disheartening that it affected her studies, her mood, and her sense of self. She was devastated!

    As she counted the story, I got overtaken by emotions, lost all professional composure, and began to cry right in front of her. After this incident, it became clear to me: No matter what problems you are going through there are people with similarly painful or even bigger problems out there.

    I decided to put my own realization to the test. In addition to counting my blessings, I began to experiment with two additional ways to put my problems in perspective.

    First, whenever I feel overwhelmed by a problem, I put the problem I’m facing at number ten on a piece of paper. I then strive to find nine worse problems that I could be facing right now.

    Similarly, when I’m facing a problem that feels insoluble, I put my problem at number ten on a piece of paper and strive to find nine others who are going through much bigger problems.

    Looking at my problems in this light provided me an excellent and effective way to build a strong sense of humility. Yes, it is absolutely important to see the light that shines through the darkness, but it’s equally important to acknowledge that the darkness may not be as dark as you imagine it to be.

    Putting your problems in perspective and realizing that you are not as unfortunate as your distorted thoughts make you believe, will be a valuable asset in helping you take constructive actions toward solving your problems.

    The Power Question

    As I developed a sense of gratitude and humility, I realized I needed to do more to come out stronger from those challenges. Counting blessings and putting problems in perspective may be effective in the mental plane, but they won’t make problems go away.

    As I continued my journey reading, reflecting, and finding means to solve my problems, I came across a famous quote by Epicurus: “Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest.” The depth of the meaning of this quote made an immediate and profound impact on me.

    I became convinced that everyone must have a set of skills to respond to life’s challenges. I asked myself, “What inner strength do I have, or do I need to develop, in order to face this problem?”

    Oftentimes, when the going gets tough, we ask ourselves blame questions such as: “Why me?” “Why is this happening to me?”

    Or we may simply criticize ourselves by discounting our strengths. “I must be really stupid.” “I’m doomed.” “I’m never gonna make it…”

    By asking yourself this power question, you change your perspective and find what it takes to help you out of the rut. You don’t blame, whine, or criticize—you get going!

    Asking myself this simple question helped me understand that I could use my life stories to empower others, either in writing or through my speeches, workshops, and seminars.

    At the time of this writing, I’m proud to have impacted the life of thousands of young people throughout Asia. I’ve witnessed students, new hires, and even managers develop a positive outlook on life as a result of those stories.

    I never would have done any of this had I asked myself the power question.

    No matter what you may be going through, I challenge you to ask yourself: What inner strength do I have, or do I need to develop, in order to face this problem?

    Does this mean I’m problem-free right now? Absolutely not. Much like the clouds in the sky, problems come and go, but I’m no longer tossed around like a piece of wood on a stormy sea.

    I’ve developed the mental maturity that allows me to bend without cracking, and to adjust my sails with the whirling wind of anxiety, worry, and stress.

    Today, I’m living a life of meaning and boundless joy. I’ve regained my appetite for living. The most meaningful of all my gains is the utmost satisfaction I experience helping others awaken their inborn geniuses. Writing this article is a direct example of this commitment.

    It took me three years of applying these principles before I could see any tangible results. Beware of the get-happy-quick scheme. Anything valuable takes time. Your happiness is no different. A combination of a willing heart, a bias for action, and patience are all you need to live your life of happiness and meaning.

    If you count your blessings, put your problems in perspective, ask yourself the power question, and take consistent daily actions to strengthen your mind you will get results beyond your wildest imagination.

    Who knows? Maybe next time, we will enjoy an article from you!

  • How I Found the Gift in My Pain and Let Go of Resentment

    How I Found the Gift in My Pain and Let Go of Resentment

    “Change is inevitable, growth is intentional.” ~Glenda Cloud

    How much time slips by when you’re living in the pain of resentment? Do you ever question if your bitterness has held you back from living your true destiny? Is blaming everyone else sabotaging your life and future?

    It’s only now that I can admit to the years I wasted pointing the finger at everyone else. It was easier for me to say it was their fault than accept responsibility for my own decisions. For me, attaining perfection was validation of my success. If it wasn’t achievable, then it was obviously someone else’s fault.

    Until one day, I took the time to watch the Tony Robbins’ documentary movie, Guru, for the second time. Amazing when you watch something again or read a book twice, you get something different out of it.

    There was a young girl struggling with the lack of love she received from her drug-addicted father. After admitting that it was her father’s love she craved the most, Tony Robbins led her to a breakthrough perspective.

    He told her if you are going to blame him for everything that went wrong, like not being Daddy’s girl, then don’t forget to blame him for making you a strong woman too. He reminded her that she was allowed to blame him for not being around but not to forget to blame him for teaching her how to cope at such a young age.

    Suddenly, I felt a shift within me. I connected to the anger deep within me, and somehow it no longer felt so heavy. What was happening? Unexpectedly, I realized the pain of my resentment was actually a gift.

    I have carried a lot of emotional weight in my heart, some of which still remains. My heaviness is rooted in childhood memories of hurt and confusion. At the blissful age of eleven, just when I thought life was pretty safe and stable, I had the rug ripped out from underneath of me.

    Infidelity and unfaithfulness had crept into our home and turned everything upside down. Everything I knew faded away as my mother threw his things around, screaming and crying. She was so emotional, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Her anger was wrapped up in sadness as she packed up all of my father’s belongings into black trash bags.

    One by one out the door, like little pieces of my heart that she was just bagging up and throwing out. She set them out on our front lawn, and I stood there grieving.

    She didn’t see the little girl in the corner crying along with her. Someone forgot the little soul who was being traumatized by these big emotions. No one stopped the chaos for a minute to realize my heart was breaking too. My memories of Christmas traditions and Saturdays at the grocery store never came back.

    Everything changed, and I hated this new life.

    From then on, everyone always seemed sad around me. I recall listening to my grandmother try to comfort my mother as she wept in her bedroom for weeks. I can still see the shame in my father’s face as he came and visited us every once in a while.

    The raw vulnerability and pure helplessness I felt during those years were probably the most painful parts. The sense of being abandoned and left with all these intense emotions to deal with was so demanding. The pressure of trying to figure things out with no sense of direction left me with an underlying sense of unhappiness all the time.

    It was then a seed of undeniable pain was planted. I would spend years nurturing this seed like it was my life’s purpose.

    Growing up, I appeared to be okay with the change, but the days of confusion were simply endless for me. My new normal was abnormal, and the finality of the chaos ended when I accepted the idea that my parents would never get back together.

    My mother was left trying to hold it all together, and it was a struggle to watch over the years. For the sake of her children and with the little strength she had left, I watched her work tirelessly to preserve the memory of a good life.

    Despite her dedication to her children, the inevitable happened: Her little children grew up. We created our own version of our childhood memories, and our seeds of hurt began to bloom.

    It’s a shame how pain, resentment, and fear have a way of spreading like wildfire within us. It shows up in the friends we hang out with, the partners we choose, and the weaknesses that destruct us.

    When things fall apart, it’s hard to think clearly, let alone follow a path of success. It’s far easier to point the finger and hand out slips of blame to anyone close to you. But after years of feeling heavy, I was tired. I was ready to let this baggage go.

    That evening, I reflected on what Tony Robbins said to the girl: “If you are going to blame people, then blame them for everything.”

    This is how I transformed my resentment into gratitude:

    If I was hardened by the things I didn’t get as a child, then I must be grateful for the life skills I now possess.

    The resourcefulness I’ve gained throughout the years is immeasurable. I don’t say that out of arrogance, but out of pride. I used to resent the lack I grew up with, but now I’m so thankful because it nurtured my resilience. The desire for more fostered an enormous amount of determination within me.

    If I blamed my parents for a tough childhood, then I must also thank them for teaching me how to be a great mother.

    The insatiable craving to feel loved, noticed, and important gave me the skills to connect with my son on the most fundamental level. I know the value of establishing and maintaining this relationship with him because that’s all I ever wanted growing up, a close connection to my parents.

    If I was saddened by the years of confusion in my life, then I must acknowledge the beautiful clarity present in my life now.

    The tears shed were not in vain. Instead, they washed away a distinct path for me to travel. I can see the gift of my writing. The dreaded confusion gave birth to my innate ability to connect to others’ pain and articulate what they feel.

    If I allowed the pain of my sadness to grow, then I must not forget to appreciate the goodness in my life.

    I know what it feels like to be sad, but this led me to experience happiness on a whole new level. I find joy in really simple things, like a good cup of coffee. I can feel bliss when I am with my husband doing absolutely nothing. Most of all, I can live with a sense of true contentment in my life.

    If I found fault in everyone for all the things I thought went wrong in my life, then I’m indebted to all these people eternally.

    The agony I perceived as targeted was destined to be part of my life. The people I couldn’t forgive, who fostered hate within me, I now love even more. It’s because of them that I now live a fulfilled life with more to come.

    You see, this is all part of life’s plan. The people we despise, the rage we harbor, and the bitterness we nurture are actually the tools we need to grow and evolve. The goal of transformation is to gain a higher level of awareness in our lives.

    There is no achievement in staying stuck when the goal is to walk through these milestones. The problem does not lie in another person; it’s the fixed perspective you are perpetually protecting. Do not prolong experiencing real joy. Time is fleeting.

    Transform your bitterness into sweetness, and your purpose will reveal itself to you. Dig deep, not to find fault in others, but to find the gifts within your soul; therein lies the gift of your pain and the beauty in all that you have suffered.

  • Change Your Perspective

    Change Your Perspective