Tiny Buddha

Tag: release

  • From Pain to Peace: How to Grieve and Release Unmet Expectations

    From Pain to Peace: How to Grieve and Release Unmet Expectations

    “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” ~Rumi

    Before 2011, I had heard many spiritual teachers talk about “accepting what is.” It sounded nice in theory, like good mental information to chew on. But it didn’t feel embodied. I understood it intellectually, but I wasn’t living it.

    Then I attended a weekend intensive with a teacher I deeply respected, and something in the way he explained it hit deeper. It wasn’t just talk. The essence of his words turned a spiritual idea into something I could start to live.

    In that talk, he shared a story about a father whose son had become paraplegic. The father was devastated because he had so many expectations—that his son would go to college, graduate, get married, and have children. But those dreams died the day of the accident.

    The father was still living in a mental loop: “I should be going to his graduation.” “I should be at his wedding.” He couldn’t let go of the life he thought his son was supposed to have.

    The teacher explained that the father needed to grieve his expectations, not just in his mind, but in his body. That hit me hard. It was like an athlete expecting to win a championship and then getting injured. They’re stuck in that same mental trap: “I should have had that career,” and they suffer for years because life handed them a different card.

    That story cracked something open in me.

    The Weight of ‘Shoulds’ on the Body

    I’m someone who tends to be idealistic. I had high expectations for myself, others, and how life was supposed to go. And when people didn’t live up to those ideals, whether in business, relationships, or everyday interactions, it really hurt. I believed people should be honest, ethical, and truthful. They shouldn’t lie; they shouldn’t manipulate. I had a long list of “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” that governed how I expected life to go.

    When life didn’t meet those expectations, I felt disappointed, angry, even hateful at times. My body held the tension. I had chronic stress, emotional pain, and health challenges. For six months, I was even coughing up blood, and doctors couldn’t find anything wrong. Looking back, I see now that I was holding on so tightly to my expectations that my body was breaking under the pressure.

    This is what that teacher was pointing to: that to truly accept what is, we have to grieve our expectations on a body level. It’s not enough to tell yourself affirmations like “just accept it” until you’re blue in the face. You have to feel where your body says, “No.”

    That means noticing: does your body feel heavy? Is your heart tight or tense? If there’s anything other than lightness or peace, then there’s something you haven’t grieved or released.

    By staying present with those sensations, without trying to fix or change them, you start to feel shifts. The signs of release are subtle but real: yawning, tears, vibrations, or a sense of energetic movement. It’s like something in your nervous system finally says, “Okay, I can let go now.”

    Letting Go Became the Practice

    After that retreat, I spent the whole summer sitting with these “should” beliefs. Every day, I made time to observe my thoughts and emotions. I noticed how often I was clinging to ideas like “I should have done this” or “they shouldn’t act that way.” It was uncomfortable at first. I didn’t realize how much I had been carrying around.

    I committed three to four months to this work. Being self-employed gave me the space to dive deep, and I felt it was necessary to do my own inner work before I could help others with theirs. I probably put in hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours during that time.

    Through that commitment, I released huge chunks of subconscious programming I didn’t even know were there. I realized I had inherited a lot of my “should” thinking from my upbringing. My mother also had strong expectations; when things didn’t go her way, she’d have intense emotional reactions. I had absorbed that pattern without realizing it.

    At the end of those few months, I felt like I had begun the real journey of embodying spiritual growth. Not just reading about it. Living it. Accepting what is became something I could feel in my bones, not just think about.

    But that was just the beginning.

    Acceptance Happens in Layers

    Over the next ten years, I noticed a pattern: about every six months to a year, a similar trigger would arise. Same emotion, same resistance, but less intense. The duration of my suffering shrank, too. What used to upset me for weeks now only remained for a few days, then a few hours.

    I came to understand that accepting “what is” happens in layers, like peeling an onion. At first, I released the more obvious emotional charges held in the heart or gut. But as time went on, I discovered deeper, more subtle conditioning stored in the nervous system, bones, tailbone, even in my skin and sense organs.

    The body doesn’t release it all at once—maybe because doing so would overwhelm the system. With each layer that releases, it feels like the body grants permission to go deeper.

    To find and clear these deeper layers, I learned muscle testing from the Yuen Method of Chinese Energetics that helps uncover subconscious resistances. Muscle testing was quite a powerful experience, teaching me to intuitively talk to the body to find and release unconscious ancestral conditioning and forgotten traumas that are decades-old or generational programs located in different body areas.

    My Personal “Should”: Loved Ones Should See My Good Intentions

    For example, I used to hate it when my father made negative assumptions about my good intentions or deeds. Instead of appreciating my efforts, he would criticize them, leaving me with the feeling that no matter how hard I tried, it was never good enough for him.

    This took me many years to work through, and each year, with each trigger, I discovered so much conditioning. I would have emotional meltdowns; my body would be tense and angry, just like my mom, because that’s how she is. From working on these triggers over the years, he can hardly get a reaction out of me anymore.

    I was essentially reacting in a hardwired way. When my father made negative assumptions about my mom, she would often respond with emotional meltdowns and angry outbursts. I realized I had inherited the same pattern.

    Over the years, each time my father pushed a button, I had to do continuous work on the different layers of conditioned reactions in specific areas of the body. His button-pushing became a gift: it constantly revealed more hidden layers of emotional reactivity.

    These days, if he makes negative assumptions, it might still bother me a little, but it’s nothing like the angry, hateful emotional reactions I used to have. If my body still reacts slightly, it’s giving me feedback, making me aware that there is still unconscious conditioning that needs to be released.

    If you do this work, over time, you will notice your loved ones may still push the same buttons and sometimes even say unkind words or behave in ways that used to deeply hurt you. But your triggers and reactivity can be significantly reduced.

    You won’t take their words or actions as personally anymore. Instead, there’s a growing sense of love and acceptance—for yourself, the situation, and your loved ones, regardless of what they do. Doing this work feels like moving closer to unconditional love, or at least as close as we can get.

    The Ongoing Unfolding of Acceptance

    This process taught me that accepting what is isn’t a one-time breakthrough. It’s a slow unwinding of everything we were taught to expect, demand, or resist. It’s a return to what’s actually here, moment by moment, breath by breath.

    Even now, I still get triggered. But I’m better at meeting those moments with curiosity instead of judgment. I know the signs in my body. I can feel when something hasn’t been grieved yet.

    If you’re like me, if you have a long list of “shoulds” about yourself, about others, about life, maybe it’s time to sit with them. To feel where they land in your body. To grieve the life you thought was supposed to happen.

    Because healing doesn’t come from controlling life. It comes from letting go of the fight against it. It comes from feeling into what is, with an open heart and a patient presence.

  • What If Growth Is About Removing, Not Adding More to Your Life?

    What If Growth Is About Removing, Not Adding More to Your Life?

    “Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” ~Paulo Coelho

    For years, any time I felt sadness, insecurity, loneliness, or any of those “unwelcome” feelings, I jumped into action.

    I’d look for something new to take on: a class, a language, a project, a degree. Once, in the span of a single week, I signed up for language classes, researched getting certified in something I didn’t actually want to do, and convinced myself I needed to start training for a 10K.

    Because if I was doing something productive, I wouldn’t have to sit with what I was feeling. That was the pattern: uncomfortable emotion → frantic pursuit of something “more.”

    I became a master at staying busy. If I was chasing something, I didn’t have to face the ache underneath. But the relief was always temporary, and the crash afterward was always the same.

    Because deep down, I wasn’t looking for a new skill. I was looking for a way to feel like I was enough.

    I once heard someone say, “We can never get enough of what we don’t need.” I felt that in my bones.

    Looking back, I can see why. I spent a lot of my life trying to earn my place, not because anyone said I wasn’t enough, but because it never really felt safe to just be. There was a kind of emotional instability in my world growing up that made me hyperaware of how others were feeling and what they needed from me.

    I got really good at shape-shifting, staying useful, and keeping the peace, which eventually morphed into perfectionism, people-pleasing, and a chronic drive to prove myself. I didn’t know how to feel safe without performing. So, of course I kept chasing “more.” It was never about achievement. It was about survival.

    But no matter how much I accomplished, I never felt satisfied. Or safe. Or enough.

    It reminded me of something a nutritionist once told me: when your body isn’t properly absorbing nutrients, eating more food won’t fix the problem; it might even make things worse. You have to heal what’s interfering with absorption. The same is true emotionally.

    When we don’t feel grounded or whole, adding more—more goals, more healing, more striving—doesn’t solve the problem. We have to look at what’s blocking us from receiving what we already have. We have to heal the system first.

    We live in a culture that convinces us that growth is about accumulation.

    More insight. More advice. More goals. More tools. If you’re stuck, clearly you haven’t found the right “more” yet.

    So we reach for books, podcasts, frameworks, plans, certifications—anything to build ourselves into someone new.

    But here’s what I’ve learned from years of doing my own work: Real growth doesn’t come from becoming someone new. It comes from letting go of what no longer serves you so that you can make room for the version of you that’s trying to emerge.

    There’s a quote attributed to Michelangelo that says, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

    He believed his sculptures were already complete inside the stone; his job was simply to remove what wasn’t part of them.

    When I heard that, I realized: That’s exactly how real transformation works. Not more, not better, not shinier. Just… less in the way.

    But when people feel stuck, they react by piling on layer after layer of effort, advice, and activity until the thing they are actually looking for (peace, clarity, ease, joy) gets buried even deeper.

    When we feel inadequate or incomplete, our instinct is to reach outward for something to fill the space. But the real work is to turn inward and get curious about what that space is trying to show us.

    That might sound airy-fairy, but the truth is, identifying and transforming the parts of us that are carrying old stories isn’t passive. It’s not just a mindset shift or a nice thought on a coffee mug. It’s work.

    It’s learning how to sit with discomfort without immediately escaping into productivity.

    It’s noticing the parts of us that over-function, over-apologize, and over-control and asking where they learned to do that. It’s exploring the beliefs we’ve carried for years, like “I have to earn my worth” or “If I stop striving, I’ll disappear”—and getting curious about who they actually belong to and what they really need from us.

    This isn’t about erasing who you’ve been. It’s about honoring the roles you played to survive and choosing not to let them lead anymore.

    You don’t have to overhaul your personality or give up on ambition. This work is about clearing away what’s outdated and misaligned. The thoughts, roles, and behaviors that might have kept you safe once—but are now keeping you stuck.

    Here’s what that might look like:

    • Letting go of the belief that love must be earned.
    • Dismantling the habit of saying “yes” to avoid disappointing others.
    • Releasing the fear that setting boundaries will make you unlovable.
    • Recognizing that staying small isn’t humility, it’s protection.

    I’ve used every one of these tools myself. I began to notice when I was performing instead of connecting, fixing instead of feeling. I caught myself hustling for approval and validation and started asking: What am I afraid will happen if I stop? I practiced pausing. I gave myself permission to rest, to say no, to take up space. And slowly, I began to trust that I didn’t have to be more to be enough.

    This kind of letting go isn’t instant. It requires awareness, compassion, and support. It requires choosing to stop running and start listening… to yourself.

    Many of us are afraid to let go because we believe we’ll be left with less—less identity, less stability, less value. But in my experience, the opposite is true.

    When we stop performing and start unlearning, we uncover a version of ourselves that feels more whole than anything we could have constructed.

    Under the perfectionism? There’s peace.

    Under the overthinking? There’s clarity.

    Under the fear of being too much? There’s boldness.

    We are not lacking. We are hidden.

    If this resonates with you—if you’re tired of doing more and still feeling stuck, here are a few places to begin:

    Pause the performance. Notice when you’re trying to “fix” something about yourself. Ask what you’re feeling underneath the fixing.

    • Identify the beliefs you inherited. Were you taught you had to earn love? Be useful to be safe? Stay small to be accepted?
    • Get curious about your patterns. What roles do you play at work, in relationships, in your head? Where did they start?
    • Create space. That might mean working with a coach or therapist or simply setting time aside to be with yourself, without distraction.
    • Be gentle. You’re not broken. You’re patterned. And patterns can be unlearned.

    Here’s what I want you to know: what’s on the other side of the removal process isn’t emptiness. It’s clarity. Peace. Energy. Trust.

    That person you’re trying so hard to build? That person is already there, just waiting for you to set them free.

  • When You Stop Forcing, Life Flows

    When You Stop Forcing, Life Flows

    “You don’t have to force the flow—sometimes your only job is to soften and let go.” ~Unknown

    For most of my life, I was obsessed with getting everything right. Planning. Controlling. Anticipating every outcome so I wouldn’t be caught off guard. I saw life as a kind of puzzle: if I just made the right moves in the right order, I’d get what I wanted. Peace, success, love.

    But life doesn’t work that way.

    The more I tried to control it, the more I felt out of alignment. I would burn out trying to make things happen. When something went wrong, I blamed myself for not anticipating it. I couldn’t relax because I was always tightening the reins, trying to steer the unknown.

    Then one day, something cracked.

    It was the winter of 2021. I was staying in a quiet village in southern Portugal, trying to piece my life back together after a painful breakup and the collapse of a startup I had poured years into. I’d gone there thinking solitude and fresh air would help me reset.

    But nothing felt right.

    I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t meditate. I couldn’t even enjoy the ocean—something that once brought me pure joy. Instead of peace, I felt stuck and overwhelmed. My mind replayed every decision I’d made over the past few years like a courtroom drama. “If only you’d done this.” “You should have seen that coming.” “You’ve ruined your shot.”

    I sat on the beach one evening as the sun went down, feeling completely defeated. I remember watching the waves crash rhythmically against the rocks. They didn’t care about me or my mistakes. They weren’t rushing or apologizing. They were just… doing their thing.

    That’s when it hit me.

    Nature doesn’t force anything. A wave doesn’t strive to be taller. A tree doesn’t try to grow faster. They exist in a kind of trust—a natural cooperation with life. And somehow, despite all that ease, they thrive.

    What if I’m the one disrupting my own flow by trying to control everything?

    It wasn’t a lightning bolt. It was more like a soft whisper inside. But something shifted.

    I started asking myself a new question each morning: “What would happen today if I didn’t try to control anything?”

    I didn’t have to force myself to do nothing. I still worked, moved, made decisions. But I tried to stay present rather than five steps ahead. I let myself feel uncertain without reaching for solutions right away. I listened more—to myself, to life, to the quiet.

    And over time, I noticed something strange. My anxiety started to fade—not all at once, but like a fog lifting. I stopped catastrophizing every decision. I felt a little more at peace, even if nothing around me had changed.

    That’s when I began learning what I now call divine flow.

    To me, divine flow is the current of life that we can either resist or surrender to. It’s not passive. It’s not about “doing nothing” or abandoning effort. It’s about cooperating with something deeper—something beyond just logic or planning.

    It’s learning to recognize that there are seasons for pushing and seasons for resting. That sometimes what looks like a setback is actually an invitation to realign. That clarity often comes when you stop chasing it.

    There’s a trust that builds when you live this way.

    You realize you don’t need to have everything figured out. You can still move forward with intention—but without gripping so tightly.

    Since then, I’ve built a life more aligned with who I am. I started creating wellness events focused on community and connection rather than perfection. I met people who inspired me simply by being themselves. I even learned to show up vulnerably, like I’m doing now, without needing everything to be polished or impressive.

    I still have moments where I fall back into old habits—where I try to force outcomes or fix everything too quickly. But I catch myself faster now. I’ve learned that tension is usually a sign that I’m out of the flow.

    If you’re in a space where things feel hard or disconnected, here are a few gentle invitations that helped me reconnect with the flow:

    • Let yourself feel lost. You don’t need to rush to “figure it out.” Sometimes the most fertile growth happens in the spaces where we allow ourselves to feel confused and uncertain.
    • Listen more than you analyze. Instead of trying to force answers, sit with your questions. Journal. Walk. Let thoughts come without needing to trap them.
    • Release the timeline. Things don’t have to happen on your schedule. You’re not late. You’re not behind. You’re just unfolding.
    • Ask for signs—but don’t cling to them. Sometimes life will whisper directions when you’re quiet enough to hear. But the key is to listen without expectation or pressure.
    • Come back to your breath. When your mind spirals, anchor into the present. One breath. One step. One moment.

    We can’t always choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we meet life. With resistance—or with curiosity. With fear—or with trust.

    These days, I still sit by the ocean when I can. I still watch the waves. I remind myself that there’s a rhythm beneath everything—and that my only real job is to stay soft enough to feel it.

    Maybe that’s all we ever needed to do.

  • How I Calm and Release Intense Emotions of Anger, Sadness, and Frustration

    How I Calm and Release Intense Emotions of Anger, Sadness, and Frustration

    “You don’t have to be positive all the time. It’s perfectly okay to feel sad, angry, annoyed, frustrated, scared, or anxious. Having feelings doesn’t make you a ‘negative person.’ It makes you human.” ~Lori Deschene

    In November, I was on an emotional roller coaster full of sudden, unexplainable fits of anger—hysterically crying for no reason, barely sleeping, feeling urges to physically kick, hit, and scream.

    One of the main triggers was when my partner would go out without me.

    He’d go out with his friends to play pool, and I would immediately shut down, shut him out, and turn inward.

    Lying in bed, my thoughts would spiral out of control.

    What if he gets hurt?
    He’s a grown man playing pool; he’s not going to get hurt.

    Is he picking up other women?
    No. He loves me.

    Why didn’t he invite me?
    Having time to ourselves is something I value.

    We’re in a loving, committed relationship and have been together for four years, so why hasn’t he proposed?
    Wait, do I actually want to get married? Or has society just told me I want to get married?

    Why hasn’t he texted me?
    He’s being present with his friends. That is a good thing.

    What is wrong with me? Why am I being petulant, controlling, and jealous? Why can’t I support his time with friends like he does for me? On and on and on…

    Then the physical sensations would take over my body.

    I’d feel hot, my heart would beat quickly, and I wanted to escape my body. I’d have the urge to kick and scream and punch. I could not relax.

    I tried to quell my emotions and rely on the quiet, calm part of me to remedy the situation with my go-to tactics of meditating, focusing on breathing, and reading, but all of those failed miserably.

    I could not figure out why my usual calm, optimistic self, who is able to quickly pinpoint negative thoughts and change them, was not doing her job.

    My inability to understand what the hell was happening made me feel even more angry, frustrated, and helpless.

    So, through talk therapy, coaching, and journaling, I turned to my inner child, who I know wants to be seen, heard, and loved but who has erected walls to protect her heart.

    Communing with my inner child offered me a giant release and a few discoveries:

    In my relationship (and in my new business), I had a deep fear of abandonment and fear of the unknown.

    My fear of abandonment was being activated because my partner and I had just finished eighteen months of travel during which we were together most of the time. I grew comfortable in our little refuge, secluded from the rest of the world.

    And now, we were back in the real world, hanging out with people, adjusting to a new city and new jobs.

    I felt like we didn’t spend any time together anymore. I had expected him to propose during our year of travel, but he didn’t. I thought he was pulling away from me.

    The truth is, all of these were made-up stories in my head.

    In reality, we still spent a lot of time together, and we had gotten to know each other even more intimately and deeply during our year of travel. (And a proposal was right around the corner!) We were simply adjusting to a new way of living.

    I also started to realize that I was desiring to express a part of me that I had never expressed.

    The tears and physical discomfort were a sign that a part of me was being suppressed. Those parts that I was suppressing were the parts of me that I had been told were too much… too emotional, too loud, too big.

    I was taught that being stoic and quiet is a virtue.

    I was taught that showing emotions is a sign of weakness.

    I was taught that women are meant to be seen, not heard.

    I started to realize that it is actually a strength to express emotions and that I am worthy of taking up space.

    And I realized that my anger, frustration, and sadness could not be quelled and calmed through breathing and meditation; rather, I needed to become fortified in these intense emotions and express them in a healthy way.

    Three tactics I use to be fortified in the difficult emotions of anger, frustration, and sadness are:

    1. Shake it out. I bring my whole body into this and shake and stomp. It offers an instant release of tension.

    2. Yell it out. I go in my car, turn up some music, and yell until my vocal cords feel tired. Afterward, I always think, “Wow, that felt good.”

    3. Run it out. I never feel worse after a run, especially a run in the rain.

    Each of these tactics is of a physical nature, because sometimes, our emotions are simply energy that needs to be moved through the body. (I suggest pairing these three somatic practices with mindset work to understand and move through your beliefs, doubts, and fears. In other words, get into the body and the mind!)

    So, if you’re feeling intense emotions that you are unable to quell and calm, I invite you to match that emotional intensity with a healthy physical release.

    And please know that fear of abandonment in our relationships is totally normal (it’s a survival instinct, which might also be exacerbated by childhood trauma), so release the self-judgment and give yourself a little grace.

    (Also, I am happy to report that, at the time of writing, my fiancé is at his bachelor party, and I am one hundred percent not freaking out. Which is a result of therapy, mindset work, and somatic practice!)

    We get to explore what is going on and transmute that fear into a deeper love, more pleasure, and expanded intimacy.

    So here’s to getting to know and expressing your full, perfectly imperfect self!

  • The Secret to Letting Go (And Why It’s Okay if You Can’t Right Now)

    The Secret to Letting Go (And Why It’s Okay if You Can’t Right Now)

    “It’s not a matter of letting go—you would if you could. Instead of ‘Let it go,’ we should probably say ‘Let it be.’” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

    When I was in my twenties, I went to see an acupuncturist because I’d been through a bad breakup and felt uncertain about my life path and purpose. “Went” is a kind way of saying it; I was dragged. I didn’t want to go, but my family was going and thought it might be supportive with all that I was going through.

    I was dealing with a lot of rough emotions and felt like I was on a daily roller coaster of lows. The ride took me from anger, to sadness, back to regret, and to general disappointment in myself and life. I felt so angry that life had taken me down that path and that I hadn’t seen the breakup coming.

    I continued repeating this mental narrative for months, and my biggest trigger was thinking about the mistakes I’d made—starting with choosing a relationship that looked good on paper because I’d been hurt in the past when I’d followed my heart. 

    It was a whirlwind of an unhealthy relationship, and when I looked back, I wasn’t sure how it happened, but I knew that I was untrue to myself and to others.

    It felt like my boyfriend wanted me to change and didn’t accept me. When I started the relationship, I felt confident in myself and shared my opinions and ideas openly. Over time, I got quiet and began to take on his opinion of how I should be. Whether it was my style of clothing, weight, or even sense of humor, I felt so afraid that I would lose him that I tried to change myself to please him.

    I now realize that his controlling and manipulative behavior stemmed from his own insecurities and fears of losing me, but at the time I had no idea. I thought it was my fault and that there was something wrong with me.

    About a year later, when I went to the acupuncturist for the first time, I was surprised when she wanted to talk to me about letting go. I told her I didn’t know how, and she put a bottle she was holding in my hand and told me to let go. This, of course, led to the bottle dropping on the floor.

    I needed to let go of all the emotions and thoughts of the past and how things didn’t work out the way I wanted. I’ve realized that, contrary to what the acupuncturist suggested, letting go is easy to say and hard to do. Letting go isn’t a one-time thing. It takes time.

    Looking back, I see that there were many layers in letting go, including: seeing the situation from a different perspective (realizing we all want love, so it makes sense we sometimes stay in unhappy relationships), forgiving myself and others (because we’re all doing our best), taking space from the world and spending time alone, and directly working at releasing my feelings through movement.

    There were a lot of emotions to process, and it helped to talk about it with others, write unsent letters to say what I needed to say, and eventually, dream up a healthier future so I could experience a new present.  

    However, none of these actions provided instantaneous relief. It wasn’t the same as opening my hand and dropping the bottle. It was more like shedding layers and discovering new ones as the old ones disappeared. It was like seeing myself through new eyes and discovering more about my heart and soul.

    Letting go wasn’t about getting over it or feeling nothing at all. It was about learning more about myself and pulling at the seams, which took time. It wasn’t about not caring anymore because some pain never fully goes away, but it does evolve.

    I see now that this is true for many of life’s painful experiences and learnings. They often repeat themselves, and each time I get disappointed that I am in the same space or frustrated that I haven’t let go of something that hurt, I remind myself that evolution, growth, and expansion aren’t one-time things—they’re constant.

    If there’s something important for me to learn, it’s likely to take time and include many elements.

    If you, like me, have a hard time letting go and want to move forward, remember that many streams lead to the sea. And remove the thought that there’s an end point or that letting go is instantaneous so that you can embrace your learnings and move on from the past naturally, one tiny step at a time.

  • Let Go of Control: How to Learn the Art of Surrender

    Let Go of Control: How to Learn the Art of Surrender

    “You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.” ~Steve Maraboli

    I’ve noticed that things go much more smoothly when I give up control—when I allow them to happen instead of making them happen. Unfortunately, I’m terrible at this.

    Although I’m much better than I used to be, I’m a bit of a control freak. I often use perfectly good energy trying to plan, predict, and prevent things that I cannot possibly plan, predict, or prevent.

    For example, I wonder if my baby is going to get a proper nap when we travel and, if not, just how crabby she might be. I think through her travel and napping patterns, attempting to figure out exactly what we’re up against, as if her sleep is something I can control.

    I also think about the weather a lot when out-of-town guests are visiting. I spend my already-limited time planning for every possible weather/mood combination when considering our itinerary.

    Like most humans I know, I spend a lot of time in business that’s not mine. The baby’s business, my friends’ business, Mother Nature’s business.

    As a recovering control freak, there are three things I know for sure about trying to control things: (more…)

  • The Relief of Letting Go and Living Fully Despite My Anxiety

    The Relief of Letting Go and Living Fully Despite My Anxiety

    “We only live once, Snoopy.” ~Charlie Brown

    “Wrong. We only die once. We live every day.” ~Snoopy

    I am an anxious person. I haven’t always been though. When I had my first child, fourteen years ago, it was the week after my father died. My son was born and went right to the NICU where he spent the first fourteen days of his life. In that moment, I changed. I’d already had one miscarriage. I couldn’t lose anyone else.

    Man, life is fragile. I spent the next decade making sure he played on the swings at the park, but not too high since he could fall and break his neck. We always took him to the river or the lake, but no swimming. There are amoebas in the water. (Funny and crazy, I know.)

    I now have two children who are fourteen and nine. Just a couple weeks ago, we went to the zoo. I had to talk about not leaning on the railings; you could fall in an enclosure. I am exhausted. The worry never ends.

    I am a mom, a wife, a daughter, anxious, neurotic, controlling, and scared. I never meant to be that helicopter mom. I had great ideas about how I would parent my kids. My husband and I always talked about how we would raise teenagers and what their curfews would be, but being in the middle of it, I’m terrified. I live in a constant state of panic and fear.

    I constantly worry I’m having a heart attack or a stroke. I worry my kids will die. I worry I will die.

    During the early months of the Covid-19 lockdown, we completely shut off from the world. Guess what? We all got Covid-19, except my nine-year-old. My elderly mother (who lives with us) got it too. I even sanitized groceries. We have no clue how we got it. We are all fine. Thank goodness. I know not everyone is as lucky.

    Every pain or sniffle is a worst-case scenario. Have you ever seen the movie My Girl? I am totally Veda Sultenfuss.

    It took several years, trips to the emergency room, shaky relationships, and a whole lot of self-discovery to figure it out. My lack of confidence, yet another sad part of anxiety, made me think I wasn’t enough. It caused my divorce. Thankfully, we are remarried. He sees me, he sees the moments I am fun and carefree, and he helps me work through my anxiety. Old Bob Ross reruns help too.

    So, what is the lesson here? I am not in control of a single thing. (Mind blown, I know.) Life is full of terrible things, wonderful things, heartache, tears, laughter, death of parents, even children. It’s all those moments in between that make life worth living.

    If we hide because of fear, we miss out on those moments. We miss out on a chance to save a memory we could pull out of our little brain file when we’re seventy-three and watching the snowfall on Christmas morning when all our kids are grown up.

    It’s really scary, letting go. It’s like walking on a tightrope. You see what could happen, but you just walk, because you know you’re not fully living if you sit out, and at the end of that walk, you realize how fast it went by. Either way, it will go by. It’s up to you how you spend that walk. Frank Sinatra says it best, that’s life.

  • Accepting, Feeling, and Releasing Painful Emotions

    Accepting, Feeling, and Releasing Painful Emotions

    “Eventually you will come to realize that love heals everything, and love is all there is.” ~Gary Zukav

    Last year I developed some unexplained symptoms that could be likened to IBS, Chron’s disease, or even morning sickness (although I wasn’t pregnant, so there was no promise of a baby to make it all worth it).

    I had no idea what caused it, why it was there, or what to do about it.

    This shook me because I’d always had a strong intuitive connection with my body and I had always been healthy, but now when I asked my body a question, there was just silence.

    It was as if a thick fog had parked right between my inner wisdom and me, blocking my channel of intuitive guidance about what to eat, what to avoid, and what was really going on underneath it all. It was so quiet—there weren’t even any crickets!

    With my intuition evading me, I was stuck in the surface level “real” world to manage it. I was dealing with debilitating symptoms every day that were, bit by bit, wearing down my strength and self-control, until one day I crumbled in a heap.

    I had decided to practice what I preach and do something nourishing, despite how terrible I felt. So I got my yoga mat with the intention of pushing through my discomfort to do something that would probably make me feel better. As soon as I felt that mat underneath my feet, I felt safe, I felt nurtured, I felt held.

    I had entered a place where I could go deep and be real. I wasn’t expecting my yoga mat to hold me like the compassionate embrace of a lifelong friend, but that’s exactly what it did, and I surrendered to it.

    Once the flow of tears began, there was no way I could stop it. The pain of the everyday struggle, the expectations I had of myself as a mother, the disappointment I felt from not being capable of living my life to the fullest, and the resentment I had toward “everyone else,” who could eat what they wanted without suffering the way that I was… it all came out.

    And underneath it was frustration, then anger, then self-hatred, then rage, then emptiness, silence, and peace.

    I didn’t have any revelations as to what this was all about or how to fix it, but I simply allowed myself to release everything that had been building up inside of me. And just when I thought the tears were done, more would flow. I screamed, I pounded the mat, and I breathed deeply until only peace remained.

    Here’s what I took away from that experience.

    1. Trust is essential.

    Because my intuition went quiet, I stopped trusting myself. I had forgotten that my body was communicating with me in the only way that it could. I didn’t think to look for the lesson or meaning in it all.

    Once I had released all my tears and pain, my sense of self-trust returned and I was able to bring myself back to a space of gratitude and openness.

    Trusting that there is something to gain from your experience will help you to remain open to it rather than feeling bad about it.

    2. It’s okay to cry.

    Crying is not a sign of weakness but rather a sign of strength, self-respect, and love.

    You need to honor your urges to cry. Not only does it clear and release anything that you’ve been holding in, crying also connects you with the present and allows you to be your most authentic self, even if you’re alone like I was.

    3. Self-compassion is a game-changer.

    Once I let out all of the self-hatred that I had been holding onto, I made space for self-compassion.

    I spoke lovingly to myself, I acknowledged the challenges that I had been facing, and I offered myself the nurturing and love that I had previously been searching for outside of myself.

    Being your own friend is a powerful skill that can keep you strong and grounded in the face of adversity.

    4. There’s no need to fear what’s inside of you.

    It might seem dark and terrifying when you look at what you’re hiding inside of you, but there is not a single part of you that won’t benefit from being loved, accepted, and respected.

    Shed some light onto the darkness; give each part of you a voice to express its needs, its pain, and its story. Once you realize that your inner demons cannot hurt you, you take away the power they once held over you and can start loving yourself unconditionally.

    5. We all need a sacred space to be vulnerable.

    We all need a space where we can explore, accept, heal, and (learn to) love ourselves.

    For me it was the yoga mat, but for you it may be your meditation cushion, your local park or beach, or even in your bed.

    Find or create a loving and unconditional space where you can be raw, honest, and vulnerable. Visit it whenever you get a sense that something within is ready to shift and release.

    Surrender into the strong support of your sacred space, and remember that it’s safe to let your feelings flow. It may even be the best thing for you.

  • Let Go

    Let Go

    Balloon in the Sky

    “Some people think it’s holding on that makes one strong—sometimes it’s letting go.” ~Unknown

    Maybe your life doesn’t look like you want it but you’re not sure how to change it or even if you can, so you feel hopeless, frustrated, and even a little bitter.

    Or maybe someone hurt you so deeply that you don’t know if you can trust them anymore, so you feel angry, defensive, and indignant.

    Every day we can find a million and one reasons to feel discouraged, or incompetent, or vulnerable, or harried—all things that hurt when we hold them inside like a tight fist we refuse to unclench. And yet we do it anyway.

    Until we decide to stop. (more…)