Tag: Regret

Life Goes by Too Quickly to Postpone Our Dreams

“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.” ~Paul Valery

As I am sitting at my desk, looking out the window, I am contemplating if I should fly to Germany or not.

My father has been very sick for the past three years. I spent three months in Germany last year to have some time with him and help him get better. He finally recovered and I flew back home to Miami.

When I talked to my stepmom the other day, she gave me the news though that my father had a relapse and seems to be worse than ever.

My first instinct was to get on the next plane to go see him. My father refuses. He doesn’t want me to come. He doesn’t want me to see him suffer, so he prefers I stay home while he is waiting for a place in the clinic.

Situations like these make you realize how precious life is. Everything we take for granted can be gone in a heartbeat. Knowing that, why do we keep procrastinating? Why do we keep postponing our dreams?

We always think the time is not right, we don’t have the resources we need, we don’t have enough knowledge, we don’t have any support; the list is endless.

I was just like that. I always dreamed of going full-time with my personal training business. But even though I felt depressed, kind of empty inside, and even useless once in a while, and I had a day job I wasn’t passionate about that seemed meaningless to me, I kept making excuses.

I kept telling myself, there are too many trainers out there, I won’t be able to make a living, it’s going to be too hard, I am not skilled enough, I am not fit enough, I am not outgoing enough, and—my all-time favorite—right now is just not the right time to take the leap.

You know what though? The time is never right! We will never feel ready and the conditions will never be perfect.

My father’s illness made me realize that I don’t want to continue living this way. When my time comes I want to be able to say “I tried.” No ifs and buts.

Last year I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and promised myself that I would make it happen. I wouldn’t let doubt, fear, or excuses stop me. I quit my dreaded job at the hotel and jumped head first into my entrepreneurial journey.

It hasn’t been easy; I keep making mistakes, and I keep learning. Believe me when I say, you can’t come up with anything the tiny little voice in my head hasn’t already thrown at me.

You might think you don’t have the resources to make your dreams a reality, but believe me, you do, and if you don’t, you can get them. You know enough to get started, and the rest you will learn while you’re on your way.

Your family and friends don’t support you? Find other support systems! Go online, check out groups, go to seminars, events, meet knew likeminded people. If you don’t have a support system, create one!

We think we have all the time in the world to pursue our dreams, but the reality is we don’t know how much time is left. You might have fifty years, twenty years, or you could be gone tomorrow. Do you really want to look back at the end of your life and ask “what if”?

Now is the time to make your dreams a reality.

You want to build your own company? Make a plan, start networking, and check out financing options.

You want to travel the world? Start selling the stuff you don’t need, make a list of countries you want to visit, start figuring out ways to earn money while you are on the road.

Okay, okay, I know what you’re about to say: This sounds great but it’s not that easy. And you are right. We all have responsibilities; we have monthly bills we have to pay, maybe a mortgage, and some of us have children to care for.

I’m not telling you to drop everything you worked for and throw all security measures out the window. My point is that we need to follow our passions; we need to remember what makes us smile, what makes us laugh, what makes us happy.

Sometimes even small steps in the direction of our dreams are enough to bring us back to the present moment and allow us to enjoy life again.

Maybe on the way you realize that having your own company or traveling the world won’t actually make you fulfilled. Or you come to realize that you are indeed on the right path and that you do want to make drastic changes in your life, and then you accept the sacrifices you have to make.

But in order to find out what it really is that gives you joy, you need to start shooting for the stars.

But people will think I’m crazy! It’s too risky! I’m scared!

This is your life. It doesn’t matter what other people think. You deserve to create a life you don’t need a vacation from. You deserve to be able to look back on your life with a smile on your face instead of regret in your heart.

Yes, it is scary, and yes, it might be risky, but if you don’t try you will never find out what could have been. Take every opportunity you get. You might fall once in a while. That’s okay.

I still struggle. I still get anxious because I have months where I try to figure out how to pay my bills. And sometimes I have this awesome idea for a new program and invest all my time into making it happen, just to find out that I was the only one who thought it was a great idea.

It happens. Let’s take things like this as a lesson learned, get back up, and do it again. Just don’t let these challenges convince you that you should give up.

I pray every single day that my father will recover and I will be able to spend a lot more time with him. But even if he doesn’t, I know he won’t go with a lot of regret. He always enjoyed his life, did what he wanted, said what he wanted, and didn’t care about the opinions of others.

Let’s take that as an example, and let’s keep pushing our dreams forward and make them a reality. We deserve it!

Reaching for the stars image via Shutterstock

April 4, 2016
We Deserve Love Even When We Do Things We Regret
“You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” ~Brené Brown

Do you have parts of yourself that you’d like to change? Maybe even parts of your personality you’re a little embarrassed by?

I do.

And if I started to list them I probably wouldn’t know where to stop.

I can be a complainer and whiner. Even worse, I sometimes turn into a martyr and feel sorry for myself. Other times I’m overly impulsive and have been known to have a really erratic temper.

But the thing is, we’re not our behavior. Often we know when we’re not acting our best and if you’re like me, you’re exceptionally hard on yourself.

In the past when these less than noble parts of myself raised their whiny heads, I cringed and felt ashamed. It seemed proof that I had not traveled far at all on the road of self-discovery.

For instance, I often write about mindful living.

Yet in the past year I alienated an editor and lost a writing gig by not thinking before I fired off a rather rude email.

I hurt a friend when I wasn’t sensitive to the things happening in her life.

I’m an advocate of eating healthy, organic food yet twice in the past month I bought a bag of Fritos and devoured it.

Who the f*&% am I to be writing about mindfulness and healthy living?

Oh, yeah, and I swear too much.

If I indulged myself, I would start to think why even bother trying to be my best? Nothing is going to work out anyway. I’ll be the same sorry loser I always was. But that kind of thinking gets us nowhere. And when we’re feeling bad, our lesser selves often rise to the surface.

When we sink into these places of despair it can be so hard to crawl back out.

But we have to. We need to recognize when despair first begins to wrap its slimy arms around our necks and threatens to pull us into that dark hole of depression.

We need to develop tools and learn to call on them in times of crisis. We may need to see a doctor and get medication. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

We can change how we act. It’s not easy. It takes a lot of work but it can be done.

And something happens when we change our behavior. We begin to change inside as well.

Who are your ignoble selves? We all have them.
- Do you judge others?
- Do you feel like you could tell everyone a thing or two about religion, politics or life?
- Do you make fun of people for doing or saying things you find unintelligent?
Our judgment usually comes for a sense of inadequacy in our own lives. We all do this from time to time, so you don’t need to judge yourself for doing it. But you can leverage this awareness to change your thoughts and behavior. The key is to work toward change from a place of self-compassion instead of motivating yourself with shame. How do we do that?

Practice acceptance.

If I could choose one word that has helped me to live with my ignoble selves it would be acceptance.

It’s a simple concept, yet hard to practice. But acceptance has been far more helpful to me than either love or forgiveness.

The truth is, there are people in my life I have a hard time forgiving or loving, but I’ve been able to create positive change in my life by accepting what they’ve done.

I really can’t forgive my grandfather who molested me as a young child. And I certainly feel no love for him.

I’m not sure I’ve forgiven my sweet, scared, and skittish mother for not seeing the deep, acute pain I was in and doing something about it, but I will always love her just the same.

Acceptance has led me along the path of love and forgiveness, but I couldn’t get there without first accepting the reality of life as it is: imperfect and painful as well as fulfilling and full of joy. Both realities are accurate.

Acceptance ultimately comes back to accepting ourselves as we are with all our beautiful imperfections. Once we truly accept who we are for what we are, we open the way to change.

Forgive yourself.

We often forgive others much more easily than we forgive ourselves, but after acceptance, forgiving yourself may be the next most important step.

Forgive yourself for your imperfections.

Forgive yourself for your less than noble behavior.

Forgive yourself for not being the person you think your lover or friends or family want you to be.

Forgive yourself if you’re still not living the life you think you should live.

Life is not easy on any of us.

We’ve all had traumas and losses. We all have personality traits that are less than stellar.

But if we begin with acceptance and move onto forgiveness, we will inevitably come to the ultimate goal: love.

And when we truly love ourselves, we’ll find our ignoble selves become less and less dominant. They’ll still show up from time to time. That’s just the nature of things, but with love we can kindly refuse to indulge them.

Love brings laughter back into our lives and helps us turn our ignoble selves into one perfectly flawed being alive with joy and love.

Sad woman image via Shutterstock
March 8, 2016
Don’t Regret, Just Learn and Grow

January 24, 2016
To Get Over the Past, You Have to…

Source: Simple Reminders

January 5, 2016
The Elimination Diet

Source: The Mind Unleashed

January 5, 2016
How a Pause Can Help You Say No and Avoid Regret

“No is a full sentence.” – Unknown

I like to help. I like to be kind. I like to join in.

Usually, these things happen as a result of saying yes. Generally it makes me feel good inside. Better about myself.

But what happens when helping, kindness, and joining in ends up being a burden with too many negative repercussions? Do we continue on the same path? Should we continue to say yes?

Throughout my life, I have had a good relationship with the word yes. Yes has led me to unexpected, beautiful, memorable experiences. Yes has brought me to my beautiful partner and family. Yes has allowed me to approach life with open intention and a limitless heart.

But the light and wonder of the word yes also has a darker side.

Yes has led me to regret, yes has led me to boring and bitter moments, and yes has had me suffering.

Many people I know (me included) burn out in the process of agreeing to things that maybe we shouldn’t. We nurture, we soothe, and we offer companionship—oftentimes to others before ourselves because we say yes.

We are often quick to say yes and dive into tasks, parties, and relationships when sometimes we should be saying no.

This is no mean feat for a person conditioned to play certain roles to please. The transition to kindly, firmly, and confidently say no has been a long time coming for me.

Having experienced one too many moments agreeing to things that deep down I didn’t really want to do, I found it helpful to practice saying no. That tiny word with so much power. That tiny word that has mostly liberated me from the clutches of others’ approval.

It was hard at first. Often I would say no, followed by a long line of excuses, and then I would even offer an alternative arrangement, for fear of offending the other person.

Sometimes I would ruminate about saying no for a long time after the event, beating myself up about it and wondering if the person might ever speak to me again.

Then as I got older I guess, or finally had enough, or maybe it was a natural transition, I started a tentative relationship with the word no.

I danced with the word by creating more space between requests and answers and stopping to feel whether yes felt right. I listened to what I really wanted to do.

There is a beautiful tale told by Clarissa Pinkola Estés about intuition.

In a nutshell, a mother is dying and she wants to ensure her daughter learns to trust her own intuition after she is gone. She hands her daughter a miniature doll, which looks much like the little daughter.

The dying mother tells her daughter to keep the doll in her pocket at all times, feed it, and listen to it whenever she is lost or unsure. These are the last words the mother speaks and the little girl is left holding her doll—a miniature version of herself.

The tale goes on to follow the little orphan as she navigates her way through a difficult time. Every corner she turns, she touches the doll in her pocket and listens for the answers.

Of course the little doll is not actually giving her the answers. The little doll is her. And through the process, she reaches deep within, to listen to her true self and guide her to safety and to love.

According to Estés, the doll represents the inner consciousness of all of us.

If we were to pause momentarily every time we are faced with a difficult decision, we might actually hear the answer from within. Intuition, like many things, needs to be practiced and developed.

Therefore, the best practice for strengthening my relationship with the word no is to pause and feel in that moment. The present. Listening to the doll in my pocket.

It has been liberating to create space between. These days we are really quick to formulate responses in conversation, write hurried emails back to people, voice our opposition to something… It’s jarring and sometimes leads to regrettable outcomes.

In building a better relationship with the word no, space can be created. Stillness. The space between feeling okay and not feeling okay.

All these years, I jumped to yes automatically. I jumped to yes because I was brought up to say yes first. I said yes because I was (and still am in many ways) eager for approval.

Please don’t get me wrong—I am not breaking up with the word yes for good. That is not healthy either. But yes and I are making a ‘conscious uncoupling’ for a while, in order for me to find my inner voice.

I am doing this to hopefully have a better long-term, balanced relationship with the word no, and ultimately those around me. I value both words and the opportunities they bring (and release) for me, and I hope to support my child to learn to do the same.

Life feels so much lighter when we practice finding the space to stop, feel, and listen to the doll in our pocket.

Woman saying no image via Shutterstock

August 4, 2015
How to Let Go of Guilt and Regret and Forgive Yourself

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” ~Paul Boes

In October of 2010 I was engaged after only three weeks of dating. I was scared to tell my family, but I was terrified to tell my father. My parents divorced when I was five, and I couldn’t spend weekends at Dad’s because he lived thousands of miles away. I saved him for last and decided to take the cowardly way out by emailing him.

It was not the best decision I’ve ever made. Not only did it infuriate and hurt him, it ended up producing a phone call that would alter my life forever. It was a call filled with horrible words that left me in tears and him hanging up on me. I’ve managed to erase most of the words from my head but not how devastating they felt.

Six months later we were married in a private ceremony on a beach in Jamaica. After we got back I was still bothered by the fight I had with my father, but I tried to push it to the back of my mind.

Shortly after, my father began reaching out to me through emails and voicemail. He wanted to meet my new husband and see me. Through email, things became pleasant and we made plans to come visit him in Florida that August.

My father left another voicemail saying he was still waiting for me to call back and tell him about my trip, yet something was stopping me. Fear, dread, anxiety, and many other emotions made me freeze at the thought of picking up the phone and calling him.

What if this phone call turns out like the last? Every day I came up with a new excuse and told myself I would call the next day. This was until I ran out of days.

Two months later my oldest brother called me at work to tell me Dad had passed away that morning. He had been sick for some time, but because of our strained relationship and the strained relationship he had with most of my other siblings, I had no idea how sick. I do remember the first thought that went through my head. I can’t call him back….ever.

After my father’s death I fell into a foggy depression. For a long time I was unable to focus at work, I isolated myself from all of my friends, and tried to avoid anything that required being social or productive. I was holding myself back from living and slowly dying myself.

My husband, who was my savior and biggest support system, helped pushed me toward the road to self-forgiveness by asking me this question: “Why can you forgive your father for being absent most of your life, yet you can’t forgive yourself for not calling him back? I don’t get it.” I didn’t either.

It was time to let go of the guilt, and from then on as I began my days with sadness, I searched for different ways to get rid of it.

Reach out to others who can help you understand.

When I was feeling upset, I would ask my mom questions about my dad. I learned more about him in the short time after his death than I knew during his whole life. Her stories helped explain to me why he was the way he was, and in return it helped me realize why I was the way I was. His tendency to avoid confrontation and taking the easy way out made me realize I was my father’s daughter.

Whether it’s a family member, a friend, or even a therapist, reaching out to someone may lead to answers that help you better understand yourself and your situation.

Channel your present guilt and regret into something else.

I didn’t risk calling my father, so I took another risk. For many years it had been my personal and professional dream to write and publish a children’s picture book. I started asking around if anyone knew of someone who could illustrate my story.

When I asked my mother, she replied, “Your father. He was so good at drawing. He was so good at painting too.” Over time she showed me some of the ceramic pieces he painted years ago.

Right then I felt even more determined to find an illustrator and self publish my story. Most importantly, it made me feel closer to him. Learning about his hidden talent was like a push from him to go through with my dream.

What has been your life long dream? There’s no better time than the now to start going after it. The journey you take and the energy you put into it are worth the rewards.

Change your environment.

I started to surround myself with those who showed me that life is limitless, children. I took up a nanny job and started to spend more time with my nieces. There’s nothing like the excitement and positive outlook of a child to show you there is more to life than the bad things you experience. You cry over something, you pick yourself up, and start to play again.

It was hard to let sadness consume me after spending the day with constantly laughing and eager to explore children. They reminded me to enjoy the little things I’d taken for granted. They reminded me the future will be okay.

Migrate to positive people in your life or new ones you meet. A different perspective on life may help change yours as well.

Stopped dwelling on the what ifs and focus on the positive results.

I still hear his last voicemail in my head to this day. “Steph, I’m waiting for you to call me back and tell me about your trip.” No, I never called him back and our last conversation will always be a fight. But that fight sparked a reconciliation. It sparked effort on his part, effort I had been waiting for, for a very long time.

You can’t go and change the past, so there’s no point in obsessing over it. Even if it takes you months to figure it out, search for the positive that resulted from your negative situation.

Believe that you deserve to be forgiven.

I still haven’t 100% forgiven myself, but I’m getting there. I consider myself lucky because on the days that aren’t so good and I can‘t call him back…ever, I get comfort from my biggest support system. It is the support system whom my father wanted to meet and get to know, my husband.

When I remember the progress my father and I were making, it helps put me at ease and I can breath a little easier. It also helps me to hope and work for great things in the future. I deserve my own forgiveness and I know my father believes I do as well.

Believe you deserve to be forgiven. We are not perfect but we are still worthy of happiness. Once you can accept that, self-forgiveness will follow and enlarge a future filled with greatness. The world is your canvas, but if you continue to let guilt hold you back, it will forever remain blank. Pick yourself up and start to play again.

September 15, 2014
3 Powerful Ways to Get Moving When You Feel Stuck in Life

“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.” ~Unknown

I realized I’m going to die soon.

Not, you know, imminently. But soon. Even sixty is soon. Seventy, eighty, ninety, still soon. And I’ll be lucky if I get that old.

I’m going to die.

What’s gotten into me? Maybe it’s the Robin Williams story. That would make sense. A loss that’s shocking really resets your perspective.

Life is fleeting, it’s brief. Even if it’s what we’d consider a long life, it’s short.

This was a thought of mine in the shower today.

I think it jolted me into feeling a little less uptight. A little less scared.

The real scary thing is the big, black unknown. That vast mystery of whatever comes next. Whatever happens after life is snuffed out.

And it will be snuffed out. In the grand scheme (even medium scheme) of history, pretty relatively quickly.

That’s morbid, you may think. But I felt a little better today when I had this thought.

After a good long stretch of isolating myself and digging further into a rut, I felt better about things I’ve been going through. Like cyclical insecure thoughts I’d been having. Apprehension, anger, regret, confusion. Fear. Anxiety.

I feel good today. Because in the face of life ending too soon, and not knowing what comes next, I realize that I know what can come now. I can put together what I want. I can face things boldly.

Compared to the uncertainty of whatever is in the afterlife, whatever my blind date thinks of me tomorrow is pretty manageable by comparison. While I’m here, I better embrace life a little.

I imagine that future me will look back on present me very much the way present me looks back on younger me.

I shake my head sometimes at younger me for her insecurities and hesitation and fear. I want to tell her it’s all going to go by so fast—enjoy it now.

Enjoy it now.

Right now is the time when future me may look back and wonder what on earth I was so worried about. I’m only thirty-one. Thirty-one! Forty-one year-old me would love to be thirty-one!

And eighty-one-year-old me would really wish she was thirty-one.

My god. I’m so lucky to be thirty-one.

What am I doing wasting it on insecurity? Why do I freeze and gravitate toward inaction sometimes?

Every moment that I’m unsure, worried, fretting, concerned about how I’m doing, or wondering if I’ve made the right choices, done the best I can, of if I should worry about what someone thinks, is a waste of precious time. It’s like fourteen-year-old me thinking she was fat. She wasn’t.

Are you hesitant about a fork in the road? Feeling anxious about your options (or lack thereof)? Feel old? Regret something? I can’t tell you what will fix it, but I can share three things that have always given me motivation to really move forward and live.

Walk through a graveyard.

It seems creepy. It isn’t. A cemetery has a fantastic way of reminding you to live your life. Fear of whatever choices you have ahead, or any paralysis of action you may be experiencing, will melt in the presence of beautifully landscaped permanent resting places.

Take a walk around your nearest or prettiest cemetery this weekend and try to quiet your mind. For me, this exercise always results in a great dose of perspective on life. Namely, that it ends. So any choice of action, regardless of how it turns out, is a gift.

Imagine young you.

Remember the school dance you were too scared to go to? Or the crossroads between starting your career or traveling after graduation? How about the girl you never asked out, or the boy you never told off for hurting you?

Young you was trepidatious about a few things—occasions you wouldn’t hesitate to rise to now. So, too, would older you appreciate you finding the courage to drop the worries that are holding you both back today.

Imagine the worst that can happen.

Got a scary thing you want to do? Think of the worst that could happen and weigh it against how much you’d regret not trying. Or, if you’re not sure what to do at all, weigh the consequences of trying something versus doing nothing.

Do something. Embrace the fact that you’re living. Failure, success—both are part of a full life. Living with complacency isn’t living at all.

My favorite question to ask people is what they’d be most upset about if the Grim Reaper showed up and said they’ve got five minutes.

Why wait?

Get to it.

September 10, 2014
Let Go of Regret by Making a Promise to Yourself

“Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown

Regret can be such a paralyzing emotion, yet it is also universal. At some point in our lives, in one way or another, we each wrestle with regret.

Regret seems to rear its ugly head most when it comes to relationships. It happens when a relationship ends and we feel as if we could have done something more. This feeling intensifies when the other person decides that a second chance is not worth the fight. Most of all, we face with regret once it sets in that the past is just that—the past.

Almost one year ago to the day, I lost the man that I thought I would spend the rest of my life with.

At age twenty-eight, after two years of living together, I watched him slam the door on our apartment. My own anxiety and depression led me to keep things inside, secrets, and this slowly built a wall in between us, so thick that we could no longer see each other.

My own anxiety and need for reassurance or praise clouded my head so badly that I could not even notice that he saw right though me. And anytime he tried to get me to open up, I would convince myself that he was the enemy.

We were no longer a team working together; we had become opponents working against each other.

I had created my own nightmare, and now that it was over, all I was left with was regret.

No matter what, I thought that we would find a way through the darkness. But once he walked out that door, he never looked back.

In many ways, I still struggle with the regret following the end of my relationship.

At first, I would enter periods of self-loathing: I could have eaten more so he didn’t have to sleep next to a hollow body made of skin and bones, I could have spent that fourth of July with him instead of choosing to leave him behind for a rock concert, and I could have made him feel like my top priority.

But the truth is, I was so focused on my distorted self-image that I was blinded to the fact that I was pulling away, physically and emotionally.

Yet in the last year, I have also come to realize (through ebbs and flows) that the universe has a way of showing you what rock bottom really looks like in order to demonstrate that you are capable of picking yourself up again.

It is when you are truly alone and forced to face yourself that new opportunities will open up and you force yourself to let love in again.

In the face of regret, the best thing you can do for yourself is not look back, but to make a promise to yourself that you can learn from the experience and do the right thing going forward.

My promises to myself include ensuring that I never take anyone for granted again, and act only with love and compassion for myself and for others. The endings we experience in life are the world’s way of showing you that expansion is imminent.

And if you can’t see through the fog of regret today, know that one day you will. Start making that promise to yourself today that you will no longer sit in your regret, but move forward with integrity, dignity, and self-respect.

Photo by Conny G.

June 15, 2014
How to Deal with Regret: 8 Ways to Benefit and Move Forward

“Stay away from what might have been and look at what can be.” ~Marsha Petrie Sue

When I look back at some of the most painful moments of my life, I see myself sitting alone, feeling either immense shame or regret.

It’s bizarre how we can get so offended and angry when other people hurt us and yet repeatedly choose to torture ourselves, far worse than they possibly could, through repeated mental rehashing.

For the longest time, my biggest regret revolved around missing out on life.

From a distance, people always thought I had everything going for me. Up close, you could see the cracks in that facade. No matter what I got, I was painfully discontent and depressed, and often isolated in fear.

I remember my last night in NYC at twenty-five, sitting in a tiny boxed-up efficiency studio apartment that I rented in a low-income building. I’d been in the apple for two and a half years, and my greatest accomplishments were barely noticeable to anyone but myself.

Granted, they were big ones: I’d quit smoking, formed a yoga practice, and begun the slow uphill climb to liking who I was.

But the list of what I didn’t do often felt far more compelling: I didn’t form many real friendships, I never had a storybook NYC romance like I dreamed about, and I never even once auditioned for a play after growing up on the stage.

I went to NYC to convince the world I was strong, then I broke into a million little pieces and, in stubborn resistance to “giving up,” spent two years trying to glue myself back together.

For a long time I regretted that I went to the city where dreams come true and did absolutely nothing to go after mine. Then I realized something: I was not that girl anymore, and in another second, I would again be someone new.

At any moment I could let go of the weight of who I’d been and allow myself a better chance of becoming who I wanted to be.

What I did or didn’t do could either paralyze me further or motivate me to do something now—something not conceived in reaction to past disappointments but born completely anew from a moment of strength and empowerment. (more…)

April 20, 2014
3 Vital Lessons on Living a Life That Won’t Lead to Regret

“I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.” ~Brene Brown

Even though I’m a psychologist who has been working in the field of development and assessment for the last thirteen years, sometimes it still takes more than reading a theory in a book, or even seeing something work with a client, to make it real for me.

Here are three of the moments that have had the most impact on me and the way I live my life.

1. Each of us has the power to change our situation.

I worked for ten years at a company I mostly loved, in a job I mostly loved, but it was a job that didn’t really love me. It was long hours, hard and stressful work.

I thought I thrived on it for a long time, until I slowly came to realize I didn’t have much of a life outside of work.

I had some health issues that didn’t seem to be improving, but I was hoping, year after year, that things would somehow get better. But it seemed things never did.

My breakthrough moment was realizing that I had the power within me to change the situation. Sometimes a choice might be a hard choice, but it’s still a choice.

So instead of going for the next promotion, I resigned. I moved to SE Asia, where I’ve been living and working freelance for a year now. My life still has work as part of it, but also coffee shops, blogging, friends, fun, travel, and yoga. And passion and purpose in a way it didn’t before.

I had the power to change the situation all along, and eventually, I did.

Consider your own life.

Is there anything that you want to change?

Are you waiting for someone else to make it happen?

Take the power back and take a step toward change yourself.

Change can be hard, but it can also be incredibly rewarding. And if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

2. Act to ensure you feel like you’ve done your best by the relationships in your life at any given moment.

My dad died six years ago, and after the worst of the grieving was done, it gave me another breakthrough moment.

He died suddenly from a heart attack with no warning at fifty-five. It was a terrible shock for all of us. But through the sadness, I was very grateful that I had no regrets about the way our relationship had been. I’d loved him unreservedly, I’d spent time with him, I’d laughed with him, and I’d shared my life with him.

The situation made clear to me that anyone can be taken from us at any time.

And that, even though it sounds a bit macabre, I should live my relationships as though the person could die at any minute.

It’s ensured I respond in a different way to situations that previously could have been blown out of proportion. It’s helped me to avoid many arguments, but also speak up and be honest about my own feelings.

It’s helped me to have the best possible relationship I can with the people I love. And, in fact, some I don’t. I no longer waste time, as I know that time is finite.

How are your relationships right now? With family, with friends?

How would you feel if someone you loved died today? Is there anything you would change about the way you contributed to the relationship?

Remember that while it’s not possible to change how other people respond, it is possible to work on your own responses. Sometimes that can take time and effort, but better now than when it’s too late.

3. What’s right for others isn’t necessarily right for you.

Another breakthrough moment was in the last couple of months, as I’ve been living a very different life in Thailand to the life of the corporate businesswoman I was in the UK.

The study of personality and individual differences is a core part of my training, and something I work with all the time.

I’ve viewed the success of Susan Cain’s book about introverts, Quiet, with interest, as I’m a definite introvert myself, but one who’s always adapted her behavior to demonstrate extrovert behaviors, at work and even with friends.

Recently, my very extrovert mum visited Thailand to spend a month working on our blog and website. This prompted me to realize that I no longer adjust my behaviour as much as I used to.

I spend a lot of time alone, I work in coffee shops with people buzzing around me, but in my own little bubble. But more importantly, I’m okay with that life. I accept that this is the right life for me at the moment, and is giving me the kind of nourishment I need.

And I don’t need to worry about making lots of new friends and doing lots of social activities, as some people suggest to me. I’m okay living the life that’s right for me.

Whilst it’s good to listen to other points of view, I know that what’s right for others isn’t necessarily right for me. And I have the strength to follow my own path.

Are there any aspects of your life that you are living according to what others think is right, rather than what’s right for you?

We are all different, every one of the billions of us alive right now, and we need different things to grow and develop into our “best self.”

Give yourself the best possible chance at this by creating an environment that nurtures you, rather than what others think should nurture you, or what you think should nurture you.

You Own Your Story

All of these three breakthrough moments—taking back the power to make my own choices, ensuring my relationships are in the best possible state, and following my own path despite others’ opinions—had at their core me owning my own story.

If there’s one overarching lesson I would like to share with you, whispering it gently, kindly, but persistently in your ear, it’s that you own your own story.

No one else is writing it for you.

So write with a loving hand, reflecting on your own breakthrough moments, but don’t sit around passively waiting for the story to just happen.

Take a step toward a more nourishing, powerful, and loving life right now.

Photo by Chris Parker

March 12, 2014
You’re Not Behind; You’re Just on Your Own Path

“To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.” ~Sven Goran Eriksson

Endlessly comparing ourselves to others and idealizing their best qualities while underestimating our own are self-defeating behaviors, and they hurt our self-esteem. Yet in the competitive nature of our world, many of us do this.

As a result of my own self-defeating thoughts, throughout my life, I’ve repeatedly felt like I was five years behind where I “should” be.

After high school graduation, many of my peers went away to school and into a new wave of social experiences.

I stayed home, worked, and went to see a lot of bands play, and when I started gaining more life experience of my own, I felt like I was in catch-up mode and ashamed that I hadn’t gotten some of these experiences out of the way earlier.

I had a rocky college career, bouncing between, in, and out of schools, finally completing my English degree when I was twenty-five and feeling absolutely no further toward a career than I had before I’d started.

Attracted to web development because it offered the possibility of working remotely, I learned on the side and eventually landed a job at a small web shop. I was twenty-eight, but felt behind compared to those who had their career paths charted early on, and stacked resumes.

I decided to start freelancing with only one solid client and hoped that I’d be able to sustain myself enough to stay location independent.

After a few years of this, though I still loved the flexibility freelancing offered, I started feeling the need for my work to not only provide for myself, but to also contribute something positive to the world. Now in my mid thirties, I feel like I need to reevaluate again, but compared to others whom are solidifying relationships and buying property, I feel behind.

In the examples above, I’m comparing my path to others that aren’t my own.

If you can relate, try reframing these thoughts as a more accurate reflection of yourself and celebration of your own personal journey.

What did you want? Often when we compare ourselves to others, we are comparing ourselves to an ideal that might appear to be favored by society, media, or whatever, but it’s really not that interesting to us.

After high school, I remember distinctly not wanting to go away to school and thinking dorm life was a manufactured environment that didn’t represent real life. I wanted to hang out with my best friend and go see live music.

As I’ve become more self-aware, I’ve realized my anti-dorming position probably reflected my high levels of social anxiety and that the experience, though difficult at times, would have had a positive impact, though I would have probably missed a lot of awesome shows.

What you wanted from life then might not be what you want now, and that’s okay because throughout life, we change and gain insight. The decisions you made likely reflected where you were in life at that point. Maybe it was the “right” decision or maybe it wasn’t, but celebrate yourself either way.

Look at the positive side of your life path. Read between the lines and don’t focus on the negatives of what you didn’t do.

When I was fourteen, my father took me to England for a couple weeks and it left me with a lasting desire to enjoy traveling beyond the confines of the “paid time off” policies at many jobs in the United States.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted out of school, so it’s probably no surprise that while I bounced between academic institutions, I also spent some of that time period traveling abroad and hence, nurturing and developing a huge part of who I am.

Choices made to appease what you perceive others think you should be doing, rather than what nurtures you, are self-negating. And though they may seem like shortcuts, they will often not bring you any closer to fulfillment.

Focus on what your unique cocktail of nurture and nature enabled you to accomplish.

While others found their career path early, I was sweating inside the back of a 3,000-cubic-foot truck, working 5am merchandising shifts at a major retailer with a group of people that ended up feeling like a family, and I know I will stay in touch with some of them for the rest of my life.

The work felt honest and the people even better, and those are two of the most valuable things in life to me.

While others were sculpting their career, networking, and building relationships, spurred on by my earlier travels, I started to freelance and accomplished a lifelong dream of working remotely abroad.

I took an extended trip to Europe and two years later, did the same thing in South America. While my career development suffered most likely, accomplishing this goal was a priority, and I created memories that I will always cherish.

Take a moment and you can probably think about when you took a less traveled road and accomplished something beautiful.

Celebrate what you love about your personality and how those qualities have contributed to your life experience.

It’s easy to confuse what you want to work on with those qualities that you’re quite happy with.

If I go to a large social gathering, the introvert in me will spend time processing, observing, and taking everything in. I can be pretty quiet initially, but I’m okay with this because the attributes that make me identify as an introvert also have enabled me to form deep friendships, be sensitive to others and the world around me, and to feel on a very deep level.

At that same social gathering, I might be hanging out in a small group listening when I think of a relevant story that I’d love to share, but social anxiety renders me quiet because I’m afraid my storytelling will not hold their attention.

Introversion and social anxiety can sometimes be confused, but they are different concepts. Being introverted has enabled me to experience life in a unique way, but only social anxiety has held me back at times from participating in life like I want to.

Sometimes, two aspects of yourself produce similar symptoms. When you make the decision to work on a behavior, make sure that you’re targeting the right one.

—

I still catch my mind comparing myself to the ideals we are constantly subjected to by society and feeling like I will never catch up. But then I center myself and realize I’m comparing myself to an ideal that is not necessarily applicable to me, and that I need to stay true to my own path. Life is much more personal, complex, and nuanced.

Perhaps there are times when you feel five years behind. But really, you’re constantly learning about yourself and sculpting a life that is a reflection of that, and that’s exactly where you need to be.

Celebrate the path of others but most importantly, celebrate your own, because you’ve likely been living a pretty honest existence all along.

Photo by h.koppdelaney

November 20, 2013
Free Yourself from Regret and Transform Your Life
“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” ~Marianne Williamson

I always had a hard time accepting all of me. As early as I can remember others defined me by saying “You are so weird.” Not in a malicious way but more in a “you don’t fit into our familiar box” sort of way.

I spent most of my teens and twenties attempting to conform to others or numbing myself to a point of not caring what they thought. If someone would have told me that forgiveness and compassion would lead me to inner peace and wholeness, I would have asked them what they were smoking.

So how is it that I came to learn that freedom lies within the forgiving and compassionate heart?

I can assure you that it wasn’t because I have some super powers or a secret knowledge that you don’t. My discovery came through a real and messy life, no different from any other.

Childhood

My dad drank a lot. He was the obvious thorn in the family—the one that everyone else used as a distraction to keep from looking at themselves, the one that needed love the most but we were too afraid to give it.

I was six or seven years old when my dad was pacing back and forth across the street from my grandparents’ house, yelling, “I just want to see my kids.” I thought to myself, “Why can’t he just come over and give me a hug? My daddy just needs a hug.”

Someone in the house was assuring my frightened grandmother that it was against the law for him to come any closer to the house because of the restraining order, which didn’t make much sense to me, so I hugged my doll and disappeared into the background.

As my father’s drinking and raging progressed, I too began to fear him. Afraid of my father, afraid of how people treated him, afraid life could actually be the way that he seemed to experience it—it was all so terrifying.

It wasn’t easy watching my dad struggle his whole life, blaming his family, his job, my mom, and eventually me for his pain.

Occasionally he would have a reprieve. Like the time he sent me a dozen roses for no reason. When I asked him why he sent them, he said, “My daughter is going to get a lot of roses in her lifetime and I wanted to be the first to give them to you.”

He could be so charismatic, loving, and kind. I loved him with all of my heart.

Growing Up

In my twenties I found myself caught between a deep love and a desperate fear of my reflection. I fought a good fight not to become my dad. But as the saying goes, “what you resist persists,” and voila: I woke up one day and realized that I wasn’t like my dad. I had become him.

Now in my twenties I was the one blaming others for my unhappiness; if only my childhood wasn’t so screwed up, if only my father was a better role model and had been there for me, and so on.

Using relationships, alcohol, food, and whatever else I could to drown out daddy’s little mirror, I found myself plagued with the reality of not being able to live successfully anymore than he did.

Healing begins when we can stand still and face ourselves in the mirror of another.

The one thing that I had never witnessed my father do was take responsibility for his actions, which were the culmination of his life experiences. Knowing that I was just like him, I knew I needed to make a different choice, but how?

Intuitively, I knew that I had to ask for help in learning how to become responsible—learning how to respond to life in a new way.

I began reaching out for guidance through counseling, books, and learning from people around me who seemed genuinely happy. I soon discovered the power in connection.

Connecting with people that were living life as creators, rather than victims, showed me a whole new way to live.

I began to change inside. Compassion and self-forgiveness swelled. The principle “as within, so without” proved true as my newfound experience poured out and into my world.

Forgiveness

My thirties were a time of forgiveness during which my father and I were estranged because of his active drinking. At that time I didn’t know how to grow while simultaneously keeping my father in my life.

Unfortunately, by the time my relationship with my father was healed, he had been dead for about five years.

During those years I had made several attempts to make amends with him, once by spreading his ashes on Father’s Day at a place he used to take me and my brother as children.

I’d written and read aloud two letters I wrote for him at different points of time.

Interestingly, the action that created the ultimate healing came to me in meditation one morning.

Sitting in silence I became aware of unkind and dismissive behavior I had displayed toward my father’s fourth ex-wife, Ann. Her only crime was that she loved him and was a kind stepmom. I blamed her for my father’s alcoholism, which made no rational sense.

When I called Ann she was as gracious to me as she had always been.

“It is so good to hear from you,” she said.

I responded, “I’m calling because I have become aware that I somehow held you responsible for my father’s alcoholism, and because of that I was unkind and dismissive toward you. I wanted you to know that I am sorry for the way that I behaved and am extremely grateful that you were able to love and accept my father all those years, especially when I was unable to love him myself.”

Her warmth traveled through the phone lines as she said, “You’re welcome; I understand. Your father so loved you.”

Immediately after our phone conversation I felt something physically leave my body. I will never forget it. Beyond my understanding my relationship with my father had been healed.

The Lesson I Wish I Had Learned Before It was Too Late

After my father died I tried to convince myself that I had no regrets about never healing our relationship. The truth is that years earlier I intuitively knew that it was time to call my father and make things right, but I made the choice not to do it for one reason: fear.

It is the one thing in my life that I would do differently if I could.

Although I believe in a higher plan, with things always happening as they should, my actions play a vital role in the equation. Being responsible for my life has taught me to acknowledge my regret and the choice that I made which created it.

Lessons I Learned from a Forgiving and an Unforgiving Heart
- It is impossible to fully accept ourselves until we are at peace with our greatest fears.
- Our greatest fears are easily detected by looking at those we are yet unable to love.
- When we are willing to make things right in our life, regardless of appearances, seeking inner guidance will teach us how to heal.
- If we still have breath, we can grow.
Today when I find myself restless I ask, “Am I being stingy with my forgiveness?” And if the answer is yes, then I ask, “What can I do now to make things right with myself or between me and another?” knowing that they are one in the same.

Forgiveness is a warrior’s journey where we grow into compassionate human beings. Regret surfaces when we know within what we need to do but we don’t do it. Forgiving is our opportunity to limit regrets.

In our willingness to practice forgiveness we move from seeking acceptance to resting in our wholeness.

Photo by Sara Jo
October 29, 2013
How the Need to Be Right Can Lead to Guilt and Regret

“The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” ~Ralph Blum

I think we all have this issue: guilt, followed by its sister, regret.

I didn’t realize how dark a blemish it was on my heart until I fully felt the anguish of my mother’s death. I never quite realized my full potential, courage, or strength until her passing.

Her greatest sacrifice, leaving this earth, proved to be my greatest motivation to search myself for the answer of whom I was and why; it was the major catalyst in my life for change.

Sometimes the best things for you are the hardest.

Admitting the darkness you’re carrying inside is one of the hardest things to do. Convincing yourself that you have been wrong and need to change can be even harder.

Forgiving yourself because you are human, and loving yourself enough to know you deserve more, and deserve to give others more, is the hardest task of them all.

I was an embittered person almost my whole life. I could hold a grudge with the best of them. I felt I had a lot to be resentful for, and truthfully, much of it was not unwarranted. But with my inability to never let go of things, I was miserable, making everyone else around me miserable, as well.

This went far beyond just being angry. I felt I was being terribly misunderstood and never heard. I also felt the constant need to have to defend myself and my views with a strong argument.

I had a very strained relationship with my mother starting when I was 14. I was at that age when I thought my parents knew nothing and I was smarter than they were.

I can now fully understand why I felt that way, beyond just normal teenage rebellion. I was projecting a lot of my older siblings’ perceived unpleasant experiences with my parents onto my own, and letting that determine my relationship with them.

There was a lot of friction between them, and I somehow felt that if I didn’t share their same resentment I was somehow betraying them.

Because of this, I went through my youth and into my adulthood expecting my mom to give more than she could and blaming her, instead of blaming myself for not having enough compassion and never taking the time to understand that she was a person, too.

I seemed to always be aggravated at everything she did.

I held onto the need to be right, never letting up and always needing to argue. I grew into this person who could never listen with a compassionate heart and lived with resentment instead of love, kindness, and forgiveness.

I was very hard-hearted instead of soft and pliable and forgiving.

We would have bouts of calm when we got along great, then something would shift in her mood or mine and it would turn volatile. I see now that, because we were so much alike, it caused much of that friction. This went on for our whole relationship, up until just a couple of years before she died.

I’m not saying she was without her faults, too. But now that she’s gone, and since I am much older, I can see everything so much clearer. That’s where the guilt comes in.

We had been working on our relationship, though we didn’t acknowledge that openly, and we were really making headway. You see, I couldn’t even hug her, hadn’t done since I was a kid. But I was getting closer to her and hugging her more because I knew she needed it, and so did I.

My great wall was crumbling.

We had always done things together for years, not that that stopped the bickering. But that was all but over for a long while. Not long enough, though. And this is where the regret comes in.

I wasted so much time being angry and self-righteous that I missed out on having a better relationship with my mother.

If I had only known then what I have learned in the last few years and especially since her death, I could have saved myself the burden of that guilt and regret.

There are so many moments each day where I will have a memory of us together and I will feel shame for the way I reacted to a situation. In my mind I can change the outcome to something that I should have done to handle the situation better.

When she would be difficult, and she could be at times, why did I have to make it worse? Why couldn’t I have just stayed calm and had compassion for her feelings instead of getting overwhelmed and lashing out?

I was incapable of doing that at the time because it’s hard to do when you are totally unconscious. You act before you think, lash out before you embrace.

Oh, how I wish I had known this calm before it was too late! I think about the agony I could be saving myself now, and I am filled with remorse. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can save yourself from the pain that I am trying to overcome.

All it takes is a step in the right direction.

It is so important to put your prideful ego aside and try the softer way. Ask yourself these three questions:

1. Will it destroy me to “give in,” take the barriers down, and not have to be right all of the time?

When you “give in” it is not to lie down and be trampled on, but to slow down and reflect on what’s most important. The egotistical need to be right is what will ultimately destroy you. It leaves no room for compromise or compassion for another’s feelings, and will cause you more damage in the long run.

2. Is it worth it to be right, making the argument more important than making someone else happy?

When you constantly reinforce to the people in your life that you value your own opinions more than their feelings, it can cause a lot of hurt. Why not take the higher road and save the moment by saving your voice?

3. Will my actions now cause me pain and regret later?

My biggest lesson learned was that, if I had only known then what I know now, I could have prevented so much grief.

I wish I had had more generosity in my heart at that time. I wish I knew how to pause and let myself have that moment to feel the clarity that I needed to make a better choice in how I handled the situation at hand.

I know that, when she did things that I considered unforgivable, it’s because she didn’t know any better and was only doing the best she knew how at that time, as was I.

I am so grateful that I have learned these lessons now so that I can have the opportunity to live this way from here on out. I’m a big believer in things happening for a reason, and though I don’t quite know how to justify this one, I thank my mother every day for her sacrifice in that in losing her, I gained the greatest insight.

I just wished I’d learned these lessons sooner.

Photo by Kevin Krejci

April 16, 2013
Lessons from Regret: The Time is Now

“Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown

“Six weeks ago the doctors told me he had six weeks to live. I don’t think he is going to survive the night.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” I whimpered, my voice barely above a whisper. ‘We don’t have any time left.”

I didn’t think that as a 19 year old, seeing my father die in a hospital was going to be something I would experience. Wasn’t he meant to grow old and grey, with me taking care of him?

Nevertheless, in the early hours of the following morning, when the rest of the world was lying in a quiet slumber, I was sat at my dad’s bedside, holding his hand while it slowly grew cold. I wasn’t willing to let go, as letting go would mean accepting what was. I wasn’t ready for that.

My dad and I had always had such a difficult relationship. I was the rebel teenager and he was the frustrated father who just never knew what to do with me. In the end, when the cancer had really taken over, he just gave up. He knew I wouldn’t be his problem for much longer.

As the weeks and months passed, it became easier to be without him. But the one thing that followed me was the regret I felt—of not trying to understand him, and not making our relationship better.

The older I get, the more I realize that that period of life was meant to teach me some tough lessons—lessons that have stayed with me to this day.

If you want to say something, say it.

Don’t wait for a good time. Life is beautiful and cruel in that it doesn’t tell you when your last day on earth will be. (more…)

March 26, 2013
When Your Beliefs Hold You Back: Release Them to Avoid Regret
“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” ~lan Watts

Do you hear voices?

Even when you are alone, there is usually someone talking to you. And you hear them loud and clear.

Everyone has an internal dialogue going through their heads for a large part of the day. Just because you hear these “voices” it doesn’t mean you are crazy.

On the other hand, these voices can make you believe some crazy things.

Most of what these voices tell you is negative. And when you hear these negative things often enough, you come to believe them.

The worst part is that these voices speak to you in the first person, making you imagine that it’s actually your words:
- “I’ll never be able to lose weight. I just have a slow metabolism.”
- “Old/Bald/Fat people like me never find fulfilling relationships.”
- “I’m not the kind of person who can start my own business—people like me just get a ‘comfortable’ job.”
Underlying each of these statements are assumptions that restrain your behavior, or limiting beliefs. See if you can spot some.

For a long time, I thought I had to become a professional, like a doctor, lawyer, or accountant.

Since I was good at math, I decided to become an actuary. I was fairly content with this decision for a while.

But despite enjoying my 10-week internship, I felt like I couldn’t handle 40+ straight years of corporate work.

In my mind, however, it would have been a waste of my intelligence to do anything else that I wanted to do, such as writing. Plus, I craved the ego boost that comes from other people seeing me as intelligent.

So I applied for more actuarial jobs. And I got rejected from all of them.

While it certainly did hurt to get rejected, it forced me to choose another path for myself. (more…)
March 18, 2013
Moving on from a Mistake: 5 Tips to Relieve Your Pain

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” ~Elbert Hubbard

We all make mistakes, but sometimes it’s hard to remember that when we’re in the midst of them. We try to avoid them at all costs because the pain and price can be high.

It can cost us our jobs, our reputations, or our driving records.

In their election ads, political candidates often focus on their opponents’ negative aspects in order to make us vote for them instead. It’s almost as if we’re voting for the person least likely to mess up.

My boyfriend and I used to make jokes about the negative ads because we know they’re ridiculous; we know that they are half-truths and lies.

We’re always going to make mistakes, so I think the most important thing is to focus on our intentions and moral compasses. We can try to do our best, but we will never be perfect.

Just think about watching a gymnast slip off the balance beam at the Olympics. It’s so painful to watch! We know that she’s trained her entire life, hours upon hours every day to get there—and now she’s messed up!

We wonder to ourselves, how will she ever get over that mistake? Will it plague her thoughts for the rest of her life? It almost makes us glad we’re not in her shoes.

No matter how hard we practice, we will occasionally trip up. And we have to accept that.

We have to somehow pick up the pieces after that painful reminder of our humanity and fallibility. We have to piece together our egos and deal with a varying array of emotions.

And the emotions can vary greatly when our egos have been bruised. We can be mad at ourselves for making the mistake. We can feel upset with others because they judge us.

We all want to be accepted and loved, and mistakes can make us feel unlovable and flawed. We forget that everyone’s been there before and will be there again.

I’ve made many mistakes in my life. One time, I got into a wreck because I turned at an intersection too soon. The sun blinded me at sunset and I wasn’t wearing heavy-duty sunglasses.

As a result, another car sideswiped me. I sat there crying, upset at what had just happened. How was I going to tell my parents? What were they going to say to me?

Although no one was physically hurt, the pain lingered in my heart. I blamed myself and carried around that weight for weeks. My car was totaled and I had to drive my parents’ car to and from work each day.

I felt like a failure. My insurance rates went up. My driving record was tarnished.

I was scared to drive. But then I reminded myself of a few things that helped me get some perspective. (more…)

December 16, 2012
Catch Anger Before It Catches You

“For every moment you are angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’m not an angel. In fact, my husband used to lovingly call me a “fierce creature.” This fiery inclination can be due to inborn temperament, but it can also be a result of post-traumatic stress or similar brain-impacting life events.

It’s taken a concerted effort, over many years, for me to become more loving, tolerant, and peaceful.

But I still lose it from time to time. Like today, for example, it must have been a triple critical day because I lost it three times in a row.

It started with an unusually frustrated phone call with a relative. Then, an empty granola bar box made me furious enough to fling it across the room.

Lastly, a well-meaning guardian at the visitors’ center of a private yoga resort challenged me. Yes, heaven forbid, I walked up the driveway, but honestly I didn’t cross the gate.

In fact, I was in my car, about to leave, when she came flying over to warn me the resort property is off limits without a guest pass. I became curt and defensive, cold anger seeping through. After all, I’ve already been on the grounds at least a million times.

Indulging in Anger Harms Your Health and Happiness

In each case, I was caught in an almost automatic response. But I quickly recognized the error of my ways. Why? Because, in addition to harming others, I know that indulging in anger harms my own health and detracts from my own happiness too.

Take a moment to tune in to yourself the next time you get angry. By doing so, you can discover anger’s harmful impact for yourself.

When I’m triggered by anger, I feel an upsurge of energy at first—almost a high—as adrenalin surges through my body. But this feisty response quickly dissolves into feeling all churned up. If I start replaying the scene in my mind, easy to do, the emotional turmoil can keep on for days.

On the other hand, genuine regret might pop up. Then I feel bad about myself. I get caught up in how to fix the mess, pulled between my self-righteousness and an ardent wish to let go.

Almost always, healing the wound I’ve imposed takes considerable time—time that could have been used for better purposes if I had only held my tongue. (more…)

December 13, 2012
Owning Our Actions and Avoiding Regret

“Your actions are your only true belongings.” ~Allan Lokos

I’d bet I’m not the only one who browses through the quotes section of Tiny Buddha when its time for a pick-me-up or a little bit of a calming down.

As I’m writing this, the quote above is particularly pertinent. I found out an hour ago that someone has hit my car for the second time this year—in the same parking lot as the last accident.

I’m pretty upset, and between waiting to file the police report and being on hold with the insurance, a little bit of comfort reading made sense.

I know this quote. Really, really know it. It’s part of the liturgy from my old sangha, from before I moved to a small town where there isn’t such a thing.

My actions are my only true belongings. In the liturgy it’s followed by the logical next step: I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.

And the final line always made me want to shout out loud, to proclaim it from the rooftops: My actions are the ground on which I stand.

This is where I make my stand. On the ground of my actions.

Whatever my thoughts are, however my mind drifts, that’s okay. I don’t have to worry about being perfect at meditation, about having a clear, peaceful mind.

I’m a terrible mediator. Thoughts flow in and out of my mind. It doesn’t take but a minute of silence before I’m thinking about tonight’s dinner and wondering what I need to get from the store.

I’m not particularly skilled in the other paths. Right speech is an ongoing challenge.

There’s something liberating in not having to worry about always being in control of my slippery, wandering mind. Thought is hard to corral, hard to train.

Action is a bit different.

That’s something you can get a handle on. You don’t have to worry too much about shades of grey with actions. You did it, or you didn’t.

It’s not about intention, or thoughts, or feelings. It’s about actions. What you actually do.

I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.

We’ve all learned about consequences from the time we were five. Somewhere along the way we stole a cookie or lied about breaking something or made up some random fib and were grounded. Consequences are something we may not like, but we understand.

My actions, and the consequences of my actions, are my only true belongings.

Even if I’m angry, what actions do I want to own at the end of today? I could yell and scream about this. I could go off on a rant at the guy who hit my car, if we can find him. (more…)

October 3, 2012
How to Stop Beating Yourself Up Over Poor Choices and Minor Mistakes

“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

I have just eaten enough pizza to satisfy three people and I’m feeling awful for having done it. Awful because my stomach can only hold so much, awful because I know I’m going to pay for eating it (dairy and I have a difficult relationship), and awful because I know I shouldn’t have done it.

This is what my internal monologue looks like:

Me: I feel so sick.
Inner Me: You shouldn’t have eaten so much then!

Me: I know but I really fancied it and I hate wasting food.
Inner Me: You always do this, you know that?

Me: I thought I could do it differently this time.
Inner Me: What, you mean not gorge? We spoke about this, Sam. We spoke about how the last time really was the last time.

Me: I know… I kind of caved though.
Inner Me: You lack discipline; you need to be stricter with yourself.

I could go on for ages, but you get the idea.

Everyone has that voice inside of them that might berate them for less than wise choices: that unnecessary new sweater (to join all your others); the new phone (even though the one you have now works perfectly); staying up late to finish work (that could have been done earlier in the day if only you hadn’t spent the afternoon catching up with your favorite TV series).

A lot of people let this voice get the better of them. They let it get out of control to the point where, instead of being a good moral compass, it becomes a guilt-tripper of tyrannical proportions. It harms instead of helps. But why do we let this happen? (more…)

April 1, 2012