Tiny Buddha

Tag: present

  • People Who Judge You by Your Past

    People Who Judge You by Your Past

    People Who Judge You by Your Past

    Source: Project Happiness

  • How to Be Happier Without Making Any Big Life Changes

    How to Be Happier Without Making Any Big Life Changes

    “The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now.” ~Robert G. Ingersoll

    In 2014 I changed my whole life.

    I quit a horrible job, traveled to Costa Rica and Panama, moved across the country, moved in with my partner, and landed my dream job in an education charity.

    Why did I change so much? The answer is simple—happiness.

    I had spent three years planning and dreaming of a different future for myself. One where I could travel, have a job I found meaningful, and live with my boyfriend in our own flat. Finally, after one morning too many spent in tears, I built up the courage to quit my job.

    I spent the next few months riding on a wave of relief. Everything was going to be all right. I was going to be happy and in love with my life.

    The problem was, this didn’t happen.

    It soon became clear that I wasn’t experiencing the blissful future that I’d dreamed of. I ended up feeling even worse than I had felt before I changed anything. A sense of dread and helplessness crept over me as I realized that changing your life situation doesn’t automatically make you happier.

    There was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

    After a month or two of trying to pull myself out of a depression by making plans for a long off future, I started reading what I could about life and happiness. I went back to books I’d started but hadn’t finished and reread old favorites.

    As I read and reread these books, I started to notice a pattern. At the heart of all the arguments and instructions in those books were the same two ideas:

    1. Be aware of your thoughts so your mind can’t control you.

    Learning how to be aware of thoughts rather than letting your mind control you seems to be essential to experiencing lasting happiness. Meditating every day, even just for ten or fifteen minutes, makes it easier to be aware of your thoughts and to learn how to quiet your mind.

    For me, being aware of my thoughts has made me more intentional about how I think about things. I now try to look at my life positively and search for solutions to issues rather than worrying about problems that might not even happen.

    Being in the present moment also takes the power away from your mind. In the present moment there’s no past to regret and no future to worry about, so you are naturally happier. Though keeping your attention in the present is hard to sustain, it’s simple to try.

    Give it a go by focusing what you can see around you right now. What sounds can you hear? What can you smell? What can your body feel? Don’t answer these questions in words, just move your attention to your different senses and acknowledge what they notice.

    I’ve now made being aware of my thoughts a daily practice. Instead of reading the news on my phone, I dedicate my ninety-minute commute to meditation and being present.

    As I walk to the train station I listen to the birds singing and hear the wind rustling in the trees. On the train I meditate for fifteen minutes before reading a book for the rest of the journey.

    How could you incorporate meditation and being present into your daily routine?

    *Recommended Reading: The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle

    2. Fill your life with things you enjoy now.

    This step is more straightforward. There’s an easy process you can follow to complete it. First, you need to write a list of all the times you’ve felt truly, deeply happy. What were you doing? Who were you with? Are there any common themes?

    After you identify the common themes that brought you so much joy, fill as much of your day-to-day life with them as possible!

    Could you take a walk in nature on your lunch break? Or could you listen to your favorite type of music while cooking dinner? Perhaps you could swap TV time for working on a creative project like crafting, drawing, or writing?

    I realized that some of my happiest moments happened outdoors when I was surrounded by nature. So now I’m trying to spend most of my free time outside, inviting friends and family along too so I can spend time with them. I’ve noticed that I’m so much more relaxed and I really look forward to my weekend’s adventures!

    Now it’s your turn! What changes can you make to fill your life with joy?

    *Recommended Reading: Finding Your Own North Star, by Martha Beck

    Making these little changes doesn’t mean that you can’t make a big change in your life. They will just help you to be happier in the process and put less pressure on the end result.

    Enjoy the journey along the rainbow and it won’t matter so much how much gold is at the end.

  • 8 Ways to Reclaim the Joy We Knew as Babies

    8 Ways to Reclaim the Joy We Knew as Babies

    Happy Baby

    “The soul is healed by being with children.” ~Fyodor Dostoyevsky

    Last year, my husband and I became proud parents of a delicate little baby girl. And since then we have entered into a whole new world of unimaginable joy, love, and frustration.

    As we embark on this lifelong journey of being parents, I am starting to appreciate some of the simple joys that our daughter has brought into our life. Here are some of the little life lessons our tiny Buddha is teaching us on our journey as newly minted parents:

    1. Laugh.

    I have discovered that my new favorite thing is listening to my daughter giggle. The first time we heard it, we thought she was crying, but in fact she was laughing uncontrollably. That should give you some idea of how deeply she must have been feeling the joy.

    While these gurgling fits of laughter only come around every once in a while (for she can be quite a serious little baby), when they do arrive they give us such immense joy and we always end up laughing right along with her.

    It’s a simple reminder of the power of a good laugh! As adults, we’re often too caught up in our myriad of worries or troubles and the most laughing we do these days is in an “Lol.”

    Find the joy in your life, let it take over, and release that joy into the world through your smile or laugh.

    2. Awaken your sense of wonder.

    We discovered that being outdoors leaves her in awe. Her demeanor always turns to one of calm and quiet.

    She is mesmerized by the way the sunlight filters through the tangle of tree limbs and leaves on the giant oaks in our back yard or will stop mid play and look out the window at the pouring rain. She is already meditating and she doesn’t even know it!

    Everyday things that most of us overlook and take for granted are amazing to her because they are new and wonderful. It’s a gentle reminder of the soothing nature of nature. It is such a precious resource in this fast paced world.

    While we are all turning to apps that promise to make us happier or calmer, this little Buddha has already figured it out. All you have to do is put your phone down and take a walk outside.

    3. Listen more than you speak.

    Granted, baby talk is not exactly real speak. “Mama” and “baba” don’t turn into endless monologues about her diaper woes. But her mind is a sponge, and when you talk to her she is captivated. She hangs on to your every word and you have her full attention.

    If we all adopt the attitude that we have more to learn from others than we have to teach them, we would probably find that the relationships in our lives improve.

    4. Take risks and expect success.

    She discovered crawling at eight months old, and since then she has been crawling, clambering, reaching, stretching, and scaling things like there are no limits to what she can do.

    She has been on a mission to discover every nook and cranny in the house. No place is off limit. She fixes on a destination or object and she goes for it with gusto.

    As adults, we see things from a different perspective and are more attuned to the dangers that she could face. We also tend to take a more cautious approach to our own lives. But there is something to be said for the confident way babies approach life at this stage.

    Every once in a while, make a conscious decision to embrace the unknown, and trust that you have the capabilities within you to succeed.

    5. Live in the present.

    She has no concept of past or future at this stage. She feels joy fully, and feels pain fully. But just as quickly she is over the moment. If she hurts herself, she doesn’t dwell on the pain. A simple distraction will can get her back to her smiling self in a few seconds.

    She also doesn’t lose sleep worrying about whether she will be having pureed spinach or pureed squash for lunch tomorrow or how many more thigh rolls she has than the next baby. She is perfectly content with everything that is in the now.

    6. Love fiercely.

    The love you receive from a child is a love like no other. You are hooked, from the very first heartbeat to the first time you feel those tiny chubby fingers grab onto your world-worn hands.

    There is nothing like the comforting weight of their tiny head on your shoulder as they finally succumb to sleep, or the loving reach of their hands for any part of you just because they want to feel your touch. And you realize that this little person loves you with all their being.

    If I could demonstrate that same level of love to all those I care about in my life, I would have fantastic relationships. At a minimum, I can practice loving my husband in the same way and we would make sure that our children grow up to see a happy and loving marriage.

    7. Recognize that you don’t need “things” to be happy.

    Find joy in the simple things. It is true what people say. Don’t bother buying expensive toys—just give your baby the box the toy came in.

    She can dedicate a whole stretch of time to just staring at a label on an item of clothing or drumming on an empty Amazon box. Forget about what toy that Amazon box contained!

    In a world where we show love and appreciation in the form of gifts, gift cards, checks, and “stuff,” we forget that the most meaningful gifts are usually those of time. To witness the sheer delight on your child’s face when you come back from any small absence is proof that they value nothing more than the simple pleasure of being in your company.

    8. Move your body.

    My daughter reminds me that we are born with amazing bodies that are capable of doing so much.

    As someone who loves yoga and strives to be better at it, I am so envious of how limber and supple her body is at this age. She does a perfect downward dog and happy baby pose (with giggles to boot) and I am pretty sure if she were sleeping and I had to manipulate her body into every single yoga pose out there, she would be able to do it with ease.

    Over time we let our bodies deteriorate. A common excuse I hear from my reluctant yogi of a husband is that he is just not flexible enough to do yoga. Our daughter is proof that anyone can do it. We just have to maintain and keep practicing and we too could be yogi buddhas! And if yoga isn’t your thing, maybe it’s running or playing tennis. The point is to get moving!

    —

    The skeptic in you will say, of course a baby can do all these things. They don’t know everything yet. They are still learning. They haven’t been hurt and worn down by real life.

    And yes that is true. But then again, we as adults also don’t know everything yet either and we are also still learning.

    Children are a great reminder to us as adults to keep rediscovering and growing. If we live our lives as if the world is new and everything in it is an opportunity to discover and grow, we might find ourselves on the path to a more joyous life.

    Happy baby image via Shutterstock

  • 19 Simple Daily Habits for a Happier Life

    19 Simple Daily Habits for a Happier Life

    “Hug harder. Laugh louder. Smile bigger. Love longer.” ~Unknown

    Did you ever have it all mixed up?

    Happiness, I mean. I once thought that a university degree and good grades would make me happy. I thought that traveling the world would leave me feeling fulfilled. I thought that moving abroad and getting that top-notch job would make me satisfied and content.

    They all did, but only for a while. They always came with an expiration date.

    Finally, I had to stop and ask myself, “If I’m not able to be truly happy now, will I ever be?” If I couldn’t appreciate everything I already had in my life, would more really be the answer?

    No.

    Then I thought, “If happiness is what I want, why not take a shortcut and go there directly?”

    So, I did. I stopped putting it on hold. I stopped allowing external circumstances to dictate how I felt. And I stopped relying on illusionary destinations of promised happiness and bliss.

    What I realized is that happiness doesn’t happen by chance–it happens by choice. It’s a skill that anyone can develop with the right habits.

    19 Happiness Habits That Could Change Your Life

    1. Appreciate more.

    This morning I woke up feeling appreciative of my bed, my incredible friends, and my mom for being the rock in my life. Appreciation feeds happiness. It highlights and gives value to what matters in our life. And the more you appreciate, the more you’ll find things to be appreciative of.

    When waking up and going to sleep, remind yourself of three things you currently appreciate in your life.

    2. Energize yourself every morning.

    Mornings set the tone for the rest of the day. A good morning routine leaves you feeling centered, energized, and ready to take on the world.

    Meditate, do yoga, write a list of everything you love, watch inspirational YouTube videos, or listen to your favorite song before leaving the house. Simply, set yourself up for a great day!

    3. Practice acceptance.

    Things don’t always go as planned. I used to get frustrated when plans changed or when the bus arrived late. But resisting never changed anything; instead, it just sent me into a downward spiral. When I started accepting whatever happened, I relieved myself from unnecessary suffering.

    Start practicing acceptance. Adjust to the new situation, without fueling it with negative emotions.

    4. Live in the present.

    This is where it all happens, the present moment. It’s the only place where you can experience happiness (or anything else for that matter). It’s the only place worth being. It might sound obvious, but realizing this was life changing for me. In the present I think better, feel better, and act better.

    Whenever you enter a new place, use your five senses—sound, sight, touch, smell and taste—to find more nowness.

    5. Listen attentively.

    Listen with focus and compassion. Give people the gift of your full attention. This is a powerful source of happiness, as it creates strong bonds between people and places you in the now.

    Whether it’s your colleague, partner, or a complete stranger on the street, decide to be more present in all your conversations.

    6. Save money to invest in memories.

    Material things might satisfy us short term, but experiences are what makes us happy long term. For the past year I’ve barely bought anything new. Instead, I’ve used that money to travel. Just thinking about the beach parties in the Caribbean, those sunny days in Central Park, and that festival in Ibiza puts a ridiculously big smile on my face.

    Buy only things you need or fall head-over-heels in love with. Then, use that extra money for experiences that will make you go “Aaah,” “Ohhh,” and “Wow” when you think back of them.

    7. Make new friends.

    Many of us stop making friends after the age of twenty. Make new friends and you’ll grow as a person, be exposed to new experiences, and have a rich social life.

    Have a friendly conversation with a stranger and maybe you make a new friend. Maybe it’s for five minutes, or maybe it’s for a lifetime.

    8. Dream big.

    Dreams are good; they propel us forward. They enliven our heart, awaken our mind, and give us reasons for living. Allow yourself to dream big and trust that it can become a reality for you.

    Dedicate at least five minutes every day to be swept into your dream life. Make it as real as possible: visualize and create the feelings of being, doing and having all that you want.

    9. Take steps toward your dream.

    Now, does your present look like the future you’re dreaming of? If not, put more time and energy on what you want to see grow.

    Take small steps every day to elevate you toward what you want. Tiny steps all add up.

    10. Develop a mindset of abundance, not scarcity.

    How we experience the world depends solely on our perception of it. When you live in lack, you protect and hoard. When you give away, you signal that you have more than enough for yourself.

    Don’t feel like you get enough love? Give love to someone else. Don’t feel like you make enough money? Give money to someone else in need.

    11. Take time to re-charge.

    Even though we live in a society that fosters us to do more, be more, give more, and have more, we need time to re-charge. We need to fuel ourselves with energy. Take short breaks, and why not a power nap?

    What doesn’t get planned usually doesn’t get done, so make sure to plan for downtime.

    12. Make time to play.

    Living isn’t a duty. You didn’t come here to fix something that’s broken or to complete a to-do list. You came for the fun of it, for the exhilaration and magic of being alive.

    Set aside at least fifteen minutes every day for fun-time and make that time non-negotiable.

    13. Be around happy people.

    Attitudes are contagious. If someone’s smiling at you, you’ll probably smile. If someone is rude, then you’ll probably be rude back. Only hang out with people whose attitude you want to catch.

    If happy people aren’t near, go online and watch videos with awesome-attitude people such as Marie Forleo, Tony Robbins and Regena Thomashauer (Mama Gena).

    14. Move slowly.

    Lao Tzu said, “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” Faster doesn’t mean better. Busier doesn’t mean exceeding. Don’t rush through life.

    Slow down. Put your heart and energy into what you’re doing and focus on that (and only that).

    15. Actively soothe yourself.

    What matters isn’t what happens in our lives, but how we choose to deal with it. To make better decisions, we need to become our own lifeguard and sooth ourselves from negative thoughts.

    When I feel bad I usually go running, meditate, or write a list of everything I love about my life. Practice different techniques until you find some that work for you.

    16. Let go.

    Letting go isn’t always easy, but it’s the only way new and better things can come along. When we let go of something, we come to a peace of mind. The struggle is over and new ideas and perspectives can begin to open up.

    Practice letting go of what doesn’t serve you, such as complaining, comparing yourself to others, negativity, and mistakes from the past or worries about the future.

    17. Forgive often.

    Maybe someone was late, maybe someone was rude, or maybe someone forgot to call you back. Forgiveness doesn’t excuse behavior; it frees you from it. It releases resentment and other negative emotions tied to a person or a situation.

    Make a habit of forgiving people, even for the smallest of things.

    18. Attend to the real world.

    Smartphones, tablets, and laptops are constantly screaming for our attention to the world of social media. The digital world is supposed to be a complement to our real life, not the other way around.

    So, take time to be present where you physically are (the Facebook status update can wait).

    19. Care for yourself.

    Our body, mind, and soul are connected. Make a change in one of them and you change the state of all three. Isn’t that nice to know?

    Do something every day to improve your overall state of well-being, such as preparing a good meal, exercising, or watching a good movie. And know that caring for yourself is caring for the world.

    Claim Your Happiness Once And For All

    Not being in charge of your happiness is frustrating. Relying on external events and circumstances to be in a certain way in order to feel good is a recipe for misery. Because, when life doesn’t go as planned or things fall apart, so does our happiness.

    Happiness isn’t about having all the pieces in place. It isn’t about having a problem-free life or reaching a certain goal or objective. Instead, it’s about being able to enjoy where you are, no matter what.

    Don’t leave your happiness to chance. Choose to claim it. Live the life you deserve to live.

  • The Simplest Way to Create More Calm in Your Life

    The Simplest Way to Create More Calm in Your Life

    Man Relaxing on Beach

    “I vow to let go of all worries and anxiety in order to be light and free.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    This particular week, I flunked. I’d be lucky if you gave me a D grade in assessing my calmness.

    Generally, nobody can question my commitment to leading a life of less stress. I try hard. I try very hard.

    You might even be impressed with my healthy diet, my abundance of sleep, and my regular exercise. You couldn’t fault the careful thought and planning that go into my days and weeks. Hell, I can even claim meditation, mindfulness, and self-awareness as long-time, well-practiced skills.

    But some weeks you take your eye off the ball, don’t you.

    And I can’t blame any common stressors that predictably make life tougher: no illness or injury, no family or relationship conflict, no extra pressure at work or excessive financial strain.

    That particular week I failed because I didn’t stop. I didn’t let go. Too much rushing, too much on my mind, too much scheduled.

    And of course I was on edge, with that irksome and uneasy agitation that plagues you when stress gets the better of you.

    It feels unshakeable, lurks about robbing you of simple pleasures, sapping any joy from your day. Left unchecked it will escalate. We all know that stress may pass with little consequence, but let it go and go, and it mutates, into depression, anxiety, or destructive behaviors, ruining work, relationships or your health.

    Despite working hard over the years to build my repertoire of tricks and techniques to restore calm, on this occasion it was more luck than effort that turned things around for me.

    The surprising antidote arrived on the Saturday afternoon.

    Unplanned, Unexpected Calm (and How It Happens)

    “Tilt your head forward so that you’re looking down,” Claire instructed, and boy, did it feel weird. “Yes, it will feel strange, as though you’re swimming downward,” she went on.

    Ugh. What was I doing here? And why?

    Well, I had signed up my husband and I for a swimming instruction session—determined to choose a shared experience that he’d enjoy for his birthday rather than buying more stuff.

    But here I was near the end of a hectic week, with a very full head, stacks of unattended emails, and loads of washing to do. The swimming thing had seemed like a good idea at the time and I knew he’d love it, but maybe I could have skipped it, got some jobs done, and joined him afterward for dinner.

    Then it happened.

    Claire again: “Swim a short distance that you can manage without a breath, go as slow as you can, and try to minimize any splash. How does it feel, what do you notice?”

    I noticed I was beginning to feel better!

    She had my attention now, and with each instruction, she dragged me out of my head (with all of its worries and preoccupations) and into my body, full of new muscle, body-position and watery sensations.

    I let go and resigned myself to the present moment. And why not? The emails and washing were out of reach and my work worries would still be there when I got back to my desk. Anyway, in order to follow Claire’s instructions, I had to tune in!

    I had to listen and interpret her words with my body and my movements.

    Claire is a Total Immersion swimming coach, and this method of swimming is all about slowing down at first to improve the accuracy of your stroke: to get balance and movement right, in order that you maximize propulsion and minimize drag. It’s very mindful. It requires that you commit to the present moment and focus inward.

    Calm was upon me, hooray.

    Take a romantic view, and envisage the sensory experience of the cool and quiet of the water, the slow and rhythmic movements of the body. Or the simple science of it: the activity required me to engage my pre-frontal cortex, thus redressing the dominance of the stress-fuelled, and stress-fuelling, limbic system.

    Your Way is the Best Way

    The swim session reminded me of a lesson I’ve learned before, my pursuit of mindfulness and meditation. Many years ago after the traumatic loss of a loved one, I survived on yoga and walks on the beach.

    Even earlier in life, during anxious exam periods, I had a taste of it when I got some physical and mental relief from dancing around my room and singing along to Thelma Houston and The Pressure Cookers’ “I Got the Music in Me.”

    Some of my friends are also devotees of yoga and meditation, but many of them aren’t. They have their own way of getting out of their heads and into their bodies. Out of the angry memory trap of yesterday’s argument with the boss, or out of the anxiety-ridden imaginings of tomorrow’s tense family gathering.

    They find their way into the present moment and into their bodies via all sorts of sometimes forgotten, yet always relished activities, like surfing, guitar-playing, gardening, painting, baking.

    They rediscover and commit to these cherished activities, and learn as I did again in my swimming lesson, that they rebuild your depleted stores of calm and stop the ravages of stress.

    What is your calm-restoring activity? When was the last time you did it? Or is it time to take up something new?

    (It ought to go without saying that escapist distractions, like the game you play on your phone on the way home, don’t cut—they do nothing to bring you into the present, or into your body!)

    I’m certain you want more calm in your life, and I could give you a long, long list of ways to achieve it. But the simplest and best way to begin is to find your own way and commit to it. But beware.

    The trick to getting started on the path to more calm.

    Finding your way, your chosen activity, is not hard. Making it happen is harder. You must stop. You must stop and let go. Certainly, when I get it wrong, that’s where I go wrong—I don’t stop.

    You won’t find the time for it; you must make the time for it. Thank goodness I booked that swim session weeks before.

    You must stop and give yourself permission to let go of your troubles, even just for a short while.

    It won’t solve your problems, but it will, in the very least, ground you and let you feel better. And it will likely leave you better equipped to deal with your challenges.

    By all means develop your meditation skills and practice. But the simplest way to get more calm right away is to choose your calm-restoring activity, and make a time for it. That’s the trick.

    Calm will happen.

    When you struggle to get out of your head and let go of all that’s in there nagging at you, your activity is the way to go. And this easy indirect way of letting go is, happily, habit forming.

    You will get better and better at stopping. Better and better at returning to the present moment. Better and better at restoring calm.

    Thich Nhat Hanh said: I vow to let go of all worries and anxiety in order to be light and free.

    Hear, hear. I am renewing my vow to let go of all worries and anxiety in order to be light and free. I will do my best. And to that end, and especially when I struggle, I will make time to swim, or do yoga, or whatever it may be that will bring more calm.

    How about you?

    Man relaxing on beach image via Shutterstock

  • The Key to Freedom: Minding Your Own Business

    The Key to Freedom: Minding Your Own Business

    Freedom

    “The day you stop racing is the day you win the race.” ~Bob Marley

    Let me take you back to the beginning of my day, how I used to do it.

    Flicking through my Facebook newsfeed, clicking on profiles, scrolling through comments, monitoring social interactions, checking how many likes my last post or profile picture got. Then I’m going to my therapist, to talk about how worthless my own life is, how inadequate I feel.

    I’m not saving the world, pursuing my passion, making friends, or traveling. Neither am I getting married or engaged nor having children—and I do not have a clue what the heck I even think about all of these prospects, whether I even want them.

    I can barely look at myself in the mirror. I hate my life and my own weakness for not taking control of this pathetic situation.

    The smiling faces on my social media page grin down at me like clown masks in some perturbed haunted house in a nightmare. I ask myself, why am I taking their happiness so personally?

    We can’t seem to escape comparison. We seem to be enmeshed in it, entangled in it, trapped and suffocated by it. We can’t seem to understand who we are or where we are in life without looking around us to compare our position.

    Somewhere inside us we believe that if we can gain all the information that we can through comparing ourselves to those ‘better than us,’ maybe we will find the key to that elusive happiness, which comes only from the confidence that we are good enough.

    If we keep on social media stalking those who are living the lives of our dreams, maybe we will pick up on that thing that makes them so different from us—so much ‘better.’

    I believe we aren’t after their lives so much as what we perceive is their ease. As much as the freedom they ooze, or the contentment they display, we want their happiness. We forget that most people only display the highlight reels of their lives on the Internet.

    In fact, I used to tell myself that we create ourselves, and I tried to make myself a collage of all the people that I admired—Beyoncé included.

    I told myself, that I didn’t have any preferences. I treated myself as a blank canvas, and by that I mean I slowly rubbed out anything that came from within, without reason or logic, and replaced it with everything I was attracted to externally, like a magpie.

    The noise I was letting in from outside was torturing. And deafening.

    When the toxic concoction of low self-esteem, ambition, insecurity, and unfavorable self-comparison escalates, you may get depressed, as I did.

    My former way of life (in combination with a complex range of other factors) made me ill. While everyone is different, I realized, for me, the key to recovering my mental health was to supplement professional help and therapy with a radical simplifying of my life.

    Today, I wake up in the morning and open my eyes, taking a good look around at where I am, noticing a kitten asleep at my feet. I talk with my sister who I share a room with; we both get dressed for work, joking and teasing the other on our rushed fashion choices.

    I look out of my open attic window and smell the fresh crisp air, watching the stillness of the tree-lined street against a backdrop of rolling green hills, before the storm of traffic and rush hour.

    I get changed and choose my clothes. I pick out a book for my short commute to a digital marketing agency where I work as copywriter. I walk to work lightly, observing my surroundings and feeling life flow through me, a dull vibration at every step.

    I sit on a seat on the public bus as children get on with their parents, gossiping and teasing amongst each other. My mind is still, and I feel strangely alone—but alone in my own company. I am with myself.

    I am whole. How curious. What changed? Very little, externally. I unplugged from the noise around me and started to mind my own business.

    It happened one day, quietly, and I found it made my thoughts less erratic, my mind less split and divided. I didn’t force myself to come off social media; I knew I was way too stubborn and addicted to do that. So I turned my attention, gently, not in distraction, to the present moment instead.

    I peeked out of the quicksand that is an obsession with comparison and self-deprecation, and asked myself out of curiosity, what’s going on in my own life?

    I looked around and thought: this is it. Your dreams haven’t come true yet, and your past is filled with soreness. But there is no escape from that which you consider to be a hellhole, this is your life.

    And you are living it.

    Then a curious thing happened. I allowed any pain to pass through me like water in my hands. I processed the beauty in the same way, and I felt a part of life. Like life itself, in fact.

    I realized that I wasn’t in a hellhole at all. Relentless clinging to my thoughts, obsessions, and desperate escapes from life—resistance—had made it so. And all I had to do to be free was let go.

    Don’t worry, minding your own business doesn’t mean ignoring everyone else’s existence. But it does mean you get to control how you give and what you give, so that it is conscious, not masochistic martyrdom.

    Rather than thinking, I should travel abroad and save all those poor unfortunate souls less privileged than I (which is escapist, and also patronizing, and also doesn’t tackle the issue at the root), I began to help my mother, my siblings, my friends and began to write and share work on poverty and mental illness, as these were my most immediate experiences.

    Everyone has a different path, of course, and this is only one route, which brought me peace.

    I decided to pay attention to my existence, seeing as it was the only thing I had, after all.

    And, I started to really see the things around me, like the dust on the corners of my floorboards, and the hundreds of books I’d bought and piled up in desperation for some kind of knowledge that might bring me certainty or security, thinking I should maybe arrange them in alphabetical order.

    I would barely acknowledge these tiny details of living when I was caught up in the whirlwind of my mind—and now they grounded me in a stillness that calmed me.

    I was able to let myself live and feel worthy of the miracle of existence, with all its highs and lows. Above all, I felt a gorgeous freedom, liberating, vast and expansive, allowing me to have fun with curiosity, gratitude, and peace.

    I told myself I would enjoy the days I had, as I passed through this world, just like everyone else was also passing through. By freeing myself every day, and indeed every moment, from the limits of comparison, competition, chasing, and clinging, I began to mind my own business.

    We can all experience this freedom. We just have to choose to see life through our own eyes, by being present in the only moment that matters: this one.

    Free, happy woman image via Shutterstock

  • How to Find Joy in Every Day (Even the Hard Ones)

    How to Find Joy in Every Day (Even the Hard Ones)

    Jumping for Joy

    “Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” ~Unknown

    It’s the question we’re all trying to answer: What is happiness and how do we get it? We fill our lives with the busyness of searching for happiness in many things, yet it’s possible that the very pursuit is taking us further away from the goal.

    I spent many years following society’s recipe for happiness.

    I was settled with my partner, climbing the career ladder, dining out, buying clothes, and planning nice holidays, but I was so busy chasing happiness, I missed out on moments of joy.

    Everyone is so busy these days. It gives us our sense of self-worth; if we’re busy, we’re successful, we’re accomplishing things, we’re important, and we’re needed.

    As a result we can often be too busy to notice if we are happy, and potential moments of joy pass us by.

    We think happiness arrives at a point in the future when our lives become perfect, with a backdrop of fireworks and fanfare, without any disasters or annoyances. But happiness generally doesn’t come in the form of winning the lottery or marrying from Brad Pitt. It’s often more subtle and smaller.

    For example: a sunny day at the beach, your favorite slippers, lying in the arms of the one you love on a lazy Sunday morning—it’s all happiness. We just need to learn to recognize it, appreciate it, and cultivate it.

    Brené Brown puts it well in her book The Gifts of Imperfection: “Joy is not a constant. It comes to us in moments—often ordinary moments. Sometimes we miss out on the bursts of joy because we’re too busy chasing down extraordinary moments.”

    Happiness is not about a final destination of pure perfection, but more about a journey through life, with moments of perfection sprinkled throughout, if we just stop to notice them.

    So how do we find those moments within our own lives and ensure we can get more of them to create a life full of happiness?

    There are two main ingredients for experiencing joy every day. The first is living in the present.

    How can we be joyful if we’re too busy worrying about the future or going over the past? And how can we be joyful if we’re too busy?

    Take time to smell the roses and be in the now; that’s where the joy is.

    People wait all week for Friday, all year for summer, and all their lives for happiness, but by the same token if we are always rushing to get to the next place, we can’t take time to enjoy where we are.

    The second ingredient for happiness is gratitude. If we appreciate all that we’re fortunate to have, rather than spending our time and energy going after what we don’t have, we’ll experience more joy.

    In our consumer-driven society, we’ve put too much emphasis on having many things—bigger houses, better cars, the latest in fashion.

    It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that if you have something you want, you’ll be happier with more. And we struggle in the modern world with debt, obesity, and addiction as a result of this mantra.

    We are also prone to comparing ourselves with others and wanting what they have (their house, salary, partner, looks). These are surefire ways to extinguish our gratitude and rob us of our happiness.

    There’s always joy to be found, even in the mundane moments of the day, and we can tap into this by being more present.

    Next time you’re sitting in a traffic jam, rather than becoming resentful of the delay or whisked away in a daydream, why not take a moment to see what you can appreciate?

    Maybe it’s the nature outside, the sound of the birds, the sun shining, or just the fact you have a car to drive in and somewhere to be going.

    I hate winter. I even travel to the other side of the world each year to avoid it. But even on the coldest, wettest, darkest days, I can find joy.

    Maybe it’s the feel of my cozy, warm bed sheets, or being curled up by the fire with the cat and a good book, or the clean crisp look of the landscape after the first snowfall.

    I try to find something to be grateful for every day, even if this is just breathing clean air, being alive, being healthy, or having an abundance of food.

    There are so many people worse off than we are, but we often overlook the small things that others would be so grateful for.

    I’ve also uncovered joy from “happy lists”—lists of all the small things you like to do that make you happy. It’s important to find time to do these things often. It may be a walk on the beach, listening to your favorite music, having a hot bath, or sitting in the garden with a cup of tea.

    As Robert Brault said, “Enjoy the little things for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”

    Rather than waiting for happiness to arrive, I’ve changed my perspective to realize that it had been there all along; I just hadn’t noticed. If we look hard enough, we can find moments of joy in every day. Or, if the day is a particularly bad one, reach for your happy list and create your own joy.

    Jumping for joy image via Shutterstock

  • Fear Can Only Hurt Us If We Let It

    Fear Can Only Hurt Us If We Let It

    Scared Boy

    “Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    I lay in bed staring into the darkness feeling physically ill with an acute sense of anxiety the like of which I hadn’t experienced in quite some time.

    It felt like I had a soccer ball sized, black, dense object consuming the entire center of my stomach, causing nausea to ripple up into my throat uninvited.

    I knew it wasn’t that hot, with the air conditioning on full, yet my legs were sweating, as was the back of my head. I could feel the damp pillow under me and the bed sheets sticking to me whenever I moved.

    I cursed my own stupidity and replayed the previous week’s events over and over again in my mind as though under some illusion that the more I did this the easier things would become. As a coping strategy it wasn’t one of my proudest moments.

    You may think I’m describing some event from my dim and distant past. When the high stress of working in big-ticket sales would cause me endless sleepless nights as I fretted over deals missed and even deals made that may go wrong.

    But this was last month.

    Wind back in time to April with tax day looming. After I forgot to send some bank statements to my accountant she had to file for an extension to help avoid a fine from the IRS.

    I had put aside some money based upon what my tax bill was last year with a little bit extra. I called my accountant a few weeks later and asked her if she could estimate the amount I would owe.

    In fairness to her she was reluctant to do so, but the figure she gave me after much prompting had me punching the air in delight, imaginary high-fiving my dogs, and grinning like a demented Cheshire Cat. It was way lower than I anticipated.

    Shortly after, we got the confirmation that our best friends were coming over to stay for two weeks later on in the year. It was going to be the first time they’d visited in almost five years and to celebrate I suggested we go on a five-day Caribbean cruise.

    They agreed and shortly after everything was booked and I was chilled and thrilled. Then it all went wrong. Horribly wrong.

    No more than forty-eight hours later I got an e-mail from my accountant saying the final tax bill wasn’t what she had advised, but eight times higher.

    How could that be? I called her and she apologized profusely, but it was what it was and there was nothing more she could do.

    As I lay in bed that night I was cursing myself for rushing to book the cruise and for not making higher regular payments to the IRS as I had been advised.

    I have said many times, “I have no sympathy with people complaining about their tax bill, as they can’t charge you for what you haven’t earned.” In the early hours of the morning this was the biggest stick I had to beat myself with, and trust me, it was a very big stick.

    Stress, fear, and anxiety are all much the same thing. They all stem from a feeling that we’re not in control of life’s events. This stimulates the fight, flight, or freeze reaction triggered by the sympathetic nervous system, courtesy of the Limbic System in the brain.

    There was no way I could fight the IRS and I’m not sure where I would fly to, so I lay in bed frozen with anxiety.

    After several hours lying there listening to my own self-recrimination, I remembered to tell myself that it was okay to feel anxious under such circumstances. That it was a perfectly natural response to a negative event, and it was just a feeling.

    And fear is only a feeling, albeit a powerful one. There is no thing called “fear.” You cannot touch it, smell it, see it, or taste it. As with any emotion, you can only feel it.

    Also, we cannot experience fear if we are truly and congruently living in the present moment. Fear is always the mind projecting an inability to cope with a future event or situation.

    It’s not real per se. Fear itself cannot hurt you. It’s how you respond to the perceived threat that hurts you.

    Fear has a valuable evolutionary purpose in the survival of the human species because (for the most part) it stops us doing things that can threaten our health, safety, and well-being.

    However, the worst strategy in dealing with fear is to fight it by resisting. Or to feed it by seeking out the worst possible scenarios to relatively benign situations.

    I was doing both. I was feeding it by dragging myself through an imaginary court of stupidity in my own mind. At the same time I was also resisting it by telling myself I was being stupid to worry about such a thing.

    Finally common sense kicked in and I decided to observe it, to be curious about it and to drop the futile resistance that was only giving it more strength.

    I thanked it for its concern and reminded it that between the two of us we had dealt with every single-issue life has thrown at us for over half a century, and that we would deal with this also.

    I could feel the black ball start to slowly melt and the nausea subside.

    You too have dealt with everything life has thrown at you to date otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this post.

    There is nothing in your life you haven’t coped with and there is nothing you won’t cope with. Sure, there will be times when it doesn’t feel like that, when the fear demon is whispering in your ear that things won’t be okay and you start to let it take control.

    But, he is mistaken and the only power he has is the power you give him. Just hug him (or her) and say with sincerity, “Thank you for looking out for me. I know you have the best intentions, but everything will be okay. I promise.”

    Scared boy image via Shutterstock

  • Be Fully Present with Your Loved Ones While You Have the Chance

    Be Fully Present with Your Loved Ones While You Have the Chance

    Friends Holding Hands

    “Before someone’s tomorrow has been taken away, cherish those you love, appreciate them today.” ~Michelle C. Ustaszeski

    One day after being on a spiritual path for many years, I stood in my art studio, happy to be creating a new painting. Content in my life, I was married to a great guy and raising two young boys that brought me so much joy.

    My life was perfect. Well, not exactly, but I definitely had moments of thinking it was, and this happened to be one of those moments.

    I had come a long way. Gone were the constant “what if’s” and the fear that I was going to get that phone call that someone got hurt, or worse. I could now put things into a larger framework. I was no longer stuck in my own jail with my fear and self-limiting thoughts. I had risen above all of that.

    Dusk no longer brought me down, even Sunday nights were fine. I used to get melancholy every Sunday evening. I had figured out that I was the problem. I learned to allow more good into my life, and had many revelations that changed my energy into a more positive one. I reinvented myself.

    A few years prior, my dad had a heart attack, and he vowed to take better care of himself so he would be here for many more years with his family. The doctor gave him twelve years with his new valves, and we like to think all our prayers gave him five more.

    Those five extra years were truly a gift, as he and my mom moved to Henderson and spent time with my brother and sisters who lived nearby with their families. My twin sister and I would drive from Los Angeles at least once a month with our families, and he enjoyed his grandchildren and loved that we all saw each other as often as we did.

    He especially loved Christmas. Every Christmas Eve we would make our traditional fish and pasta dinner. I always looked forward to spending the day together shopping for the food and then preparing it for that very special evening.

    Hands down the most important day of the year was Christmas Eve, and when the whole family came together, it was magical.

    My Dad had a pretty tough exterior. His nickname was Muggy, and boy did he live up to it. He was a handsome man with Italian dark skin and beautiful green eyes, a flash of white teeth, when he threw you that half smile. He was a pretty tough guy with a quick to anger demeanor.

    I was one of four girls that were all of dating age, and he made any boys who would come to pick us up really uneasy. I always felt uncomfortable introducing them, as there would be some sort of Godfather music playing in my mind through the awkward moments till I could flee the house to freedom and breathe again.

    A friend of mine referred to him as Al Capone and I had to give him that, as I would watch him drive down the street, his fedora tilted the way he always wore it, a cigarette dangling off his lower lip.

    I, however, was not intimidated by him, because I knew the real man, the interior that was kind and gentle and as soft as a teddy bear.

    As I became a young adult, and went out on my own, our relationship stayed strong.

    My father was one of my best friends. He was on speed-dial, and my go-to person when I needed someone to talk to. He was there for me financially when things weren’t that great. He was my rock and my safety net and I would share everything with him, the good news and the bad.

    He would yell for my mom to pick up the other line if it was important (and then get annoyed that he couldn’t hear me, because she talked over him). He would ask me are you gonna make me laugh, or are you gonna make me cry? I guess I was always calling to either complain or share a funny story.

    My father called me every morning, and no matter what I was doing I picked up and spoke to him. I cherished our morning talks and worried about one day losing him.

    A horrible divorce from my first husband led me to a new life path that would take me on a journey that, well, I’m still on.

    I read The Language of Letting Go, by Melody Beattie, then I read every spiritual book I could get my hands on. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, and The Power of Now blew me away, as it was all I needed to finally escape my dark fears about death and the worry about my dad.

    When I married again, my dad was there to support me along with my beautiful mom, and they were there for the birth of both of my sons.

    So, back to the moment in the art studio…

    After hanging up from my morning call from my dad, I reflected on the idea that with all I read, and all that I now understand, I would be okay if something happened to him. That my spiritual journey had guided me to this very moment in time.

    I repeated the sentence in my head: I would be okay if something happened to him.

    As I stood there in that sunlit room, I could hear the words ringing in my head, ringing with the power of truth that this truly was the gift.

    The gift of emotional and spiritual maturity to handle what was soon to be my dad’s last Christmas with us.

    A few weeks later, on Christmas night, after we all had dinner together. My dad wasn’t feeling well and went home earlier than usual.

    That’s the night we got the phone call, the call that I spent my whole adult life worrying about. My last Christmas with Dad, my last morning call from my best friend.

    The loss of my father was beyond words for me, but if we can live in each moment, we can stay strong and realize that we are okay when loved ones leave this earth.

    I was gifted precious years with him and enjoyed every phone call, every visit, and celebrated all of the time I shared with him.

    Of course I grieved, and I still miss him every day, but what I realized was that we do have the strength needed to carry on with our happy lives. That we were blessed to have them while they were here and that we are better for having known them, for their memories live forever in our hearts.

    We never know when we will lose someone so dear to us; it’s easier to accept the inevitability of loss when we can look back without regrets. Be fully present with your loved ones while you have the chance. Not everyone gets the gift of five more years, even if you pray for them.

    Happy people image via Shutterstock

  • Having Too Much to Do Isn’t the Problem

    Having Too Much to Do Isn’t the Problem

    Lengthy To Do List

    “As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care and love—even the most simple action.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    As a young girl I danced a lot. I really loved it and so learned every style of dancing available at my dance school (and took up more and more of my mom’s time driving me back and forth to class and making untold numbers of dance costumes for me).

    Around my fifteenth birthday, all of that practice and enthusiasm came into its own and I was featured in seventeen of the dances being performed in the annual concert.

    There were less than thirty dances in the entire production, so the logistics around making it all happen was pretty intense. (We’re talking side of stage costume changes and Mom planning every move with military precision.)

    There are two things I remember simultaneously from that time: I loved it, and that any fear I had about being able to pull it off was squashed deep in my subconscious. I simply didn’t allow myself to feel the fear.

    This combination meant that the entire experience was a great success.

    It wasn’t, however, a healthy success.

    With the benefit of twenty-five years worth of hindsight, I’m able to look back on that time now and see the overwhelm I suppressed.

    It wasn’t the number of dances that was overwhelming. My body danced as naturally as it walked, and as soon as the music played, it knew what to do. I also knew that if I wasn’t entirely present on stage I would lose the attention of the audience.

    Even at that age, I intuitively knew that the power of the performance was in my ability to be entirely present. In that regard, I could have danced for double or triple the time I did on that day and felt completely invigorated at the end of it.

    That didn’t happen, though, because between each performance I was unconsciously draining my energy.

    You see; I didn’t know how to carry that stage presence into the rest of my life. And so the minute the music stopped, my mind resumed its constant barrage of self-criticism.

    I was afraid of disappointing people, I was afraid of not being perfect, I was afraid of making a mistake.

    If I’d been able to drop all of that inner dialogue, I would have performed those seventeen dances with ease. It wouldn’t have felt too much.

    I wouldn’t have had any overwhelm to suppress. I would have been able to experience the exhilaration fully.

    Instead, my exhilaration was stunted. Kept in check by fear.

    The thing about fear is that it dissipates in the face of presence. There’s simply no space for it when you bring your full self to a task.

    I didn’t feel the fear while dancing because I was present. During some of the quicker costume changes I didn’t feel any fear because I absolutely had to be present in order to get back on that stage immediately, fully dressed without a sequin out of place.

    When I did have the luxury of a full dance or two to prepare for the next performance, I’d get critical; “My hair’s not right,” “Can I really remember what I’m supposed to be doing next?,” “I’m just not happy with the way I approached that last sequence…”

    Each time, before I stepped back onto the stage I knew I had to stop. Become still. Find my presence again. Thankfully I did. But wouldn’t it have been nice if I been able to maintain a steady, mindful presence through the entirety of the two hours and not just when I was on stage?

    Sometimes quantity isn’t the problem. We’re all constantly complaining about too many emails, too many items on our to do list, too many social commitments.

    Sometimes it’s simply about the presence and mental quietude you bring to the myriad tasks that make up your day.

    Perhaps rather than learning how to manage our tasks more efficiently or to say no to every opportunity that comes our way (which are useful things to learn, of course) we’d all benefit from starting first with the mental clutter of our minds.

    With clearing the stories, the judgments, the criticisms we’re repeating over and over like broken records.

    Perhaps rather than suppressing them, we start to acknowledge them. We send love to our fears. We recognize their role in trying to keep us safe and then act from there.

    There’s a vast difference between acting from compassion and understanding, and acting from a reservoir of suppressed fear. You may well still achieve your goals by suppressing your fear, but at what cost?

    After all, our goals are never really all we want, are they? We want to feel good, great, amazing, exhilarated when we achieve them.

    And that, friends, is only made possible through our constant willingness to bring ourselves completely into the present moment. To drop the assessment of what is and what isn’t, and to simply allow all to be, without thought of what’s coming next or memory of what came before.

    Just here. Just now. Being and allowing.

    To-do list image via Shutterstock

  • Look Around (Not at Your Phone) and Be Present in Your Life

    Look Around (Not at Your Phone) and Be Present in Your Life

    Friends on Cell Phones

    “Enjoy the little things because one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” ~Robert Brault

    Ten years ago I moved from the urban metropolis of London, where I grew up and spent the early part of my adult life, to the rural Mediterranean idyll of the coast of the Costa Brava in Northern Spain, in my quest to find the ultimate “quality of life.”

    I was able to make this move largely because I could be digitally connected to the rest of the world from anywhere.

    For me, digital technology in its early form provided a whole new series of life choices.

    Although it was during the pre-smartphone and WiFi era, I was able to be digitally connected via an ADSL cable that magically appeared from a field and connected to my studio, enabling me to work from there, nestled on a remote hill top location, surrounded by languid hilltops and lingering forests, underscored by a sea that merged with the sky like a pair of faded jeans.

    Perfect live/work balance achieved, or so I thought.

    But that was before. That was before something that is five inches tall and a quarter inch thick transformed every aspect of the way we live. The smartphone.

    The advent of the smartphone changed my life, but not in the way that you might think. It actually took me away from life, because it took over my life.

    Suddenly I didn’t need to be in my studio on my laptop to be connected, or to get my emails or to send projects through to clients, as I could do that from anywhere. I was free, no longer desk or studio bound.

    I could access information wherever I was. It was a revelation and totally life changing. However, although it was an incredible, life-enhancing tool in many ways, I think I was slow to realize that having access to the world in the palm of my hand also means the world had access to me.

    As my euphoria at being able to be connected anywhere and at any time began to wear off, it was replaced by the debilitating dependence of needing to be connected anywhere and everywhere, at all times.

    The more I became digitally connected, ironically I began to feel more and more personally disconnected from my surroundings, as my virtual life was not giving me any real nourishment.

    It provided a lot of ‘noise’ but I could no longer find the inherent ‘melody’ and rhythm of my daily life.

    Given that I was living in the sort of surroundings that are viewed as the ultimate off grid environment (the sort of place actually where weekend digital detoxes take place), I realized that the problem could not only be viewed as relating to a purely urban demographic.

    I looked around me, at my friends and colleagues, and realized that we would get together for lunch on a beach or at someone’s house and we would all have our heads buried in our smartphones, oblivious to each other or the breathtaking beauty that surrounded us.

    It was a problem that was wide spread. I realized that what had at first been my life line had little by little started to strangle me.

    My digital dependence had become a habit filled with avoidance techniques, providing constant distraction to avoid being with myself. I found that, without realizing it, my reliance on my digital devices had gone from expanding my life to disabling it.

    When we created the smartphone it was designed to be a tool, albeit a very useful tool, but I was using it for everything it wasn’t designed to do:

    • Distraction
    • Taking me away from awkward situations
    • Making me feel busy
    • Make me feel important
    • Not making me feel alone
    • Anything in fact to avoid spending time with myself

    I took a hard look at myself and found that, despite living in an exquisite natural landscape, I was actually living a digitally reductive, hands-free, edited life, where nothing was messy, chaotic, or emotive.

    My epiphany came on a Saturday morning in my local market, where I had gone to get some vegetables for a dinner I was giving that evening. I arrived at the market, which was a bustling, vibrant gathering of the whole neighboring town, the meeting place for everyone to get together once a week.

    Walking amongst the throngs of people looking at the kaleidoscope of recently picked, sun ripened fruits and vegetables, was a heady, textural experience.

    The air was filled with the aromas of basil, ripe fruits, locally made honey, and soft goats cheeses, but I was oblivious to that, as I was on a mission to get some tomatoes to roast with some fresh fish for the dinner I was making that evening.

    I joined the endlessly long line at the fruit and vegetable stall I usually get my produce from and was checking my emails while I waited, and waited, and waited.

    The line didn’t seem to be moving. The only thing that seemed to be moving were the numbers on the digital clock of my smartphone showing me that I had been standing in line for twenty minutes.

    I was getting more and more stressed thinking, How long can it take to buy a pound of misshapen tomatoes?

    I stepped outside of the line to try and find out what was going on. Looking to the front of the line I saw an elderly lady, with her dog, chatting with the woman who ran the stall.

    They were discussing the stew she had made last week from the marrow she had bought from there, the plight of her neighbor who had had a fall, and the wedding cake she had made for her niece’s wedding.

    They were talking, communicating face to face, sharing the stories that made up their daily lives.

    As I looked along the line I noticed that actually everyone was talking to each other, animated, interested and alive. 

    That was the tipping point for me when I realized that I was physically there but was not present. I was missing in action from my life and missing all the little things.

    For me really being present meant giving myself times to disconnect from digital technology and instead taking time to connect with the seasons, learn the names of the different winds, recognize the cycles of the moon, and read the ever changing personality of the sea.

    Ultimately I learned how to be from going to local farmers’ markets. There, I learned to appreciate the beauty of imperfection. The splendor of a misshapen tomato, appreciating the real meaning of “slow.”

    I had to learn a new rhythm, one without a preset time limit for every thing. Where queuing for twenty minutes to buy some fruit was just how it was, and was something to be savored and appreciated, because every one in the line spoke to each other and wanted to share their stories.

    It was there, waiting to buy my imperfectly shaped, local, seasonal produce, that I began to really connect with where I was and learned to appreciate all the moments and experiences that really matter—those unique fleeting moments that bring us joy.

    If you are finding you are missing in action from your life, try adopting some of the practices that were game changers for me.

    Remember to take some time out every day to put your smartphone away, pause, breathe, look up, and embrace the art of slow by living in the now.

    Scheduling in fifteen minutes of mindfulness meditation practice every morning will set you up for a day of centered calmness, and will encourage a reconnection with yourself and your natural surroundings.

    In order to be more engaged in your life, try to do things more mindfully by concentrating on being present and in the moment.

    These small changes to your daily practices are manageable and meaningful, and will shift your focus from “faster, bigger, better” to an appreciation of the micro moments, the little things that punctuate our daily lives, which ultimately, in the words of Robert Brault, “we realize are the big things.”

    Friends on phones image via Shutterstock

  • Plan Less and Enjoy More: Give Yourself Space to Simply Be

    Plan Less and Enjoy More: Give Yourself Space to Simply Be

    Couple Having Picnic

    “You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go, and see what happens.” ~Mandy Hale

    I’m a Type A personality who formerly scheduled days, weeks, and even seasons in advance. I planned my day, my meals, and my activities, as well as those of my family, with the precision of a military regiment.

    Why? Part of it was control and part of it fear. The fear led to wanting to control. Letting things happen naturally without a plan would certainly mean chaos would ensue.

    I had reached the stage in my life where I was going through the motions. Everything was getting done, but there was no joy in my life.

    I loved my kids and my husband and had a supportive extended family. Though I had some health struggles, overall I had a good life. I kept asking myself, What do those “joyful” people do, or what is their secret? 

    I know friends who have gone through their share of difficult situations, but not only did they come through with grace, they retained their joy.

    Being the methodical person that I am, I started to look at their personality traits.

    They weren’t routinely overscheduled; they made time for their family, but also quiet time for themselves.

    I was attracted to their calm, their sense of peace, and their happiness. I felt a true sense of connection when around them, as they were genuinely interested in me and our time together.

    They were unapologetic about making decisions that were right for their family and met their needs as opposed to doing what was deemed as “right.”

    I reflected on the times that have brought me joy. Most of those times were unplanned.

    The surprise of getting a call from a friend just when I was thinking of them, and going for a walk to catch up.

    Sitting with that cup of tea or coffee early in the morning when the house and kids are still.

    Looking out my window to see the amazing shades of green that spring brings.

    Watching my boys playing basketball in the driveway while they trash talk with each other.

    Watching my father hold his grandson.

    In all these situations, I did not need to purchase anything, go anywhere, or schedule anything. I just had to take a breath, relax, and be present to what was happening around me.

    For so long, I also scheduled time to be present through meditation. I tried to wake up early, make time, and sit. I worked on breathing, visualizing what I wanted from life and using affirmations, but this practice was rigid, scheduled, and forced.

    I was struggling even harder to be present, be peaceful, to “work” at being happy, because we all know anything worth having takes work. After trying this for a while, I realized I was not making space in my life for anything to change because I was just adding more to my to-do list.

    I needed to do something drastic. While I understand not many people have the luxury of doing what I did, I quit one of my contract jobs and reduced my work commitments to two days a week.

    I told myself that I would not take another gig even if it walked up and bit me in the butt. I was going to take a three-month semi-sabbatical.

    Why three months? I thought I would probably go crazy if it was any longer than that and I didn’t want to burden my husband with any financial stress.

    The only plan for those three months was that I should not plan anything that would increase my stress level, had to do with marketing my next endeavor, or enroll in school, which I had been contemplating.

    So, what did I learn? I used to write a lot as a child and a teenager. I loved to write poetry, and I was the kid that loved to get a writing assignment in high school, so I dedicated to making space for writing.

    I have discovered that making no plans opens space in my life to slow down and be present without forcing myself to be present.

    I am learning that what fills my cup is kindness, compassion, and connection. Those are the only things that I want to schedule. Engaging in activities that fill my cup allows me to approach my day and my responsibilities as offerings as opposed obligations.

    In doing so, I am slowly finding joy in doing some of the most interesting things. I found myself smiling while folding the laundry. Wow, this is what it feels like to not feel rushed, but to feel the clothes warm out of the dryer.

    It reminded me of how my mother used to throw my clothes in the dryer for a minute or two in the cold Minnesota winter, and that brought another smile and sense of gratitude for my mother’s love.

    I find myself smiling more, and often it is for no reason.

    As I am phasing back into a work routine, I am dedicated to unscheduling my calendar. I am committed to saying no to activities that would have me racing across town, to events that are large public functions where I don’t really get an opportunity to connect.

    I am committed to taking thirty minutes a day for myself, even if it is fifteen minutes at a time.

    I am waking up fifteen minutes earlier to practice yoga, which wakes up my body, allows me to clear my mind, and adds focus to my day. I have also found that walking outdoors is worth the time away from my to-do list, because I come back calmer and ready to accomplish the next task.

    Surprisingly, I have found these small periods of time quite easily. I noticed that when I was just checking email, I got sucked into checking a social media site. Then I saw a link that looked interesting and clicked on another site, and when I looked up, it had been twenty minutes.

    I sat down in front of the TV and numbed myself because I needed to “relax,” but I wouldn’t take that thirty minutes to write, go for a walk, or just sit disconnected from all the stimuli.

    While I was great about finding the time to schedule a football game, a pick up from band, and a stop by the grocery store, I never put myself on the schedule.

    Now, I am dedicated to looking for and finding pockets of time not to fill, but instead, to take some deep breaths and just be.

    What can you do to make space and time?

    Make yourself a priority. Your sense of well-being is important. Schedule some me time on the calendar.

    Take a walk—it doesn’t matter how long, even ten minutes can make a meaningful impact.

    Spend at least twenty minutes prior to bed disengaged from email, TV, and social media sites.

    Set a time limit for electronic use during your workday that does not involve work related duties.

    Say no to offers for happy hours, birthdays, baby showers, and the like unless the person being honored is truly a priority in your life.

    And put away the guilt for not being at every school function, rehearsal, and game (if you have children). Check in with your child to see if it is truly meaningful and important to them.

    By being present and engaged in the activities that are important to you and recognizing when you’re getting caught up in mindless activity, you can create pockets of time to simply relax, unwind, and breathe.

    You never know what can happen with the extra twenty minutes. You may discover the flowers blooming outside your window, the sound of the rain as it hits your roof, or you may simply be grateful for the peace.

    Couple having picnic image via Shutterstock 

  • 31 Ways to Appreciate The Present Moment and Feel Happier Right Now

    31 Ways to Appreciate The Present Moment and Feel Happier Right Now

    “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” ~Arthur Ashe

    It’s frustrating, isn’t it?

    You dream of a life where you have more freedom—your work nourishes your mind and soul, your home is organized, and you have ample time to exercise and eat right.

    It’s not that your current situation is awful, but you long to do more of the things you love. Yet when you contemplate radical changes, your heart rate quickens, and you convince yourself it’s just not the right time.

    So you keep waiting for the big moment when you can make that big change that will lead to happiness.

    Well, you’re wasting your time …

    Our ability to feel happier comes from inside ourselves, not from external circumstances. You don’t need to quit your job, move to an exotic location, or lose weight to be happy. You can embody happiness right now.

    Over the years, I’ve gotten better at aligning my life activities with my purpose.

    I teach at my own yoga studio. I assumed this would make me happy 100% of the time, but I get derailed sometimes. I ruminate about the small things like our cluttered house and the endless details of running a yoga studio. I forget the big picture. I forget all that I have. I get grumpy and start to nitpick.

    I have to catch myself and find my happiness from within again. It might take a few minutes, hours, or days, but I use these mini-habits to help me get there. They cost little to nothing and are portable.

    No matter your situation, you can start right now. The following habits will help you stand a little taller, smile from your heart, and shine a little brighter.

    For Your Mind

    1. Breathe deeply.

    Inhale deeply, and exhale completely ten times. Deep breathing slows your thoughts, relaxes your nervous system, and brings you closer to your own intuition.

    2. Use a mantra to change your mind-set.

    Sha is a Sanskrit root word meaning peace, as in “shanti.” Say “sham” slowly ten to twenty times. By combining sound, breath, and rhythm, mantra channels the flow of energy through the mind-body circuit and calms your nervous system and mind.

    3. Zone out.

    Spend a few minutes daydreaming. Your logical mind, the prefrontal cortex, is constantly planning, analyzing, and thinking about the future. Give it a rest and just be for a little while; you’ll feel refreshed.

    4. Express your love.

    Write a note or tell a loved one how you appreciate them. Communicating positive emotions lowers stress hormones, bad cholesterol, and blood pressure, and it strengthens immunity.

    5. Rejuvenate your mind.

    Close your eyes for a few moments. What do you see in the darkness of your mind’s eye? Notice the patterns that form. This is a simple meditation that rejuvenates and refocuses your tired mind.

    6. Explore healing aromas.

    Plants like rosemary, lavender, and sage can improve our moods. Create your own natural spa. Put your favorite essential oils in a spray bottle with a little water.

    7. Swap a thought.

    Make a list of your positive traits and attributes. When you criticize yourself, refer to this list. Keep this pattern up and you’ll transform your inner dialogue.

    8. Allow yourself to be.

    Accept all your feelings about your present situation. They are valid, whether you like them or not. Accepting your current situation is the first step to feeling happier.

    9. Loving-kindness meditation.

    Loving-kindness builds positive emotions, which increases mindfulness and purpose in life. Spend a few minutes letting feelings of love and kindness for someone wash over you.

    10. Meditate.

    When thoughts come, return to your breath without judging. Deep breathing clears your mind and decreases your stress levels, which will allow you to feel happier.

    11. Declutter one spot.

    Declutter one surface or area. Starting small is easier. But when your home and workspace are clear from clutter, your mind feels more spacious.

    For Your Body

    12. Lighten up.

    Once a day, laugh at yourself. When you make a mistake, see the humor in your error. Laughing is great medicine, it improves your mood, and it relieves stress and tension.

    13. Stretch your body.

    Sitting in a chair? Push away from your desk. Inhale, and as you exhale, bend forward, moving your ribs toward your thighs. Breathe deeply. Get out of your mind and into your body and the present moment.

    14. Stretch your breath.

    Hold onto the back of your chair and take slow, long breaths. This opens up your rib cage and lungs, allowing you to breathe more deeply. The added oxygen to your brain will make you feel alive and alert.

    15. Give yourself a massage.

    Use coconut oil or sesame oil on your skin, massage it on your whole body, and then take a warm shower to help your skin absorb the oil. This is a home spa treatment that is used all over India. Touch is calming, and you can reap its benefits without buying expensive massages.

    16. Take a bath.

    Relax and enjoy the simple pleasure of a warm bath. Light some candles and put on your favorite music.  Soothe your body with this simple ritual. Why dream about getting away when you can create a calming environment in your home?

    17. Place your palms over your eyelids.

    This relaxes your eyes and mind. This is especially helpful if you have a headache or feel fatigued.

    18. Practice Yoga Nidra (Yogic Sleep).

    Take ten minutes to relax your whole body completely and then each part of your body in turn. This magical practice is as efficient as taking a longer nap.

    19. Eat with complete attention.

    Put away all your screens. Savor your meal by noticing all its tastes and textures. You’ll improve your digestion and feel more relaxed as a result.

    20. Move every day.

    Even if you have very little time. You only need five minutes to stretch or walk outside. Building a little movement into your day is better for your health than one longer weekly workout.

    21. Hug someone or something.

    Like your friend, pet, or even yourself. Soothing touch is relaxing and calming.

    For Your Spirit

    22. Stop and pay attention.

    Are birds chirping? Horns blasting? Voices passing? Notice your world right now and see the beauty that is unfolding under your nose. You’ll feel a little better about your situation.

    23. Make a mini-gratitude list.

    What are three things from the past twenty-four hours that can go on your list? Making gratitude a permanent trait is proven to make us happier and healthier, and live longer.

    24. Give thanks for your meals.

    Saying thanks for having enough will remind you of how much you have. Remember that eight million people don’t have enough food to lead a healthy, active life.

    25. Get outside and unplug.

    Spend time outdoors without your digital devices. Notice the small details of your surroundings—the flowers, the trees, even the small ants on the sidewalk. You’ll feel peaceful and calm as a result.

    26. Spend time with friends.

    Socializing is a secret of the world’s longest-lived people. Set a weekly meeting. Go for a walk, drink tea, or simply enjoy each others’ presence.

    27. Listen.

    When people talk, listen to them. Be 100% present with your company and you’ll get their appreciation in return.

    28. Love your furry friends.

    They can be our best friends and show undying loyalty. Spending time petting a dog can improve your mood and even strengthen your heart.

    29. Find a beautiful natural thing around you.

    Pick a flower, leaf, twig, or fruit. Remind yourself of all the natural wonders that surround you right now. It’s easy to overlook the beauty in the present moment.

    30. Take a mini-vacation.

    Once a week, I take my toddler and dog to the park for a picnic lunch. We relax and listen to the birds. Leave your busy life for a few moments to be with loved ones who are crucial to your happiness.

    31. Give a little bit.

    Carry canned food for people asking for food.  Make eye contact. Recognize the common human spirit in every person you meet, right in your neighborhood.

    The Secret That Holds The Key To Your Happiness

    Your happiness isn’t dependent on where you live, how much you weigh, or what you do for work. The key to happiness is appreciating what you have at this moment. Sure, we all want to make changes sometimes. But one change, no matter how big, is unlikely to transform misery into elation.

    Small things that help you appreciate yourself, your loved ones, and the world around you will add up to big changes in your mindset.

    Pick a couple practices from each category. Write them down. Post them on your mirror so that you remind yourself each morning.

    Schedule the activities in your calendar.  Even if they take five minutes, this daily reminder will prompt your memory.

    And don’t forget to inhale the sweet fragrance of the jasmine that is blooming right under your nose.

    Ahh, doesn’t it smell delicious?

  • How to Foster Better Relationships Just by Being Present

    How to Foster Better Relationships Just by Being Present

    Couple Doing Yoga

    “When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

    I love to pose a question in my journal and watch carefully for the myriad responses from The Universe. I always know how much attention something needs based on the quantity and clarity of the answers I receive.

    Lately I’ve been pondering the question: How can I be a better sister, daughter, and friend? The Universe has been responding with a metric truckload of answers.

    The common theme?

    Get present.

    With our busy lives, we’re always ticking boxes off a long list and thinking about the next thing we have to get done. We’re constantly in doing mode.

    Sometimes it can feel like a burden or an annoyance to have to stop, even momentarily, for the people we love.

    It seems a little backward, don’t you think?

    Getting present requires a certain level of self-awareness.

    It is about putting aside your own thoughts, worries, fears, and insecurities and genuinely taking an interest in what that person is saying.

    When you press pause—physically and mentally—and hold a space for a person to express themselves fully, that person feels valued, heard, seen, and loved.

    And that’s all any of us ever really want.

    So how can we bring more presence to our relationships?

    Intention

    Start with setting an intention to be more present.

    It sounds so simple. And it is. Yet many of us enter our relationships with a nonchalant air and very little intent.

    As you begin to engage with the people you love, the intention to be more present acts as a reminder, anchoring you into the present.

    You become aware of those times when you are most present and those times when you are not. And you’ll notice what distracts you from the present moment. Phone calls, to-do lists, busyness overload, social media—whatever it is.

    When you become aware of this stuff, you can work with it or eliminate it so it doesn’t keep distracting you.

    Intention is where it starts.

    Support Yourself

    I support others by supporting myself.

    Next time you’re engaging with someone, take a moment to check in with where you’re at and ask if you’re supporting yourself.

    By this I mean, are you centered, confident, and calm? Or, are you up in your head? Is there a story running?

    I’ll give you an example. I have a tendency to overcompensate when I meet someone new, someone I potentially want to be friends with. I’m overly nice to the point where it’s almost awkward and uncomfortable. Why do I do this?

    At some point, I stop supporting myself and I retreat into my head.

    Here, there is a story running: “What if I say the wrong thing? What if she doesn’t like me? Have I got something in my teeth? Did I put deodorant on this morning? What if I have nothing to say in response to what she’s telling me?” And on and on it goes.

    Yup. As I write this, I see how ridiculous it all sounds. But this is what happens. I stop supporting myself and let my mind run away with the show.

    The result? I lose my presence.

    The same can be said for interacting with people I know well, like family members and good friends. The story is not necessarily the same, but the outcome most certainly is.

    When I support myself, I am connected and grounded. I easily retain the finer details of the conversation. And later, I remember to follow up to see if the person is feeling better/got that job/went on that second date.

    I speak from my heart rather than from my head, bringing value to the conversation. I set adequate boundaries. It actually makes me a better sister, daughter, and friend.

    Supporting yourself is essential to supporting those around you.

    This doesn’t have to be difficult. It might look like:

    • Clearing your busy schedule and creating some space just for yourself
    • Saying no
    • Focusing on your breath
    • Learning to meditate
    • Exploring the stories that are running in your head (journaling and kinesiology are my favorite mechanisms for self-exploration)

    How does presence influence your relationships? Have you noticed the dynamics of the relationships change? Can you feel the connections strengthen with your presence?

    Couple doing yoga image via Shutterstock

  • The Power of Presence : A Few Simple Ways to Enjoy Life More Now

    The Power of Presence : A Few Simple Ways to Enjoy Life More Now

    “All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.” ~Martha Graham

    I am someone who is always focusing on the next step rather than the step I am currently taking. I am always longing for the next thing in life.

    Looking forward to the future isn’t a bad thing, but when it consumes 90% of your daily thoughts, it becomes a bit exhausting.

    My energy has always been restless. I get bored easily, crave change constantly, and yearn for immediate fulfillment. At one point, I realized I was letting a good life pass me by.

    I have been working full-time and have been a student year-round for over five years. Life has been repetitive for a long time, lots and lots of work with very little playtime.

    This began to leave my mind in a constant state of restlessness, and there was no turning it off.

    I craved more meaning out of life, richer experiences, and deep soul-searching. I had big ideas of what I wanted to do, so many ideas that it began to overtake me and make me feel angry about the life I was living.

    I became impatient and intolerant of my own life. I was in a rut. I felt completely out of control and stuck.

    I had always admired people who were able to be present and live in the moment. I had never been that type of person, and I really wanted to be.

    I realized the only thing I could control was the present moment; I could not control the future because it hadn’t happened yet. So I decided to focus my restless energy on things I could change that would help me live a happier life right now.

    In the brief moments when I wasn’t working, or at class, or doing homework, I decided to try turning off that multi-tasking motor in my brain. I began to focus on one thing, and one thing only. It could be something as simple as brushing my teeth or doing the dishes.

    You’d be amazed at how enjoyable simple activities can be if you enter them with a positive and uncluttered mind.

    I also decided to pick up a hobby and learn something new; I dabbled in a bit of photography and taught myself basic functions of the camera and different tricks and techniques. While school and work are stimulating, I often do things because I am told to do them, not because I want to.

    This was a refreshing perspective and a great outlet for that restless energy.

    I also started saying “no” less, and “yes” more. This forced me out of my comfort zone and enriched me with those new experiences I had been craving, even if they were small and simple. There’s nothing better than finding comfort in chaos and testing your boundaries.

    Once I began to practice these things daily, I started seeing benefits. I felt happier, more secure, and full of life again. My heart began to open and the weight that had been pulling me down began to lift.

    If you find yourself rushing through the present, focusing on the future, and not enjoying your daily life, it might help to try these small changes for yourself: fully immerse yourself in what you’re doing instead of multitasking, try a new hobby to create more moments where you’re engaged in something fun, and practice saying “yes” to things that you normally wouldn’t.

    This will push you out of your comfort zone and allow you to discover new things about yourself. It’s a lot easier to live in the now when you feel blissfully alive in the now.

    There will be times when you find your mind shifting somewhere that you don’t want it to go. Don’t judge it. Acknowledge it, and then mindfully transition yourself back to the present moment. With a little practice you will be amazed by how in control of your thoughts you really are.

    While I still have goals and dreams for the future, I am now focusing on what I can work on to be fulfilled in the present. These are the moments that matter; these are the moments that will soon be the past. We are not promised tomorrow, but we are promised right now.

    Live in it. Breathe it. Take in as much of this moment as you can.

    You are capable of being your best self, and you are capable of doing it right now. I challenge you to challenge yourself, to live in this moment, to break through your limits, and to find the very best, most present you.

  • How Fear Melts Away When We Stop Resisting the Present

    How Fear Melts Away When We Stop Resisting the Present

    Fearful Man

    “Whatever the present moment contains, embrace it as if you had chosen it yourself.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    The second hand on the clock ticked to 12 like a base runner returning home. It was 9:00AM on Monday morning.

    Anxiety set in as I stared at the stack of papers on my desk. Budgets needed to be balanced, new clients needed to be obtained, and advertising campaigns needed to be launched for high-profile brands.

    Everybody needed something. It was my first day as an Advertising Executive and I already knew I was in trouble.

    In a few hours I was scheduled to meet with my first client, a Fortune 500 retail brand.

    I was not new to the advertising world, but I was stepping into a major promotion, and this was the first global account I would be directing alone.

    I was terrified. I arrived early for the meeting and waited nervously in the conference room. It was clear during the meeting that this corporation had high expectations and a low tolerance for mistakes.

    I played it cool, but the heat was on. Inside I felt resistance. “I used to be an artist. Now I’m a business executive?” I thought. “How did I get myself into this?”

    I wanted to run away, but I had nowhere to go. The only way to release my fear, I finally realized, was to change my focus. “Stick with it,” I kept telling myself, even when frustration weighed on me like a ton of bricks. “Stick with it.”

    Human beings have evolved a physiological reaction to avoid danger by any means necessary. This impulse compels us to destroy any threat we face; and if the threat is too big to destroy, we opt for plan B. We run.

    This is known as the fight or flight response, a survival mechanism built into our DNA to ensure we don’t get eaten by tigers or beheaded by cranky neighbors.

    In prehistoric times, this response was valuable for our survival. Fast forward to the 21st Century. Today, in many ways, our cultural dynamics have evolved beyond our biological instincts.

    For example, we no longer face the same daily threats we did in paleo, or even feudal, times. But our egos still react to external conflict, however insignificant, with a fight or flight response, causing us to perceive threats that do not exist. We run away, in many cases, from shadows.

    When facing a legitimate threat, the fight or flight instinct is very helpful. But when no legitimate threat is present, the fight or flight response can create fear and anxiety in situations that don’t require either.

    People (myself included) will often sit down on their couch at home and, in spite of the fact that they are perfectly safe, experience feelings of intense worry and anxiety. This anxiety has the tendency to manifest as either fight or flight. It’s in our biological code.

    If we choose fight, we become abusive to ourselves and those around us. If we choose flight, we become absent and disconnected.

    Why do we tend to feel worry and anxiety, even when we are safe? Because we are allowing our emotions to react to a false narrative. The struggle for survival experienced by our ancestors is embedded into our collective unconscious.

    In modern civilization, this narrative expresses itself as resistance to, among other things, the peace of the present moment. Our worry causes us to over-complicate life.

    “Only fools are happy,” our ego says. “I know something is bound to go wrong. And when it does, I’ll be ready.” We resist the present moment. And whenever we resist, we struggle.

    What you resist, persists. But embracing your struggle is the end of fear.

    Running from your environment is like running from a mirror because you don’t like the unhappy face in the reflection. You can run to a different mirror (and another, and another) but you will continue to see the same unhappy reflection until you stop running and start smiling.

    Your environment will not change until you change first.

    It’s normal to feel stuck, but the more you resist the present moment and try to escape, the more stuck you will feel.

    Instead of running, use each moment, especially the bad ones, to practice being fully present. Living in the moment is a habit. The more you practice, the easier it becomes.

    As you continue to live in the present moment, peace and happiness become effortless. Acceptance of the present moment is the end of fear and anxiety.

    It seemed like an eternity, but only an hour had passed. I looked at the clock. 10:00AM. It was still Monday, my first on the job, and I already wanted out.

    I felt threatened and my fight or flight response kicked in. I wanted to run. But I didn’t. Instead, I took a deep breath, walked to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, walked back to my desk, and took another deep breath. Inhale… exhale… inhale… exhale.

    I dove in and embraced my job with abandon, releasing my ego and accepting the present moment. When things went smoothly, I trusted the flow. When things fell apart, I trusted the flow. When I made mistakes (and I made several), I trusted the flow to find a solution.

    I gave my best effort, and released attachment to results.

    Everything changed. Not only did I stop feeling insecure about my job, but I was soon promoted to a leadership role within the company. Were things perfect? No. But changing my perception caused a ripple effect that changed my thoughts and actions, and my environment changed as a result.

    The culture of my agency didn’t change overnight, but as I chipped away at the resistance within myself, the challenges I faced in my environment disappeared in equal proportion.

    We all face fear. This fear triggers our fight or flight response and causes us to struggle and resist the present moment. What if you tried, instead of running from fear, sticking with it?

    Letting go of resistance, especially when you want to resist the most, puts you in a state of flow, and from a state of flow we tune into a wider perspective and access higher levels of creativity, happiness, and peace.

    The moments in your life flow like a stream. By accepting the flow of the moment as it is, this stream will inevitably guide you to the rivers and oceans of your purpose. And one day you will look back with gratitude on the challenges that elevated your environment to align with your intentions.

    Fearful man image via Shutterstock

  • When All You Can Do is Breathe

    When All You Can Do is Breathe

    Just Breathe

    “Don’t try to change anything at all, just breathe and let go. Breathe and let be… in your mind and in your heart, give yourself permission to allow this moment to be exactly as it is, and allow yourself to be exactly as you are.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

    I watched him breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Sometimes I’d move closer to his tiny body in his hospital bed just to see if I could get him to move a bit, wanting to boost the comfort of in and out with a roll to the side or an eye flicker.

    This all reminded me of five years before, when he was a newborn and I’d do the same thing. You know about this if you’re a parent or you’ve ever cared for an infant. Sometimes you just need to watch them breathe.

    We say, I suppose, that it’s to make sure they don’t die of SIDS, but I also think that it’s to make sure they actually exist at all. Someone, something, the Universe, trusted me with this little person and here he is. How did that happen?

    But of course now I was really watching my son to make sure he didn’t die. In a few short days, he’d gone from seeming a bit under the weather to barely breathing.

    We were living in the haphazard capital city of Antananarivo, Madagascar and our son had just been diagnosed with Type I Diabetes. Now all of my greatest fears were being realized in the barely existent space between his body and mine. In and out. In and out.

    I’d spent eighteen months in a place where I’d always feared one of my children would get sick or injured or worse. Eighteen months of saying, “Yes, it could happen, but it probably won’t.” Eighteen months out the window because now it was all happening. And we had to wait.

    Wait to see if the one doctor in the entire country capable of treating Type I would ever show. Wait for an air ambulance to South Africa. Wait to see if we’d ever go back to our house (we didn’t). Wait to see if he’d keep breathing. In. Out.

    And then somehow, at some point, the waiting stopped. Here he was—breathing in and out. Here I was beside him—breathing in and out. I don’t even know when exactly it happened, but somehow the rest of the world began to fall away.

    We were just us, in that moment. With nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but wait, we just stopped.

    The heavy weight of stress and fear and sadness and loss was with me, but all emotion existed in that moment alone. What was before seemed forever past, what was ahead faded into mystery. And there we were. In and Out.

    We made our way from the small, ill-equipped hospital in Antananarivo in an old truck with a siren. We passed our neighborhood and his school.

    I saw a friend in her car waiting out the traffic caused by our makeshift ambulance. She looked confused, but resigned. That’s often all you can be in Antananarivo.

    At the airport we boarded a tiny air ambulance on a three-hour flight to Pretoria. Eventually, we were reunited with his siblings and father, my other children and husband. Then we were back in the US. And we were still breathing. In and out.

    There are so many lessons we’ve learned in the last year since this happened—about health, gratitude, love, friendship, family—but only now am I realizing that what mattered most was simply that we kept breathing.

    Because what has happened behind us is gone forever and no matter how much we plan or wish or pray, we’ll never truly know how things will unfold in the days ahead. For those first few hours when my son’s life was on the line, I had a moment of clarity.

    There was no time for doubt or self-judgment. The only anchor was his breath. And as his breath moved, and mine with it, we were fully absorbed in what was happening there in that moment.

    Now I know for sure that more difficult times will come and also more days of happy, silly bliss. I know sometimes it will rain. Sometimes we’ll feel as though the sun will shine forever. We’ll witness loss. We’ll have gains.

    Every day is a series of ins and outs. We think things should stay in a straight line, full speed ahead, but they don’t. They go up and down. In and out.

    How blessed I am now to have seen what it’s like to really breathe, to be so fully absorbed in the in and out of breath as to know that it is the most important thing. Not how you do it, for how long or for why, but simply that you breathe. And when you need it most, the rest will fall away and you’ll have the in and out.

    Sometimes you’ll find it may be all you really need.

    Just breathe image via Shutterstock

  • A Simple Way to Be Present and Live Life to the Fullest

    A Simple Way to Be Present and Live Life to the Fullest

    Couple Talking

    “As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love—even the most simple action.” ~Eckhart Tolle

    People have always told me to stay in the present and make every moment count. I nod my head, manage to stay present for about an hour, and then alternate between living in the past and the future.

    It can be a struggle to stay in the now, especially when life seems better in the past.

    I am at a huge crossroad in my life, which adds to the struggle of being fully present. Next year I will leave my hometown, where I’ve lived all my life, and move by myself to an unknown city.

    It’s easy for me to get caught up worrying about the future. How am I going to support myself? What will my career path be? What If I never find someone to make a life with?

    Even though my life is about to drastically change, I know now that I need to enjoy every moment and grasp it right when it’s happening.

    Last summer an unexpected stranger taught me a valuable lesson about staying in the present and living to my fullest potential.

    In June, I went to an intense music festival. I am a violist, and during this time, I traveled to upstate New York to meet with fellow musicians and spend eight hours each day practicing and rehearsing for upcoming concerts.

    I was surrounded by thirty of the best string players in the in the country. It was an intense and nerve-wracking experience showing up the first day, not knowing what to expect and wondering how I was going to keep up.

    When I arrived, I tentatively went through the lunch line. I handed my lunch card to a middle-aged worker and scanned the cafeteria anxiously. “Good Morning, Angela,” he said. “So nice to have you here.”

    Bob handed back my card and smiled at me genuinely. His kindness jolted me into the present and warmed my heart. I felt lighter after that and continued my day feeling thankful.

    I ate eighty-four meals at that cafeteria, and Bob always asked me how my day was going, listened, and offered thoughtful responses, even though there were people behind me,

    In three days, he knew every camper’s name, and he even remembered the names of campers that had come years before.

    He wasn’t a huge part of my life, but Bob is one of my biggest role models. He didn’t have the most glamorous job, but he always showed up with a smile on his face and was never rude or impatient. He made every day a little brighter for us.

    I wondered why Bob wasn’t doing a grander job. It seemed like he would excel at public relations or maybe even sales. My friends later informed me that Bob used to be a professor at the university, but was forced to resign after acquiring an unfortunate illness and started to work in the cafeteria.

    Life doesn’t always work out how you think it’s going to turn out. I’m sure Bob never thought that after earning a PhD, he’d work in a cafeteria setting, but what inspired me was the fact that he didn’t let his circumstances derail him.

    Bob fully committed to his job and made many people’s day better at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

    It amazed me that Bob always seemed to intently listen to my response about my day.

    I’ve recognized that I always want to sound like the smartest person in the room. Instead of actively listening to people and giving them the full attention they deserve, I think about next intelligent thing I can say.

    Now, I try to actively listen to people and fully give them my attention. I have found active listening to a wonderful tool for staying in the present.

    Since last summer, I strive to enjoy every little moment. I live intensely in the present and try to not worry about the past or future. I think we could all stand to do that more. Enjoy your morning tea. Cherish laughing with your friends. Notice the scenery while driving to school.

    Also, remember that while that you may have a “boring” job, you can affect people in a positive way if you try to make the best of it. Bob changed my life and he doesn’t even know much about me besides my name and camp experience. That’s power right there.

    The most important lesson Bob taught me about staying in the present is that happiness is a choice. You can be in any life situation, but it’s your decision if you want to be happy. Happiness isn’t defined by an external event but rather an internal attitude.

    So yeah, I don’t know where I am going to live in a year, who I am going to meet, and what I will be doing. You know what I do know? I know that I will make every moment count and live it to the fullest.

    I will appreciate everything and see the light, because even if you are scanning teenager cafeteria cards all summer, you can still have a smile on your face.

    Couple talking image via Shutterstock

  • Living in the Moment: 10 Paths to Presence

    Living in the Moment: 10 Paths to Presence

    Meditation

    “To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower, hold Infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.” ~William Blake

    How often do we just wake up and hit the ground running, and forget the wistful dreams of the night before? How often do we just go through life bored and disgruntled in the aisles of a department store? How often do we take experiences for granted, journeying jaded through mundane moments like traveling in an airplane?

    I hate flying—the sickness in my stomach, the cramped seats, the stifling contained air, not to mention long layovers and even longer security checks. In this day and age when traveling is routine rather than pleasure, everyone seems to have become been-there-done-that travelers, immune to the experience of flying like a bird in the sky.

    On one such mundane return trip, I picked a window seat right above the right wing of the plane. My view, while we were getting ready to take off was of the four-blade propeller slowly whipping itself up into a whir like that of a hummingbird’s wings.

    We cruised to the head of the runway and paused, almost like a kingfisher on a branch, taking a breath before swooping down for a silvery fish. That pause jolted me into the present, readying me for a sacred moment.

    And then it happened—the wheels lifted off the ground, the great plane rose up gently, making its way up, up, up in the air, slowly withdrawing its legs and wheels and folding them away for later.

    I felt like I was flying on the wings of an albatross, watching its steely legs lifting off, its haunches folding, tucking its legs and feet in neatly, its body prepared for flight.

    As the nose of the plane parted its way through thick, fleecy clouds, it seemed like the albatross was blinking its eyes against the blinding winds, firmly determined to make its way through the cloud cover until it could see the burst of sunshine that exploded in brilliance.

    I blinked back my own surprise tears when I realized some fell on my forearm, which brought me back to the earthly plane again, of the buzz of people’s voices, the pings of the seat-belt-off signs, and the rattle of the stewardess’s bar cart down the aisle.

    I’ve had a few such moments of awe, that make time stand still, my heart stop beating, and my eyes well up with tears. They come like grace unasked. They don’t last long, but when they come I feel like I’m in the palm of the universe, if only for a few minutes.

    Mystical moments are not just for Merlins on the mountains. Every day we can experience such grandeur, when we connect with the universe so completely that we lose any sense of identity of our own individual selves. We become pure consciousness.

    When we can dwell in this state of being longer and longer, we naturally become mindful of aha moments, mini-moments of awakening, and make a path to presence.

    Even though we can’t create such experiences, we can prepare for them, to make ourselves available for such exquisite sacredness in everyday moments. The more we practice, the more we allow such profound occurrences.

    Here are ten practices that have worked for me:

    1. Play

    Our minds are always working overtime to judge anything that happens around us—an event, a person, a remark, pros and cons. Instead, try to go with the flow without judging. Simply play, without putting a price on it. It helps us take in life as it comes to us, and works wonders on making our lives so much easier to live!

    2. Perspective

    Nothing resets our perspective like watching the stars at night, or the moon rise, or walking along a wide expanse of water. Create such moments for yourself. Make a date with the sunrise. Some of the best shows in town are courtesy of Mother Nature.

    3. Pauses

    The busier we get, the more important it is for us to find time to do nothing, and just be. Slowly learn to build pockets of nothing into your everyday, when you can shut off everything and simply walk away from what you’re doing, for a few minutes, or for a day, or for a few days.

    Pauses in your doing will invite more “being” into your life, which will allow you to align with the center of your self—your Being.

    4. Poetry

    Or music, or dance, or whatever else you find beauty in. Art, when we’re immersed in it, is prayer. There’s a reason why all mystical traditions explore some kind of art to induce ecstasy. Write, sing, dance!

    5. Pleasure

    Following our joys is an easy path to creating more such joys in our life. We can get lost in reading, or walking in the woods, or racecar driving. Relentlessly pursue joy.

    6. Pen and Paper

    Something happens in the act of writing with a pen on a paper, if we take the time to journal about our everyday experiences. The moments seem to come alive with their messages when we take the time to examine them, wonder about them, and write them down. Writing gives voice to what the experience is trying to tell us.

    7. Pictures

    Our soul speaks in pictures and symbols. Some of our most mystical messages may come through our dreams because that’s when we’re relaxed enough to let them in. Keep a pen and a pad next to bed. You may be surprised how many dreams you’ll remember once you start writing them down.

    8. Patterns

    Noticing patterns is fun. We can get lost for hours in fractals, mandalas, and puzzles if we allow it. Synchronicities are also patterns—they’re patterns of coincidence. Notice them, treasure them, because they are guiding signs that we’re in connection with the universe.

    9. -Pathy

    Ok, I cheated -Pathy is not a real word, but I wanted to keep the flow going with the P-words! Empathy and sympathy can create real connection with another person if we allow it. In Thoreau’s words, there is no greater miracle than to look through each other’s eyes for an instant.

    Whenever you have an opportunity for a real connection, acknowledge it, use it. Don’t avoid it and go back to your phones and screens.

    10. Ponder

    And last, but not least: ponder, wonder, meditate, contemplate. Meditation is like stepping away from your mind. It’s not important how long you meditate, but how often.

    When you merge into meditation is when you allow for mystical experiences to come through. Plus (and it’s a big plus), the practice of meditation helps create true inner peace. That alone is reason enough!

    –

    These are my ten paths to presence—the secrets to seeing the world in a grain of sand, heaven in a wild flower, and eternity in a single hour. I’d love to hear about your favorite practices to find presence in your daily life.

    Meditation image via Shutterstock

  • Engaging in the Moment Instead of Wanting to Be Somewhere Else

    Engaging in the Moment Instead of Wanting to Be Somewhere Else

    Savoring the Moment

    “Happiness is enjoying the moment for what it is, not what it could be or should be.” ~Unknown

    Many of us have been there…

    The alarm goes off. In anger, we strike the wretched machine in hopes of getting a few more precious minutes of beauty sleep.

    It’s Monday again. The weekend is over and it will be another five days—120 hours, 7,200 minutes, 432,000 seconds—until we throw up our hands again in triumph and say, “Thank goodness it’s Friday!”

    We’ve often committed ourselves to the lie that Monday must be terrible. In the U.S., the very idea of hating Mondays is ingrained in our pop culture.

    Be it the comic cat Garfield with a disgruntled look upon his drooping whiskers lamenting over Monday’s arrival, or the nineties movie Office Space with its well known line “Somebody’s got a case of the Mondays,” there’s a prevailing notion that we must dread this day.

    But this post isn’t about promoting the greatness of Monday, or promoting Monday as the new Friday. This post is about our craving for insular moments of fun.

    We view weekdays, moments that we have to wait in line, time spent commuting or working, and other seemingly mundane experiences as unbearably wretched.

    We believe that we must endure these moments to seek out a bit of fun. It is my belief that this craving may be causing us harm. That it’s causing us to disengage from the world before us, and it may even prevent us from being happy.

    We wake up on Monday craving the weekend’s return. But it’s Monday—not Friday. Not some fun moment that we eagerly await, but simply Monday.

    If we spend so much of our Monday morning investing our thoughts and emotions in a day that has yet to and perhaps will never come to pass, then we are investing our energy into emptiness.

    We are ruining the potential for serenity in the current moment. We are refusing to accept that we are subject to the changing of the days (among many other things), and rather than being in the current moment, we are breaking the potential for serenity by diverting our attention toward the intangible.

    If it’s our craving for an innumerable amount of things that causes us to drift away from the present and ruin our potential for happiness, how do we divorce ourselves from our desire?

    In other words, how do we become engaged in the moment? I think there is no single answer to this question, but one answer may be found in oranges.

    Yes, oranges. Namely, what Vietnamese teacher and Zen practitioner Thich Nhat Hanh has to say about oranges.

    “Take an orange and hold it in your palm…The orange tree has taken three, four, or six months to make such an orange for you. It is a miracle. Now the orange is ready and says, ‘Here I am for you.’ But if you are not present you will not hear it. When you are not looking at the orange in the present moment, the orange is not present either.”

    Thich Nhat Hanh’s words certainly make for a wonderfully deep Dole ad, but I think he’s simply talking about the beauty in the world around us.

    Oranges, like so many things, are so easy to take for granted. So easy to ignore, really. I know it sounds strange to many of us to open the fridge and say, “Wow, look at this orange. It took a while for this orange to grow for my consumption. Amazing!”

    However, it’s also strange to be caught up in craving things that aren’t there when we can’t appreciate the tangible and simple beauty of an orange in our hand.

    Maybe that’s where the answer lies. That being engaged in the moment only requires us to truly see everything around us.

    Rather than curse Monday morning, embrace it.

    From the moment we wake up, many of us have an unimaginable amount of possibilities for engagement and enjoyment.

    We could get up and do jumping jacks. We could doodle something we had dreamed the previous night on a scrap piece of paper. Or we could just simply watch the sunrise and all its complex brilliance.

    All this is there for so many of us, and all we have to do is be there to enjoy it.

    I have lived my whole life as the man hitting the alarm clock in anger, hating Monday’s return and anxiously awaiting the weekend.

    I have lived my whole life holding the orange, but was never present as I consumed something so wonderful. However, cancer changed all that for me.

    Nearly two and a half years ago my wife was diagnosed with a very rare and deadly form of cancer. Though I do not entirely bear the burden of this disease, I certainly share it.

    Before the burden of cancer, we had an active social life. Our week was often filled with social gatherings, sightseeing, and much more. However, my wife’s disease prevented us from taking part in the exciting social life we once had.

    When the weekly yet insular moments of fun were taken away from us, the initial sting of this deprivation was devastating. Weeks turned into months and months into years of these insular moments becoming less and less frequent.

    At first I blamed cancer for what seemed like the death of happiness in our life, then I blamed others. But as time went on, I realized I was to blame for the disturbance in serenity.

    Now, there is no doubt that cancer is the trigger for so much of our suffering, but it was I who perpetuated it. Instead of enjoying something as precious and simple as holding my wife’s hand, I was holding on to hope for a rekindled social life.

    Rather than enjoy the taste of a meal we had made together, I was craving the taste of beer at one of our social gatherings.

    But I now believe happiness isn’t found at the bottom of a beer glass. It isn’t found at the end of the week. All that stuff is fun, but happiness, I believe, is something far more rich and yet very simple.

    It’s as simple as putting aside our yearning for something else and just engaging in the moment we are currently in.

    Enjoying the sun image via Shutterstock