Tiny Buddha

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  • How to Stop Fearing the Worst and Worrying About “What Ifs”

    How to Stop Fearing the Worst and Worrying About “What Ifs”

    “Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths.” ~Charles H. Spurgeon

    There’s nothing like a real health emergency for putting insignificant worries into perspective.

    By the time I was pregnant the second time, I had left my struggles with anxiety largely behind me. Having been to therapy years earlier to find coping mechanisms for managing my ever-present phobias, I was in a fairly good place when I learned I’d been given a second chance at having a child.

    But worry is as much as part of me as breathing, and having lost a pregnancy the year prior, I spent the first eight to ten weeks of the second one constantly preoccupied with the what-ifs that tend to haunt anxiety sufferers, even reformed ones like me.

    One day in week forty, after many hours of irregular contractions, something told me I needed to check myself into the hospital. It was a different feeling than the one I’d experienced during my panic attacks, which was always induced by the fight or flight response.

    It was calmer, and felt more peaceful. So I listened.

    Once I got there, the midwives discovered my blood pressure was 200/110 (stroke territory). I was in the middle of a hypertensive crisis caused by undiagnosed pre-eclampsia—a dangerous condition that affects a small percentage of pregnant women worldwide.

    They admitted me immediately, and a scene from an emergency room TV drama ensued. Machines screamed. Nurses ran. Doctors were paged. IV’s were administered.

    Between waves of doctors and nurses I learned that if they didn’t succeed in getting my blood pressure down soon, I could seize, stroke out, or suffer irreparable damage to my liver and kidneys.

    To further complicate matters, my son was starting to show some signs of distress, and I got the sense from the folks in scrubs around my bedside that they weren’t quite sure how to manage it.

    Through it all I remained surprisingly calm, somehow at peace with what was happening around me, despite the many hours I’d spent worrying about just such an event in the past. I felt saddened by the possibility of dying—or worse, losing my son—but not panicked or afraid.

    When my son was born, healthy and strong by emergency C-section, then I truly understood the futility of my past concern.

    Having survived the incident unscathed, I spent the next six years of my life working on building the skills that keep the time-suck that is anxiety from ever coming back.

    If I had to tell my past self something I’ve learned to prevent unnecessary suffering, it would go something like this:

    Don’t argue with a fool. (People may not know the difference).

    One piece of advice for anxiety sufferers I read and hear often is to take a deep breath and reassure yourself that you are safe, your anxiety can’t hurt you, and your fears are all in your head.

    Anxiety is irrational, and no amount of rational thinking will banish unnecessary worry or anxious thoughts. In fact, trying to fight irrational thinking with logic can be counterproductive and lead you down the rabbit hole of self-doubt.

    Instead, respond to irrational fears by accepting that there is a (however remote) possibility that what you fear may come to pass, but also trust that if it does, you will have the tools to manage it.

    Don’t ask others to argue with a fool.

    Mental illness is tough, and having support from friends and family is key to making it through unscathed to the other side.

    Asking your friends and families to tell you why your fears are unfounded and your worries are irrational is not asking for help—it’s asking for validation.

    Many of us suffering through anxiety believe that if we can’t trust our own logical arguments for why everything is going to be okay, maybe someone else can make it okay for us.

    This kind of behavior often serves to undermine your self-confidence and create codependent tendencies, since you’re relying (most often very ineffectively) on others to manage your anxiety for you.

    Find a more productive focal point.

    A few years before my pregnancy, when I was first treated for anxiety, my therapist taught me a trick I carry with me to this day.

    Anxiety needs a focal point, but with a little sleight of hand you can find one that is less disturbing than your worry.

    When embarking on a trip to Cabo for my friend’s wedding (I’m afraid to fly), she told me to wear the most uncomfortable outfit I could tolerate for the flight. I chose a tight, itchy strapless corset, and spent a good nine hours trying to fight the garment’s pinch.

    Guess what I wasn’t doing, though, while cursing my existence? Worrying about plane crashes.

    Over time, I’ve found many other tools to help me stay present and banish unnecessary concerns. If I have a legitimate worry, I take action to mitigate risks and try to move on with my life.

    If there’s nothing I can do, I occupy my mind with something else. I practice yoga. I wear itchy underwear. Most of all I trust. I trust that I can deal with any unexpected hurdles life might throw my way.

    And if for some reason I encounter one I can’t manage, it simply was meant to be, whether it’s what I want for my life or not.

    And then I move on and enjoy the moment. Or at least I try, anyway.

  • Releasing Expectations: It’s Okay to Be Right Where You Are

    Releasing Expectations: It’s Okay to Be Right Where You Are

    “The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.” ~Shunryu Suzuki

    When I was younger, I am sure I was a little bit arrogant. I had high expectations for my life. They haven’t come to pass. I haven’t achieved whatever I thought I would achieve. It turns out that I’m an ordinary human being struggling with ordinary things.

    Now that I’m in my forties, I have experienced disappointment, failure, and confusion. Many times I have lost sight of the path, and sometimes it’s felt like there never was one.

    I expected I would be a writer. I did not expect to be a secretary. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it just wasn’t what I dreamed of.

    I didn’t expect to have periods of unemployment, loneliness, or despair. I didn’t expect to be just like everyone else. Maybe I thought I was special, different, exempt. Maybe we all think that when we’re younger.

    It’s not like I had it easy in my early life, but by my twenties I’m sure I thought it would all go to plan. It never went to plan. I’m not sure there ever was a plan.

    And yet, maybe it has gone to plan, just not my plan. If some higher power is running the show, maybe this is part of the plan.

    If I want to express the highs and lows of being human, then I need to have lived them. That’s what being a writer is. It’s not just being bulletproof and full of ideals. It’s making the dream right there in the gritty groundedness of everyday life.

    I also realize that what I have achieved is not that important. What’s more important is what I’ve learned, and much of that didn’t come from success. Often my lessons came from the struggle of being human—wanting, trying, failing, and wanting and trying some more.

    So at this stage, with my dreams still tugging at my heart and a lot of struggle behind me, I finally understand something about self-acceptance.

    Here I am, right now. This is where I am and it’s okay.

    Right here, right now.

    I am where I am right now. That’s my starting point. I might wish I were further along, but I am where I am. I have to accept where I am or I can’t move anywhere, let alone forward.

    Where are you now? Why is that okay?

    This is my life and it’s good.

    When I come back to gratitude, everything gets better. My expectations may be higher than my reality, but really, I have so much. Many people lack the basics: good food, clean water, access to healthcare, literacy. Even at the simplest level, my life is blessed.

    What do you give thanks for?

    A divine plan.

    It does seem that life isn’t running according to my plan. Maybe there is a bigger plan. I may not always like it, but maybe it’s perfect after all. I don’t know what the Universe has in mind. It would be very arrogant to think I did.

    How could this be part of a higher plan?

    Being very human.

    Experiencing disappointment, struggle, and failure is part of being human. It helps us feel for each other. I am fairly idealistic, but at this age I know that I am pretty human. I am full of faults and mistakes, and a few brilliant moments too.

    How do you feel most human in your challenges? Why is that good?

    No better or worse.

    In my twenties I went to acting school. When you act, you explore the potential to be many different selves. We all have the potential to be an angel or a devil. Most of us are in between, but it might have worked out differently.

    Why are you no better or worse than anyone else?

    Favorite faults.

    Honestly, sometimes our faults are simply our characteristics. Maybe you’re bossy but a great organizer, or a natural leader. Maybe you are a rebel who challenges the way we think and act. Maybe you channel your anger and make others laugh at your daring. Great comedians do that.

    What is your favorite fault? How could you use it?

    How it looks to the world.

    We are often much harder on ourselves than anyone else would ever be. You may think you’ve achieved nothing while, to the next person, you have everything. It’s all relative and it’s all perspective. None of us have an unbiased lens.

    There is no point wishing you were more than you are. It may all be happening this way for a reason. Even if there is no reason, the meaning you choose will make the difference.

    At the end of our lives, it won’t really matter how many toys we have or even what we have achieved. It will matter that we appreciated this one precious life. It will matter that we enjoyed and explored being human. Love and experience; that’s it.

    Let’s not give up on our dreams. Let’s keep moving toward them. Just play the game lightly with little attention to the score.

  • A Simple 5-Minute Habit That Can Make You Happier

    A Simple 5-Minute Habit That Can Make You Happier

    Smiling Woman

    “Gratitude creates joy—not vice versa.” ~Dr. Brené Brown

    To be blunt, my summer of 2013 sucked. In a matter of months, a tidal wave of stressful events happened and it completely shattered my sense of safety. I was on the verge of a serious depression.

    The summer began with a broken heart. The love of my life, the man I planned to marry, broke up with me and admitted he had wanted to leave for the past year.

    In a matter of minutes, my dreams of starting a family and living happily ever after were crushed. It caught me so off guard I could barely breathe. I quickly moved out of our New York City apartment, crashed on friends’ couches, and started hunting for a second job.

    After a month of couch surfing, I found a small studio to sublet in Brooklyn. Things were starting to look up until I severely sprained my foot two days before moving into the fifth floor walk-up building. In the city where you must walk and climb stairs to get anywhere, it royally sucked.

    The frustrations kept rolling in. My studio apartment had no air conditioning for a couple weeks, two of my credit cards were stolen, and my office job started delivering rounds of layoffs. I started having panic attacks at night and my eye was twitching non-stop.

    Things got worse when my dad got sick. He passed away in July.

    Hanging on by shreds, I turned thirty at the end of the summer. Part of me wanted to throw a tantrum, kick and scream, and give up on life. But I was so exhausted, I just felt numb. So, I busied myself with work and exercise. I’ve always been stubborn, and I refused to fall apart.

    Even though I felt lonely, broken, and disappointed, I had to wonder if the universe was up to something. As tough as it all was, I knew it was up to me to make it better, no matter how “unfair” the circumstances. If I learned one thing while living in NYC, it was 100% up to me to fix my life.

    In perfect timing, I saw a re-run of Oprah’s Lifeclass on TV in September. The episode featured a panel of experts discussing how practicing gratitude offers life-changing relief from emotional pain.

    As if someone dumped a cold glass of water over my head, the show gave me a major wake-up call. I realized I desperately needed to change my story.

    That afternoon I wrote my first daily gratitude list and promised to write ten things I was grateful for every single day moving forward.

    Each day I rode the subway to work and typed up gratitude lists on my smartphone. At first, it was difficult to force my brain to stop complaining and noticing everything that was wrong. So, I started off listing small and simple blessings like air-conditioned trains and a clean bed to sleep in every night.

    It didn’t take more than a few days to realize I was incredibly lucky. I was up to my ears in blessings.

    My gratitude practice deepened over time, with thanks for the loving support of friends, and appreciation for every single lesson I was forced to learn that summer.

    For every loss, I had a gain. I had my health, I was never hungry, and I felt stronger than ever. Those are blessings that millions of people in the world will never have.

    But here’s the part I didn’t expect. The moment I started making gratitude lists, life just got easier. As each day passed, I felt better and, dare I say, blissfully optimistic.

    It got easier to put my life back together because I knew I was surrounded by support. Instead of wallowing in what was wrong, I made the daily intention to focus on all the people who made me smile at work, to seek out new things to be grateful for, and to take comfort in simple pleasures like candles, hot baths, sunsets, healthy homemade food, and journaling.

    I started smiling and laughing again, and everyone around me noticed. The new me was grateful to be alive, unapologetic, and full of wonder about where my life was headed next.

    Bursting with positive energy, I encouraged friends to let go of their sob stories and give thanks for everything they already had. The joy I’ve experienced since starting this habit feels absolutely miraculous.

    Shawn Anchor, Research Psychologist and CEO of Good Think Inc., says that gratitude listing “rewire[s] your brain, allowing [it] to actually work more optimistically and more successfully…to retain a pattern of scanning the world, not for the negative, but for the positive first.” I couldn’t agree more.

    Our lives are typically full of expectations, but we often can’t predict how our weeks, months, or years will turn out. I’ve learned that no matter what your current circumstances are, you have the power to change your perspective.

    Gratitude listing is a simple five-minute habit anyone can adopt that has an enormous positive impact on how you view your life. It simply makes you a happier person, and happier people attract the best of everything life has to offer.

    Smiling woman image via Shutterstock

  • Giving the Benefit of the Doubt to Rude or Annoying People

    Giving the Benefit of the Doubt to Rude or Annoying People

    “Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” ~Henry James

    Some lessons you learn once, and they last a lifetime.

    I loved to bake as a child, and one day I put a bowl of batter in the microwave with the metal whisk I was using to stir it. A minute later, I pulled the bowl out of the microwave and grabbed the hot metal whisk with my bare hand.

    When I think about it, I can still feel the burn from the metal that took several weeks to heal.

    Some lessons last a lifetime.

    And some don’t.

    When I was a little girl, we had a housekeeper for about a month. We came home one day to find that she had stolen several things from our home.

    “Mom! Can you believe Lupe stole these things?! How could she?!”

    My mom barely reacted to this news. “She must have needed them more than we did.”

    I was outraged. “How can you say that? What she did was wrong!”

    My mom calmly replied, “Melanie, you never know what someone else is going through.”

    I wish I’d remembered that lesson many years later when I was the unit coordinator of an emergency room.

    Patients, medical staff, family members, paramedics, and the intercom created a cacophony of voices. People were shouting and running, beeps and buzzers were going off, and the phones were ringing constantly.

    There was a separate phone used for patient calls. Its distinctive ring was as welcome as a hammer to my skull on this frenetic day. Just my luck, I was at the desk next to the room of a patient who called every five minutes.

    BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

    First, she called for ice chips. She needed her bed raised; she needed her bed lowered. She needed the phone, and then she needed the phone hung up.

    Every request she had was heralded by that awful BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

    I could have handled it if she asked for what she needed in a normal voice. Instead, she whined each request, as if she was at death’s door, which I’m sure she was not.

    “Ooh,” she whined, “I need the TV remote.”

    Anyone whose biggest problem is not being able to reach the TV remote has it good in the emergency room, wouldn’t you say?

    I mean, we were in a major trauma center. There were people getting CPR, coming in with gunshot wounds, or rushing to surgery as soon as they came through the door, at the same time this woman was whining about not being able to reach the TV remote.

    I thought this was my chance to help her get a new perspective and realize that really, she had it good. It kind of felt like my duty. Like I’d be doing her a favor.

    So I said, “Well, at least it’s just an issue with your TV remote. There are plenty of people here who won’t survive the night, so you’re doing well to be concerned about watching TV.”

    Her eyes grew wide with shock. Her voice softened with the awe of someone who had just been given great wisdom.

    “Wow. You’re so right. I should be thankful I’m here and doing okay.”

    I sauntered out of her room, feeling great about myself. I really did a good thing. I was like a divine messenger.

    When I got back to the nurses’ station, I decided for kicks to look and see why the woman was in the emergency room in the first place. Probably a stubbed toe or something lame like that. I looked at her chart. Heart transplant recipient, renal failure, blood transfusions.

    She was only thirty-five years old.

    I felt like I’d been hit with a brick.

    And there she was, thanking me for helping her see that her situation wasn’t that bad. That just made it worse.

    I wanted to walk in there and say, “You know what? Your situation is bad! You want some more ice chips?”

    I may not have a physical scar to show, but the shock and shame I felt after reading that woman’s chart went far deeper than the burn from the metal whisk.

    Some lessons last a lifetime.

    I still judge people. Who doesn’t? It’s like my brain receives information and immediately makes a decision about it.

    But I know enough now to remind myself that I’m only seeing part of the picture. Maybe the woman in the hospital called me into her room because she didn’t want to be alone. Maybe she was scared. I don’t know.

    And that’s the point. We never know what someone else is going through, whether it’s a housekeeper stealing from her employer, a woman in the hospital incessantly using her call button, or someone who cuts you off on the highway.

    We never know what someone else is going through.

    What we can do is give other people the benefit of the doubt and choose to show them kindness and compassion.

    I know it’s hard sometimes to feel compassion for someone who is really rude or annoying. That’s when I create a story to explain their behavior.

    The guy who was rude to me at the grocery store—did you know he just got diagnosed with gonorrhea? From his mistress? And his wife is pregnant with another man’s baby?

    No wonder he’s in such a bad mood.

    Making up silly stories helps me lighten up. It helps me remember that I’m only seeing one snippet of this person’s life. They could be longing for a breath of kindness, a modicum of compassion.

    And that’s something I can give.

  • 8 Secrets To Developing Confidence (So Self-Doubt Never Sabotages You Again)

    8 Secrets To Developing Confidence (So Self-Doubt Never Sabotages You Again)

    “What you think of yourself is much more important than what people think of you.” ~Seneca

    I can still remember it like it happened yesterday.

    There I was. Ten years old. It was my first day back at school.

    I walked past the enormous church that marked the entrance of the school compound. I passed under this huge tree as it towered over me. I was in a crowd of other screaming school kids. They laughed and cackled loudly.

    Me?

    I just felt overwhelmed.

    See, I was always an anxious kid. Scared. Worried that I hadn’t done my homework properly. Terrified I’d be punished. That was the world I lived in.

    For many years, my fears tainted my vision like prison bars that impose a life sentence on inmates who have long forgotten the bars even exist.

    As I reached adolescence, my fears manifested as a series of failures. My unshakeable belief in my ineptitude stopped me from truly trying to succeed. Unwittingly, I was conforming to a self-fulfilling prophecy I’d set for myself.

    Many years later, I married an amazing woman who truly believed in me—often when I didn’t believe in myself. Her confidence in my abilities forced me to re-examine my limiting beliefs.

    She’d repeatedly tell me that I could achieve my goals, provided I put in the effort.

    Eventually, I did.

    That was over ten years ago. Today, I’m a confident man who stands tall and is comfortable in his own skin.

    You can develop this confidence too.

    Here are the eight secrets to confidence I learned along the way.

    1. Let the dancer become the dance.

    Do you ever feel disconnected from what you’re doing because of that little voice telling you you’re not good enough?

    Does your mental chatter derail your sincere efforts? If so, you’re not alone. We all experience this from time to time.

    The solution?

    Make a decision to lose yourself completely in your work. Get so absorbed in it that you enter a state of flow. Let the dancer become the dance.

    When the dancer becomes the dance, there is no dancer, and therefore no one to suffer from lack of confidence.

    There’s just the dance. The flow.

    2. Choose an emotional state of success.

    Building self-efficacy is a great way to develop confidence.

    Reflect on your past successes. They don’t have to be related to what you’re trying to achieve right now. They just have to be your successes.

    The point here is to reconnect with those feelings and emotions. They’ll set you up for success in your current endeavor.

    When I face self-doubt as a writer, I quietly reflect on the feeling of success I experienced when my mentor (Jon Morrow) sent me an email saying he was proud of me.

    I often go back to that email to reconnect with the feeling of success it evokes. Seeing this evidence of my abilities as a writer drives away the self-doubt every single time.

    3. Empower yourself with visualizations.

    Visualizing yourself succeeding is another powerful approach.

    Have you watched an elite athlete just before a hundred-meter sprint? She looks intensely at the finish line and visualizes herself sprinting down the track faster than anybody else in the field.

    In fact, she’s visualized herself winning the race hundreds and thousands of times to prepare. That’s how she prepares to give her very best over those hundred meters.

    Repeatedly visualizing success can actually rewire your brain. It creates positive neural pathways that restore the natural confidence you had as a child.

    Not only does this stop you from thinking negative thoughts, but it actually replaces negative thinking with (confidence boosting) positive images.

    4. Use your past failures to vanquish self-doubt.

    A large amount of self-doubt arises from our past failures. Each time we fail at something, we develop self-limiting beliefs, which get embedded in our psyche and our thinking.

    Fortunately, we can use these past failures—think the trail of breadcrumbs in the story Hansel and Gretel—to lead us back to these self-limiting beliefs. And once they’re out in the open, we can then challenge them.

    Imagine this: You have this belief that you’re no good at athletics. Maybe the seeds were sown when you did poorly in track and field in high school. And since then you’ve always made a halfhearted effort at athletics because you thought, “Why bother? I’m no good at athletics anyway.”

    See the (self-defeating) belief here? That (one) poor performance early in life created a belief that you’re not good at athletics. And that belief led to a halfhearted approach, which in turn stopped you from getting good at athletics.

    See the vicious cycle?

    Challenge that belief that you’re no good at athletics, and you stop making a halfhearted effort. And that’s how you get good and break out of the cycle.

    Here’s the thing: The past is not a predictor of your future performance, if you make a conscious effort to improve.

    So, examine your past failures and use them to challenge your self-limiting beliefs.

    It’ll do wonders for your confidence!

    5. Edit those sentences in your head.

    Do you think in sentences? Most of us do.

    Imagine this. You’re about to give a talk to a roomful of people.

    If you lacked confidence, the sentences in your head would sound something like this: “Ummm…. Hopefully this talk will be okay. I think I’ll be fine. But what if I crash and burn? No I’ll be okay. Geez I hope I’ll be okay.”

    Do you see the vacillation in that self-talk? One second you’re thinking you’ll be okay and the next second you’re terrified that you’ll crash and burn.

    The good news?

    All you need to do is edit the sentences in your head.

    The sentences you want to hear in your head sound something like this: “This talk is going to go well. Sure, it won’t be perfect. Nothing ever is. But I’m going to absolutely enjoy this and I’ll successfully get my message across.”

    Notice the words absolutely and successfully?

    See the tone in those sentences? There’s no vacillation.

    It’s almost as if you made a decision to be successful. And that’s reflected in your self-talk.

    Of course, this isn’t going to happen overnight. Like anything, it takes conscious effort and consistent practice.

    Is it worth the effort?

    You bet.

    6. Train your body to manipulate your mind.

    Think of the times when you felt a bit low. Most likely, you were slouching, your breath was shallow, and you were staring at the ground.

    Guess what?

    You can use your body language to build your confidence. You get your body to fake it till your mind makes it. The body informs the mind about how to feel, as much as the mind influences the body.

    Start with your posture. Stand tall.

    Breathe deeply.

    Speak purposefully and slowly.

    And then watch the magic happen.

    Don’t believe me? Try it.

    7. Cultivate a positive opinion of yourself and learn to value it over others’.

    We all look to authority figures for approval during our developmental years. In fact, this feedback is essential for our social development.

    But as you grow older and gather life experiences, you must scale this back.

    Now, I’m not suggesting other people’s opinions don’t matter, they do—up to a point.

    You’ve got to recognize that we all have unfounded prejudices based on our individual life experiences—this includes those authority figures.

    It’s one thing to learn from constructive criticism and use it to better yourself.

    But, to get overwhelmed by others’ opinions of you? That’s an unskillful approach.

    There is no expert on you.

    Instead, work on cultivating a positive opinion of yourself.

    Here’s a great way to start. Next time you feel undermined by someone’s opinion of you, make a conscious choice not to get overwhelmed. Take on what’s constructive and discard the rest.

    Now here’s the important part.

    Ready?

    Bring your attention back to your own opinion of yourself. Understand that your opinion of yourself matters as much as anyone else’s because you know yourself better than anyone.

    There’s no reason to be overwhelmed by others’ opinions of you.

    8. Use external stimuli to leverage your way to confidence.

    What’s your favorite song that truly gets you going?

    Several athletes listen to music just before a race to put themselves into a certain state (of confidence) just before a race so they can perform at their best. They get in the zone.

    Another great way to get in the zone is to use external stimuli. Hold a trophy or a certificate of achievement that you may have won in the past.

    Physically connecting with a tangible memento of past successes is a great way to send a concrete message of success to your mind.

    You’ve got this.

    It’s never easy to get started on a new path. But once you develop the habit of confidence, you’ll never look back.

    See, we all have our own vulnerable inner child that feels overwhelmed like I did on my first day of school.

    But over time, I learned to embrace that inner child, acknowledge his fears, and then make a conscious choice not to get overwhelmed. Much like a father reassures his son.

    And I can honestly say I’ve never felt stronger.

    You, too, can acknowledge your inner child’s fears and comfort him or her with love and acceptance.

    And before long, you’ll be the confident person you were always meant to be. Self-doubt will never darken your (mental) doorway again.

  • 5 Childhood Mantras That Are Poisoning Your Happiness

    5 Childhood Mantras That Are Poisoning Your Happiness

    Unhappy Little Girl

    “So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us.” ~Gaston Bachelard

    I woke up to the sun peeking through the bedroom curtains and I cautiously opened one eye to check if my little brother was still asleep on the other side of our room.

    I was excited about the day. The sun was shining and we were meeting up with some family friends for a picnic in the park later that day. All I cared about was we would be having lots of treats at that picnic and the park we were going to had a giant swing set. This was going to be a good day.

    An hour later, my brother and I were in our parents’ bedroom, with my mom gently explaining that Daddy had left and he wouldn’t be coming back home.

    I was only six. I had thought everything was okay, but it wasn’t. I wasn’t expecting this.

    I felt sucker-punched. I promised myself, “I won’t let my guard down like this again.”

    Fast-forward twenty-five years…

    I stretched out beneath the shade of a huge umbrella, wiggling my toes in the white sand and watching my husband snorkel in the bathtub warmth of the ocean. There was nothing to do but sit and soak in the paradise of a tiny island in Malaysia.

    This was my dream vacation—one that I had waited years for.

    This should have been one of the happiest moments in my life. But I wasn’t happy.

    I remember at one point that day telling my husband that I should have brought my laptop with me so I could do some work while I was at the beach.

    I was genuinely struggling to relax and embrace an experience that could have offered me pure joy. I couldn’t just let go.

    Perhaps something similar has happened to you.

    Let me save you a few hundred dollars in therapy.

    This vacation made me realize that this was only one of many times in my life that I had gleefully anticipated an activity, but when I was actually in the moment I wasn’t able to feel very happy.

    I wish I could tell you that after I recognized this pattern, I immediately began a journey toward emotional wholeness. It wasn’t until years after that vacation, when I was finally brave enough to start digging into things that were holding me back.

    I started to see a therapist regularly, but I have a hunch that you might relate to what I discovered.

    So what did I figure out?

    I should have been paying more attention to what I was telling myself—mantras from my childhood were heavily influencing my adult life.

    I realized the childhood mantras or “tapes” I was playing inside my head had a significant impact on my ability to feel happiness—ones that were formed in my early years and may sound familiar to you.

    Do you recognize any of these mantras that you’ve told yourself for years, therefore diminishing your own potential happiness?

    Mantra #1: I won’t ever do that again.

    Earth-shattering events happen when you are younger. There may have been major traumas or minor events that felt traumatic to your younger self.

    As kids we often react to such events by making a vow or promise to ourselves. We do this to protect ourselves, but as we grow older we don’t stop to re-examine if this vow is helping us or holding us back.

    I wanted to avoid the unexpected pain I felt when I was abandoned as a child, so I had promised myself that I wouldn’t let my guard down again.

    Could a vow to stay guarded at all times affect the ability to feel true happiness? Most definitely.

    Mantra #2: This can’t last.

    Brené Brown identifies a major limitation to our happiness in her chapter about joy and scarcity in The Gifts of Imperfection (a book recommended by my therapist).

    She explains, “We think to ourselves: I’m not going to allow myself to feel this joy because I know it won’t last…I’d rather not be joyful than have to wait for the other shoe to drop.”

    Does this resonate with you?

    Unforeseen trauma when we were younger can create a sense of dread—we start to expect something bad is going to happen, especially in the times we are feeling most happy, or vulnerable.

    Did events from your childhood create a fear that good things happening were an invitation for something bad to happen?

    Mantra #3: It’s not okay to do that.

    Oh, the complexities of the rules within each family!

    Whether spoken outright or implied through reactions to certain behaviors, each family has a code of conduct with a profound influence on us, well into our adult lives.

    Maybe emotional expression was frowned upon in your family? Or perhaps there was an unspoken rule about how you should conduct yourself in stressful situations.

    I can remember the implied rules about money in my family. In the wake of my father leaving, money was tight and I quickly learned to stop asking for any treats. I had determined that it’s not okay to spend money on non-essentials.

    There can be so many facets to the family culture of your early childhood—some good and some not so good. Are there rules from your younger years that restrict your ability to feel happy?

    Mantra #4: This actually means that.

    Assumptions we make as kids, about the way the world works, can deeply influence our thoughts as adults. We become aware that the world does not consist of just ourselves and we start forming a framework of decisions about how life works.

    Is it possible that, back in your childhood, you decided that relaxing meant you were being lazy? Alternately, you may have assumed achievements meant love from your parents, so if you stopped achieving you would lose that affection.

    Can these childhood assumptions inhibit our ability to enjoy the moment? Absolutely.

    Mantra #5: I’m no good at that.

    Neglected dreams or passions that you had as a young child can be an amazing compass toward rediscovering your happiness.

    Is there an activity that you used to love doing as a child that you no longer do? Perhaps due to someone’s criticism, you decided you weren’t good enough to keep doing it?

    I had an embarrassing incident in gymnastics class when I was younger. (Let’s just say that the balance beam won). I refused to go back to class, resulting in an abandoned passion that I didn’t reconnect with until just this year.

    Was there a dream you had that you forced yourself to let go of, in an effort to be more practical or realistic as you grew up?

    These buried passions offer us an opportunity to remember what used to truly bring us joy. It is an invitation to welcome happiness back into your life.

    The Next Brave Step in Banishing Your Childhood Mantras

    I’m guessing that at least one of these mantras jumped out at you. We all have a default “tape” that is worth examining, to understand if it is suppressing our happiness.

    Be brave. Recognize this impulse and decide to make a change.

    Now what?

    It’s actually pretty simple—not easy, but simple.

    You need to start playing a new “tape” inside your head instead of the ones that are diminishing your ability to be joyful.

    I chose to start telling myself that it is okay to let my guard down. This involved literally chanting inside my head that the world would not fall apart if I allowed myself to enjoy the moment.

    I had to constantly reassure myself that even if something bad did happen, bracing myself for it would not make it hurt any less and was actually robbing me of joy.

    It actually didn’t take too long before I started to believe this. Surprisingly, this removed a huge obstacle to giving myself permission to feel happy.

    How to Amplify Your Happiness

    The good news?

    You’ve already taken the first step: pausing to ask what you are actually telling yourself.

    How about some more good news?

    You can choose one thing that you are going to start saying differently to yourself and you will be amazed at how quickly you can change the narration.

    It is tempting to cling to the voices of our past, but wouldn’t it feel amazing to be able to truly embrace your happiness?

    Try out your new script today and congratulate yourself on moving toward a happier life!

    Unhappy little girl image via Shutterstock

  • Stop Striving for Happiness and Start Practicing It Now

    Stop Striving for Happiness and Start Practicing It Now

    Happy People

    “Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.” ~Chuang Tzu

    It all started when one of my boys asked me if I was happy, and of course I answered yes.

    Why wouldn’t I be happy? I have a handsome and kind husband, two boys of which I am very proud, I had a successful business, I had a house I loved, I was surrounded by friends, I was a sought after speaker in my community, and blah blah blah.

    Then my son asked why I didn’t have fun anymore. I began defending my happiness to him, explaining all the reasons why I was happy, and I began to realize I wasn’t really happy at all. I was “surface” happy.

    It was that day, almost four years ago, that I started my journey toward finding happiness. Needless to say, there were plenty of bumps in the road.

    The problem was that in typical “type A” fashion, I wanted happiness right then. I did my research and found things that made people happier, like spending time with friends and reducing stress. I made a bunch of changes that were supposed to make me happier but in the end only caused my stress levels to rise.

    It didn’t take long before I realized my quest for happiness made things worse. I spent more time worrying about trying to be happy then just allowing myself the freedom to feel happy. Bottom line: trying to be happy was stressing me out.

    Then my husband lost his job and we were in jeopardy of losing our house. With the circumstances surrounding us, my worry and stress were kicked into high gear. And instead of moving toward happiness, I felt as if I was moving further away.

    Things were getting a bit desperate when my husband was offered his dream job in Bangkok, Thailand. Yes, the same Thailand that is located halfway around the world. I fought it, I ignored it, and I laughed at it, but most of all I worried about it.

    Moving that far away was inconceivable to me. We had two teenagers, a home, and family and friends in a town we loved. How could we just leave?

    With little choice, off to Thailand we went with two suitcases each and my fingers crossed for a smooth transition. Soon after our arrival in Thailand, my life was shattered. I received a phone call from my sister telling me that my brother had been murdered.

    Twenty-seven years ago, my other sister’s life was cut too short because of a car accident. I physically did not think I could endure this pain again. My heart had yet to heal and now the hole in it just got bigger. 

    I immediately headed home to be with mom, leaving my husband and the boys behind, when what I wanted most was to hold them tight.

    It was a very surreal time. It was like I was watching someone else’s life as I went through the motions of supporting my mother, accepting condolences, and trying to wrap my head around all that was going on.

    It is always tragic to lose a loved one, but to have a loved one murdered takes grief to a whole new level.

    The time came for me to head back across the globe and back to my boys. It became clear I couldn’t go back as a barely functioning mother, and I knew my boys would learn about adversity and grief through my example.

    I took the time to re-evaluate my quest for happiness that I started what seemed like a lifetime ago. This time though, I started with some small actions instead of tackling everything at once. Here’s how I did it.

    Practice Gratitude

    You’ve probably read by now that gratitude has the power to change your life. It’s hard to imagine something so simple having such a big impact. It’s also hard to imagine why more people don’t do it.

    I wanted to practice gratitude, I really did, but it always seemed an inconvenient thing to do as I crawled into bed. I had to figure out a way to remind myself to do it every night before my head hit the pillow, because once I crawled into bed all bets were off.

    It dawned on me that I went into the bathroom every night, so I put my journal in the bathroom next to my toothbrush. Not the most glamorous place to write in your journal, but it worked.

    As I brushed my teeth, the journal beckoned and soon it became automatic, better known as a habit. A habit that was helping me focus on the good in my life.

    I am blessed to be surrounded by a loving and supportive family, have meaningful friendships for encouragement and guidance, and my boys have kind hearts. And that’s just the beginning of my list.

    I learned that even in the midst of the darkest day, there are moments of light. Sometimes you just have to search a little harder. Quiet your mind and look for it. Believe me, you will find something wonderful that fills you with gratitude.

    Trust That Things Will Work

    I am not going to lie; trusting that everything will work out is scary and hard—very, very hard. But it does. It might not work out the way you intended, but it usually works out somehow.

    It’s hard to break the habit of worrying because there is no visual cue around the stuff in your head. When I worried, I noticed I played with my hair. I admit I play with my hair when I’m not worried too, but my hands hang out in my hair more when I am.

    Now every time I play with my hair, I ask myself what I am worrying about. Then I remind myself to trust that whatever happens, I can handle it, and I probably will become stronger and happier because of it.

    Look for cues that indicate you might be worrying and when you encounter them, talk yourself through the process. Create a mantra for yourself that calms your mind and helps you release your worry. Your self-talk may take longer in the beginning, but keep at because eventually your mind will get on board.

    Choose Happiness

    I quickly found wanting happiness isn’t enough. You have to choose it and work for it.

    I added one more step to gratitude practice. At the end of the day I began setting my intention for the next day—something that will make me take time to enjoy the moment.

    My first intention was to take pictures of flowers because flowers make me smile. Then afterward, I wrote about how my intention made me feel and added things that filled my heart with gratitude.

    An intention might be something as simple as watching an inspirational video or smiling at a stranger. The key is to choose something that will make your day brighter.

    I learned many things during the first year following my brother’s murder. I learned about forgiveness, grief, and true friendship, but the most powerful thing I learned was that I was in control of how I felt every day

    Practicing gratitude, trusting things will work out, and setting intentions has led me to create my own definition of happiness, a definition that is just right for me.

    Take the time to experiment with practices that work for you. Everyone goes through dark times, but you can find happiness in the midst of darkness by committing to the practices that work for you.

    Happiness image via Shutterstock

  • 4 Ways to Have More Affectionate, Loving Relationships

    4 Ways to Have More Affectionate, Loving Relationships

    Couple Hugging

    “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” ~Simone Weil

    This morning I was busy French pressing coffee for my husband and me. Everything was going great; I was happily humming along, looking forward to starting my day. My lovely husband came up behind me and bear hugged me gently.

    Now, I’ll admit that I don’t usually take this well when I’m in the middle of something. If I’m cooking (which I’m particularly serious about), I’ve been known to push him away and say something along the lines of “I’m cooking! Back!”

    This is not sensitive or caring. It’s more of a “get-off-me-I’m-working” reaction that I’ve been working on.

    To my husband’s credit, he usually responds fine and continues about his business seemingly undeterred from future affection. I apologize later, and he doesn’t seem to take offense.

    After an interaction like this, I feel embarrassed and ashamed of how I’ve responded to his attempts at closeness. I worry that if I keep pushing him away, eventually he’ll just stay away for good. The very idea itself makes me feel sad and repentant.

    Today, however, when he came over and hugged me from behind, I had enough good sense not to push him away.

    I took the opportunity for some bonding time with him, which made my morning. I actually had to have the conscious thought that I should stop the urge to push him away and instead be receptive.

    Instead of getting caught up in what I was doing, I stopped myself and let him foster closeness between us.

    Today, I was receptive.

    Today, I let myself get swept up in the moment instead of worrying about the coffee getting cold, or burning dinner, or the myriad of other little nagging things that seem more important in the sweet little moments like this.

    My priorities are woefully out of whack if I think that preventing my coffee from getting cold is more important than connecting with someone who isn’t afraid to come over to me for the 4,345 time when I’m in the middle of something, even though he knows he’s likely to get the cold shoulder.

    What if one day he gives up? I’ll admit, I probably would have given up already if I were him. It’s embarrassing to admit that my skin isn’t nearly as thick as his has been when it comes to affection.

    In fact, so often, haven’t I shown through my actions that a deeper connection was not my priority?

    That admission stings. If I’m really honest, in the past, a lack of mindfulness about how I handle affection has led me to prioritize tons of things above my relationships. I have allowed things of little importance to often take priority over connecting with the people who I love most.

    How often do we push our partners away and refuse to connect without quite seeing it that way? How often do we reject their advances, when if we thought about it, we actually desire more closeness? How long do we have before we push the other person away forever, only to wonder later what went wrong?

    Of course, I never consciously intend to make my partner feel rejected, but how often do I reject him anyway, bumbling through our life together? How often could I be nicer, or less stressed, or more receptive?

    How often do the people in our lives who are most important to us suffer because we are too busy, or too clueless to notice?

    No matter what the reason is, what if we’re sacrificing the everyday events that have lasting potential to bring us closer?

    I can do big things that are meant to connect with my partner. For example, I can suggest and plan out a weekly date nights, but if I’m downright cold and repellant in the tender, everyday moments that are his idea, pretty soon, I will drive away the very connection that I truly long for.

    It won’t matter if we try to formally “plan” times to be affectionate or if I make sure to approach him often on my own terms.

    What if we’re doing this not just with our intimate partners, but also with the rest of the important people in our lives? What if we’re providing negative reinforcement when, if we were more conscious of it, we would actually want to allow more closeness?

    It’s so common to take the closest relationships in our lives for granted. That’s why it’s so vitally important to take the time to nurture the little connections that we have with each other, every day. In this way, love is a practice, just like connection takes practice.

    It’s the small things, once again, that truly matter with someone we love. It’s taking the time to listen to them when we’re tired and would rather do something else. It’s not shutting them down when they show us little acts of affection. It’s receptivity and openness to connection, as well as getting our priorities straight.

    Since I’ve been struggling to change this reluctance to connect on someone else’s terms, here are four things that I’ve learned help to bring someone closer in the moment.

    1. Awareness.

    Notice the ways, both small and large, in which others try to create connections with you. If we wait for them to approach us perfectly or in the exact moments we’re thinking about it, we miss so much.

    2. Receptivity.

    Being aware is important, but so is being receptive to a connection. If we acknowledge and then open ourselves to connecting with others, it’s clearly going to foster more connection than if we are aware but not receptive (like my cooking example above).

    Being receptive involves staying aware of the greater good in our most important relationships, namely saying “yes” to more love, more connection, and more closeness from others. It’s not turning down the hug or pushing someone away in the moment. It’s apologizing if we fail at these things.

    3. Appreciation.

    Appreciation is key to positively reinforcing someone’s attempts to get closer to us. If I allow myself to be selfish or distracted and fail to positively acknowledge my partner’s attempts to connect with me, I’m not only pushing him away in that moment, but I’m effectively blocking future connection.

    If I don’t nurture the connections that matter the most to me, I won’t have connections with the people I love. That is the inevitable, preventable, awful consequence of failing to provide positive reinforcement.

    This is about recognizing the little things, with heartfelt thank you’s and big hugs. It’s having an eye toward acknowledging people’s efforts, and providing them with a positive experience when they interact with me.

    4. Reciprocity.

    Rather than saving up our affection and positive attention for when we’re really feeling it (or say, date night), maybe it’s better to make a practice of reciprocating our partner’s affections even when we’re tired, distracted, or not quite interested.

    Giving them the gift of our attention is such a strong tool for nurturing them and the relationship that it shouldn’t be saved for the exact, right moment when we feel like sharing our affections. Maybe it’s more effective to resolve to share and connect with the people we care about whenever they reach out to us.

    And… try not to push your spouse away when they’re happily giving you a bear hug.

    Couple hugging image via Shutterstock

  • Don’t Let the Outside World Control Your Happiness

    Don’t Let the Outside World Control Your Happiness

    Happy Woman on Grass

    “On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    We have this strange need or conditioning to not take responsibility for our own happiness. We expect it to come from an outside source.

    It can happen, but it’s fleeting. True happiness has to come from within.

    True happiness comes from a connection to our true being.

    Years ago my family and I took our dog to obedience school, and the trainer told us, if we have more than one dog, to never let them share a crate. Yes, they would become best friends, even inseparable. Then one of them would die and the other would be completely heartbroken.

    Imagine putting all your happiness on another person. This could be a friend or a soul mate. You share your dreams, relying on each other for companionship and future plans. Then tragedy happens, a split of some kind.

    It’s natural to be heartbroken when you lose someone you love—but how could you survive this if all your happiness was contained in this one person?

    This same thing can happen with the material world. We easily put our happiness on getting that prized possession, the big house, the new car, or a job that we think we want.

    I spent most of my life up until now in the shadow of fleeting happiness. It followed me everywhere.

    It started when I was young. I searched for acceptance. I did ridiculous things to my hair, and I lost my virginity way too young. I thought these things would bring me a sense of happiness, but I never felt truly happy.

    Then my young adult self emerged still on the search for “when.” When I get to do this… when I go here… when I do that… then I will finally be happy.

    I spent my days waiting for various things to happen, to in turn bring me the happiness I longed for.

    I married young. I moved to a city that wasn’t conducive to my nature. I got the corporate job that would make me feel established, following society’s definition of success.

    With two young kids I moved to a way too expensive house that fit the mold of a successful, acceptable young adult. And—gasp—I bought a minivan. I was a mom, after all. Wasn’t this my road to happiness?

    With all these misguided beliefs of happiness under my belt, the waves of discontent still threatened to drown me. I kept treading water with no movement.

    I realized in time the truth behind my happiness, and it didn’t lie in things or people or society’s definitions. I had always had the ability to feel happy; I just hadn’t realized it.

    I realized it when I was able to accept myself, fully, in who I was.

    I realized I didn’t need to edit who I was. I was able to look in the mirror and see the perfectness in all my imperfections. I was able to go to a social event and be okay with myself sitting quietly in the corner. I learned to just be without worry or concern about what others thought. I was okay just being me.

    I would often find myself sitting quietly, taking it all in. These were the mindful moments that allowed me to acknowledge all that was around me. And you know what? It was full.

    The world was full of the richness of life—nature, people, laughter, smiles, wind, noise, and breath. I started to notice my breath and breathe a little deeper in gratitude for all the experiences of my life. The realization came with a flood of tears, joy, and intense connection…with myself.

    We believe in a happiness that really doesn’t exist. We search for it in many ways, rarely finding it in the form we are seeking.

    Happiness can sometimes comes from things. “When I get this car, or these shoes, or this job, man, will I be happy.” And you do, you get the position and you drive to your new job in your new car with your shiny new shoes on.

    The world is oh so perfect. It couldn’t get any better. Then the company you work for goes bankrupt, you can no longer afford your car, and now you have no place to wear your shoes.

    Are you happy anymore? Not if you banked all your happiness in those fleeting things.

    But let’s say you already discovered true happiness from deep within your soul and felt happy with yourself. Then you got your dream job. Would you be happier?

    You might feel more fulfilled but not happier, because your inner happiness was already infinite. If you lost your job, would some of your happiness diminish? No. You might feel disappointed but you wouldn’t lose your happiness because it was already infinite.

    Your happiness cannot come from the outside world. It must come from within you.

    When you are able to acknowledge that happiness already resides in you, a pressure will release because you’ll no longer feel ruled by your ego’s need for more.

    Still, it is important to know that true happiness may not always feel great. Realizing true happiness doesn’t mean you will be skipping through a field of daisies without a care in the world.

    You will have bad days. You will feel overwhelmed with normal life at times. You may even look beyond the horizon to see what lies ahead. This is all okay.

    Happiness doesn’t have to look like a storybook. Happiness is simply the realization that life is just fine as it is.

    You’ll experience true happiness when you allow yourself to be content in your true self, recognize the innate greatness of the world that surrounds you, and know that the people and things in your life hold no power over you. You are the master of your happiness.

    You are already complete. When you realize this, there will be happiness in everything you do.

    Smiling woman on grass image via Shutterstock

  • When You Fear Emotional Abandonment: Do You Know Your Worth?

    When You Fear Emotional Abandonment: Do You Know Your Worth?

    Alone in the Woods

    “Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.” ~Unknown

    Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…says Lady Liberty. She was speaking to immigrants wanting to start a new promised life in America, but those words could be my tagline for the men I have had my most intimate relationships with.

    If you were broken, emotionally unavailable, complicated, and confused, I was your girl.

    I would love you more than you loved yourself, or could love me. 

    I would put all my energy into trying to make it work, trying to help you heal, but I would abandon my own needs or truth in the process, because the desire to recognize or honor my own worth was not as strong as it was for me to show you yours.

    Was I aware of this pattern? Perhaps on a superficial level, but it didn’t truly emerge until I ended my most recent long-term relationship last summer.

    One day the light bulb turned on as I went from six years with a man I was engaged to marry (and before that in an eleven-year relationship that sucked my soul dry) to an emotional affair that had left me more raw and exposed than before.

    I was the common denominator in this series of events, but what was I contributing that left my soul and heart so ravaged?

    I devoted the summer of 2013 to unraveling this mystery. I was done with repeating the same outcome just with a different man.

    My search took me back to my childhood, as it would inevitably for all of us adults struggling with conditioning or behavior that we just can’t seem to let go, even though it does nothing to serve our higher purpose.

    My relationship with my mother could be described as a fractured one, at best. She too was broken from her childhood experiences, which shaped her choices, mostly the not-so-good ones as she aged. The difference is, she chose to stay in that place of unhealing and unawareness, whereas I knew better.

    Through my teens and early adulthood, I struggled with trying to understand her choices, her inability to love me and support me the way that I needed.

    I was not brought up to understand my intrinsic worth, to know what a healthy and nurturing relationship looks like and, most importantly, that I deserved to be in one.

    I turned to the metaphysical, spirituality, and yoga to shed light on what I just couldn’t see.

    With each year, I was able to piece together a little more of my toolkit for understanding, but the toolkit my mother gave me for tolerating emotional unavailability and abandonment in my closest relationships seemed to win out.

    I could support, tell all those around me in their darkest days how beautiful, how amazing they were, but when it came to myself, those words were like bitter-tasting medicine that I just couldn’t swallow.

    Subconsciously, I ached for my partner to help heal me—to echo the sentiment I would bestow to them—but it never came in the quantity or consistency that I required. And it never would if I kept looking outside myself. It was a vicious cycle that had to end.

    Then one day it became clear. Through my search, which I was fiercely committed to, I came upon a psychological term coined by Freud: repetition compulsion. The trumpets sounded, the lights turned on, and in that moment it all made sense.

    Repetition compulsion is an “inherent, primordial tendency in the unconscious that impels the individual to repeat certain actions, in particular, the most painful or destructive ones.”

    Usually, it stems from an unhealed relationship with a parent. So in adult life, we’ll attempt to heal the traumatic event that took place as a child through intimate adult relationships, but the outcome will end up the same.

    It never occurred to me that my relationship with my mother, and all the hurt it brought, would ever affect my adult relationships with men.

    My father and I were very close; he was a friend, a rock in my life. But even so, I kept finding the same man drawn to me or I drawn to them. In essence, they were emotional replicas of my mother.

    I was not brought up with clear emotional boundaries or the ability to validate my own worth—not on the level I required to be a strong, confident woman. I flailed. I would have bursts of drive and chutzpah at times, but I spent most of my energy feeling not good enough, not lovable enough, not worthy enough.

    I talked myself out of many opportunities or shied away from experiences because of my inner demons. In a nutshell, I sold myself really short.

    Armed with this new knowledge, I consulted with a counselor to understand further. In a few sessions and with more reading as the summer wore on, I came to that place of healing.

    I saw, objectively, what had happened and what I wanted to and needed to do differently to end the cycle. This education was put to the test this past winter when I ventured into a new relationship that had great promise.

    All my old fears came up, fears of being emotionally abandoned. And when it looked like the same thing was happening again, I did something that I didn’t know I could do. I said no. No to repeating the same mistake. I set my boundaries, I stated my worth, and I was prepared to walk away.

    I spoke my truth and came from an authentic place when communicating with this newest partner. It mattered not if he understood or heard me; it only mattered that I said what I did and took responsibility for my own outcome instead of placing the power in the hands of another.

    In the end, he did understand, and I was heard. Although we did part ways, I was left with more clarity than I ever had before.

    I don’t regret the path taken or the experiences had, including the heartaches. For each one brought me to this point. The point of seeing my intrinsic worth, something we all are born with.

    We must nurture it firstly within before it will be mirrored to us fully. It’s not about being defined by ego or conceit, but knowing, from an inner wisdom, that others cannot define the value we all possess; only we can do that.

    That being said, I’m still human, and sometimes I catch myself falling into that old, familiar pattern. But before I fall too deep, I bring myself up again. I cannot undo the past, but I certainly can lay the groundwork for my present and my future, cultivating fertile soil where my needs are nurtured and my worth is evident.

    I do not have to fear being emotionally abandoned by another, because I won’t abandon myself anymore. So now the tagline reads, I can help show you your worth, not because yours is more important, but because I firstly see and honor my own.

    Alone in the woods image via Shutterstock

  • I’m Not Broken, and Neither Are You

    I’m Not Broken, and Neither Are You

    “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” ~Marianne Williamson

    I used to have this secret habit of flipping through the DSM—The Diagnostic Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders—and diagnosing myself with every disorder in the book.

    Reading over the criteria for borderline personality disorder, cigarette in hand and eyes wide open, I scanned the diagnosis criteria.

    Frantic efforts to avoid abandonment? Check. Unstable and intense interpersonal relationships? Check. Unstable self-image? Check. Impulsivity that’s self-damaging? Check. Suicidal behaviour? Check. Unstable moods? Check. Chronic feelings of emptiness? Check. Inappropriate and intense anger? Check. Paranoia? Check.

    Oh my god.

    I thought that was an uncanny description of me, until I found antisocial personality disorder.

    Failure to conform to social norms? Yup. Doing things that are grounds for arrest? Regularly. Deceitfulness? Impulsivity? Failure to plan ahead? Oh yes. Irritability? Aggression? Reckless disregard for safety? Lack of remorse?

    Oh my god.

    That seemed spot-on, but nothing, and I mean nothing, compared to when I first read about post-traumatic stress disorder.

    Exposure to traumatic event? Yes. Recurrent, involuntary, and intrusive memories? Oh god, yes. Traumatic nightmares? All the time. Flashbacks? Yes. Avoidance of trauma-related stimuli? Yes! Feeling alienated from others? Persistent negative beliefs about self? Persistent negative emotions? Distorted memory and feelings of blame?

    Oh my god.

    After a few years, I added body dysmorphic disorder, substance use disorder, occasional episodes of manic disorder, and constant rotations between bulimia and EDNOS (eating disorder not otherwise classified).

    Admittedly, some of those diagnoses should really have cancelled each other out, but I was more interested in collecting diagnoses like some would collect stamps than achieving medical accuracy.

    All of my self-imposed labels gave me a strange kind of soothing feeling. They affirmed something I already believed, deeply, within me: I was broken. I was in a state of disorder. There was something wrong with me.

    In my scourings, I avoided certain disorders like the plague. Anxiety, for example, and depression. Anxiety didn’t seem like a very “cool” thing to have and depression just didn’t seem plausible because I was so violently self-destructive, never stopping to rest for a moment unless I got infected with mono or West Nile meningitis (both of which actually happened).

    To an onlooker, these things might have seemed like ploys for attention or misguided attempts at impersonating Hollywood. But, truly, these self-diagnoses stayed more private than many of my tortured war stories. They were something personal. They were just for me.

    Looking back, I realize that the fuel behind my self-diagnosing was an obsessive, perpetual drive to find the answer to a question I couldn’t avoid for more than a few hours at a time: “What’s wrong with me?”

    What was wrong with me, I liked to think, was childhood-trauma-induced permanent damage that, in mixing with my apparently high IQ, had created a sort of “Dr. House” complex within me, making me irreparably and irrevocably screwed up.

    That was a nice story, but it didn’t satisfy the question. A question like “What’s wrong with me?” isn’t just some domestic house cat in the mind. It won’t sit quietly and patiently for most of the day, becoming vocal only if it isn’t fed for too long.

    No, a question like that is a wild, ferocious, insatiable beast that rips into anything and everything in its path, killing simply for the sake of the kill, feeding constantly and ceaselessly on anything that smells like nourishment.

    What was wrong with me?

    By the time I made it to age twenty-three, there were so many answers.

    What was wrong with me?

    The stretch marks all over my body. The pimples on my skin, my back. The little hair growing an inch above my nipple. The moles on my upper back. The fat all over my body.

    What was wrong with me?

    The way I blushed at the drop of a hat. The way I wouldn’t be able to stop laughing when other people did. The way I made jokes that weren’t funny to anyone but me. The way my upper lip twitched when I was nervous.

    What was wrong with me?

    How I had absolutely zero ability to be sexy or act sexy without alcohol, feeling frozen and ugly if anyone ever saw me naked. How I had flashbacks, nightmares, and hallucinations I told close to no one about. How I drank alone.

    How I just couldn’t seem to sustain happiness and, even when I tasted joy for a second, soon enough the drugs would wear off and I’d be right back where I started, wishing for a freedom I wasn’t sure was real.

    All of my happiness, for about ten years, was induced by chemicals and co-dependence. I thought what was wrong with me was that I couldn’t feel happy without buying it or begging for it. I thought I was just that kind of person. I thought it would always be that way.

    I’d love to tell you that I was afraid of being broken and damaged, afraid that past emotional trauma had rendered me dysfunctional, afraid that I was different from other people. Of course, that’s what I used to say and that’s a nice story, but I know now that it was all a big lie.

    You know what I was really terrified of?

    Deep inside of me, there was the awareness that, even if I fit every symptom in the book, I had no excuse to live half a life. Somewhere in there I knew I wasn’t really broken. I was terrified of what my responsibilities would be if I allowed myself to be, truly, whole.

    When I was an addict, a victim, a diagnosis, I had no responsibility to anyone. If your neck is severed and bleeding, you can hardly be expected to open doors for people and make the world a better place.

    Like this, I dodged the responsibility to discover my skills and talents, to serve people, to do something meaningful in the world—all by playing broken.

    Of course, it wasn’t all a giant act. I had been abused. I had been raped. I had been an addict. I had horrible body image issues. I heard voices. I hated myself. Yes, those things were “wrong,” but so is a paper cut. And your body will do its best to heal the paper cut with no further intervention from you, if you let it.

    Yes, I’d been broken, but I didn’t have to keep being broken. For fear of my own greatness, I put bandages on my wounds, letting them grow necrotic for lack of oxygen. I never wanted to get better; I just wanted to get pity, because I was too scared to ask for love. I kept myself sick for fear of my own health.

    I’ll tell you right now that my fear wasn’t unjustified. Now that I’m not playing small anymore, I have more responsibilities than I ever have. I’m trusted with people’s most painful memories, with their deepest secrets, with the chance to support them when they’re on the brink of hurting themselves or others.

    Yes, the responsibility is there, but it’s not the horror show I imagined it would be. I think the only reason I ran from it was because I was so weak from keeping myself broken that I couldn’t imagine how much energy I’d have to help people when I allowed myself to be whole.

    I couldn’t have imagined how fulfilling it is to spread love, give love, be love instead of scrounging for tiny little pieces of approval and acceptance like a thief in the night.

    From what I’ve seen of myself and of people, I believe, without condition, that no one is irreparably broken. In fact, no one is broken. Is having a paper cut broken? Of course not. From the moment you get a cut, you’re already healing.

    And that’s what I believe. I believe we’re all already healing, no matter how great our pain or how serious the offenses against us. We’re built to heal, we’re already healing, and we can all experience this amazing life process—if only we’d get out of the way.

  • Nothing Is Permanent: Letting Go of Attachment to People

    Nothing Is Permanent: Letting Go of Attachment to People

    “Impermanence is not something to be afraid of. It’s the evolution, a never-ending horizon.” ~Deepak Chopra

    I have been reading a lot lately on attachment and impermanence. It’s a big topic, one that is often hard to wrap your head and heart around. How can I live a life without attachment? Doesn’t that mean that I am not being a loving or caring person? I mean really, no attachment—it just seems cold.

    This all started for me when the love of my life told me, “I love you, I am just not in love with you.” Ouch.

    To say I was hurt would be a gross understatement. How could someone who I felt such strong love for not reciprocate the same feelings? This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. We were together, attached forever, remember? Wrong.

    While I didn’t like it and I didn’t want to, I had to accept what I’d heard. Sure, I fought it for a while, told myself little fairy tales that she would change her mind and come back. The call never came, my love letter did not arrive in the mail, the “here I am on your doorstep” never occurred.

    It was over, and it was time for me to move forward, but how?

    I would like to say that I held my head high and just moved forward with dignity and grace.

    I would like to say I had a secret potion to “get over” the love of my life. I wish I could tell you of a magic book I read or twelve steps to follow to heal a broken heart. Those things I cannot offer, but I can offer you hope.

    Days after we parted ways I had an overwhelming urge to walk in nature. All I wanted to do was walk by myself, and that’s exactly what I quietly did. Day after day, rain or shine, I took my little heartache out for a walk in the forest until it was exhausted.

    A funny thing started to happen after a few weeks of walking. I started to notice the trees, how beautiful they were, tall, strong, and magnificent.

    I started to hear the sound of the birds, the leaves blowing, the babbling of the creek, and the crackle of the earth under my feet. I started to step outside of my head and heartache, and I started to notice the things around me. It was beautiful, fresh, and amazing.

    As my heart started to take in the grace of my surroundings each day on my walks, I felt little pieces of my broken heart start to heal. My self-talk of “why me” drifted away with each step.

    I began to stop thinking about my loss of love and started to think about how lucky I was to have experienced love. I opened myself to gratitude rather than attachment and loss.

    I had attachment to a person, an ideal, a hope. In many ways I had attached my personal happiness to this person.

    In my mind the love of my life was attached and permanent, to me and for me. As I have now learned nothing in life is permanent. If we can appreciate this reality, we can open ourselves to cherish “now” moments.

    Love is not about attachment or permanence. Love is about spending time with another person, sharing moments, experiences, and each other.

    The moment we make it about “keeping” another for our own gain, our own need, it becomes about our ego, fears, and insecurities. A mindful, compassionate, kind being only wishes happiness and love for others. Sometimes happiness and love for others is moving on and letting go.

    Months have gone by and I still walk in the forest. My heart does not ache as I walk, though.

    I think of the many wonderful memories. I feel full of gratitude thinking of the magnitude of wonderful times, the laughter, and the love. I cherish those memories and I think I am pretty lucky that I was able to share those wonderful experiences of love with another person.

    The trees, the forest, they remind me of the simplicity of our beautiful life. While each day is different and ever changing, I still see the splendor and magnificence. Each tree holds its own life; it is an individual amongst many others, just as we are as humans.

    When I walk in the forest today I am reminded that I can appreciate the beauty of each tree, just as I can appreciate the beauty of love I share with each person.

    With a deep breath and a full heart, I know just as my relationship is to the trees, so is my relationship with others. Free of the idea of attachment and permanence, we are able to see the simple beauty of this moment, now.

  • Why We Compare Ourselves to Others on Social Media and How to Stop

    Why We Compare Ourselves to Others on Social Media and How to Stop

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

    We all have certain triggers that can cause our confidence to take a sudden nosedive.

    For some, it’s a trip to the gym. If you’re self-conscious of your body, watching fit people strut their stuff in their tightest fitting gym clothes likely has you over analyzing your every body part.

    For others, it may be a certain individual—a family member, friend, or enemy that, for whatever reason, leaves them with the dreaded feeling that they just aren’t enough.

    We all know the gut wrenching feeling that arises when we see or hear something that immediately has us second guessing our appearance, personality, or skill set.

    Unfortunately, social media provides us with numerous platforms that help to quickly trigger that unpleasant self-disdain.

    Facebook recently reminded me of just how powerful a determinant it is to my confidence level.

    I found myself comparing all aspects of my life, both internal and external, to a person I had never met. She was a stranger in every sense of the word, and yet somehow, her profile page caused me to question my accomplishments, appearance, and even personality traits.

    I didn’t realize just how illogical this was until I explained it to someone, and, now as I type, I’m reminded even further.

    Regardless of how illogical these comparisons may be, our emotional responses to such images can be so strong that they completely overpower our sense of logic.

    The reality is, people are constantly showcasing the best aspects of their life onto social media.

    The arrival of a new baby and a recent trip to the Caribbean are both ideal picture-posting occasions. But do these same people post photos of 2 a.m. feedings or lost luggage? Not often, because that wouldn’t show them in an ideal light, but it would provide a sense of reality.

    Reality is what is lost on social media. We emphasize the best versions of ourselves instead of the real versions.

    Life can be hard, ugly, and downright depressing at times. But those likely aren’t the adjectives most of us would use to describe the photos we post onto our accounts.

    The feeling of lack and dissatisfaction that we feel when scrolling through our newsfeed often results from comparing our true reality to our “friends’” idealized, perfectly Instagramed realities.

    We are using the same scale to measure two entirely different realities.

    However, we fail to step back and recognize just how wildly unfair and unrealistic these comparisons actually are.

    So how can we stop ourselves from making them?

    1. Reduce your time on social media.

    This can be a challenge since we live in a culture that puts such a high value on social media outlets. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

    Allow yourself five to ten minutes a day to check your social media accounts and then be done with it. Especially avoid looking at profiles of people who trigger thoughts of comparison. You have nothing to gain in doing so besides anxiety and sadness.

    2. Redirect your focus on the things that really matter.

    When you direct your attention toward the real world, you have less time and energy to direct toward meaningless activities such as social comparisons.

    Focus on a high-energy work out at the gym or finishing a book you’ve been putting off. Immerse yourself in activities that leave you feeling better for having engaged in them (versus Facebook stalking, which leaves you wishing you hadn’t).

    Make a list of activities and then schedule them onto a calendar. Since we often spend time on social media when we have little else going on, having scheduled plans will reduce the time we are sitting idle.

    3. Assess where those negative comparisons are stemming from.

    As unpleasant as these comparisons can feel, they can serve a positive purpose in that they inform us of an area of our lives that may benefit from some improvement. The incident served as a reminder that I want to be secure enough in who I am and where I am in life that I don’t feel the need to measure it in comparison to anyone else (least of all, a stranger).

    After my strong reaction to a stranger’s Facebook profile, I decided to work on developing a stronger sense of confidence and self-worth. I’ve done this in a number of different ways such as:

    • Putting a higher value on my relationships. I have amazing friends and family, but I admit that I often take them for granted. I’ve tried to become more present in my interactions with them, as well as in encounters with complete strangers.
    • Valuing my time more. In the past, I’ve been much more cognizant and respectful of others’ time than my own. I’m practicing putting my needs first and learning to accept that it is okay to do.
    • Doing more of what I love. Sounds simple, but I’ve really made an effort to go on quiet walks with my dog more or allow myself an hour to read a book. Doing things simply because I like to do them has given me an increasing amount of self-value.
    • Eating well and moving. I make sure to put my body in motion for at least thirty minutes a day (even if it’s just walking the dog), and I eat small, healthy meals throughout the day so I don’t find myself snacking mindlessly on junk. Putting a higher value on my body by eating clean and getting exercise has naturally given me a higher sense of self worth.

    So, next time you make an unfair comparison, instead of allowing it to make you feel poorly about yourself, view it as an opportunity for a little self-evaluating.

    Ultimately, social comparisons aren’t indicative of what others have that you don’t, but rather what you already have but aren’t quite aware of yet.

  • Getting Back Your Spark When Every Day Feels Hard

    Getting Back Your Spark When Every Day Feels Hard

    “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” ~Thomas Jefferson

    Did you ever wake up one morning and not know who you were anymore?

    Waking up for the past four years of my life, I felt like I was in the movie Groundhog Day. The same things happened every day, and I felt the same horrible feelings all the time. Anxiety, depression, and hopelessness ran my life.

    I had it all figured out at some point. I was furthering my career and moving toward my dream of becoming a psychologist. I had great co-workers, tons of friends, and a supportive family.

    There was this continuous, sun-shiny, flowing feeling of “everything works out for the best.” Any struggles I went through would make me stronger, a better psychologist and friend. A better person. And so, I enjoyed the ups and downs of life with no regrets and little struggle.

    It seems that I woke up one day and everything was gone.

    I had lost my job, which paid for my education. All my friends had drug abuse issues, and I removed myself from their lives or vice versa. My puppy, best friend since age five, died four days before my birthday. I was plagued with pain from Lyme disease and an undiagnosed tick-borne illness. I felt like every piece of my life was falling apart.

    My dreams were not coming true anymore. I still have no idea how I slid down this far without knowing it.

    The best parts of my life had left me, and it seems like it all hit me at once. There were no more happy, “let it go, it’ll all turn out for the best” thoughts. It was all darkness. I had lost myself and my joy for life.

    The worst part was that I knew I could get back to that place if I tried. But I didn’t know how. I longed for that spark, that fulfillment with my life, for years. I just couldn’t put my finger on what I was missing. I hadn’t even realized that it was gone until it seemed light years away.

    I realize now that there were quite a few things I could actively do every day to pull myself out of this dark place. If you’re going through a rough time, these may help you as well.

    1. Acknowledge and appreciate everything that happens, even the seemingly bad.

    During my “golden age,” I had acknowledged everything that worked out well for me. I recognized the random strokes of luck that life handed me and appreciated them, and it seemed like more of these things happened as a result.

    When I lost my way, I was so focused on the negative, overwhelming feelings that I thought good things just didn’t happen for me anymore. I had to learn that the only difference between a good thing and a bad thing is how you look at it.

    I could sit and think about how much I disliked my boyfriend’s mother all day. From the first thought in the morning, all the way until bedtime I could obsess over how horribly she treated me. Why couldn’t she just accept me as I am? I love her son more than anything, after all!

    After struggling with this for close to a year, I finally realized why she had grown to be such a focal point in my life. She was here to teach me compassion. True, loving compassion for someone you thought you couldn’t stand, until you open your eyes and think what it may be like to be them.

    It is a good thing that she is in my life, and though she often presents challenges to me, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. She helped me to see that people are not black and white, good or bad.

    Nothing is inherently bad; it just is. As your mind processes information, it applies your filters, your beliefs, and your preconceptions to the information. This is the reason we are angered, or feel sad, or disappointed. It’s not actually the thing she said, or what he did that angered you; it’s all what you think about it.

    2. Challenge limiting, irrational thoughts.

    When things go haywire, we tend to cling to our irrational thoughts like a life preserver, when what we really need to hold onto is our inner calm.

    I really believed that I could just think my way out of the hopelessness-box I had placed myself in. I obsessed and ran and re-ran the same thoughts all day, trying to make sense or pull what I wanted out of every conversation.

    My mind was a mess of tangled thoughts that I used to keep me in a bad place. Nothing was ever good enough; nothing was ever good at all. And there seemed nothing I could do about it but obsess even more.

    I would obsess that my boyfriend and I weren’t getting along. Did he still love me? Why wasn’t that spark there anymore? He was cheating on me, he had to be. Why couldn’t things be the way they used to be? Why had he said that thing this morning, the one that made me feel so unloved?

    I realized that all these thoughts did was give me something external to obsess over, to keep me from thinking about the real problem.

    The real reason why I was uncomfortable and stuck in this thought loop was because of my own insecurities. I did not feel like I was good enough for him, hence my sneaking suspicion he would cheat on me. Focusing on what he may do kept me from addressing my own issues.

    I was insecure. I had deep rooted self-worth issues, and I kept looking past the fact that all this started and ended with me. It was my insecurities making me think this way. It was my thoughts that would one day enable these things to happen—if I wanted to keep believing that I wasn’t good enough.

    Often, when you think defeating and self-limiting thoughts all day, you start to believe they are true.

    If you start from a place of love and acceptance for yourself, it greatly affects the way you think about important things in your life. My panicked mind just took the root cause and expanded upon it, made it grow, made it bigger and meaner until I couldn’t overlook the real problem staring me in the face anymore.

    When you accept and love yourself as you are, and when you feel the inner peacefulness and calm inside yourself, you are able to see straight through your own tricks.

    3. Do something just for you. Every day.

    I am a responsible person and I always did everything I was supposed to do. I was a good girl. I went to work. I did my job. I did the dishes and laundry and was exhausted by the end of every day. But I couldn’t sleep through the night.

    I felt like nothing was ever truly done. There was always more to do. I remember looking at a dirty bottle once and breaking down crying. Being everything for everyone doesn’t mean anything if you can’t enjoy a few moments with yourself. No one can appreciate you the way you can.

    I slowly started substituting tasks with things I wanted to do. Instead of coming home and picking up the living room, I would come home and exercise. I felt better, relaxed, and energized when I was done, and the picking up got done quickly and without the bitterness accompanied by never having any time to do anything for me.

    Its funny—all these people are relying on you, but all these people really need is you. Not the things you do. They love and appreciate you for you, not for the clean house. I had built up this idea that being a mother and responsible adult meant that I couldn’t have fun anymore. That I couldn’t do things I enjoy.

    Make time to do something you love, and to just be you. Make you your number one priority today. Everything else will fall into place

    4. Let the fun in.

    Dance to your favorite song in the car, go dig your hands in the dirt in the garden, tickle your husband, make a mess; however you like to have fun, do it!

    It seems like as we grow into adults, we are expected to act like grown-ups and slowly filter out all the fun in our lives. Piece by piece you realize everything that you used to enjoy, you no longer do!

    Reclaim your life.

    You need to take whatever time you have and use it to the fullest. It’s okay to go a little crazy. Get a little dirty doing something you enjoy. Remember what it was like to be a kid and totally immerse yourself in something, just because you loved to do it.

    Forget your to-do list and do you instead. Love completely, open your heart, act like a kid, and who knows; you may just feel like one again.

  • When We Try to Change Others and Avoid Ourselves

    When We Try to Change Others and Avoid Ourselves

    “I’ve discovered that you can’t change people. They can change themselves.” ~Jim Rohn

    This is indeed a fact—a fact I took a long time to learn.

    You may argue that we help each other change, and it’s true. But the deepest truth is that only we are responsible for our own growth.

    The most difficult work is the seemingly minuscule shift from resistance to willingness, which allows us to face the difficult things we’ve been hiding from, and only we can do this for ourselves. 

    I had boyfriends who had issues. One of them lacked ambition; he was already lost when we met around age sixteen. I, on the other hand, was born with sparks at my heels. It took me two years to have the courage to break up with him.

    I dated another sweet guy who also happened to be lost. His mouth said a lot of things about what he wanted to do with his life, but his body seemed to be paralyzed. I figured this out pretty early on and broke things off.

    Then his cousin called to tell me he was okay but that he’d been shot (wrong place, wrong time they say), and I dropped everything to take care of him. I convinced myself this was the catalyst for his change. It wasn’t. Almost a year later we broke up.

    Then there were other guys with other issues. Some of them frozen in fear from traumatic circumstances and others with kinks they were unwilling to iron out.

    Then I was twenty-nine, and I met this guy I told my roommate was “really great, but not gonna be my boyfriend.” He kept asking me out and he kept having nothing but positive qualities, so I found myself in love.

    And he loved every ounce of me. Suddenly I was wrapped up in a man who thought I was spectacular just as I was, and couldn’t help but tell me every chance he got.

    His unconditional acceptance allowed me to see that I had been busy trying to save men instead of saving myself.

    Only through the cloak of genuine love can we have the courage to face the darkest things about ourselves, things we’ve been hiding from our whole lives. And I was ready for it, so it all spilled right out.

    I saw that my whole life I had been trying to be someone instead of simply allowing myself to be.

    I realized that part of the reason I had been drawn to the men from my past was because helping them gave me a sense of control. I didn’t trust them to figure it out on their own; I didn’t trust myself to be with a man who was genuinely strong because I wasn’t yet.

    I was afraid of losing them and the feeling of worthiness they provided me, so I tried to control their lives and my own.

    I believed I could manipulate circumstances to create my happiness. And one day I woke up to the recognition that trying to control everything in my life hadn’t worked out very well for me, and, frankly, it was exhausting.

    It was simply much easier to accept things as they were; the burden was gone, the trying, the effort, the need for things to be different.

    I wasn’t nudged or asked to work on these things. I did it for myself. Because I needed to.

    So I think we need to stop asking each other to change. We need to embrace who it is we see in the moment and accept them as they are. If they can’t be in our lives in the way we’d like because of who they are in that moment, then we get to make the choice to move on.

    But we can’t force each other to change.

    Sticking around because we see potential, in turn, stifles ourselves.

    We spend so much energy trying to be okay with who we’re with instead of really being okay with them. And if we’re not okay with them as they are, then it’s okay to walk away. It’s okay to walk away.

    I had to walk away from the man who changed my life. Because I had loved and been loved so deeply, the loss of that relationship left me in a deep depression. For the first time in my life I didn’t really care about anything. But it turns out that letting go is one of the gorgeous gifts of life.

    I embraced love and truth and difficult feelings and no feelings at all. On the other side of letting go I was left in the residue of the truth of my humanity; I am always left with myself, and it’s myself that I must remain true to.

    When we desperately try to make something work that just isn’t working, we waste an immense amount of energy and create a lot of suffering.

    So, when we finally walk away we feel light (eventually). We realize we are full as we are and so we attract fullness. When we do this we’re allowing the highest love to come into our lives.

    Something Jim Rohn also says is this, “The greatest gift you can give to somebody is your own personal development. I used to say, ‘If you take care of me, I will take care of you.’ Now I say, ‘I will take care of me for you, if you take care of you for me.’”

    Each relationship I’ve had has become a part of me. The love still exists, and the pain transforms into love when we allow it. The difficult truth is that when someone is hiding in fear or suffering in pain or rejecting our love, we have to allow them to do that.

    We’re not here to fix each other or change each other. Sometimes the best choice is to let go and trust each of us to handle our own journey.

  • How to Change What You Feel and Believe About Yourself

    How to Change What You Feel and Believe About Yourself

    “Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.” ~Robert Gary Lee

    A year ago, I began to accept that I was depressed, and had been for a long time. It was scary. I broke up with my live-in boyfriend of almost three years, quit my job, and though I didn’t want to, I moved halfway across the country to move back in with my parents.

    I was a wreck; all of the feelings that I had been suppressing for years, some literally since childhood, came flooding back. My only defense in the past had been to ignore these feelings, though I did so quite poorly and ended up being an emotional basket case most of the time anyway.

    After months of talking to my therapist and anyone who would listen, I finally began to heal. I started to find strength in myself, in my own thoughts, and was able to stop denying the truth that has always been inside of me. Now, when I get upset, I am able to accept it as a feeling, not as a truth; and I no longer have to run from my feelings.

    This is a process that I wrote out, but came from a combination of help from good friends, said former boyfriend, and of course, my wonderful therapist.

    1. Identify your feelings.

    Where in your body do you feel it? What does it feel like? What thoughts come up?

    These thoughts are what your mind is defining as your “truth.” You can redefine your truth. You may be thinking, “I’m not good enough,” “I’m weak,” “I’m broken,” or something similar.

    These are not feelings; these do not describe how you feel. They describe what you think you are, your false “truth.”

    Change “I am” to “I feel” when these “truths” come up.

    When you hear, “I’m broken,” replace it with, “I feel broken.”

    My personal false “truth” was, and sometimes still is, “I am incapable.” When changed to “I feel incapable,” I really notice the difference in emphasis.

    I used to truly believe that I was incapable of a lot of things, usually relating to work or school. “I feel incapable” is a statement of the negativity that my mind was stuck in, a false belief, not a “truth” about myself.

    Now that you’ve recognized you aren’t this thing—you only feel this way—dig deeper. Ask yourself why you feel this way; what’s behind the feelings?

    2. Accept your feelings.

    Repeat them to yourself. Don’t judge them; just feel them.

    If you feel like crying, let yourself cry. If you have tension, sit with that tension; breathe it in and breathe it out.

    I felt incapable because I had performed poorly in jobs before, and I used this as evidence that I truly was incapable of doing better.

    This acceptance hurts, but it ultimately brings us peace by releasing the negativity that we are holding onto.

    3. Replace your old truths with new ones. Back them up with reasoning, and trust that this is the real truth.

    For example, you might change “I feel that I’m not good enough” to “I am good enough. I am having a hard time because… and I accept that. I am working on these issues to become even stronger.”

    By accepting that I felt incapable because of the past, I could now remember the good things that happened at work—the projects I was proud of, the people who I had helped, the difference I made.

    4. Repeat the new “truth” back to yourself.

    Notice what feelings come up and compare them to the feelings that came up from step two.

    Which feels better to you? Which sounds more true to you now?

    The intent of going through these steps is to examine these “truths.” In your gut, you know the real truth.

    You may feel a sense of relief after doing this once. You may not feel much different at all. But if you trust your intuition, the new “truth” will become the new voice in your head, after going through the steps more times.

    I knew on a deeper level that I was actually capable of doing a good job at work, a job I could be proud of. The negative “truth” hid what I really know I am capable of.

    5. Do something constructive with these good thoughts.

    Write. Make art. Make music. Dance. Exercise; do something physical.

    Do something that expresses how you feel now, that solidifies in your body as well as your mind what your “truth” really is, and how good you deserve to feel about yourself, no matter what unpleasant circumstances you may be going through.

    Our bodies contain memories that we don’t consciously know of. Doing something active with these new ideas and feelings will bring positive body associations.

    I find journaling and yoga to be very healing. I sit and give myself time to really think and feel instead of never questioning the false “truth” that I sometimes carry around with me. I write that out. And I reinforce the new truth when I am going through the movements in yoga poses. My body remembers that feeling.

    —

    Each time the old “truth” comes up, go through these steps. Your brain currently has a habit of jumping from a negative feeling to a false truth in your consciousness as a single thought. Sometimes these thoughts are also subconscious, as they were for me, because you’ve ignored them for so long as your mind tried to shield you from the pain of admitting negative feelings.

    “I am incapable” actually led me to feel so poorly about myself that I really did perform inconsistently at work. Once I started to dismantle it, I was able to start fresh and not let the subconscious “truth” fester and keep me from being productive.

    Even better than waiting for these thoughts to come up, practice this daily. Soon, you’ll change the habit of clinging to false truths so to the positive, real truth becomes your first thought.

    Instead of the old thoughts festering, these new thoughts are mindful, and they creative positive energy, which will continue to build.

    If you still can’t get yourself to really feel that this new truth is reality, just try to trust it. Trusting it is trusting yourself. And once the habit forms, it starts to feel like the truth.

  • Don’t Try to Become the Best, Be Your Best Right Now

    Don’t Try to Become the Best, Be Your Best Right Now

    Victory

    “Do the best you can, from where you are, with what you have, now.” ~African-American proverb

    When I first started on my spiritual path, I desperately wanted to live in a more connected and satisfying way. I had a secret longing to know who I truly was and to finally reach my creative potential—not only as a writer, but also as a person. My intention was to express mastery through spirituality.

    At the time, this made perfect sense. Spirituality, for me, was connecting to the creative part of myself—that invisible, powerful place where anything is possible.

    A place where dreams are forged and destinies are realized. A place of poetic genius and inspiration. A place where masters live and breathe.

    But back then, I didn’t understand that when we embark on this journey, we tend to use what we know—which is almost always ego-based. And the ego can’t get us to where we need to go.

    This is because ego has way too much baggage. It weighs us down with things like fear, doubt, self-criticism, and anger. And yet, so many of us try the ego-based route first, as I did.

    I egotistically believed that mastery was about pounding on my craft, practicing it with unrelenting determination and will. I made it more about me. It became an intellectual exercise.

    I thought it was something that could be forced, conquered even. My motivation was all about achieving the goal—period!

    It didn’t take me long to encounter the inevitable setbacks, shortcomings, and failures that come with this kind of thinking. And when I failed to express the master inside of me, I was extremely hard on myself.

    The whole thing made me feel inadequate. The more I tried to force the master out, the less I felt like one. To make matters worse, all my teachers were still going on about “expressing mastery” and how easy it was.

    It was about then that I stepped back and took a hard look at what mastery really meant to me—to my aspirations and to my life. I realized that this ego-based perspective had been creating limiting beliefs and habits that kept me stuck.

    I feared my uncertain future and began to doubt my abilities. I allowed regret for past mistakes to overwhelm me and to crush my sense of self-worth. I even envied others for the rapid strides they seemed to be enjoying.

    This ego-driven, high-octane way wasn’t the answer, at least, not for me.

    So I decided to look at mastery in a different way—a healthier way.

    Granted, I’m still not always successful, but I believe I have a better approach to it nowadays.

    I’ve come to believe that mastery shouldn’t be about “being the best” or “knowing everything” or “flawlessness”—quite the opposite, in fact. Mastery is about the process of becoming, not the act of having become.

    When mastery becomes ego-driven (as it did for me), we set ourselves up for failure. No only because the ego weighs us down, but because it always tries to win.

    But, when your purpose is to live your best life, there is no winning or losing. No goal, no endgame.

    There is only you being your best—at that moment, whatever that means to you.

    This was immensely liberating. Imagine living your life from where you happen to be right now. To never again beat yourself up for not attaining some imagined goal suggested by somebody else.

    I now understand that my spiritual development can’t be measured by my achievements, or lack thereof. The only yardstick is my own level of awareness and how I feel.

    My new spiritual perspective and outlook on mastery has transformed me. It means that I can better appreciate who and what I am right now—which is a beautiful, ongoing process of discovery and growth.

    Paradoxically, the less I measure, the more I end up growing, as a person and as a writer.

    My goals have become more internalized, less tangible. They are also smaller, but no less important. They are about staying mindful and aware, without applying any judgments or criticisms to what is happening.

    In this way, I’ve stopped trying to express mastery. Instead I work towards being a master of who I am in this instant—knowing that I am, right now, a perfect expression of me.

    If you are feeling blocked or stuck, consider the possibility that your ego and your desire to master your life could be the very thing that is preventing you from getting to where you wish to be.

    Instead of trying to force your dreams with an iron will and steadfast determination, try a gentler touch. Stay fully present and aware. Simply give this moment your very best.

    Don’t worry about what you think you should be doing and where you should be going. Just be in the process of being you—right here, right now.

    And ironically, by not seeking mastery, mastery will find you.

    Reaching man image via Shutterstock

  • Why People Reject Us and What We Can Do About It

    Why People Reject Us and What We Can Do About It

    Rejection

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

    There’s probably no worse feeling in life than the feeling of being rejected. Whether it’s from the opposite sex, a friend or family member, or co-workers, the feeling that our presence is not wanted or no longer welcomed can cause us to feel hurt and become defensive.

    I’ve learned a couple of ways of dealing with rejection when it arises in various situations, and for taking the sting out of it.

    The first thing to realize is that rejection isn’t personal. Not really, anyway. It only seems that way because that’s how we tend to look at it.

    I’ve found that when people reject us, there are times when there’s something we can learn from it, and there are other times when it’s completely on the other person.

    So, let’s take a look at these two experiences of rejection, and discuss ways for dealing with them…

    When Our Behavior Turns Others Off

    People sometimes reject us because of the behavior we exhibit in our interactions with them. When people feel uncomfortable, they’re instinctively going to want to prevent themselves from experiencing annoyance or irritation. And their obvious solution is to remove themselves from our presence.

    The result is that we end up feeling rejected by it.

    But that’s why rejection isn’t personal. In this case, they’re not rejecting us; they’re rejecting our behavior.

    And though it is true that we sometimes associate and attribute our behavior with our identities, it’s not really the case. After all, if you change some of your behavior, aren’t you still the same person? Just because you choose to act in a different way, that doesn’t mean you’re not yourself.

    When I was twenty, I had a big crush on a girl I worked with. We went out a few times and it seemed to start off well. But slowly, she started to pull away and avoid me.

    It stung. And for a while, I couldn’t figure out what went wrong. I thought about what a great guy I thought I was, and wondered why she couldn’t see that, and why she wasn’t coming to her senses.

    But I soon realized that my problem was this: I was focused on why she should like me, not why she didn’t.

    I later discovered that I had been acting in ways that made her uncomfortable, ways that turned her off and repelled her, all without realizing it at the time.

    I’d call her too often, I’d give her too much attention, always lingering around, I’d buy her gifts to try to buy her affections… the list went on and on.

    Once I discovered that these things turned her off, I set out to eliminate them from my interactions in the future. And my results in the dating department changed drastically when I did.

    There are lots of behaviors that make almost everyone feel uncomfortable, including dumping our complaints on others, acting needy and clingy, bragging about ourselves, being defensive and argumentative, being overly critical and judgmental of other people, and many more.

    Addressing these behaviors takes some introspection. We have to discover what’s motivating them in the first place. And what usually motivates them, ironically, is the desire to gain approval from others.

    When we recognize these behaviors and work on them, we’re less likely to make others feel uncomfortable. This doesn’t guarantee other people won’t reject us, but it does decrease the odds that they’ll want to avoid us.

    When We Fail To Meet Others’ Expectations

    People can also reject us because of their own personal prejudices, values, or beliefs.

    I’m talking about those situations where someone else has certain expectations for us that we don’t meet up to. This is the case of the son who wants to be a musician, but whose father wants him to be a lawyer. If the son pursues his dream, his dad is going to reject him.

    Or the introverted and reserved boyfriend who feels rejected because his girlfriend criticizes him for not being more outgoing, like her.

    Sometimes rejection is simply caused by an incompatibility of values, beliefs, or personality types between people.

    This is that scenario where rejection happens because people disagree with our life choices, or because they simply have different opinions, lifestyles, or personalities than us.

    In these cases, all you can really do is accept that someone else is rejecting you because of their expectations for you. Again, it isn’t really personal. It’s often due to someone else’s inability to accept you for who and where you are. And they are entitled to that choice.

    Accept that this is generally their issue, not yours. Or it could just be a compatibility issue neither of you is responsible for.

    Knowing How to Respond to Rejection

    It’s not always easy to recognize if there’s something to learn from rejection, or if the rejection is merely a consequence of someone else’s unmet expectations. But the distinction becomes much clearer when we develop self-awareness about our behaviors and how they affect others.

    Either way, understanding the causes of rejection can take the sting out of it, because it’s never about who we are; it’s about what we’re doing. And we can either work to change our choices, or recognize that someone else is unable to accept them, and that’s completely on them.

    Rejection image via Shutterstock

  • 6 Surprising Tips for Overcoming Exhaustion

    6 Surprising Tips for Overcoming Exhaustion

    Sleeping Man

    “We are so used to working that not working is the new hard work.” ~Mokokoma Mokhonoana

    You know that feeling just as something bad is happening that you can’t control, when your stomach does a backflip, lurches up into your throat, and then drops into your toes?

    I experienced it one day snapping back to full consciousness as my car glided off the left shoulder of the freeway and spun in a full 360-degree circle on the gravel.

    I’d logged a very busy week at work, been to a music group practice, done some freelance editing, and gone for a few runs in preparation for a marathon. Now I was headed to a weekend event with my spiritual community.

    There I was, zipping down the freeway in the fast lane on a crisp and sunny fall morning. I felt drowsy, so I flipped on the car radio to keep myself alert.

    In retrospect, I should have also sung along at the top of my lungs. Or, you know, pulled off the road to rest. But I didn’t want to be late for the start of the gathering.

    The last thing I remember thinking was “There aren’t any cars close by. I’ll just close my eyes for a second or two.”

    Superhero Syndrome

    Ever been so exhausted you can’t think straight?

    Do any of these sound familiar?

    • “There’s too much to do—I can’t afford to stop and rest.”
    • “I can’t ask for help—I’m the only one who will make sure this gets done right.”
    • “I have to finish this. [Person or group] is depending on me.”

    Thoughts like these have become frighteningly common. We think we need to do it all, so we push ourselves way past our limits. I call this “Superhero Syndrome.”

    And it’s not just unhealthy. It’s downright dangerous.

    Excessive fatigue is epidemic in our society. According to a 2011 National Sleep Foundation poll, close to half of Americans between thirteen and sixty-four say they rarely or never get a good night’s sleep during the work week.

    Exhaustion can lead to all sorts of problems, from impaired performance, poor immune system function, and increased risk of obesity to stroke, diabetes, and heart disease.

    Not to mention car accidents.

    The first step in avoiding exhaustion—as with most problems—is self-awareness. You need to check in with yourself regularly to see if you’re overdoing it.

    The second step is figuring out what to do about it if you are.

    The standard advice is true: If you’re overtired, stop what you’re doing and rest or sleep.

    Draw firm boundaries around your time and energy by learning to say no to people, things—and sometimes yourself.

    Practice good sleep hygiene and try to get a full night’s sleep every night.

    But there are times when, despite our best intentions, we don’t—or can’t—do these things. What then?

    6 Surprising Tips for Overcoming Exhaustion

    1. Ditch the traditional nightly sleep cycle.

    If a straight eight hours doesn’t do it for you, consider this: some researchers suspect we’re not wired for it anyway. They say that prehistoric humans slept for about four hours, woke up for a while, and went back to sleep again until dawn.

    Others have noted different sleep patterns across cultures, from the midday siesta to countries where multiple naps are the norm.

    Experiment and see if changing up your sleep periods makes a difference.

    2. Do the opposite of whatever you’ve been doing.

    If you’ve been pushing yourself physically, it’s no surprise that you should stop and rest or take a nap, or go to bed early.

    But if you’ve been pushing yourself mentally, go do something physical. Take a walk, do some stretching, or run an errand. Bodily movement will clear your head, get your blood flowing, and help bring you back into balance.

    3. Hit that snooze alarm without guilt.

    I’ve used a trick to psych myself out for years. I work backward from the time I want to wake up, factor in two snooze alarm periods, and set my clock for that earlier time.

    The result? I get a brief but lovely time in which to feel a little bit decadent. “I wish I didn’t have to get up now. Oh, wait—I don’t have to!”

    4. Pretend you’ve just woken up.

    Another mental trick—as you’re going to bed at night, tell yourself it’s morning.

    Imagine what it would feel like to go through an entire day, starting right now. Think about all that physical and mental effort. You can even do (just a few!) jumping jacks or deep stretches to give your muscles a brief sense of fatigue.

    How many times have you said to yourself, “I just wish I could go back to sleep for another eight hours”?

    Now go “back” to sleep for another eight hours.

    5. Ask for help.

    You’d think this tip wouldn’t qualify as “surprising,” yet sadly, for many of us, it does.

    When you suffer from Superhero Syndrome, you’re usually under the impression that everything on your to-do list has to be done by you.

    Granted, you may not be in the position to hire a personal staff to assist you. But that doesn’t mean you can’t ask for some help when you need it.

    As a fellow Superhero Syndrome sufferer, I know this is scary. But experience has shown me that when people value and care about you, they’re usually very happy to help. They won’t see you as weak or needy, but as someone who is strong enough to advocate for your own needs.

    Asking your spouse or partner to handle the kids for a while so you can take a break does not mean you don’t love your kids. It means you love them enough to want to give them your best, fully rested self.

    Requesting backup at work does not mean you’ll be seen as incompetent. It means you care about producing the best results possible, and that you’re secure enough to let others assist you with that.

    So go ahead and ask for support. You may very well be surprised by the result.

    6. Make a to-do list for tomorrow.

    Before bed, take five minutes to think about the next day and make some notes for yourself.

    For small tasks like calling the doctor, getting gas for the car, or picking up ingredients for dinner, writing them down or entering them into whatever device you use to track things reassures your mind, and you’ll be able to release them for the night.

    For longer-range projects, choose one small thing you can do to move them forward tomorrow.

    The idea here is that by making note of something in a place you know you’ll see it frees up your mind to relax into truly restful sleep.

    Don’t Try to Be a Superhero

    I was extremely lucky that day I fell asleep and drove off the road. A few passing drivers gave me very shocked looks as they whizzed by, but I didn’t crash into any of them. I recovered quickly enough to nudge my car back onto the road (and drive to the next exit, where I pulled over and sat there shaking for a while.)

    The most enduring result of that day has been that I now realize when I’m too tired to be safe or effective. On good days, I notice sooner and take steps to reverse the trend.

    If you’re suffering from Superhero Syndrome and trying to do too much, don’t push yourself to (or worse, past) the point of exhaustion. You may not be as lucky as I was.

    Also, just plain old “being happier and more rested” is nice, too.

    Sleeping man image via Shutterstock

  • 5 Tips to Create a Loving Relationship, With Fewer Disappointments

    5 Tips to Create a Loving Relationship, With Fewer Disappointments

    Happy Couple

    “Love does not obey our expectations; it obeys our intentions.” ~Lloyd Strom

    Have you ever felt less about a relationship when it didn’t exactly pan out like a fairy tale? I sure did.

    I had it stuck in my mind that a great relationship should be picture perfect.

    When reality would give me a sobering slap showing it was far from perfect, I would walk away from a relationship that refused to meet my standards.

    I thought that a relationship is like a flower in a pot, ever blooming by itself. No hard work whatsoever. But the “flower” also has a tremendous thirst for nourishment and requires time and dedication to ensure it grows and blossoms.

    Stubbornly, I believed that when I met my one and only, my life would change for the better. Just like in a romantic movie, I was expecting the credits to roll up the much anticipated “Happy Ending” sign.

    Real relationships have nothing in common with a fairy tale.

    I had to learn that in order to find genuine happiness (in any relationship) I needed to let go of that silly, romantic movie-like metaphor. When I let go of what a relationship should be like, I started enjoying relationships as they were by looking beyond the flaws and releasing false expectations.

    5 Tips to Create a Loving Relationship

    1. Find wholeness instead of expecting someone else to complete you.

    Give yourself and your partner the greatest gift by becoming whole so that you won’t look for a relationship to complete you, or lose yourself and dissolve into another person completely.

    It was challenging to break free from the notion that in order to be whole, I had to find my other half. I also struggled to find a connection with myself outside the walls of relationships. But I was convinced that it was crucial to be able to find comfort in my own company.

    We all want to be happy, and happiness comes from within. Solitude allows us to clear our mind and unwind. It gives us to chance to reflect on what we want to experience to create fulfillment in life.

    Put some time aside. Nurture yourself with the love and attention you deserve. The more you fill yourself with love, the more love you’ll be ready to give. Be kind to yourself. Find your peace and comfort in solitude.

    All great love stories start with loving ourselves first. When we nourish our internal light, then we are ready to share it with the rest of the world.

    2. Focus on yourself instead of trying to change someone else.

    I was determined to change my partner and teach him something that just didn’t appeal to him. I’ve only recently realized that it’s fruitless to try to change someone else, and better to focus on yourself, acting as an example of what’s possible.

    For instance, two-and-a-half years ago I started eating healthy and exercising daily. I became a vegetarian and was excited about the way I felt and the weight I dropped in a matter of a couple of months. Of course I wanted my significant other to feel what I felt. I wanted him to feel good.

    I was forcing him to attain my new healthy habits. It turned into an obsession to see dramatic changes in him in a heartbeat. The result? He became furious and resentful.

    When I quit nagging about what he should do, I gave him space to breathe and be himself. And eventually, when he was ready to change, my significant other turned his eating habits around. He followed my example because he felt compelled, not forced.

    3. Learn to see the extraordinary within the ordinary.

    We often do just about anything to avoid the ordinary, don’t we? For years I couldn’t see the magic in sharing the day-to-day life with the person I love.

    I was comically obsessed with avoiding ordinary, so I wished that each moment would take my breath away, or that my partner would do something that would. I wanted each moment to be epic and filled with glory.

    I had my expectations way up high and forgot how to appreciate all the “little” things—things that might seem ordinary, like going for a walk in the park hand-in-hand.

    I’ve learned how to see the beauty in each moment shared with my loved one knowing that ordinary is extraordinary when you see things through the heart.

    4. Let go of conditions and expectations.

    Have you ever placed conditions on your love? I did.

    When we expect people to give us love in a precise way we yearn for it, we put our contentment in someone else’s hands and suffocate our relationships with impossibly high standards.

    If you’re not happy with something, share your feelings, but consider that love won’t always look exactly as you expected it would. Letting go of heavy expectations gives our relationships room to breathe and allows us to appreciate everything that’s going right instead of focusing on what we think is wrong.

    5. Listen to understand.

    Arguments are awful, aren’t they? They leave us with that bitter aftertaste. Arguments have also made me think less of myself, and the relationship.

    I failed to realize back then that the more we communicate and listen, the fewer challenges we face.

    State your point patiently and listen to what your partner has to say without interrupting them. Construct the bridge of understanding through the chasm of the argument.

    We all want to be heard and understood.

    The biggest problem with communication occurs when we don’t listen to understand; we listen to reply or to fight back.

    I still struggle with the whole “not acting upon emotion” thing; however, I understand that emotions are temporary, but the situations created by them may resonate for much longer period of time.

    —

    When we allow our relationships to be imperfect and accept that we all have imperfections too, that’s when tiny yet noticeable changes occur. We all deserve nourishing relationships that are filled with love, respect, and warmth. Share your light and let yourself be loved in return.

    Happy couple image via Shutterstock